Out of Context: Karma and the Crazy Neighbors

I have to start by apologizing for my behavior prior to being a mommy and a teacher. I owe an apology to every person who stole my spot in the Walmart parking lot, who cut me off in traffic, who struck me as rude, or crossed my path on a bad day. When I was younger, anything could set me into a righteous fury of foul-language, obscene gestures, and meaningless threats. I apologize to Waffle House for countless and unmentionable behaviors towards staff, acquaintances, and customers. To the customer service people that I complained on to excess because I wasn’t treated like some princess, I am sorry. To the waitress that I accused of stealing $20.00 dollars from me, only to later discover it in my car, I apologize. I apologize to the teenage girls who were driving too close to my car, which resulted in me stopping my car in the middle of the road, getting out of my car, and giving them the what-for. Most of all, I must apologize to the cashier that I used a VERY bad word to in Mardel’s Christian Book Store (even if he was a misogynistic meanie); I totally deserved to get banned from that store for a year.

If it is any consolation, I am still working on the legacy of what was me and my loud mouth, even ten to twenty years later.

This is a tale of karma and being on the opposite side of “crazy coming out of nowhere.”

"This is not my beautiful house." 

I have lived in my little 1960s money-pit since 2002. I love my neighborhood and I love my neighbors.

There are a few rental houses just to south, but aside from the occasional partying college renters, the neighbors have always been wonderful.

When Ms. B moved into the neighborhood, I was happy to meet her. She was sweet, funny, and a great conversationalist. I truly enjoyed visiting with her. She also became friends with Ms. A, a long-time neighbor who takes her personal responsibility of the street to a quasi-Zimmerman level.

It was wonderfully pleasant for almost a year and a half. We laughed, we shared food, we helped each other, and were friends. 

In March, my husband had an emergency appendectomy (yes, this is pertinent to the story and not a distraction caused by ADHD). The last conversation that I had with Ms. B prior to my husband’s surgery was one where she informed me that Ms. A was going to report two young, single mothers that were renting a house as prostitutes. There was no evidence that these young ladies were hookers and it honestly ticked me off that two single moms were not allowed to start a life in a decent neighborhood without being harassed. They wanted their children to have a yard and a house close to a school (because sex-offenders are not supposed to live this close to a school).

Yes, their short-shorts and skimpy tank tops turned me into a She-Hulk shade of envy; however, that was more of a reflection on how I felt about myself and not an indication that they were selling themselves. I took action and called their landlord to inform them that there was no indicators that these young women had Johns coming to their house. For that matter, they were fairly quiet and had a few guests. I felt as if I had done a good deed.

After my husband’s surgery, I was busy playing nurse and did not pay attention to any neighborhood drama. Little did I know, Ms. A and Ms. B had started a feud with one another.  A few days after his return home, his glued incision started oozing the nastiest, foulest, most sewage like matter that I have ever had the unfortunate luck of seeing or smelling. We went to the E.R., where he endured a second emergency surgery for an abdominal abscess that left him with an open wound that required wet-dry packing twice a day. I was a little stressed and not concerned about their issues.

Like this, but with more sewage

After he was placed in the Intermediate Care Unit and stabilized, I went home for a minute to clean up a bit.

Upon pulling into my driveway, the Ms. B came hobbling over to tell me about my indoor/outdoor cat. She had called Animal Control because he was asleep in the alley behind her house and did not move when the dogs barked at him or when her ex-husband mowed the lawn. I explained to her that Sampson (the cat who got mangled needlessly by Animal Control) was a completely bad-ass cat that was 12 years old; he was not fazed by things on the other side of the fence. She could have called me first, but I believed her when she said that she thought the cat was dead. I was not angry. She was too sweet to make a person angry, I thought.

