Round One--House Cleanup in the books

BIL was here over the weekend, along with Sparky. We did a LOT of things!

• The office is emptier and a little more organized; I need to clear out files yet, but the surfaces have been emptied and lots of stuff went in the trash and elsewhere. 
• The basement...well, the main room looks worse, but the workroom/shop area...! I can actually walk into it without feeling like I'll trip and kill myself getting to the lights. BIL went through a lot of stuff from his side of the family. Much of it got tossed. There are at least two full contractor bags of trash that I'll need to get to the curb over the course of several weeks; ditto with all the magazines and other recycling. 
• We got the Honda started and moved out of the garage. The giant heap of cardboard boxes is collapsed into one box for recycling. 
• The insurance paperwork is sorted and generally made sense of. 
• BIL found Beast's Social Security card (which I need for part of the Medicaid form) in a box of Random Things From Some Drawer. 
• Sparky found Beast's cross necklace, which he now has with him.

And yesterday after BIL and Sparky left, I finally cancelled SiriusXM ($200/month), downgraded DirecTV and ordered a new remote (saving $150/month), and downgraded our Sprint account to three lines and no more monthly charges for Beast's and my phone (saving $100/month). I spent, quite literally, over two hours on phone calls to Sprint to delete BIL's number from our account and was so frustrated by the end I was just repeating "ALL I want to do is delete the line. That's all" and sobbing. They kept telling me only the account holder could cancel lines, and as I'm not the account holder it can't be done. So then let's change the name on the account--nope, gotta have proof that I'm allowed to do that. So where do I fax/email the paperwork proving I'm allowed? A transfer to another department and some ridiculous procedure that involves SNAIL-MAIL, but I really need to talk to someone else about cancelling the line...transfer back to where I started but to a new person to whom I have to give my name, the name of the account, the PIN and the password. I definitely know the PIN now! Which is great, since I'm the one who created it and changed all the online account info last month after another (shorter) marathon to find out how to do that, with the threat that if I couldn't get into the account, they wouldn't get paid because I couldn't access the bill. Oh, and I left out two trips to the nearest store--the staff of which was great, by the way!--and an online chat with customer service. All this between 2 and 6 yesterday afternoon. DirecTV = 20 minutes on the phone tops. SiriusXM = no more than a 10-minute call. Sprint = a four-hour ordeal that was only resolved when I started sobbing and calling Beast "a vegetable" who can't talk on the phone for fuck's sake! I only swore once, by the way. I just have to say that when I get really upset, it becomes entirely impossible for me to understand accented English. The guy who finally just canceled the damn thing...when he told me that, I sobbed out something like, "You're the nicest guy I've spoken to today" and then hung up without further ado. So I hope he a) deleted the right line, and b) actually DID something because I have no confirmation # to prove anything with.

[Time out to check the online bill. Guess what. The extra line is still on the bill. Also, I'm "past due" with my payment, but only $.26 is due. My next payment will be minus the $15 and whatever other charges for that extra line. I hate HATE Spring customer service.]

In short, all the wind is out of my sails. The house, superficially, looks worse: more piles in places I can see in rooms I use, and I still have all this goddamned paperwork to fill out which requires still more phone calls and planning and TIME and Finding Things (like 5 years' worth of tax returns and pay stubs and bank statements) and Making Copies of Found Things (same as above)... The weather is abysmal: rainy and dank and gray. The mailbox "temporary" fix has tipped over into the street, so I'm going to have to go to the P.O. and ask them to hold my mail for pickup till I can get someone to power out a new post-hole for a new post and mailbox setup (which means waiting for the ground to thaw). And the stupid Honda is still here, albeit out of the garage finally. The last person I want to see today is Beast, and all I want to do is crawl back in bed and alternately sleep and cry and feel sorry for myself.

FIVE MONTHS?!?!

Well, it's been a long winter--and it's not over yet by any means.

I've spent the last hour prepping for Poetry Month, so be assured there will be stuff popping up regularly here in April.

Otherwise, the worldwide news is dire. Trump's doing his best to kill us all one way or another. Local elections are coming up and we've got some Dark Ages people running for mayor, council, and school board.

Good news is that Beast is home, and a little over 2 weeks into his carpal tunnel/ulnar nerve surgery recovery. He's still having massive pain in his left shoulder--which we now know is due to a torn labrum AND a torn rotator cuff. His lower back is fubar too, and he can't feel his feet. He uses a cane all the time now. The upside of all of this is that he hasn't really been drinking. He "found" a place to walk to not far from the library, but his tolerance is so low that he only got a couple of swigs in before he passed out with the bottle in his lap (uncapped). This was before surgery, and he's been too zonked from surgical stuff to be out and about much till later this week. So he's dry. And intent on getting to meetings when he can.

