A Hot Mess

The bigger they come the harder they fall.

 

Case in point – AIG.

 

I’ve read all the articles on why they can’t be allowed to fail and still I say – let the chips (and chumps) fall where they may.

 

If they’re too big then it’s time someone or something cut them down to size.

 

We can play by the rules they made. They chopped up risky mortgages/loans and sold them off to various unsuspecting banks to lessen their personal risk and spread it thinner.

 

When they go under the global landscape will be altered, not just that of the USA since AIG screwed the world with their clothes on. (Anyone check KY stock recently? It should be on the rise!)

 

The ‘manmade’crash will spread out across the world instead of just the US. Let’s let some of these other ‘global’ investors(crooks) absorb some of the shock and a fair share of the responsibility for this mess.  The shock waves from David slaying Goliath will be felt around the world so it shouldn’t feel like we, alone, are doing a balancing act along the San Andreas Fault in stilettos.

 

Then we’ll do what we’ve un-categorically done throughout history – pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get down to the business of rebuilding…..business. This time at bat let’s make a concentrated effort to learn from our mistake – when I say ‘our’ I really mean ‘their’ – the people who looked the other way while AIG was busy digging us a crater of insolvency!

 

Do you know the difference between a rut and a grave? The depth!!!! When you find yourself in a hole – you should STOP digging. Sounds like common sense, eh? Then why don’t we get the picture? AIG has dug us all into a black hole with their fiscal irresponsibility – why doesn’t anyone have the guts to take the damn shovel away!?!?!?

 

I’d pull the plug on them in a New York minute if the choice were up to me. I have an extremely difficult time mustering up a smidgeon of sympathy for the AIG people behind this hot mess or for those who deregulated, looked the other way, buried their heads in the sand, and generally let one ridiculously overpaid group of greedy grubbers mismanage the crap out of our economy thereby putting countless people in financial purgatory and then handing them MY (and your) tax dollars to ‘retain talented employees’?!?!??!!?!? HUH?

 

 

Since when are greed and gluttony talents? Once upon a time they were but 2 of the 7 deadly sins. These days it seems they’re ‘skills’ to be proudly listed on resumes, bragged about over power lunches, and honed like an heirloom samurai sword.

 

 

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do – is nothing.

(Theodore Roosevelt)

 

 

It’s time we stop doing ‘nothing’ – it’s not working out so well for us. Bemoaning our fate isn’t going to make the necessary changes needed to turn our economy and our country around.

 

 

I could write all night and beat this proverbial dead horse but it’s pointless. There is a timely and succinct quote that sums up the answer to the dilemma we presently face. We should adopt it – posthaste.

 

 

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

(Margaret Mead)

 

 

 

 

Be the change you want to see in the world.

 

 

 

 

Olympics for the Vertically Challenged (a.k.a Lazy)

Number of times I told the mancub
to put the dishes away yesterday = 7
(No – this is not a plug for MasterCard
and there is nothing priceless about it.)

I ask myself – So why are they still sitting in the dish drain?

Does this mean I wasted my breath or should I look on the bright side and just consider it an exercise regime to improve lung capacity?

Hey – I know, maybe the ‘powers that be’ will make lung capacity an Olympic Sport!!!!! Seems they’ll consider just about anything as a ‘competitive sport’ these days.

In the next summer Olympics I wouldn’t be surprised to see ‘Bic Flicking’ between nations. Yeah – who can flick faster, longer, and sustain the highest flame while walk/running, trampolining, and playing table tennis. You don’t need 2 hands while competing in the aforementioned sports anyway. Might as well put both to good use and eek out another category to garner a gold in. You probably wouldn’t have to worry about ‘doping’ while competing in Bic Flicking. You would, however, have to make very sure the competitors were 16 – we wouldn’t want any underage kiddies playing with fire. Someone could get burned!!! 

Yes, you do detect a note of sarcasm.

