WildGirl Is A Berserker

OK look, I'm a barbarian, but my 5 year old daughter WildGirl (who has autism) is a full fledged berserker and goes into berserker rages So. Many. Times.  I'm frankly exhausted.  She woke me up this morning at 5am and wouldn't stop beating on me the whole morning.  Anyone who's ever been punched, kicked, pushed, elbowed, and fishhooked repeatedly for a whole morning straight can tell you it takes the fun right out of your day.

(Little trickster.)

So today is the open house/conference day for my younger 2, and then school starts on Thursday. 

IT CANNOT GET HERE SOON ENOUGH!!

We already had one conference (in which I warned the teacher repeatedly of WildBoy's barbarian ways) and she laughed and smiled and showed me a new behavior plan in which they emphasize rewarding good behavior.  I smiled and nodded.  "You're screwed," I thought to myself.  We'll see how often I get called about WildBoy's behavior this year.  Last year, he was banned from wearing elastic waisted pants because he kept pulling his pants down in gym.  I'd get a call every week saying he'd hit someone on the bus.

(That about sums it up.)

I won't mind WildGirl's conference today, because all I really have to do is give adequate warning about her berserker ways.  We'll flesh the rest of it out in her IEP meeting tomorrow (which I'm not looking forward to because I have to negotiate. 
Barbarians suck at negotiation. 
I'd much rather swing my axes around but noooooo.)

However, I've dealt with WildGirl's berserker frenzies this entire summer and, miraculously, I handled most things with quite a bit of patience!  Who knew!  I feel like, after dealing with her the past couple days, I should be considered a saint.

(Like this guy)

(Ummm.... leaves something to be desired.  And yes, that is a bed sheet and a Kobudo bo.  It's the symbol of my sainthood.  I'm the patron saint of taking naps and hitting things.)  :P

And, in case that photo wasn't enough blasphemy for the day, here's me as "buddy Jesus".

(Catholicism Wow!)

That's all, folks!  I'm sure I'll get around to offending the rest of the population at a later date.

Sad Barbarian Is Sad

Barbarian Mom is sad today.  Yesterday I was informed that WEAP will no longer be covering WildGirl's ABA therapy (an intensive in-home therapy that teaches daily living skills to kids with autism). 

At first, I was all

(WTF is happening???)

Then I was all

(This makes no sense.  Explain.)

So they explained that the changed in their program require them to drop most school-aged children because they are focusing on pre-school and early intervention skills.

After that, I was all

(Which really doesn't make any sense, as barbarians are not, as a whole, calm people.)

But I was calm... idiotically so, as I thought I had options.  Silly me.  I figured I would just switch ABA providers to someone who does work with school-aged children.

I forgot that I live in Butt Fucking Egypt (i.e. Rural Wisconsin).  Many, many google searches later revealed only expired links, "page coming soon", and providers that either only work with 0-4 year olds or are outside my area, or both.  On the surface, there are options.  There are quite a few links on Autism Speaks.  But the links lead to barren deserts within the internet where only death and loneliness dwell.

I wrote a bunch of reasons why my child NEEDS ABA (the reasons are myriad), in case someone tries to question why she needs it, and to start on the many rehearsed speeches I'm giving to my school in my head, trying to mentally convince them to pay for ABA in school (an unlikely prospect).  So far, my arguments are stressing me out, and basically amount to

I also have to talk to my county worker, but she is on vacation until the I.E.P meeting.  Maybe she'll attend the I.E.P meeting with me, maybe not.  Maybe there are options that I have not been able to find on google. 

In the meantime, Barbarian Mom is seriously stressed the fuck out.  I may be panicking a little.

(Just a little.)

At least I'll have plenty of time to dwell on Everything Falling Apart, as I have to get up at 3:30AM for work tomorrow.

(Sorry I can't end on a positive note, but I really don't give a shit if every article you read has to have a ray of fucking sunshine at the end.)

