Camporee 2006

So you won’t believe what I did this weekend. . . well. . . you might.  . . .  I went camping with Vince’s boy scout troop.  It was cold.  But for the first time in forever, it seems, I had a job that I could completely handle.

You see, the scoutmaster did all the cooking.  And the other parent did most of the clean up.

So my job was to make sure that logs were added onto the campfire.  It was a great job. 

Forgot my journal and everything for writing.  Brought my knitting and my Bible.  The boys were at the campsite for meals, but most of Saturday they went from station to station learning about boy scout things (like survival and compass/GPS, and camp cooking. . .)

Aside from the very coldness of it, it was like a mini vacation.  I liked the quiet very much.

When the boys were in camp, it was intresting to kind of get to know some of their different personalities.  One was like the head honcho.  It was his job to look after all the younger boys.  Boy Scout camping has some parent involvement, but usually it’s at a minimum.  They do their own cooking and washing of dishes.  They pitch their own tents and get wood and so on.  So this head honcho got them all off to their stations and instead of going himself, he came back and washed all the dishes that they hadn’t time for.  Boiled the water, scrubbed things out, sterilized. . . .  if someone’s feet were wet, he would give up his extra socks.  It was really intresting watching it all go down. 

There was the rowdy three, which Vince was included into.  Amazing.  I had no idea.  Well, I had an inkling.  They were definitely having a blast.

There was the know-it-all, who proceeded to fill my head with backwards science.  Just stuff that’s factually wrong.  I restrained myself from arguing with him.  Pointless, really.  He’ll grow up and learn more.  And hopefully he’ll learn right.  I must say that I can tell he knows Jesus.  This is a great trait to find in a kid.

And then there was the know-nothing.  I think he really did know, but when asked to do something, he would say, “I don’t know how to do that!!”  It was kind of funny, as he’s older than Vince and has been to more campouts than Vince.  I think he knew quite a bit more than he let on!

The toughest and youngest of the group was the newbie.  He is probably one of the toughest kids I’ve ever met in my life, and that’s including street kids I’ve known.  He wanted my attention badly.  I think he’s being raised by dad and grandparents.  He would talk and talk to me.  At one point in time, he told me a crude joke, which I had to tell him wasn’t appropriate.  And at another time, in casual conversation, when making some exciting point, he called me babe.  Like:  “you wouldn’t believe this, babe!”  It took everything I had to restrain myself.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or set him straight.  (“No one, save Mr. Monteith,  calls me babe, bub!!”)  But I kept my mouth shut.  It was only once all weekend and my facial expressions aren’t always as neutral as I’d like, so he may have gotten the point anyway.  I think scouts will be a good thing for him.  It can’t hurt, anyway.

There were also a couple of older boys, but younger than the head honcho, who were pretty nice kids.  One of them talked my ear off on the way up and the other of them was intrested in coversation with me during one point on Saturday.  He had good manners, would talk as well as listen.  (All and all there were a lot of talkers.  I did a lot of listening.)

Did I mention it was cold cold?  Like talk and fog comes out of your mouth cold?  Yeah, I slept in that this weekend.  (Not that I’m proud of myself or anything.)

The popcorn sale is done today (yeah!) and the apple pies sale is done by the end of the week.  We’ll still have to make more, but we’ll have em all sold.  Andrea has sold like 30-40 pies, I think. 

Money has been really tight lately and I think I figured out why this morning.  Apparently I made two payments on Andrea’s braces last month.  I was trying to save money, but ended up not, and couldn’t figure it out until I was doing some checkbook work this morning.  I called the orthodontist’s office this month and we’ll be skipping our November payment, so it kind of is like we saved the money.  I’m usually pretty good with finances, but I must have just had a mental moment.  Thank goodness I didn’t forget to pay them.  Oh yeah, and Andrea’s braces payment is the second largest I make every month.  The first is the mortgage. 

The wind has been blowing steadily out of the north the past two or three weeks here but I’ve noticed lately that there has been a shift that marks perhaps the changing of seasons.  I am very thankful for it.

Well we have a new car.  We bought an ’86 Subaru Wagon with 167,000 miles on it for 1000.  It’s a nice little car.  A little gutless going up sunset hill, but hey, it’s getting 22 miles to the gallon or better.  We’re selling our van.  It’s usually just me driving it, with maybe one or two kids.  Or lives are changing a bit.  Kids are busier and Andrea will be a senior next year, we thought we should downsize.  So now we have the hatchback and the wagon (subarus) and we’re selling the astro.  Dex cleaned up the wagon and the van so now everything is REALLY clean!  We just need to sell our van!  We can’t pay insurance on three vehicles.  I mean we could if I weren’t making extra payments to the orthodontist, but . . .

