I have a few minutes before I have to go pick up the kid from preschool and while I'm waiting for the building inspectors to show up. So much trouble for a 10X14 foot space. Go figure.

Watched dodgeball (movie) the other night. Stupid but it had it's moments. Ben Stiller gives me the creeps. The best part was the cameo from Lance Armstrong. That was a shocker. Speaking of Lance, he has finally announced that he will be competing in this year's Tour de France....going for his 7th consecutive win. Can he do it? Yes, he can! I used to make fun of dh because he is riveted to the tv during the tour but now I find myself drawn to it as well. Can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Speaking of dodgeball...when I played it in school we called it Slaughterball. I loved it because I was good at it and I could pound those assholes who were always beating up on me throughout the week. Funny thing...I was always picked last...it never failed...but most of the time I was at least one of the final four, if not the survivor. I really hate popularity contests.

Speaking of popularity contests...Faith doesn't seem to be winning any at Mama-Drama. I can understand it to a degree. When she bugged out MD was little more than a soapbox for people to bitch and moan about AW and scammers. Now it is a community and some people feel like she is an outsider coming in to rock the boat. I don't know how I feel about it. I'm disappointed that she wouldn't sell MD to me. Some days I feel like saying tamp it. I've put in a lot of hours at MD, I've crawled all over the web trying to learn how to take care of business so we wouldn't have to rely on anybody else to run it. I've searched for new things to add that would keep it fresh and I've tried to make sure that all the technical stuff got handled. That wasn't always easy because I seldom got responses from my PMs or emails. I was really afraid that the domain was going to lapse since it had already "expired" by the time Faith renewed it. At least I don't have to worry about that for two years. :o) After all the jostling, the corrupted data, the board wars, and the schism taking place, it's a wonder we're here at all.

What else can I go on about? Gardening? I've only started one flat so far. 24 broccoli, 12 tomatoes (brandywine), and 36 peppers. We went to a family birthday party at Bill & Jen's on Sunday. (That deserves a post all on it's own.) Granddad (dh's) asked me about the garden and put his "order" in for some pepper plants. FIL put in his order for tomato plants. Both are millionaires. You'd think they could spend a couple of bucks and buy them at Lowes.

Speaking of money...I spent a large portion of yesterday online researching schools. Dd will be attending kindergarten this fall. Woohoo!!!! I am not happy with the SOL scores from the public school she would be attending. There is a newer school, which is closer, that has much better scores, but has many more students and is out of our zone. And there is a private school that interested me a great deal. I broached the subject with dh when he got home and he shot it down in a heartbeat. He doesn't want me to homeschool and refuses to send her to private school because he doesn't want to change his standard of living. What freaking standard of living??? He comes home and parks his ass in front of the tv. Yeah, that eats up a lot of funds, particularly since we have basic cable because he won't pay for a better tier. He went to private school the whole nine yards. It was wasted on him. I told him last night he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed so private vs public was no indication of intelligence. BUT the private school offered more than the basics.
I remember back when I was in highschool we had two english classes: mainstream and honours. They had to do it that way because you couldn't grade on a curve if some students were A+ and half the class would fail. By moving the higher scoring students to the honour's english class you could now grade on a curve and those students who were getting 70s and not passing were suddenly the high scorers for that class. Pretty sad.

Well, the inspector showed up and I'm embarrassed that he saw my messy house but the room has finally passed all inspections. Time to pick the kid up from school. Hey, the sun is shining!

It's going to trial. The asshole contractor and his shady wife contested the allegations. The law is on our side tho. We have a guarantee on their contract, a breach of implied warranty, and their reputation in past dirty dealings in our favour.
If you enter into a contract when you know you don't have the proper license and then falsify a government application to get a permit you leave a paper trail of deceit. There's no way to deny something like that.

Ironically, it has been exactly one year since we signed the contract to have the addition built onto the back of the house. And it's still not done.
Over the past couple of days I've managed to reduce page upon page of bitching and moaning over the addition onto 4 index cards. I think I hit all the high points. We're suing because he didn't build the room we negotiated for, he built it his way, poorly, and illegally. That about sums it up.
His contract (illegal) guaranteed materials and workmanship. He deviated from the materials AND he had no skills. We're asking for all of it back. Everything we paid him.
It's like going to a Honda dealership, ordering a silver Civic, and getting a baby blue Pinto hatchback...or the "family truckster" instead. Unfortunately, this is not the last thing we have to do. If we win a judgement, we have to try and collect it. If that doesn't work, we have to apply to the state's contractor's fund. We may never see a dime.

