jennifer patel

If you missed part I , well, you didn't miss much. A major player in our former hood was our across the street neighbor, Brenda...God rest her soul. Seriously, she's dead. Brenda was a middle aged woman who was very concerned about the neighborhood and all the people living in it.  She would come over to talk about said neighbors whenever we were outside (or not) and at night, she left her front door open, letting the light of her living room shine through her screen door.  For whatever it was worth, she was always giving me the low down on the residents of our street.  "The woman who lives there is a spoiled, Daddy's girl." (Who also let her dog poop in people's front yards) "Could Steve feed anymore feral cats?  We're in a disagreement over yard maintenance." "I don't get my SS check until next week, can I borrow $5 for bread?"  Okay, this one is not gossip, and the $5 was not for bread...it was for cigarettes.  And it...

Alex's school might or might not know that, yes...he has an attentive Mom. I have to be at school by 6:30 AM, but try to be there by 6ish so I can sit in my dark classroom, with only lamp light, and softly cry before anyone else arrives. This means that I do not take Alex to school; I don't even see him before I leave the house. He is only enrolled in a half day program since all the learning is done before lunch.  So Tina picks him up every afternoon and puts him to sleep/teaches him Spanish until I get home in the afternoons.  This means that I do not pick Alex up from school. Since he only goes half days, he gets the summary sheets of their day and announcements of upcoming events the next day because they put them in the kids' cubbies in the afternoons.  Sometimes these sheets make it home, sometimes they don't. This means, Alex does not bring show-and-tell themes, have his parents bring items for parties and other sign ups, and is not wearing t...