Child Supportless

Riddle me this...
How can a man shoot a deer on private property, be charged with a felony, have it dropped to a misdemeanor and be sentenced to 100 hours of community service, but can evade paying child support for thirteen years and nothing happens to him.
Since when did it become a crime more punishable, and don't get mad at me, I'm not saying that an animal deserved to die, I'm simply saying why is the punishment for shooting an animal during hunting season on private property more offensive than not supporting a child.
The Texas Jackass AKA Wyatt's father, shot a deer on his neighbors property in Texas last hunting season and was charged by the game department. His county court moved his case through in less than six months and had him tried, sentenced and out the door.
My case?
Thirteen years.

We were married and divorced in Washington State.
He moved to Texas, I moved to Oregon.
Washington still has our child support case because he fishes one month out of the year in Alaska on a boat that is licensed in Washington. None of the states involved will pursue action against him because someone was born in, married in, divorced in, lives in, works in or floats in another state.
It's all the other guys problem.
Why isn't child support connected via those little fiber optic lines state to state?
I guarantee you if I had a Verizon bill and moved from Kansas to Kentucky they would pursue me, so why can't an agency that is designed to look after the well being of a child do the same?

And, this bigger question is, what kind of loser gene is twisted into a persons DNA that excludes them from remorse for not contributing to the care of their own child. I'm not saying I'm the only parent with this problem and I'm not even insinuating that it's only a mother trouble because it isn't. People walk away from the responsibility of children every day, I get that, but it's the how that I don't get, and it's also the how I continually chose those people to father my children.
Anyway, I'm sorry for yelling, it just makes me so angry.

I ran out of my water pills and didn't think it was a big deal until I gained six pounds in seven days. It will probably take a week to get back to normal and in the mean time I can't be more than twelve steps from a bathroom.
Heart patient problems.

I dipped my foot in the wheat pool with homemade pizza and cinnamon rolls this week.
Every joint in my body is crying. I'm not gluten intolerant, I'm wheat sensitive and I hate even saying that out loud because it's such a hipster syndrome, but the fact is, Pop-Tarts and pizza turn me into an old woman hobbling around in a housecoat. I'm serious, and "they" say there are certain foods that cause inflammation and that wheat is one of them and I believe "them" because I get the old lady arthritis when I eat wheat. That doesn't mean I can't eat ice cream.

Wyatt got his back to living room school haircut yesterday.
Tradition is the glue of a civilized society.

Peas.

Living Room School

I've signed Wyatt up for home school.
I have really been struggling with this decision and what everyone will think of me for doing this, mainly because I have always been my own biggest critic of home school, making jokes like "If we home schooled we would major in Spongebob and organized field trips would be going to Dairy Queen hahahahahaha!"
See?
How do you come back from that?
I have quite a few reasons that have led me to my final we'll try it for a while decision.
The first is this, and don't give me the business about it or think I'm some sort of nancy because I know what the odds are, but you know what, there were quite a few "someones" on that missing Malaysia flight and everyday "someone" is in a car accident, hit by lightning or slips on the soap in the shower, so that just goes to show that anyone could be a someone.
The last reported school shooting of the year was in Troutdale Oregon which just happens to be one county over from me. That made things very real. We are also the state of Kip Kinkle so there are two very real and very devastating examples of young minds running amuck.

As some of you may already know, Wyatt has a very sensitive, creative, whimsical, wandering brain. Always has had, always will. While other little boys were playing kung foo ninja panda, Wyatt was arranging and delivering flowers to the elderly ladies in the trailer park. He would visit me in the salon while I was working and compliment all the ladies on their "lovely" jewelry and "hairdos". As he's grown older and all the other boys have gone on to motocross and things that blow up, Wyatt has taken to designing and creating jewelry. He is a very cool, maybe even verging a little bit on hipster, inteligent young man, but he has yet to really find his social niche at school and has been bullied a great deal over the years. He is also not really the type of kid where a situation like that will "toughen him up". I had him in Karate when he was younger and he took another kid to the mat and inadvertently bloodied the kids nose. I ended up having to take him home because he wouldn't quit crying because he felt so bad.
So there's that.
And then there's the bullying.
I'm not even going to start about the bullying because I will just come across as some crazed mother standing on her soap box preaching about the horrible effects of bullying. I know how bad it is, you know how bad it is, unless you have been bullied you will never know how damaging it is and how it makes you feel for the rest of your life. If you know a bully, say something. If you are a bully, knock it the f#ck off. If you know someone who is being bullied, reach out to them and help.

Now, because of Wyatt's wandering brain he has a very difficult time focusing on the task at hand. Rather it be tying his shoe, brushing his teeth or doing a math equation. God help us all if the kid ever gets a drivers license. Wyatt can understand a concept at school, but it will be long gone by the time he gets home. He is also known by too many teachers for his amazing ability of taking creative license to assignments. Last year he had a project due on the erosion of the coral reef and spent an entire weekend creating a two foot high diorama complete with crocheted jellyfish and glitter starfish. He forgot about the actual research until 5:00 am Monday morning. And so, for that reason home school could either go very very well, or very very bad.
It's a carp shoot.

The last reason is the one that makes my eyes wet, so I'm not going to really get into it and I don't know if it's him or me, or me projecting it on to him, or him playing me to get to stay up late and not go to school, but "it" of course is the Chrysler Building in the living room, the bad "h" word, the whole dropping dead thing. In case you missed out on my month long vacation last winter, you can read about it here. I just had an ultrasound of my heart this month and it looks like my arteries are healing, but I still have the aneurysm in my left ventricle and my heart is functioning at about 55-65%.
So that sucks.
The doctors say we all have a touch of PTSD, and I get that. I don't like to go to town by myself and my nitro is never more than a step away and I don't want to be a syndrome creating a bigger syndrome, but this year, I think we'll just curl up and embrace our little bits of PTSD, FMD, OCD, AD, CHF, CAD, EDS, PostMS and get some GE in K12 Online.

