Baltimore Diary

And Now, a Period of Darkness

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Mr. Lies: The price of rootlessness, motion sickness. Only cure, keep moving.

—Angels in America (2003)

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Moving Day. I'll be dismantling the computer now. Catch you on the other side.

Not Helping

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Da Mayor: Doctor...
Mookie: C'mon, what.
[beat]
Mookie: What?
Da Mayor: Always do the right thing.
Mookie: [stares at him a moment] That's it?
Da Mayor: That's it.
Mookie: I got it, I'm gone.

—Do the Right Thing (1989)

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There's been a lot of time pressure on the IEP Teams in Baltimore City (and, I presume, elsewhere in the state) these last few weeks because of the standardized tests. First they do two weeks of the Maryland State Assessment for grades 3—6 (in my school's case), then there's a week of the Stanford 10 for grades 1 & 2. This week is Stanford Week.

The reason it becomes a timing issue is because the teachers are unavailable to attend the meetings if they're all proctoring the tests. Fortunately the tests are only in the mornings, so we can just schedule them in the afternoons.

The problem now becomes holding the same number of meetings that you did previously. Wait, that's not quite true. The problem becomes holding MORE meetings than usual because we're also dealing with the new referrals from parents who just saw the second quarter report cards, and the re-scheduled meetings that were cancelled when it snowed a few weeks ago. The solution for me is to temporarily stage a second day for holding meetings. So for three or four weeks, I'm holding six meetings over two afternoons rather than three or four meetings over the course of one day.

Add to this the fact that I have 1) a thorough team that really discusses the student (many people will give it little more than lip service), and 2) an administration that has a "hakuna matata" attitude about attending the meetings, and you're going to wind up with meetings that continue past the end of the day. Not a long time past, but definitely past.

What doesn't help is the teacher who's decided that she's put in her Seven Hours and Five Minutes already and isn't going to stay one second beyond what the contract says. It certainly doesn't help when it took forever to find that teacher, for whatever reason, and we wound up waiting fifteen minutes for her to arrive so that we could get started. It's ALSO a problem when that same teacher walks through the door forty minutes late and, first thing out of her mouth, announces that she's not staying. Okay, Lady.

(Note to women: When a man addresses you as "Lady," he no longer thinks so.)

So there's a meeting that we didn't get to hold, which means that we could wind up in violation of timelines established by Federal Law and/or the Baltimore City Consent Decree. Let her explain it to the principal, who'll get the written reprimand if that's what happens.

Can you tell I'm sick of my team being treated like second class citizens? Or was this all too subtle?

(This is not, incidentally, why I was in such a bad mood this weekend. But it's another brick on the pile.)

Boxing Days

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[Peering out the window]
Phoebe: Hey. It looks like Ugly Naked Guy is moving.
Ross: Ironically, most of the boxes are labeled "clothes."

—Friends, "The One Where Everybody Finds Out" (2/11/99)

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This weekend was our last big push to get stuff packed. There's still a bunch of stuff out and about the house but we're about done, for the most part. I'll be dismantling this computer on Tuesday night, so if I post later this week, it's because I punched a hole in the firewall at work. (I've been pondering just paying for a proxy server.) The movers come on Wednesday and anything that's still here afterwards I'm sure we can handle. The renters get to move in on Sunday, assuming they have their first month's rent in their hands. 

That's going to leave me Thursday and Friday nights, and Saturday to finish getting the house in shape. The funny thing is that we're doing a bunch of projects that we've put off, so now the new people can enjoy them.

For instance, we finally put in the new bathtub a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, we discovered today that it has a small leak—I think it's in the overflow—so that will have to be taken care of.

Also on the agenda: Putting baseboard molding in the living room. I just never got to it and then I didn't want to move all the furniture around. So there's molding on exactly one wall of the room right now. There's also a repair that I have to make to the heating duct for the living room, and I have to replace the dryer vent. That's not an old project, though: we discovered that problem very recently.

Then, I guess, on Saturday we'll also take the time to rent one of those extractor carpet shampooers and clean all the carpets. Busy!

