Colour them turtles faster, Boy….

May 29, 2010 at 9:43 am (Art, Children, Education, F&#*%@ing)

My friend’s nephew  in kindergarten was given a detention for not colouring his turtles in fast enough in art class.

You have to wonder if the teacher knew that the future of the free world hinged on the speed at which a 6 year-old coloured in a bunch of turtle.

It makes me think of the Harry Chapin song about the boy who colours flowers all the colours of the rainbow but a teacher has different ideas.

Flowers are Red
by Harry Chapin

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin’ young man
I’m paintin’ flowers he said
She said… It’s not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There’s a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You’re sassy
There’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me…..

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It’s for your own good..
And you won’t come out ’til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin’
She said…Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let’s use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

It puts me in mind of the time when I was in Grade 6 and we were being taught cursive writing. I was writing the words down and the Principal walked by (my home room teacher). “The cross on your Ts need to be perfectly flat. Yours are at an angle. Make them flat!”

I continued to make the crosses at a slight angle. Pretend it’s a roof. Make the roof flat so the water won’t tun off!”

He finally kept me in for recess to “practice” making the “rooves flat so the rain wouldn’t run off them”.

1) Who gives a shit it your Ts are crossed  perfectly horizontally and 2) Why would you want water building up on your roof? Even in Grade 6, I knew that you don’t want a flat roof collecting water.

If teacher spent as much time on things like spelling and grammar instead of on nonsensical things like how fast you colour turtles or if “your rooves are flat on your Ts” maybe we would have kids coming out of school who could read and write … and paint and draw well.

And before anyone gets on my case about the spelling of “rooves” we were taught in school that the plural of roof is rooves, just as the plural of hoof is hooves , the plural of dwarf is dwarves, and the plural of knife is knives… Just because everyone under the age of 30 THINKS they invented this English language, they did not.

And, I have news for you… It is a SANDWICH not a “sammich, WEDNESDAY not “Wensday” (or even “Wensdey”, and FEBRUARY not “Febuary”. Just because some asses have decided to allow lazy people to spell or pronounce the words incorrectly doesn’t make it correct.

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Angry… SO ANGRY!

May 27, 2010 at 8:44 am (Evil plots, F&#*%@ing, Flowers, Gardens)

This evening, I went over to the unit I moved out of (50 feet away from where I am now) to make sure the garbage was all out on the curb.

I opened the gate and just about screamed.

My entire garden… Ten years of planting… Ten years of love…. was gone.

When I moved into the new unit. I had made sure that maintenance and the Move in/Move out committees knew that I wanted my garden and that it would take a little time to move them. I was assured that I had until the fall to move them as many plants need to be moved after they are done for the year… not when they are blooming. All my neighbours knew I was going to  be moving my plants and knew that I wanted them.

Apparently, the person who did it was someone from Landscaping.

When one of my neighbours (who was one of the people I had made the arrangement with to delay moving my garden went up to her and told her to stop because I wanted my plants, she daid “too bad!” and continued.

To make things even more outrageous is that this is the SECOND time someone on Landscape has taken it upon themselves to rip out or order someone to rip out my garden.

Two years ago, when they were replacing the fences, the Chair of Maintenance which is the committee responsible for the fence replacements came over and we went through the garden and we worked out what needed moving and what needed protecting. I had my nephew over and told him what to do. He was doing it when someone from Landscape came over and ordered him to tear everything out… I came home and found my garden destroyed.

I managed to salvage some of the plants and replaced what had been destroyed. The garden was almost back to it’s former glory… and now this…

Although they replaced the back and side parts of the fence two years ago, they appear to be replacing the entire fence, again, including the new parts. This may have been the impetus but there was absolutely no reason for them to just barrel in and start tearing it out.

I could see if they had contacted me and given me a deadline and I didn’t do it…. But they didn’t.

They didn’t contact Maintenance (the Chair who knows me and knows I wanted my garden). They didn’t check with my neighbours who all know I was going to be moving my garden over the next while AND where I am. AND it isn’t as though I moved out of the co-op altogether! I am 50 feet away and was home the day she took it upon herself to rip out my garden.