As I knew that I was going to be going back and forth to the hospital, I wrote my number on little Post-Its to give to all the elderly neighbors who did not have cell phones. With my number, I asked that if they had any concerns about my animals to please call me. At Ms. D’s house, a sweet elderly lady with an FBI son, I encountered Ms. A. Remembering the statements that Ms. B said she had made about the other neighbors offering a red light special, I decided to speak my mind (this is something that I am pretty much known for).

Ms. A turned bright red and said, “That wasn’t me. I can’t believe you would believe that (blank). That was Ms. B and I have the voicemails to prove it! Come to my house and listen.” Sure enough, Ms. B had left a string of messages detailing all of the calls that she had made and all of the false allegations that she made against various people. I apologized to Ms. A and went back to the hospital.

This is the procedure on a dummy for nursing students' practice. I would not subject you to the real horrors. 

A week later, my husband was home and I was back to being his nurse. Only this time, I was having to pull out and replace wet gauze in his open wound. It may have been the most intimate experience of our marriage because I don’t know how much closer you can get to a person than allowing them and having them willing to mess with your bloody guts and crusty gauze. Intimate is not really the word, but it sounds much nicer than saying that my husband was too cheap to pay Home Health Care to come to our house twice a day when I was “perfectly capable of packing a wound after watching a series of videos on YouTube.” Thanks, dear.  

The efforts to keep the cats in the house were doubled, but when I was changing my husband’s wound, I let all of the animals outside.

One Sunday, I decided that my stir-crazy, pale son needed some park time. He had made a cardboard Captain American shield and had a blast running around and releasing all the energy that he had suppressed during our family’s gross adventures in surgery and recovery.

When we were walking home, we saw Ms. B. My son waved at her and she just stared at him. I urged him into the house, but he kept calling out, “Ms. B! Ms. B! Look at my shield that I made. It’s just like Captain America’s” It was apparent that she was not interested. It was odd for her from previous experience.

An hour or so later, my son and I put some cat food in a bowl and tried to find Sampson (the old bad ass) and Nugget (the rat bastard cat). I asked Ms. B if they were in her yard or alley. She said, “Go look.” We did.

This 56 year old lady with Lupus backed me up against a wall and starting hurling obscenities and threats to kick my a-word up and down the street. I said, “Don’t do this in front of my son.” She said, “You shouldn’t have (blanking) brought him here.” I instructed him to run home while I tried to diffuse the situation.

Apparently, he ran in the house and with tears streaming down his face said, “Mommy’s going to get her a-word kicked up and down the street.” To which my husband replied, “I doubt there is anyone capable of kicking your mom’s a-word up and down the block, but I will check it out.”

Meanwhile, she proceeded to scream obscenities towards me, threatened me repeatedly, and went on a very odd racial tirade. She was saying extremely odd things, specifically related to a recent award-winning movie about slavery. She also stated that I thought I was better than her because I had straight hair and because I owned my own (which she said a “Sugar Daddy” must have bought for me, but there is no way that my ex-husband qualified as a “Sugar Daddy” and I had already purchased the house from him on my own).

I went home and started ripping weeds out of my garden. It was my only outlet for all of the rage that I was holding inside. She continued to scream while my gut-busted husband managed to make it to the porch. She got even more vicious and started in on him, so I called the police. This added to her race-filled rant.  This woman had been a great neighbor for a year and a half and for whatever reason, she turned into a combination of Samuel L. Jackson in every negative role he ever had. Based on that reference, most of you already know how she ended every sentence.

In the meantime, Ms. A got involved because this was her hobby. It was quickly revealed to me that both of these women were the same: closet racists, elitist, and narcissists. Even when the police talked to all three of us, these two women, both in the late 50s, both on full-time disability, and both full of hatred for the other’s race, were making faces at each other. They were literally sticking out their tongues and rolling their eyes. Really? My teenage students typically keep it together better than that.

At what point in my life did I become the mature, rational one? This was new territory.

Over the weeks, Ms. B proceeded to visit my place of employment with accusations of rampant drug use (among other activities in which I would NEVER partake) and how I should not be allowed to teach the particular students that I do because of the difference in race. This was quite possibly the most humiliating conversation that I have ever had with a boss.

