Welcome to Dunkin' Donuts

Who would have thought that this would happen!? Ameri has moved to another apartment much further away from "home". She is nearer school but much further from the horses. It becomes complex.

Ameri is just not a "warm fuzzy" in her dominant disposition. One could doubt her customer service skills but then one could be mistaken. She seems to have grasped all the nuts and bolts of the cash register and the seemingly complex choices of the "coffee/donut industry" and she has an elevated sense of business security and facility safety for both customers and staff. When she is the shift lead she has access to the store manager by phone and she does not second guess the seriousness of threats or compromise. She is doggedly vigilant against counterfeit bills that are more of an everyday problem than popularly reported.


All this is an amazing transformation on the one hand, yet there is the same baseline "thorny" Ameri who is difficult to navigate as an engaging type. She is complex.

Are you invisible?

One of the worst feelings that a human being can have is one of invisibility. From early on in our relationship with Ameri, she either felt herself to be invisible or she treated us as we were invisible. It was a word weapon we used against each other. When she was especially awful, I would tell her, "I am making you invisible." She would break down and plead to not be invisible. It was so powerful. It was a terrible weapon.



Ameri is invisible again. She is so ill and so alone in her new life in her apartment. She hates being here because she feels like she doesn't belong. There she is the handmaiden to her boyfriend. I don't get it.

I read again recently about the experiments with monkeys that were deprived of touch and care by a mother figure when they were babies. Ameri missed that as an infant and on into her toddler years. She was abandoned by her first adopted family to an institution. Her life was very sad. She has brought that sad to our family. Try as we might, we are never able to do enough. We have bled blood and treasure over her like we were in combat.

This evening, I get a report from Mom that Ameri has been taking a new medication for three days now. She is fit to be with. She is almost sweet.

I have been redoing a bedroom. Some of Ameri's clothes are hanging in there. There is a dress that she and mom had to buy when they went to a wedding in Colorado. She had not given much thought to what she would wear before she left. When she got to Colorado, she decided that she would have to have a "proper wedding dress." So they went shopping. That proper wedding dress is now hanging in that closet that needs to be cleaned. This is a really tough love.

Summer has come and gone

We are now at the tag end of summer. That doesn't mean much for the ongoing daily heat and humidity but the early mornings and evenings are a bit more pleasant.

Ameri took the summer sessions off from her med tech training. She is now at a crossroad again. She has to take phlebotomy - she has to learn to draw blood samples. She is balking at it because she has had so many scheduled and routine samples drawn in her life. I have no idea how this will play out. Ameri chose Med Tech because her familiar (read boyfriend) is enrolled. The school is in the neighborhood and there is a large population of fellow cigarette smokers and other rudderless souls there. I remember how that was for me but it did not last and I chose ne'r-do-wells for their entertainment value and access to that which was forbidden and dangerous to pursue. They were buffers for me; that is to say that they were one level of deniability from that which was forbidden.

Please take what I say here below as a clinical assessment and not as criticism.

Ameri is crafty, sneaky and takes no responsibility for that which causes complications in her life. Every misadventure is someone else's fault; usually mine. I have previously described my pretty blond child as feral. She has many qualities of being something from the wild. She is much like a skittish horse or a street cat. She is wary, fearful of touch or attention and human warmth. Her eating habits are much like that thing. She has preferred foods which she prepares, consumes and purges in a predictable way. She has bouts of electrolyte imbalance
that cause her to become disoriented or to faint. All this is when she is around humans without having a horse to focus on. When a horse is under her and she is training or competing she is razor sharp and full of confidence. She drinks a lot of water in the heat and tends her mount with great care and concern.

At home Ameri is disconnected from any thing that tends to be work. At the barn, she is all work. She sweats. She gets filthy. She tugs and hauls. She digs out stalls and carries in
bedding. She is . . . or seems to be all work. Unfortunately, all that work the barn still looks like a mule skinner's flop house. She has never done well around a well run or well maintained
barn. She like the flop house stables. The woman who is her mentor accepts that as well. I have been around many well run stables. I have been schooled by a professional horsewoman (comes with degrees and certificates) who happens to be my sister. She is of the Churchill
Downs school of stable management. Her barns and shed rows look magnificent all the time. When she leaves at night, she drags a rake behind her to wipe out any foot prints. I have decided that behavior has two purposes. One, it is an OCD thing and two, it is a security
measure. There is always some evidence if someone has been noodling around in your facility. So, my sister has had Ameri in her tutelage briefly. Not much took with Ameri.

