But I can explain

Put yourself in my shoes. Adrienne is the emotional one, and I am the voice of reason. I like being the voice of reason--I think I'm pretty good at it. I don't jump to conclusions. I logically access a problem and come to a reasoned decision. So my class was grousing on Tuesday that their lunch was cut short because there was a big fight at school. I said, it wasn't that bad, it's not like there were any guns or anything and one kid said, there will be tomorrow. Flashback to living in the condo and learning that the house next door had a gun and the teenager cousin could take it whenever he wanted with little supervision. Flashback to right before Ris started at Hoover when there was a shooting there--a freshman who thought he needed a gun to protect himself. But I calmed myself and told myself, that will not happen and the school has a lot of security and Adam will probably be far away from any altercations. Reason and logic--I can do this.

So I race back to the office after class to pick up my big box that I am preparing for trial on Wednesday--my first big trial in a long time and I race back home to make dinner and spread my trial prep all over the dining room table. I'm deeply involved in the nerveracking exercise of reading six volumes of very boring depositions to make notes for direct examination when Adam says, here's the video of the fight on Monday. I look up and there are three or four kids in white tee shirts beating the crap out of other kids in a free for all brawl. That's at your school I ask frantically. "Yes," Adam says, "the guys in the white shirts are my friends--they are the good guys." "What??!!" So Adam tells me that he and his friends eat their lunch on the third floor and that some other kids threw a slurpee onto a group of armenian want to be thugs who looked up and saw Adam and his friends and thought it was them. So for the past few days, they've been shoving at them and that sparked a fight. Adam says, unfortunately, he was already walking away when this fight happened and he just missed it. I say, you stay away from fights--it is your job not to get into that situation. He says, if they shove me, they're getting punched and I said then you better walk really light on your feet and work like hell not to get shoved, because it is your job not to get into that situation.

Five minutes later Adam says, here's a picture of the cops that were on campus today. What??!! Oh, yeah there were about fifty cops on campus today (tuesday) because some kids jumped the SRO security officer. [So that's why lunch was cut short.] There was a picture of cops in full riot gear, batons out, right in the quad.

In my defense, I was pretty wound up about my trial already.

Next Adam says he got a e-mail from his friend who's last name is at the beginning of the alphabet that they got a recorded message from the school on the phone that school was cancelled for Wednesday. He says I don't believe him. And I said, neither do I, because we'd get the message too. An hour later and many e-mails or whatever way kids communicate in real time over the internet such that Adam's been sitting at the computer talking to a bunch of people, he says, ok now I know school is cancelled tomorrow because there's people who I know won't make this stuff up saying it is.

I can't drive him on Wednesday, I'm going in early to court for trial. Finally at the latest part of a very long, stressful day, I say, ok, you don't have to go to school tomorrow. And he didn't. And it wasn't cancelled. I got an e-mail (first thing Thursday morning) from the PTA president saying, don't believe the rumor that school was cancelled (talking about Wednesday). Tensions are still high, but the principal is handling it very well with suspensions for students who run toward a fight to keep emotions down. Thursday there was another fight and the fifteen students who ran toward the fight were suspended as well as the five or six (all girls) who were fighting.

This morning, I had to call to excuse Adam's absence and they said "it was personal?" and I greatfully said "yes." My personal lapse in reason and logic.

And this isn't even the worst thing that's happened since Adrienne's been gone. When are you coming home? [Don't worry, it's darn close to the worst thing, but there are a few other things that if I wasn't a such a calm, rational person I might get pretty emotional about.]