I’m not ashamed to say I am SO glad they’re over. I found them to be tedious – bordering on the ridiculous. In all fairness though my TV was on 24/7 because my kids are obsessed with all things sports. The only one more relieved than me is the TV. I swore I heard an audible sigh of relief from it during the closing ceremonies. It also needs a vacation from that rat race. Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!! Rat racing?!?!?? An Olympic event?!? Chinese rats versus American ones? Nah-we wouldn’t stand a chance! Their government would press the rats into service, train them 24/7 for the next 4 years, falsify passports for the under-aged, and threaten a life of lo’ mein - if they don’t win. We ‘can’t touch that’!

I wonder – are Bic’s made in China?!?!

Potential Olympic Events -

Olympic TV Watching (Reruns included) – HA! My kids would take the gold, silver, and bronze. China wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in HELL against that group. I can see them now on the cover of the TV Guide – flowers in hand and Medals around their necks, bloodshot eyes, and desperately in need of showers after sweeping 3 sets of marathon TV watching by 2 hours per set. *Sniff* I’m all choked up – I’ve never been more proud!

Olympic Snacking (while couch sitting) – This event would be tandem with the TV Watching. It could support team and individual competitors. Again – a clean sweep by the Americans. My little Americans. Six more medals for our team. YAY!!!!! I challenge a team or individual out there to out-do my kids at the thing THEY do best. Bring it on!!!!…..but bring your own snacks. )

Olympic Laying Down (while remaining awake) – This can include reading (HA!) Mp3 playing, and Wii Fit (Rolling on the floor laughing here because I’ve witnessed this very event) and pretending to sleep without ever achieving REM status – in order to qualify.

Olympic Sleeping/Napping – The competitor must be certified comatose for 9/10ths of each hour in order to qualify and not form bed sores during competition (bed sores are for amateurs) A time of 10/10ths garners extra points. (C’mon MY team – you can do it. I’ve seen ya!)

Olympic Bickering – Must include one or more competitors – arguing out loud with ones self does not qualify as bickering (daughter  #3 would spend most of her time arguing that point with the judges or herself if they stopped listening). 2 or more distinct voices must be ‘duly noted’ – no imitations/mimicking – no exceptions!

Olympic Movie Watching (so not the same as TV watching) – Endless replays of ‘It’s my favorite movie of all time’. Accompanied by a chorus of ‘I can’t get enough of it – isn’t he just dreamy’!!!!…..replays until the DVD skips because it’s slightly warped on the way to being melted from the number of RPM’s in the DVD player!

Olympic Sports Watching – Back to Back replays of every Phillie’s game that ever went into extra innings looped for your viewing pleasure. This might include the entire Super Bowl Series on DVD that some idiot gave the mancub for Christmas thinking it would be ‘a good idea’!

Whoever said my kids are not Olympic Medal Material would be eating crow if we could get just one of these events in the 2012 games!!!

If we could get them all certified as Olympic events – poor Michael Phelps would only have a 4 year reign as the all time Olympic Gold Medal winner. My kids would cook his goose and sweep the floor with him.

Fortunately for him, I don’t see the Olympic Committee approving even one event now that word has gotten out that I have been training 4 qualified competitors for 22, 20, 17, and 15 years respectively.

But just think of the endorsements!!!!!!

The makers of sofas, sleepwear, beds/bedding, soda, potato chips, DVDs et al would be lining up around the block to sign my kids. (Yes, I’m humming ‘We’re in the money’ as I write this)

My little Olympiads will not grace the cover of TV Guide, the tag on a new pair of flip flops, or a box of Lucky Charms – yet!!!!!

But just you wait. At the rate society is going speed eating will replace speed skating one of these days and then the world will be my kids oyster. Until then…….

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To all the American athletes
who won loud and proud at the 2008 Olympics – Nice Work!

I just thought of another one – Olympic Sarcasm?!??!

