Well, it has been a very long time since I posted on here. Time really does pass quickly around here. Since the start of this year there have been many changes in this household.
I still drive a school bus, but this year I am back driving a big bus. (More on that later.) We still have 5 dogs, all of whom are shaved down now due to family issues here over he summer months. The family issues were involving my dad, who passed away on July 2nd. His health declined very rapidly over a month’s time frame. So by the time he actually died, I was ready for it, or as ready as a person can ever be for a parents passing. Andy was a rock, and was a lot of help to both my mom and I during this time. My dad had lost a lot of his body strength and was falling down a lot. Andy would go over there during the day to help my mom get my dad back up and placed in his chair, or on the couch, and even help get him to the bathroom. My mom is doing great! The first several days after the services, she was having trouble finding things to do. That seems to have changed now; she is busy going thru my dad’s things, and getting rid of a lot of stuff. I think she now sees that I don’t have room for all of their things either.
Andy’s job is going away. We knew that of course. The company is moving to New Mexico, and we do not want to move. First off when this all came about last year, my parents were not in good health, and moving was not an option. I am an only child after all and I do need to be close to my folks to help in emergencies. With my dad’s passing we are in a bit better position now. Mom is in good health, and I have already spoken to her about having to move. I did ask her that if Andy found a job in a different state, we wanted her to come with us. She does not have to live in our house, but at least in the area. That being said, Andy now needs to find another job before the end of next year. I hope there is something out there since the economy here totally stinks.
Besides the dogs, we now have a cat. I was driving home one day, towards the end of the school year in late May znd saw this small white pick-up swerve off towards the right side of the road and throw something out the window. I saw this black object exit the truck window, and then stretch out. I pulled up along side of it, and it was a tiny kitten. Oh no, how could someone do that to such a tiny animal? I have had cats before, but I am a sheepdog person deep down in my heart, but I could not leave this little critter there. I did not know if he was hurt or what. So I bring him home, figuring I was going to have to find a home for him. I know a lot of cat people, so maybe not a problem. Anyway, Andy was not home at the time, I went inside and disabled the alarm, holding the kitten the entire time, and the dogs were interested, but not aggressive at all. The kitten on the other hand was in no way afraid of the dogs, so I figured it might be ok if we had to keep the cat a couple of days. Well I spent about an hour sitting on the front porch waiting for Andy to get home to see what we were going to do about this little creature.
We took him to the vet, found out he was in fact a boy and set up an appointment for his first round of shots. Dr. Walker also told is the baby was most likely 5 weeks old, and she gave us directions for a baby diet then how to move it over to a kitten diet. They also ask us for a name. Well this baby is a boy; he is totally black, with no white on him at all. We toyed around with what would be normal black cat names, like midnight, spooky, and the stupid cat name list goes on from there, but he had a “way” about him. So we named him “Cracker”. We figured, blacks call whites cracker, we should name our cat of color cracker in tribute to all our black friends. His name has been a hit with everyone. Several people what to know how we came up with that, most of our black friends, grin and tell us good choice. So now “Cracker” has become a part of the household. He sits on my lap when I stitch and I like that. Andy says I spoil him, and most likely I do, but oh well.
So now on to my new bus duties. I was dreading the bidding for routes this year, knowing full well, I was going to get a big bus, and the kids were going to be awful. That’s sort of how it works, if the kids were great, and then the old bus driver, who has way more seniority than I do for this district would re-bid the same route as last year. So knowing that, I still went and choose a route. My number came up, and I went into the bidding room, about 8 routes left to choose from, I had no idea where these schools were, so I had one of the trainers tell me what the school names were. That was a huge help, since all of them seem to be in the area where I live. I sort of knew where the high school was, it’s brand new, but really had no clue about the middle school or the elementary school. I was totally shocked to find out that the elementary school was just down the block from me, and hidden on top of a hill. Imagine that?
So, I spent the rest of that week driving the route, so I would not look like a total idiot the first day of school. The route is easy, its about 45 mins shorter than the one I had last year, but I’ll learn to live with that. The down side, I drive the middle school kids that live in my neighborhood. That includes the 4 of them that live on my street. Now if I can just avoid getting my house t-peed this year that will be great, since I hate cleaning that stuff up.
But what I really have decided to do this year is work out all my frustrations about the kids, schools, the bus, the PARENTS, and other minor irritants here on my blog. I promise to throw in some stitching stuff as well.
