Ashlei Lyne’s Neighborhood

im there now. might come back here. we'll see.

Title: Claiming Grace

Summery:The first rule of social work- don't get emotionally involved. When you work with foster care kids, the abandoned and the abused, it's impossible not to care. It's a fine line between caring and burnout, between loving the children and risking heartbreak. Amanda's been walking the line for six years now. She runs Hastings House, a group home for teenage girl. She prides herself on making life for her girls as normal as possible, with family dinners, birthday parties, chores and trips to the movies. But she's not their mom. They arrive with little notice and can leave just as quickly. Some she will hear from again, some will disappear into the system or fall into the cracks. Amanda worries about them, but when she goes home at night she takes a deep breath, takes a bubble bath, calls a friend. She makes sure to live her own life.

And then she meets Grace. Grace who looks younger than her age because of malnourishment but older when you look into her eyes. Grace, so hungry for affection that a single touch makes her face light up. Grace, who follows Amanda around retreats into herself when Amanda is not there.

Amanda breaks the first rule. She falls for Grace She lets the girl become more important than the others, doesn't correct her when she says 'mom' instead of Amanda. She is not prepared for the day Grace leaves.

Setting: Mainly the foster care home (I'm not in love with the name Hastings, suggestions welcomed) and Amanda's house.  Also misc. places like the courthouse, school, grocery store, etc.  Somewhere in California (because I am lazy and I already know the rules and laws for foster care here)

Characters:
Amanda (still needs a last name) is 31, single (but flirting with a police officer she met when one of her kids ran away), has a BA in English and a Masters in Social Work.  Grew up in Boston but moved to Cali for grad school and interned at Hastings House.  Stayed after she graduated and now runs the home.  She has a brother, mom and dad, all still in Mass.

Grace (needs a middle name) Santiago is 12.  Her father is from Costa Rica.  She lived with her mother and step father until the start of the story when she is taken from her home after a neighbor called social services to report abuse and neglect.  Her father is an imigrant worker with no permanent address.  She looks younger than her age due to malnourishment.  She's very behind in school.

Other characters- various workers at the group home.  An assortment of other girls who live in the home (a few who are there for the whole time, others who come and then leave)  Jason, a police officer who flirts with Amanda.  Amanda's family (mostly only through phone calls)

That's the basics.  Suggestions for names (I have to name all the minor characters, in addition to the things above that I've mentioned needing help on) are appriciated.  Any questions asked will help me flush out the plot.

Also, I can't figure out how to add buddies at the site, unless I have a direct link to their profile.  If anyone wants mine, it's here:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/125574

What was the last wedding you went to?  Were you in the wedding?

The last wedding I went to was a debacle. Not for the wedding couple, it was a beautiful wedding. Relaxed, fun, kid-friendly. Michelle wore tennis shoes under her dress and instead of cake there were cupcakes in two different flavors.  It was for my then boyfriends close friend.  He seemed to be completely unaware, but things were very rocky for us at that point.  It was only a few weeks later that we broke up, but that's another story.  I wasn't too keen on going to this wedding.  Not only was I pretty sure that we were not going to be together much longer, but he would be the only person that I knew there.  I'd met the bride and groom exactly once.

Anyway, he came and picked me up at my place, and right off the bat I was irritated.  His pants were massively wrinkled.  Linen that's been crumpled up on the floor wrinkled.  So here I am all dressed up, my hair done and wearing the necklace he had bought me a month ago for my birthday (which I hated.  Beautiful, but felt like it was choking me.)  and the general blah-ness I felt about going to this wedding turns into a desire to lock myself into the bathroom and shout through the door at him to go away.  But I'm an adult, and so I went.

The day didn't get much better.  It was an outdoor wedding, on the grass, which was bad for me allergy wise.  It was an indian summer, so my ex kept complaining about the heat.  I was grateful for the warmth, because inside at the reception it was freezing.  I drank a bazzilion cups of coffee just to stay warm.  And the ex was sulking, so he barely spoke the whole time, leaving me to make chit chat with a table full of people, none of which I knew.

I was very glad to go home at the end of the day.  It was also an event that made me think long and hard about what I could and could not take in our relationship.

Now I'm less sure there will ever be a bridal gown in my future.

So much has happened since I've last updated. Long story short: My (great-)uncle Jimmy fell, hurt his leg and wound up in the hospital. They ran tests and somehow found out he had a tumor in his stomach and that he had cancer all throughout his body. Three weeks later (Dec 8) he died, ten thirty PM. We had seen him the day before, and I don't know, I just kept telling myself that he would survive, that he was strong. Even when he was given his last rites, I still could not believe he was dying in front of us all. I still haven't cried-cried. I've shed a few tears in the hospital, but that was about it. I don't know why I haven't cried, I feel kind of bad about it. Then again, my mom and uncle Chris haven't either.