I fired off an email to the Board and the Landscape Committee demanding an apology and suggesting that I should be reimbursed for the plants that I can replace (the clematis cannot be replaced…). I also said that there need to be rules followed so that this never happens again.

I am so angry I don’t know if I will be able to sleep…

5 Comments

Done

May 13, 2010 at 7:25 am (Animals, Moving)

So… the move is effectively finished.

The cleaners come in tomorrow and a friend is coming over on Saturday to help me wash the windows (the cleaners “don’t do windows”).

I haven’t yet tackled the garden, either cleaning or taking the plants I want. However, since they will still be working in the house putting in new carpets and the hall and kitchen tiles and then painting, the place won’t be ready for anyone to move in for a while, yet.

Of course, I have had people coming up and asking if they can have any plants and flowers I don’t want. Apparently, everyone likes my garden. I thought everyone hated it because it is a jungle.

Removing the plants and flowers I want to move here will take some time because some of them are just ready to bloom. I can’t even dig up the bulbs, yet, because they have to wait until the foliage is done. Unfortunately, things like my Alium are REALLY good this year and my new garden won’t have the benefit of them. Also, moving plants generally stops them blooming again for at least one year.

However, it will give me a change to put the compost which has been collecting for a number of years in and get the soil ready for the plants to come over.

As long as what happened to another former neighbours’ garden doesn’t happen to mine.

The other neighbour had a beautiful wildflower garden. For years she had been bringing in plants from all over the countryside and it was beautiful. She had promised several neighbours that when she left they could help themselves. The day after she moved out another neighbour and her mother who doesn’t even live in the co-op came in and tore the garden apart. They just ripped out the plants and threw them out.

The same woman (the mother) just takes it upon herself to do things here without any sort of concern as to whether she has a right to do so or whether the interference is necessary. She’s the sort that is very “prim and proper” but rude and disrespectful of others who she sees as being blow her.

The first official day we were in our new home, the satellite installer came. He opened one of the utility boxes on the side of our house and just about had a heart attack when the little red squirrel who lives in the back area came bursting out. It turns out that the squirrel had a nest in the utility box. We carefully closed the box and later the squirrel went back in to his (her?) nest.

That was Friday. On Sunday morning, Mom and I were pulling into our parking space just as the mother rounded the corner carrying a piece of panelling with the nest on it and dumped it in the parking lot. Thank goodness there were no babies in the nest (and lucky for her or I would have called the Humane Society). Not only did she not have a right to mess with the nest because she doesn’t LIVE here but it it is just plain wrong. The nest wasn’t interfering with anything. It was on the side of MY house. AND disturbing it means that the squirrel might decide to move somewhere “safer” like someone’s attic.

Besides. This is a little squirrel. Hardly a rat and doing no one any harm.

I just don’t understand some people.

7 Comments

Almost done….

May 8, 2010 at 4:55 am (Home, Moving)

At least the move is almost done. A few objects in the living room to come over but I have to clear someplace for them to go. The plants (not to mention my old garden) need to come, as well. And then there is the CLEANING!

I am going to hire cleaners to come in. There isn’t THAT much to do but I am fed up and just want to get the keys handed over and be done with it all.

I HAVE gotten my mother’s room set up and her bathroom and part of the kitchen so that there is someplace for her to sleep, be able to use the bathroom and to eat.

The satellite dish has yet to be set up and I just don’t know when we can get around to putting in the pole and then getting Bell back to install. If I didn’t hate Roger’s so much, I would go with cable but that just ain’t gonna happen.

The room I intend to use as my bedroom is piled with stuff but my office is starting to take shape. I am also sleeping in here on the day bed (my old bed) until the bedroom is in order so that I can reassemble my old double bed and get a new mattress.

Office

Since my office faces more or less East, I have been waking up with the sun coming right in on me. Pretty but I don’t want to be awake at 5 am… I now have curtains on the window.

View from the office window

Bedroom

The view from the bedroom

You can see the corner of my old yard in the right corner of the above photo.

My yard

Sorry, the ducting is the old hook-up for my dryer. It is going out with the recycling next week. The lilacs are heavenly, though they need a bit of cutting back. I put a bird feeder out this afternoon and it was being used before it got dark!

More photos here

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