Daily Report: Family News

Payday yesterday, so shopping and paying bills today. Now broke again until next payday. Sigh.

Tatay (my father-in-law, Eddie) is now guarding our house at night. He mostly just sleeps on the front porch, but we have the "official" guard outside the fence. Tyson guards too. Tatay is up at 5:00 every morning though, cleaning the house from rooftop to front walk. Throughout the day he putters as well.

Momma is her usual feisty self. Due to a longstanding animosity between her and Epril's best friend, Fatima (likely due to the teenager of ten years ago enticing Epril out to eat too much sugar, wink at boys, wear makeup, and listen to Chuck Berry records), she finally chased Fatima out of the house in tears with disparaging remarks. Unfortunately, Fatima's boyfriend Mark, a good friend of mine, left as well, and that pisses me off. They had been staying in the spare room for the last 4 months. (Momma also chases off any and all of Susan's boyfriends on a regular basis, hence Susan's inability to find a husband.)

I figured that Momma never was going to like Fatima — with Mark being collateral damage — so I just let it happen to clear the air. This was 6 months in the making. I'm not going to get involved in Susan's affairs, so that's not my concern; however, as much as I hate to say it, the next time Momma chases one of my friends out of my house or makes people feel unwelcome, she will be asked to leave. Unfortunately, Momma has an extremely long list of people she dislikes, so this is likely going to happen eventually. It's a 50-50 probability that if asked to leave, Momma will decide to become more friendly and Christian to our friends and guests, or an equal probability that she'll just leave in a huff and not talk to us again (like she has before).

Let's see... who else? Young Doreen started preschool recently. I've nicknamed her Buckwheat because of her smile and her uncanny ability to be simultaneously cute and annoying.

Kid sister Dimple is still the brains of the family, studying hard in 3rd grade and speaking English well. She comes up and sits next to me while I work and rests her head on my arm.

Crystal (nicknamed "Inday", which means "kid sister", but she's getting a little old for that moniker, being 13 years old) is becoming a real beauty, but she is a bit of a gadabout and will disappear with her friends after school until late in the evening. Obviously that infuriates Momma to no end... purposefully or accidentally, I can only guess.

Ednil is now going to the local community college for hotel and restaurant management. She seems to be enjoying it, studying hard, making friends, and engaging in some clubs at the school as well. I think I'll upgrade her category from "shy" to "the quiet one."

Epril is interested in beauty tips now and watches YouTube for makeup lessons. I was the one who originally got her into dresses and makeup, and she is quite the duck to water in that regard. About other things though she is a little bit ADHD-ish. I'm thinking maybe she would like to go to study cosmetology or something.

Susan is spending most of her time doing the laundry and cooking the meals. This coming week she is going to start putting down a hard-and-fast pizza recipe for the little pizza stand we are going to make and will be giving out samples. The money she makes from that should go towards food and clothes and other stuff for the family.

Tyson is now 50% good dog and 50% bad dog. He's smart too... or at least wily as all hell. He makes conscious decisions to behave; he knows what he is supposed to do and then makes a decision to do it, not based on reward or punishment but really based on right or wrong (and his desire to be right or wrong) it seems.

He really can't be bribed with treats even: Last night, Tyson was hanging out under the dinner table waiting for food to fall. Susan tried to get Tyson outside by holding a piece of chicken in her hand and slowly backing towards the door. Tyson was all interested until he realized that if he took the chicken, he would wind up outside where he didn't want to be, and went back under the table, and had to be pulled out manually. (Maybe next time he'll make the right choice, eh?)

I've actually been letting Tyson run around the neighborhood loose, and he's very good about staying away from people... I think because he knows he scares them: Anyone who pays him positive attention he will come up to slowly, wearing his biggest smile (he has really perfected the "dog smile", I must say); anyone who shies away from him he shies away from in turn. He's also fairly good about not straying too far. However, sometimes he gets confused or starts following his nose and winds up in other people's yards or living rooms. Usually this is because he is just trying to make friends with another dog in the neighborhood, who retreats from Tyson's playful overtures in the street — or (accidentally?) invites Tyson in — to the safety and comfort of their masters' property: Tyson follows right along, and I wind up in a kitchen down the street pulling Tyson out from under the table while my patient and politely smiling neighbors listen to my apologies.

I've also finally found a way to really exercise Tyson: I'll take him out to the street, get on my motorcycle, and drive down the street while he sprints alongside. We'll go 200 yards down the street at 20 miles per hour, 400 yards up the street, and then 200 yards back to the house. In the span of 3 minutes, Tyson is done and dusted — and, for the moment, the happiest and most exhausted dog in the world.

Anyway, everyone is happy now and at peace. The days come and the days go, and my family and I are moving through them without much expectation of drastic turns for the worse nor better.

Knock on wood.