Edubabble and other Blither

So tomorrow morning I'm having coffee with the missionaries. Not my aunt and uncle who work to convert South American catholics. These missionaries are the very same ones with the daughter who was allegedly molested on a mission trip, and they made her accompany them on the next one. Those missionaries.

WTF? How did that "happen?" I just had an image of a scene from Say Anything, the one when Diane Cort and Lloyd are at the graduation party, and the class is all surprised to see them together. "He asked me," Diane responds to the classmate who asks the "question." That's pretty much it.

Anything could have happened over the past three weeks and pretty much did.

• Two weeks of pure technological hell, during which a brand new laptop cart with thirty laptops repeatedly tripped breakers throughout the school; the internet filter wouldn't let the kids go to Princess Diana sites; our electronic drop box, Synergy, hated me and my entire team of students....
• And I never recovered my mojo, my momentum, my zeal, my getupandgo....
• And the anniversary of my dad's death came with very little fanfare to my way of thinking. Unfortunately, the mischiseled headstone has not been replaced or repaired....
• And I was blindsided with a smallish avalanche of grief after the day had come and gone and then some....
• And my mom called to tell me that one of my best junior high friends died suddenly. Dee Dee was the one my parents worried about me hanging out with. She told me ridiculous tales of nightclubbing at age 13 (did she think she was Drew Barrymore?), tried to talk me into sleeping with my 8th grade boyfriend, and really just said passive-aggressive things to make me doubt everything about myself for all of 7th and 8th grades....
• And this proved to be great training for later dealings with my mother, who is now feuding one day and family the next with my sister, who has decided that my dad was perfect, perfectly misunderstood, perfectly tragic....
• And principal Stan is leaving to become superintendent at a neighboring school district...
• And the main office secretary is retiring and being replaced with a psycho....
• So our school will most likely fall apart....
• And one of my former students was on Dr. Phil on Wednesday for an eating disorder but I missed it, and Dr. Phil is the only show in the world not on Youtube...
• But one of my colleagues-- ironically enough with an OVEReating disorder, is the only person in the world still using VCR tapes so I might get to see it...
• And my mother-in-law Debra Dee and I are going to see Springsteen for the 4th time, but I'm pretty bummed this time. Last time we went Vic and I were ecstatic over having a buyer for the house and Trip had a job interview. I had hope that he'd be able to leave his horrible job. I should not be surprised, seeing how the sale of the house clunked a bit....
• That now Trip has been laid off from a job he really likes.

And I'm having breakfast with the missionaries. Over a week ago I got a completely unexpected email from Missionary Mom, asking if Trip and I would like to come over for dinner and games some night. That didn't work out because of Mother's Day weekend. I never heard from her until today, asking if I'd like to stop over for a cup of coffee and a visit of an hour or so before her older daughter, a teacher who supposedly wanted to meet me, was to head back from wherever she came from.

I didn't particularly want to do this-- let that be known. Trip doesn't care for games, especially not game playing with a family who supposedly do not believe their daughter who was supposedly molested. I do not care for the missionary concept. I do, however, care for their younger daughter, and I wondered if it had been her idea, this meeting of the minds or clash of the creeds or klatch of the coffees.

I didn't say any of this. I instead said to Missionary Mom, "I'd love to stop over for coffee." She paused. What did that mean? I assume it meant, Oh, fuck, I never thought she'd say yes. It could have meant, Hold on, I'm wiping my ass, you caught me on the toilet or Wait a cotton picking minute, I'm performing CPR. I managed to get directions out of her and we said our goodbyes.

I relayed this story, the short version, to Carlin, Kelly, Trip, and Rick, a former student. "So this is a rather strange breakfast date I've got," I said.

"It's very white of you," offered Rick, whose last name, I might add, is Koslaski, which makes him pretty white.

We all looked at him. "I mean," he said, "that it sounds like something white people get themselves into, like perfect lawns and pyramid schemes."

I think it's the WASP in me more than the white.

And like so many times before, it has stung me.