Monday 11/2/98 - Tuesday 11/3/98

"...Christy and I went to the Los Angeles County Adoption Conference. We actually arrived Sunday at about 19:15. We had dinner and went to bed. Kind of blissful without children. I went to register for the conference, Christy was a presenter so she just had to check in at the Speakers Room. I asked the guy next to me if I was in the right line A-E. He said yes. I wasn't in the right line. They have signs on the table but they were hung from the edge so if anyone was standing in line no one could see them. After getting into the right line and getting my package I had to get in another line to get my nametag ... lame.... The conference went down hill from there. I went to a class instructed by a Director of something or other at A.V. College. It was entitled "Creating trust in children". Well if it was, it was over my head, it was an overview of several theories regarding attachment and dependency. It just sort of irritated me, a waste of my time. So I went to another class called "Parenting an Angry Child". I said I may be able to get something out of that, but it was about some guy's experience parenting his angry kid, the bottom line seemed to be, "find a way to get away from the brat till you calm down." Though that may be a tempting respite from stress it is not a viable option when you have seven kids.

I gave up going to classes and helped out in the Speakers Room. I guess I'm just not a real good conference go'er. The longer I stay there the more disgusted I get. The conference handed out stickers to confirm that people actually attended class. We had people come in asking for stickers for classes that haven't been presented yet. They also tried to get stickers for classes that were canceled. I am not encouraged for the wellbeing of the children in Foster Care. It's a real crapshoot and from the cross section that I came in contact with at this affair the odds are against them getting someone who cares.

Wednesday 11/4/98

"... After I finished 157 E-mails I built a door for the water heater enclosure. The one that was there was beyond repair. I did a serviceable job, at least it met my fathers requirements " it looks better than it did"

I read a line on the Net . ...My Uncle Bill, whenever he cut a joint in woodworking that didn't quite fit as it should, would say;

"You'd never see that from the back of a galloping horse".

I got a call from "Airborne Express" that they couldn't find the place so I went out front. If you don't know your way around up here it's hard to find anything. I was talking to the dispatcher but I could hear the driver in the background. After a while I was able to see her truck about a mile and a half down the road. I felt like an air traffic controller.

Pretty boring day actually.

Thursday 11/5/98

"... Mike has an appointment at 15:00 with the Talking Dr. (Christy will take him) Calie gets picked up at 14:45, Mokie at 14:55, big kids at 15:00 Autumns bus comes at 15:20. , Calie and Mokie have dance class at 15:30, Christian has Soccer at 15:45, Cindy has dance class at 16:30, I pick up Christian at 17:15 and hopefully Christy will be back to pick up Cindy at 17:00. Thursdays suck.

Made it through all that.... I arrived a little early to pick up Calie and Mokie, When I got there I could see the class. the little girls were doing those ballet poses with their arms over their heads, except Mokie, she was making muscle man poses. I went to the desk to see when they would be done and the door to the room they were in opened and the teacher escorted Mokie out. She said "Are her parents here?" I said "I'm her Dad", the teacher said "I have to ask her to leave the class" I asked "Why" She said "I'm trying to teach Ballet and she wants to do Karate." I said "That's my Mokie" When I told Mom that Mokie got kicked out of Ballet Class Mokie said "I wasn't kicked out ... I was walked out." Mom and I were both pooped so I bought the kids 'Happy Meals" for dinner.

I got a message from George Overman that he is going to suggest to Don Miller that I assemble the USS Cogswell Newsletter. I am anxious to give it a try. I'll let George and Don gather up the articles and then I get to do the fun stuff. I have to get to work on the Family Newsletter too... time's running out. Christmas is just around the corner and I haven't done squat. Got another message via snail mail from George, it was a blow-up of the picture of Lumpy covered with mud. Pretty cool.....

Friday 11/6/98

"... Michael Timothy Daggett's 11th Birthday today.

Autumn is home for the next three weeks, what a goofy schedule she has.