Ameri has worked and trained all summer. It is now the beginning of eventing season. She has her own horses but she has either outgrown them or she has failed to train up her green mount so that he may be brought along. She rides one of her mentors mounts. He is a big speckled gray with a bit of thoroughbred in him. He is a well structured hunter/jumper. He is heavily boned and quite capable of the 4-0 plus jumps that are required of him. He is a school horse. Ameri handles him well and has placed acceptably with him in her two events
for the start of this season.

So what do we, the parents, get for this?

She is off the street. She does not drive, club, or sex. She is not
checking herself into a psych ward. We know where she is and we know
whom she is with. This may not go on forever but for now, it is a
better situation than we were in for the Fall of 2005. (Please check the archive
on the right.

Some may know that Ameri's old dog, Shawn, is gone. He was quite ancient, for a dog. He was blind and deaf. For the past year he had had trouble finding his way out of the swimming pool. Here-to-fore, it had been no problem. He could not be kenneled because he would bark
himself into exhaustion and the neighbors would become concerned. He needed to patrol the perimeter of the house. It was in his nature. He was a Teneriffe Bichon and water was part of his DNA. The house perimeter included the the pool deck. I had been near enough to save
him previously but the last time, I was away on an errand and I came home to find him expired in the pool. He was a good old dog. I have drained the pool, sanitized it, and refilled it again for the second time this year. But! Ameri will not get in the pool. I am now guilty of killing her dog - in her mind.

Oh. Ameri's cat . . . his genetic ordnance pods are still in place and he likes to escape and "cat around". There are other cats in the neighborhood so he gets to get out and be a cat once in a while to test his dominance characteristics. He likes me. I feed him. I also arrange an occasional evening out for him. Am I bad?

Ah . . . Spring

Ameri has been attending "college". It is a proprietary vocational school that offers "degrees" in vocational training. She and her boyfriend, a ROOMER, in my home attend classes three evenings a week and they seem to be keeping up with the program. They ride their bikes to school and are usually home by 10pm. In the interim since my last post, they have each had several different jobs. They just can't seem to hang on to them.

Recently, Ameri was returning home on her bike from school. She had a green crosswalk light. Just as she was passing from the curb lane to the middle lane of a very busy suburban intersection, a car made a rolling approach and turn on a red light. The car continued through the turn and struck the rear wheel of Ameri's bike. The car did not stop. Several people who were in a turning lane waiting for the light, got out and tended to her. She was not severely injured, but never one to pass up an ambulance ride, she was transported to an emergency room and spent the next 12 hours there. She was released with pain killers. No culprit has yet been apprehended. In my metro area, there are 4 to 6 hit and runs a day. It is rarely a piece that make the paper anymore unless the circumstances are particularly egregious. The corner is the converging point for three different police jurisdictions. It is a high incident corner. Ameri has recovered.

Ameri still has two horses that must be kept up. I am not agreeable to those circumstances but Mom is willing to pony (forgive me) up for the immediate future. The horses have been moved twice since my last post. The new place is just being established on property that is in a horsey neigh (forgive me again) borhood. It is the project of an indulging parent for his 12 year old daughter. Deja vu.

Ameri's cat from the road is still loaded with genetic disbursal organs and is an escape artist. I usually get the blame for his escapes.

Ameri smokes cigarettes. She is not allowed to do that in the house. When it started, I ordered her across the street to smoke. Mom has allowed smoking in our drive way and the tree house in the back yard. I get ballistic about the butt disbursal. I have made two butt cans. I have painted them red and they remind me of my basic training days. I could go on but I won't.

More later.

Lantern Bearer

Ameri Graduates

A little house keeping is in needed.