I'm ok. Tired all the time. In fact, yesterday I overslept, waking up at 8:45. So I called in and pled illness, read for awhile, and went back to sleep till 11:30. Then I was up for awhile and went back to bed at 2 for a 2-hour nap. Beast stayed in bed till 12:15 and then woke me up for dinner. Then we were both back to sleep probably by 9 or so.

I do feel better today. Not sure what that whole mess was yesterday: sore, achy muscles and what felt like a massive allergy attack.

On that note, however, I think it behooves me to head upstairs and go to bed. I have laundry and house-cleaning to deal with tomorrow.

Updates

I feel like this has become my Vent Blog.

So, last Monday I took Beast to a treatment facility about 45 minutes from here--we are fortunate that we have several options from which to choose within an hour or so--and left him there for the foreseeable future for rehab. He got blitzed about 3 weeks ago. He can barely walk and can't drive, but somehow he managed the 1/4-1/2-mile walk to the nearest mini-mart and bought himself a bottle of vodka. I worked till 9 that night, so came home to find him "asleep" in the chair with half a bottle left. He finished most of that before going up to bed. And STUPID ensued.

Next morning I told him to pick an option: he moves out, I move out, or he goes to rehab till it sticks.

He made all the calls and did most of the legwork on scheduling and organizing. Because we have private insurance, there was a bed available right away. They took him back to do the intake interview, finished that up, came back out with the meds he's NOT allowed on site (they're opiate painkillers, so pretty unsafe to have around, so we get it completely), and that was it. No interview for me, just "say goodbye" so we did. Weird. He has called a couple of times, and I took one of his AA sponsors over Sunday with me for Family Education and Visiting Hours. I told someone the place is like a combination of tiny college campus + prison: lovely setting, nice housing, and extremely scheduled time. And no money. Bartering is done with hard candy and food in the cafeteria: my breakfast eggs for your toast, my tuna sandwich for a haircut.

He's been fighting for a week to get his back pain addressed. Because he was taking opioids, they wanted him drug-free to assess whether it was an addiction to painkillers. [It's not.] In the meantime, he was getting OTC Tylenol by the handful. Not good. I think, as of Friday, they've finally figured out that the pain, she is real, and are giving him something else that's at least less-addictive (or non-addictive). He was pretty dire Sunday still. Lousy sleep, bad pain, lots of bounce-back from changing meds, and just crabby about everything.

Saturday was my birthday. He tried to make me a present the day before he left. It's a total failure. He didn't get a card, can't buy or mail anything from the facility, and so the day passed completely without fanfare. Sparky IM'd me to "sing," as did Jen, and I got a card from my sister, though I didn't pick that up till yesterday because it went to the P.O. box. Oh, and Beast called and wished me happy birthday in a 2 minute and 27 second call. I helped with Operation Christmas Child packing during the day as I do around this time every year, so that was a good-enough birthday present to myself.

My other me-gift was a note to everyone in both immediate families detailing what's been going on. A couple people knew some of it, but others had no idea. I'm done hiding out in my family. Just so very done. I heard from several people, all messages of support and even a couple of phone calls. I've missed being able to talk straight with everyone.

I'm debating whether I want to send Beast a card--his birthday is Friday--and I'm thinking not. Not out of retaliation exactly, but he bailed on Valentine's Day, anniversary AND birthday this year because he's so wrapped up in his own drama. I'll see him on Sunday. Or Monday. But I'm really tired of the universe spinning around him. For our counseling visit on Sunday, "we" talked about his pain relief issues and frustrations. The counselor asked me to start if I had any questions or concerns, and I mentioned the pain thing and he took the ball and ran with it for the rest of our allotted time. He's such a middle-aged-white-guy. Welcome to how the rest of the world has to interact with bureaucracy EVERY DAY!

Part of that last bit can be attributed to the horrific election results and all the White Boys on both sides of the political divide moaning and whining about how upsetting something is to them. SHUT THE FUCK UP, men! Really. You've had your centuries to talk and run things, but you have managed to do nothing but fuck things up. Let some women and minorities in the door, sit down and LISTEN.

OK. So last week sucked. It's pretty strange that with all my crying skills, I really have yet to shed many tears over anything this month. Once it all actually hits, in my usual delayed reaction awareness, it's going to SUUUUUCK!!

This weekend, I over-indulged in junk food and for the first time in my life actually made myself sick. I had to leave work early yesterday with a gurgly stomach, and--work being as it has been for awhile now--I'm not sure I'm up to ever going back. I suppose I have to, since I'm the sole breadwinner now. I stayed home today in any case. There are sheets in the dryer, I've looked at the bank statements to be sure I don't have any late bills, and I've caught up on Facebook. I'm going to finish this up and read some Beowulf. Clean out the fridge. Look for my P.E.O. pin. Figure out Thanksgiving planning. Vacuum the basement--which Beast was going to do before he left but ended up spending hours on this stupid project for my birthday. Put shit way. Figure out how to manage 2 toddlers in this not-child-proofed house. Take a nap. I'm supposed to be taking care of myself, right? So that's my nod to those directions that everyone has given me!

Short update post-Tuesday

Beast was fortunate (?) enough to have all the charges reduced to misdemeanors--DWI and disturbing the peace, rather than DUI and resisting arrest--on Friday. The police screwed the pooch in collecting evidence and not allowing him insulin, plus he took all his paperwork from rehab and meetings and so forth to show good faith in trying to fix himself. And the fact that he'd been fired carried some weight too.

So, we're packing and cleaning and prepping for tomorrow's departure. Beast paid all the bills, emailed all the car rental, airport transpo, and other updates to me and Sparky. He also sent a final email to our AirBnB host, and repacked his backpack, changing it out from work-based to vacation travel. The first-aid kit he takes when he travels has been updated.

He has been sore and limping all day--hips are achy--and about half an hour ago, he finally admitted that he was ready for bed. But he wants to see the NASCAR race. It's less than half over right now. The fast part, in other words, is over. It could be another 90 minutes before racing ends. He should go to bed. My job is to STFU and let him mind his own business.

We had to go buy a third rollaboard today on the way home because we realized that Sparky doesn't have one. So that was extra walking, because of course luggage is in the #@*!*ing furthest corner from the entrance of the store.

Anyway. I've been sparking low-level anxiety attacks for about two hours now. This is about when I start melting down prior to every vacation, but this is mostly focused today on worrying about Beast. Some of the behavior he exhibits when he's tired like this is the same kind of behavior he has when he's been drinking so that's really the majority of the problem for me. At least he's eating some dinner now though. That will help. And his affect/mood isn't like when he's drinking. So it's ghosts and my imagination that are making me slightly manic.

Also, I think I just realized today that I'm not going to see my sister. Usually when flying to England, she's "home base." This will be the second visit since her funeral, and it keeps hitting home that she . will . not . be . there.
Ever.
Again.

I sometimes wonder if I have the slowest Reality Awareness filter ever created. I mean, she died SIX YEARS AGO and I'm just figuring this out??

So yeah. Having now gone back in time to reread old blog posts, and looked at my Family page here...I need to do some work on cleanup there. People will keep having babies!

Continuing in a series of extremely sporadic updates..........

Mostly this post is for putting my thoughts together, something I'm increasingly needing--and not wanting--to do. I've been trying to practice the One Day, One Minute principles, except when I have to think about wider- and longer-term stuff because reality.

So in the past month:

• Beast got stopped out of state and cited for DUI and resisting arrest. He spent the night in jail. Even though he, and I the next morning, told the jail he is diabetic, he received no insulin until after his court appearance at 1 p.m., about 24 hours after his last injection.
• He was 'grounded' from travel at work. He drives a company car and because it was damaged--rear-view mirror knocked off--they didn't want him driving at all. So we rented a car for him.
• Boss seems to be behind him, working to see what he can do to keep Beast in the game. He's been a good supervisor through all of the drama of the past 3 years.
• In the process of this 'resisting' he is accused of, the officers threw him to the ground and sat on him. His neck, back, shoulders are incredibly sore, and remain so. We're both worried about damage being done to his neck implants, but it's his lower back that hurts most.
• First time back with his attorney at the courthouse went well, more or less. He hired a local attorney to help him figure out all the complications at this end of the driver licensing stuff that may come out of the court findings at trial in [other state].
• He starts intensive, daily AA meetings, and then gets back into outpatient rehab: 9-12 every week day.
• The morning of his third day of rehab, he has a work telecon he's asked to attend. Pretty normal stuff. Except this one starts out with his boss and a guy from HR telling him they're firing him. He's to send back his phone, computer, printer...and someone will be coming to get the car. (this was 8/22) 22 years at the same company.
• Last Thursday, I discover him asleep in the living room with an (empty) bottle of vodka on his lap. He, understandably but infuriatingly, bought it Monday. He tells a mutual (AA) friend over the weekend, however, he's got 30 days in program. I'm not entirely sure that all 30 days 'count' when you've been drinking at least for four of them. But whatever. He has a sponsor and he's a lot clearer on staying sober than he has been for awhile.
• We're leaving on vacation 9/5, overseas. His next (last, hopefully) court appearance out of state is 9/2. They could remand him. They could also tell him he can't leave the country. We don't know. If he doesn't go, Sparky and I have to figure out renting and driving a car in England on our own. Yes, we'll be going, because my nephew is getting married 9/9.
• I'm attending every damned Al-Anon meeting since this started. It's helping. I'm not freaking out. Only my boss and two coworkers know the details of all of this. My sponsors and other Al-Anon people. A couple of very good friends know some parts of it. My family knows NOTHING. Honestly, there's nothing for them to know until WE know what the court decides. ... Well, I guess they need to know he's unemployed.

