Graduation Day is Almost Upon Us

My oldest son is graduating high school (hopefully) in 10 days.  There were more than a few moments of doubt that we would ever get to this place.  Yeah, my kid has got some issues and I have more than a few issues with school, with expectations, and with life in general.

So, it is as a parent of this type of child, and as a person who hated and did not fare all that well in school, any school, that I look at these commencement exercises as not a beautiful stepping stone, but something to be done with, preferably quickly.

First of all, the ceremony is on my birthday.  Name for me one person who wants to sit at a graduation ceremony on any day, much less their birthday. Seriously, please, tell me and I will call them up so that they can take my place.  My kid will never know.

Second of all, I received in the mail a laundry list of rules of etiquette that irritatingly took the jam out of my doughnut.  One of the bolded headlines is MARCHING INSTRUCTIONS.  Is this a class of Hitler Youth, or just, you know, regular kids?

A few tasty excerpts that really get my blood boiling are:

" you have paid for your cap and gown so you can "keep it" as a souvenir"  

Whoo, whoo, whoo!  Effing really?  How much did that cost?  WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO WITH A GRADUATION GOWN AFTER GRADUATION?  And why is "keep it" in parentheses?  Is it because you won't "keep it"?  Your "parents" "will" in their "garage"?  

What a total waste.

" boys should wear a dress shirt and tie, dress slacks with dark socks and dark dress shoes.  Girls should wear a dress or a skirt and blouse "

a)  Great.  There goes another $150
b)  What century is this?  Why do girls have to wears skirts or dresses?  

Gross.

" A professional photographer will be taking a picture of each graduate as he/she receives the diploma. (this part is inexplicably underlined)  These pictures will be available for purchase on line on a secure website. "

Meaning:  Cha ching  

I will take my own shitty pictures, thanks.

Oh, and " the ceremony will be recorded and you will be able to order a copy."

Oh, goody.  Nothing better I can think of than fast forwarding through two hours of yawn-tastic ceremony to watch three seconds of my kid NOT looking at the camera.  And I get to pay for it?  Where do I sign?!?  

One last thing:  "you will receive your diploma only if all financial obligations with the school have been cleared, and if you exhibit appropriate behavior during the entire ceremony."

I would love for them to try and tell me that my kid did not behave, so therefore, he does not get a diploma.  Nice try.  We are finally out of here, I think the kid is entitled to flip off the principal, no?  I mean, NO.  I don't want my kid to flip off the principal, but seriously?  Way to try and scare us into being good little automatons one last time.

Maybe I am just an antisocial jerk.  Maybe I just don't get it.  I mean, I get (to a point) rules.  I get (to a point) ceremony.  I just don't get why my kid can't wear sneakers.  I don't get why there is not an open bar for parents (they would clean up!) to make the ceremony more enjoyable.  And I really don't get mortarboards.  

Anyway, Happy Graduation, everyone!  ***takes a shot***
 

Unreasonable

I am a passionate person.  I say passionate because it sounds way better than "jerk face" or "crazy" or "bitchy".  As in: "I am not a crazy, jerk-faced bitch, I am just passionate! (damn it)".  I told someone the other day "I feel EVERYTHING".  There are worse issues to have.

So, when I woke up this morning and saw that the Blackhawks had won***, I was (unreasonably?) happy.  I mean, I know; it's just a game and in the grand scheme of things it means nothing; but living in Blackhawks country during the playoffs when your team is on fire is really, really fun.  Because I am such a sap and my heart is just millimeters beneath the surface, I get choked up seeing the buses pass by with "GO HAWKS" on their marquees.  I crank up the TV during the ridiculously loud National Anthem and cheer and whistle along.  I clap and yell at the refs and whoop and curse.  In those moments, I am one of the herd and I love it.  It is so unlike (most of) the rest of my life when I am in that weird 10% that goes against the grain of seemingly every situation.  

*** it ended at one a.m. after starting the THIRD overtime.  I get up early.  I stayed up for the first OT, then went to bed hoping for the best.

BLACKHAWKS WIN!

This morning I also found a prom invitation for my middle son.  My Charles got invited to...the "Special", district-wide prom.

I wanted to scream.  

After reading the handout that came along with the invite, I wanted to scream some more.  This is an actual excerpt:  We encourage the students to enter independently to make it as much like a REGULAR prom as possible (emphasis mine).

WHAT?!?  So...it's a prom but not a regular prom.  Ohkaaayyy...

I just don't get it.  Will someone please explain to me why my kid can't just go (or not go!) to the ACTUAL PROM like everyone else?  Seriously?!?!?  Why is this even a thing?  

Like most things like this, I am sure that it was started out of love and concern and wanting something nice for our (different) kids; but as with everything else, separate is NOT equal.  Separate classes are not equal.  Separate schools are not equal.  No matter how inclusive and welcoming you think your school is, these types of classes and events only shine a spotlight square on differences and it is not a flattering glow.  

Let's be real.  The prom is a rite of passage, but the event is not equal for everyone, anyway.  Not everyone has a date.  Not everyone can afford a tux rental or a $600 dress, hair stylist, manicure, pedicure, limousine and on and on.  Not everyone has a gaggle of friends to hang out with and eat dinner with and (ZOMG!!! iamsowasted) party with afterwards.  Not everyone wants to, either.  For some, it's too mainstream, too bourgeois, too everythingtheyhateabouthighschool, and that is fine.  Some of us went to our senior proms with boyfriends they should have broken up with months before so that they could dance with the ex-boyfriend they should have gone with, instead.  

I mean, I have heard.