So let me start by saying that I have had my butt chewed 2 times already and it was only the first week of school. Both times are because of PARENTS! Now this leads me to believe that parents are idiots and frankly really stupid. How did this happen? First complaint by a parent was really amazing! I have 57 middle schoolers that I pick up at my last bus stop every day. Yes 57 of the little darlings. They combined 2 bus stops from last year and put the stop on the southern side of a large park in our neighborhood. Last year it was on the northern side of the park. Well since it is my last stop, and I have 45 minuets to get from that stop to the elementary school that less than a mile away I was stopping on the north side to check the bus. It has a really awful feature on it, if you have activated your kid lights, those flashing amber and then red lights, if you turn the bus off, you have to “run” to the back of the bus to open and then close the emergency exit in less than a minuet. If you don’t do that, the entire bus sounds an alarm, and becomes a real pain in the butt to get that alarm silenced. I know because I missed the time line the first day. So anyway, I was doing that the second day, and then had a drink of water and changed the bus radio over to the elementary program before I set off to the elementary school to sit in that parking lot for 30 minuets. Well when I got back to the bus barn, a parent had called in to complain that I was sitting on the north side of the park, and their child had been dropped off on the south side, and why if I was going to stop there to check the bus for students or their belongings, why couldn’t I just let their kid ride the bus to that side so they would not have to walk across the park? At this point I was like “Are you freeking kidding me???” this child is so LAZY that they can not walk across the park, OMG give me a break. So now I get to drive around the park, and go straight to the elementary school and sit there for 45 minuets, instead of at the park for 5 minuets. Well guess what, parent that complained….. Not only will they NOT change the stop for your child… but your bitching did nothing to help your cause at all. Another thing on this bus, I have had a total of 69 middle school age kids on there for 2 trips a day. I was told by a couple of the kids that there are at lest 5 more that were getting rides to school this week, but will be on the bus next week. I hope not because the bus only holds 72 students, and honestly, those seats were not designed for 3 middle school student butts, no matter what the manufacturer says. I would love to meet the butt they used as a guideline for that! I was totally getting bitched at by several students most of last week, because it was so cramped on the bus. Like that’s my fault? So much for birth control… Anyway, I told one student to stop complaining. That if he kept it up I was going to bring bus 523 next week. Now 523 holds 10 kids, I know this because that’s the bus I drove for special needs students last year. Anyway, I told this kid, that I was going to shove, duck tape, and bungee cord all 69 students into bus 523, then when we got to the school, it would look like a Volkswagen discharging midgets at a circus. He was silent after that.
My next butt chewing was only sort of deserved on my part. You decide, here’s the story. I am new at this regular ed rout for this district. I drove reg ed for several years, different district, different policies. So we get these wrist bands we are supposed to put around the students back pack straps so we know that they belong on our bus. Different colors for different busses. They have the student’s name and their bus stop on the band. If we did not have a printed one for the student, we placed a solid color (red for my bus) on their back pack.
This is so THEY can tell what bus they are supposed to be on when we are parked at the school. Good plan. I however did not read the entire directions. I read the part pertaining to placing the bands on the backpacks so that I got that part right. I did not read the bottom part that said, before the student gets off the bus at the bus stop in the afternoon, I’m supposed to look at the wristband, and ensure that they are getting off at the correct stop. My bad! Well the first stop is easy, only one 1st grader there, and her Grandma picks her up at the stop, so easy for me. Stop number 2, half the bus. (Only 40 students on this elementary route) Several of them I recognized as having gotten on at that stop. Then the lat stop the rest of the bus. Well the 2nd day of school, I have this 5th grader that has a scarf thing hanging of her backpack, that gets tangled in the overhead luggage rack, so she is standing on the seat to get it untied, she’s the last one off the bus, so I was there about 4 minuets longer than normal while she did this. Well she gets off the bus, now remember she has had issues, the previous day I would have been gone already, and this parent pulls up behind my bus, rushes out and sticks part of her face into the bus asking for her son and daughter. The bus was empty, so I told her I had no one else left on the bus, and that if I had left them at the school, I would have been contacted by the office to come get them. She says ok, gets in her car and drives off. I get to the bus barn, and go home. Next day, all hell breaks loose. Apparently mom did not see her kids getting off the bus, so she calls her husband on her cell phone and tells him that the kids got off at the wrong stop. The kids in question here are a 4th grader and a 5th grader, and the previous stop is less than 3 blocks apart. So dad calls the head of transportation and calls me incompetent, and a moron, and how can they hire such jerks to drive the bus. Well you get the idea. So my boss calls me in, and tells me this, then asks if I had checks the wrist bands on the kids back packs to make sure they were getting off at the correct stop. And why did I allow those 2 kids to get off at the wrong stop. Well I did confess that I had not read the directions all the way through so I was in error, and that I would rectify that on the ride home. I was also going to place both of the kids in the seat behind me, so that I could ensure they got off at the correct stop. Funny thing, once I had their names, I remembered the 2 kids, the girl got off first and ran up to the house where the bus stops, was on the porch talking to a high school girl, then went in the house. I figured she lived there. WRONG, it’s a friend’s house, the boy was off soon after his sister, and he hitched a ride on the back of the bike of a friend, and the friend drove him home on the back of his bike. I remember this, because I was wondering how safe it was to have that kid on the back of the bike, and the girl’s behavior was weird as well, in her mad dash to get to the friends porch. So by the time, mom actually pulled up to the back of my bus, her kids were almost all the way home, except for the daughter, who was still inside the friend’s house. So mom got her husband all wound up, he called the dept. head and get me in major trouble for no reason at all.
My boss had to call the parent after she had spoken to me, telling him what action she took, and what we would do to fix the problem. By the time she called him, he should have known that his kids had never been in danger, and that they had actually gotten off at the correct stop, but he said nothing to my boss. So to that set of parents, especially the dad, grow a set buster. You’re going to get really tired of your kids complaining that they have to share a seat up behind me for the rest of this year. Maybe in January I’ll let them sit in back again, but not now.
I’m not saying that I was in the right, I have already said that I was in the wrong, I didn’t read that paper all the way through. My fault, but in actual fact, the kids did get off at the correct stop, and if that 5th grade girl had not gotten her scarf all tangled up in the overhead rack, I would have been long gone by the time mom drove up to that stop. I’m sure I’ll have more to say next week.