Mothering 101

I punched out of work at 11:06pm Saturday night. The exact time my sister died 23 years ago. August 23, 1985. I have to sit in my car for a few minutes and collect myself and my thoughts before I attempt to drive. On the one hand it hardly seems as if 23 years have elapsed. I can recall that night in vivid detail. If I close my eyes I’m there watching it all play out again in my minds eye. For obvious reasons I try not to do that. On the anniversary of her death I allow myself the latitude to mourn wholeheartedly. I got home from work and went right to bed, which is so unlike me. I just wanted to escape from the world and everyone in it. I guess as long as that’s a temporary feeling it’s OK to run with it.

I didn’t remind my kids what August 23rd was. None of them were alive. All they know about her they learned from me, over the years. The stories I would tell and the memories I would share. Ironically, they know more about my deceased sister, whom they never met, than they do about my still living, breathing, crazy, psycho, vindictive, revenge-seeking, life destroying surviving sister (whose made it this far because EVIL never dies). Well, I have 2 surviving sisters. The psycho and the twin of my deceased sister who my kids know and love.

That crazy b$#@h takes the ‘fun’ out of dys’fun’ctional. That’s all I can say about her right now. Seriously, she is a story for another day. If I write about her y’all will think I’m telling tales – she’s off the hook and off her rocker!

August 24th dawns clear and beautiful. A trip to Atlantic City awaits. A phone call from daughter #1 almost changes all that. She is taking daughter #3 to the Jimmy Buffett concert in AC for a birthday gift. The ex and I are driving down to make sure they arrive alive and walk the beach and boardwalk. We’re not going to the concert, per se.

Daughter #1 tells me she is going to meet us in Atlantic City, which was NOT the original plan because she is going with her friend whose birthday it is, to jump out of an airplane!!!!!!! Ayep! She drops that on me like a bomb. A ton of bricks. No fanfare. No cushion. She’s going to jump out of a plane with a knapsack strapped to her back containing a nylon bag and some string that some stranger folded up for her and trust that it will deliver her safely back to earth – ALIVE! I mean, c’mon, of course it will deliver her back to earth. I have NO question about that. It’s in what condition that concerns me. Needless to say, I FREAKED out. (I’m prone to doing that when it concerns my kids) It’s my God-given right as a mother.

Daughter #1 was, well, my 1st born child. I lost one before her. She nearly didn’t survive a traumatic birth. It was touch and go for weeks with 15 months of medication and tests and scans etc…..before she was pronounced 100%. I did NOT go through all that so she could kill herself jumping from a plane 22 years later. I have always told my kids, as they were growing up, I gave them life and if anyone was going to take it away from them it would be me, NOT some stupid risky reckless act on their part.

Life is filled with enough dangers like just crossing the street. Why exponentially increase the chances of something bad happening by doing something stupid? She even tried the argument that ‘air travel’ is safer then driving a car. OK!!!!! Jumping from a plane is so NOT considered ‘air travel’. Nice try, thought! Sheesh. She must think me an idiot.

In the middle of my freak out I asked her what made her think she was qualified to jump out of a plane when she can’t even ride a bike. She doesn’t ride a bike, she informed me, because she doesn’t have one. To which I replied, well, you don’t have a plane or a parachute so it only stands to reason you shouldn’t jump out of one with the other strapped to your back then. Same concept, eh?

She assured me that you don’t jump alone. There is someone with you, DUH, mother. Well DUH yourself. Is having someone else tethered to you going to somehow break your fall when you plummet to the earth after the chute fails to open? Is having someone with you going to somehow ensure your very survival just by virtue of their being there ‘with you’? Yeah! That’s what I thought. All that will do is make sure you plummet to your death with a witness who will never live to tell and me and some other mother are both out a child!!!!!

Just for the record, the ex was here when she called and he wasn’t much help. Were you expecting he should be? Ha! Neither did I. He didn’t think she should go – on the day of the concert. Schedule it for some other day, he says. I say – WHAT?!?!??! Are you crazy too? He says, I would probably try it. I say, GOOD!!!!! You go with your daughter’s friend and plummet to an early grave. I have less to lose if you don’t make it. I don’t have any EXTRA kids. I planned on 4. I had 4. Therefore I have NO extras to lose to some ridiculous risk taking adventure. They were all laughing at me – and my obvious pain. They thought I was funny – freaking out the way I did. They’re ALL nuts and now I have proof it’s hereditary – and they get it from HIS side of the family!!!!!!!