The room was inspected Tuesday. It didn't pass. We need a final electrical inspection and we need to install handrails on the deck even though it's not in the code. We specifically built the deck at a certain height so we wouldn't need rails but the inspector said that since it had 3 steps we had to have rails. WTFever. Besides that, the deck isn't even on the building permit and we may have to pay an additional $48 for an amended permit. Logically, since the deck isn't on the permit, the inspector should have passed the room. *sigh* I'll be so glad when this is all over.

Time for a story...

Once upon a time I worked with a real bitch-child. The boss's daughter. One year I was elected by the other employees (V and R) to buy the bitch-child a birthday present. This was no easy feat since she hated me and was totally bereft of any social skills whatsoever. I thought and I thought. What could I possibly get this freaking little punk bitch that she wouldn't be able to criticize. It was tough since she was a master of the backhand complement but I finally got it.....a nice photo frame complete with a picture of her and her boyfriend that I coerced from her mother (who was just as devoid of tact).
Next obstacle....the card. It had to be completely neutral and utterly pleasant...not my forte.
Finally the day arrived. The bitch-child stood expectantly for the gift from her minions.
The card...simple...elegant. She turned to V and said "Oh, what a lovely card. Thank you V." To which V replied, "Don't thank me. Cat picked it out." She simply said "oh". The card was cast aside as she happily shred open her gift. Her eyes lit up when she saw the photo in the exquisite frame. She turned to V again and said "Oh, it's beautiful! Thank you so much!" To which V again replied, "Don't thank me. Cat picked that out, too."
And then the little bitch-child looked straight at me and said "oh, I didn't think she had that much class."
End of story....well, except the part where I told her to kiss my ass.

My point? I worked for this company for 3 years as a collection agent and I brought in a ton of money which my boss later embezzled from his clients. And not once was I ever given any recognition for exceeding their expectations. Typically, as in the previous entry about the Tobacco Exchange, someone else got the bonus or the raise. I got laid off. Pushed aside while someone else took the credit for the work I had done for the past 3 years.

Wow, and now, at MD, I'm just an admin working for someone who has been involved all of two months. All I can say is 'ouch'.

I took the decorations off of the Christmas tree today. I plugged it in last night for the last time and dh panicked that someone in the neighbourhood might see it and think we were deranged or something. He gets into a tizzy over the most curious things.
It has always been a very depressing task for me...the undoing of Christmas. It's almost as if I'm packing away the "good will toward men" along with the ornaments that grow shabbier and shabbier each year. The spirit of the season comes to a screeching halt when the doors of Walmart open the morning after.
What happened to all the bell ringers? I saw only one this year. He was standing outside of Michael's with his red kettle, ringing his bell half-heartedly. I gave dd 50¢ to donate and she thought it was great. There used to be somebody jangling away in front of every major store.
I miss Christmas the way it used to be...the ribbon candy, the bowl of nuts to crack, cheese on fancy crackers, snow, the smell of cedar and cookies. The television broadcasted wall to wall hallmark commercials, the same old comfortable Christmas shows, and Christmas merchandising didn't show up in the stores until AFTER Thanksgiving. Oranges still bring back very vivid memories of Christmases past. And figs strung on raffia. Nobody had them this year.
I just feel like Christmas was incomplete this year. I used to stay up past midnight every Christmas eve and spend time with my cats. Just the three of us. We'd sit and watch the shifting patterns of light that were thrown on the ceiling from the tree. They would purr and purr. That didn't happen this year. That part of Christmas is gone for me now.
So, everything is packed away and ready to be put up in the attic. People have gone back to being bitchy, and apathetic. I wish the Christmas spirit would hang around a little longer. I need some.

Of all the assinine ideas....
The local government guy, (we'll call him B.R.) called A.C. (Asshole Contractor) this morning and told him he had until the end of this month to get his licensing in order or else he would be swearing out a warrant on him. A.C. was highly upset and asked if maybe he could come to our house and finish the work he started instead. He was just convicted and fined $500 because of my letter campaign...why in hell would he think we would allow him back on our property particularly since I told him I would have him arrested for trespassing if he showed up? What a freaking moron.

