End of the week

Stephanie got a call Thursday from the assistant principal at Vincent’s school that – after suspending him earlier in the week – they wanted to go further. The two of us went in there early Thursday afternoon – with two of Vincent’s remaining textbooks – and were told how Vincent had made some threatening comments on his cell phone just outside the front door (something he only disputed in part).

Vincent will have to go back to the district office the three of us went to in December and he will probably not only never be allowed back at his school but probably will only have the option of transferring to one or two other schools in the district. We may end up going with a counselor’s suggestion that we’d officially be homeschooling him while he actually took on-line (paid) classes through the school district and the state of KY. (I’ve also belatedly been exploring General Education Diploma options – which the incident this week may foil.) As Stephanie – who took the afternoon off – drove home, she only got – on the phone with him – to the homeschooling part (without being able to explain it). Vincent said he didn’t want her to have to quit her job, and then apparently ran off – even leaving Frisco running around the house (instead of in the kennel downstairs) (which we never do). Vincent didn’t answer his cell phone and Stephanie, who got worried, started at home to call Vincent’s friends. Vincent’s friend's mother – who had stopped by Wednesday – said Vincent said some troubling things that sounded vaguely suicidal. (Stephanie even reached some of Vincent’s friend in Denmark by instant-messaging). Stephanie and I changed our Facebook statuses to reflect our concern and soon a church friend called to update us on how to apply for a mental health inquest warrant on Vincent (like “Baker Act-ing” someone who’s a danger to him/herself or others in Florida), which we had investigated a little. With still no sign of Vincent, Stephanie drove downtown to the Jefferson County (KY) Hall of Justice, where we’d never been, and applied for such a warrant (I stopped by for a while). Ironically, Vincent – who had apparently walked to Hikes Point and back without his phone – called back to say he was fine (and he sounded better) seconds before Hall of Justice folks called Stephanie in to communicate (indirectly) with the judge. She decided on the spot to go ahead with the process and learned – among other things – that the two parents who had applied for these warrants immediately before her – for their teenagers – were told No (typical teenage behavior, thke judge said). Stephanie and the official filled a whole page of details and the judge told her Yes. While I was off running errands, Stephanie came home and then had to pretend that everything was normal for 45 minutes – Vincent was back playing video games after a short conversation. Several good things happened late Thursday – lots of folks contacted Stephanie by calls and e-mails and Facebook with good suggestions, Vincent turned out to be OK, and then Vincent responded OK to the arrival of three police officers – he didn’t try to fight them or try to run away. One police officer (the one who stayed at the hospital the longest) had come out to the house before, and another knows Vincent’s friend’s mother. I came home after they left, but – lo and behold, contrary to what officials had told her early – Kosair Children’s Hospital called 15 minutes later to ask Stephanie where she was. She hopped in the car and went down to the hospital (only I had been there before). I walked the dog, talked with Vincent’s friend and mother who had planned to stop by to pow-wow, and picked up a pizza Stephanie had asked me to pick up belatedly. I ended up finding in the downtown Kosair emergency room (ironically, just a couple of blocks from Vincent’s school) first Vincent, being first Vincent, being interviewed by a medical student.

I gave him a slice of pizza and then sat with Stephanie, who was to be interviewed separately. I then sat with Vincent, in lieu of the police officer or a security guard. Then Stephanie returned while we waited for a psychiatrist – and we actually had a fun time eating pizza and vending machine snacks, drinking Sprite, and talking for an hour or two before I got tired and went home, partly to rescue the dog, partly to get a little rest before going to work (Stephanie had earlier in the evening called her principal and told her she would not be there Friday – although statewide standardized tests that Stephanie must help administer to the English as a New Language students at her school look all next week starting Monday.) Throughout my time there the ER was packed with kids and their families – and Stephanie said Vincent and she stayed in their temporary room all along because the psychiatric ER win was crowded and there was a very distressed and loud little girl there. Eventually, a psychiatrist talked with Stephanie and Vincent and said he though Vincent’s problems were too complex for psychiatric medication to fix and recommended that Vincent be admitted to Wellstone, a short-term inpatient psychiatric treatment facility across the river in Indiana, not too far from where I used to get my haircut.

