Here is the deal

Here is what happened:

I have a case, where a perpetrator is stealing money from my client. as a result it is putting the client at risk of being evicted from his/her facility. Way back in september i got the administrator of the facility to verbally agree to withhold or suspend an eviction until we could get the financial piece straightened out.

the best way to do this is to remove the money and make it unavailable to the perp. ( i also write threatening letters and legalistic letters and have had the police go to the perps work place and make additional, relatively empty threats...all in a days work).
the only real recourse i have is to remove the perp from managing the social security benefit aka The Rep Payee Account. What needs to be done is to make application to Social Security for a new rep payee (variety of ways to do this), in this case a professional organization.
i submitted that application in september and as of tuesday, social security had not processed the god forsaken thing.

The facility is getting over 2/3 of their money because medical assistance is paying for most of the client's expenses. the portion the client owes is only 1/3 or less of the total monthly cost. so the total arrears is a lot less than it could be.

Since September, I have spoken several times to the administrator, providing updates like, "social security has not procssed the application." and making reminders like, "i still expect you to hold your end of the bargain and wait this one out". etc etc.

on monday morning i got a voicemail from the administrator stating they were going to proceed with the eviction because "nothing had been done".

this fucking pissed me off. which was my first mistake. remember my declaration that when working in bureacracies the first lesson one must learn is to "submit"? well, i totally failed letting this one wash over me. i was bitchy, impatient and frustrated. and told the administrator so. i accused the person of not following through on commitments blahblah blah.
in short i lost it. the administrator said that they would have their attorney call me and i said that I would welcome that.

so the attorney called me. unfortunately the attorney's tactic was paternalistic intimidation. He didn't know that i was raised by attornies, so there was little that could be done to intimidate me. This kind of behavior only makes me mad. And disappointed that he couldn't try harder. His first transgression was to inform me that my tone of voice was abrasive and that if i would be more pleasant we could work this all out. i said that i didn't care about tones of voices, i cared about following through on commitments, trust and action.

the attorney told me that the facliity and the administrator were victims of the perpetrator.

i said that i didn't work for the facility, that i wasn't a collection agent and that i didn't actually consider them victims of anything, that the client was the victim.

the attorney then used the"i want to talk with your supervisor" approach, which i said i would welcome because i was tired of speaking with said attorney anyway.

i provided my supervisor's name and number and threw in the program manager's for good measure. i also threw in the ombudsman's number because they would file an appeal to the eviction, hold it up in housing court and cost the facility more money than if they just waited another month for the social security administration to get their act together and process the change of representative payee.

i hung up and wrote my supervisor and program manager about the conversation and offered to fill them in. i also mentioned that my tone may have been of some concern to the attorney.

i then vented the shit out of myself on a post. Some of you may have caught it. I didn't use this kind of detail, I didn't give specifics, I didn't use the words "attorney or administrator" any of that. I wrote about how it sucks sometimes to be being dropped into crazy situations where you expect to be dealing with rational, professional people and then have to discover you are dealing with LIARS.

i posted the blog.

about an hour later i went to my site meter and saw that an ISP in duluth had found me on a google search titled "kristin swanson vulnerable adults" and very likely read my fucking "vent post".

immediate panic set in.

i took down the post.

i made my blog non-public.

i drank a lot.

i processed with my work wife.

i processed with my spouse.

so far, said attorney has not called my supervisor, the program manager OR the ombudsman.

I am trying to move on.

Hello and Welcome to my new life

Well, the internet has caught up with me.

You might call it Lemony Swifler's Series of Unfortunate Events.

These unfortunate events are primarily a result of my lack of grace and courtesy ( I blame my public school and genes - sorry dad), the bizarre situations I get into at my job, and my disdain for people who are stupid.

I have had to have two of Brian's beers to take the edge off my paranoid spiral.

The boys have discovered the paper shredder that Uncle David gave us and have created "Shredding Work". I think Brian just walked in the door and so far no one has shredded their fingers.

the upside of the vomits

The best thing about our first seasonal illness is this - Joel now understands to hold his puke until we get him to the toilet, or in this case, the bathtub.

chestnut guts

As you know, I come from a Rural Iowa Stock by way of Linköping, Sweden.
And by this I mean that we have no family recipe, handed down from generation after generation by The Daughters of the Republic, for Stuffing with Chestnuts. What the fuck are chestnuts anyway? In Iowa we have black walnuts. Those are good in date bread and fudge, but no one to my knowledge ever created a Stuffing with Black Walnuts recipe that weathered the generations.

So, my friend Margaret McKenna, who doesn't like to be called Margaret, but I call her Margaret because I can't help myself - well she apparently has one helluva Gramma Smithy's Stuffing with Sausage and Chestnut recipe, handed down for several generations dating back to her family history in the Carolinas.