Jujitsu Camp Part 1: Tomahawk Throwing

So, I got to do this awesome Jujitsu/Judo camp (Camp Kodenkan) in Duluth a week ago.  It was amazing, both in class and out of class.  They had lots of awesome classes and I learned a lot.  I also got to hang out with cool people, do a zipline while inebriated (really fun), and cut a bamboo mat into little pieces with a katana (even more fun)!  They also had a healing tent for some relaxing massages and adjustment.  It was a perfect weekend for a barbarian like me to have some fun, learn some cool shit, and engage in some cathartic drinking.

I don't have pictures for most of that stuff yet, but I do have the pictures from when I showed a couple of people (and a very inquisitive audience) how to throw tomahawks.  I've only been throwing for about a month, so I'm no expert, but I could guide people on the basics.  I also stuck my hawk 4 times in a row, which is a record for me.  :)  And it looked impressive to the other martial artists, who greatly appreciate prowess with a weapon.

First, I had to find suitable targets.  I needed either soft wood or punky wood, always deadfall, so I had to walk around in the woods in my Jujitsu gi holding a tomahawk.  I got quite a few sideways glances, and one guy asked what I was doing, so I told him I was looking for a suitable target and raised my throwing arm as if to demonstrate.  When he didn't immediately run for cover, I knew I had found my "tribe."  >:)  He found a dead tree lying a few feet from the path, but it was a bit too hard for the hawk to stick.  I found the perfect standing dead tree, but it was right next to a marshy spot.  I didn't care to lose my hawk in the marsh, so I kept going.  Finally, next to the wood burning pile I found a couple suitably punky chunks, and my new friend and I rolled them over to the wood burning pile and created a target.

Then, the fun part!  Throwing the hawks and teaching the others how to throw, too!

 (Teaching correct form when throwing.)

(My SOG fasthawk has 2 pointy ends, which makes novice throwing a little easier.  You can also buy hawks that have a pointy handle too, but that seemed a little too easy.)

(Stick it with the pointy end.)

In the future, I'll work on throwing while standing farther away from the target, and trying to get my medium sized throwing ax to stick.

Barbarians and Braids

I really wanted to write a post detailing how hairstyles mattered a hell of a lot to warriors in most cultures, so I started doing some research.  Turns out most of that is just people's stereotypes, and either we don't know enough about the culture to say what certain hairstyles meant, or they had more to do with identifying each other by clan, social status, or marital status than martial prowess.  There are a few exceptions- the Ukrainian Cossacks would wear mohawks to battle, the samurai would shave the fronts of their heads, a few tribes had specific hairstyles for warriors (i.e. the Aztec) etc... (hair ornamentation is a different thing) but the trope of braids being "for warriors" doesn't really have a lot of documentation to support it.  Fair enough.

Which is fine with me, really.  Vikings especially are stereotyped for their braids and beards, but it turns out they mostly wore whatever hairstyle was practical or looked cool.  (Beards are well documented, though being female I have yet to grow out a proper Viking beard.  Every once in a while my upper lip decides to start a mustache, but then quits halfway through because it's a lot of work growing a decent beard and mustache combo as a woman, leaving to me the task of getting rid of that pathetically tiny excuse for facial hair.)

(Bearded, braided barbarians.  Try saying that three times fast.)

So, basically, Vikings and a lot of other ancient warriors mostly wore their hair however the fuck they wanted to.  It's exactly that type of mentality that a barbarian can appreciate.

I decide to wear a braid, specifically a small braid on the right side, because it keeps my hellishly thick and long hair from flying in my face when I'm doing shit, like decapitating my enemies, or wrestling a feisty 5 year old into her socks.  Plus it looks fairly cool.  Not a lot of other people walk around with a small braid in their hair, so it's something that makes me stand out.  And, if I put it in right after a shower, it's quick and easy to do and stays in, unlike pony tails that are constantly falling apart and need re-adjusting throughout the day.

(Although to be fair my unkempt eyebrows also make me stand out in a crowd.)

Barbarians are usually shown with long hair, but I tend to grow my hair out, then get irritated with it, cut it, forget to keep it cut, let it grow out, and then repeat the process.  Right now I'm fairly irritated with my long hair, as it gets in the way when I'm doing groundwork in Jujitsu, but I can't cut it yet because I need it long for a role in a B movie horror flick that my friend is shooting.  I'm one of the main characters, so I still have a few scenes to shoot before I can cut it.  Until then, I'll be rocking the "warrior braid".

