Late last night, an automatimated message informed us that Ian's school was opened. A previous automated message had canceled Jonah's school for two more days. Gee, it's great having kids in two different school districts.
This morning, we got Ian fed and dressed. I had managed to scrounge a quart of milk last night in the third grocery store that I visited. I couldn't pack a lunch for Ian, because we didn't have fresh bread or cold cuts or cheese or anything beyond stale pretzels. I wrote his teacher a note that I would drop off a lunch later in the day for him.
Then we waited for the bus. And waited. And waited. Finally, I dug up the phone number of the bus dispatcher. She said that the school district never let her know that the school was open. I yelled a bit at her. Then, we packed up the car with a backpack, a Halloween costume that was never worn, and a kid. We found a deli and got Ian a bagel for his lunchbox. We burned through a quarter tank of gas and 1 1/2 hours getting Ian to his school.
When we dropped him off at his school, I explained to his teacher the bus problem. With a peppy smile, she said, "well, it's okay. He's here now!" I told her that it was not okay and I expected to be notified about the bus situation for tomorrow by later today.
This comes at the heels of major bureaucratic fumbling for his IEP meeting.
Steve, who is working at home these days, has a very low threshold for morons. In his world, that kind of unprofessionalism doesn't happen. He has a very particular notion of professionalism, and the school district has another. It has been my job to deal with the morons, so he hasn't had to deal with this crap before. He's losing his mind.
And we're still dealing with the storm fallout. Most of my town does not have power yet. One week later, trees still lay in the middle of streets with some yellow tape draped over them. It's in the 30s and low 40s at night. If the power doesn't come on soon, there are going to be fatalities.
The local town officials have not been on the ball on this one. There are heated public buildings that are not open to the public. They have not provided information to residents about the location of warming centers or the new voting locations. They have not be visible in the community.
I'm trying to take a deep breath and just go about my business. I should let the morons be morons and just take care of my own. I find that hard to do.
Apt. 11d 
You know this is just evidence that you’re going to have to run for office some day, since you find it hard to just let the incompetence and inefficiency be and take care of your own. I am completely incapable of taking on such challenges myself, but I do make an effort to vote for people who I think will be good at it.
I do think that there’s a sorting of people in professions that I’ll use the short hand of referring to as the Italian or German stereotypes. The Germans make the trains run on time, tell you when the busses aren’t coming, . . . . But, the Italians keep the bus running when your kid is five minutes late dragging their backpack out of the house and smile peppily and let your kiddo join the class late without giving you stink eye. The “Italians” are more likely to be teachers (who don’t have anything to do with the busses, I’m guessing, but probably also hate IEP forms).
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To me it sounds as if the teacher had the right attitude; she couldn’t retroactively change anything about the bus and had no influence on the bus issue so she took your son with the attitude of doing the best possible job with the part of the day she had with your son. Which doesn’t excuse the school of course.
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Ditto BJ’s comments. Hope things get better.
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Beedge, there’s a very old joke:
In European heaven:
Cooks are French
Mechanics are German
Cops are British
Bosses are Swiss
Lovers are Italian
In European hell:
Cooks are British
Mechanics are French
Cops are German
Lovers are Swiss
And bosses are Italians
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