Things began to go wrong the moment I crossed into Santa Clara County today.
I found myself drifting off on the road, as I did last night and as I did again this morning on the way in. This is not good. I am not getting enough sleep. My car is making attention-getting noises. My registration is expired and I can’t get a straight answer out of DMV to save my life, so I need to go to their offices in person, only I am either not around or have the children during business hours. My doctor and I have been missing connections for a week now, and I won’t even go into what withdrawal has been doing to my ability to stay out of a clock tower. I only today managed to get everything pharmacological under control, just in time for other things to go off the rails.
Oh, and classic pharmacy-counter conversation with my eight-year-old? I was asking the boys not to say “fricking” even if they heard others saying it (or me for that matter) because it was a euphemism for a really rude word. Logan felt he was old enough to know what it was and insisted I tell him. I said no, because I didn’t want to give him a word that might slip out and get him suspended; there will be plenty of time for that to happen intentionally. His response? “Well, I already know what shit and sex is, so what’s the big deal?” Holy toast on a bagel.
Moving right along, for the first time in fifteen years, I purchased an iron and ironing board. I never really wore ironables but felt it was time. So I used my very expensive iron once and then managed to bump it over onto the concrete floor tonight and shatter it. My dishwasher is crapped out and the kids were complaining that there are no clean dishes or silverware, so I spent an hour washing everything by hand, only to realize that the stupid thing has been melting my acrylic tumblers. Fully half the glasses we use every day now belong in the Dalí Museum in Figueres.
I’ve semi-committed to go out of town with my folks this weekend while my ex takes the kids out of town with friends, but now the kids say they don’t want to go and I don’t think I can survive the no-work weekend that’s been declared in Tahoe. I’ll be climbing the walls, fretting about what I’m supposed to be doing. And will have plenty of time to ponder it in Memorial Day Traffic. And I should complain, considering that my mother is getting her cast off her left hand on Thursday just in time to get ready for surgery on her right in two weeks. I have it so bad. And yet, I’ve been through my share of shit and think I’ve created a self-defeating aura: I expect to be somehow congratulated for making it through and given just a wee fucking bit of leeway in the meantime. Bleh Bleh Bleh.
Yesterday would have been my thirteenth wedding anniversary. So that felt affirming. I’m such a blazing success as a person.
And you know what? I am annoying everyone, everyone I come into contact with, and I haven’t the faintest idea what to do to fix it. The one time I didn’t upset someone was on a call I got disconnected from in the first two minutes—no one even noticed I was gone so I can only suppose that they thought I was finally behaving.
I know that I’m a pain, and I know that I am frank and demanding. I also know that I try my ass off. It doesn’t always work out. Phil’s in my corner, cheering me on, but how bad is it that I’m beginning to feel sorry for him? Must come from growing up a Cub’s fan; I know from rooting for the not-quites.
So after last night’s heart-stopping episode we were all looking forward to some fun and food and face-painting at the children’s school’s annual fundraising fair.
Yes, I can hear you laughing up there.
It was great through the first two cotton candies, the chicken sandwich, hamburger, hot dogs, dropped can of soda, torn bun, bumpy, lumpy, squealing roly-polies down the fifteen-foot, mega-inflatable slide. There was a little cake walking (Logan came away like a stunned Las Vegas loser—“Mom, I just used nine tickets on three turns and I didn’t win anything!”—a little jumper action, and then back to the slide.
Which collapsed. With my daughter and two other little girls on it. I looked up in slow motion as the slide lost air, as the upper landing sank into itself, as the last girl slid down and scrambled off the landing. “Is there anyone else up there?” A flash of bright pink and strawberry hair. Daphne. Crying. And sinking.
I chucked my clogs and thrust my soda can at a man standing there and clambered up the sagging platform and as I stepped onto the slide, the pull of my foot on the deflating structure increased the incline to oh, about perpendicular to the ground. Daphne was at the top and I could barely see her from her little pool of rising platform and when she saw me coming I yelled JUMP, JUMP TO ME, and she did and I caught her and then I was on the grass, holding her, legs wrapped tight around my waist, sobbing, sobbing together. Again.