If they were psycho-crazy I wouldn’t be able to make the same argument. I would have to agree they probably got it from my sister, the aforementioned one. But we’re talking slightly insane here, not textbook psychopathic. What’s that ‘rattle’ I hear. The skeletons in the closet, I presume?  The branches in our respective family trees?

Nah! It’s my teeth chattering as I dodge yet another bullet on the rocky road to the funny farm, where my children are collectively driving me!!! I’m sure this is what they have planned for me, instead of being like all the other kids and just picking my nursing home!!!!

Back-To-School – is Cool – for Parents

It’s the MOST wonderful time of the year…….the kids are going back to school – SOON! I am practically giddy with excitement. It’s like anticipating Christmas when you’re 5. I am in awe – just waiting for that magical day to arrive. Does that sound mean? Too bad. I love my kids more than life itself. I like them even more than normal when I get a break from them for a few hours. I like being at home by myself when they are in school. I enjoy the solitude. Home is my favorite place to be and home with solitude, to me, is like the magic kingdom to a child. Magical!

I have been amassing school supplies. Every store I have to go to I check to see what they have on sale for back to school. I’m talking $.22 cents for Elmer’s glue, $.50 cents for a pack of 6 spiral notebooks, 6 mechanical pencils for $.50 cents. I think I might be able to get them most of what they need and a few ‘cool’ things for under $15.00 for both kids. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Both kids need new sneakers. That is no easy ‘feat’. Ha! Pardon my pun. They both have gargantuan feet. Size 12 and size 14. That will be my biggest expense. They’ll reuse the same school bags as last year. They are perfectly fine and operable. No sense buying new. They don’t mind either. They say they just got them ‘broken in’ like a favorite pair of shoes or jeans. They feel better once they’ve been slightly used.

For the past few years I have resisted the need to buy them 10 of everything for back to school. I hunt down the really good bargains like the glue, notebooks, colored pencils, etc. I make sure they have enough to get started with and then in a few weeks when everyone is back in school the stores start throwing the stuff at you to make room for seasonal items such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, and *Groan* Christmas. They want to move out all their extra stock and I can pick up additional items they’ll need for the rest of the school year and I can usually get the stuff for 75-90% off!!!!

I still have folders, glue sticks, and the like from doing this last year. It’s how you have to live when you have no discretionary income to speak of but hey, they don’t seem to mind, or if they do they don’t say anything about it. They’re too busy whining and fretting about having to go back to school to worry about not having 20 of everything to take with them.

The one thing I miss buying them is something stupid. Pencil cases! When they were little pencil cases were cool and cool pencil cases RULED. I used to search high and low to find them the neatest, coolest, most unusual ones out there. When you are 15 or 17 pencil cases are so NOT cool. They are for babies! I still look though and remember their surprise and delight when I would find the ‘bestest one’. Their little faces would light up and they would get busy in earnest arranging and organizing their upcoming school year. Now-a-days they can’t organize their own sock or underwear drawers. They don’t put anything away including their pencils. I find them laying all over – in the strangest of places. But thanks to my own organizing skills and forethought I always know who left their crap laying around because they each get one favorite color of school supplies. All I have to do is manage to remember who got what (easier to do with 2 than it was with 4) and I know who to yell at for leaving their stuff laying around. It’s usually daughter #3. Always was and probably always will be. I can’t wait to see her first apartment!!!!! I’m betting now that she’ll invite her brother over often and bribe him to clean it for her.

And I already know – he’ll go.

Hell, I can’t wait to see MY house once she gets her own place. I’m already dreaming of all the free time I’ll have on my hands when I’m not picking up after her 24/7.