Before that, I went to NYC (see post below), then immediately after I spent all of November doing NaNoWriMo. I won, with 51,299 words and was pretty damn proud of myself. I also managed to meet my aunt Evelyn at the NaNo kick-off party. Small fucking world, huh? It was sort of weird, but I've been slowly getting used to the idea of having her in my life. My "dad" (he wasn't really there in life, so I feel weird calling him that) called me earlier this week and we talked for a few hours--only for me to find out the real reason he called: about child support he was paying mom; he didn't care to takl to me after all. That was a kick in the fucking gnads.

All that aside, I've an appointment with the Mood Disorders clinic in January, so hopefully I'll be getting proper treatment for my anxiety/paranoia/ocd/depression. Uhh shit, what else... OOH, mom got a job (for the first time in like, twenty two years) and she's done pretty good so far. I'm impressed. Now all I have to do is call St. Charles and see about registration and such (I dropped out of highschool in grade nine, so I'm going to an adult highschool to get my credentials) and I should be set for January!

Jeeez... I didn't mean to ignore Vox so much, haha, I just figure no one really reads it or visits the site, so why bother? Ha, and I have an LJ and my blog on my domain, harhar. Journal whore much? xD

So, how's everyone else been?

So.. I went to NEW YORK CITY totally spur-of-the-moment. I would copy and paste the entire entry here, but I'm too lazy, and besides, it took an entire hour to get the formatting right using HTML. VOX doesn't let me use HTML (damn WYSIWUG editor) and I'm not re-doing this. Leave your comments on the entry linked above if you have an LJ account, or just let me know who you are on VOX so I don't accidentially mark your anon. comment as spam.

So there's this website where you can put your picture in and you get results saying which celebrities "look" like you/you look like. Y'know.

Since the results are flash and won't post right in LJ so my results are below. I've done the three-times-a-charm thing and tried it with three photos of me to see if any of the celebs showed more than once. The results are fucking ridiculous, man. Here, have a laugh:

Photo One [LINK]

Frank Sinatra (64%)
Alyson Hannigan (64%)
Bernard Pivot (63%)
Sheryl Crow (62%)
Angelina Jolie (62%)
Carolyn Murphy (62%)
Gilles Villeneuve (61%)
Julia Stiles (60%)
Samaire Armstrong (57%)

Photo Two [LINK]

James Spader (72%)
Janeane Garofalo (74%)
Nana Mouskouri (73%) **i like her music, actually
Gillian Chung (71%)
Abhishek Bachchan (70%)
Richard Gere (70%) **HAHAHAHAHA *ahem*
Kana (68%)
Bae Yong-jun (68%)
Eugene Levy (64%) **gee.. thanks..
Wen Jiabao (64%)

**gee mew, im getting a ton of asian results. is THAT why you've been so flirty/huggy lately? hmmmmmmmmmmm? can't resist the not-so-asian-but-apparently-asian charm, huh.

...and one more result:

Photo Three [LINK]

John Williams (73%)
Janeane Garofalo (72%)
Elvis Costello (68%)
Nana Mouskouri (67%)
Benazir Bhutto (66%)
Alicia Silverstone (62%)
Kevin Smith (62%) **wth man! get real!
Larry King (62%) **again, wth...
Richard Avedon (61%) **is someone trying to tell me i need to go on 'ten years younger'?
Sean Lennon (61%)

It seems I closely resemble Janeane Garofalo and Nana Mouskouri. Sweet deal. (Am I weird thinking maybe something as silly as this could maybemaybemaybe make me stop with the obsessive 'Imsofuckingugly' bit?)

TRY IT!!! And let me know your results. Even the lame/goofy/stupid/embarassing ones. Pimp this post around—I want to see who everyone else got. =D

Dear period,

Thanks for coming five fucking days early.

No love, me.

Which FireFox extensions do you use? After reading John TP's article/blog entry Which Firefox Extensions Do You Use?, I had to ask my flist the same thing.

Currently, I use:

Gmail Notifier
Foxy Tunes (with FineSpun skin)
Colorzilla
LJ Login
Adblock
Adblock Filterset.G Updater
StumbleUpon
Blinklist Toolbar
Dummy Lipsum
Google Notebook
Web Developer tools
PDF Download
NaNoWriMo Meter

--

So what're your extensions?

*If you don't know where to find the list of them, open Firefox and go to TOOLS > EXTENSIONS