If you’re in our neighborhood tomorrow night (Halloween), stop by and warm up with a bowl of chili and a mug of Monteith secret recipe apple cider.  (The secret ingredient is apples.) Don’t forget to bring the donuts!  We love having all sorts of visitors and neighbors to our house on Halloween.  Of course, I love having excuses to get together at all.

Better get on with my day before reveal more secret ingredients to that Monteith apple cider recipe!!

Vernona

<DRAMA ALERT> a bad day at work.

Friday, May 26, 2006 1:23 PM

To sum up quickly:

I have recently been filling in as a sitter for a gal who lives at one of the lakes in the area.  It takes me about 20 minutes to drive there, making it almost an hour from Spokane.

Her mom usually sits the kids.  Nice kids, babies 1 year and 2 years.  Her mom also supervises visits with the ex –since he’s only allowed supervised visits.  She has a restraining order against him.

She didn’t want to be held in contempt of court for keeping the kids from him, so she asked me to supervise a visit.  I said, “Sure!” 

He came out to the house yesterday shortly after 1pm.  I asked him for I.D., since I had never met him before. He immediately had an attitude.  He rifled around in his wallet, practically emptying it, pointing at Jo on the other side of the screen with me and asking who this was. 

I had a locked screen door between us.  He drove all the way out with out any id.  “Isn’t this I.D. enough?  He asked, pointing at one of the kids I was sitting.  I totally was not in the mood to discuss anything with him, so I said nothing, but waited for him to look through his wallet.  When it was obvious that he had no id, I asked if he had anything that had his name on it.  He showed me a bank card, and told me how stupid it was that I needed any I.D.  I told him I hadn’t met him before and if he was going to be rude, he could just forget it.  I didn’t have to supervise visitation; he could just leave.  He got super snotty with me then and told me it was his right to see his kids, and that I had to do it.  I told him I was under no court order to do it; I didn’t have to put up with him being rude.  He said that was fine, he’d just have me arrested and walked off.  I shut the door and locked it. 

Jo burst into tears and said she didn’t want us to be arrested.  I told her we wouldn’t be arrested.

So thirty seconds later, there’s a knock at the door again.  I go back to the door.  It’s the father again, apologizing.  He says he’s been under a lot of stress, he’ll be polite.  Okay, no problem, you’re here to see the kids, not me.  I open the door, he snatches up the little boy, starts scolding me again, immediately and body pushes me out of the way.

Now I know I could be in trouble.

Why did I agree to do this?  Okay.  The deal I had with my hus was that I was supposed to call him immediately upon this guy’s arrival.  So I call him and hint that things aren’t going well at all.  I spell it out, even though this guy is totally listening in the whole time.  First, the father thinks that I’m talking to my boss and says that he needs to talk to her.  Then he starts insisting to know who it is that I am talking to.  I don’t answer him.  AND he is trying to talk to Jo, who won’t speak to him.  (Per my instructions before work.)

So he starts to think it might be the police I’m talking to and starts apologizing. 

Dex hears this and says that he thinks it’ll be okay, but call the police if it’s not (Sherriff). 

I get off the phone and he starts at me again, asking about a CD, asking me to tell him if I’m going to call the police, so that he can leave, (and saying that if I call, I’ll get the mom in trouble—but I tell him I don’t care, she’s my boss, not my friend).

He plays with kids, and then he asks to use the phone. 

Without even thinking, I say okay. 

He snatches the phone away and I ask him, “You have your own phone, why don’t you use it?” 

He tells me (snotty) that there’s no reception out where we were. 

Then I state that really, he’s there to visit the kids, not use the phone. 

He tells me not to tell him what to do, just baby-sit the kids. 

“I’m not babysitting.  You’re the parent.  You’re taking care of the kids.  I’m supervising.” 

“Then go sit down and be quiet.”

He calls my boss and rats me out about my “terrible attitude,” and goes on and on.  (I don’t really care.)  I continue my journal entry about his visit.  I journal everything when it comes to what the kids do every day, who has a BM and when, what time they nap, how much they eat, if someone calls. . .. everything.  I write.  It’s just what I do.

He gets off the phone, apologizes to her while I continue journaling.  Jo’s with me the whole time, of course. 

He plays for a couple minutes and then asks about Jo again.  Asks who I am in a tone that made it sound like I wasn’t supposed to even be there.  Blah blah blah.  I tell him my credentials are good enough for my boss, and that’s enough.