Dh went to court last Friday as witness for the state against the first contractor who bilked us out of 8K. I reported him and they took him to court for violation of occupational code 54.1-111. He was found guilty and fined $500, 90 days suspended. A slap on the wrist really....compared to $8,000. (Plus the additional $4,000 to redo what he screwed up.)
According to the prosecutor, the defendant admitted to everything and implicated his wife as well. Dh was told to contact another guy after the trial...local government...and they have plans on having him arrested for working without a business license. I don't know if dh will have to testify during that case.
I was right about them coming from Florida. They had told us they moved from Buffalo, NY, but I tracked them to Florida. I love the internet.
Anyway, we have to get a copy of the transcripts of the trial if we plan on going after Mrs. Asshole Contractor. We were told we have a 50-50 chance of getting money back from the state contractor's fund. I don't like those odds much.
So, today I have to write up a report for the local guy complete with photos. Cake and Pie.

It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. On November 27th I took my beloved cat, Bastet, to the vet for the last time. When I got up that morning she was lying on the kitchen floor in her own mess. She had thrown up all over herself the night before and had frightening convulsions that clearly were painful. She wouldn't drink her milk or even eat a piece of cheese, so I wasn't able to medicate her. Her front legs would twitch and quiver as she was lying down and her back legs just didn't function anymore. It was time.
I can't go into detail right now. She was euthanized and I stayed with her throughout the procedure. She is buried next to her brother who died October 26th. She spent most of the summer laying under the tigerlily fronds like a big lazy jungle cat. I really miss her. I miss them both.

The steroid shot that Bastet got last night has done a world of good for her. She's not leaping and racing but she is able to walk, albeit shakily. She has gone to the potty each time I wheeled her bed over to the tray, she is eating well, and the pill was history hidden in a lump of extra sharp cheddar. She's a sucker for a piece of cheese. So was Goliath. I am hopeful that she will be back to her old self in a couple of days. For now she is sleeping in the bottom half of a large pet carrier. We took the top off so she wouldn't be so secluded and we roll it from room to room so she can be a part of what's going on. When she gets done with her business she gets right back in on her own so I guess it's pretty comfortable for her. I ripped open a brown paper bag, her bed of choice, and lined the bottom of it. She seems happy enough. I even caught her purring last night. I went over her vet records this morning when I was waiting for the taped joints in the floor to dry. She has had a bunch of steroid shots over the years. She used to get them for her skin condition. At $20-$24 bucks a pop they sure added up. That's alot of money for a cat you can't really pet. They never seemed to help her skin, though. I also tried feeding her a special diet provided by the vet for a couple of months. Cha-Ching. No help. The only thing that helped was eliminating fish from her diet. That's pretty tough to do considering fish is an ingredient in nearly every canned and bagged cat food on the market today.
I fed her Alpo dogfood tonight as I ran out of her usual brand and there was no fish in it. She hooved it down. Unfortunately, dogfood doesn't have taurine in it and she needs that.

We started laying tile in the sunroom today. I ran out of tape for the backerboard joints so dh picked up another roll when he went to Lowes for the rest of the tile. I taped and "mudded" the joints, then we had lunch and then the fun began. The room is really out of square so we are having to fudge the spacing a bit between the tiles. I had hoped that we could just use my little 1/4" spacers but that won't work on all of it. This is the first time I've set 12" tiles. I tiled the bathroom vanity and tiled the big custom walk in shower at Tunstall but that was with 4" tiles. I've also laid a few 6" quarry tiles. I'm hoping that the 12" will be super easy since there is less of them. We've encountered a few high spots already due to the floor not being quite level. I'd love to pound that asshole contractor in the mouth.
I'm hoping that we get most of the floor done tomorrow. I would like for it to be grouted and the walls and ceiling spackled, sanded, and painted by Thanksgiving which means I'm really going to have to pour it on in the next few days. My hands hurt!

