Anyone else drinking entirely too much during this Covid stuff? I have bought a couple of handles of Tito's vodka in the last couple of months. I used to keep vodka in the house kind of like my parents kept vodka in the house. They would have it on hand for their one friend who came over to play bridge every few months and for the two bloody Mary's per year that my mom would take down. That was me. Old Tito Santana would last me like a year. Now I've crushed a couple handles! And that's not all I drink. There's beer, whiskey, and wine too. Don't get me wrong here; I'm not wasted all the time. But a few every night starts adding up, and I'm not the only guy getting after it because my building's recycle bin always looks like the morning after a frat party.

It's just that there's nothing stopping me from having a few libations just about every night. But I can't be doing that when the world goes back to normal.

Take tonight for instance. I was watching a bootleg Kodi version of the new Pete Davidson movie and was hit with the slightest pinge of sadness. Instead of thinking about what it is that was really on my mind I just poured a tall glass of some brown liquid and no ice. That never sounded that great to me before on a Wednesday, and now I'm loving how it makes my belly burn.

Other than an increase in the hitting of the sauce everything is pretty much okay. Mrs. Noisewater and I have been able to work from home, and our daycare let us send the kids back. Thank God! You know how hard it was with both of us trying to work from home with the two kids all day. In the morning the two of us would go over our schedules and it would be like:

Me: What you got today? I got a 9AM and a 12PM.
Mrs. Noisewater: 9AM and 12PM.for me too! Damn!
Me: Okay, no problem, I guess. We can put Erik on the iPad and Desi can . . . just chew on my laptop wire. I usually don't let him do that, but we got to get through these meetings.

Tomorrow Mrs. Noisewater and I are going to treat ourselves to a happy hour with our bikes and the bike trailer and then pick up the kids afterwards. It will be the first time the two of us have been alone and out somewhere since this thing started, and I'm pretty excited about it. We found a bar with a patio near the daycare. Don't worry, I won't be tanked. Just a couple drinks outside with the wife, trying to feel like normal happy people in Chicago at the start of the summer, how we are supposed to be feeling under normal circumstances.

How is everyone else doing? I'm sorry I've been such a crummy blogger. I'll try to be better. For real, tell me how you're all doing if you catch this post. Hope you and your families are well. 

The Crying In Room 304

Many of you don't know what it is I do for work (and when I say "many of you" I mean 6 out of the around 7 people or so who read this page), but I'm a school social worker for the Chicago Public Schools. I realize this is maybe the last thing you would guess that I do given my warped sense of humor, but I swear it's true.

So at the end of the day on Thursday, which was like a Friday because the next day was a teacher's institute day, I get the call from the principal to go into room 304. As I'm making my way to this assignment, I'm wondering what sort of class-wide problem I would be dealing with. This was not going to be an individual student's problem. Something went down for this whole class, so even if I was tired and not feeling up to this at all, I started to psych myself up so that I could step in there as Dr. Noisewater cranked to eleven and ready to command that room.

Even before I opened the door, I could hear the sobs of 30 (our school is overcrowded) fourth graders. The class rotates between two teachers, one teaching math and science, and the other teaching reading and writing. So who does social studies? I have no idea, but that's not important. What happened was this teacher's partner (their other teacher) across the hall announced that it was her last day, and she announced this by crying like crazy in front of children. Now this other poor teacher was stuck with hysterical kids picking up on that emotion and carrying on all afternoon, which must be why she called for backup.

So I did the type of crap they taught me to do in graduate school, but more accurately it's just instincts and common sense. First I validated their feelings, so I let them know it is okay to feel the way they were and that showed what a nice group of kiddos they were to care so much about their teacher. Then I asked them to tell me more about their teacher so that I could know too how special she was. They all had a lot of nice things to say. All I know about her is she taught at the school for one quarter and then took a maternity leave gig closer to her house. This is a move that I get so that she can cut her commute down and be with her family more, but there usually is no guarantee of a full time position when you fill a maternity leave position. So it seems risky, but maybe her spouse makes a lot of dough? I didn't get into that with the kids; It's just what was running through my head. Also I was thinking, if they think they are miserable now, just wait until they have some crummy permanent sub every day for 3/4 of the school year and everything will be chaos. That I didn't share either.

