The Saga of Cog In The Machine, Part Four

Yamaarashi-chan has come to live with me and my family, and that entails certain legal re-arrangements, some of which involve dealing with the child support enforcement officer to whom I charitably refer as Cog In The Machine #4. (For previous adventures with Cogs In The Machine #2 and #3, read Wheels, Cogs, Social Workers from September, 2003.)

Today, I received a letter from Cog In The Machine #4, and I opened it up. I had some idea of what to expect-- and what that was is really none of your business. What I got instead was unexpected.

It was a request for a hearing, claiming that the obligor parent was unemployed and could not pay child support. It bewildered me; such arrangements have nothing to do with the state of my case. And I looked up at the header and realized that Cog #4 had put someone else's case mail in the envelope she was sending me. The name, the case number, everything, were for a different case.

This really bothers me. Because it means that some of my case paperwork may have ended up in yet another mail envelope. It tells me that my case worker is either incompetent or overworked or both, and has poor procedure in place for reducing these kinds of errors. And because I have in my hands private and personal details about a family-- indeed a tragedy-- in which I have no stake and about which I really, for the sake of privacy and propriety, should know nothing at all.

I have called Cog #4 and let her know about the error. But I had to leave voice mail and she won't be back in the office until Tuesday. Let's hope the problem gets resolved quickly and professionally.

The West Seattle Jubilee Parade

After a quick breakfast of coffee cake and milk, we all get in the car to drive up to West Seattle to walk in the West Seattle Jubilee Parade with Dow Constantine, the county district representative for my neighborhood and a Democrat, and since Omaha is a precinct officer she likes to participate in these sorts of things. Since the girls hadn't had any protein with breakfast, I picked up a couple of hard-boiled eggs for Yamaarashi-chan and some string cheese for Kouryou-chan, which they ate readily enough.

The Parade was one of those "Community spirit" kinds of things where you get to see the interlocking groups of people who make up a neighborhood and how they interact. My principle reaction upon watching it was that they interact civilly, but the different classes of people in West Seattle do not interact unless they have to.

The nursing homes and care centers were there, and they had fursuit mascots-- the nursing home had a bear, and the other... oh, I shudder to think of the poor man who had to wear the Sidney The Kidney fursuit. It was for a new kidney dialysis and care center, but eww.

The different churches were there-- the Lutherans had demure cheerleaders who were all heavyweight, the Catholics were dignified in their school uniforms (more real than anything you'll see in anime!), anarchic Unitarians, evangelical Universalists, and raucous Evangelicals with their rock band and their bottles of water with custom "Jesus is the ultimate thirst quencher" logos. I preferred the dignity of the Catholics.

There was a host of pretty girl floats: Miss Cornucopia 2004 (a hottie asian dame), Miss Cornucopia 2005 (a boring blond debutante), Miss Strawberry Festival, Medames Hi-Yu (several of all ages), Miss Irrigation Festival (which made me think of the punk comedy song, "Teenage Enema Nurses In Bondage!" Don't ask me why) in a mermaid gown, and many, many Miss Seafairs, one for each minor suburb in Puget Sound, all very cute with frighteningly white smiles and at least two with the kind of chests that scream, "Daddy bought me these on my 18th birthday." There were girls scouts and boy scouts and, to my amusement, one cross-dresser scout, a girl about Yamaarashi-chan's age wearing just about the best-ironed, starched and fitted boy-scout uniform in the parade.

Saw the Mayor, and a bunch of other minor dignitaries. There were people on the sides taunting him about our Seattle Monorail fiasco. There was a guy running for Sherrif who had an alarming posse of nubile teenagers passing out his "vote for me" pamphlets.

At one point, the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team went by. This is exactly what it claims to be: 44 girls between the ages of eight and fifteen, performing exceptionally precise drills with staves, all wearing sweltering red-and-gold costumes with headdresses, the ones at the corners with elaborate, four-foot-long feathers coming off their headdresses like something out of a George Lucas movie. I couldn't tell if they were happy or not.

That crystallized one thing that I noticed: the school-supplied drill teams were segregated. Completely. They were either all-black, all-asian, or all-white. The only integrated group in the parade was the Seattle All-City Marching Band, the one group not supplied strictly by an individual West Seattle school.

McDonalds had its own entry: A Ronald clown on a custom-painted segway, followed by a McD's SUV with speakers so everyone could hear his patter. What freaked me out about it was that he smelled like a McDs. You know that smell? You can smell it on others; people come back to the office and you can tell they've been to a McDonalds? That's what he smelled like. They made it into a perfume. Oh, what I wouldn't give to get a barrel of the stuff so I could toss it on PETA protestors.

Lots of the usual parade stuff: old cars, the Toe Truck (mascot vehicle of our local tow company), a "precision police motorcycle team", the unicycling team from Yamaarashi-chan's old school, the electric company pimping their "lower your bill" program, the seaport Biodiesel project pimping themselves, the longest-married couple in the city (58 years, through WW2 and Korea, and retired military), Shriners, a club that collects and restores old fire trucks (that must be an expensive hobby) including a 1954 hook-and-ladder with a steering cabin on the back, which they drove sideways down the street just to demonstrate how it worked.

And, of course, the Seafair Pirates and clowns. The Pirates were, well, the Seafair Pirates. Redeemed after some ugliness a few years ago, they rode in the parade and made pirate noises. They even fired their cannon every two blocks or so-- something I thought was in very bad taste after London this past two weeks.

After the parade was over, the Democrats convened in a local cafe/brewery, which the Pirates later invaded and sang a round of (I assume) bawdy songs (assumed because they were nigh incomprehensible). It was much fun. The girls made the whole walk and they had a lot of fun, and nobody got sunburned.