Bad Mood

Carolyn Burnham: Don't you mess with me, mister, or I'll divorce you so fast it'll make your head spin!
Lester Burnham: On what grounds? I'm not a drunk, I don't fuck other women, I've never hit you, I don't mistreat you... I don't even try to touch you since you've made it so abundantly clear how unnecessary you consider me to be! But I did support you when you got your license, and some people might think that entitles me to half of what's yours. So, turn off the light when you come to bed!

—American Beauty, 1999

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I'm remarkably pissed off right now. I don't want to go into greater detail because that wouldn't be the right thing to do just now. But ask me again in six months. 

Big Steaming Piles of Irony

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Joe Patroni: When I was a mechanic in the Air Force, I was being transferred on a MATS plane. At 20,000 feet, one of the windows shattered. The guy sitting next to it was about 170 pounds. He went through that little space like a hunk of hamburger going down the disposal. Right after him coats, pillows, blankets, cups, saucers. Yeah, I'm sure!
Mel Bakersfeld: Takes about 3 seconds, doesn't it?
Joe Patroni: 3, 4 or 5, depends on the size of the hole. Everything fogs up just like that. [snaps fingers] And THEN watch out! At that altitude, you can't breathe. So unless they get on oxygen in 45 seconds, it's good-bye!

—Airport (1970)

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There's a modified Recreational Vehicle that cruises around the city. It's called the Breathmobile, and it's the culmination of a bunch of work from the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America, the University of Maryland Hospital for Children, the pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smith Kline, Baltimore City Public Schools and the Baltimore City Health Department.

This thing is a state-of-the-art mobile health clinic which evaluates and treats children for asthma. I've seen it at two different schools, although I understand that it serves nineteen schools in Baltimore City alone, plus a few Head Start programs and a few others.

The Breathmobile, which is dedicated to the children of our city breathing a little bit easier, comes to the school early in the day and parks somewhere within very close proximity to the building. Then, so as not to be too disruptive on the students' schedules, the Breathmobile remains at the school for the entire day.

With, it appears, the engine running the whole time.

Contradiction in Terms

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Chandler: I'm gonna be moving out, so you are gonna be in charge of paying the rent.
Joey: Right! And when is that deal?
Chandler: First of the month.
Joey: And that's every month?
Chandler: No, just the months you actually want to live here.

—Friends, "The One on the Last Night: (11/4/99)

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Another reason to hate Countrywide Home Loans.

I refinanced the Morrell Park house in January so that we'd have money for a down payment on the new place, whenever we found one. I had a new account number but hadn't gotten a bill yet, so I simply set up the automatic payments to continue, with the new account number. I did it the same way, with slightly more than half the monthly payment every two weeks. In any given four-week period, Countrywide would be getting about $70 MORE than I owed each month.

My first payment was due on March 1. By the time that date rolled around, they'd actually gotten three payments. Shortly after that they got a fourth. This past weekend I get a pre-recorded call: "Please call Countrywide at blahdeblah." I call the number and of course, it's the weekend so nobody's there.

Yesterday I make the call again and they tell me that the March payment hasn't been received. Wait a minute, I said. You guys got money at the end of January, two in February and two since then. I should be half a payment ahead, not behind at all.

That's not the way it works, they say. When a partial payment comes in then they count it as a "partial" and put the whole thing towards principal because they basically can't figure out what else to do with it.

Ultimately, what they do is take the four payments and convert them into two separate payments for February and for March, and the leftover $130-something goes to principal. Now, how can I continue my pattern of payment, which is much more stable for me financially, without going through this again?

"Well, we can put you on a payment plan," the rep says, and puts me on hold to transfer me to another department.

So the other department picks up a couple of minutes later and the payment plan looks like a great idea, except that the way it works is that they'd take the money directly out of my account (as opposed to my sending the payments to them), and I'd have to pay $4 per transaction to do it this way. That would add up to $104 per year that COULD be going to something more useful, like about 35 large Polish sausages from Polock Johnny's. More, if you buy them by the box. Anyway.