So then I started asking some ideas of what they could do to show how much they care for her. This is when hands started going up, and as their brains started firing with ideas, the crying slowly stopped. These youngsters had some awesome ideas too. I seriously should have been putting a few on Pinterest. I remember one very bright young lady saying they could have a giant poster board where everyone pasted little mini books on there where you could turn a few pages of each with little stories about what they will remember about her. That was the winner. That was a dope idea.

One student asked why she was leaving them. I let the students know that it is important not to see it as her leaving them, but her taking an opportunity. As hard a decision as it was for her, she had to do what was best for her family. This is when I related a personal situation to help them better understand. I said, "How many of you had Mr. Gung Ho for gym class?" A lot of hands went up and many of them smiled and wanted to tell stories about how funny he was. This was not a shy class - and everyone wanted to talk. I said, "Yeah, he was a very good teacher and a very good friend of mine. I miss him all the time. Was I sad when I heard he was taking a different job? You bet. But I was happy for him. He too took a job nearby his house so that he could be with his family more and not in his car two hours every day. So we should be happy for miss what's-her-name too. What is her name, anyway? Crying lady." I'm just kidding. I knew her name. But honestly I just learned her name that day because she was only with us for one quarter.

Anyway, it's true what I said about Gung Ho, and I didn't know how true until I found myself telling those kids about it. I really do miss him. Sometimes we would both be busy, and it's such a big school that we would only cross paths once in a given week - but that was enough if one of us got off a one-liner and had each other laughing our way all the way down the hall. You need that person at your place of business who shares your sense of humor and keeps you from getting too serious and crabby.

How about you, Seven Readers? Who is your Gung Ho around the office, and what's something funny the two of you crack jokes about?

My Coworker's Mom's Ex Boyfriend: A Bookie for the Mob

I went out to lunch during a work day, and I saw one of my coworkers sitting in a booth.  He eats there just about every Monday through Friday.  Even if I really wanted to sit by myself and read about Chicago sports and text jokes to my friends, the right thing to do was go sit by him.  I just didn't feel like hearing him bitch about work because getting out of the office for lunch is a time to think about anything but the office.  Actually, he may have been thinking, "Oh crap.  Here comes Dr. Ken to come saddle in here and make annoying observations for his stupid blog."  That's entirely possible.  Sometimes I wish people could be honest with each other and just ask, "mind if I join you?" and the other person could respond either way without hurting anyone's feelings.

So this guy was telling me how excited he was to go to the Kentucky Derby with some friends to drink a ton and bet a bunch of money on little men riding on horses running around in a circle.  He really likes gambling.  He spends every few Saturdays at a race track near his house drinking three dollar beers and betting every race until the joint closes.  He really seems to know his stuff, but then again, gamblers never seem to tell you about the times they lost.

I asked him how he got so knowledgeable about betting the ponies, and apparently his mom's ex boyfriend would take him to the track when he was a kid, starting when he was around eleven years old, and schooled him on how to research and pick a winning bet.  The mom's boyfriend used to be a bookie for the mob, but he had left that life behind to drive a taxi cab.  Still, it was still strange that he drove a taxi in the suburbs but somehow always had giant wads of one hundred dollar bills wherever he went.  I guess he was a pretty great guy, and he took my coworker out for a steak dinner and gave him two hundred bucks for his birthday every year.  Even after his mom and the guy broke up, this dude continued to take him out for his birthday dinner until my coworker was around 19-years-old.  That is around the time his health started failing and he soon passed away.  I think he was a little bit older than the mom.

I asked why it didn't work out, and he said, "I don't know because he was a really great guy.  I think my mom was just too much to deal with."

I said, "So the ex (but probably current) bookie for the mob wasn't the problem in the relationship; your mom was."

"Yeah, pretty much," he said, finishing the last few bites of his omelette and getting a look at his check.

Walmart: It's Sad In There

I had to go to Walmart for something, and I learned that Walmart is just about the saddest place in America.  I was looking for knee pads for volleyball, and no one seemed to know a damn thing about them.  They would stop other staff members and ask them, and each person knew nothing.  Then they called over the intercom for someone for sporting goods to come over, and no one came.  The more I think about it, all the people working there seemed to be just wandering sadly and aimlessly.  I didn't take it personally that no one gave a shit.  They just seem to have really crummy jobs.

"Anything I can help you with, or shall I flag someone else down who doesn't know anything about this dump?"