We have "Anonymous Call Blocking" AKA "Block the Blacker" on our phone, it stops a lot of the telemarketers and with Caller ID I can see who's calling. If someone were to call me who has Caller ID Blocking activated they get a recording informing them that the customer they dialed will not accept blocked calls and they may "unblock" any outgoing call by pressing *82 before dialing the number.
i.e.: *82-1805 269-2212

People can't seem to get it straight and dial *82 and their own number, or some other combination. We discovered that some PBX's (Privately owned switching systems) will not complete the call. We got a knock on the door from "B"'s Social Worker because *82 didn't work at his office and he couldn't reach us. Murphy's Law was in effect of course...the house wasn't it's usual impeccable, spotless shape. Christy's new Dishwasher was in the livingroom, the Happy Meals from last night were on the table, the aftermath of the ritual morning mayhem (Getting the kids ready for school) was littering the whole house, compounded by a mad search for one of Mokie's shoes.

He had Court Papers for '"B"' 2-6 hearing (A preliminary to beginning Adoption proceedings). He said, "er...are you moving?" how embarrassing. He also had a request from the court for visitation from '"B"'s father. I am not pleased about that. ""B"'s family has asked to see him several times. Christy takes '"B" all the way down there and they don't show up, I see no reason to inflict '"B" with any more disappointment. He has enough problems .....

Well the Buick has been acting up and sure as blazes it had just cause. It's transmission went South, bummer. I managed to drive it to the Transmission shop in Littlerock but it was a little worrisome. The poor thing was deteriorating rapidly. It was slipping noticeably when we decided to take it in but by the time I got to the shop it would barely do 20 miles an hour. It should be ready on Tuesday.

Mike had soccer practice, he was a grouch, his coach even mentioned what a little grump he was. I picked him up and we went to pick up his new 'Red-Line' (A Red-Line is a motocross bicycle.... like a Rolls Royce is a car) and some pizza for his party. I took a lot of pictures and will post them when I get them developed.

Talked to my sister Sue in Scottsdale for about an hour, that was unusual, but very nice.

Saturday 11/7/9

"... Christy will be gone all day to a strategy meeting at a lawyers office in Long Beach, she is an 'expert witness' in a case being handled by him. That means I get to do my usual soccer thing, only with all seven kids.... Not a happy prospect. It should be OK because the games start 15 minutes apart and I will only have to keep them civil for an hour and a half. Pray for me...

Cindy and "B" couldn't stay away from each other's throats. Those two taunt and tease each other mercilessly, once they get going there is nothing civilized that anyone can do to get them apart. I tried a water hose once but Cindy liked it.

The coach made Mike a Goalie in the first half they were down 4 - 0 by half time, they made him forward in the second half, they won the second half 1-0, I hope the coach made note...

I messed with the Motorhome a little bit today. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I finished patching the divot Lumpy took out of the roof of my shed and covered the air conditioner.

Sunday 11/8/98

"... I made the mistake of saying that I thought it might be fun to sleep in the Motorhome tonight. Mike heard me and took that to mean that it was carved in stone and they ran to get their blankets soooo I slept out there with Mike, Christian, '"B" and DaMoke. I have a hard time sleeping on an air-mattress. I must have woken up 50 times.

I've gotten lots of positive feed-back on this site, I enjoy working on it. I still intend to move it to my local ISP once I get better at it. WebPages are pretty easy to do, anyone can go to Tripod and build one of these, it has all the basics and you don't even need to know HTML.

Packers won't play until Monday night but there are a few good games on today.

11/9/98 - 11/15/98

Monday 11/9/98 "...It is Tuesday as I write this, I can't for the life of me remember what the hell I did on Monday. Kids went to school and came home, Ohhh now I remember, the Packers got their cock-sure butts kicked. No wonder I tried to blot the whole day from memory.

Tuesday 11/10/98

"...Buick is still in the shop, won't be out till Wednesday afternoon, $1195.00 plus tax according to the little lady chortling at the other end of the phone line. I hate front wheel drive cars, the dirt road just tears them up. It also had 2 out of the three motor mounts broken, 'spose that may have something to do with the transmission going south? I am not real fond of Buicks at the moment either.