She's sliding down the slippery slope. Two days ago she stopped walking. At first she tried to get her legs under her but only one was able to support her so she kept falling down. Yesterday she quit trying and dragged herself from spot to spot. She made her way to her food dish and also to the potty tray. Today, however, she couldn't make it. We got home after running errands all day to find her laying in the hallway. She had taken a crap and it was stuck all over her. I got the cat carrier out of the barn, the same one that her brother died in two weeks ago, and loaded her up for a trip to the vet.
She suggested euthanasia. I couldn't do it without trying something else first. Bastet still enjoys a snooze in a warm patch of sunshine, she'll purr and purr, kneading the air with her paws. She also looks forward to her meals and a warm cup of milk at night. So we opted for a steroid shot this evening to see if that would help with any inflammation she may have in her joints. I've got pills to give to her for a few days as well. If they don't help her I don't know what I'll do. The vet also said that Bastet had a heart murmur.
My poor old cat.

I worked there as a cocktail waitress while I was in college. I got paid $2.01 an hour plus tips which were very good because I was fast and I worked my ass off. After the punters left at 2:00 a.m. the waitresses had to clean up, wrap silverware for the lunch shift the next day. By law we were supposed to be paid minimum wage after 2 because we couldn't earn tips to supplement our pay but we never did. In fact, at the end of the night we had to pay a percentage of our tips to the bartenders who made more money than we did and didn't have to clean up. They sat around drinking while we worked. I started work at 4:00 and usually got off at 3:00-3:30. I busted my ass for nearly 12 hours for $25 day after day after day. To add insult to injury we also had to chip in a few dollars each to give to JellyBean and Shirley to clean the kitchen and mop the floors. Lots of times I refused because I couldn't afford it. I was paying rent, tuition for classes I couldn't stay awake thru, and groceries for my alcoholic boyfriend, who, btw, was one of the bartenders.

The other bartender who worked the happy hour shift, damn, what was her name...doesn't matter....she worked to socialize and would never mix my drinks for me. I had to go behind the bar to mix my own and then serve them. That's how I learned how to mix. At the end of the shift she was always there with her hand out waiting for her cut. I stopped tipping her. She turned me in because I was too young to mix legally. Didn't matter. The boss didn't want to lose me because I sold ALOT of drinks and I actually checked ids. I was the first person in town to prosecute someone for drinking underage with a fake id. It was a very big deal since the town fought liquor-by-the-drink so hard.

What am I rambling on about? After I had been there for over a year and had seen a complete overhaul of the staff a couple times over the manager decided that the restaurant needed a supervisor for the cocktail staff. I was all over it. I was senior staff, the big money maker, and even worked parties at the boss's house. I could step in behind the bar and was always willing to come in at any time to work lunch, or serve dinner. So one night when the rest of the cocktail staff showed up, around 9ish, the manager called us together for a meeting. The bartenders and bouncers were there, too. (Oh yeah, Jane A. that was her name and her daddy was one of the rich folk in town).
Anyway, Rodney, the manager started talking about the new position and what it entailed and then said, "the new cocktail supervisor will be Berkley C. B. III. He doesn't know anything about the job but he'll learn." And Berkley, who often came to my apt to get drunk with my boyfriend, and got the cocktail waitresses to put long island ice teas in the walk-in freezer so he could drink on the job, looked right at me and smiled. His parents had the biggest, poshest house in town. He didn't need the job but he was friends with the manager and his parents were friends with the restaurant owner. He didn't know the job, didn't know the first thing about ABC laws, but he got the job. The staff congratulated him on getting the promotion and when I asked the manager, later, why Berkley got the job and I didn't, he told me 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I left.

It's funny how some things in life keep recurring over and over again. You bust your ass doing things to make it right, to make everybody happy, and you get shit on. And if you dare ask 'why?' you get told 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I'm tired of giving so much and then being treated like I'm nothing. I'm tired of people smiling to my face and then stabbing me in the back. I'm tired of pouring myself into something and then someone else taking the credit. I'm tired of being called a bitch because I'm not a lemming.

You know what's funny? People used to try and make me feel guilty for not contributing to JellyBean and Shirley because they were "mentally impaired" and were broke all the time. We did most of the cleanup for them anyway. After I left I heard that JellyBean and Shirley got busted for selling steaks and booze out the backdoor of the restaurant when they were supposed to be cleaning. I guess they were cleaning up, in a way. Funny, the new cocktail supervisor, who was also responsible for the liquor inventory, didn't notice the thefts and apparently they had been doing it for some time.