I was given the coveted Stuffing with Chestnuts and Sausage Recipe, handed down by generations, by Margaret's partner Edith (as you can imagine, Edith does not prefer Edith but again I can't help myself because what is more perfect than a lesbian couple named Edith and Margaret?) I was told specifically to "boil the chestnuts" and then to peel them, etc etc.

I have never been one to follow directions.

And besides, doesn't the song indicate that Chestnuts should roast on an open fire for chrissake?

I was just a little to lazy to start up an open fire in the backyard, so I opted for a 425F oven, thank you very much.

Unfortunately I did not score them prior to putting them in the oven. About 22 minutes into the roasting, Augie, his friend Simon (of Oh My God You Lost A Tooth ! fame) experienced a house- shattering explosion coming from the oven. I knew something had gone terribly wrong, so I did what all responsible parents do, I took the bombs out of the oven and placed them even closer to the children, on top of the counter. We were just finishing our "shews! that was close mom!" when two chestnuts exploded in front of our very eyes.

Seriously. I am going to have to remember this for next Halloween. It scared the living shit out of all of us. We got them outside before the next detonator went, and lemme tell you I felt like I was freaking living out my own episode of MI-5.

I am through with Chestnuts. I am just going to eat the damn stuff at Margaret and Edie's house next year when we invite ourselves over.

things that should go in the baby book if i were creative and could be bothered to scrap book

I don't know - do those scrap bookers document Special Incidents that Could Have Turned Into Disasters But Didn't" ?

We can call this: Augie-got-ahold-of-the-camera-and we let-he-and-Joel-take-photos-at-random-and-nothing-bad-happened-so-we-still-have-money-for-Christmas.

My personal favorite of Joely's

Have you ever read The Hotel New Hampshire? Please let me introduce you to Sagamore.

His name is really Gunnar Underfoot.

All I notice in this photos is how completely filthy the mirror is

Augie just got this sweater vest from the neighbor. He's worn it every day this week.

Brian sneaking Chocolate from Aldi's. Yup. We have chocolate from Aldi's.

"Portrait of a cheap Target Lamp with an ill fitting shade"

Photographing a Poltergeist.

holding patterns

Work is crazy. People are vulnerable and suffer unspeakable harm and there is nothing I will be able to do about it. I am ok with this - I can be objective and detached like a pro. However, for a lack of a better term, I would say that the Crappy Psychic Vibes (that are in many rooms in which I stand every day), require something along the lines of what I like to call Psychic Teflon Shorts.


Sometimes my Shorts have Teflon Scratch. When this happens, I take the time to do things like go running, putz, go home and cook a nice meal, play games with my kids and go to bed very early.

I don't reserve mental energy to blog.

comment moderation take two

ok, i can't be bothered to look at my email account to review comments (all two of them) so now i think i will just try the word verification jobby and see if that stops the spammys, susan notwithstanding.

comment moderation

i set up my comment section to be as easy as possible. and, up until this point have managed to remain spam free. so i am back to comment moderation and i apologize for the lag time, but please keep commenting, i will post them as quickly as they come in.

chisels

Well, we've lived through our first abscessed tooth. Augie started complaining of his tooth hurting on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning the whole side of his face was swollen. He was grey, ashen and absolutely toiling through the pain. By 11:30am we were on our way home with a bloody tooth in a plastic bag, some antibiotics and smoothie fixins.

The irony of it all is that Augie is my fastidious, anxious perfectionist child who flosses, brushes and rinses religiously and Joely who screams and fights to avoid tooth care will probably cruise through life with perfect teeth.

This is Augie right after we got home. You can see the slight swelling on the left side of his face. As crappy as he looks in this photo, let me tell you, he looks like a million bucks comparatively.

I don't really know why I am showing you this. I think I am posting this for Augie's benefit, you know because he will never have a baby book. See Augie? There is the bloody abyss where your rotted tooth once festered.

Isn't this just, well, fucking hilarious? Augie has a friend down the alley who is a very interesting character. He and his mom stopped over with this last night.

night terrors

Joel is having night terrors. Or at least he has the last two nights.
People are running after him with vacuums and forcing him to remain in bathtubs against his will. Poor little Joely.

you know, i did finish that damn costume

I forgot to download these photos...last week was a bit, hmm, hectic.

While he loved his costume, Augie kept his face as neutral as possible so his tempra paint feathers don't crumble (FYI - tempra paint may result in skin irritation. use on your child at your own risk).

The Prisoners: Scaredy Bat and Fawkes, the Phoenix

Joel took a left turn on Halloween and decided to be Robin Hood.

Fawkes is much happier without the face paint.

Did I mention how much I love my kids?

reminders

I wanted to remind you about this post: