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We took the girlscouts and family to the circus. There were 13 of us and it was terrific! The clown that blew bubbles with his hands was very interactive with us blowing a square bubble for Tommy. Amy was not scared of the clowns at all but needed frequent walking breaks away from all the noise. Everyone had a great time. Even I didn’t mind spending $40 on cokes and hotdogs! The circus had the heat up and added extra salt to the popcorn in a blatant attempt to sell more drinks. This circus was energetic and overall had one fantastic performance after another. Our seats were perfect.

The boys went with the grandparents to spend the night. We dropped one of the girlscouts off at her house and another one came home with us to spend the night.

Came out of a 2.5 hour IEP at Tommy’s school. The goal was supposed to be to get a clear definition of Tommy’s placement for high school. At the end of the meeting 5 minutes was spent describing the lack of placement options in the high school, the infelxibility in the main stream teachers and their unwillingness to work with special needs children, and the fact that Tommy will spend most of his time in a CDC classroom with extreme behavior problem children. The administration did not write a thing down on the paper as this was described. The nice politicians are very good about creating only the “proper” paper trial. It’s lawsuit time!

School nurse called. Time to go pickup Noah. Symptoms. 99 degree fever, headache and stomach ache. Hmm. Wasn’t Tommy complaining of headache and stomach ache while earlier in the week Cathy, Amy and I all had bad stomaches?

Must go pickup Noah and get back here in time to research TCL before my phone interview in half an hour.

A New Day!

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This Morning

This morning the backs of my tights thighs are so sore it almost hurts to touch them.

Tommy had me up at 5am and although I was fully awake I could not resist the urge to return to bed. I arose again at 6:08 to get the kids going. The morning went smoothly and I even returned in time to see Tommy off to his bus.

This day is going to be fun. The first part of the morning has to be planning for the IEP, confirming there is not a conflict with the recruiters and if not doing a phone interview, and then the actual IEP. That is all before lunch. After lunch I have to rent a drain snake and get this bathroom sink working well so that the 3 teenage girls that will be sleeping here tonight have running water. Additionally, I have to get the whole upstairs scrubbed. Sometime around 5pm all focus has to change to getting our crew out the door for the circus with the girlscouts tonight. Um.. yes, a computer needs to be repaired and something needs to be done to earn some money (guess I’m buying more lottery tickets 🙂 )

Cathy and I shared conversation and watched an episode of Futurama that both of us had somehow never seen before. Sleep came quick.

To help return the favor the entertainment company is giving us for the Zoo event on May 8th I dealt craps at one of their mock casinos. I enjoy these events because the activity and talking doesn’t stop for 4 hours. It’s like juggling only I’m doing it with 15 people, chips and dice. Cathy does not enjoy me doing these events. The evening went quickly.

Afterwards I stopped by Kroger to buy pullups for Noah and beer for me. At the checkout I had an epiphany and looked up at the cashier with a laugh and said “looks like I’m not planning on getting up from the couch tonight.” Smilies were shared by all.

I came home rather bushed and wanted to get my sound system checked out for tonight’s event. However, after a relaxing bath I found the couch all too inviting. Amy was napping, the Sirens on the Couch called and Cathy joined me for a refreshing nap.

Then I had to pick Tommy up from school. On the way there, I played phone tag with one of my recruiters that wants me in a phone interview tomorrow morning. Tommy came out complaining of a headache and the urge to throw up so I recommended we not go to Star and instead go to the doctor’s office. He immediately felt better (I still believe he is down and I think Cathy nailed it with “allergies”). Arriving at Star I warned the instructor that Tommy was “edgy.”

After handing him off to the Star staff, I began 45 minutes of phone calls from the car. I confirmed with the recruiter that the phone interview would not intefere with the 11:30 IEP Cathy and I have with the school (if it goes badly, we may be looking at creating a class action lawsuit..what fun!). During the call the recruiter told me the interview was not really for the company he mentioned in the voicemail, but for a different company going through the first one. This raised a problem as my other recruiter has been pushing me in the 2nd company and it could look bad for me to be “double dipping.” Often hiring managers simply discard candidates that come to the same job from 2 different sources. I called my main recruiter and confirmed some details with him them began phone tag with the other to try to make sure it was truly a different position. Slipped a phonecall into the wife at some point there too.

Tommy did good on his ride threatening to throw up only once. The instructor nipped it in the bud explaining the social inappropriateness of talking about the urge to vomit and suggested that he simply say he is not feeling well and end class early. He quit talking about it.