Anyway, while I was there I picked up a pair of pants to wear to work.  I left the newly purchased pants folded up as is and put them into my gym bag to wear the next day.  After the next morning's workout, I'm walking to my car and hear, "Hey, boss.  You get some new pants?"  I said, "I have tags on my pants don't I?"  To which he said with a chuckle, "All over, dude."

First off, he was very much a gym bro-type-guy, a little condescending, and I don't like being called boss by people who aren't my employees.*  However, it was nice of him to let me know so that I didn't walk into work with size 34 x 34 all up and down the back of my pants.  That's why I didn't notice the tags when I put them on - they were all on the back.  That's no excuse.  It was pretty stupid on my part.  Sometimes I think I might be dumb enough to work at Walmart.

-------------------------------------------
wI don't have any employees.

I work with this woman who I'm not too crazy about, and the more she goes on and on at meetings, the more crazy I start going.  In about three consecutive meetings she has said "strag-e-dies" instead of strategies.  I was screaming inside my head, mad as hell that someone could get over 40-years-old in a professional setting still saying a word that horribly incorrect.  Then "Tragedy" by Bee Gees popped in my head for reasons I at first didn't know, but then I laughed having realized that I was singing "Stragedy!"

Songs pop in my head all the time and crack me up.  There are people I see every day who have no idea that they have their very own theme song playing in my head when they walk in the room.  And it's a good trick that I recommend to keep you from getting too serious and angry at work.  Just assign that awful person a funny song and get through that meeting, humming and laughing to yourself like a crazy person.

I had one of those days at work yesterday where I wasn't feeling well, and I was being pulled in a thousand directions and never felt like I could get each task done right before getting yanked into the next more urgent thing.  The whole time I knew the day would be capped off with the wake of my friend's mom who just died.

And wakes are not fun.  So I'm mingling through the wake, and I'm not a strong mingler to begin with, but put a dead person in the room and I'm twice as bad.  It's really hard because you see someone you haven't seen in a while, and you blurt out how good it is to see them and you got a big smile, but then you catch yourself looking too happy, so you dial it back down with a frown and smooth it over with something like "I just wish it wasn't under these circumstances."  I could maybe blame it on being sick, but it's probably more about the crippling fear of me and everyone I care about getting older and dying. I left thinking what a terrible performance I put on in there.  I know I'm as sad as just about anyone in there, but while I'm in there I can't get over my own shit to just act normal.  So I cried in the parking lot a little.  

Driving back to the city from the burbs at around 8 at night, I find myself dozing off.  I switched over to the naughty station on my Sirius radio thinking that sex stuff will keep me awake, and there is a porno actress giving relationship advice to callers who want advice from porno actresses.  The one guy says that his relationship with his girlfriend is not going well and he has a couple of "side chicks" going.  Porno actress host says that the right thing to do would be to end things with the girlfriend because it's not fair to carry on these other relationships with her around.  Now there is proof that women in the "industry" are not without morals, right?  Then the caller says that his girlfriend is crazy for a variety of reasons, and porno actress does a total 180 and says "Oh yeah.  She's crazy.  I guess just keep it going with those side chicks."  What the heck?  How quickly she changed her tune!  Now, I realize these women are not without their foibles, but stand by your convictions, woman!

Anyway, to sum up, or if you just skimmed to the end:

Paragraph One: Dr. Ken bitches about having a bad day at work and feeling sick, as if that doesn't happen to everyone.

Paragraph Two: Dr. Ken's dear mother of his good friend died, and she was the sweetest woman you could ever know and baked the world's best chocolate chip cookies that the whole block tried in vane to duplicate.  She left us far too early and she will be missed.  And nobody knows how to act at a wake.

Paragraph Three: As you may have already suspected, porno ladies are not the best place to seek relationship advice.

2 Snow Days!

I just had two snow days right after a two week vacation, so this is my sixteenth day off of work.  It has been below 20 degrees outside, many offices have shut down, and people on Facebook have been stepping outside to toss boiling water into the air to film it turn into ice-cold vapor instantly.  From what I have heard about what it's like out there, I decided to stay inside for these two days.  Here is what I have been doing.

1. Reading. I just finished the Johnny Carson biography and last night, during some awesome insomnia, I read almost all of "Juliet, Naked" by Nick Hornby.  I like using the kindle because I can click a word, and it instantly tells me what it means.  One word I don't use nearly enough is wont, as in "I'm wont to staying cooped up in my apartment for days at a time and steadily losing my mind."

