Si! Se Puede!

Neither Marissa, my grandbaby pictured here, nor Alex, my daughter pictured below, have anything to do with today's post, this is just how I function.

"You cussed on your blog," Daniel remonstrated me, in reference to my asterisk laden word referring to the cop killer, but I'm so filled with anger over the senseless loss of an Athen's police officer and the wounding of another.

I'd called Daniel to ask him to run to the Tate Center at UGA to check on Lily at lunch. At a Latina empowerment conference, Si! Se Puede!, I felt like I'd kicked a puppy to the curb, much as when I'd left Gina years ago at Oxford College of Emory on her first night there.

"She's probably fine," I told Daniel, "She wasn't scared, but she was one of the youngest participants and apparently her friends from school are all no shows. I'd just feel better if you touched base with her," knowing he lives two minutes away from where she'll spend the day on the UGA campus, a school I dearly want her to eventually graduate from just as Sarah, Yolie, Chuck, Marcela, Cristy, Gina, Daniel and I have done. The Bulldog Nation's deep loyalty is immense.

My 14 year old severely EBD, bipolar daughter is in Day Two of a less restrictive residential placement. So far so good. It was again an answer to prayers, as I have deep-seated fears and extreme reservations about attempting to have her here with us, knowing in advance, from experience, that someone would be hurt by her.

No matter if I gently correct her behaviors, or even try to appease her in the futile hopes of avoiding an explosion, either way, we've long been the recipients of years of explosive rages, threats, assaults, and attacks.

Miss Kim at DJJ explained to me that in these psychiatric placements they prefer to not press assault charges, as the court system would then be totally clogged up. I understand this, yet I balk from within knowing that she's not been held accountable. In her mind, "Nothing happened to me, so what I did was OK."

On the other hand, numerous bitter experiences have proven to me that consequences do not make much of an impression at all, in regards to improving negative, aggressive and criminal behaviors.

Her younger brother's behaviors have deteriorated substantially in the last month, his Pathways counselor is putting an IFI team into place once again, working diligently on his many severe, dark issues.

I didn't have my lawn tractor back for two minutes before the dadgum belt flew off underneath, nearly sending me over the precipice in major frustration.

CW patiently put it back on, but we spent much of yesterday evening wrestling with it, only getting about 25% cut. It's these little things...

The excellent news is that the cop killer's been arrested. I see it on all the major news pages this morning - the same pages that made no mention all week over our town losing a police officer, and the near fatal shooting of another lawman.

Ray's home school field trip was at Sandy Creek yesterday, Sarah packed a picnic and ate sandwiches there in the woods with her two children when the scheduled activity was over...only to learn four hours later, when the standoff began, that she was less than a half a mile from where the cop killer took hostages.

I spent the evening listening to the police scanner and reading updates as it wasn't resolved until nearly midnight.

Today rain is threatening our soccer games, a big storm just miles to the north of us, Edgar turns 24 years old this morning, we're not often in touch, as my disapproval of some choices he makes, is kinda hard to mask.

OK, deep breath, soldier on, do what needs to be done, I toted Grandma around yesterday, tending to her rental house, hauling lumber for her in my truck, getting groceries for us, getting five kids to different events and obligations last night, Chuy smart enough to be dropped off up at the gate late last night, knowing he was the last one home, locking it, and jogging back to the house. That's thoughtfulness in my book. Usually it's left for me to do.