That's my life right now. Getting through the days, hour by hour. Woke up in a panic attack this morning, but there's nothing I can do, so I chanted the Serenity Prayer in my head and it eased a bit. Next thing is going to work and getting through my day. A LOT of important stuff is getting passed by because I just can't. I'm barely keeping my head above water, so there's a lot of prayer and a lot of inaction otherwise. This might be the true meaning of "the wheels fell off" my life.

I haven't been over here in eons, but I feel like I need to scream into the void.

I'm very very tired of my life right now.
Don't worry--that's not suicidal tiredness. I'm tired of having to be the grownup, sensible person all the time.

Being a grownup is over-rated.

Oh well, at least right now I really couldn't possible care less if I've pissed someone off. Cuz I'm pretty irritated at the fact that my Sunday night just imploded in sticky little pieces. Fortunately, clean-up-able pieces, but still.

Silver lining: the new person at last week's Tuesday meeting ... is my neighbor. Whose name is (almost) the same as mine, and whose husband is named the same as mine. And shares the same addiction as mine.

So yay for that!!

Can only get better

(she says, knocking wood)

Tonight has sucked. At least primarily. Sparky's home for the holiday, so that's excellent. And my reservoir of "Don't Give a Flying Peanut" is full to overflowing, which might be good for tomorrow.

But one of our sweet guinea piggies died tonight, after a few days of being sluggish and just weird. And that precipitated a fight with Beast who felt it was up to him to hold Ruka till he passed, even though he (Beast) was cratered on painkillers and nerve-blocks. And because he was cratered, he wasn't capable of being lucid or seeing reason about going to bed rather than sitting and dozing hunched over a dying guinea pig. So then he wanted to argue, which is a losing proposition for everyone when he's in this situation; I know this because this situation happens easily once a week. That's an improvement on when he was drinking a fifth of vodka--or more--every night, but dealing with it is exactly the same: he's mean, nasty, incoherent, argumentative and just generally a big asshat.

So Sparky comes home, and once again gets to watch his parents fight. We can go weeks when he's gone without even raising our voices, but it seems like when he's here, Beast needs to prove he's The Man and...yeah.

It's officially 6 weeks now that he's been in pain nonstop. We've gone several rounds with multiple doctors, had 2.5 MRIs, taken 4 or 5 different meds...and still we are just now (yesterday) reaching the action stage. He goes in next week for a cortisone shot directly into his neck near where he has a herniated disk, and then since we're pretty sure it won't fix anything, he'll schedule an appointment to talk about surgery with the same guy who did his lumbar surgery about 4 years ago.

I'm at wits' end. He's a lunatic, emotionally/physically/psychically all over the map in any given moment. He goes from fully adult to age 4 in 20 minutes and I don't always know which person I'm dealing with at any given moment, though I'm remarkably good at judging his mood. By and large, we've been ok, but tonight--and to a lesser degree last Sunday night--just about did me in. He's pissed that I made him go to bed to be rested up for company all day tomorrow. So he went to bed...but when I went up to wake him for his last pill of the night he was still awake. Still steaming. No intention of going to sleep. Because that will show me who's in charge here. And tomorrow he'll be miserable and crabby to the 11 people coming for Thanksgiving. Perfect. Because I wouldn't let him stay up till all hours holding a dying guinea pig and ruining his sleep and his body.

I am, indeed, the Evil Queen.

R.I.P. Ruka.

Ruka (rt.) in happier days

Satisfaction

I'm so tired I can barely sit upright. In fact, I'm on the couch with the footrest up and leaning into the arm side at about a 30% angle.

Long day. Dentist, then 9 hours sitting in a hospital room waiting for a new baby to arrive.
He did.
He's adorbs*.
No one knows his name except his parents. I don't get it. Presumably we'll find out tomorrow.