Hell, maybe I’ll go visit her often, too. I’ll lay around, watch TV, mess up her place, run up the electric bill, eat all her food, and then go home to my nice neat house!

Be it ever so humble )

Fuel – Crude & Cruel

With vacation behind me I’ve turned my attention to the upcoming autumn and eventually winter season. Heating oil is on my mind. It weighs. It preys. It mystifies. I have NO idea how I can possibly afford to heat my house. I can barely afford gas for my car.

The price of fuel oil in this area is more per gallon than the price of gas. I have kids I need to consider. True, they’re not babies anymore but they still deserve to have a semi-warm place to call home. Soon I will have to feed them and warm them and I can ill-afford either. 

I’ve gotten away with making them sweat all summer. I insist, despite their protests to the contrary, that air conditioning is NOT a necessity but a luxury, and one I can’t afford. How do I explain to them that they’ll have to freeze all winter?

I’m trying to look on the bright side. Maybe they’ll actually be glad to go to school because there they’ll be warm!

It’s so hard to make ends meet with the cost of food, fuel, utilities, etc. I wonder how other people do it. I’ve been applying for jobs since I returned from vacation. Something to add to the 40 hours I currently work. I may end up working 7 days a week just to try and get by – knowing getting ahead is a pipe dream. 

I know other folks are even worse off than I am. My heart goes out to them. I wonder how they find a bright side. I wonder why they even bother looking. I wonder why I do.

I’m starting out in a house but might end up in a refridgerator box down by the tracks.

Precarious! I’m walking that fine line – on tiptoe!

FYI – the view sucks!

Birth Dis-Order!!?!!?

Today is the Birthday of daughter #3. She will be 17 at 7:06pm this evening. She gets a cake and I deserve a medal. 17 years of challenging me on a daily basis. It gives new meaning to ‘Child Bearing Years’. Ya know, if I had comitted a crime, say a nice felony like armed robbery, I would have done ‘less time’. I would have served my sentence and paid my debt to society. I would be a free agent with a buff bod compliments of the daily use of the prison gym/spa. I would have another college degree or two to hang on the wall in the penal systems effort to rehabilitate me. I would have had 3 squares a day and cable TV. I would have been living large. Larger than I am right now – on the outside. That’s sorta sad in and of itself. My quality of life would have been better in prison than out.

I wouldn’t have had the freedom to come and go, true, but as a mother of 4 kids who were all small for a long time and all at the same time (4 kids in 7 years) how much freedom did I actually have anyway? Ha! My kids might actually appreciate me today if I had spent 17 years in jail. They would have seen me once a week or there abouts and they probably would have thought I was a cool Mom because I would have been tough and buff and tattooed from head to toe. I’m sure I would have had more genuine conversations with them because the only way they could have talked to me was by PHONE – through bullet proof glass. It’s easy to tell your Mom anything under those circumstances. It’s a lot easier to backtalk her, too!

I don’t know how my daughter got to be 17. I feel like I haven’t aged a bit. I feel younger now than I did 17 years ago. Is it possible I’m entering my second childhood as she approaches the cusp of adulthood? Or is it the whisper of freedom that makes me feel like a spring chicken? Freedom from raising kids on a day by day (really a minute by minute) basis? They’re all almost grown and I feel like I’ll soon be able to exhale. Of course it’s been so long since I had any time to pay attention to myself I don’t think I’ll know how to do it anymore. I hope it’s like riding a bike but I have my doubts. It’s a scary prospect. Getting a life for myself and having time on my hands to do things for MY enjoyment. Doing things because I want to – not have to. Just typing it made me shudder a ‘lil. Growing older but not up – there’s a concept I can get on board with.

Daughter #3 was nice all day – and night. I’m rightfully suspicious. (Do you think it had something to do with ‘presents’?) Or can it be turning 17 has ushered in the end of an era – the terrible twos??!?!! – which, by my calculation lasted 14 YEARS!!!! A long time in coming, to be sure.

