It’s minutes to 4:00 am and I was thinking, “what’s wrong with me?”

I mean, not like boohoo, more like, if I can figure it out, I can fix it. Right?

Being me, being lazy (hey, maybe that’s what’s wrong with me!), I take the easy way. I go to my igoogle page, and see the minimized 3-card tarot reading module. I open it up, type in the question, “what is wrong with me?” and got this:

Being me, I want to interpret it in a way that makes me look better. So I interpret it thusly:
Card 1 – Hey, I’m assessing the situation right now!
Card 2 – I’m going to get a job in the public sector, helping people! And I’m a Libra, of course I’ll be all balancy.
Card 3 – I’m not unemployed, I’m simply waiting for the right opportunity. Uh huh.

Sounds good to me. I think I’ll believe in tarot for today.

Just a mother ranting about the sorry-ass school her kid is going to.

You’ve been warned.

I pushed for my kid to go to this newish arts high school when she was hitting 9th grade.
Midway through the first year, she started getting frustrated. She’s kinesthetic, they teach visual.

We talked to her teachers, talked to the “head” teacher, nothing.
I talked to him about the lack of communications, the way the website was months old and only focused on his pet projects. I mentioned how the theatre kids worked their asses off and were repaid by seeing the older kids getting all the credit. I mean, the seniors are the ones going to Scotland, not anyone else.

We hoped this year would be better. We had heard that it would, from an outgoing senior. Every year it gets better.
So they changed the grading format. Swell. She’s still getting great grades, but not because she’s picking it up. It’s crazy.

She tried to talk to them, they sent her home with a printout explaining why it was all her problem, not theirs. She gave up. They won’t listen, she stopped trying. She even told them that – something to the effect that she needed to work on her communication skills, because obviously they weren’t understanding what she was saying.

They have a plethora of “guest artists” who teach classes – they have no teaching skills. And I have doubts about their abilities in their own realms. I mean, who the hell freehands a 6-ft wide circle? I’m no art person, but even I know how to use a pencil and a piece of string to draw a circle.

See picture – you can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be. Hint: it’s supposed to be a camera lens with an eyeball inside.
They also included a bunch of stuff in it that the school doesn’t even teach – how is that representing the school?

I tried to get a picture of the mural from the school website, but despite the fact that 10 or so kids (and a few parents) gave up their entire summers to paint the entire outside wall of their building, it’s apparently not important enough to include.

So we’re going to apply for a transfer. Who’d have thunk – a kid of mine, wanting OUT of a new-fangled arts high school and back into the mainstream. But you know, it’s a lesson. Different isn’t always better. I fear for the kids who go through this school thinking that they’ll be able to function in the real world. There’s a point where idealism can be dangerous, you know?

I’m a little cranky about it, I guess. I wanted this school to be so great – and instead it’s done nothing but cause my kid enough stress that she was physically ill at the end of the year last year, and for the last week she’s been texting me from class saying, “have you called the other school yet? Get me out of here!”

As a side note, the school she’s supposed to go to, well, I can’t even get them to answer the damn phone after calling every day this week, at different times of day, and their website has the calendar from the 08-09 school year up. So off we go to the next one – which is actually looking like it’s a good school. They have a current calendar on their website and everything.

Um, that’s all. Sorry. But I warned you.

Because nothing tastes better with cabbage, than cabbage…and tomatoes and zucchini and carrots and beans and corn and stewed tomatoes and whatever else you can cram in a pot.

Now that we have a big freezer, I’m allowed to make “cabbage” soup again. Super-veggie stew. It’s based on that cabbage-soup diet thing that was flying around years ago, modified I’m sure, but still super healthy and really nice for this change in the weather.

It starts like this:

1 BIG pot to cook in
1 head cabbage. Never tried it with purple…hmm.
V8 Juice – 2 large cans

Shred the hell out of the cabbage, put it in the pot with a can of V8. A couple cloves of garlic maybe. Let it simmer for an hour or so before adding carrots, then a bit later start adding everything else. Really – add any veggies you like, even some you don’t because if you cut them up small enough, you don’t even know they are there (which is why we shredded the cabbage).

You can season it, a little Johnny’s Magic and black pepper, white pepper, basil and all that.

Sometimes, if we are feeling feisty, I’ll add kielbasa or something like that. Top each bowl with a little shredded cheese. Rolls with sour cream make a nice accompaniment. Something rich to contrast the super-healthy soup.

It’s good stuff. It makes a lot though – so be prepared to eat it for days, or bag half of it up for the freezer. That’s what I’m doing this time – I’ve been told that there is a 2 day limit on eating this soup, as good as it is. Ah well, it’ll be handy later in the winter.

Oh – a note about the V8. I use it because it has lots of veggies in it, and nothing else. You can use regular tomato juice if you like, but before you go for the store brand, check the ingredients. They tend to add salt that really isn’t needed.