I didn't do anything strenuous but I'm really freaking tired.
Perhaps it's because of the hellaciously weird and bad week full of bomb squad stories, internet infamy, FOIA, grand jury duty (we did about 25 cases yesterday and issued 20 or so subpoenas), and the usual Crazy Cat Lady tricks. Add to that a new baby, driving 2.5 hours in heavy street traffic today, picking up a CPAP (which meant an hour-long drive round-trip) Tuesday and trying to get use to having a tube and nozzle attached to my face at night. I felt much better yesterday morning--really awake for the first time in awhile--but last night didn't go as well. Bad dreams.

Sparky changed jobs this week too. He started the week vomiting, by midweek was totally up-in-the-air job-wise, and ended the week in a much better place all the way around. And that's after we saw him last Saturday.

Then there was the moth in the shower with me yesterday. {{shudder}} Which landed on my forehead which I then spotted in the mirror on the side of the shower and freaked me the fuck out completely.

I'm really really hoping tomorrow is boring.

*and he's in NICU tonight because they detected a mass in his torso after a non-routine ultrasound of his mom last week; otherwise he seems fine, however.

Funeral

I'm not a huge fan of funerals. I mean, I see their purpose, and I appreciate the chance to attend memorials for people I've known and loved.

Funerals are hard. They are sad--duh--and awkward and weird and uncomfortable. If you're a family member of the deceased, they're a little more manageable because you have a script to follow, places to be, plans to attend to, and you generally know a large percentage of the people in attendance.

Funerals for people who have lived long, happy lives and/or suffered a great deal before death can even be sort of a relief for those of us who have watched the decline and illness and pain.

But the funeral I'm going to today is for the partner of someone I don't know well; I know her well enough to know too much. The funeral I'm going to today is for someone who had indeed suffered a great deal and chose to end the suffering herself in a rather unpleasant way. The funeral today is for someone I only knew about through the partner/friend, and in a context where she was not presented in a good light. As a result of her death, my friend has been left in a particularly untenable financial situation, which is not what one wants to think about in the midst of mourning.

I really really hate these funerals. Funerals for people who died too young, who died because they lost focus on the important and good things around them....man these suck. They make me ANGRY. I feel impotent and helpless and overwhelmed. And awkward and weird and uncomfortable.

This is one of those moments when I know that the whole "do what makes you happy" school of thought is dead wrong. Because there is pretty much nothing happy-making about the next two hours.

ADDENDUM: It was actually somewhat worse than expected. Let me count the ways:

• The family-of-birth of the honoree completely dissed the partner. She wasn't mentioned in the bulletin or acknowledged by the speaker/pastor. Yes, they were a lesbian couple. That shouldn't matter--they were together for 10 years!
• It was held in the "atrium"-like area of one of those mega-church branches, which is located in an industrial park. The acoustics were abysmal, and the space was too small for the number of people. It was like someone's living room on meth.
• The location may be the reason people were still arriving 20 minutes after the scheduled start time.
• They burned foul incense, and maybe sage (which I get, but not with the incense, yuck) before the service, and played mental carousel music afterwards.
• People walked in carrying Starbucks. W T F ?
• The pastor/leader had obviously never met the honoree and barely had her name figured out, though the fact of her suicide was mentioned, and then waved away. And then the dude did a (modified) altar call in the midst of the homily, complete with a prayer for those committing themselves to Jesus, and the offer of Bibles after the service! As a Christian, I just wanted to melt into the floor.
• The family never spoke to the partner--and vice versa--and when the partner was getting more attention, the mom commenced WASPy weeping.

God save us all from the drama kings and queens around us, and from mean, vindictive, clueless people at these times.

Family day

Prior to the arrival of the visitors, someone fell asleep on the couch.

As you can tell in the background, we have mostly moved EVERYTHING out of the living room except the big pieces of furniture.

Then Katherine, Alan, and E arrived.

E likes our ceiling fan. A whole lot of like. Pretty much like god-worship. He looooooooves it. He got a tour of the rest of the fans in the house too, but this is the big winner for him. He's adorbs. Just simply adorable.

Beast is helping put shoes on before the departure. They got along famously. Really well. E is at the age of "never met a stranger" and that's a blast. I got lots of cuddles and read 5 books to him. Even Sparky got cuddles:

Yes, that's my idiot son holding someone his mental age. Seriously, he does love kids, although he tries hard not to let anyone know. He might make a decent dad someday. E cracked him up today, several times to the point of Sparky's breathing being seriously inhibited.