I immediately object to this, because I have Internet banking and I'm already paying out automatically and not paying extra for the privilege. But if I continue doing it this way then I'm going to run into this trouble every month. "Is there something I can do to avoid that?" No. "Perhaps if I put something in writing?"

"You could do that," she conceded, "but there are so many accounts that we can't count on people following the directions."

This is exactly what you like to hear, that you're just one in the faceless crowd. What's more, this basically boils down to the idea that even if I put it in writing, there's nobody at the receiving end who's smart enough to put a flag of some kind on my account that this is my intent in paying in this fashion. I realize finally that I'm wasting my time and ask for a supervisor.

Another couple of minutes' wait. By now I'm on the phone for forty-five minutes. The supervisor comes on and I go through the entire story and he completely understands, he totally understands, he's very sympathetic, he realizes exactly what I'm talking about, but basically indicates that they're unwilling to deal with it any other way than the way that costs an extra hundred bucks a year. (I'd paraphrased something he'd said using the word "unwilling" and he gave me an unequivocal "yes" to that.)

So I'm back to monthly payments (still putting in the extra seventy bucks) but I'm totally bailing on Countrywide come next summer. I'd say they've pissed me off for the last time but I'm sure they have some other card up their sleeve somewhere. Fuckwits.

Erin Go Bragh-less

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Rufus T. Firefly: Now that you're Secretary of War, what kind of an army do you think we ought to have?
Chicolini: Well, I tell you what I think, I think we should have a standing army.
Rufus T. Firefly: Why should we have a standing army?
Chicolini: Because then we save money on chairs.

—Duck Soup (1933)

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So the plan was to go to New York today and see Daughter in a play. Which meant that if I was going to do the corned-beef-and-cabbage thing, I'd probably do it on Friday.

Then came all the sleet and the ice and the Goddamn, What a Mess. I called Daughter and told her that it wouldn't be likely that I'd come up because of the weather. By that point there'd already been something like two hours of the sleet and it was clearly starting to create trouble. Later on, I talked to her mother and she said that it was even worse up there. She completely agreed with the decision to stay down here. So I, thinking that we can do the Irish meal on Saturday, got something else together for dinner instead.

This morning we decided to put a few boxes in the car and take care of two things: 1) Drop the boxes off at the new place, and 2) buy a new washer and dryer for the house. We knew which model and everything, and we were going to buy them at Boscov's. So at about 11:30 we headed up to White Marsh and talked to the salesman there. He pretty much confirmed our choice as being good for us, and set up the sale and the delivery.

We then went to the Fuddrucker's in the mall for lunch. You kind of have to love a place whose name sounds like a vaguely obscene Mad Magazine Fold-In. While we were there, GF asked me if I wanted to wander around Ikea for awhile. Well, when don't I?

Into Ikea and the first thing we see is a big tent outside the building. There's a sign outside about getting into summer, and what the hell: we go into the tent. But of course, it's about eighteen degrees even inside the tent. The poor girl stationed in there better be getting hazardous duty pay. As it was, she was wrapped in a blanket and huddled near a small space heater.

Inside the store, we're looking around and getting some ideas for the new place, including this furniture series. We make some mental notes and start to head out. On the way out, GF suggests looking at the "As-Is" (scratch 'n' dent) section, which we usually do. So we wander over there and, as we're looking over furniture, GF says, "Isn't that the same sofa we were looking at upstairs?"

Now, it's hard to tell, because you basically buy a frame and then a separate set of slipcovers. And what I'm looking at is a frame. I find a tag and confirm that it is, indeed, the Ektorp sofa. It's in the As-Is area because of a tear in the fabric.

Let's see: the fabric has a tear in it that, once repaired, will never show because it'll be under a slipcover? This might be a pretty good deal. Further wandering located another piece in the series, a chair. The chair was on this Island of Misfit Toys because the packaging was missing. A few queries of a salesman reveals that if we buy these two pieces and then go get the matching slipcovers, we'll save about $300 altogether on them.

