Third Grade spelling homework is mindnumbingly dull.  Except when, unexpectedly, it takes a turn into the laugh out loud absurd.

One of the regular exercises is “replace the vowel.”  Basically, the kids have to take the spelling words in the list and make a new word by changing the main vowel.  It’s generally a pretty boring 20 minutes of Diva Girl running through the vowel sounds and periodically asking “Mom!  Is this a word?” 

Last week she came up with “blog.”  I was so proud.  This week though…This week, one of the words was “duck.”  And when she asked, “Mom, is ‘dick’ a word?”  well, it’s been a long time since I laughed so hard.

I hope her teacher finds it equally hilarious when he’s marking her homework this weekend.

Way back in April, TOM and the Fuctard had a court date.  It wasn’t an actual trial date, but something called a case conference.  Essentially, it’s a first meeting with the judge, where he can sort through the issues, make what rulings he can, and hold over the big issues for a more in depth session. 

Part of the preparation for this process is the Case Conference brief.  Essentially, this is the document each side submits to the court, outlining their issues and detailing how great they are and how much the other side sucks. 

TOM and I, being hopelessly naieve (and, you know, not lawyers), took the highroad in our brief.  Hell, we were so high above that road, we were cruising in the stratosphere.  We took a “Just the facts, Ma’am” approach that sought to keep the nasty accusations and vitriol out of it.  The Fuctard?  Not so much.  His lawyer went for the nastiest spin and most vicious red herrings he could find.  What really sucked about this what that we didn’t get a chance to respond to his brief.  The way the process goes, the Applicant (that would be us) files first, and then the Respondent gets to, well, respond.  So, we were stuck with trying to make the best of it and hoping that the judge would admire our restraint and dismiss his smears for what they were.

And then….Then the Fuctard once again demonstrated why, in addition to being a fuctard, he’s also an idiot.  When he fired the old lawyer (with no notice) and hired the new guy, he apparently got the court date wrong.  Meaning he didn’t show up for court.  And neither did his lawyer.  There was some weaseling and outright lying on the lawyer’s part, but in the end it boiled down to the fact that they fucked up. So the court date got rescheduled, and we did end up with another kick at the can afterall.

Yep.  I got to take their reply, and turn it into our opening salvo.  We still tried to stay on the highroad, but I’ll admit that it was probably a dirt road.  I took all of their points and addressed them in our brief, seeking to either minimize or totally undercut them.  And we got a lot more descriptive about our issues, describing timelines, quoting conversations (making liberal use of the phrase “expletive deleted”) and throwing in some red herrings of our own.

But that’s not even the best part!  The best part is that his lawyer assumed that we didn’t know we were allowed to file a new brief.   In fact, when we dropped it off the Friday before court, the receptionist told us that he was on vacation until Tuesday, the day his response was due.  They didn’t make the deadline and were forced to stick with their intial brief–the one I utterly gutted.

As damage control, the lawyer called TOM late on the Tuesday and tried to pull a fast one, suggesting that they completely forgo the case conference and simply move to a settlement conference that he could convienently schedule for the next week.  He clearly thought TOM was an idiot, telling her that he was acting in with utter neutrality in offering this.  In fact, he hadn’t even run it by the Fuctard yet.  Because that’s what lawyers do.  They look out for the best interests of the opposing side, and make offers that aren’t sanctioned by their clients.  Riiight.

When we told him that we’d prefer to stick with the case conference, he told us that it was a useless waste of time.  Nothing ever gets settled at a case conference.  It’s just ten minutes in front of the judge to set the time for the settlement conference, which is the truly important part of the process.  Basically, he tried everything he could think of to keep TOM out of that courtroom.  She thanked him for his free advice, but told him that given the fact that she is unrepresented, she just feels better following all the steps as they’re laid out. 

And thank god she did.  Because the judge ruling then and there to award her table support was simply the icing on the cake.  The verbal spanking administered to the Fuctard was the truly delicious part.

You know what I realized today?  It’s an anniversary of sorts.  Actually, the anniversary was back on Friday.  Because Nov. 3, 2005 was the last time I had to sit across a conference table from the Fuctard and pretend like the whole mediation process was going somewhere. 

Not that I’ve not had dealings with the Fuctard in the intervening months; I’ve kicked his ass soundly a couple of times.  But it’s been a year since any face to face pretense that his demands would be met without a lengthy and bloody court battle.   It’s been a nice break.  Made all the more relaxing by the fact that we are technically still in mediation, which means that the papers we signed agreeing to forgo taking legal action against each other are still in force.  So, I get to hold firm on “No.  I do not believe that visitation is in Diva Girl’s best interests right now.” and he can’t do anything about it.

This situation is made even more delicious by the fact that I did finally get my child support increase in September.  After the province of Ontario threatened to take him to court for it.  Suddenly there wasn’t any more “well, my lawyer says that even though my taxes say I made this much, really I should only pay this much because…..”  Suddenly X=Y was infintely reasonable, provided that I make a statement that he was not in fact in violation of the agreement and did not owe any arrears. 

I didn’t like it, but I signed the declaration.  I could’ve fought and gotten support back dated to May, but I’d have had to do it on my own, losing that lovely shield of plausible deniability.  Besides, about the time this all went down, the Canadian Supreme Court made a radical change to the child support laws:  It is now the payor’s responsibility to make sure that the appropriate amount of support is paid.  And if the payor fails to do so, he will be held liable for all money owed.  I’m really looking forward to next tax season.

