Questions I try to avoid

(This is part one of a question avoidance theme posting.)

Question 1: So... what is happening with the vineyard?

As many of you know, we leased a vineyard last season. (I say "we", but it was really Greg - I just got regular updates and helped out occasionally.) It was good and bad. It is a marginal vineyard, but Greg managed to produce a large amount of beautiful-quality fruit. Unfortunately, this year the wine market was just flooded with fruit.

Everyone and their second cousin has been putting in grapes on any spare half acre for the past 5 years and it all hit the market like some kind of grape tsunami this year. Bad luck for us. We were able to sell our Pinto Noir, but nothing else. The birds got a great feast.

We lost some money (though, surprisingly not that much - it was mostly Greg's time), but feel that we were able to test the market in an invaluable way. Any money that we lost this year was far less than if we would have gone into debt planting our own vineyard right away! So, because of this past year and where we see things for the next few years, we are putting off planting our own vines for a while... who knows for how long.

We're looking into cows at the moment. That should be an interesting experience in itself!

My incident with the school bully

OK. I know that I haven't posted anything in months. Sorry.

A lot has been going on. I'll write another posting shortly to get you up to speed. Unfortunately, I don't have time for that. Right now you'll have to settle for this email that I recently sent out... an insta-blog moment, if you will.

The following all happened on Wednesday. Thought you would enjoy remembering what a complete nutter I am. : )

So. I go to pick up Burgess from school yesterday. I'm sick with a headcold and tired and probably not in the best state of mind.

This girl (7 yrs old) runs by and falls, scraping her leg. She sits down, starts rubbing her leg and tries not to cry. This punk kid (12 yrs old) starts laughing and making fun of her.

As I walk by, I glare at him and say, "You don't need to be that way."

"What?!" He asks, shocked that I said something to him.

"You know what I mean."

"Ngee nge ngee ngee" he replies in a high pitched voice. The kid is MOCKING ME!

"It's not nice"

"Ngee ngee ngee"

"Stop acting like an idiot!" I snap. "Grow up and act your age." I'm walking away at this point.

"Shut up, mumble, mumble."

"Excuse me?" I whip around. "Do you want to go see the headmaster?"

"You just called me an idiot!" He replies righteously.

"Yeah cause your acting like one. Come on, let's go."

At this point he must realize that I'm a bit insane. He starts to back away (that's right - s l o w l y) and says a bit quietly... cautiously "go away".

So I do and forget about it.

Until this morning. When I get a message from the headmaster at Burgess's school wanting me to call him to discuss the incident.

Crap! I called the kid an idiot. I'm an idiot! They are going to ban me from interacting with the kids. I won't be able to help out with the field trip for Burgess's class. I've really blown it this time.

So, I call the headmaster and right away tell him that I said the kid was being an idiot, that I was wrong. It was a poor choice of words. I shouldn't have spoken that way. I'm the adult and he's the child, after all... He let me go on like this for a while, then laughed and said "Beth, you are saying all the right things, but I wanted to talk about what he said to you." Apparently he said something much worse than just shut up. I can only imagine. They wanted him to call and apologize to me... which he has.

And tonight I will be writing the kid an apology for using a poor choice of words to describe what I thought of his behavior. Because I feel guilty over calling him an idiot!

This is exactly why I need to live somewhere like New Zealand. I am far too nuts for modern civilized society.

But at least all the kids at Burgess's school know to be on their best behavior when I'm around!