One of the more hairy moments of the evening apparently was the security and ambulance staff arriving to tie Vincent down in a stretcher and take him by ambulance some 20 minutes away to Wellstone. Stephanie drove her car and they apparently got there around day break (while I was getting ready for work). They admitted Vincent and then Stephanie went home and then back to bring Vincent more clothes and some books (none of Vincent’s vampire or zombie books – considered to violent or provocative). Vincent is also not allowed to wear a belt because even if he’s not violent or suicidal others might be. Another hairy moment came when it became obvious to Vincent that they were going to take a blood sample (to test for drug residue, neurochemical abnormalities, other health issues). Vincent hates needles. Vincent was not enamored about having to be involved in group work and not enamored about losing his cell phone (Stephanie took it home - he was still text-messaging with his friend while handcuffed in the police car on the way to Kosair) and not being able to have visitors today (so no talking with his friend Samantha).

Wellstone has called Stephanie and me several times since then (Stephanie has gotten no sleep). We had an insurance scare. Apparently we will still pay something like $1,200. Vincent can have visitors at 2:30 p.m. Saturday (and he will miss a wedding of a former student at his school, which he’s disappointed about). They’ve tentatively diagnosed him with a mood disorder and suggested a prescription to anti-psychotic medication that’s supposed to smooth out his angry and listless moods. He may end up staying longer than the two or three days we thought – maybe even a week. Thanks to all who have called, e-mailed, instant-messaged, and Facebooked with support and suggestions (including Allen and Stu who gave us information about the mental health inquest; Vincent’s friend and her family who have been concerned; and even staff at Vincent’s school who I believe really cared about him among other things on their minds.). Hats off to Stephanie for being concerned about Vincent Thursday afternoon and taking the bull by the horns and doing something about it (even at the risk of alienating Vincent). Stephanie said as I left last night that I don’t know if this will help but at least Vincent should know that someone care about him (even if he doesn’t agree with exactly what we did). I’m also thankful for that goofy hour with Vincent last night when for a moment we were not harried or angry but just punchy from exhaustion and hanging out like we might have done a little more regularly in the past.

-- Perry

Tuesday afternoon

After making a short run at completing some work this week, Vincent got into trouble today for getting a text message during a test and then declining to hand his cell phone over to his teacher - the same teacher who turned him for making that remark in December. Vincent said he felt this was unfair because others had gotten text message during the test and she had not asked for their phones. He's suspended for three days, through the end of Friday, but he says he won't come back, because he says they'll just find something else for him to get into trouble with. We'll see if he sticks with that. He did get stuff out of his locker, which makes it seem more definite. He was still agitated when I talked with him briefly. I continue to have mixed feelings about all of this. I did talk with his guidance counselor about how he could transfer to the all-on-line school.


P.S. Tuesday evening Vincent - to our surprise, over at our house with his friend - seemed to be hedging about shifting out of his school. Apparently he can go back Monday, if he chooses to, although he will be all the more behind with school work (which he's not supposed to be able to make up from those three days) and with his senior project (he didn't show up Tuesday for a planned for library project). I also forgot to mention that last week he apparently dropped out for good from an activity that was the love of his life last winter - the 10-Minute Plays. He had missed some practices because of all his sicknesses/absences. So - to him - similar things set him off against the plays that supposedly set him off against his social studies teachers - justice/fairness/conspiracy issues both. He said he felt the teacher was singling him out on the cell phone, since others during the test had got text messages or calls (and she supposed didn't ask for their phones). With the 10-Minute plays, the student leaders made fun of Vincent for missing practice even though he was sick when he missed practice (admitted - to my mind - sick in part because of bad decisions he made for example about going over to his friend's when he already didn't feel great). Vincent initially said he was quitting the plays because he wanted more time to do homework (oh that that were really true). I also believe that - if he were still in school - in about a week - after 4th sixth-weeks' grades came in - they would have to boot him out anyway - and he may have seen the handwriting on the wall - You can't fire me - I quit! I had mixed feelings about it last year, but that was a big part of his life. His tenure at school may or may not be over. But it seems that his 10-Minute plays tenure is definitely over. (He had even talked about helping direct the plays until his inability to fit a Theater class in his schedule, the Danes, his girlfriend, his bad grades, and his general problems all seemed to intervene.)