Now, we've gotten the dining room emptied. The living room stuff, I guess, will go tonight or maybe tomorrow morning? I'm not sure what the details of the plan are. Beast is leaving for Michigan after the construction guys get here tomorrow. Sparky will be GCing since I have to work.

We got a call about an hour ago from Del saying he's got water seeping into his house (in Dallas), so he's postponing his trip here this week. He needs to get his son (Ham) over to help install a French drain; I have the sense that he's screwed up his back working on rehabbing one of his bathrooms this past week, so the drain installation is beyond him. Anyway, he won't be here till later next week.

Home repair

Today's been a weird day. It doesn't feel like Sunday--I worked yesterday, and I have tomorrow off. I went to church, but even that was weird as our pastor is on sabbatical for the summer so we are having guests and backups while he's gone. Like the Supremes but no Diana. Anyway...it was a good sermon.

Then I came home and we started moving the smaller things out of the living room and dining room in preparation for the guys' arrival on Tuesday to repair the damage from Beast's last escapade. Tomorrow Katherine and Alan and baby E are coming over for a few hours of family time, and after they're gone we'll move out the big furniture: couch, dining room table, etc.

Sparky graduated two weeks ago today, so he's been home since then trying to get his "adult life" started. Going through all the crap in his bedroom, sorting and tossing out stuff, and on the phone endlessly about jobs, apartments and friend drama. There's a girl...young woman. He has been a trouper, but he so very desperately wants to be O.U.T. and on his own. Not enough to be going door-to-door looking for jobs, though; that's notable. And he still has to finish one class this fall, so he can't get a full-time 'normal' job unless they're ok with him bailing for a few hours a week for 16 weeks.

This week, Beast is back on the road. He'll be in Michigan all week visiting the Mother Ship (his term for this site). The following week he's doing a swing through L.A. and surrounding areas. I'm honestly kind of glad to see him go. Life is much less stressful and worrisome when he's not around.

Meanwhile, this coming Friday, my brother Del is coming to visit because he's got business visits to make in our area. So he'll be using us as Home Base for those for ....some period of time. The day after we found out about this, my nephew James called after 7 months of silence. I wasn't able to pick up the phone, so he texted: "call me omg" which could mean anything from "I'm engaged!" to "Dad died!" to "I just crushed my hand between a forklift and a wall and I'm calling from the ER!" None of the above as it turned out; he is closing on a house, moving in this coming week, and has invited us up to 'inspect' (a.k.a. ooh and ahh over) it next Sunday. Del wanted to see him and Don while he was in the area anyway, so we'll just make it a family thing.

(It just occurred to me that I'm probably supposed to let Katherine et al. know, which is tricky since Del surely wants nothing to do with seeing her, so I wasn't going to tell her that he was here, but now that James has this house thing, I have to tell her that...holy shit, I'm still in high school! This is why [my?] family is so fucking annoying. Guess I'll just lay it all out tomorrow and let the chips fall, etc.]

Work is...work. Frustrating. Explosively irritating. I'm doing better at Keeping My Mouth Shut and Being Nice to Coworkers (smh) and I got a decent annual performance review last month at the end of our fiscal year. Aside from the BS that I have to be nicey-nicey while other people can bark and snap, it's actually going pretty well. So behind in cataloging it's no longer an issue to anyone but me, I guess, but I think that's just life. We're under a city-wide hiring freeze due to our new governor's political maneuvering, and we're short about 1 FTE person which means we're all pitching in more than usual. Life goes on. And on

Beast informed me late last week that he's pretty sure that I've developed apnea. He says that since my surgery in early February, I've gotten substantially more snore-y and stop breathing briefly at night only to start back up with a snort. So I've called my doctor to schedule a sleep study. I think the doc is also going to make me start taking insulin or at least start monitoring my glucose level very closely. It would be useful if I would stop eating so much crap. Maybe I'll take him up on signing up with the medical practice's diet-and-nutrition program.

Two of my nieces--Katherine and Marguerite--are pregnant again. M is due in the next 3 weeks and K is 'officially' due in October, but she will probably go in early and be induced because of this.

So that's the update.

What the matter with kids?

The same thing is wrong with kids that's wrong with the adults around them. In the past 5 days, I've had two teens of my close acquaintance struggle with some pretty serious issues.

One of them is my godson's brother. It's a complicated situation, so suffice it to say that he wants to change his name back to the name he was given at birth, prior to his adoption. For the record, neither name is particularly "weird" and he is 18 and in the Army. Because he's 18 and all that goes with that, he immediately told his family about his decision and gotten some major blowback from his mom--not the easiest person in the world on a good day--saying she will disown him if he goes through with that. He's surprised, which he shouldn't be, and hurt, which makes sense. I have no idea if he'll do it because he is, after all, 18; so far it's just a Facebook name change. From my standpoint, he should do what he wants but he needs to understand consequences of those actions. And I'm super-happy he's 1000 miles from his mom for the foreseeable future. Best choice he has made is to join up, get some seriously solid discipline in his life, and get out of his toxic household.