(When it's dry it looks like this.)

Fixing the Fucking Sinkhole Part 3

All the time we were "fixing" the kitchen, we had to cart out all the myriad crap that was in our kitchen.  All the dishes, pots, pans, questionable liquids that sat for years under the kitchen sink, etc...
They all piled up in our dining and living rooms, so that we had one tiny, snaking path that went through the jumble of stuff.  We had to clean out and move the chest freezer, and when we moved the fridge to the dining room we had to tie it together so that our slanting floor and gravity wouldn't pull the door open, spilling the contents across the room.

That wasn't the only reason we had to tie the fridge together.  WildGirl LOVES to get into stuff she shouldn't.  She has severe autism and a hellish determination that combine to make her the most fearsome troublemaker in the history of troublesome children. 

(She's also devilishly cute)

 We pretty much had to construct a gate similar to the Great Wall of China to keep her out of the kitchen in the first place, where she could have experimented with ovens and freezers and generally gotten herself killed in so many ways it'd take a whole blog just to list them all.  So, over the years, we've been storing the stuff she couldn't have in the kitchen, protected by the Great Gate.  Without the protection of the Great Gate, stuff started happening.

WildGirl started finding juice in the piles of stuff and drinking some, pouring the rest down the sink.
She found WildBoy's epi-pens and hid them.
She stole all the spoons and laid them out on the floor.
She scattered food, destroyed papers, ate a couple styrofoam cups, and dumped out containers full of random crap that we stored in the kitchen for sorting later.

We had no access to a kitchen sink, so we had to wash dishes upstairs in the bathtub, which was a pain in the arse.  WildGirl would frequently steal said dishes and play with them.  I started buying paper and styrofoam dishes, frankly just not wanting to deal with it.

We also had to eat out a lot, not having access to freezers, refrigerators, or a stove.  It got so bad the smell of greasy fast food would send me into a rage (we have roughly 5 fast food joints in our dinky little town, plus one take out Chinese place).  I missed eating something other than cheeseburgers.  The children, however, never tired of MacDonalds.  Of course.

After our haphazard attempts to fix things, I was a little worried.  To be fair, I was also struggling with a bout of depression that had me scowling even when things were going ok.  And this project was going fairly well considering a horde of barbarians were running the show, but all the same I was worried. 

(When barbarians are depressed we look like this.)

(Or this.)

So I talked to VikingDad about it, in a serious heart to heart that went something like this.

Me: I'm kind of worried about the kitchen project.
Him: Why?
Me: Look at all the other house projects you've done.
Him: What about them?
Me: The hole you punched in the wall, the gate, all this stuff you tried to fix looks fucked up.  That hole in the wall looks like a lumpy pile of white lava melted down the side of the wall.  And the gate scrapes up the wall on the hinge side so it looks like pieces of the house are fleeing in terror.  The whole house is falling apart.
Him: .... And your point is?
Me: I want to make sure when you fix the kitchen it actually looks like a real kitchen.
Him: So, you want it to be pretty?
Me: I want it to both look good and be functional, yes.  Can you do that?
He gives me a doubtful look.
Me: You're fired.  You need to call your dad and see if he'll help us.

And so the rest of the kitchen was fixed with VikingGrandpa's expertise and help, with VikingGrandma and VikingLad helping.  I picked out and bought all the things, and the rest of the crew worked on the kitchen while I was busy keeping WildBoy and WildGirl from throwing themselves into the wet mortar.  (To be fair, it does look pretty fun to squish between your toes.)

Eventually, the giant, huge, pain-in-the-arse project was completed!  (Well, the floor anyway.  It took a couple weeks after that to get the cabinets and sink installed.)  

(It's a real floor!)
And,

(It's a real kitchen!)
And the peasants rejoiced!

Fixing the Fucking Sinkhole Part 2

To recap: We had a huge fucking sinkhole in our kitchen for a long, long time, and whenever we wanted a snack we had to cross a plywood bridge over the gaping chasm to get through. 

