Something Other Than Fish

[lydamorehouse]

I still have nine tetra but I'm not going to jinx them by celebrating their recovery too soon. After all, the three of us are heading out of town soon and the last time we did that with tetra in the house, I came home to a moldy clump of them wadded together on a plant. (Something about tetras and mold, I guess.) But fingers crossed, knocking on wood, and all that supersitous stuff until we get home again.

According to the moon app on Tate's blog today is New Moon and it is, apparently, not a good day to start any "projects that require effort to complete." I guess I'd better hurry up and finish the revisions on her novel before 10:30 pm or whenever it's officially New Moon then, eh?

I'm having a bear of a time concentrating today. It might be the weather. It really feels ready to storm, but it's not there yet. Big, fluffy white clouds are blocking the direct sunlight, and so it's the kind of day you find yourself squinting even though it's not really sunny out, you know? The humidity is high. Everything seems to be ready to do something, but not yet committed.

Sort of like me and writing.

As I drove into Mason's school today there were a lot of police cars in the area. We arrived at our usual time 8:55 am, but the place seemed kind of deserted. Usually there are a ton of kids waiting outside for the bell to ring. I thought we were late when I didn't the usual crowd, but Ava and her dad were just getting out of their car (and you can almost set your watch to them, they're so punctual.) We all walked up to school together and Ava's dad and I chatted about the cop cars. He asked one of the ladies who usually corrals the kids about it and she said there was some "activity in the neighborhood" so they had to pull all the students inside. Once at the classroom we heard from one of the kids who is dropped off early for "Discovery Club," that they'd had to have a real lockdown.

Lockdowns are what kids practice in these days after the Columbine shootings. Fire drills, tornado warnings, and lockdowns. In a lockdown, according to Mason, the teachers lock the doors to their rooms and all the students hide behind a bookcase so that they can't be seen by anyone passing in the hallway.

Scary.

Especially to a five year old.

And then to find out they had to do one "for real." I felt for Dalton, the kid who had been at school early enough to have to take part in this. Mason tried to shrug it off, though I think he was nervous at the idea. As I left him with a kiss, I overheard some other students saying they'd heard it was an (armed?) burglar that the police were chasing. The school was being cautious.

Frankly, I'm down with that. But it really brings home how much more freaked out we are now-a-days versus when I was a kid. My biggest worry was a nuclear bomb dropped from Russia --which was freaky in its own way because it was so... out there and uncertain. I rarely worried about being ACTUALLY killed by anyone in school. I used to worry about being targetted as a nerd, although I was fairly oblivious to a lot of that being a girl. Our big weapon against each other was shunning. Girls didn't tend to hit so much as gossip and plot, especially in the late-70s/early 80s. Someone brought a knife to school once and there was always "drugs" out there, but no metal detectors or any of that.

I don't know where I'm going with this, just kind of a "huh."

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Needless to say, the schools in here on Colorado all have lockdown procedures. When the kids were in schools right next to the university, they were right next to a fraternity house. Most of the lockdowns that occurred were because the fratboy morons were drinking and shouting or mooning passersby or some pinhead activity like that.

Maggie had a lockdown at her high school this year because of some "stupid white kid" who threatened a teacher or something. Maggie's school is 40% Latino/a but all of her complaints about disciplinary problems owe to the "stupid white kids." Which we tell to stupid white parents around here and often aren't believed. Because racism is not vulnerable to facts.

jpj

[lydamorehouse]

Stupid white kids are so annoying, aren't we?

[darkchallenger.livejournal.com]

It is a sad fact of life that kids have to deal with this stuff. We've had lockdowns at the library and if this summer is hot I expect we're going to have a real bad day at a library. We've already had a guard out for several months after he was injured by a patron. Now with people coming in more stressed out due to the economy and less staff due to budget problems it's just a matter of the right match setting off an inferno in one of the buildings.

And where are our hovercraft? Mine's probably in the shop again.