-- Perry

Unfair competition

Somehow movie dstributors manage to position stars of their movies so they are up for Oscars in categories that the movie companies want. Just as it was a crime that Kate Winslet won a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe for "The Reader" - when she was the star of that movie - remember - the other leading character was played by two different actors (and she may well win the Best Actress Oscar), it's a crime that Heath Ledger is up for a Best Supporting Actor - just because he played a bad guy in the "Dark Knight" and apparently because folks want to make sure he gets a posthumous Oscar. The movie's "good guy" - Christian Bale as Batman - arguably got slightly more screen time in "Knight." But Ledger was close behind, and - let's face it - he was the star of the movie. As good as Michael Shannon was - for example - in "Revolutionary Road" - which I saw yesterday - it's hard to imagine how he could compete - with his 10 minutes total of screen time - against Ledger, who seemed to have almost an hour in "Knight" (a movie that I bet, like us, millions of people worldwide have seen more than once). I'd like to see - in a few minutes - how Ledger would have done vs. Frank Langella of "Frost/Nixon," Richard Jenkins of "The Visitor," and the others (whose movies I haven't yet seen). I bet Ledger might win the Best Actor Oscar he arguably should have won for "Brokeback Mountain" - if it weren't for movie companies trying to manipulate the results.

Boy news

Tuesday we went to parent-teacher conferences at Vincent's school. Vincent has always gone to these at Brown. He argued about going - I think partly because he knew - despite his claims about his grades otherwise - what we were going to hear. But then he was sick again Tuesday and didn't have to disappoint us by not showing up. Sure enough, he was failing all the classes he failed last year (I learned indirectly from his social studies teacher later in the week that he was also failing her two classes), except for his easiest class, Journalism, the one class he passed last semester, which he has a D in. It seemed that he was paying attention and participating in class somewhat - he has done Ok on some tests - though teachers still said he was listless and/or agitated sometimes - but he was clearly not doing any work outside of class - or - if he was occasionally doing it - wasn't turning it in. I hadn't seen any evidence - or heard him really talking about - him doing homework at least since Christmas. We didn't get a straight answer about whether the school would actually exit him. Some teachers thought it was hoax - that the school was more trying to persuade us that he couldn't graduate (he could but won't) and that we should exit him. Others thought it was imminent. Some teachers proposed the drug haze theory, that he hasn't been able to pass classes because he's been high, whereas his friend's mother - who called me during the week - proposed a conspiracy theory that the school has kept him in school partly to milk his good standardized test scores - and now wants to dump him because they fear he'll hurt their perfect graduation rate. We were skeptical of both theories and I have mixed feeling about him staying. We missed talking with his old English teacher, but, by the time we had left talking to his past and present English teacher for 45 minutes, Stephanie and she had talked themselves into trying to keep Vincent in school for his own mental health (lest he stew or become too depressed sitting at home all-day supposed working on on-line classes). Vincent would have to pass all of his six classes this semester and pass two on-line classes - plus finish his senior project in the next few weeks - to graduate on time from his school. Alternatively, he could just pass a couple of classes and then take six classes (including four electives) on-line, plus put together a senior writing portfolio, to graduate from the district's virtual high school. Stephanie and I talked with one of our counselors Thursday about my interest in exiting Vincent from our home after he turns 18 in 56 days or after his senior year, unless he will be less obnoxious, do some school work and/or get a job, and do more around the house. Stephanie and the counselor spun a host of possible diagnoses around - old ones like attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, my favorite depressive personality disorder, Stephanie's favorite rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, and new ones the counselor proposed - narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, even conduct disorder (Vincent didn't seem to qualify for this). They and - the next day - Vincent's would-be mother-in-law, mother of his girlfriend (whose house he spends more waking time at - for better or worse - than at our house), thought Vincent might profit from counseling or even pharmacological intervention. On the other hand, I think Vincent has a short-term time horizon and succeeded and was less somewhat less obnoxious in the past because we presented him with incentives and discincentives - ones that over the summer he unveiled as unenforceable - so he just ignored them and went on a year-long parents-free, rent-free, tuition-free, rules-free permanent vacation. I also think Vincent would under no circumstances submit to counseling again. Friday after work (and after getting the dog from doggie dentistry) we met with Kathleen (pictured above), who had called more than a week ago to ask about Vincent's school status and called back to ask about the parent-teacher conferences, suggesting we three get together. I was tough occasionally with her, and Stephanie and she concurred with more things than she and I did. The two of them (especially she) still think Vincent has some chance of graduating on time (he's conned her more on this) and both of them are more determined than I am to find a way for Vincent to stay with us, post-May 1 and post-June 15. Without mentioning the house, we talked - at Highland Coffee (not too far from their home where I had picked up Vincent and she and her husband after they saw a movie at the Baxter Theater - (Oscar-nominated "Slumdog Millionaire") that Vincent had told us after seeing "Gran Torino" that he didn't want to see - about Vincent being less obnoxious and passing (I said - just two - reasonable expectations) classes - de facto - as a condition of him staying in the house past then. You might recall that Vincent had resolved at New Year's to be more cooperative - but that last for about two weeks - until he was doing things like jumping out of the car when we wouldn't let him stay overnight one weekend with his girlfriend (of course we eventually relented - instead of caling the police). I don't think Vincent can pass two classes and I don't think he can make it through two whole months without reverting to continually yelling at us, calling us names, and using bad language with us. But maybe - with Kathleen working on him, Stephanie home monitoring, and me essentially staying out of the way as much as possible - he'll surprise me. We've got 56 days to find out. So far this weekend he hasn't gotten off to a bad start, as he supposedly worked on some homework and one of his on-line classes and did his laundry (though not all of his other chores).

