Other People's Kids

In Which "Celeste" Blows It

She's been a real pleasure to have around lately, so the other shoe was pretty much due to drop. Tonight at play practice (we've finally gotten her interested in an activity!) the director was late. So "Celeste" does what every self-respecting, wholesome, not to mention intelligent girl does when she has a few minutes to kill. She slips outside and sparks up a cancer stick.

Wrong answer, when the director walks up behind you and busts your ass.

So then she claims it's going to be 3 days out-of-school suspension. I know this because it was repeated very loudly in The Wife's disgruntled-sounding shout that I heard at the other end of the house. She's getting good at this. So she jumped online and in 2 minutes flat she got the straight dope that the school's policy says for a first-time smoking offender the real penalty is one day in-school suspension, which mollified The Wife somewhat. I'll interject here that I'm glad I'm not a kid in this age. You can't get by with anything if your parents know what they're doing...my mom still hasn't learned a computer very well, but you can bet she would have if she had to in order to keep me in line when I was 12 or 13.

The interesting part of this exchange was that immediately after hearing this, "Celeste" replied, "Oh, okay. What's my punishment from you guys?" She sounded like Katie Couric asking Matt Lauer what sort of gel he used in his hair, because gee it looked great.

This sort of perky crap used to really get under my skin, but I've come to realize that in "Celeste's" case she seems to just revel in having the boom lowered on her head when she's done something wrong. She seems to like that someone cares enough to do the lowering. Luckily, I enjoy lowering it from time to time when given a good reason, so we're a match made in heaven.

This is so not a blown placement. She has gotten easier and easier to have around. She still has issues, like the other night when we found what looked like a "goodbye cruel world" note in her room. However, it was (probably purposely) left where The Wife would find it. We made her sign a contract that stipulated that she would be alive when we came to wake her in the morning. Hey, don't laugh. It works, and it's the standard technique they teach us in training to use when you have an iffy situation but your gut tells you it'll be okay. Call the on-call SW to CYA, and then make 'em sign on the dotted line.

But she also has some pretty cool moments. Like yesterday after church. I don't recall if I have mentioned in this space that I used to be something of an actor. I was in a LOT of plays as a kid, I starred in a few, and I entered college as a theater major before I recovered my sanity and switched to something that didn't involve me being gay and working as a waiter the rest of my life. I've mentioned to "Celeste" that I'd like to get involved in community theater or something, so she volunteered me for a church Christmas play they were setting up. Heh. I'd play her dad. One of the pastors was going to do the part, but maybe I'll end up doing it. Talk about your basic father/daughter activity. It would also be the first play I've acted in for close to 20 years.

Last item for the day...The Wife has now given away our new kitty to a family that recently lost their dog and doesn't have a lot of money, and then was given another kitty that the vet had hanging around (probably a thank-you for the gobs and gobs of cash we keep throwing at them for taking care of our menagerie) that may or may not be the first kitty's litter mate. She has already announced that she likes the old kitty better because the new one "isn't as snuggly". I'm not sure if that means that she's going to try to pull a switcheroo with the other family, but I don't much care either way. They're both furry rats that are sometimes nice to have around, and one is as good as the other I'd say.

And now I'll watch for the hate comments from cat-lovers that I know are lurking out there...but not without reminding them that while cats are all fine and good, the best cat can't even compare to the worst dog.


Heh.

posted by Dan @ 8:49 PM