Curtains

My sons' birthdays are coming up, so we are planning a party.  I have only just reached the phase where I obsess about my house being ready for company (it's not) now that we've ordered and received the gifts.  I realized on Friday, 8 days before the party, that my kitchen curtains were a bedsheet, and had been a bedsheet for about a year now.  It started out innocently enough; I couldn't find fabric I liked for curtains.  I wanted tan fabric with coffee cups all over it.  And all the stuff I found was either too light or too dark or the coffee cups were really teeny for quilting and would just look like oddly shaped polka dots to anyone who wasn't standing with their nose pressed into my curtains.  But now I had a party to throw and I could not let people come over and see my house with a bedsheet in my kitchen window.  Luckily I had recently ripped off Douchenozzle, so I was prepared!

Okay, a backstory.  I was looking through classified ads online and found one for a yard sale with sewing fabric, so I of course wanted to go. But then I noticed who posted the ad and it was DN. So I called my friend, who hasn't given me permission to use her name here so I will call her Pam Dawber, even though she is decidedly not Pam Dawber.  So I called the non-Pam Dawber and she said she'd go with me, because she likes yard sales and my discomfort would amuse her.  But it turned out that DN wasn't even there.  I bought a ton of fabrics, some in very large quantities, and the teenage kids who sold it to me was all "Two dollars for all of it" even though I was really hoping it wasn't much more than $20. Clearly, the kid had no clue what 15 yards or more of fabric is worth, but who am I to correct DN's kids at their own house?  So I gave them the $2 and hauled ass out of there before they realized they had been robbed. 

So, now I needed curtains, and had enough of a very high quality drapery fabric of questionable beauty, so I whipped up a set of curtains and padded valance for my kitchen.  I'm still not sure if I love them or hate them, but I'm stuck with them now since the valance is bolted into the wall and it would look really strange with another set of curtains hanging from it*.  So, here is what I did this weekend.

Today I tackle cleaning while Tom tries to make some way for me to get the frogs and crickets out of my kitchen, and the bearded dragon off my TV.


*Also, I stapled the fabric to the valance upside down. Is it as noticeable as I think it is?

dress codes

In 20 years, I will be interested to see how this whole home schooling trend turns out. On paper, it seems great. You teach your own kid at their own pace in ways that interest them, and then you get them their socialization elsewhere. And it seems like basic math. Individual attention + personalized curriculum = a lifelong love of learning and respect for knowledge. But then there's the stereotype, which persists no matter what the advocates try to do. You know how sometimes you can kind of tell a gay person in a crowd by how they act? Well the same can often be said of home schooled kids. But instead of over-sized gestures and snazzier clothes you get twitchy kids freaking out whenever anyone kisses in front of them. Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but some kids don't do well having everything catered to them personally. Or rather, they don't do well when it ends.

I kinda hate the school system. They take wonderful little kids full of potential and energy and trim off all the fun bits and interesting edges until they get cookie cutter conformists. I hate that PE class is mandatory. As far as I'm concerned it should be illegal to force kids to undress in order to pass a class. I don't really care about the reasons for it, adults are telling kids from the age of 11 up to take off their clothes twice a day or else fail the class. And I do have an issue with dress codes. At work is one thing; if you don't like the dress code at work you can go get another job. But I live in an area where the next closest middle school is 15 miles away, and exactly the same. In my opinion, unless it is dangerous (high heels, shorts in winter) or vulgar (too revealing, sexual innuendo) or promotes illegal behavior (pot leaf graphics, alcohol brands, tobacco), it should be a matter of expression. Yes, I really mean that. Bathrobes, Cindy Lauper clothes (wow, I'm dating myself there) whatever. If there's a kid who wears a wedding dress every Monday, it's only going to be news the first couple minutes of the first couple Mondays. After that, it's just Tyler being Tyler. I really don't believe in a vague sense of "appropriate attire." Who gets to decide what's appropriate and how did they get to be the ones to legislate taste? They say kids need to dress for success, but success in what industry?

Douchenozzle, an update

Had a meeting with DN last night, during which he never could definitively outline what pants were okay and what weren't. Finally he just said "If you buy them as pajamas, they're pajama pants." That's when I countered with, "But see, I don't buy them as pajamas, I buy them as school clothes. I actually prefer that my daughter wear the most shapeless and baggy pants possible." And he said that if they're not her pajamas, she can wear them. So today, at my insistence, she is wearing the doggy pants to school.

Oh, DN also threw out an, "Unless you want to be on the Handbook Committee this spring yourself?" I told him to just email me the when and where because I would love that. I happen to have non-douche-related issues with this part of the dress code. In my opinion, the "dress for success" mentality is a little outdated. (Go ask the Detroit auto execs what they wore to work as their companies went under, and then go tour Google and see what they wear there.) But also, the definition of acceptable school attire has always been evolving. My mother couldn't wear pants to school; it had to be a skirt or a dress. And forget about jeans or athletic shoes. Way too casual for school in the 60s.

But it seems so arbitrary! That's what really bugs me. They're legislating taste, and without cause. I understand dress code rules regarding revealing clothing, and the rules against cigarettes and alcohol branding, but other than just not liking it in a vague way, what is the specific issue surrounding pajama pants. When pinned down, I want to know why they ban them. They don't show too much skin- far from it. They aren't disruptive; it's not like pajama pants of even the loudest print are going to cause a commotion for more than the first few seconds of class; the presence of a substitute teacher causes more murmurs than that. It is simply that it's not what they're used to and no one has challenged the policy. But now I am challenging it. So I hope they can defend it.