When that did not get a reaction, she called the boss’s boss. I was willing to submit to a drug test at any moment; I even offered up my very long hair for a hair analysis. When that attempt failed, she did the following:

•          She started staring down my child while he played in the backyard.
•          She also started to record him as he rode his bike.
•          Glared at me every time I was in the yard and mumble invitations to come into her yard, so that she could “handle” me.

It was getting creepy and I called the police each time because I did not know what else to do other than document the insanity that was unfolding. I feared my son’s safety, my safety, and the safety of my pets.

Ms. A was stewing and trying her hardest to get Ms. B to vacate her rented house. These women would spend large amounts of their day staring at each other from across the street, flipping each other off, honking their horns, and generally antagonizing each other until the police came. This started happening about three times a week.  

This would have been a better idea. 

One night, Ms. A called and asked if I had a marker that she could use. DUH! I am a mommy and a teacher that has an obsessive compulsion to buy every Sharpie marker that I see. She walked down to the house and met my husband, my bachelor neighbor, and me in the front yard. She leaned on my husband’s trunk and started creating signs that said, “PLEASE PRAY FOR MS. B!!!” On the signs, Ms. A put Ms. B’s address and phone number. The three of us advised against it, but she believed that it was not a bad thing to solicit pray for Ms. B. None of us could win that battle.

However, my teacher instinct kicked in and I began to take pictures. Documentation is a vital part of teaching and The Jedi Teacher Force was commanding me to cover my tail. Of course, Ms. A felt that she was doing a good deed and stated that she had no issue with admitting to anyone that she created the signs.

It was a good thing that there were witnesses, pictures, and texts to a deputy friend because on Memorial Day, my walk with the dog turned into being called every kind of white trash in the book. I was stared down by her daughter, which was more intimidating than you would imagine (think the V stare on Orange is the New Black), but less intimidating than my mother’s “evil eye” glare when she has had enough (Think the Red stare from Orange is the New Black).  Ms. B kept saying, “Now she is going to run and call the cops.” After two visits to The Prosecuting Attorney’s office and 9 police reports, I had not intended on calling the police because frankly, no one was willing to do anything about her behavior. I kept repeating to myself, “IGNORE! IGNORE! IGNORE!”

This is no easy feat for a loud mouth.

Then she said to her daughter, “What’s she going to do when she calls the cops and they arrest her for what she did?”

So what if I don't look like January Jones when I am walking my dog? Give it time. 

WHAT I DID? I WAS WALKING MY DOG IN MY YARD!

This bugged me, so I called the information desk to see if a report had been filed recently regarding me. Yep. You guessed it. She listed me for harassment for these signs that were posted. I asked for an officer to come to my house and see my documentation from the night that Ms. A went on a signposting tear. They explained to Ms. B that it wasn’t me and that I had the evidence to prove my innocence. Ms. A, forgetting how full of Christ and honestly, she felt that night, was furious that I had “ratted” her out to the police. Sorry, Missy. Ms. B had already intended to take that police report and have me brought in front of the board for ethics violations. No, ma’am. As a general rule, I do not risk my child, my husband, or my job. You will never see my face on Nancy Grace.

Furthermore, when I do signs of any kind, they are cute and color-coordinated with a fancy border. I didn't want any of that associated with me.

That was on Memorial Day. I have had three weeks of peace, so when an officer came to question me about other incidents between Ms. A and Ms. B, I stated what I knew and informed him that I was Ms. C, as in “see my way out of this.”

Ms. A missed Ms. B moving out today because she is in the hospital with pneumonia. Pneumonia for which she blames Ms. B.  Because everyone knows that pneumonia is caused by "emotion stress." 

My whole point is that crazy is everywhere. Everyone has their own battles and we all often lack the skills to cope with out issues, especially once they are triggered by stress. I am sure that Ms. A, Ms. B, and especially Ms. C, all feel like they were victims of harassment. Being that I am Ms. C, I certainly was and I have the police reports to prove it.

