Upsetting

I grew up in Colorado, in a suburb of Denver. My parents and I went to church about 3 miles from my house, in yet another suburb. That church was and is 2.5 miles as the crow flies from Columbine High School. When I was in high school in the late 70s and early 80s, many of the other teens at my church went to school at Columbine.

So, on April 19 20, 1999, I watched with the same profound shock and horror as the rest of the country as two boys destroyed any shards of any feeling of safety we had left about our country's schools. The acrid icing on that poisonous cake was that I knew alumni, I knew the community, I knew the places the national media was talking about: Swedish Medical Center (I was a candystriper there), Clement Park (teen hangout), Ken Caryl Ranch (lots of our church members lived there), and so on.

Knowing the area, of course, didn't make the event any more comprehensible. The explanations that the media quickly began to promote didn't make a lot of sense either. And that school's architecture is forever etched in my brain as a building I don't want to be near. Ever.

In 2001, we went to visit my family (who now live elsewhere in Colorado) and stopped in Denver for a couple of days. One of those days was a Sunday, so we went back to "my" church. There were a few discrete items in the building and moments during the service where the presence of the killings loomed large, even two years later.

The next day, we went to visit all the family graves (most of my family is in two large cemeteries on different sides of the city). As we drove through the cemetery looking for my father's burial site, we slowly approached 13 crosses standing in an "island" in the roadway. My father's resting place is about 25 feet from the official memorial for the Columbine victims. I believe those crosses were wooden at that time. They have since been replaced by 8'-tall black granite crosses. (If you watch the virtual tour here, you'll see the crosses at the end, briefly.)

Aside: my father built the original mortuary at this cemetery in the mid-1960s. He was paid, at least in part, in kind: four burial plots.

ANYWAY. I'm reading the book pictured here--Dave Cullen's "Columbine." It is very detailed, easy to read...and I've been trying hard not to read it at bedtime so that it doesn't affect my dreams too much.

I am about 2/3 through the book. I may have to stop reading it. I spent part of today compulsively Googling factoids, drawings, schematics, and photos since the book itself is all text. And I came across a photo today that I never should have embiggened. I knew when I saw it small that clicking on it would be a bad idea. And I watched my hand as the index finger banged down on the left mouse button anyway. Now I can't get the image out of my head, and it only fueled my compulsion to do more research.

I know that what I'm looking for is twofold: 1) Why did Harris and Klebold do what they did? and 2) How can I be sure that my son will never, ever, be involved in something like this? I know that reading this book is not going to answer either of those questions. It's the same quandary I had in 1999 immediately after the shootings happened, and after 9/11, and all the other times when I've wanted nothing more than to go far away from the world and protect my son from Everything Bad. The panic will pass. In the meantime, I can't help but look at every passing teenager with the thought "This could be the one. Or that one could be...."

The mission trip in a week--where I'm surrounded by 60 high school kids 24/7--could be fun if I don't get over this tout de suite. Anxiety + paranoia is not a great frame of mind to be in anyway. It makes for difficulty in concentration among other things. There are no answers, and eventually I'll get back to accepting that fact.

People, really: Libraries are NOT safe places!!

So please, please, don't just dump your kids there and assume everything will be fine. Usually things go smoothly, but sometimes they don't.

Those of you who have been around awhile may remember this incident of inappropriate library behavior.

At least that incident was at least more or less consensual. The one today was--allegedly--not. Again, a 19-year-old was arrested, and again a minor was involved (not the same one as last time). This particular minor used to attend storytime with my son. This kid's mother just died last summer, and apparently the kid didn't want to call the police because Dad is drinking a lot more than he used to and isn't handling things well.

My heart hurts. And I'm very, very angry.

Drama

Sparky stayed after school yesterday to lift weights. He's doing that to prepare for football tryouts. Whatever. Meanwhile, I had to do a presentation for a Girl Scout troop at work so we knew he'd have to wait a bit when he finished.