Ameri completed the subject matter in which she was lacking to get a real diploma. Not that a GED is in any way a walkover, it just leaves gaps. It was touch and go until the very last - something like trying to land a balky Piper Cub in a crosswind on your first solo flight.

So that is done and Ameri can now concentrate on her PAYING JOB. It was (yes past tense) with a telemarketing firm that has three levels of a travel packet offer that contain vouchers for discounts on everything associated with vacation travel. To get the packet. one must join a travel club. To be eligible, one must have a checking account or a credit card. To prove eligibility one must provide a bank routing number and account number or credit card number with the signature box code. Yes! Absolutely correct. What fool would do such a thing. Many do just that very thing every day. The accounts are tapped as quickly and as often as possible and if the "mark" notices and gets nervous or has buyers remorse or smells the scam - TOO LATE. It takes three months to a year to get those charges reversed, if you have a cooperative bank. Ameri was at first eager to do the job and then it got to her. Good. She is out of there.

Ameri has a boyfriend. This time last year she was on the road in the Midwest on her “18 Year Old Genius Tour” with a boyfriend(s). This year she decided to stay home and bring a distant boyfriend to her. We discouraged it in as therapeutic way as possible but the boy friend became part of the therapy plan. When he first arrived they camped at the stable where Ameri keeps her horses. We had the whole place rented and it is relatively safe. We did not make the beginning easy. We did not go out of our way to provide ways and means. We did bring them in for a hot shower and a meal on occasion but for the most part they were on there own. They had a tent, running water, a toilet and a cell phone. There was a large strip mall nearby with a large grocery.

All good things seem to end. On the Tuesday morning after Labor Day we got a panic call from Ameri and boyfriend. They were calling from a hotel in the neighborhood of the stable and they were in a panic. It seems that the checks Ameri had written, four, were pre-cleared for a Tuesday deposit and found to be NSF. The total was near $200. That is felony territory. I had the hotel manager have them put on ice in the lobby area and I take my sweet time getting them in my schedule.

I picked them up and drove them down to pick up Ameri's last check. Ameri thought she was going to be able to cash her check as usual at the little market where they will cash your check if you by something - Ameri usually got three packs of smokes. This time – NO WAY. I asked for the check from her and got it. I asked for her checkbook and ATM card and got it. I drove them to the farm and had them strike camp. Ameri asked, "Where are we going?" I answered, "House arrest."

That was an easy one. There are still NSF check floating around and the NSF fees are building at the bank. We have decided to let what ever legal action comes about, come about. We are now heading into 60 days and nothing has happened just yet. I have tipped my neighborhood law enforcement resource officer and he is helping with the pressure on Ameri. Ameri has contacted the affected merchants and has worked something out. I am staying clear.

This past week we changed stables. The woman that owned the placed we had rented had been confronted by animal control for the flock of sick stray cats she feeds. She is also in violation on adequate fencing to keep horses. It was close, but there were too many emerging complications. The new place is being managed by an older riding friend of Ameri's . It is much farther away but isolated from the temptations of the Mall-burbs. The old place was on the bus line, the new place is on the frontier of the county line.

Both Ameri and boyfriend, hereafter to be called Eamon, are back under close supervision. They have their own rooms. They have to smoke across the street or in the backyard tree house. They can not do the nasty up in here. They are starting new jobs tomorrow. It is not perfect but it is cheaper than hospital co-pays and psychiatric stays.

Life goes on.

New Posts are Comong

We have been attempting to drain the swamp and now we are up to our cha-chas in alligators. A whole new set of adventures have unfolded. Please check back.

Ameri's Dad

Laverne and Shirley

L and V sister sitting reva
Originally uploaded by snookbrothers.

Laverne and Shirley have been with us since 1998. They had been my daughter's cats at Univ. of Florida. They are litter mates and have never been apart.

Shirley, calico, died in June 2006. She had been on insulin for two years. Laverne, honey and white, is in her last hours today. We had her at the vet this morning. We were prepared to help her along but the vet said sterile water hydration, antibiotic and time. He is prepared to help if she has pain.

Ameri is the doting mother today. She does not like my matter of fact way of watching Laverne make transition.

Ok, the ice is broken. Ameri has graduated and her job is permanent with benefits.

More on this later.