The operator apologized over and over but she was just a mom volunteering and understood that all I cared about was that she was safe, and that she wasn’t too badly frightened. In fact, ten minutes later, she was lined up again, asking me for another ticket.
“Oh, I think they’ll let you on without a ticket this time.”
Well, my night was exciting! If not restful! I wrote about it when the dust (or suds) settled, and it’s over at DotMoms.
On top of all the hoopla, Daphne pitched a one-hour fit at four a.m. about not wanting any of the other kids near me. I think it might have been night terrors.
I’m wiped, people.
Right now, there’s someone cursing and fuming down in room service. Not that I can hear him, but I can imagine.
It’s past four-thirty a.m., but the people in the next room are up! Boy! Are they up! I don’t remember when exactly I first emerged from Sleepyland, but I think I could pick her voice out in a crowd. His was low and muffled, at least until Room Service showed up.
KNOCK KNOCK
“Room service!”
[lots of talking, but not conversational, and certainly not to the guy in the hall]
KNOCK KNOCK
“Room service!”
“Not now, please!” His voice is suddenly clear and professional, “Just leave it in the hall.” And then, in less polite tones, “Leave it in the hall!
I giggled. I could just see the guy’s face out there, with his tray of chicken strips and nachos.* He wants to bring this tray in. He doesn’t want to leave it in the hall. He at least wants the guy to come to the door and sign the check, but the occupant is clearly in Yo No Comprendo The Englese territory.
You see, in this hotel, they don’t add gratuity to the check. They leave that to the guest. It’s not a popular policy, from what I’ve gathered. So he left.
I’m pretty sure somebody else got tipped, though. They showered, ate, and talked (loudly) about the state of the local economy, and the relative returns in different market sectors. Sweet holy bagels. I’m dying in here.
Oh, no. Not again.
I cannot believe this. I want to sleep so badly. Unfortunately I have MOM EARS and hear EVERYTHING.
Haaaaaaaaa, he wants to call a cab or something for her, but he can’t figure out the dialing. “You know what? I pay for the room, the parking, everything, but with what they charge to make a call I’d just as soon take you to a pay phone.”
Niiice.
She finally reaches someone and has a loud conversation in Vietnamese. But it’s not her ride. She’s still taking a cab. They finally settle up. “First things first: you get your ass home. Ain’t no department stores open at five-thirty on a Sunday morning.” There was more mumbling, and then, “Now, I have your number. Tomorrow, I’ll take you anywhere you want, baby. Anywhere.”
Can you take her to the Hilton down the street?
*sob*
God, I hope I don’t run into him at the elevators.
*muzak*
*CORRECTION: It was clam chowder, turkey wraps, and BBQ potato chips. I nearly tripped over the cart outside my room.
Yes, shattered. Zeno has utterly destroyed any chance I might have had of winning a Diarist, of living a peaceful (however ficticious) life, of ever being able to retain cusody of my children, or of running for Senate. If he didn’t live so far away, I’d kick his sorry ass right through his forehead. At least he took a few of you others down with me…
Bad Mood DudeIn line with today’s theme of pissiness and strong language, I was overly dismayed to see today’s Yahoo Word of the Day:
intransigent
DEFINITION: (adjective) unwilling to compromise
EXAMPLE: Despite the mediator’s attempts to suggest a fair solution, the two parties were intransigent, forcing a showdown.
SYNONYMS: adamant, inflexible, stubborn
And I got a special kick out of the synonyms:
Firmly, often unreasonably immovable in purpose or will: adamant, adamantine, brassbound, die-hard, grim, implacable, incompliant, inexorable, inflexible, iron, obdurate, relentless, remorseless, rigid, stubborn, unbendable, unbending, uncompliant, uncompromising, unrelenting, unyielding. Idioms: stubborn as a mule (or ox) . See RESIST .
Why does this irritate me so? Because in conversations with various people in the last few days, and NOT with anyone related to me I might add, I was called stubborn, irritating, relentless, and difficult. OK, I give you that. I can be all of those things. But to be called those things by several different people in the span of a day, and not by anyone I’m divorcing? Egad. I seems I owe a global apology.
Mea culpa. Pax tecum?
So an unnamed friend sent me an assessment tool she received in marriage counseling recently. It had 24 questions, and according to the instructions, if you answered “yes” to seven or more, you “may have reached the end of the Distance and Isolation Cascade.”