It's laying on the desk like a missed pototo chip, curling at the edges. Gross. Dh liberated it from dd's big toe last night while she slept. We surreptiously tried to steal it the night before last but got caught when dd suddenly awoke. Dh had the flashlight poised on her digit and I was slowly trying to twist the defunct nail off. I tried to make her think that she had had a bad dream and that she had called out to us and that is why we were there. I don't think she bought it.

She stubbed her toe about two months ago. I figured she would get a nasty bruise under the nail but she never did. Instead, a new nail started to grow under the old one and just popped the old one off. Unfortunately, it hung on for dear life at one corner, a mere thread, and she was certain that it would cause excruciating pain to remove it. So I did what any resourceful mother would do. I bribed her. But she's much too crafty for that. She knows whatever I offer her, she'll end up getting anyway. I tried another tactic. I lied to her. I told her that the ToothFairy had a cousin, an unpopular and often misunderstood cousin. The lure of treasure under her pillow was still not enough. So, once again, under the cover of darkness, dh with clippers and flashlight in hand, crept into her bedroom and stole that toenail with one swift, decisive snip.

Now I have the defunct toenail and she, totally unaware of our chicanery, is 41¢ richer. I think it was a fair trade.

Goliath passed away this morning between 6:00-6:20. We've been together for 16 or 17 years. My friend Wanda called me early one spring day in (probably) 1988 while I was living in South Boston. The trailer park next to her house was flooded again and some kittens were stranded and she needed me to come out and rescue them. I told her on the phone that I couldn't have any cats in my apartment and I really didn't want to come out there. She leaned on me. I caved. So I waded out into the park and retrieved a floating bucket that had 3 of the cutest little balls of fur I've ever seen in it.
On that day I became Mom to Bastet and Goliath. The third kitten was adopted by someone else and grew up to be a huge long haired cat. Goliath was a black and tan dsh and Bastet is solid black except for about 3 hairs on her chest. Goliath was nearly eviscerated twice by dogs. The second time I left him at the vet's overnight and he started to slide downhill. I went to visit early the next day and found him laying in a puddle of his own urine. I soaked it up with newspapers and took my cat out of there. He got a severe infection which ate away his skin, dissolved the sutures and left his guts wide open. I cleaned him up several times a day by injecting hydrogen peroxide into the opening and flushing out the pus. I also applied a necrotizing agent around the opening to dissolve any dead tissue. It took awhile but he healed up nicely.
When I first started writing seriously he used to lay in a basket on top of the drafting table where my word processor was set up. A shaft of sunlight came thru the window and fell right on that basket and he would purr and purr and purr. I remember one time when we were living in the Grandin Court house in Roanoke, Goliath started meowing really loudly from the bottom of the stairs. I got out of bed, went to the laundryroom and let Bastet out. I had inadvertantly locked her in and Goliath told me so I could let her out. I didn't even stop to think. I was that close to Goliath. I was devastated when he got laryngitis a few years ago. I feared I would never have another "conversation" with my best friend again. Yep, I may be nuts but I sure do love that cat.
So, I planted him today. I laid him to rest where he always used to lay to rest. Right in the middle of my flower bed. I was forever fussing at him for flattening my flowers and creating voids. Now he's there forever in his favourite place. He used to sit out there, which was right outside my bedroom window, and wake me up in the morning. I sure do miss him.

Geez, how violent can the first chapter be? It opens with the farmer taking an axe out to the barn to kill the runt pig in the new litter because it'll never amount to anything. I checked the inscription in the front of the book and saw that my mom gave it to me in 1973. I was 10 years old. Of course, this isn't the first time I read it but it had been awhile and I was just now reading it to my 4 year old. In chapter two, the pig, Wilbur, reached the age of 5 weeks old and the farmer told his daughter, Fern, who clearly loves Wilbur to pieces, that she has to sell it because he refuses to feed it anymore. Nice, huh? So, at the end of the chapter she sold her beloved pig to her Uncle for $6 and Wilbur is moved from his happy home under the blossoming apple tree and his cozy little house with the sweet fresh straw inside to the dank, dark, foul smelling basement of the uncle's barn where he now sleeps in a pile of shit. Lovely. My yes, but it's a heart warming story. You just have to wade through gloom and despair to get to the warm bits.
It's like reading Grimm's Household Tales, otherwise known as nightmare fodder, to her at bedtime. Yep, because you are small, you are worthless, of no consequence, and aren't worth wasting food on. Ouch.
And then there's Charlotte, the spider. Doesn't she die in the end? Maybe we should switch to Black Beauty. She likes horses. Oh, wait. The horse is nearly beaten to death on the street. Hmmm. The Velveteen Rabbit. Holy Smokes. Open a vein why don't you? Old Yeller. Riiiiight. Where the Red Fern Grows. That story still haunts me. Way too graphic. Chronicles of Narnia? Maybe.
Is four years old too soon for Nancy Drew? Not much gratuitous sex and violence in those.