He says that he’s not sure what I’ve heard about him. . . I tell him that my boss is just my boss.  She’s not my friend.  It would be inappropriate for her to discuss her personal matters with me.  Now, he really doesn’t know what to make of me.

You get the idea.

Tells me at one point I’m just being nasty, but I just laughed at him and said I hadn’t even started.  He told me that he believed that, and then I laughed again.  “See, there you go, being rude again, you don’t have to say everything that comes to mind.” 

Then he starts to talk to me about something about the last three months.  I countered it with something else.  And told him he was just there to visit the kids and that’s it.

So finally, he leaves the living room and comes into the dining room with Jo and me.  He demands to know what I’m writing about.  He says I have no right to write anything.  I have no right to show it to anyone.  Stuff like that.  I got the idea (1:30 pm) and told him that he’d better just leave.  He’s shouting right over me.  I tell him it’s time to go.  He still keeps going.  So I told him I was calling the police.  He still keeps yelling at me.  So I picked up the phone, and dialed 9-1-1.  He keeps yelling.  I’m thinking, ‘My kids don’t get away with this; my husband isn’t allowed to act like this, and I love them.’

I’m giving a report over the phone and finally he gets it.  The police have indeed been called.  What?  Did he think I was bluffing?  And if he thought I could I.D. him based on what his kids look like, then why did he keep asking me who Jo was?  (He never did find out.)

So he collected his things and kissed his kids and left.  No one was sad to see him go.

I locked the door, watched him drive off though the window and the 9-1-1 operator told me to call back if he came back. 

The End?

Nope.  He calls from Cheney, apologizing again.  Whatever, man, I’m done with this.  But he just needs to explain why his life is hard. 

“Sorry dude, my boss doesn’t pay me enough to be your counselor, too.” 

(Keeps talking over me.) 

I tell him I have my own life and my own problems and hang up.

Calls back.  This time I don’t answer.  I call Dex.  I call my boss.  And I’m talking to her on the phone when I see that he’s in the driveway again.  I am so totally not into the manipulation thing.   He’s beating on the door; I’m calling 9-1-1 again.  And then, he walks around the house and peers into all the windows and knocks on them.  I speak with the operator, who puts me through to dispatch. 

Dispatch is a little frightened.  I’m like an hour from Spokane. (There were deputies in the area, but I’m still remote.)  All I’ve ever been able to do is give the phone number.  I don’t have the house address, just the owner and the phone, which is enough, thankfully.

So he leaves, but I stay on the line.  They tell me that someone will be here to talk with me.

The sheriff did come and stayed for 45 minutes to 1 hour.  They had pulled him over outside Turnbull based on the description of the car and the plates.  The deputy had to use the house phone because his had no reception.  He was a super nice guy.  He understood I wasn’t trying to get anyone in trouble.  He said, “If a tree falls in the wood and no one is around. . . “The visitation was totally set up in good faith that he would behave himself at this house where the restraining order prohibited it.  He misbehaved; I had to call the sheriff.  Turns out, the guy left his cell phone in the house with us.  But I guess when he called my boss at work from her house he was violating the order. 

WHEW!  I spoke with the kids’ guardian ad litem.  I spoke with my boss’s attorney.  He had fired his attorney, I found out later.  (The deputy had some funny saying about that.)

SO now, my journal, including all the pages I wrote after he left, is three pages slimmer.  I wrote on the back of the 1^st page, front and back of the 2^nd page and the front and maybe the back of the third page.    The deputy was just thrilled.  AND he was there long enough for me to get my ducks in a row, the kids down to nap, changed and fed.  I got a drink and was able to set him straight as to exactly what happened.  (He had to call attorneys and talk to his? Sergeant?  and spoke with my boss a couple times.

Poor Jo was really scared.

They took him to jail for violation of the restraining order.  According to the deputy, he shouldn’t have called my boss at work.  My boss drove past them as they were arresting him.  She was really rattled, (as was I, and I wanted to tell her everything) so I made her dinner and we talked.  We may not have been friends at first, but we are now.

And I’m not supervising any more.  FOR ANYONE.

So my journal has been copied and is attached to the police report.  The original is in the property room for lawyers and guardian ad litem to claim it.

Other than that, it was a good day at work.  I go back on Tuesday.  This is the skinny fast version of what happened.

Going to Woodbadge this weekend by myself.  (Scout training)  Should be funner than Thursday.

Love to you all,

Vernona