Monday, January 25, 2016

Mission Madness

1-25-16

I need another weekend.

So Thursday afternoon was not fun last week. The boys got home and we started in on homework but it was noted that Bobby was injured. Apparently in a vigorous game of four square, he tripped over Dax and managed to hurt his foot. He went to the nurse’s office and iced it, but it was clearly pretty bad. To top it off, when he was walking over to show me, he stubbed said foot again, reducing him to a crumpled mess. Understandably so, as it was really swollen and black and blue. Not cool. The evening would be changed now what with there being practice and one of us would need to take Bobby to Urgent Care.

Luckily, Urgent Care is right next to Wilson Park. Ken and Bobby were there for all of an hour, which included x-rays that showed his foot was not broken. It was very very bruised, though, so he was told to ice it and keep it elevated, you know, the whole RICE treatment. Luckily, he was also in good spirits.

Friday morning, I ended up only working part of the morning, coming home early enough to even drive them to school, which made me feel better what with his foot being sore. It also gave me the opportunity to work like a mad woman on the house, including cleaning a lot of my desk up. It also gave Dax the ability to call me from the office at recess, asking me to bring him his binder that he had left on the floor. I suppose in some ways I should not have done it, but then again, I feel his pain. I was that same student in elementary, often running to where my mom was the TA, asking her to run me back home to get my homework. It isn’t a great habit, but it is something that I understand.
When the boys got home, we spent some time on the Mission Project for Dax’s class. It went better than expected, what with him typing way faster than I expected. He has learned a lot in the last year! In fact, we had a bit of fun with it. I sat on Bobby’s computer, looking things up, while Dax typed what was needed. We discussed the items we were writing, and it all went pretty well. In fact, over all, the mission work wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We still have one small section left, and he has to write a page on Father Serra, but I think we can get most, if not all of that done tonight. Yay!

Saturday was long, but not as bad as suspected. We went up to Su La Brea around 9 for the planning meeting. We finished around 3. There was one point in which one of the remaining people who have been in the region for a long time and I snipped at each other. It all was due to the suggestion that we contact more of the kids who have not been evaluated to get them to come down to our evaluation times slots in order to get them rated. Players that are unrated make for a wild card for team balancing, and truly, it would best to have all kids rated. We understand there will be a few, but right now, we have 1/3 of the player base not evaluated. This is bad. It is one of the reasons Dax’s team was so good. We had 4 players not evaluated and they all ended up being quite good. This is a problem for the region as it can result in teams not having a chance against other teams.

This is a big deal, so I suggested we encourage all players, even if they got rated, to come down and get rated. A handful liked this. The problem is, there are 900 players so the two people who do evaluations don’t want to do it. Mind you, they could get help. They could train coaches, they could train other people to come help, but they don’t. They simply whine about it. It truly is pathetic. So I suggested we print out a list of rated players to have at registration so that when kids come in to register, we check the alphabetized list quickly to make sure the kids’ name is on it so that if it isn’t, we tell them they have to do be rated. Many people liked this. One dude in particular, was pissy about it. He started getting all cranky saying that they have tried all of these things to get players rated but they don’t work so why bother. I snipped back pointing out that this particular idea had NOT been tried (this was confirmed by someone who has been around as long, if not longer, than him) so he needs to stop crapping on ideas and to stop giving up so easily. It was crazy. The RC stepped in and stopped the discussion, and my idea stands and will be done. Still, it was this kind of crap that still drives me insane. There are old timers that seem to think the only way to do things is the way they did it in the 80’s and 90’s. Mind you, things have changed. We have better resources to accomplish things, but they still fight it. It is absurd. Thankfully, they didn’t fight anymore after that.

I also opted out of multiple functions that I personally think the region should not spend their money on. Too much is spent on a volunteer dinner for people that is really only a handful of people. I appreciate the region doing something nice for the volunteers that do help, but like with this dinner; they wanted it to be no kids. Look, I am doing this volunteer crap because of my kids. They volunteer as much of their time as I do, so dammit, they should be there. So I told them that Ken will most likely be there, but not me. It was amended to include kids, but the fact that these things are not considered because the ones making the decision have kids old enough to be left at home makes me frustrated. I am not going to the EXPO this year, either. I don’t need to sit though boring classes and really, why should I have to make arrangements to either have my kids go stay with someone, or drag them along? I see no purpose to this, so I am not going. So then they were talking about the dinner for the people going to EXPO and how they are going to Dave and Busters. They asked me again, doesn’t that sound fun? Don’t you want to go. NO! I have zero desire. I would much rather go there with my children on my own. I don’t need to spend this time. I think people were surprised, but it is what it is. They were a little concerned when I pointed out I wouldn’t be at registration events all day this year. I told them, I have tournaments and I have the PV League games to watch. It will have to be worked around me, not the other way around. And for that matter, I am not going to give you my full availability. Sometimes I just want a Saturday I don’t have to be somewhere. It will be interesting to say the least over these next 7 months. I think I need to be more active in my search for a replacement Treasurer.

Sunday was productive. We cleaned up some things, did a Costco run and we even took some time to relax. I know this was my last day of this for some time. The boys were invited last minute to a birthday party, which allowed us to do Costco without them being drug along. Mega Bitch was there, who continued her quest to never acknowledge me. I was ok with this, but it is still comical to say the least, especially when her kids are nice to me. Makes me wonder what she says about me in front of them. I also wonder how it will go when Bobby invites these boys to his party.

Today I am just trucking through work. Tomorrow I am swamped due to reports so I spent time today making sure I was all ready for the crazy tomorrow. I like report days as it means my day goes by quickly.

I also am hoping to pack this afternoon. I know this seems crazy early, but with practice being much of the week and the fact that I have to get a filling replaced on Wednesday, it would be in my best interest to get things done ASAP. We head out Friday and I am looking forward to seeing this mission what with all Dax and I have learned about it. I will take a million pictures so that come next Monday, Dax and I can print it all out and put together his report which is due on the 3rd. I am glad we have a couple days after our trip to put it together as we can most likely include the pictures in the midst of the text itself. I already have a folder for it (thanks to me for cleaning out my desk and finding a good one!) and I am hopeful it is everything he needs. Yay!


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