The other problem is more serious. I teach Sunday School to middle school kids along with a parent of two of the kids in the class. Obviously, over the past two years I've gotten to know these kids--the whole class--pretty well and love them to death even when I'm ready to throttle them for being goofy. Yesterday, the mom of one of the kids pulled me aside to tell me that her 13-year-old son is going into the 'hospital' tomorrow for addiction treatment. Last year, they discovered he was cutting himself. Then he joined the football team in the fall which brought some social standing in school and seemed to inspire a more confident bearing. Apparently in November he discovered a pot supplier and started using that, and at some point added some painkillers he found in his parents' medicine cabinet. His mom told me that he had specifically told her that it was OK if she told me what was going on. So I found him in the Sunday School room--alone--after church and gave him a big hug. Meanwhile, his 14-year-old sister is overcompensating as usual and being a completely hyper-spaz "perfect child." Thank God she's actually smart and funny, but she's really needy right now too.

Kids have hard lives. They don't always know the best way to get through the hard parts and make things harder in the long run. It's painful to watch.

And don't get me start on my own son. Sparky's awesome, but there are times when I just want to shake some sense into him, even as I realize that he's got to figure out this whole thing about life/job/school for himself and live with his decisions. Fortunately, he seems to be muddling along in mostly the right direction. Finally.

Curve Ball

So, this week I start back at work. I was at my desk for a couple of hours today, just making sure it's fairly clear. My plan for tomorrow is to at least double that and focus on cataloging for as long as I can. I absolutely have to talk to my boss--whether he wants to talk to me is undetermined. I'm irritated with him. Can you tell?

This weekend absolutely did not go as planned. Beast fell in the bathroom very early Saturday morning at some point and broke the handle in

Our former shower handle

the shower off -- among other things that were disarranged -- which then sprayed water all over the bathroom for I-don't-know-how-long. When I finally woke up and heard Beast moaning and got up to find him, the water had leaked through the floor and dumbed at least an inch in the dining room, which then leaked through the floor joists into the basement. Fortunately, we have plastic covers on the dining room table and pool table. But a lot of stuff got wet.

Shower handprints

And Beast took the 911 taxi to get sorted out at the hospital. No permanent damage, but lots of facial bruising and a solid smack on the ribs where he separated them playing football 30 years ago.

He's sore. I'm ... all over the map. Still sore on my throat but the dermabond, a.k.a. Superglue, is almost completely gone.

Emotionally, I think Beast and I are all over the map, though. Angry, sad, frantic, glad nothing worse happened, tired, anxious.

It definitely was not my favorite Valentine's Day, for sure.

Living room ceiling

Dining room ceiling

Sparky did come home for the day, which was excellent. We took him out for dinner at a semi-nice place, and it was good to listen to him talk and talk and talk about life. His birthday was the day before I had surgery. My little boy is almost the age I was when I got married. Hard to believe.

Birthday mixup

Sparky's 21st birthday was Monday.

Sparky Tues 2:57 pm: Still haven't gotten your guys' package. :(
Me Tues 4:39 pm: Crap! I'll call. I didn't create a login on the site so I can't track it online like usual. #fail I'll keep you posted. Thx for letting me know
Me Tues 4:48 pm: They're closed for today. I sent them an email so maybe they'll get on it early tomorrow.
Sparky Tues 7:53 pm: Ok thank [you] for keeping me in the loop
Me today 12:34 pm: I fwd the reply ... apparently it disappeared in PA the day it shipped. So. Lesson learned. I owe you a cake as well as your actual prezzie. [angry emoticon]
Sparky today 4:19 pm: [angry emoticon] mildly upset in the postal system. Thanks
Me today 4:19 pm: UPS and yeah. Sorry.
Sparky today 8:01 pm: Got your card if it's any consolation...
Me today 8:15 pm: YOU should be getting consoled! Did it just arrive today? Wow.
Sparky today 8:21 pm: Yeah just got here
Me today 8:22 pm: Apparently the world blew up in honor of your birthday :\
Sparky today 8:23 pm: Yeah, of course. Stupid world :P
Me today 8:24 pm: Yeah. If only you were in charge, right?
Sparky today 8:25 pm: IT WOULD BE PERFECT!
Me today at 8:25 pm: ROFLOL

I love that kid young man.