Part of me wants to dust off the book and get the main characters out of the sack. Another part says "why bother?" Hell, they've been there for over 10 years. I've brought it out and reread it a few times and I'm generally happy with the various scenes but I just can't tie it together fluently. How do I get from the floating body to the DaVinci project? OT: I got the idea from an article in the Roanoke newspaper where they found an unidentified body floating in the river. The man had a return plane ticket to D.C. and court papers for adoption records in his briefcase.
Ok, back to the subject at hand. Motivation, or lack thereof. I've got Debbie Travis' Painted House on in the background and can't even focus on this blog entry. I use to be able to concentrate with a singular purpose. When I was heavily into portraiture I could remain slumped over my art for hours on end, diligently working until it was finished for if I stopped at any time it would never get done. Now I can't even finish a sinkful of dishes in one session. I'm always leaving the silverware to soak until the water turns cold and flat. So, you see, not only do I lack motivation, but I lack the focus as well. I'll blame that on my child. I now have the attention span of a gnat.
Meanwhile, Debbie is turning a beautiful diningroom into a nightmare in eggplant and celedon. Gag.
blahblahblah I should be in bed but instead I am thinking about everything else BUT writing. Like: should I go with dh and dd to the birthday soiree tomorrow and also visit his grandmother? Or, should I stay home and wallow in the "peace and quiet" and use that time to lay the underlayment in the addition, free from "PLAY WITH ME!" and "I'M THIRSTY"? If I do that tomorrow while they are out of my hair then I'll be able to lay the tile next week. Provided, of course, that I can get a dozen boxes of the tile.
Whew! They finally finished the diningroom and it was God Awful! I can see that room getting several coats of stainblocker after she leaves. And here I am worried about pumpkin on my walls. I think what I'll do in the addition is paint it pumpkin, glaze it with a lighter shade in the same family (or darker, who knows) and then lay an open garbage bag over it, brush it out and then rip it off. It would definitely take care of hiding the monstrous spackle job the last asshole contractor did.
Oh, speaking of asshole contractors... Dh went to court this morning to testify against said asshole contractor and the case was continued. Again. Anyway, dh spoke to the investigator's boss and they mentioned going after Mrs. Asshole Contractor. What a freaking concept especially since my complaint was against her, too, and Mr. Asshole Contractor has about 15 judgements against him already which would put us in the realm of "when hell freezes over" to get any restitution from him.
But I digress. To write or not to write. I registered for the NaNoWriMo. I can't really say I have a chance in hell of finishing a novel in a month's time. I can't really say I'll make a dent. I can say that I will make an effort to spend my time wisely and TRY to pound out a page or two a day. I better have a discussion with my characters and see where Winston and Jennifer want me to take this.

