Gym Down

This is a shot of the girls' basketball gym at LaFollette Park.  The boys' gym is on the other side.  Once again, the kids in my boxing class had to be in there to participate in Park Kids instead.  Park Kids is an open activity program.

 This is what the boxing gym currently looks like.  Notice the ladder next to the ring, and white patches of white paint on the wall, plus a scaffold.  Look closely enough, and some debris on the canvas can be seen.

Tell me something  -- does this look like much work has been done?  The ceiling looks as if some painting has been done, but not much else has been accomplished.  It's going on three weeks, and this is about as much progress as I have seen.  However, I keep noticing extra folding chairs appearing in the gym, empty water bottles, and empty food wrappers.  I can never catch the painters to put a fire underneath them because by the time I get to work, they're gone for the day.

I'm tired of hearing Tough whine, "Again?" every day when she learns we can't use the gym.  It's not like she and her sister Talky don't have options, the Park Kids program being one of them.  But those two don't want to participate in the Park Kids activities ninety percent of the time.  They grumble about not wanting to be around some staff persons who run those programs.  "They want us to do too much," Talky told me.  I know the real reason is that Tough and Talky want to have their way all the time and other staff members won't put up with them doing that.  Those two get irritated with me when I expect cooperation and order.  I gave up on their brother T1.  Every time I see him, he's in the boys' basketball gym where he obviously prefers to stay.

Marine and Angel, pictured here, seriously need to start showing up at the time the teen boxing class begins.  They keep coming in for the 12 and under class.  While the younger kids have been able to get plugged into other activities while the boxing gym is down, Marine and Angel have nothing to do. In this photo, they're hanging out on a bench in the field house lobby.  The weekdays are basically a loss for awhile, but if they would show up on the weekends -- when there are less younger kids around to be a distraction -- I could figure out something.  Nay-Nay has been showing up regularly on the weekends, and it would be good for her to have others her age around to do the boxing workout even if we have to be in the auditorium.