I’m cautiously optimistic.

Hope springs eternal!

Vacation Revelations

Things I learned on my Vacation:

I learned my children all have ADD or ADHD. They can’t sit still for 5 minutes unless they are feeding their faces or sleeping. They lack the ability to amuse themselves. Despite what THEY say I am far from ‘high maintenance’ when compared to them. Oh, and they don’t mean what they say and they go back on their word on a whim. Daughter #3 said I must sit in the back and be seen and not heard for the trip down and back. That’s exactly what I did – although I did relent and drive for 2 hours each way. She did nothing but complain after we got there about how tired she was because she and her father drove the ‘whole long way’ and I did nothing to help. Never mind that it was SHE and not me who decided I would sit in the back and mind my own business, which I did quite successfully, I might add. When she and/or her father were driving like maniacs I didn’t complain or yell or even GASP out loud too much. I prayed. A LOT!!!! I made deals and bargains and such with God as we careened south. If I hadn’t highlighted my hair before we left I’m sure a whole new crop of grays would be glaringly apparent right about now.

I learned that daughter #3 can’t drive without the Mp3 player plugged into the dash and the volume dialed up to 956 decibels, or there abouts. Apparently the car won’t start without the key AND the Mp3 player plugged in.

I learned my children can listen to deafening music, as they drive, but they can’t stand to hear themselves think. Assuming that they actually do think, which I question at this point. I wondered how she would hear a police car or ambulance siren should one be following her. In all fairness though, we did have to drive with the windows down the whole long way because – shockingly enough - her A/C isn’t quite up to par in that car so no windows means no air whatsoever. The mancub and I sat in the back, windblown and sweaty and said little. No surprise there. The mancub wouldn’t have said anything if the backseat was on fire and his clothes right along with it. He slept a lot which is no wonder really. I drifted in and out of slumber. I fought hard against the wind to try and keep my eyes open and read my book but it was an uphill battle all the way and when I was weary from the effort I would take a nap. You do what you have to – to survive, eh?

I learned that ‘Experience is the best teacher’ does NOT apply to your offsprings’ driving skills. Daughter #2 drives like Janet Guthrie in the 1/4 mile turn at the Indianapolis 500 – ALL the time. The ex and I are still nursing semi-severe cases of whiplash at the hands of her ‘driving skills’ and I use THAT term very loosely. Somewhere back in the far reaches of my addled brain I recall teaching her how to drive successfully enough that she procured a drivers license from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If they could see her now. WOW!!!! They’d yank her driving privileges in a New York minute. She gets behind the wheel and it’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Some crazed fiend takes over and she drives like a cabby hunting for a cross town fare at La Guardia during rush hour.

I learned that taking 5 people out of their natural habitat and plunking them down in a hotel room is asking for trouble. Their faults are magnified exponentially and they basically have NO redeeming qualities in a single room. My kids turn the TV on and magically hone in on that same 956 decibel volume level as the Mp3 player. I think the hotel clerk in the lobby 3 floors away could hear what they were watching on the TV – 24/7. No sense turning it off when we go out or go to sleep. The electricity is included!!!! Never mind about being environmentally responsible and saving our resources. Run the electricity night and day and day and night. It was like an ‘eternal flame’ memorial for the founder of television.

I learned that 2 men, OK, a man and a mancub, which is a man and a half, cannot be trusted in a hotel room where A/C controls are within reach. We would leave the room to go out and have to scrape the mirrors with the ice scraper retrieved from under the front passengers car seat when we returned. It was so cold in that room you could hang meat! I would turn it up and they would turn it down an extra 5 degrees to make up for the time the room temp. was near normal. I would turn it up when I went to bed and the mancub would lay awake till I fell asleep and proceed to turn it down to tundra-like temps. When I would wake up in the morning I had no idea what the weather was like outside. I couldn’t see past the frost on the window but I could see my own breath!!!!