I bought the RYOBI rip-off of a Milwaukee SawsAll today. I tried it out on a section of the kitchen wall that is coming out, it works great. I have several RYOBI tools and they have all been good. Oops, sorry about that folks, I forget that sometimes there are things in my world that nobody cares about,

Christy is determined to redo the kitchen and in about 20 minutes of saw testing I'm afraid I have irrevocably embarked on a course into the unknown. I already see a few problems, like the wire coming out of the ceiling for the florescent lights. I'm going to have to fish it back into the ceiling and down the wall and some how make it about 2 feet longer, also, there is no stud where the East wall of the kitchen abuts the North Wall of the Office ... Hmmm.... when I pull the 1/4 inch plasterboard off the rest of the kitchen, I wonder what other architectural marvels I will uncover. I have to pull it off because today Christy informed me that we are going to tile the counter and the 'back-splash'. I think that's what you call the wall space between the counter and the cupboards, and I am informed that trying to affix ceramic tile to greasy old 1/4 inch plasterboard is not the recommended course of action.

I am really not a handyman by any definition of the word. I get myself into these situations by getting backed into a corner. I will be wiring, plumbing, and carpenter(ing) for at least 3 weeks, I am not looking forward to it either. I suspect that these nightly ruminations will become more terse over the course of the renovation. The kitchen is not the end of my trials either, she wants to add two rooms onto the back of the house and build a porch across the front and gut both bathrooms and tear up the carpet and replace it with some kind of tile and ..... I am booked up till the millennium. I may have to go back to work to save myself. Those of you who yearn for retirement, beware, It's not all milk and honey there are obstacles aplenty.

I recollect my first wife telling me that the fireplace needed to be moved closer to the back of the living room, I suspect that that request may have instilled the first seed of doubt as to the longevity of our relationship.

"...Hey! It's Veterans Day, and I'm a Veteran too! 'Spose that will count for anything around here?

My kids will read about the Viet Nam .... whatever it was .... in history books. Does that seem surreal to anyone else besides me? Viet Nam will have the same disconnected reality to them as the Civil War has to me. My Grandfather fought in the "Great War", My father was in World War II, I was almost two when he finally got to see me. Korea was a part of my life for years. the A-bomb, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Viet Nam. It's been 35 years folks.... sorry ... forgot about Desert Storm and Grenada.... still .... 35 years.... damn.

The cabinets and the new Microwave arrived, in the rain. It rained pretty much all day, messed up the roads a little but not bad. I have the old pantry torn down and only one and the cabinets up to the stove torn out and 75% of the wall cabinets are down. Mike was a big help and Lumpy pitched in too Lumpy likes to tear thing up.

Tried to take the kids to McD's but they couldn't hold it together long enough to get there. Mike and '"B" were tearing into one another pretty good. Some LOL (Little Old Lady) gave me the evil eye at the gas station. I think she was trying to communicate that she disapproved of my children's behavior, or perhaps my inability to control their behavior. I wish I could have offered her an opportunity to try her hand. She probably would have had them marching close order drills in no time. When Grandma comes to baby-sit the kids are little angels, I think they are a little afraid of her. Grandma takes no prisoners

Thursday 11/12/98

"...Christy had a meeting at the college at 10 AM Autumn and I amused ourselves with PC's and Barney and such till Noon we met Mom for lunch and Christy took off again, picked up Cindy at school and took her in to Kaiser for an EEG. We need to determine if she was still having Petit-Mal seizures. The results will be in next week.

I messed with the tractor and got it to run again after 4 months of being idle. It started right up with a boost ... after I remembered to turn on the key. Autumn and I graded the driveway a little.

I picked up Calie and the rest and dropped Calie off at dance class, Mokie dropped out. I got Christian to soccer practice on time and when Christy got home from picking up Calie and dropping off Cindy I took off for the ROF. Pretty fair turnout this time.

