worki-worx

One of the kids was on a rampage at work today.  He was in a fighting mood, and at first I thought he was joking around...but it was lasting a little too long and getting more intense throughout the day.  Just little comments here and there
"say somethin!" and "bring it"
"was I talkin' to you?"
or "don't you give me that attiTUDE"

Eventually the attitude became a yelling craze from the sidelines while staff faced the teens for a Thanksgiving soccer game.  The kids won...it was intense.  I was sweating.  My feet hurt.  My pants were too tight.  I couldn't stop grinning.  I also am quite bad at soccer.  No one wants to tell me, but I can feel it.  hahaha.  Oh well.  :)

We ate a huuuuge Thanksgiving dinner for the kids and their families today, so we had alot of people in and out of the club and I wasn't keeping track of all the squabbles between the kids but about a half hour before we start sending people home I am at the front desk and can see a strange stand-off going on outside the club, riiiight in front of the club so I go to stand at the door to see what is up and don't hear anything.  It stops or had already stopped before I can find out what is going on...but there is that tense, heavy air so I ask,

"What's up?"

Both [sides] reactions are immediate and similar.  Nothing, don't worry about it...The boy standing at the doorway sighs loudly and rolls his eyes dramatically and walks away.  He is visibly annoyed.

"Better watch your back!" the other boy taunts.  The other kids are watching intensely.  Their eyes shifting from the opposing boy to me.

"What's going on here?" I inquire again, more commanding but I'm still totally at a loss.  Looking at each person.  "What was that about?"

"Nothing." and the crowd starts to break away.

I go inside and start asking the other kids what is going on (Maybe I'M out of the loop or something...) Apparently no one wants to tell me, so I leave it alone.  Then it's getting closer to closing time and the two haven't figured it out, now they are yelling from the parking lot into the building that "...better watch your BACK!"...and we decide it's not an option for the kid in the building to walk home, alone, in the black of a west coast evening, with a pack of fight-worthy peers of this dude's {our CLUBS} neighborhood...so we get everyone else out of the building, rides arrive, and the club officially closes...there are still about 12 kids on the very edge of the property standing around talking a little too loud, offering a little too friendly to walk home the other kid.  We politely help refuse the offers and the kid gets in a staff vehicle and starts to leave the parking lot.  One of the kids from the group stand in the middle of the exit while the other kids yell,

"Maybe we should all go down to his house!" the leading boy is yelling and the other kids are talking loudly in some sort of not total agreeing or allowance but blind following of initiative wasted on some ridiculous argument.  So what do you do?  Five of us stand at the doorway of the club looking out.

"Go home!" We say,  "Stop it."...but of course they don't and it's fifteen minutes later...so a co-worker and I go out into the parking lot and start herding them away but it was so crazy.  What do you say in a moment like that?  I said, "We don't need that here.  We can't have people feeling threatened when they're trying to leave the club...you have enough of that in your real lives."  but none of the kids are leaving and one kid says [in spanish] I imagine he is saying something about "...like she would know.." or something.  Downsizing my tiny piece of respect after a couple short months.

"Whatever, we're not in the club..." All of them with I-do-what-I-want attitudes and mouths to match...

"You guys need to make a decision, go.  or face the consequences.  You could be suspended."--a few kids start to shuffle, making the circle wider and less menacing in the dark.  Eye level with all of them as I announce I don't want to, but I will if they won't leave.  "We're waiting on you."

It's over enough to let it be and go on for the night.  What else can we do?  The most of it has passed and the threatened is safely behind locked doors...we've stalled at least.

I come home letting off the weight.  Thinking and re-thinking the looks in their eye.  Their assumed total knowledge.  How far would they go?  I see these kids on a human level every single day.  It's insane to see them claws exposed...for what?  Over something unknown to me even now.  But it defines their worlds.  The only control they have.  Constantly exposed to raw emotion, something that is supposed to be a release, but just a pin-prick and the tower comes tumbling down.  We're complex.  So many levels and layers...stories, experiences, causes and reactions...and there I stand.  Throbbing heart and temple, burning in their fire from a completely different level.

Tomorrow is a new day.  Again and again...and thinking of how God brings people hope.  The ripple of my actions brings me hope.  I hope someday I can truly say I've inspired...above and beyond the air I breathe each day.  Making my life worth the complexities it takes to keep me alive.

What would you say?  What is there to be learned from your life?  Tell me.  I seek the good word tonight.

are you effing kidding me?!

Who does that!?!?!?!  You don't remember?!  Are you EFFING kidding me!?  You can't say "hey, btw: liked your tattoo now gonna copy and steal it".  Talk about a huge rip-off.  I can only imagine how THAT conversation is gonna go if we were to ever hang out together.
"Oh wow.  You guys have the same tattoo."

"Yeah, this chick decided she liked mine and got the same one in a different spot."

Can I use my little bubbles to brighten MINE up now?  Hell no.  Because you already did.  That's okay.  I have a different idea...and the placement of mine is perfect.  I need need NEED to talk to my brother right now, because I'm about to scream!!!