My score? 22. I thankyew.
In other news, I have been informed that it is a known “thing” among friends and family that in general, life is “all about Mindy.” According to my source, I am happiest when at the center of things to the exclusion of everything else. I find this fascinating (after all, it is about me!). Also, I’m baffled. How could I not have noticed? If it’s about me, I want to know about it. And if there is something me-related going on under my nose and I am not fully engaged, I demand to be informed, posthaste. Keeping Mindy-centric information from me is not behavior I feel like rewarding.
Listen folks, when is it not about you? If I were to walk around to your backside, unzip your skin (covering you with a blanket), and step in myself, I am pretty sure my worldview would suddenly feature YOU. At least until I realized that you have allergies, or a rash, or Republican views, in which case I would quickly step out and zip you back in.
And while we are talking about me, allow me to assure you that I am not taking orders, or requests, or strongly-worded, thinly-veiled suggestions. I yam what I yam. This blog is not required reading. I am damned proud of what I have, who I am, and what I have accomplished. If you can top me, rock on. If you think I can or should top myself, maybe your attentions are focused on the wrong target. I’m not here to disappoint, so if you begin to feel that disappointed feeling creeping in and mucking up your worldview, shift that focus to something more… you. Yes. Think about yourself for a bit, and all will be rosy again.
In the meantime, I didn’t really need a questionnaire to tell me that I was in an unhealthy place in my marriage. I didn’t need those two “no” questions to tell me there is something salvageable and healthy left inside me. I know this already. I am, after all, my best and favorite subject.
Bad Mood DudeThings I would rather do than be called a spoiled brat, a quitter, and the destroyer of my children’s lives while I am this sick:
1. Put eyeliner on an angry rhino in a phone booth.
2. Become the love toy of a Greek army battalion.
3. Give away half my earthly estate.
Bad Mood DudeGil just phoned to tell me that the drive on our home computer is fried. Totally fried. All my stuff was on it. And NO it wasn’t backed up, so pleeeeeeaaaase don’t make me feel any shittier about it. All my photos, my will and medical directive files, ALL MY PHOTOS.
I stopped making prints about a year ago, and I was planning to transfer all of the files to the Mac so I could organize them and print from there so that the family albums could be updated. AND NOW THEY’RE ALL GONE.
The good news is that the video was on a separate drive, so we still have that. But right now, Gil is at home, reformatting the stupid thing and reloading the software. Fuckity Doo Dah.
On an up note, my niece sent me these two photos from the Lake Tahoe week, and they are cheering me up something fierce.
P.S. I was just leaving this as a comment, but man you guys are quickdraws, so I’m posting it here: It has already been through all the tech support diagnostics, and today the super-dee-duper senior-level super-admin Empaths worked on it for two hours over the phone lines. They did all they could, and pronounced it dead.
So I guess most of you think I’m pretty wired, uber-connected, fairly well set up in terms of technology? I thought so too. Only I seem to have painted myself into a ridiculous little corner with all of my nifty little “helpers.”
You see, my husband and I finally decided not to share a computer anymore. We each needed it for so much of our daily operations that we were competing for time and disk space. So, I went out and bought a Mac G5. (pipe down, you in the back).
Still with me? Good. Fast forward to this week. I’ve just taken a whirlwind tour of all my childhood haunts, and of my mother’s childhood haunts, and told my entire extended family that I had all sorts of great photos of the old neighborhood. And now? I can’t get to a single one of them.
Well, campers, I’m off on another plane in the morning, this time to Illinois to see my oldest friend get hitched. I’m taking the kids this time… which reminds me I should call the rental car company to see if they are providing the three car seats I requested. Gah. Am so unprepared for this, it’s scary. Still don’t have outfits for the children, though I have something for myself. I think. I’m sure I don’t have any shoes to wear, and the dress is a bit poochy, but whaddya want? Last time I saw most of these people, I was still in braces and was a gawky, flat-chested tomboy, so how bad could it be?