We'd just saved about $200 buying this washer and dryer as a set and now we're saving $300 on the furniture. I spent $1600 today over the course of TWO purchases. I'm going broke saving all this money. If I save any more, I'm going to be bankrupt. The problem we had, though, was getting the furniture home. Ikea does not hold the As-Is for any time at all. So GF called her dad and begged him to bring his pick-up truck down from Monkton.

He showed up pretty quickly (about 45 minutes later), considering. We got the sofa on the truck and he and I took it down to the house. Since we hadn't been there since GF did the final walk-through on Thursday, the steps were about an inch of slushy ice. Fortunately her dad had a crowbar in the truck. We broke that stuff up and then hauled the sofa inside. Then back to Ikea to get the chair.

By the time we'd gotten the chair (and the car, with the boxes—remember the boxes?) back to the house, it was 5:30. And it's still a half-hour to get back home. GF wanted to put the slipcovers on the furniture, and then she and her father shot the breeze for awhile. We got home at almost 8:00

Corned Beef? Not so much. Reheated leftovers, and I dared anyone to complain about it.   

Big Debt, Just Like That

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Loan broker: So, you found your dream house. And right now you're asking First Boise Savings & Loan to give you a mortgage.
Arlo Pear: As you can see, I've had the same job for 15 years.
Loan broker: Well, that's very nice, but it's not enough. I mean, Al Capone had the same job for 30 years.
Monica Pear: But we've never had any problem with credit.
Loan broker: Oh, don't get me wrong. I trust you. We trust all our customers. Why, this bank was *built* on trust. Here. Sign here...Uh, you gotta get closer. This pen is chained down, you know.

—Moving (1988)

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So at around noon, GF calls me up on my cell. She's doing another walk-through on the house, since it's been several weeks since the first one. As it turns out, the house's owners are there, cleaning up and turning up the heat to welcome us. She has a few questions about things we couldn't figure out (there's a heater in the basement, for instance, that's connected to the main system but doesn't work the same way), which she gets answered, but then she learns another detail: the closing is at 3:30, not 4:00.

Uh-oh.

She calls me up and lets me know this, and all can say is that I'll do my best.

1:30: I get to North Avenue and pick up a couple of folders that were being audited. I go to the area where the interviews are taking place. Someone on the panel notices me and looks all confused. "Aren't you at 2:30?" It's 1:45. I say yes and tell her that I had to pick up some stuff and I was just going to sit around here and work, if that's OK. Instead she offers to just take me right away, since the 2:00 appointment isn't there yet.

Great!

The interview panel was just as I described below, and I knew four out of the five panelists, although everyone played it pretty cool. I was actually wound up enough that I nearly blew one question ("identify four changes in the most recent version of IDEA") and had to come back to it, but overall I thought I did OK. Later on, talking to my boss, who spoke to one of the panelists, I learned that I'm actually one of the strongest candidates, and that I was the only one (so far, there are a few more interviews to go) who nailed the writing sample. Everyone else took the wrong tack.  The writing prompt described some parent complaints and directed you to compose a memo that would outline how to handle it. The key was not to assume that the school had screwed up, but rather that you needed to find out what, if anything, had gone wrong. Apparently everyone else wrote these detailed, punitive memos. So if all goes well, then they'll probably more me up at the end of the school year.

And! I'm out by 2:30. Off to Columbia I go!

The settlement goes pretty much as expected; the (now-)former owners are really nice people and it made me feel that much worse that they had to wait a few extra weeks to sell their house. They took down our email addresses just in case there's some detail about the house they forgot to tell us about. You know, "ya gotta jiggle the handle on the upstairs toilet" kind of stuff.

So. Sign here, here, here, here, here, here, initial here and here, sign here, here, here, here, here, here and here and suddenly I feel like I'm channelling Ron Butterfield. (You either get that or you don't.) Congratulations! You're a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt!

So we have almost exactly two weeks to finish packing up and move everything up to the new place, since I've got the people renting this place moving in on April 1st. Perhaps the next Baltimore Blogger Happy Hour will be my housewarming party. 

Not Quite Vanity Googling

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Frasier: That's my brother, Niles. He's a little... how would you describe Niles, Dad?
Martin: I usually just change the subject.