I was almost to this level of rude behavior and thought I was bad enough to equal the whole group. 

However, I cannot escape the fact that having to live with verbal attacks, stare downs, insults, false accusations, and threats for several weeks while my husband was temporarily out of commission, was probably something that I had heard during my former life as a wild, oppositional-defiant, child. 

Thank goodness that people can grow up and change. I hope that Ms. B finds a place of calmness and acceptance. I hope Ms. A finds a hobby and resigns the role of the neighborhood Attila the Hun.

I learned two lessons from this:

1.       You reap what you sow, even if it is a decade or more later.

2.       Tall fences make great neighbors.

Until next time, LIVE LOUDLY!!!

Out of Context: Procrastination used Shakespeare to Scold Me: “Turn thee, Jaimie. Look upon thy Death.”

My first year experience with the National Board Process

                I tell my students repeatedly not to procrastinate. I always tell them that I will not take late work, but I do. I accept it because I have a secret: I am a massive procrastinator myself.

                I think it is a genetic trait, but my mother and both of my sisters are the same way.

 I have, my whole life, waited until the last minute to complete a task. I am procrastinating right now; I should be cleaning my house because I have family coming to stay, but I am writing this instead, a blog post that should have been written a week ago.

Do you see how sweet I was? There is not way that I was a procrastinating mastermind already. 

  In 1^st grade, I never completed my work. I HAD to wait until “crunch” time. My mother says that my teacher would collect my incomplete work, but I would somehow manage to steal it off of her desk during the day and finish it. It drove Ms. Edmonds bonkers.

                By late elementary and early junior high, I would only tell my mom about items that I needed for a project the night before. This always led to a very tense situation and an all-nighter for me. I pulled it off, though. I created a wonderful version of a cell with jello and craft material around the house. When I didn’t study for a Biology test, I would write, “I refuse to answer based on my religious beliefs.” I feel so wrong for doing that to Ms. Holcomb. She was a nice lady who deserved my full effort. In high school, I faked the resulted of a Science Fair project. Ms. Holcomb gave me a glowing review. That was a product about the effects of smelling essential oils. Anyone that knows my mom, knows that she has been reading books about natural remedies and creating products with natural ingredients for years. I didn’t consider it cheating at the time; I was merely using my resources by recreating the information in a different, more cutesy tri-fold board way. This was before the age of Web 2.0 and access to the internet, so proving that I had cheated would have taken a very keen mind with knowledge of the exact books that I copied.  

This is how us old people used to Google. 

It didn’t stop there, either. High school, the age of writing papers for class, was a time for me to refine my methods of procrastination. I was blessed with the ability to read very quickly and pull out the important details. Armed with my prompt and my highlighter, I would find what I needed and get started. Most of the time, I had read the literature prior to my essay; that did not encourage me to write about when the assignment was given. Nope. I had to push the deadline.

I had a couple of some new tools that I used right before deadlines, too. From high school on, I always had an intelligent boyfriend. I never seriously dated anyone that I thought to be less intelligent that I was. Please understand that I never set out to use my boyfriends for their brains; I simply find intelligent men to attractive (I liked my first grade crush because he had glasses and could read well). Having said that, it was convenient to have a boyfriend who was smart enough to help" inspire ideas and approaches to writing: about the subject at the time. The Ex was smart, but he was more science oriented, so I had to manage college on my own, but Neal was a blessing when it came to grad school and APA format. I would write furiously just before the submission deadline, and he would create my bibliography and check my in-text citations (I know MLA and procrastinated too much to master APA).