-- Perry

Stealing the show

Hours away from the Oscar broadcast, I wanted to recognize a couple of actresses in movies I've watched recently who nearly stole the show - playing "straight men" women -- from their more celebrated and more glitzy fellow actors. Rosemarie Dewitt (above), from TV's "Mad Men" (which I've never seen), held her own versus more flamboyant sister (Oscar-nominated) Anne Hathaway and dark mother Debra Winger in Jonathan Demme's marvelous "Rachel Getting Married." Rebecca Hall, who we'd seen several years ago in a more tragic role in "The Prestige," also held her own vs. (Oscar-nominated) rival Penelope Cruz and friend/rival Scarlett Johansson (along recent Oscar winner Javier Bardem, pictured with Hall below) in Woody Allen's breezy but brilliant "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

In a lighter and more glamorous role, Hall (also below) went on this year to also practically steal the show from (Oscar-nominated) Frank Langella and beau Michael Sheen, in Ron Howard's subtlely sophisticated (Oscar-nominated) "Frost/Nixon."

And speaking of actresses stealing the show from celebrated co-stars, one has to mention the brief monologue by half-Korean actress Moon Bloodgood - with Robert DeNiro (pictured below) in this fall's confused but interesting "What Just Happened."

Good luck at the mike, Hugh!