On the way home I was pulling in for gas. Tommy says, “I need air.” So I stop the car in the road and tell Tommy, “Get out.” He gets out and leaves the car do open so I can’t drive out of traffic. I holler at him to close the door. Then I pull around the grassy median to park opposite of where I dropped Tommy off. When I see Tommy, rather than getting into the grassy part of the median he has sat on the curb, laid back in the grass and extended his legs and feet out into the road. I stop the car and yell at him to get out of the road. As he’s standing there I am talking to him and he just bends over and empties his stomach of the 20 ounce (.6 liter) bottle of Gatorade he drank earlier. This is a skill Tommy can do on demand so you never know if he’s up to something or really sick. I instruct him to go to a safer spot in the median with a nice manhole cover to sit on then I move the car to get gas. I look back and Tommy is spread eagle lying on his back in the grass! I holler at him “get up or I’ll call an ambulance!” The guys on the adjacent pump are confused but watching the whole scene. The station attendant happens to be passing by me to help another customer as I start to call Cathy and scolds me explaining that I cannot make a phone call due to federal law; I almost told him where he could shove the federal law or my cell phone, his choice.

Tommy and I make it home without any further incident and he is told to take a bath..brief whining then he goes.

After dropping Tommy off I run to McDonald’s but have to stop for cash first. Instead of using an ATM I turn in my instant lottery ticket for the $35 winning. I decide to use $5 to buy another ticket. While waiting for my food at McDonald’s I check the ticket and win $10! I’m 2 for 2! I can certainly understand how people get addicted to this kind of game.

I bring the food home for the kids and rapidly get ready for my evening.

Made it to Rocky Hill School by 8:30 and was setup, practicing and ready to go. A little rubber cement on my nose and a good fresh coat on the red ping pong ball assured that I’d have some laughs from the kids by throwing the ping pong ball up and catching it on my nose then balancing it there and taking a bow with the ball still on my nose.

The newspaper was there and I’ll be quoted in Wednesday’s Living section.

I began teaching first grader’s how to juggle. Of the many things that the phrase “herding cats” fits with this is certainly one! It’s much fun!

This was Rocky Hill’s 24th Clown Day. In Knoxville, apparently this is the only school the Ringling Brothers and Barney and Bailey Clowns visit. They always do a remarkable job and I enjoy getting to speak with them.

After teaching the children for an hour and 15 minutes or so the clowns showed up and did an outstanding performance with dogs, juggling, an acordian and remarkable bubbles blown with their hand.

The kids left for lunch and I got to speak with the clowns briefly (always a thrill). Then Amy and Cathy showed up and we got to interact with the clowns briefly until we started to get in the shot that the news was trying to film (we exited quickly at that point and joined Noah for lunch). Amy did good with the clowns. She didn’t seem scared as much as she did the bashful routine she does with strangers.

After lunch I found the first graders had started the next round of activites early so I rushed in to teach my next group. Obviously they were sugared up. The pre-lunch crowd was more focused on learning; the post-lunch crowd just wanted to throw things. There were several students that with some 1 on 1 time I could have had juggling 3 balls in no time flat.

During one of the breaks I actually got some guys and juggled all 5 of my crystal balls. It was beautiful. My pattern seemless. When I did mess up the rubberized gymnasium floor gracefully caught the crystal balls. I did a much better job than I expected. It looks like I’m juggling bubbles when I do it. Must add to the performance!

I enjoy Clown Day very much!

Nooooo! I didn’t win the PowerBall!!! My early retirement!

Amy sitting in my lap eatting a doughnut and chatting away. What a pleasure!

Amy is up and playing happily. I need to leave in 20 minutes and I’m not bathed, dressed (nor do I know what I am wearing), and my gear is not in place. I am unpracticed, un-mic’d, and nervous. I know I will excell. I always do. I need to give my art more daily attention and my gear needs freshening (new decoration, some replacements, etc). I should have 7 balls down by now but to do that I need to order roughly $50 in smaller bean bags.

I think I need to wake the wife.

This Morning

Stressing. I really should wake the wife and ask for her help. I need to stretch. Body sore. I should have laid my clothes out last night. My juggling gear should have already been in order. I go to bed too early and sleep too late all the time!

Blast my memory. A mom at Krispy Creme said we could take the report cards somewhere else for something else free.

Must do’s! Juggle and teach juggling at the school for clown day (morning and mid afternoon). (late afternoon) Prepare for casino tonight; ie. refresh my mind on terminology, test wireless mic with small speakers. Submit a resume. (evening) Mock casino; deal craps.

Last Night

I took Noah to soccer and practiced juggling. I went around the bend so that the kids couldn’t see me and be distracted. I still had enough of a view to be able to tell Noah to pay attention and ask him to quick karate kicking the other players (the 7 yr old boys love that game!).

Came home and prompted Tommy to get out of the tub which was a task. Spent time in bed talking to wife and eatting ice cream and watching Futurama.

Ok. TN got the PowerBall this week so yesterday I bought 5 computer quick picks. Today I got a card because I wanted to hand pick a couple of numbers (I’m not going to regularly play). I also bought a scratch and win card. If I am reading this right, my scratch and win card just paid me $35! That puts me up $29 on the TN lottery so far 🙂