Sperm Donor

My druggie cousin and his druggie titty-bar dancing ex-wife share joint custody of their son. J.R. just turned 5 and started kindergarten and he's so proud of his school. Two weeks ago I went to a spaghetti dinner with J.R.--he had invited me as I was reading his school newsletter, "Would you like to go?"

Of course I went and dined on cold spaghetti, limp salad and 5 meatballs. Then I got the tour. I saw his classroom and where he lines up to catch the bus and we played on the playground.

And then came Rita.

My cousin, J. R.'s dad, evacuated to Arkansas with him. Today I got the news that they aren't coming home. My cousin says he's found a job and is gonna stay out of state.

I am livid. Too mad to even be hurt. You see, my cousin can't stick to any form of commitment. His marriage didn't last a year. He dropped out of rehab twice. He quits his jobs once people start telling him what to do. And he's been an absentee father for most of J.R.'s life.

When the baby was 18 months old, he started attending the school where I work. No matter which parent he was staying with, or which set of grandparents might be caring for him, he came to the school everyday. I started watching him on weekends and more than once had him for extended visits when his parents were too busy, drunk, high or just plain stupid to properly care for their son. Being single and not having kids, I have accepted J.R. as my own and I worked hard to give him stability whenever possible.

In February, his mom called me at the school and asked if I would take him home with me because she had to work late. She said she would pick him up from the school. J.R. got sick that night, and was throwing up every half hour. But I couldn't reach his mom (titty dancers don't usually carry their cell phones at work.) I called his grandmother instead and she picked him up and cared for him. His mom never came back.

We heard through friends that she had decided his dad needed to be a parent for a while. In the last 7 months, J.R. has seen his mom occasionally, when his other grandparents have him for a visit. She will not however call or answer calls to anyone in our family. She doesn't even call to talk to her son.

How can a mother turn her back on her child? She is living with a new boyfriend and his family doesn't know about J.R.

And his dad? He jumps from job to job and woman to woman. Even while living with his parents and J.R., he wasn't parental figure. He would take off to party, leaving the child in the care of his granparents. When my cousin's behavior became so erratic and $1500 was stolen he was thrown out of his parents' house. He left his child behind.

My aunt got insurance for J.R., got his immunizations and after much persuasion, convinced my cousin to sign guardianship over to her so that she could enroll him in school. I have been going over several times a week to tutor him, making sure he would be ready for kindergarten.

And now my cousin, the non-custodial parent of the child according to the court papers, has taken his son and left the state without attempting to notify the child's mother. My cousin, who was due to appear in court in October because of not paying child support, and who is facing a year in jail and the loss of his license, has fled the state. I believe there are warrents out for him on the child support charges. My cousin, who was convicted of a felony when he stole a roll of quarters to buy drugs, and who is on probation, left the state without notifying his probation officer. He was lucky enough to get probation and avoid a ten year sentence because he agreed to complete a rehab program at Cenikor. He walked out of the program twice without finishing it. My cousin, the convicted felon, who can't find a job in Texas, suddenly has a job in Arkansas?

I am having a difficult time accepting this. My hands are tied. Short of notifying his probation officer, the other grandparents and the attorney general, there's not much I can do. Not that I won't do what I can. In my eyes, my cousin forfeited the right to be a dad a long time ago. He's had 5 years to step up to the plate, and for 5 years he was content to let the rest of us raise his son.

Have you ever seen the movie "Parenthood"? Keanu Reeves says that you have to have a license to drive a car, but "any but reeming asshole can be a father." A couple of years ago there was an advertising campaign with the slogan, "It takes a man to be a dad." My cousin has fathered this child, but he has fallen far short of being a dad.

Hurricane Rita II

Thursday we froze extra water supplies and started cooking food. A brief trip into town proved that the city of Houston has rolled up the sidewalks. Nothing was open. Any supplies you had not already gathered, you would have to figure out a way to do without. My sister-in-law left Clear Lake Wednesday night at 10, heading for San Marcos. After 15 hours, they'd made it as far as Brenham (which is normally a 2 hour drive and well short of their destination). They tried to come back as far as my house, since the freeway was open coming into town (according to the news anyway) but were stopped by authorities one exit up the freeway, turned around and again headed north. After 24 hours, they finally reached safety. As of 1:30 a.m. the storm was predicted to hit slightly to the west of us, sparing us the worst of Rita.

Friday we tried again to scout for supplies. One convenience store was in the process of boarding up the windows when my uncle ignored the "Store Closed" signs, went inside and negotiated for coffee and sugar. At home we cleaned the house, hung quilts over all the taped windows (trying to keep the house cool if we lost power), filled the tub and washer with water, packed pictures and important papers in an igloo cooler, secured the garage door with c-clamps and parked the extra car horizontally in the driveway up against the garage door. The front gate we "locked" by pushing a cement block up against it. And the wait began.

Rita steadily altered course throughout the day, heading for Port Arthur. We were told to expect winds up to 80 mph and heavy rains. Between 1 and 5 a.m. we did get some fierce winds and a little rain, but nothing like we expected. The power blinked on and off during that time, but never went out completely.

This morning I went out to check out the school and neighborhood. A few limbs were down and it looks like we had a leaf blizzard. I saw one street sign that lost the part with the street names on it and a couple of twisted mailboxes. But for the most part, everything looks secure, albeit deserted. I've found one Texaco store open. A Big Lots store next door to my school had the roof cave in. Pretty much, I'd say we've been lucky.