DrEaM

It was all good at first...just me and some of the kids from work in a giant house-like area.  We were cooking, I'm pretty sure of that There was rain and we were too close to the ocean.  I think the decks hung over the beach and the tide started to rise and waves were slapping the walls on the back of the house and luckily I went into the front just in time to see the huge tree from the neighbors yard get hit by lightning. The branches were so dry and it lit up like Christmas, catching the roof of their house and a good portion of the side before a loud pop and crackling...[the fire is falling!!!] I'm stuck there, just watching the fire as the tree collapses onto the tree house in our front yard [are there kids in there!?] and the tree in our yard is catching fire and falling.  The man from the house [Nathan?...is that you?] comes out and I start screaming "CALL 911!" There was fire everywhere around me, no heat though...and maybe there was a casualty.  Luckily if there was, I can't remember...I'm trying to remember more, but I'm out.  I woke up shortly after the tree fell, the details are lost to me less than half an hour later.

it wanders

I always wonder who is meant in situations involving the ever-vague "they".  Is that conceited to always wonder if it is me?...Is it childish, pathetic, or rude?  It doesn't matter.  It's what shakes it's booty through my head every time someone is trying to be mysterious.  I tell myself I don't care, but I just wonder what type of judgments are really being passed behind closed curtains...Hopefully extravagant ones that will turn into fairy tales (or warning stories) for your grandchildren.

Also: I want to put "I LOVE YOU MOM" at the end of the book I'll never write.

Today at Work...

It was kind of cold and most of the kids were inside...instead of having to ref soccer like I would usually do if I was outside I sat at the picnic tables and made tons of  bracelets and necklaces and tied LOTS of knots.  It's pretty much the one part of making the bracelets the kids refuse (or don't know how) to do.  So I end up tying all the beginning knots, and sizing them around their little wrists.  It was actually fun...They were telling me stories about their little lives and asking me questions about Vaya...I found out alot about them.  Really cool.  Then I decided we hadn't played with chalk in a really long time, and I hadn't seen the kids playing hopscotch in awhile, so I got out the chalk and drew three long ass hopscotch boards, then sent them out to find a rock to call their own.  One kid came back with a huge pile of perfect sized rocks and alot of the kids used the ones he picked.  The kids helped me number all the squares.  They REALLY wanted to be the ones writing the numbers, and why not? It got them counting and participating.  After that we started racing.  Everyone, three at a time (there were three hopscotch boards lined up next to eachother each one about 29 squares long) We threw our rocks down and raced to get em.  It was pretty fun for awhile.  Of course everyone wanted to race ME! and I let them win by a hair.  I was doing the hopscotch perfectly but the kids were just jumping up and down, grabbing rocks, throwing stuff...It was really fun!

Then I went inside because there is Torch Club on Fridays and I am in charge of it, so I got all the kids in there, and we had gotten all these gold pins in the mail (the kind you put on your coat)...and so I got to give them to the kids.  I basically gave them to the officers and the few that were left over I gave to the officers to give to the kids they thought best deserved them...one girl actually gave me hers back.  She told me she didnt think anyone else deserved one, and I agreed with her.  The meeting was really frustrating.  There are only about 12 kids in "torch club" and four of them are "officers"...The rest of the kids are just there to be there, they don't really know why...so they are just yelling at each other (officers vs reg kids) pretty much the whole time.  I don't want to take the power away from the officers, because why else would they even come!? but I don't want the officers to be scaring away new kids who might otherwise come to the meetings, so IDK I'm kind of at a stand still there... don't really know what to do on that one...I am going to stage a test about TORCH CLUB and maybe that will give the kids some sense of direction, maybe give out some prizes to kids who remember to bring their Torch Club card...doing something really fun despite the problems with their social understanding...they can just never stop yelling and arguing!  

Oh well, Today in Torch Club we talked about doing a "buddy day" and we voted on what to teach the littler kids (our buddies)...I was told to do the "buddy day" by Tonya and it is a good idea, I just wish I had more time to plan for it.  We are doing it next week.  We voted on whether to teach the littler kids how to make a homemade pizza or how to make a smoothie.  I think we settled on both.  Dumb.  We don't even have a pizza maker, but my boss might and if she does we are gonna use hers.  That means next week we'll be making pizza and smoothies.  I'll go to the store and get all the stuff to make pizza and smoothies and then set it all up and then we'll teach the kids how to do it.  It's gonna be a horrible HORRIBLE mess.  I think I am going to have VERY strict rules that day...I also have to figure out how many little kids are we going to teach?  If I have one rookie to every one Torch Club member that is gonna be almost 30 kids, and 22 of them aren't going to be able to even BEGIN to know how to handle it.  My bigger kids will be arguing with NOT ONLY themselves, but also the little kids and UGH! Maybe I can do them in small groups.  They are my buddies, and my buddies are the littler kids buddies, but even then.  I have 22 kids sitting waiting for 4-5 minutes at a time and I have to make like 15 smoothies basically by myself. UGh.  It's gonna be SUCH chaos.  How I am suppose to do it, IDK.  I'm definitely going to be asking about that on Monday.  I am a little worried about it and will be brainstorming throughout the weekend...let me know if you have any ideas!!! :)