Tony Natoli, one of my best friends, implied that this web page might possibly be a little wordy. Well, he's right, it is, but it's my WebPage and since I'm not as quick-witted and glib as he is, I compensate with this. Most times I pretend I'm just talking with my Mother in Scottsdale but I suspect it is also a little therapeutic too. My sister Sue calls it, compassionately, "Stream of consciousness" writing, I figure that if someone loses interest in this rambling they will just stop reading and trash it.

(Do me a favor, if anyone actually gets this far please drop me a line)

padagge@netport.com

It'll just take a second, honest

Friday 11/13/98

"...I got something in my eye Wednesday and it is swollen up and infected now. I got myself a 3:45 appointment at Kaiser.

Picked up the car finally, hope it was worth the time and money.

Mike stayed overnight at his coach's house.

Got to Kaiser and they got the whatever it was out of my eye and gave me some antibiotic and eye drops.

Ripped out some more of the kitchen.

Built a little WebPage for the ROF:

http://members.tripod.com/padagge/ROFGrid1.html

Saturday 11/14/98

"...Mike had an 8 AM game, I took Mokie and Calie with me. Mike scored 2 goals in a 7 - 2 loss. He really lost his temper at the Referee because the other team kind of zeroed in on him and the Ref wasn't calling any fouls. He didn't get any cards but he probably could have. He went back to his Coach's house and spent the night. His Coach, Elizabeth, has a lot of toys, ATV's, Swimming pool, horses, there is even a Motocross Track in the front yard.

I laid out the work to be done on the kitchen project finally, looks like at least two weeks work, maybe more. I hate plumbing, it's an art-form I have never been able to fathom, I will most likely hire someone for that.

Christian couldn't find one sock so we tore the house apart looking for it to get ready for his 10:30 game. He can't play without a complete uniform, I called the coach to see if he had a spare pair. His daughter said she had a pair of yellow socks but her Dad was cleaning the pool, I said to myself as I hung up, the game is in 30 minutes and he's cleaning his pool? That's odd.... I went to look at the schedule and the game wasn't till 13:00. Christy was looking at the wrong date. Oh well.......I took Christian to his game, they lost 7-1, Christian was not his usual exuberant self, but he played a good steady game.

I took Christian to his buddy Jose's house in Palmdale and went to several stores to get stuff for dinner and for the kitchen. I managed to get 10 sheets of "Sheet-rock" and some 2x4's into the truck and brought Christian home.

Christy's sister Pat called and said she was bringing her son over. Bill is in the Air Force on his second hitch. He will be going to Germany for 2 years in two weeks. Bill and Pat will be going to Pennsylvania to visit with his sisters. Holly is about to have another baby (Due on the 20th) and Heather is getting married next February. (Hope it wasn't a surprise visit because Dan, Holly's husband, reads this)

Sunday 11/15/98

Well I hope to be able to vegetate today but Calie has already reminded me that it has been 3 weeks since we have gone on our Sunday Is Donut Day" trek to the Yum Yum Donut shop in Palmdale. Also, Christy is giving me that narrow eyed look that every husband knows, that says "So, that football game is more important than the (kitchen in this case)". If I hurry I can make it back for the kick-off.

Your friends love you anyway.

11/24/98 - 11/29/98

Monday 11/23/98

"...Went to Home Depot again, they call me Mr. Daggett, I can see them through the door high-fiveing one another, their paychecks are assured for another week. Bought furring strips, staples, and some other stuff. pulled down most of the ceiling, on the outside wall I can reach over the top of the wall studs and feel the outside of the house. This house is architecturally one step above a packing crate.

I watched football sorta. It was a pretty good game, what I saw of it.

Last night Calie asked me to help her with her homework. She showed me a paper that looked like a book report. I asked her what book we were supposed to do the report on and she said something about a book called "Wednesday Surprise". I said, "Where's the book?" She said the book was at school. I asked her the questions that were on the paper and she didn't have the answers. She got very frustrated that I didn't know what to do.