Wish me luck.

Peas.

Old Dogs and Blue Fish

Have you ever got something on a whim like pregnant after too many wine coolers and not taken in to consideration how long you would have it?

 I was thinking about this the other day when a friend got a puppy because puppies are cute and dipped in crack and when you see one you have to have one. She's a good, responsible, upstanding citizen and has another dog that is loved and well cared for and I'm sure this puppy will receive the same treatment, but I don't think she was thinking about the crotch being chewed out of all of her underpants and the legs of her furniture being destroyed when she took that big whif of puppy breath and tucked him under her arm and headed for home.

I have three dogs that drive me crazy I share the house with and make no mistake, they are the pack leaders and I'm just the tall one with thumbs.

Bart works hard and drives himself to near madness making sure that nobody makes any quick moves or too much noise in the house. Bart fends off dangerous vacuum cleaners and sees to it that no aerosol products are dispensed. He follows me from room to room and clears the area around me when we're outdoors by running circles around me.
Good dog Bart.

Buddy is his own man and marches to the beat of a dog whistle that no one but he can hear.
Buddy does what he wants when he's decided it's time to do it. He can herd and separate sheep from either side of the fence, move geese and ducks in complicated patterns across the farm and stare down a stubborn pig.
He excels at all of this.
If it's his idea.
His weakness is carbs and can be called off duty with pasta and baked goods.
Good dog Buddy.

Pooter.
Not much can be said about Poo because Poo doesn't do much. I got Poo when I was still working and I used to take him to the salon with me. He would charm the ladies with his big brown eyes and walk around our little downtown courtyard gleaning snacks from neighboring businesses, and it wasn't long before Poo started struggling with weight issues.
That's what led him to his thirty-two pound ornamental status.
Good dog Pooter.

I have a fish.
One blue fish.
One blue fish that swims alone in a tank at the end of the room in a tank that glows green.
I never really wanted the fish but Six did and then when Six split he left the fish.
How long do fish live?
I'm totally over the fish.

not my fish but same blue fish and green water

Anyway, it's just interesting to me how our brains don't think of things like chewed left shoes, ripped couch cushions, anal glands, or custody of marine life after divorce.

I seriously never considered growing old and fat with a Shi-Tzu, yet here we are...

Peas.

Septic Tanked Part Deux

Remember this post?
Septic Tanked
Well, the septic strikes again...
This time one of the homes in the mobile spaces.

Vern (not his real name) called me on Mothers Day morning to tell me that things were "backing up" in his shower as his washing machine was washing and asked what he should do... I told him I didn't know, but that I would call someone who did. I called my septic guy who came out later that afternoon and pumped the system that hadn't been pumped since the Spanish Inquisition, but he told me I wasn't going on the wall as the most wanted septic offender, because after that long it's often best not to pump at all until there's a problem because pumping a system that old and rickety will often lead to more problems than you'll know what to do with. He told me the system was so old and in such bad condition that there could not be another tank clean out, that the next time there would have to be a system replacement.
You can imagine my excitement.
Anyway, the septic guy said if we made it through the following week or so without a cave in we were probably in the safe zone.
Wrong.

Two weeks ago Vern called again... And I knew he wasn't calling to wish me good morning.
His yard was bubbling.

Picture this;
Sometime around the years of 1970 my Grampy laid out four single wide mobile home spaces on the upper corner five acres of the farm. Two on each side, one placed slightly uphill above the other. Each space is approximately one acre with it's own antique thousand gallon steel septic tank and drain field. Over the years all but one home has been replaced with a double wide home set in the same spot as the original single wide home. The homes are all individually owned and just the land is leased, which means that we are responsible for everything from the dirt down and the roof up.
At this point it's kind of like sitting on ticking time bombs, as all of the septic systems are over forty years old with a life expectancy of about thirty years.

So, I called my septic guy.
Of course he was out of town.
It turned out that was a good thing because this very quickly turned into a very big job that involved excavators, locators, hard hats and permits that would be better handeled by a larger company with an inside line and access to all the everything that the job called for. As a matter of fact, the job is so big that it still isn't finished.
But, Vern is now sitting atop a brand new, concrete, thousand gallon septic tank with shiny new pvc pipes leading to a newly installed top of the line distribution box that drains through freshly jet vac'd lines into a sparkly clean drain field.
Seriously, I ask you, could life get any better?
I can answer that.
Yes.
If money grew on trees.
Talk about flushing money down the drain.

The moral of the story is this... Our systems were under maintained for many, many years and now, even though we are at the far end of the expected tank life, it probably would not have come to such a dramatic conclusion if we had put more effort into maintaining the systems as opposed to fixing the systems.
Many counties now require annual septic maintenance provided by state certified agents, and you can count on a septic inspection prior to the sale of your home. But, even if you don't fall into either of those two categories, it behooves you to treat your system with care.

Here are a few reminders for a healthy tank:

No Bleach
No fats or grease down the drains
No liquid fabric softener
No cigarette butts
No kitty litter
No feminine hygiene products
No parking or driving over tank or drain field
Anti-bacterial soaps and cleaners are hard on the system
One woman counts as 2.5 people
Try not to overload the system with too much usage at once, e.g., don't use the washing machine, dishwasher and shower all at the same time.

It's said that the natural waste will feed the system, but I believe in feeding one package of yeast a month just to be on the safe side.

Just remember, if you are good to your septic, your septic will be good to you.

Peas.