So, here I am again, in that seeming minority of people that thinks these things are a horrible idea.  And I am sure to get crapped on for crapping on it.  Let's think about it this way, though.  Is a "whites only" prom a good idea?  Or is it totally backwards?  Seriously?  How about proms that keep out kids because of their sexual orientation?  Effing REALLY?!?  No?  Not a great idea, you say?  Yeah, this is the same.  It is EXACTLY THE SAME THING.  Many people just don't see it, yet.  Am I unreasonable?  Maybe.  Maybe I would have more friends if I just kept my mouth shut and went along to get along.  Maybe... and, maybe my middle son will go to his Junior or Senior prom and maybe he won't. 

Just like everyone else.

Money Doesn't Buy Happiness But Neither Does a Foreclosure Notice

I am not poor.  I have a roof over my head (as long as I can stay on top of the sky-high mortgage for my cosy, three bed, one bath ranch), I have warm clothes, I have food, I have my basic needs covered.  My furnace is running, which is a good thing since it is nine degrees outside.  I contributed to charities this year and bought birthday and Christmas gifts. I even have cable and WiFi, which is how I am able to write this, today.  Of course, if I had no WiFi, or laptop, I could always go to my local library to use their computers.  It would be inconvenient, but obviously, doable.  

This is what I want to talk about today; the inconvenience of being in a less than ideal money situation.  

My family and I live paycheck to paycheck.  We put away a few dollars every week for a rainy day, but our little savings would not do much to save us from financial ruin.  
It's something, enough to spring for a part for the ever-failing dryer, or to pay an unexpected expense; provided it was a relatively small one.  It won't cover my husband missing a few days of work if he caught the flu, though.  My husband is in a union and his salary is very good, but I would love to talk to the geniuses who decided not to negotiate for sick or vacation pay or even holiday pay (hello?  Christmas and New Year's?).  

In an ideal world, we would figure out the cost of those days off (five major unpaid holidays, two weeks of vacation and another cushion of five days for illness) and we would come up with an amount in the neighborhood of $5000.  Saving for that would mean putting aside $100 per week.  Putting aside another twenty per week for unexpected costs puts our minimum ideal savings plan at $120 per week.  Some weeks we have it, some weeks we don't, for reasons I illustrated earlier.

The problem with this is that often times on the lean weeks we need to borrow from the fat weeks to get through.  What winds up happening is that we never really save anything.  We usually get a decent tax refund and a shrewd financial planner would probably tell us to put that money aside.  That would be great, if at some point we didn't need a new washer/dryer/exhaust system for the car/roof/windows... you get the picture.  

The vicious cycle that we live in is that we can never hold onto a chunk of money for very long.  It's not that we blow it on fancy clothes or purses or shoes or vacations (ha!), it's that it gets pissed away on stuff that has waited too long to ignore.

This is where the inconvenience part really comes into play.  If we had more money, we might be able to look for sales on things, so that we can buy them for less instead of buying them RIGHT! NOW! for whatever cost, because it went bad three days ago and we can't live without it for much longer.  It would mean replacing our roof before it starts leaking and the damage drives up the cost.  It might mean never having to pay late fees.  It also might mean that our credit would be better since we wouldn't be late paying bills.  Our mortgage company couldn't charge us all the fees involved with paying late.  An extra sixty here and thirty there, really adds up.  If our credit was better, we could also negotiate a better rate, instead of the 6.75% we are paying now.  

Even with all of this, I haven't even gotten to the worst part:  the stress that comes from worry.  If all I ever had to worry about was money, I guess I would be okay.  I'm okay anyway and of course, there is more to my worry than the balance in my checking account.  Having had my middle child go through open heart surgery twice in his young life, I can assure you that when it comes right down to it, when your loved ones are safe and healthy, money seems like a mere nuisance.

You could ask me why I don't work.  I mean, I did work full time for about three years after my kids were in school full time.  The reasons for my not working now are as simple as no one I want to work for wants to hire me and as complex as my availability.  The bottom line is that I want to be home when my kids walk through the door from school.  Working around that is challenging.  You might scoff and grumble that it's my own fault.  I am in a mess of my own making.  

You would be right.  

I take full responsibility for not earning an income.  I also know that when I take my kids to the movies or bowling or out for a cheap bite, I probably can't afford it.  I do it anyway.  When you don't have any family around, weekends present a challenge.  Movies fill the time that a big family dinner would in my husband's or my past.  Times change.  It's the same reason I don't let the cable lapse.  

Which brings me to the reason for this post. 

Here I am, with my kids on winter break and they shut off the cable and WiFi.
I have a choice:  Put what little cash I have left in the bank so that I can pay the bill and have it turned back on, or have a tiny bit of money and wait it out until Friday, when DH gets paid.  

Since I have enough food and crock pot recipes to get us through the week, I chose to turn the cable (and phone and WiFi) back on.  The prospect of being without, with single digit temps outside, for the last week of Christmas vacation was bleak, to say the least.  This way, at least we can use our computer, watch some movies and if friends call to invite us somewhere, they will get through, and not receive a vague message about our phone not "accepting calls" (code for:  These deadbeats haven't paid us!).

I know that I am one of the lucky ones.  I am not writing this to complain, at least, that is not my primary motivation.  I am mostly writing this so that I can see it written out so I can make it better.  If I can figure out how to make money less of an issue in the coming year, maybe I can move on to bigger and better things.  

I know that there are parts of the problem that are out of my control.  It's about taking what IS in my control and fixing it for the better.  There is no better time than a new page on the calendar to start.