He called just as I started the presentation saying he couldn't find his wallet. There was no way I could stop what I was doing, so I told him he'd have to work it out with his coach.

No dice. They looked everywhere. We finally decided that it must have fallen out when he changed pants and landed unnoticed on the floor where someone picked it up. He was devastated. Angry, upset, crying, yelling...yeah. Fun night.

Fast forward to this morning. I went with him to school to talk to the administrators. The vice principal took a report and said she'd investigate. I asked about the police and she sort of treated it as if I wanted to make an insurance claim (?!). Whatever again. I went to the cops directly from school and reported the theft.

Long story short, the officer went over and interviewed several students and eventually the wallet was recovered, minus Sparky's driving permit and yearbook receipt. He got all the cash and gift cards and library card back, though. Turns out the doofus hadn't actually closed his locker after changing; the other kid saw the wallet in the open locker and snagged it.

So what did I learn? Go to the cops first. Involve the school second. There is at least one cop in our town that is hysterically funny, and just a good guy. [He 'yelled' at Sparky for having such awful handwriting in the statement he wrote up last night.]

So at some point this week, we have to face down the licensing people and get a replacement permit. And I'll talk to the yearbook people at school about the situation--he's supposed to present the receipt to pick up his book in May. Since I volunteer with the people coordinating the yearbook, it's kinda not gonna be a problem.

We have not been told the name of the student who did this, but he has been suspended for a week (I think) and I'm sure the grapevine will pass along his name to Sparky PDQ. I feel bad for his parents, who had to stand there and watch the cop search their son's dirty laundry today. I'm very grateful it wasn't us on that side of the equation. Hopefully, Sparky learned a few lessons from this. For one thing, maybe carrying $100+ in gift cards in your wallet is kind of a stupid idea. Especially to school! d'oh

And it turned out all right, for us. Silver linings.

Small Town

Headline in today's paper:

Boy smuggled friend's urine

So much for any developing appetite I had for dinner.

[and, may I suggest to anyone who is considering using this dumb idea to pass a drug test, that doing this in a COURTHOUSE should mean a quadrupled sentence due to excessive dumbitude]

Grab Bag o' Weird Sh...Stuff

• Our entire neighborhood got tagged a couple of weeks ago. Remember, I talked about finding some grafitti in the street in May? And I mentioned that it was an odd color of pink? Well, it was an odd color...because it was landscaping paint, not regular spray paint. Last month (two weeks or so ago), one street in our subdivision awoke to find paint on the streets, on cars, on houses, everywhere. No more "Killah" stuff either. There was a lot of 'fuck' and 'bitch' stuff. Luckily, because it's landscape paint, it most came off pretty easily. The stuff on the street took some scrubbing but it's gone now, after a couple of rainstorms. And we hear that the little miscreants have been caught.



• Roomba is spinning in circles. It's discouraging; we can't figure out why. So we have a call in to the iRobot people in hopes they can diagnose the issue and fix it without having to hork around with shipping back and forth. We still love Roomie, but it's annoying.



• I had every intention to do several different kinds of shopping today. Unfortunately, I neglected to ascertain the location of my purse before I went to bed last night. Beast took it to work with him--in the glovebox of his car. So that fubar'd my day completely. I went and picked it up...but instead of continuing on the way to the shopping, I ended up coming home and going to bed with a headache again. Stupid allergies.



• I've bailed on a large number of books lately. I think my attention span and patience have left completely. Or I'm picking crappy books. Possibly both. My standards, I know, are pretty high. However, right now I'm reading Elizabeth George's latest, which is back to the main characters. I didn't get past page 25 of her last book. This one is better.



• Sparky has decided to try out for his school's golf team. This should be interesting. That will send this year's registration fees over $300. Ish. How can people afford more than one kid??



• While I don't wish Cranky on anyone, it is somehow comforting to know that I'm not the only one who gets tired of listening to Cranky Me, that others also get tired of hearing their own Cranky Voices. It makes me feel less like I'm crazy when I realize that everyone feels that way sometimes.



