Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.
or
I watch Judging Amy - I know what social workers do.

Wednesday - 6:00am:
I like the character of Maxine Gray, even if Tyne Daly isn’t my favorite actress in the world. But if I had to paint a description of social workers with quick broad strokes, I would say, “They take babies away from crack whores.”

So when the the learning resources teacher at the high school called me about my youngest daughter’s sketchy attendance of late and suggested we all get together with the school social worker to discuss ‘strategies,’ my reaction was typical for me. I was calm, polite and reasonable. While fighting back the urge to scream, “What do you think I am? Some sort of crack whore?” Which I know wouldn’t have been helpful. And would have been especially unseemly since I was speaking to her from work.

I think we are getting back on track. I convinced Mrs. ‘X’ that a visit from a team from the school would be counter-productive. What I didn’t say was that I am not having the best week ever. And that, worried as I may be about daughter #4, what I really don’t need is a social worker seeing my house with the vinyl chocolate rabbit from Easter standing under the Vatican flag. Next to the pile of junk Fran cleaned out of the garage in the process of setting up a wood working studio. The inside of the house is a little chaotic, too. Fran moved the good ‘junk’ into the living room.

If a social worker is going to visit what is the homeschool of my younger children, it had better be when I am here. At least to explain the chaos and hold off the three demented dogs....

Thursday - 6:00am:
I left everything dangling yesterday, since Martha was running late and I drove her to school. Getting her there was more important than making a point about punctuality. Things are going much more smoothly... It turns out the U.S. History was the problem. She got off track back when she had the flu and has been in some sort of academic shame spiral ever since. A mutual decision to drop the class and take it up again next year has made a great difference in Martha’s attitude. (I was disappointed to find out that she actually has to attend semester 2 U.S. History all over again. I was hoping I could tutor her and she could just test out of it. Heaven knows we have the resources. In fact, a good new U.S. History text arrived in the mail yesterday. What a coinkidinks.)

Rick and the boys took some time out yesterday to polish up the house. Though they did have to work around some of Fran’s piles of stuff. But Fran’s new workshop is quite impressive - she’s building the work benches and shelving herself - and the rest of the house doesn’t meet the criteria of the home of a crack whore. I mean, it’s one thing for me to sniff and make ironic comments about the public high-school no longer having home ec. It’s a whole other thing when it is obvious that this homeschool has absolutely no home ec. (No sniffing here please, I think Bessie had had a transgression with the oriental carpet. All I can smell is a whiff of urine, carpet cleaning product and a heavy top note of wet wool.) Now about that beagle who just ran through the room with a bagel....