2. Working out.  But not at the gym.  It's far to cold to go all the way over there.  I have weights and things at home and an application on my phone where I can search for workouts to do, it gives me instructions how to do each exercise, and then I get points when I'm done!  What do I get for these points?  I have no idea.  There is no winning, just more points - not unlike Donkey Kong.  I also like when the computerized voice chimes in to say "You can do it."  Thanks, robot fitness lady!

Hey, I just had a thought.  Why don't they have video game based workouts, like jumping over barrels thrown by donkey kong, or pedaling a bike that powers Pac-Man faster, and making turns somehow to get power pellets and ghosts?  Probably this has already been done in some variation, but I think the classic games would hook in the aging people who loved those games and need more work out motivation.  I know at least one guy that fits that description.

3. Actual work for my actual job.  I just did an hour or two of that.  I was desperately hoping that I couldn't get logged into the system and would have an excuse to blow it off, but alas, it bloody worked.  Anyone else hope for good excuses like that?

4. I finally broke down and threw out all my old VHS tapes.  Considering I don't have a VCR and most everything can be replaced on DVD or laser disc and there is no space in this tiny apartment, they had to go.  But as some of you know, books and music and things are kind of like my little friends and so hard to part with.  Two that I didn't dump was a recording of Super Bowl XX when the Bears won (along with the victory parade) and the original Star Wars movies in widescreen format and before Lucas went back and put in the piss poor cartoons and things and ruined entire scenes.  But when am I seriously going to ever convert those things to DVD's?  Likely never.  They'll just sit in a corner somewhere being ancient and awesome and every day increasing the likelihood that if ever put into a VCR, the tape will shoot out like a ticker tape parade.  Kind of sad, really . ..

5. Listening to lots of music.  I have kept my iPod in the next room and have not allowed myself any skips.  You would be surprised with the stuff you own and like when you have tons of weird music and can't remember where it all came from, like me.  We can find value in a song when we don't immediately jump at the chance to skip it without giving it a fair chance.  I just heard this cover of the Flaming Lips by Postal Service that I didn't even know I had.



How about you, Seven Readers?  What have you been up to?  Has it been this cold out by you?  Did you miss any work as a result?

I was working in a not-so-good neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago today, and one of my coworkers stepped across the street to get coffee at a greasy spoon called G & N Breakfast.  The older gentleman who said he was the owner asked her nationality, she told him Irish, and he discerned that she is probably a democrat.  Sloppily shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, he then asked if she worked at the school across the street and asked how she can stand working with all those niggers.  She said that's not a word she is okay with, to which he said it should be fine to say that because they call each other that all the time.  Of course, rather than realizing or caring that he had offended his customer, he went on spouting off anti Black statements and said the N in his business' name stood for niggers and the G for some other racial slur (Roughly 70% of his business would be African American on a day-to-day basis).  She was mad, but remaining calm, she just told him that being Greek, he is only a few shades lighter than those he hates so much.  This made him really mad, and he started spitting his hash browns all over the place while he yelling God knows what as she left.

Later I told the Mexican maintenance man (who I call Amigo and he calls me Amigo) at the work site about the exchange, and he said he has known that guy for years and he's a right prick who yells at his staff and calls them idiots all the time in front of customers.  Amigo said he told the guy he would whip his ass if he ever talked to him like that.  Apparently the owner was a Chicago cop who bought the place since 1959 after getting shot in the arm.  Doesn't sound like his world view has changed much since 1959 . . .

So, if you ever want to get in a time machine and meet a real live racist from the days of the Civil Rights movement, go visit him at G & N Breakfast on the West Side of Chicago.  If you would like to bring along some fire hoses and dogs to turn the tides on him, I certainly would not object.

Strike!

I'm on strike right now, along with the rest of the workers at my job.  It has been difficult for me because I'm not getting paid and don't get benefits while it drags on.  I want to return to work, but not without a fair contract.  Some things have been fun, like the Hasidic Jewish guy who pulled up in his car to yell and swear at us that he is out of work, so we should be lucky to have a job. 