Trust me, a nozzle is worse than a bag

I really really try to get along with those people in life that I am forced to associate with. I make more concessions than I might like, and I bite my tongue a lot, stuff like that. But my daughter's principal is one that I am actually willing to have a confrontation with. To protect his identity, I will henceforth refer to him as Principal Douchenozzle, Douchenozzle, or just DN. Let me start by just painting a picture here, so you know who I'm talking about. Remember Lumbergh from Office Space? This guy doesn't look like him, but he talks just like him. "Yeah, well, um, I think we just need to work together on this and then, you know, we can decide what would be best for Ryan, okay?" And he does that thing where he says "we" when he means "I", as though whatever he is saying is so obviously right that of course you would agree with it. "Well, I mean, we want for Ryan to of course excel at the curriculum and do what it takes to make that happen." What if I don't? What if I am actually calling to tell you that I think "what it takes" is extreme and I would rather she not do it? If I agreed with everything you do, I would not have called you in the first place, would I?

It started last year when Ryan didn't do an English assignment. It was a presentation thing and she put it off until she ran out of time and didn't get it done. I had seen it coming but you know what, the kid does this shit all the time and I decided it was about time I let her fall on her face and get the zero rather than nag her for the whole last weekend to do it all. Then I got a call from her, with her teacher standing close enough that I could hear her feeding the kid lines, telling me that she hadn't done it (which I knew) and that for every day she continued to not turn it in, she would receive a detention. I called the principal to argue this because hey, the assignment wasn't done on the day it was due so give the kid the grade she earned (a zero) and maybe she'll learn that actions, or the lack of them, earn consequences. What I got was a big spiel about how second chances are important (so is learning consequences, Douchenozzle) and how about I just have her do the thing late for some credit (because she had her chance and blew it) and do I actually want my daughter to get a zero (what I want is for her to get the grades she earns, which in this case is a zero). I ended up having her whip something up quick the next day but it soured me on the principal (and that English teacher), that they would rather give a kid a detention every single day than give her the grade she earned, even when the parent called to request the grade. (Remind me someday to do a post on why I get to sick of second chances.)

So then fast forward to a couple weeks ago. It was cold. Really cold, and it wasn't getting any warmer. The projected high for the day was five, with a low of -10. The bottom of the local TV channels was a ticker tape of school closings and delays, but not our town, never our town. I kept checking the school website, too, right up until I went to bed, and no closing or delay. While browsing around on the site, I found the district policy on adverse weather conditions and it said that even if school is open, if a parent feels the weather is too bad they can choose to keep their child home and the absence will be excused and homework will be accepted late. I told Tom that if I didn't get a text alert on my phone of a delay I was going to call her off. The next morning, I called her off. I left a voice mail at 6:00 a.m. saying it was too cold and I was keeping Ryan home. I got a call at 9:00 from good old Principal DN telling me that Ryan's absence was going to be unexcused since she wasn't sick. I told him the district website said it was okay to keep a kid home for weather and he asked where. Of course, I couldn't remember where I'd found it, and it wasn't in the 'absences' part of the handbook so he didn't believe me. Furthermore, he said that if that was the policy, he was going to have to see about changing it. When I got off the phone, nothing was resolved and I still couldn't find the paragraph I knew I'd read just the night before. So I called the district superintendent, explained my problem to her, and she found the passage for me and promised to call DN and tell him about it. I thanked her and emailed him the link myself, just for good measure. But a few hours later, after cooling down a little, I realized that was had really bothered me was that he didn't even know the policy, and he was the one charged with enforcing it. I had to go over his head to his boss to mount my own defense and find evidence. And on top of that, the asshole had just assumed he had the authority to make up rules as he went along. He didn't think a parent should be able to supersede the district's decision to stay open, so he was deeming it an unexcused absence. I really hadn't occurred to him that there could possibly be any rule out there stopping him form doing that. His power was, in his mind, absolute. So I fired off an email to the superintendent, and I CCed DN, thanking her for her help and reiterating who awful it was to have to go to such lengths to prove my case just to give my kid a chance to get credit for her homework, both what was due and what was assigned that day. And I also slipped in there how disappointed I was that even after being proved wrong, he still hadn't called to apologize, and I suggested he might benefit from some more training in school policies and in dealing with parents. When he called to apologize, I let it go to voicemail, so as not to dig myself a hole.

So, my most recent beef with DN is over the school dress code. I have read the thing 3 times just today and I know what it says and what the rules are, and nowhere does it mention pajama pants, lounge pants, or elastic waist cotton, flannel, or fleece pants. And yet, my daughter tells me that she can't wear several pairs of her pants to school because the principal says they violate the dress code. So I sent an email asking him to explain to me why she thinks this, since I have read the dress code and they don't violate anything. I can't wait to see what the answer is, or to hear how he justifies trying to outrank the district rules with his own personal and arbitrary preferences. And don't think I'm above using the phrase "what you personally think 12 year old girls look good in". For the record, Ryan has worn paint stained sweat pants to school and had no problem. The pants he objected to were Grandma Pants with pictures of dogs on them. Straight-leg fleece pants with an elastic waist and drawstring, just like the Hanes sweats she's been wearing since Christmas, but in a patterned double-sided fleece instead of black one-sided fleece.