I had the inlaws over for dinner last night. We invited them for Sunday but they changed plans and it was no longer convenient. They were, however, free Saturday afternoon. Dh's stepdad said he wanted bean soup. Ok. I've never had someone tell me what they wanted when inviting them to dinner but ok. I'd have to make something in addition to bean soup because MIL won't eat it. Whatever.
Dh asked if they could pick up his grandma and bring her. That was fine.
Dh called grandma and invited her. She's been calling him lately saying she is very lonely and her back hurts and she's generally unhappy. (Quick history: Her 53 y.o. useless son, dh's sperm donor father, had a stroke last July. He's in a nursing home living his life exactly the way he wants it... right down to someone wiping his ass for him. He's got a phone, tv, vcr and yet grandma has to go feed him his lunch every day. She's 80-something. She sold her house and moved into a retirement home where her lifelong friends already live. But she blows them off everytime they ask her to join them so they don't ask anymore. Her life is consumed with her lowlife, scum sucking son and it's killing her.)
She declined the offer. Dh called his mom and told her not to pick her up. Less than five minutes later she called back and said she would come but that she would call in the afternoon if she wasn't feeling better. Dh called his mom back. A little later grandma calls again and tells dh she can't come because "your daddy has a tummy ache". So? For heaven's sake woman, he's 53 freaking years old. Four year olds get "tummy aches".
Again...whatever.
So MIL&FIL finally get here at 5:20. They were supposed to be here between 4 -4:30 and they are the king and queen of punctuality. They come in the door complaining about how long it took to get here. (They live 30 minutes away... 45 if there's any traffic. However, we only get invited to their "holiday house" which is 1½ hours away.) They come bearing gifts: some breakfast hot pockets and two dubious bbq rib shaped sandwiches and a card game for dd. Dh entertains while I finish cooking. BTW, I made the bean soup. I soaked the beans and cooked them for over two hours. I put in 1/2 lb. of thick smoked bacon. It was perfection as far as I'm concerned.
I call them to the table and MIL immediately says she's not eating any of the soup. Fine. I knew that. FIL starts eating and then tells me he doesn't eat fatty meat anymore and digs out all the bacon. Then says the next time we visit them he'll make some real bean soup for me. He says he's found a really good brand of bean and bacon soup in a can at the dollar store.
Dear Martha, would I be remiss in my obligation as a hostess if I told him I hope he chokes on it?

For those 2 point 3 people who come back to my blog occasionally to see if anything drama worthy has been posted I am about to reveal a diet sized slice of my psyche.
I have the killing gift. I can kill a friendship in a heartbeat without even trying. I can kill a good time just by showing up. I can kill an appetite, a conversation, a thread, a tune, a tone. I can even kill time. I may be killing my marriage and my dd's childhood. I don't know. I'm certainly not aware of doing it but it happens just the same.
Dh says 'we have to get you medicated' while pressing another draft cider into my bottle shaped fist. Alcoholism is fine as long as I'm in a good mood apparently. (No, I'm not an alcoholic. Not even a real drinker. One night of multiple Tequila Kamikazes took care of that, tyvm.)
So what's the gift you ask? A vibe. A subconscious, apparently evil, vibe that emanates from my soul, if indeed I possess one, like reverse ESP, that strikes the fight or flight response in a large majority of people whose lives are unfortunate enough to collide with mine.
I've had the gift my entire life. It wasn't so noticeable in my childhood because we lived such an isolated lifestyle. My parents are isolationists. I don't know how that happened. I remember my mom having friends and going to art classes, etc. but in the early 70s it just stopped. She made an attempt to keep me somewhat social by having the neighbour girls over for craft day, which was the coolest thing in the world, but they had to walk cross country about a mile to get to our house. Think little house on the prairie type stuff but with trees and people with guns. (The sheriff shot his BIL because he thought he was a groundhog. That should give you an indication.) It didn't last long. Apparently the porkchop around my neck wasn't sufficient to get the dog to play with me, if you know what I mean. I spent most of my time communing with nature and perfecting my highbeam flirtation with gravity. Beams in the barn loft perhaps 30 feet above the ground. It's a wonder I didn't do a swandive.
In the mid-70s my brother decided to try and snuff me out. 1976 was a particularly bad year. Knives, drowning, strangulation. He wasn't picky. Whatever got the job done. Fortunately, he was incredibly inept. We really don't speak any more. Karma is currently kicking his ass.
I've been engaged a number of times. "Well, there's something!" you might say. On quiet reflection, though, I can only surmise that alcohol and other illegal substances must block the vibe to an extent. Like a natural forcefield. Once sobriety is sustained for a period of time, the glow of the relationship takes a header. I can't explain my relationship with my dh which has lasted unerringly for nine years now, seven married. He must be one of the few people who isn't bothered by the vibe. He knows it's there though. He's an odd duck himself, an emotionally stunted only child of a broken home. He has successfully blocked out his childhood and his Catholic upbringing which is probably the sole reason we are together. If he didn't have that built-in defense mechanism we probably never would have gotten past the first date.
So there you have it. A sliver of my psyche or psychosis, whichever you prefer.