Now, it finally got bad enough that even VikingDad thought, "This is ridiculous" and declared that the time had come for us to fix the sinkhole.
"Time for YOU to fix the sinkhole," I corrected, "With my input and direction."
So we argued a bit about who would do what, and who would decide what, and how to go about it.    VikingDad would do most of it.  And so we proceeded to destroy the floor.

Wielding a mighty pry bar, VikingDad smashed and pried, scooped out the mushy stuff, slammed through the solid stuff.  He made a huge mess.

I had to clean it up.  So I did.  It smelled horrible, and felt like those slimy rocks that sit on the bottom of a pond.  The tile was light, but the boards were heavy and soaked through with some vile sludge mix of mold, dirt, and whatever remained of those who fell victim to the sinkhole's vile clutches.  VikingDad would spend a day smashing through the tile and floorboards, and I would spend a day and a half hauling the chunks out to the trash can.  The sinkhole stopped looking like a sinkhole, and more like a huge chasm in our floor.  Progress!

After we got that huge mess taken care of, I had to scrape the sludge and rotten wood off the bottom of the floor.  So I got a scraper and got to it, toiling day and night in the heat, scraping all the sludge and rotten wood off the bottom and sides.  It was not as fun as VikingDad's "hulk smash" method of tearing out our floor, but it was just as physically difficult.  For weeks upon weeks I toiled, sweat running down my face, scraper in hand.  And after that, I had to haul out the chunks I scraped and sweep and shovel up the smaller chunks.

(It kind of felt like that. )

VikingDad enlisted VikingLad to help take care of the wall, where part of the sludge started creeping up the drywall.  He was SUPPOSED to cut out the moldy parts in a squared off line, so we could get replacement drywall.  The "square" he cut out looked more like a jagged wave.  VikingDad and I scrutinized the finished work with narrow eyes and confused looks.  Whose idea of a straight line is that, anyway?  This is what happens when barbarian teenagers are put in charge of doing something!

Then, came the bleaching.  It was VikingDad who did that, since I morally object to having to do all the cleaning myself.  After that, it looked kind of good, like maybe the hole actually belonged there instead of stumbled upon our floor accidentally in a drunken, chaotic stupor.

After that, VikingDad tried to fit the drywall I bought into the haphazard lines VikingLad cut, filled in the cracks and holes, used his authority to compel VikingLad into sanding everything, and then I painted the walls.

(The plywood bridge came back so we could set our crap on it while I slathered paint on the walls.)

Hey, it started looking like a real kitchen (kind of)!

The Day I Helped Aprehend a Thief

I work as a security guard for a lumber yard.  For the most part, it's a boring job (but a good one, as I get to read books on my downtime.  Yay books!)  But a couple days ago, work was very exciting. 

First, it was confusing.  I was working when, all of a sudden, a woman ran behind the yard wall into the bushes.  She had dark hair, lean, ragged features, a purple shirt, and capris.  She was clutching a purse and looked scared.

My first thought was, "What the fuck?"  My second was, "I'd better see what she's doing behind our wall."  So I got up and looked at the tangle of bushes and brambles behind our wall.  Who in their right mind would be running through that at full speed?  She tripped and fell a few times as she ran.
Was someone chasing her?  I didn't see anyone behind her at all.
Does she live in one of the houses on top of the hill?  I saw her head farther into the brush, not toward any house that I could see.
Does she really, really have to go to the bathroom?  After this last thought, I looked away in case she needed privacy to do her thing.  If I were racing into thick brush behind a wall, it'd probably be because I really, really had to pee.  Especially when I was pregnant.  Is she pregnant?  I thought of what I knew about civilized people.  Civilized people (i.e. not me) usually want to pee in a civilized place, and there are perfectly civilized bathrooms within a few hundred yards inside the store.  So, that's probably not the reason.
Is she a thief?  Possible, but what kind of hairbrained thief goes running around in the brush in plain sight of a security guard in the middle of the day?
Is she having a mental breakdown?
I decided to call to her to see if she needed help.

"Hey, whoever's there!"  I called, "Do you need any help?"  Because I'm helpful like that.  And subtle.