-- Perry

Officers' retreat

North central Kentucky has been a historic center of U.S. Catholicism, going back to the 1800s. Twenty years ago, Mom, Penny, and I visited her friend John who was staying at the Gethsemane monastery, once the home of famed Thomas Merton. (Merton was a contemplative monk whose writings became well known in the 1960s - as he then turned to social activism - for civil rights and agaisnt the war - and then in favor of interfaith. Merton died mysteriously during a 1968 trip to Asia.) Monks there pray five times a day - the first time at 5:30 a.m. - and we joined John, who stayed there for a week checking it out, at a midday service. Nearby is a Catholic college and a nunnery, for the Sisters of Loretto (pictured above). There every January the session at our church has a retreat. This year it was a church officer retreat, as the deacons (in their second year of existence again) joined us. Soni and I took a wrong turn driving there, but wound up in a restaurant in Bardstown where, to our surprise, four other folks headed for the retreat were already dining. Soni drove aggressively so we could get there just 20-25 minutes late. But a group of four others was much later than us - more than 1 1/2 hours late. This group drove up to the entrance pictured above, but then decided they were hungry - and - having missed dinner at the nunnery cafeteria - decided to drive back to Bardstown. They used Ben's GPS device - which was new - which apparently doesn't work well in rural Central Kentucky - and so they ended up driving down dirt roads and through fields until some hour or two later they wound up in Bardstown (should have been 20-30 minutes). Then they ate and finally returned - but regaled us with funny/interesting stories about their trip late Friday. The nunnery is on a small campus proper within a much larger property. There is a very small pond and an old cemetery which I explored last year (it's usually cold when we're there). The men usually stay in a guesthouse, whose kitchen and living room are everyone's base of operations. Apparently the place is quite reasonable and we have this house to ourselves every year. The women usually stay in dorm rooms on the second floor of a building that houses many of the nuns - many - aging - essentially in a nursing home. Pictured below are our pastor, Jane, and a new deacon, Claudia, displaying the bowl of M and Ms (we brought snacks and Saturday PM dinner food to supplement are 3-5 meals in the cafeteria) that became a metaphor for the passage of time at the retreat.

Elaine, an elder who chairs the Nurture Council and so is one of our Chidlren's Fellowship bosses, and Claudia got there before us. Jane and the clerk of our session (the group of elders who serve both governing and spiritual funcitons), Peter, always get there earlier in the day - Jane to prepare, and Peter also to ride his bike around the area.

Sally is an elder, Kay is a deacon, and Ada is a new elder on session.

Below Jane was about to get us started as two of the elders and errant car riders - Anita and Marcus - surrounding Lowell, a deacon - converse and look on.

There are those M and Ms again.

Lowell, Marcus, and Elaine took a break in the kitchen too (Saturday AM?).

A top national church official who attends our church, Marcia, joined us Saturday AM to help lead us in a prioritizing activity, which worked out well. Marcia is mother of Kate, another of our Children's Fellowship bosses, and grandmother of Izabal, pictured in earlier blog entries.

In the whole group, individually, and then in small groups, we ended up taking some congregational visioning statements and trying to flesh them out - including IDing ways we do and don't follow them. The sheet pictured below was a small part of the products of that activity. (Click on it if you want to be able to read it.)

I tried to take head dshots of some of my colleagues - for one of my church blogs - but this didn't work out perfectly - partly because I was stil trying to get the hang of Mom's camera. I generally ended up using more extreme close-ups - but this is an early one I took of Elaine.

Elaine is a management consultant and mother of a middle-schooler who's done a good job with us before in a Marcia-like role. Below is another session colleague whose head shot I was trying to get - Ben, a Baptist minister, former mission worker in the Caribbean, and member of our church's youth team, who has recently helped plan our Guatemala trip and changed jobs within the local school system.

Below is Ben being playful with the lasagna that Elaine broght for us for Saturday PM dinner. Eventually Ben had trouble getting all of the lasagna into the oven. (Last year I spent our entire 3-hour Satuday afternoon break time locked (sort of) in a room with our pastor and 2-3 other elders trying to come up with part of the vision statement. This year I spent some time typing our notes and writing letters to church members who I'd be praying for this year - but I also got in a short time laying down in my room (instead of helping get dinner ready). Later Saturday PM I would get out my laptop to work in a report for work.)