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

9 Places you'd like to visit in 2014 (2nd January)

I know we're going these places for sure:

1. The shore of Lake Michigan in a cabin weekend we won at a silent auction. I have no idea precisely where this place is.
2. Vegas, probably. Next month.

Places I would like to go (in decreasing likelihood):

3. The Ozarks--I just want to visit them.
4. Dallas-Ft. Worth to see my new great-nephew!
5. England to see my the other great-nephew I've yet to meet.
6. New York City, to see Central Park and Ellis Island. Nothing much else, though.
7. Ouray.
8. Moosehead Lake.
9. Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

Click on the image to play along

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

7 Wonderful things that happened in 2013 (31st December)

1. Babies!!
2. Sparky passed Organic Chemistry!
3. New boss
4. New children's librarian
5. Al-Anon
6. Support of friends
7. Wake-up calls
8. Packers made the playoffs

8 Minutes to share your opinion on New Year’s Resolutions (1st January)

Dude, I do not need 8 minutes to give my views: I think they're pointless. I like the "looking back at the past year" activities, but the "I swear I will..." stuff is ludicrous to me. Part of it is just so artificial, part of it is I don't like going along with the crowd, part of it is that I have hard changes to make nowadays, and the biggest part of it is that I have a bad history of follow-through so I know it's just setting myself up to fail. About the only resolution I'm making this year is to read more books.

Click on the image to play along

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

5 Life lessons you learnt in 2013 (29th December)

I'm still working on internalizing and living most of these, but they are the ones that I had to keep going back to revisit because they are HARD for me.

1. Detachment from drama is necessary. I've never liked drama, or dramatic people, but this year was a solid reminder that this is a wholly rational thing--drama isn't good for me.
2. Babies' births are everyday miracles. I watched one arrive this year, and it's pretty unbelievable. Another addition to the extended family looks like it will be arriving any day now, and I'm beyond excited even though I won't be there this time.
3. Grades in school do not indicate success in life. I hope. ;-)
4. Say no and mean it, and then don't feel guilty about it.
5. People, in general, are good and helpful and friendly. I think most of us have a much larger support system than we recognize, or utilize.

Click on image to play along

12 Days of Christmas Challenge

1 thing I got for Christmas (25th December)

Hard to pick one material item. My best gift is a drama-free day, but I got some good books and silly things too:

• A Chia cat grass planter (for the guinea pigs, ostensibly)
  
• Two packages of Ghirardelli's Holiday Impressions chocolate squares
  
• The Complete Beat, all of The English Beat's recordings on CD [squee!]
  
• A Cash Cab daily calendar 
  
• Jesus Christ Superstar on CD
  
• A Hogwarts snowglobe kit
  
• Now Panic and Freak Out
  
• Salt & Pepper Shaker price guide [Beast says he ordered it at Amazon and it was sent from a town 10 miles from us--and it's a withdrawn library book. Wierd....]
  
• Kirk and Spock magnetic salt & pepper shakers [squee! and cue the K/S fanfic] 
  
• National Geographic's Who's Who in the Bible 
  
• One large, fat candycane  
  
• The Last Week
  

So yeah, I cheated but by far the best gift is the one that isn't pictured.

Click on the image to play along

Holidailies

12-22 -
Show us your favorite holiday decorations.

I don't usually do photo posts, but I did take a few pictures for this one. Sparky refused to let me take his picture in spite of sitting on the couch next to me wearing a Santa hat. So aside from that....here are four things that mean Christmas to me:

Santa, as painted on porcelain-ware about 40 years ago by my sister Ellen.

"The Beginning of the Birds"--a gift received from a former coworker of Beast over 25 years ago. It's about the size of my fist and made of china.

As far as Beast is concerned, Christmas can't happen unless this candle is burning as we open our presents. It's a German tradition, and this is a German Christmas candle which has burned for about an hour every year for the past 27 Christmases, a gift from FIL and MIL for Beast's and my first Christmas together.

Our crèche. The "stable" is from another set, but I painted all the porcelain-ware figures in 1994.
No Jesus yet--he will arrive overnight on Christmas Eve.

We only put up about half the decorations and ornaments this year. We could probably start a shop with all the stuff still packed up... sigh

Holidailies

12-19 -
What is your favorite group or family activity to do during the holiday season?

Hmmm. I guess decorating the tree, or that New Year's fondue. Or Christmas Eve traditions: church and Chinese dinner.

12-20 -
Share your holiday crafting skills. What do you make, either for gifts, or for your yourself?

Ha ha ha ha. Funniest question of the month. I don't do crafts.