• So, I watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 today. Damn. Shoot me first, please. I really do love kids, but...just...wow. That much whinage, plus potty training, and general mayhem...24/7/365...wow. I wouldn't recommend this show except for its birth control potential. The parents seem like nice, normal, sensible people. It'll be interesting to see them when all 8 kids are teenagers.
  
  
• This year's bombings in the neighborhood--i.e., illegal fireworks--seem to have been slightly more contained, less scattered, and reasonable. Reasonable, that is, if you don't mind three straight nights of 9:00-10:00 p.m. fireworks shows 100 yards from your house. There were those occasional afternoon explosions, too, but in comparison to past years, it's been pretty calm. We'll see. The party usually continues all bloody summer.



• Tomorrow, it's back to the mines. Whee.

---

Urban Word:

Fourth of July: The day people light things on fire, and blame it on loving their country.

I don't think John Adams really anticipated us all blowing the roofs off our neighbors' houses or setting our own on fire on the Fourth of July.

In the News

This has been a strange week in the local newspapers. There are the usual car wrecks, announcements about Burn Season (ok, it's a rural area), senior fairs, cute kids, arrests for general stupidity...

...and these three stories:

1. A local elementary school principal was arrested out of state over the weekend for having sex with a high school girl. The details, as they are released in the paper, are beyond wacky. It's hard to keep a straight face, unfortunately, because a couple of the details just crack me up, including the comment from one girl involved that she thought they were watching Alv!n & the Ch!pmunks not the porn movie that was actually on the TV at the time.
   
   I know the story isn't funny. It's a fucking tragedy. And once again, it's hitting just a little too close to home in some freaky-deaky ways.



2. A local doctor is going to jail because he was selling drugs and also videotaping patients having sex with him. Or something. It's confusing. It's more confusing that his specialty is feet.



3. But this one is the one that just cracks me up and reminds me that People Are WEIRD! The fire department was called to a house fire. They had to cut through a chain that was attached to a support post in the basement to rescue someone. The other end of the chain was attached around his throat. Uh? He wasn't injured and said he was in that situation by his choice. I would pay serious money to have been in the firehouse after this call was over!!

Spring fever? Full moon? Water on the brain?

Snew

Mood: Tired, but generally good
Hair: I have no idea what it looks like, but it's loose
Eyes: Are sore: dry and itchy; I'll do a compress while I'm in the tub...soon
Listening to: The furnace...blessed silence!

I got nothin' to say, really, except it's snowing again...yet. It's been at it since last night, a nice fairly gentle snow that looks like styrofoam beads. But it's accumulating on the roads, so we're back to snowblowing and the plows were out again tonight. The driveway will need attention again tomorrow morning.

I got a fair amount of cataloging done today at work, and had a nice chat again via Meebo with Alena. I love the internet!

Over the weekend, someone came into our staff room and rooted through the lockers. Most of us keep nothing valuable up there, but there's no way to lock the door because it's an emergency exit. This is why I keep nothing but extra Diet DP and snacks in my locker...everything else (including my coat) is in the workroom or in my desk. Apparently, I'm just too suspicious for words! I learned my lesson on staff room security the hard way about 16 years ago, and I still have a copy of the police report to prove it.

The somewhat-comic relief is that the other cataloger on staff appeared at work today with a beauteous black eye. She slipped on her porch and whacked her head on the step over the weekend. No concussion, no real serious damage, but some of the blood from the internal bleeding 'leaked' down by her eye. She seriously looks like someone clocked her, but (as usual) she's made it into a joke. There are some things going on in her extended family that make this seem like a piece of cake, so she really hasn't had time to focus on herself.

I'm going to go collect my sweater and two undershirts (a.k.a. tank tops) from the dryer, and then run a bath.

Hug your loved ones the next time you see 'em. Life can change in a the blink of a dry, bleary eye.