Aside from the stories about Ben, Marcus, Anita, and Eva's drive and the visioning/prioritizing activity, a high point of the retreat was the always epic game of 25 Words or less that we played Saturday PM. This is a game in which there are two teams (in this case, elders vs. deacons), and each team sends a rep up front (sort of a la Family Feud). the two reps pull a list of five words or phrases that they must prompt their teammates to say (without geatures - the fewest one-word clues - wins - sort of the opposite of charades - but of course they can't use the actual words or any derivatives or variants of the words). Some of these words are proper nouns and/or phrases. A trick is that the two reps must bid on the list - whoever says they can get their teammates to come up with the words/phrases with the fewest one-word clues wins the bidding - and gets to try. (It's better if you've planned out all your clues even in advance of bidding.) The other team gets to do nothing - but gets a point if the other tries and fails. One other important feature of the game - team members can guess as many times as they want - supplying even hundreds of words and phrases in rapid-fire succession in response to a single clue. For a short time, the two teams monkey around with seven or eight words of clues. But quickly one has to bid as low as five to get a chance - and sometimes (as we shall see) even lower. All of this is a chance to have fun and to get to know each a little better - to explore intellectual and cultural interests of ours - words - and through a little competition. Our clerk of session, Peter, the bicylist whose kids we used to take to Sunday afternoon youth group, was a prime instigator of the game (he was disappointed when we didn't play long a year ago - but we surpassed even his expectations I suspect this time). Anita, a third-year elder, was also quite an expert. They led an opening round.

Deacon Lowell and Elder Laura were also both quite good in their own unique ways. Laura, also a librarian, got what I thought was the toughest word on my list during my last run.

Below is Soni, one of the deacons, who went with us to Guatemala, helping the deacons rack up some more points.

Claudia and Ben enjoyed strategizing and bidding against each other.

Deacon Andrea (sister of Elaine) and new youth Elder Ana considered the possibilities.

And so did Jane and Elaine.

And so did Carlos (our student pastor and Ana's father) and I. (Who took this picture?)

Peter and Ada (and then others) matched up as the game continued.

While some gave the clues, others guessed the words or watched the goings on (or signed thelr letters).

Below - with Anita and Laura - is Marcus (who works at UPS and is also a professional juggler). (When I joined the session as a new leder a year ago - I joked that I had always thought that I was too young to be an elder - but now - as it turns out - I was (almost) too old. Many of the newer elders are in fact younger than I am.)

One of the most memorable parts of the game when Lowell got hopelessly behind and quit trying to get his teammates to guess the words and phrases with the fewest clues. Instead, he began to adopt particularly funny gestures and clues.

Ada found Lowell's performance particularly funny.

By Saturday night, there were not very many M and Ms left.

Probably the high point of the retreat came relatively late during the 25 Words or less game when Pastor Jane went up to bid and went where no 25 Words or less team has successfully gone before: In order to get the chance, she said that her team of deacons plus Peter could guess all five words or phrases after hearing just FOUR one-word clues from her. She obviously had mapped all this out before she actually bid. Not only did her team come through, but they did so in record short time. And, so, at 10:37 a.m., our church set a Guiness Book of World Records mark for 25 Words or less run with the fewest word clues (four) and the shortest time.

A short time later, I tried to get our elders' team to replicate this. But we stumbled on "water animal' as a clue for three words, and "piranha" was not forthcoming. And the deacons won the game. After an even later night for some of us and a cafeteria breakfast for some, we got back together Sunday AM for worship in the familiar living room. That's Eva (a Toastmasters colleague of mine), an elder on session again (who - like Ada - has been an elder on session before) on the far left.

That's Carol, a new deacon, to Pastor Jane's left. (Three elders - Ben, Martha, and Stephen - weren't able to make it.)

After worship, we got ready to go (without needing to take any M and Ms back, you'll notice.).

I got a ride back with Ana and Carlos. Carlos had hoped to drive slow and enjoy the countryside, and perhaps to drive by Gethsemane. But I mentioned that I was interested in getting back to Louisville to participate in part of worship at another church (where our friend would be recognized) and so he picked up the pace and went home partly on the freeway instead of on Bardstown Road. Below is the pond down the hill from the house, across the street from the cemetery.

Au revoir, Loretto!

-- Perry