Just to spite everybody

What could be so wrong?

Sorry to stay away so long. Its been a fraught couple of weeks, not least because of this push to move. We have boxes everywhere, and most of our furniture is gone. So, if you like sitting on bare wood floors, come on over.

Hard to sum up the mom situation. But safe to say the news is not upbeat. Two weeks in a row she didn't make it through church -- this is unheard of -- and we fled to her room where she was exhausted and got right into bed. In the last two days I've had a handful of desperate calls -- as yesterday, "WHEN ARE YOU COMING OVER?" When I wasn't planning to come over at all. This followed by another call a couple hours later when she insisted she was at my house. I did eventually go and whatever crisis she'd felt had long since passed.

Here's a sample call of a few days ago: "I lost my brain. I can't keep directions straight and I don't know where I am."

It's sad. Her decline is accelerating and it is hard to watch. Her situation has been made worse by the latest aide problem. Maria has been out "sick" or something about four days in the last two and a half weeks. She's left early twice. She has five kids -- that many kids and surely, somebody will be sick, or in trouble, or need a ride, or something. The agency tried to get a sub one day, but the sub's "car broke down," and today, finally, she did get a sub.

What a hassle.

I have toyed with the idea of quitting my job and being the aide mom needs -- she'd have to pay me -- but it would drive me crazy. The place is so depressing, and Mom is so depressing.

I rode my bike today and went to my own church's Good Friday service -- an attempt at "cleansing." But I never did quite get there -- she was still on my mind.

*

So the picture above is how I got in trouble with the cops. Driving home from work one afternoon, I came upon this elementary school that we cover in our paper. There were dozens of parents out on the lawn, and I wondered if there had been a concert or play or something. But, no, it was just parents picking up their kids.

It struck me as a kind of touching daily ritual, and I got out of the car and took some pictures, being careful not to make any kids identifiable. So, on my way back to car, this woman comes racing across the grass, yelling "Who are you? Why are you taking pictures? Who are you taking pictures of?"

I gave her my business card and said I was the editor of the Wauwatosa paper and I was just getting shots of the "after-school scene." She said she read the paper, she was a first-grade teacher, and she seemed fine about it, and she went back to the school, and I left.

I'm home for about five minutes when two cops come to the door. They have the business card in their hands. (That treacherous little teacher.) Was I at the school? What was I doing there? Had I been taking pictures? What had I been taking pictures of? I told them what was up. I said I'd never left the street or the sidewalk -- the public space -- and I showed my boring pictures, and then the young by-the-book cop insisted on calling my boss, asking him, had he assigned me to take the pictures? Was this in the normal realm of my job, blah blah blah. (As if my boss knows what the hell I do.) Then the young cop comes up to me, having not found anything amiss, and kind of gives me a stern little talking to, to check out in advance, etc etc, and kind of fishing for me to say I was "wrong" somehow.

But I wouldn't say I was wrong. I said, "I'll take it under advisement. But I want you to stipulate that I did nothing illegal." He wouldn't  give me that, but the older guy, the sergeant, said, "Yeah, I guess that's probably right."

I was just glad I wasn't black.

God I hate cops.

It's a lousy picture, but just to spite everybody, I ran it in the paper.