I saw another paper with the book report that said it was due on the 23^rd, so I asked her if they all were due on Monday she said "No they were all due tomorrow!" I said "No, the "I am thankful for …" paper says it is due Monday." I told her to just bring the book home tomorrow and we'll do the report. She said, "I have to do my HOMEWORK!" It was late and I didn't think it was that big a deal so I told her to go to bed, she asked for help again in the morning and we had essentially the same conversation.

Calie was extremely upset about being benched and I feel that somehow it was my fault. She enjoys school and works very hard to excel. The teacher needs to include some brief instruction, or be assured that she really understands how to do the assignment. With 7 kids we need all the help we can get keeping on top of the schoolwork and, frankly, our tolerance level for frustration is pretty low too.

Tuesday 11/24/98

"...Visited Agua Dulce School. We are going to get Cindy some more help at school. We still haven't gotten the results from her EEG but we have to do something because she is getting to far behind in class. She reads well but is not able to comprehend what she has read 5 minutes later. The only choices we have are to put her in the same class as "B" or sending her or "B" to Agua Dulce School (Used to be called Sweetwater but apparently someone actually tasted the water or something because they changed their name). Mrs. Conant, the teacher at Acton School, runs a very regimented class (I call it Stalag 17) and "B" appears to be holding on Ok there, Mrs. Peterson at Agua Dulce school has a pretty laid back class but it is really focused on behavior. Behavior is not Cindy's problem, I don't know what the problem is all I know is the symptoms.

CostCo to shop for Thanksgiving stuff. Dropped off some film.

We made it back in time to get to the school and watch Mike sing, it was really pretty good. What they lacked in talent they made up for with volume. They really belted out an old "Limelighter" song I can't remember the name but it surprised me to hear it. The teacher said she found it in an old folksong book.

Calie's teacher informed me that she will be "Super Star" on Monday. That means more computer work, pressure ... pressure ... pressure.

"B" visited with his Bio-dad and 3 of his sisters. He seems pretty blasé about the whole experience, I was expecting trouble but so far ....

The boys slept in the Motorhome

Wednesday 11/25/98

"...I woke up and turned on the PC and noticed on my calendar that I was supposed to have Mike at the Court House at 8:30. Christy and I had completely forgotten. We made it there in time, sitting in the waiting room in Juvenile Court is a sobering experience. Mike saw another kid there about 9 years old, nice looking kid with red hair. They struck up a conversation and Mike asked him why he was here, the kid said "I burned the neighbors house down." That put things in perspective. Mike doesn't like being associated with the people in that room, that is a good thing. The PD didn't like the DA or the Judge so he got Mikes case got postponed till the 27th of January.

Kids are off till Monday.

Got the results of Cindy's EEG, negative on the seizures. That's the good news and that's the bad news too. Now we have to figure out what is causing these mood swings, mood lurches is more like it. The Dr will probably put her on Tegretol, maybe that will help her stay in touch with the rest of the world.

Thursday 11/26/98

"...Thanksgiving in Riverside. The plan was for us to be out of here by 10:00 because Christy's sister is in town from Las Vegas. We left the house at 12:15. Typical. We made it about 3 miles and Cindy, "B", Christian, and Mike got into a fight, we forgot to give them their medicine. I turned around and went home for it.

We arrived in Riverside at 1300. Suzie was there with her grandson Tyler, Torie. Suzie's son James and his girlfriend Holly and her daughter Kiristi (Yes, that is spelled correctly) were there too. Since Pat is in Pennsylvania Mike was stag. He brought Billy's pick-up truck for Grandpa to use while he's in Germany (Nice truck Bill, nice gesture too, consider yourself more than "Paid In full" for the Kawasaki). Grandpa is scared to death of it..., I don't think he's driven a stick shift since 1952. Mike told Grandpa to be careful because the clutch chatters a little if you powershift between 80 and 90 mph. Mike really had him going for a while...... He drove Mike home and Mike said he did OK, just a couple sloppy shifts, but he'll be a pro in a week or two.