It’s not over yet though.  See, that cheque reached diabetic coma levels of sweetness in that it was the first time that the Fuctard was required to pay full support for both of his children.  So, he now pays out roughly my entire monthly income, just in child support. 

Yeah, the Fuctard had a pretty rough summer.  And this?  Not even the worst of it.  Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about his day in court. 

Ok, well, thanks to landismom I now know how to get a pic in here.  Now, on to resizing!  Because I promise, it’s a funny picture (that shows I have way too much time on my hands.)

I had a post here squeeing about Mir and Otto’s big news.  And some stuff about the weird sort of familiarity that happens in the blogosphere.  But mostly squeeing.  I accidentally deleted it in the mad quest to post a damn picture.  So I’m putting this in it’s place.  Because it’s NaBloPoMo Mir’s news totally needs to be squeed over.

Why can’t I post a picture?  I’m trying to post a picture.  I’ve got it all nicely uploaded down there, but I can’t get it up here.  What is up with that? 

Anybody using Wordpress want to take pity on me here?  (And I guess I really should figure out the whole flickr/photobucket thing, eh?)

I first heard about the whole sordid mess from Ann  last week.  But when I took her advice and went here to see if I was a victim, I didn’t turn up.  I figured since I used the aggregate search and none of my key words–fuctard, Diva Girl, and Zen Baby, in case you were wondering– popped up, I wasn’t affected. 

I figured I just wasn’t plaigerism-worthy (sniff).  I figured wrong. 

Mary P’s another victim.  Like me, she didn’t turn up in the more sophisticated aggregate search.  But the dead simple strategy of simply searching the blog listings for hers turned her right up.  So I checked again. 

And the bastards got me.  Twice. 

Now, I’m pretty much a luddite with a keyboard and DSL, so I’m not even going to attempt to delve into the whole “how to protect your blog” thing.  Ann and Mary P both have excellent links about that.  What I am going to do is sic a major corporation on their plaigerizing asses.

See, Ms Sisyphus is a labour of love.  (Yes, I snark because I love.)  But Solo Mom?  That’s a job.  A job I like, but a job nonetheless.  NBC pays me for those posts (and how cool is that?  My paycheques?  Have NBC stamped on them.).  And according to my contract, NBC owns that content.  Somehow, I don’t think they’re going to be to jazzed about the shiticales stealing their ad revenue.  You think I write nasty letters to the Fuctard?  Man, I cannot wait to see what iVillage sends to these bastards.

Our local school board just gave themselves a raise.  A 300% raise.

Nope, that’s not a typo.  300%.  They just voted to raise their own salaries 300%.

This is the same school board who sent its EAs out on strike last year over 30 minutes of supervision time.  This is the same school board that is currently in negotiations with its custodians.  This is the same school board that will soon be starting negotiations with its teachers.  This is pissing me off.

They can’t afford to pay EAs for all the time they work, but they can afford a 300% raise for themselves.  Somehow, when contract talks come up, the Board is always strapped for cash–implying that it’s employees should be grateful for the 2 or 3 % wage increase it manages to scrape out of the budget.  And yet, it manages to find enough to give the trustees a 300% increase. 

Politicians, even low level municipal politicans, should not be allowed to set their own salaries. It’s a recipe for abuse.  I get that it’s human nature–nobody is going to say “please, pay me as little as humanly possible.”  But it’s an all too familiar pattern, this offering of a pittance to the people who actually do the work, while rewarding themselves handsomely for the relatively few hours a year they spend doing god knows what at interminable meetings and on junkets.

Oh, and did I mention they did this with only a month to go before the municipal election?  Now that’s arrogance. 

Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?

I hate October.  Loathe it.  With every fibre of my being. 

It’s not exactly a 31 day, calendar event, but every year since I can remember, this time of the year rolls around and suddenly my skin is too tight, the world is grey, and my temper, which is of the tightly-reined redheaded variety, is suddenly unleashed.

Back when we used to see each other more than a couple of times a month, October was always the month that Not My Boyfriend and I would have an epic blowout fight–The kind that results in not speaking to each other until Christmas.  Given the things I’ve forgiven Not My Boyfriend for over the years, none of which have happened in October, that’s saying something about October.  Now, he just avoids me until this blows over; it’s safer for everyone this way.

This October is going better than most.  I actually started it with an unaccustomed feeling of lightness.  A sense of optimism and possibility that I’m not used to associating with this time of the year. 

That lasted until Thanksgiving, when I awoke with an intense feeling of dread and an intense desire to just crawl under the covers and stay there.  Clearly impossible, given the 17 immediate family members congregated at my parents’ house who were expecting us, but also clearly the more attractive option. 

It wasn’t a bad Thanksgiving.  I didn’t feel the need to take my children and leave before the turkey.  And I’m pretty sure I managed not to say anything that will come back to bite me on the ass.  Didn’t even write about it, so no one can complain there.  Unless they complain about the fact that I didn’t write about it, which is entirely possible.  But, all in all, it was probably the best Thanksgiving I’ve had in years.  But I still really, really hate the enforced gratitude and appreciation that is “Thanksgiving.”

It’s been downhill from there.  As you can see, I’m just a ray of sunshine.  The worst part is, knowing that this was coming, I’ve been trying so hard not to fall into the trap again.  But here I am, feeling like the world is completely blah and wishing I could just crawl into a cave and not have to interact with anyone for the forseeable future. 

Instead, I’m treating all of you (snort.  All.  Like so many of you are still reading!) to the joy that is me in October. 

I’ll try to do better.  Or at least make the ranting funny.