I've heard from friends in Florida and Oklahoma that the city is remaining closed til Wednesday because there will be no gas or grocery supplies in the city for a while. My friend Leslie left me her car and a set of keys to her house when she evacuated and called to let me know to go to her house and get whatever groceries I might need, so I think we will be more than fine. We have power, internet, water, A/C and Direct TV. If we could shop and eat out, this time off would be a vacation. As is, we are stir crazy, totally suffering from cabin fever and anxious as hell to get out of the house.

Hurricane Rita

By now you know I live in Houston and in a couple of hours I should start getting the beginnings of hurricane Rita. I'm in the NW part of town and am not part of a mandatory evacuation. Instead, my family and I hunkered down to man the fort right here at home.

Monday, when my friend called telling me to evacuate NOW, I laughed because the storm wasn't anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico. It seemed silly to evacuate when we didn't know if it was even heading towards us. But the outlying areas and Galveston Island started evacuating on Monday, heading north right into Houston.

Tuesday, parents at the school where I work had started asking if we would close for Friday. We had no answers at that time, but were hoping to be able to close in order to avoid having to shelter children at the school whose parents might not be able to get back to them. I decided to stop at the grocery at 9:30 that night to get water and batteries, "just in case". I was stunned to find the parking lot totally full a half hour before the store should have closed. My aunt in Tyler called to invite us to come to her house, but we've never had to evacuate and chose to reserve that option for a worst case scenario. 72 hours before the hurricane's expected arrival the freeways were clogged with evacuees, gas stations were running low, and emergency supplies, ice, bread, milk, eggs, water, and batteries could not be found. I bought canned and boxed goods and began to wonder how bad things were going to be.

Wednesday, my birthday, I hit a discount store for a few more food items, candles and such. Still no bread, batteries or flashlights. When I got to the school, my boss told me we had a bunch to do because we were closing for the rest of the week. WHAT?? I've worked for the company 16 years and have dutifully opened in floods, snow and ice storms. It is unprecedented for my company to close all locations in a city the size of Houston. We secured what we could, backed up the computers, taped windows, turned the fridges to the coldest settings, took pictures of all the office equipment (polaroids with the serial numbers written at the bottom), and wrapped them all in trash bags in an attempt to keep them dry. The kids mostly went home early, driving and catching planes to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and even Shreveport and Arkansas.
As of 4 a.m. late late late Wednesday night or early Thursday if you'd already gone to bed, Rita was expected to roar straight up the port of Houston.

Banana Appeal?

I visited the Black Eyed Pea this week. With my bbq crazy, meat loving family staying here, I've been craving vegetables. So off I went to the Black Eyed Pea. My veggie plate was yummy....green beans, glazed carrots, whipped sweet potatoes, broccoli rice casserole and black eyed peas. After such a yummy veggie fest, what could possibly follow? A fruit course!!

I ordered banana pudding, which has been renamed "banana appeal". To whom does it appeal?? After waiting 10 minutes, my dessert arrived and I knew something was wrong immediately. The pudding didn't look like it was completely set. Maybe the long wait was because they were whipping up a fresh batch.

But no. When I tasted it, I noticed the texture. It was lumpy. Maybe it wasn't mixed well. Maybe it had been made with curdled milk. I really don't know, but I sent it back.

"Is something wrong?" the waitress inquired.

"Pudding isn't supposed to be lumpy and chunky." Seriously...think of canned pudding with cottage cheese stirred into it with 3 slices of banana suspended in the mix and crushed nilla wafers on top.

"That's the vanilla."

Ummmm....no. That's just nasty. You have to work really hard to make something as good as banana pudding as bad as banana appeal.

If you're at the Black Eyed Pea anytime soon, I suggest you get dessert on the way home.

Oops...I did it again.

About 3 years ago, I woke up to the phone ringing. My aunt was calling to tell me that my cousin had been run over and she didn't think he'd make it. She couldn't really give me any information but apparently the girlfriend had run over his head a couple of times. By accident.

HUH?

It was a long, stressful day at work as I waited to hear if my cousin would live or die and as I hoped for answers to questions like, Is the bitch in jail? How do you run someone over twice by accident? and Why the hell did she do it?

Bitch says she'd been out partying with my cousin who got drunk and belligerent so she was gonna leave his ass at the club. He followed and tried to get into the truck, somehow falling. She didn't see him fall and kept going. THUNK!

She wondered what that was. Did she hit something? Maybe she should go back and check it out....so she put the truck in reverse. THUNK!

Still not realizing what had happened she left my cousin there where he was picked up by EMS an rushed to a hospital. His skull was fractured. He lost sight in one eye and hearing in one ear.
He's 30 years old and permanently disabled. He's on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications. He's got post traumatic stress disorder and can't sleep due to the flashbacks. And to cope with it all, he drinks. Sometimes three 12-packs a day...sometimes three 20-packs.

And the Bitch? She's still on the streets, sometimes dancing in titty bars and sometimes prostituting herself to support herself and her young son.

Try as we might, we can't get her put away. Seems that it wasn't an intentional act on her part, so we can't go for attempted murder or vehicular manslaughter. The best the lawyer tells us we can hope for is that she'll be convicted of leaving the scene of an accident and failure to render aid.

The scales of justice sure as hell need to be recalibrated!