Dinner was pretty good but I did so much munching before dinner I didn't do it justice. Plus I was a little upset with the kids behavior too, sort of took the edge off the day. I like Thanksgiving, it is my of my favorite holiday. It's a family day, it's a day when everyone relaxes and does traditional, predictable things. I think the fact that we usually have it here in the 'Daggett Hovel' was part of my gloominess too. Damn kitchen....

Friday 11/27/98

"...Expecting rain tonight and tomorrow so I have to get the sheet-rock inside.

Christy went to the Kaiser Lab to have some blood work done, we are trying to find out if she has Diabetes. We heard some Doctor on the radio ticking off symptoms and Christy and I looked at each other when he was done and said je-e-e-eze, she had them all.

I took Mike over to his buddies house and the rest of the kids and I got donuts .... I seem to say that a lot don't I .... do you suppose that may be a contributing factor to my inability to lose weight? Might tie into my cholesterol dilemma too...'spose?

I finally got to do some work on the kitchen ceiling this afternoon, Christy and I got most of the 'furring' strips up and even attached some tiles. It looks pretty nice...

Tomorrow we should be able to finish that. We have to tear out one more little 36" wall by the refrigerator tomorrow so we can get to the ceiling in the dining room.

Saturday 11/28/98

"...The rain came last night and little squalls have been coming through the valley all day. Christy is at a friends house assisting her daughter in preparing for an IEP for her son. The kid needs some special assistance and she is anticipating that the school up in Tahachapi is going to put up some resistance.

I went to Tony's to pick up the bikes he had for me, I told him I would pick them up a week ago. He is moving his daughter in for a few months so that she can prepare for the Bar, when I arrived there was a tow truck delivering her car, she had a fender bender, nobody was hurt. The stress free environment got off to a bumpy start. The bikes seem to be in real good shape with the exception of a strangely shaped front tire on one.

Got some more ceiling up but not the rest of the furring strips, I was stapling the tiles to the ceiling and smelled smoke, I looked down and the stapler was smoking so I went back to my pals down at Home Depot and bought a new one.

Sunday 11/29/98

"...We woke up early to clean the house because Jeff was coming over with our grandson Keagan. Debbie is not feeling well so she won't be coming. Well Jeff got here about 0930, the house was not picked up, oh well. Jeff is a big boy, huge actually, about 6' 1' 260, it surprises me every time I see him. He is an apprentice electrician, works for his father-in-law to be.

Keagan is adorable, he is almost three and very at ease with everyone including his grandparents and all his little Aunts and Uncles. Hard to think of Autumn and Mokie as Aunts but... Keagan likes the Tele Tubbies and really seemed to get a kick out of the trampoline. Jeff seems to really enjoy being with his son, I am glad to see that.

Packers won today, barely beat the worst team in football. The rest of their opponents this year are 500 teams or worse so it looks like they will be in the playoffs as a Wild Card team.

You can always spot a well informed man

- his views are the same as yours.

11/30/98 - 12/06/98

Monday 11/30/98

"...I spent the morning at "Los Angeles County, Edward Edelmann, Children's Court" for "B"'s .26 hearing. (Discontinuation of Parental Rights hearing). The Bio-Dad and Bio Mom were there. They were notified 2 months ago that we wanted to adopt "B" and about three weeks ago they requested visitation. The judge asked what grounds they had for contesting the adoption, what have they done to show the court they have an investment in the care and well being of "B". Since all they had to show was their separation, divorce, the loss of all but one (Living with Mom in Tijuana) of their 13 children and two visits in five years. The Judge denied their request and "B"'s next step will be the Adoptive Placement Hearing.

I got home about 1300, Christy's folks arrived at about 1500 to baby-sit. We left for Orange County with Autumn at about 1700. We called the Jerry and Joanne Noyes and met them for dinner at "Claim Jumper'. We were celebrating Autumn's Birthday and the adoption scheduled for the next day. After dinner we checked in to the Country Side Hotel which is about 2 blocks from the Juvenile Court. The Adoption is scheduled for 0830, we would have had to leave Acton by 5:00, no way.