No reply... in fact, she picked up her pace.  OK, probably not doing anything wholesome like taking a shit, then.
I called the guys in the yard through my radio, telling them that there was a crazy person running around behind the yard, and to keep a lookout.
"Does she know there's lions, tigers, and bears back there?" Was the reply.  We all laughed a little.  I had no idea what she was doing back there.

About half an hour later, I got a call on my radio saying the woman I saw had just stolen a bunch of stuff from Walmart.  Huh.  I texted my friend who also worked at the yard, because I knew he'd be suitably impressed.  He was, but I was insatiably curious.  Had the cops picked her up?  Was she still at large?  No way to know, so I went back to work.

(That's the wall and underbrush that she went running into.)

Then, later in the day, I saw a white SUV pull up and thought nothing of it- cars pull up in the employee spots next to me all the time.  But then a woman who looked exactly like the woman I saw before trudged out to the bushes, cigarette in hand, purse nowhere to be seen.  I had a moment of self-doubt.  What if it's not the same woman?  I really do have a horrible memory, so I made sure I was seeing things correctly.

(An aside: One thing this job has taught me is to trust my judgment more than ever.  Because of my ADHD, I don't always have a correct understanding or memory of things.  I miss details.  I overlook obvious things.  But, in this job, I have to project confidence.  I have to rely on my own judgment and skills over those of the customer.  Surprisingly, a lot of the time, I'm right and the customer is wrong!  That's mind blowing to me.  I'm so used to being the one in the wrong.)

Of course, the evidence clearly suggested it was the same woman.  I called the yard and let them know.  "Should I call the cops?" I asked, nonchalantly.  My voice was calm but my hands started shaking.  Ah, adrenaline. 
"Well, she is wanted," was the reply. 
"OK, I'm calling the cops," I said, and dialed 911.  I only vaguely remember talking on the phone with them, because stuff was happening in my environment at the same time.  The guy in the SUV that drove her up caught on to the fact I was on the phone and started pulling out of the parking space.  When it was parked, I couldn't get a good read on the license plate, but as it pulled out, I was able to see the numbers.  While I was relating what I saw to the police, I took out a pen and started writing down the license numbers.

I hung up with 911 and went out of my station.  Other employees came out- one was my manager- and asked me which way she went.  I pointed out the route she took, and they started circling around. 

Suddenly, I saw her directly in front of me, coming out the way she came in.
"There she is," I yelled.  She came barrelling towards me (I was blocking her way out) with a bunch of stuff in her arms.  I thought of all the cop shows I'd seen.
"Ma'am, please stay where you are," I calmly told her.  (While thinking, hey!  It's pretty fun pretending to be a cop.  Wheee!)  (Did I mention that adrenaline makes me slightly giddy?)
She didn't stop, but she did try to go around me.  I grabbed her arm and repeated, "Ma'am, you need to stay here."  She dropped the stuff she was carrying and the other employees, who were coming up behind her, told me to just let her go. I let her go.  (But I really, really wanted to take her down.)  At that point, I saw that an officer was coming out of the bushes right behind her, so I watched them run past, around a corner and out of sight, where another unit was waiting.  They apparently arrested her there.

I gave the officers the license number and description of the SUV, and they have an APB on it now.  I looked over the stuff she dropped.  Shoes, underwear, jewelry, random knick knacks.  As I looked at the items I felt bad for her.  Maybe $30 worth of merchandise, taken from Walmart, the most evil of corporations.  Did I do the right thing, getting the police involved?  If she would have approached me at Walmart and asked me to pay for those things for her, I would have.  She looked like someone who had a rough life- maybe she needed that stuff.  Walmart certainly wouldn't miss $30 worth of profits.  I felt awful.

On the other hand, she stole that stuff and hid it on my watch, on my turf.  I simply couldn't do my job properly and let her get away with it.  If she would have come back after my shift, there would be no security guard here overnight, and she could have easily gotten away with it.  What possessed her to do all this in the middle of the day?  I simply could not ignore such blatant criminal activity.  Still, I hope she gets the help she needs.  She didn't seem dangerous at all, just damaged and not that bright.  Not a very formidable opponent for this barbarian.  I felt like a cat dragging around a stuffed animal.

(I is a formidable hunter!  Grar!)

But, I also feel like I have something impressive to put on my resume, so... *shrug*