I learned it’s near impossible to keep your eyes open to read a book while barrelling down the interstate at 70mph with the windows down.

I learned that testosterone is to blame for individual A/C units and the urge to fiddle with them is caused by the same. It’s also to blame for elevators and a man’s need to push each and every floor button whenever he exits the lift. This is done with a snicker, a high five, and a smug self-satisfied look.

I learned that testosterone will cause the indiscriminate use of a remote control in a hotel room small enough that you can reach the TV controls from the bathroom. A word of advice, get into the room first and remove one battery from the remote. That same testosterone will prevent him from going to the front desk and asking for a new battery. To testosterone, that is akin to asking for directions. It’s NEVER done. Tell him if he wants to ’surf’ to hit the beach!!!!!

More Vacation Relevations to come. . . . .(I have to go move a mountain – of LAUNDRY!!!!!)

Bucket List

One thing to cross off my bucket list -

Swimming in a rooftop pool at twilight – it was magical!!!!!
The colors of daylight painting the sky into a horizontal evening rainbow – absent the rain.
Muted colors washing the horizon into quiet summer stillness.

Surviving the first part of vacation with the ex – with a smile )

Looking forward to the next few days with my children.

Anticipating coffee and a sunrise over the Atlantic ocean in the solitude of dawn.

Finishing another book and wondering what I’ll pick next.

Taking a shower – greeting this new day <3 <3 <3

Muse Flash

I watched a movie at work yesterday. Steel Magnolias……still a tear jerker after all these years. I knew going into it I would get emotional and still I went ahead with it anyway. It makes me contemplative….about life…..love……family……and surviving. It hits close to home…..all the emotion in that movie. I lived a similar life experience nearly 23 years ago……soon I will write about it…..after all these years I might finally be able to find my voice and share the life altering experience.

Preparing to go on vacation! What a huge undertaking. Does anyone else drive themselves crazy with all the details or do you just pack your bag and hit the open road? I am my own worst enemy. I guess I really do make things more complicated than they have to be. There is a house to consider. Dogs to be dealt with. Bills to be paid. Who needs what before we go. The only thing I have ready are my books. They are one of the most important ingredients of a successful vacation…..to me, anyway. The only thing missing is a good cup of coffee and a beach!

Senior pictures are today. Yes, for the high maintenance almost 17 year old. She has been impossible for the past 2 days. I would rather wrestle a rabid crocodile that hasn’t eaten for 2 months than to deal with her when she’s acting like this. Luckily, she is very photogenic so her ugly mood won’t be apparent in pictures. She’ll look like an angel in one dimension. I’m the only one who won’t be fooled. I’ll bear the brunt of her wrath like I always do.

Hardly anything on my ‘To Do List….’ is done. I make lists of things to accomplish before I go on vacation so I feel like I did something to deserve one. Probably a self-defeating move. I don’t feel as if I should go off and enjoy myself if I haven’t done ’something’ to make me deserving of it. I survived the last year. By all accounts it’s been one of the worst in the history of me. That alone makes me deserving….if I really think about it. There will be difficult times to deal with soon enough. The one year anniversary of it looms large. I should vacation and enjoy it for all it’s worth. The memories of it will buoy me and lend some perspective in the days and weeks ahead. Dark days…..sad days……days of sorrow filled with what if’s……and ‘if only’s’….

I’m reading Erma Bombeck. I was reading her book in-between watching Steel Magnolias. I bought the book for vacation but the temptation was too great. I was crying with sadness at the movie and crying and screaming laughing at the book. Thank God it was a quiet day at work. If anyone reviews the closed circuit video from the survelience cameras…..HA! what a laugh they’ll have watching me.

