Tuesday Oct 7, 2008.

12:00 am: Continue kneading playdough batches in 3 colors for the Tuesday afternoon special needs class

12:45 am. Stop being a perfectionist and let the dang red batch just be pink already. Gender stereotypes, go away!

1:00 am. Email Stagecoach principal and NSSRA contact with report on last week’s class, and my progress in finding an assistant (miraculous since it pays $10/class.) Hide anger that neither of them were there at all last week to support or observe, despite it being in a remote location with several safety issues. Also hide anger that I was never given a curriculum for the classes so I’ve spent weeks over days over hours researching “performing arts for special needs” plus lesson planning plus material collecting (and cooking. See “12:00 entry.)

1:26 am. Write parent of my son’s classmate with details about her coming to the NSSRA class as my regular assistant.

1:34 am. Write Tracy with details of our pick-up arrangement for Jelani Tues evening.

2:30ish am. Give up on reading all the evil there is to know about Sarah Palin and turn in.

7:30 am. Get up. The usual morning routine – dressing, feeding cats, cleaning litter boxes, a sudoku while on the toilet, preparing breakfasts and lunches to go for both J. and myself. Plus packing all the materials for the NSSRA class with a change of clothes (can’t teach class in filthy cat hair smeared scrubs.) Change plans several times of what else is needed since it is raining, and J. will be walking outside quite a bit mid-day.

9:30 am. Carry a most reluctant J. (whom I dressed manually) and both our backpacks plus 4 bags of materials for class down 3 flights of stairs, along with the garbage to go out. Eventually stuff everything/body in (except the garbage) into the Clown Car, I mean Celica, and drive him to school. Arrive late as usual.

11:00ish am. Arrive at work to begin just under 4 hours (Blessed Be! A short day!) of cage cleaning, floor sweeping and mopping (“did you move all the furniture?”,) supply hauling (love those 20 and 40 pound bags of cat food and litter,) cleaning vomit and feces off couches, trying to avoid cross-contamination between various cat rooms and cages, pick up somebody else’s lunch and pay for it with my money, hoping to get reimbursed. Two different work sites is becoming the norm – with not enough time at the first to complete tasks before going to the other. The usual fun. For $10/hr. Don’t think I got directly yelled at, name-called or condescended to today. My two reminders about getting reimbursed for lunch go unanswered.

2:00 pm. Get a call from my assistant that she cannot start today due to car breakdown.

3:00 pm. Leave work to head up to Lake Forest/Highland Park border area for my class, cursing part of the way because I never got back the $20 I spent on the boss's (and her husband's) lunch. Downpour is causing crazy sluggishness, but I still arrive at 3:45pm for my 4:00 class. Sit in the car 10 minutes waiting for the administrator with keys to arrive, then realize the public bathroom is open so I can change my clothes in there while I wait. “Reinforcements arrive” at…

3:57 pm. I go inside to begin setting up the room – challenges include blocking an outside door to keep one child who likes to escape from succeeding; keeping my activity materials close at hand for quick transitions from one activity to the next (but without making things visible before ready to be used, since I have to wrestle my items out of one child’s hands over and over. End up wearing one of my backpacks DURING the class in order to keep some materials out of their reach until needed.)

5:00 pm. Start wrap-up activities with students. Despite playdough up someone’s nose, no assistant, and pouring rain, class went well this week. Most of the students can even name something they enjoyed today.

5:15 pm. Start packing up my 5 or 6 bags (of drums+ scarves + playdough + bingo + lions, tigers…) as students are picked up. Close up the room with the last child, and wait outside with him on the picnic benches a few moments till parent arrives. Traffic is horrid, she warns me.

5:25 pm. Just getting a taste of that horrid rain traffic. Wanting to call J’s afterschool program to see if he’s been picked up by Tracy, but force myself to wait a bit since 5:30 is busy there – last minute pick-ups etc.

5:30 pm. Highway sign on the Edens, north of the Botanic Gardens, says an hour and 20 minutes to the Kennedy. Not all the way downtown – just to the Kennedy…

5:35 pm. Call and speak with a staff who says J was signed out at 5:25. Tell myself I don’t need to call back to make sure the signature is Tracy’s. Wish that Darius was following up on it, since he’s getting out of work too but a lot closer to the afterschool program than Lake Forest!

5:45 pm. Begin the Off Road Adventure of taking the streets through Winnetka, Wilmette, Skokie, Evanston, and finally my neighborhood, all in heavy rain, after dark, and being kept awake mainly by listening to an old SugarCubes CD.

6:35 pm. Call Tracy to tell her I’m in Albany Park and should get to her in about 20 minutes. Was aiming for 6:30 pick-up of J. at her house. Oh well. Find out neither she nor the afterschool teacher realized J’s rain boots were in his see-through plastic backpack. So he soaked his shoes and pants into sponges.

6:55 pm. Get to Tracy’s to find a totally peaceful J. dressed in Tracy’s oversized sweater clipped with a barrette to keep it on him, and her beautiful striped knee socks. He looks adorable and is playing with her roommate’s web cam on her laptop. I feel like just staying put, but had not thought to change our usual Tuesday night plan with Darius, who calls at 7 from my house to see if j and I are on our way. We venture back into the rain to go home.

7:10 pm. I’m taking J’s soaked clothes and shoes out of his bag to dry them over chair backs, while starting dinner for the 3 of us. I’m fantasizing about having walked in to find Darius brought take-out over. It does not instantaneously appear no matter how hard I imagine. Apparently I should have tried asking directly. Foolish as always, I kept thinking it’d be obvious that my day was too long to be expected to also cook dinner for 3 (since Tuesday is one of Darius’ nights to visit.) I steam slightly. Not because I’m a vegetable, but because while I’m at the stove, J and his daddy are in my room on my computer playing online kids’ games and having a blast.

9:30 pm. Start getting J. ready for bed. Wash something, brush something, unpack my numerous bags of supplies. Do some more remote control stuff after he goes to sleep, like cleaning up dinner dishes and feeding cats. Sudoku.

More Sudoku. I don't know why -- maybe I ran out of chocolate.

Somewhere around 11 or 12 I go to sleep. I think so, anyway.