—Frasier, "The Matchmaker" (10/4/94)

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Swiped from NPR Junky. I did this once before (not here), but I like the results better this time around. Despite some similarity in the answers, they're from different places and about different things.

Google your name in quotes with an “is” — ex.: “[your real name] is” — pick your favorite ten responses and post them. Just use your first name for tons of goodness.

1. Claude is seen performing jobs for several crime bosses.
2. Claude is able to bring India close to us.
3. For an artist of such stature & maturity, Claude is very under-recorded.
4. Claude is seated alone on center stage.
5. Claude is on the move.
6. Claude is a snarly old man, but one fateful night while he slept, angels must have slipped into his home through the window, … [this is where the Google preview ends. Intriguing!]
7. Claude is a self-made Millionaire and loves it (who wouldn’t?) [I didn't add that; it was part of what I copied]
8. Claude is an interesting problem.
9. Claude is worth knowing.
10. Claude is nearly 17, and the only thing in his head is, to employ a euphemism, girls.

Confluence of Events

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Josh: What's this?
Scotty Brennen: Pay day.
Josh: [Opens up the envelope and looks at his check] A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN DOLLARS?
Scotty: Yeah. They really screw you don't they?

—Big (1988)

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Riding a roller coaster.

You know how they do that bit where they start to climb the hill, they whack! to a brief stop and then start the climb...click, click, click...and you're all "OK, here we go" click click click and the tension mounts as you get higher click click click and if you're in the front you actually start to crest the top of the hill click click click and then all of a sudden the cars let go of the chain and you

PLUNGE!

and now you're moving at some terrific breakneck speed hereandthere upanddown sidetoside and ohmygod you can't catch your breath and then before you know it?

Ride's over. Move along.

This is going to be my day Thursday. It'll start off slow. I have to go to a school to monitor a new person and make sure she has a handle on her job. Then I have to head to my home school to work on some data entry stuff. All the time I have to keep an eye on what's happening later that day, because at 2:30 I have a job interview at the North Avenue Headquarters.

Job interviews at this level in the Baltimore City Public School System are kind of weird. You face an interview panel. They give you five questions plus an "icebreaker" question, and they score the quality of your answers. (They don't score the icebreaker.) For this particular position (Educational Specialist), they also had me compose a memo which I have to submit for grading. Candidates have to average a certain minimum score.

The questions are posed by each  member of the panel; each person has their own question. In addition, the questions are printed on index cards in front of you, so you can refer back. Once the question is asked, they give you nothing. Everything's up to you to answer correctly. So it's kind of like being interviewed by Mount Rushmore. At some point in the distant past, someone decided that this was the fairest way to do it because everyone got the same questions, in the same order, and had the same rubric for scoring. The whole thing is supposed to take about a half hour. Unfortunately, when I get nervous I tend to babble, so I may run longer. On the other hand...

...at 4:00 I have to be in Columbia. We're finally closing on the new house. This morning I went to the bank to get the settlement check. This is probably the largest check I've ever had to deal with, beating the previous winner by about $12,000.

So I have roughly an hour to go from the job interview to the house closing. That's assuming that my interview starts on time and ends on time. Could there be two more stressful things going on in anyone's life so close together?

I figure by 7:00 or so I'll be just a little intoxicated. On the other hand, I'm nursing a toothache and I've been popping Tylenol until I can get seen by the dentist, so maybe alcohol isn't such a great idea. Maybe I'll just take plain aspirin tomorrow and bleed out all night. Heh.

This weekend Daughter is in a play at school, as in actually up on the stage instead of doing the usual Tech Nerd routine (like father, like daughter). The play is My Favorite Year. I remember some of the movie being pretty good, but I also remember the stage play being not so successful. So we're driving up to Long Island. And, of course, we're bringing back a bunch of REAL bagels (take that, Geisha). Also, a couple of bottles of Gold's horseradish, which I can't find around here. Gotta see if the supermarkets are making pinwheels yet, which are amazing on the grill. And a few other sundry items.