Lastly, on my post of shame as an educator, I was the Queen of Excuses and lies. This also started in elementary school. I told my first grade teacher that I couldn’t do my work because I needed glasses, but my parents couldn’t afford them. I also claimed that my parents kept me up all night working in the snow cone stand at the ballpark. Neither of these things were true. Imagine how my mother must have felt to get the “charity” phone call about taking up a collection at school to get my glasses (I still have 20/20 vision, by the way). I came home to my mother throwing all of my toys in trash bags, as she repeated the phrase, “My child does not lie. My child does not lie.” It was a moment of denial meeting acceptance full of rage, embarrassment, and sadness.

Disney had such an impact on my development. 

When the excuses and lies quit working, I started to create classroom disruptions or get into enough trouble to get a minimum of In-School Suspension to by myself some time. The only upside to this is that I can typically recognize these same tactics in my students. It is hard to con a con.

I made above-average grades in most of my literature and education classes, despite the grammar errors and typos that come with writing all-night. I made even better grades in grad school. By my mid-thirties, I had developed a confidence an arrogant attitude that I create my best work at the very end.

National Boards decided that it was time to teach me a lesson and kick my tail into submission.

I earn my Masters in the Art of Teaching, but that wasn’t enough for me personally. I wanted to become a National Board Certified Teacher. This is essentially the best of the best according to some and I have to agree. Although I procrastinate, I do have an ego to feed and a competitive nature that does not allow me to be stagnant.

National Boards is a yearlong process. It was similar to my pregnancy in a way. I spent months aware of the growing life inside of me, but as his due date drew near, I just felt completely unprepared for what was coming.

Part of my grad school process was to create a mock National Board portfolio. I held on to that because I made good grades on it and thought that it cut my work down by ¼. That was my first excuse in procrastinating. In November, I discovered that one of the most brilliant teachers that I knew did not pass her first round by less than a point. If a type-A perfectionist like her couldn’t make it the first time, then I felt like my organized chaos method was bound to fail. That was my second excuse. My third excuse had to do with the discovery of corporate involvement with the program. I will not discuss this for legal reasons, but it left me very bitter. This was not an excuse. This caused me to shut down completely.

I am no Mozart. 

The due date was May 16^th. I had done my recordings and some of my writing, but not enough. I spent my National Board days writing away, but would scrap everything that I wrote. Around the last week before it was due, I went into panic mode. I began to analyze my in-class videos and revising what I wrote to the point of insanity. When my supportive friends would ask how it was going, I would say, “It will be done.” Inside, I was filled with anxiety that I was not going to be able to create some last-minute genius or wiggle my way into an extension. I had had a year. This was all the curse of procrastinating.

The electronic submissions weren’t due until 2 a.m. Central time. I thought this to be a blessing at first, but I was becoming delirious from sleep deprivation. I know in my heart of teacher hearts that two of my entries were atrocious and I was humiliated to submit such crap. The only ones that I felt pretty good about were the ones that I had worked on throughout the year. I am still not sure if the final entry for my portfolio submitted completely because they shut the system down at 1:58 a.m. my time. 

It is certain that I will have to bank the scores that I made and re-do part of the process next school year. This is going to cost me some money and that just adds insult to my self-inflicted injury.

It took me two weeks to fully process how much I had failed myself. It took me two weeks to admit that I was a hypocrite for being so hard on my procrastinating students. I have yet to think about it without getting ill.

Having said all that, National Boards will tell you up front that it is a one to three year process to achieve National Board Certification. It is a challenge worth accepting and has made me a better educator already. I recommend it for anyone who plans on being a lifelong educator and learner. You can’t escape facing your personal and professional shortcomings while going through this process, which in turns creates an opportunity to promote best practices for learning in the classroom.

In November/December, I will get my letter that says that I did not score high enough to pass. I will cry. I will, however, make a timeline and stick to it. I will utilize the free support groups that were offered to me and take advantage of the expertise of my National Board Certified friends other than the night before it is due.

            

After all these years of knowing that “procrastination leads to aggravation,” I have learned that I can no longer stand in front of a group of kids and be a secret procrastinator. I have to evolve and model for my students how to get stuff done.

Until next time, LIVE LOUDLY!!!