As far as excitement goes in my life, I think I shot my wad before I got married. I wasted a big chunk of my young adulthood on a loser named Tom who's personality lived in the bottom of a Jack Daniel's bottle...or rolled tightly, and rather unattractively, in rice paper. I spent my Sundays laying newspaper on the floor of the bathroom for his drunken friends who couldn't care less that their aim was less than exemplary. I emptied ashtrays and put out fires. Tom passed out with a cigarette in his hand once. It caught the chair on fire. His friends, ever vigilant, poured a can of beer on it, and kept partying. It was like watching a bunch of 3 year olds. 3 year olds who ate my food, stole my clothes, ran up my electricity bills, took my parking spot, and slept with my boyfriend.

So I left. Since I wasted so much of my life with him, I decided to do things that I had never done before. I made a list. I went to France. I kept all my money in a coffee can...in $100 dollar bills. My strategy was that a crisp 100 dollar bill was harder for me to break than a $20. It worked. I was working at $4.00 an hour at the time so it took awhile to add up. But when the opportunity arose to go to Paris I blew off the coffee grounds and bought my ticket. That was June 1991. I was 28. That was my first time on a big plane. My first time out of the country. The first time that I felt alive. It was awesome.

I did it again May 1992. London. Then again in 1995. Greece and Italy. I was 32. That was the first time I had been on a large boat (which broke down in the middle of the Adriatic Sea), and the first time I saw dolphins.

It's 9 years later and I haven't been off the east coast since. I met my husband the week after I got back from Florence, got married March 1997, gave birth to my alpha-omega dd January 2000.
Now my life consists of finding things for my 4 year old to do, making sure dh has clean underwear, and trying to time my arrival at the preschool so I don't have 39 cars in front of me. There are two lanes but the minivan driving, soccer moms always line up in the inside lane like lemmings. The only things that excite me now are getting deals at Kroger when they double dollar coupons or triple 50¢. I leave my screaming brain in the car and just shop.
I haunt Mama-Drama, living vicariously through the members, watching their pregnancies progress, sharing the excitement of the last days until birth, watching their children grow, and my heart breaks for them when someone has a miscarriage or they lose a loved one. They are a fantastic group of women who live beyond their children, beyond the stereotypical mom mould. And they are funny as hell. Someone is always able to lift my spirits. As great as it is though, it always feels like I'm outside looking in. That's my fault though.

You want me to pay $14 an hour for you to watch my kid do somersaults? Puhleeze.

Dh said it best... I'm getting close to bottoming out on the roller coaster. I'm not a happy camper right now. I spent the day with dd again. Picked her up at preschool, went to the gym for an hour where she got to play outside and in the maze, then we went to the "gymnastic school" to check it out, then we ate out at BK (gak) so she could play in their maze and then went to the library. Got home just a minute before dh.
Got in the house and discovered that the contractor didn't show up AGAIN. I'm losing my patience. Dh called him at 3:00 to find out why he's blowing us off (we paid him already...that's why) and he hasn't returned his call yet. I stuck sticky notes all over the place in the room where they split the trim and glued it back together with caulk. I can't stain over that shit. The contractor told me just to paint over it but I'll be damned if I'm going to paint over stain grade trim that we paid for just because they suck at finish carpentry.
Mom and Dad visited Sunday and Monday. Dh and Dad put in the french doors. I need to lay down underlayment and then tile before he can finish the threshold though. I can't lay tile until the carpenter fixes the trim and the grunt finishes the spackling....so they don't walk on my floor while the mastic and/or grout is setting. There will definitely be some $ coming off what we owe them since we didn't get a professional to do the spackling. According to the contractor the grunt gets $10/hr but we are supposedly paying for a pro who would be making much more.
Man, I hate dealing with these people.
Looks like we may be going to Mom & Dad's place this weekend since dh has a highschool reunion thing going on next weekend. I don't want to really because I don't want to have to deal with my brother and his wife. But I need to take Dad's sliding glass doors down and then pick up Chigliak, the twin bed, a dresser and my aquarium stuff so I can set up the 20 gallon tank for dd's ever changing goldfish. That's going to go in the new room too, if it ever gets finished. Shall I hold my breath?