I survived the picture ordeal. She did look beautiful. Lovely even. Hard to believe another will be grown up. Some days it seems like they were babies a mere 20 minutes ago…..I don’t feel any older…..but the proof I am is behind the wheel of a car – not the handle bars of a tricycle. I have one left to go through senior pictures. It’s the mancub. That will be my reward for the hair, makeup, jewelry, not to mention the blood, sweat, and tears that all went into getting 1, 2, and 3, ready to roll. The mancub will grunt a few times, ball up the shirt I painstakingly iron, and head off to get his pictures taken with little to no preparation or fanfare.  He’ll come out looking just as good as the girls with minimal effort and ZERO words spoken, no whining, and no stressing about what to wear. Men really have it SO easy. He’ll roll his eyes at me when I ask if he wants me to go with him. I may have to follow 3 car lengths behind him in a borrowed car and disguise but eventually he’ll be glad I went although he’ll never admit as much to me.

Road Tripping with the Ex

Vacation beckons. Do I heed the call? It’s complicated – no, I’m not Denise Richards in disguise. Ha! I wish my life was as ‘complicated’ as hers! She needs to get a grip and get over herself. Don’t get me started on her!!!!

The ex has invited me to go on vacation with him – and our two younger children to visit daughter # 2 in South Carolina. I want to see my daughter and Charleston, where she lives (It’s my favorite city) but I also want time alone away from my two children who share my world on a constant day to day basis.

My son is no problem really. I will miss the grunting when he is away. The freezer door will miss him more. It won’t see any action while he is away unless I find frozen food on sale and buy it for his eventual return.

It’s daughter # 3, the one who is most like the bulldog that I need some R&R from. She is tedious and high maintenance and SO impatient. She can also be scathing and a tad mean, ok, more than a tad. I need the solitude while she is away to steel myself for her eventual return. She could talk the ears off a brass monkey, as my Mother likes to say. She also told me, when child #3 was born, “That one is going to make you eat your elbows”. I know, that sounds funny and is seemingly impossible but my mother was SO right. Yeah, I said it, “My Mom was right!” No one knows how many times over the years I thought of that saying in relation to my daughter and wished eating my elbows was ALL I had to do to get through her childhood. My sister used to say, “If she were mine, I’d snatch her bald”. She’ll be 17 in a few weeks and by all accounts I probably deserve a medal for lasting this long without benefit of medication. 8 days without her is a welcome substitute for a medal of honor.

So, the question remains, ‘To go, or not to go’?

Here is where most people would be contemplating whether or not they could stand their ex for 8 days and a 15 hour car trip up and back. Yeah, not me.

I wonder if I can sit in a car with child #3, her car, mind you, because the ex thinks we should take that on this long trip to make sure it’s safe. My child informed me if I go I am relegated to the backseat. She and her father will be driving. I am to be seen and not heard. Now, I don’t know about you but the idea of riding for 15 hours with your Mp3 player, a few good books and magazines, your favorite pillow and snacks does not a punishment make. I said to my daughter, “You mean I don’t have to drive, I can read and listen to music, I can nap at will and only wake up when the car stops and it’s time to eat? I am SO onboard with that.” I get to be ‘her’ for my vacation. The center of my own universe! Ha! What’s not to love?

The ex keeps asking if I am going. I keep stalling. It won’t cost you anything he said. No gas money. No hotel costs. No food costs. You should come, he keeps urging. I personally think he’s very very afraid of the idea that he alone will be responsible for two children and he alone will bear the brunt of #3’s almost 17 year old raging hormone induced fits and flights of fancy. Our son will simply grunt from the backseat periodically, so he’s no help and certainly not an ally. He wants me to be his wing man or maybe just his flack jacket. The big chicken.

Seriously though. I am going. I want to see daughter #2 way worse than I want to avoid daughter #3. I’ve built up an immunity to her over the years. I can tune her out like a fly trapped in the house on a hot summer night. I want to see my beloved Charleston. I want a free vacation because I won’t be getting one otherwise.

Mostly though, I’m going for a 700 hundred mile ride to snivel and whine periodically, throw tantrums about how hungry I am and how unfair life is, and to kick the back of my daughters seat like she’s done to me for the past 17 years. Ahhhh……Paybacks!

Live well (on your ex’s money)- it’s the best revenge )