Overall, I would say 99% of the response from the public I have encountered has been positive, especially among city workers such as the police, fireman, streets and sanitation, and transportation.  They have been giving thumbs up and honking and waving, which has kept us going, and for me even gives me a chill inside, reminding me that we're fighting for the right reasons.  Despite the fact that most people seem supportive, the press has been overwhelmingly one-sided and presenting skewed facts.  So, you get guys like the dumb ass I saw today standing in his office window around 12 stories up, wielding a baseball bat.  I motioned for him to come on down and discuss things with the all of us, but he was content staying perched up there. 

Passing the time has been one of the biggest challenges.  Today I decided to go for a jog with a giant sign wrapped around my torso, and I enlisted a new a coworker to join me.  He is under even more stress than me, being a newly married first year employee who hadn't even gotten his first paycheck with the strike hit.  Since I figure running helps me clear my head, I thought it could be good for him, which I think it was because he is excited to do it again tomorrow.  Believe it or not, I think my fellow workers and others were responding well to our athletic approach to picketing.  I'm hoping more keep joining in like where Rocky runs with all those Philadelphia citizens of all ages in the movie.  That or I'll just drink too much coffee and eat lots of donuts and go pee a few dozen times at McDonalds (which I feel weird about so I always try to buy something).

Then just when I was feeling really inspired and excited to get home to make a "Fight the Power" playlist for my cohorts, I found that my external hard drive crapped out and I lost all my music.  This was at first a dramatic blow for me, but after sitting down to write this post, I have already mellowed out and see the big picture.  How many songs that might be gone forever off my iTunes is annoying, but I have a pretty terrific life with lots of wonderful people around me.  Until next time . . .

Thanks for reading. 

Bring Your Screaming Kid To Work Day

I was extremely hungover from cheap draft beer while on my lunch break at my part time job, and it seemed as if it was Bring Your Screaming Kid to Work Day.  They were all playing off each other like the most perfectly awful orchestra of all time.  The worst culprit, of course, was seated (more like standing in his booth) directly next to me.  This young man looked to be around four years old and was just yelling away, and not in the way of an angry fit because he was smiling.  No, this rapscallion was bellowing to his heart's content just to get his jollies, and what really bugged me is that the parents didn't say anything as he did this over-and-over.

You have to understand, after dealing with the public for all those hours, I just wanted those 15 minutes to be somewhat quiet.  I realize parenting is difficult, but if you don't say anything to the kid screaming for no reason, the kid gets the message that he can do whatever he wants.  Why don't you just let him drive home if that's how it's going to be?*

After the seventh or eighth howl, I let out one of my own.  If he did another, I did another.  If he banged the table, I banged the damn table.  As this continued, I started to get odd looks from the surrounding patrons, and some moved away from me, but I could get no reaction from the family I was trying to annoy.  At long last, the kid's mother said to me, "Could you please stop doing that?"  I said to her, "Gee.  That's something I thought you might want to say to your kid, since he has been carrying on like that for my whole damn lunch break, but you feel it easier to ask a perfect strange to stop doing it, even if in my case it was just to make a point?"

Zing!  I had this awful parent right where I wanted.  Nope.  This is when she told me that her son has Autism and can't help doing that.  "Oh," I said.  "That's a rough one.  God bless you."  Then I got the hell out of there and some tables booed me, some threw fries, and I narrowly missed getting dowsed in a Jamba Juice.

----------------------------------------
*The events in this story stop being true after this point.

So I get a phone call this morning from downtown saying that there has been a change in my assignment and there was going to be a change in my schedule.  Then this woman, in a very matter of fact way, informed me that I would no longer be at the same office.  I told her this was not good news for me, and then she tried to explain that a lot of people like the hours I would have.  I let her know that it's not the schedule that bothers me, it's the fact that place has been like my home, like a family.  She apologized but told me that there is nothing they can do with so many retirees this past year, them not hiring anyone else because of the budget, and assignments going to people with more seniority.

After I was done talking to her, as I thought more about missing all these people I have come to know and love, I started to cry.  I only cry about once every two or three years, so that's kind of a big deal.  Then as I'm pumping my iPod full of aggressive heavy metal music to go on an angry therapeutic run, the same woman calls me back to tell me that because I seemed upset about that decision, she was able to move some things around and keep me at the same place.  They will let me know for sure by the end of the week.

So all that crying for nothing?  Not really because I think this happened to make me appreciate what a great job I have, somewhere I love going every morning, and how that could all change any day.