It’s four p.m. already, and all I have accomplished is a few phone calls and a long birthday lunch at the Left Bank with my officemates. Dum de dum. And then my boss came in and scanned my desk for unfinished items, called out three of them, and wished me a good trip. Yeah, right. Now I will never get out of here in time. I’ll be spending the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out why the University of North Carolina sent me a refund check for seventeen dollars and no other identifying references. It will cost ten times that in my time alone to track that puppy down.
Then, I need to re-run the month-end financials, and yes, it does have to do with the shocking emails I sent my staff last week. Then, I need to code my statements. Oh, and there’s that small matter of the last five months’ worth of expense reports, and the staff performance reviews that were due two weeks ago, and which I swore to me boss would be delivered tonight. Well, my entire staff has gone home already, so I guess I blew that one, huh?
Gah. I need a secretary. And a wife. And a wet nurse. Will somebody come tuck me in, please?
In keeping with the infantile tone and tenor of this post, and since I don’t know if I will be able to check in again before I return next Tuesday, I leave you with some immature humor, a transcript of Robert DeNiro’s SNL Homeland Security bit. The video was hilarious, but is too big to post here. Instead, I’ll just list the names of the suspects so that you can do your patriotic duty and be on the lookout for them:
Well, we all knew it couldn’t last. I was all set to do another “my life is naught but cherries and sunshine and lovely Belgian rain on rooftops” post, but I happened to check my email first. All of that warm happy crappy whooshed out of my head as I stared at the screen in disbelief.
You see, I run a well-oiled department. Actually, to say that I “run” it is a bit of an overstatement. We all know our shit, we all do our work, we all show up when we’re supposed to, and we all pull together when it counts. And there’s icing on this lovely little shortcake: we all like each other.
HOWEVER, when I go out of town, strange things occur. Things come up that no one thinks can be addressed except by me (such as horrendous syntax, but I digress). Co-workers send alarming emails, and they MUST receive the out of office reply asking them to call someone who cares can help them in my absence, but then there is absolutely no follow-up note letting me know that further action has been taken. Therefore, I pick up the email over my morning coffee, and realize that I cannot possibly talk to anyone about it for another eight hours at least. Grrrr.
So, instead of the post I had planned to write about the lazy day spent entirely in the garden in our swimsuits, reading, laughing, having lunch, chatting, and doing each others’ toenails and fingernails, I give you the emails I sent to my staff today.
Jesus H. Christ in a sidecar.
Bad Mood DudePlan: Get up early, gather paperwork for underwriter, and fax it in.
Reality: Manage to locate retirement account statement, but only because it came in yesterday’s mail. Fail to locate a single bank statement less than 5 months old. Over the space of twenty minutes, try a succession of three different fax numbers for the lender. Finally get the traditinoal fax number to accept my paltry offering. Curse you, eFax, curse you.
Plan: Have privacy to call mediator before eye doctor appointment.
Reality: Spend morning yelling at children to get out of my chair, stop putting their fingers and toes inside the DVD/VCR player that has to go back to the repair shop again, and letting husband interrupt for just one more thing and then he’ll be out of my hair, as he is leaving to run errands now that the babysitter is here. Settle back into loan/mediator routine. Field call from husband who has run out of gas and now needs to be rescued.
Plan: Grab jerrycan of gas from shed and drive to meet husband.
Reality: Negotiate kisses from the brood, drive car around to back gate, open shed, stare into darkness. Remove wheelbarrow. Remove spreader. Walk in and wheel huge tool caddy-thingy out as well. Peer into darkness. Wave away cobwebs. Reach in and around lawnmower, grab jerrycan, haul it out, and kick shed door shut. Leave all equipment out on the lawn. Toss jerrycan into trunk. Drive until husband is spotted at side of road. Screech to a halt. Pop trunk. Wait until it bangs shut again. Peel out.
Plan: Pop into Eye doctor’s for routine annual checkup.
Reality: Leave $400 lighter, after replacing lost prescrition sunglasses and getting new lenses for current frames.
Plan: Arrive at office and call mediator to try to understand spousal support and child support scenarios.
Reality: Learn that none of the assumptions that underpin the calculations apply to us. Listen in stunned silence. Weep.
Plan: Spend rest of afternoon doing what I am paid to do.
Reality: Sit in stunned silence. Weep.
Plan: Blog. Repeat as necessary.
Reality: Sit in stunned silence. Weep.
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