mydarlingcurse.com

ok, so CK came over to help hubbin move some furniture, which is great, and darling - don’t get me wrong. but my point earlier about not wanting them to watch boo is more valid now than ever.

what does it say when uncle CK comes over and pays more attention to our dog than our daughter?

i’m not mad, don’t get me wrong. i get it. but you see my point right?

so, even though summer doesn’t officially start for another month, i am sticky and sweaty and none too happy. i wish the outdoors would just make up it’s mind - if it’s going to rain, RAIN. none of this grey cloud, humid, hot breeze crap.

god, am i seriously talking about the weather on my blog? how fucking retarted is that?

i’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much my mother’s death has affected almost every part of my life. hubbin and i have to do some financial planning now and we have to start thinking about putting things in place for boo if (knock on wood) something should ever happen to us. like the big question is who will take care of her.

everyone in my family is completely out. i love slootie, but she’s a basket-case, and had legal issues. my stoner cousin and her hubba are totally out - people who smoke pot five times a day shouldn’t even be allowed to take care of their own children. hubbin’s family, the eldest, CK and his wife are nice people, but i don’t think i want boo growing up with two of the most repressed people on the planet. they say they want kids, but they don’t talk about it - hmmmm….i wonder what the sex talk will be like when boo is 13? “don’t ask me kid, i waited until my wedding night - at the age of 34 - before i had sex” GAH!

next is hubbin’s sis and her spouse. they have little zeno. they have too much on their plate now, and lord knows when they are going to get their shit together. i’d like boo to go to a home where at least the married adults live in the same state. and i’m not sure about either of their parenting abilities.

that leaves the younger brother “the boy” and his wife “the celtic knot”. both are wonderful people - and probably the smartest of the bunch (except hubbin and i of course). but at this point in time, they don’t have their own residence. they live with grandma. and the celtic knot has some things to work out on her own. she’s most excellent in the role of “auntie” and i think that’s enough for now.

which gets us into extended family, my aunt iowa or uncle arizona for example. i’d pick aunt iowa since she’s the closest living thing to my mom. she’s raised four kids of her own and loves boo to no end. uncle arizona would be a good pick too, but i’m not sure i want boo running around the compound massively unsupervised. that kind of lax parenting is great for older kids, but she’s still a toddler. and iowa is closer than arizona.

and this great debate is caused by the fact that i can’t list my parents as guardians for her. my dad cannot do it on his own, and he’s going to be 70 later this year. great for him, but that’s grandpa years, not dad years. if my mom were alive, no problem. a no brainer. but her death forces me to stretch my noodle and make this decision.

it’s good i guess to explore other options. it’s good to have the dialogue, i guess. i just wish i wasn’t having it now.

i am here.
i cast a shadow.

my tred falls upon the earth and i make noise.

enough of feeling like a ghost in my own life. you gotta put energy out to get it back right?

i can’t believe that my birthday is in less than a week.
all i can think about now is cake.

wherein jodie and jodi review Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield, three wine coolers at a time. also jodi introduces the BCB rating system and i practically peed my pants.

powered by ODEO

for the first time since her birth, hubbin and i are going away for the night, just the two of us. grandma is coming over to stay with boo. i have no problems leaving her alone for the night. none.

hubbin and i are going to white-trash it up at the casino tonight. i booked a room and everything. however, i’m not showered, packed or even dressed. i’m just so fucking tired. all the time tired.

but in a effort to get my life back, i think this needs to be done.

here is something…..

the jesus freaks just called me to babysit. i lied and told them i couldn’t. i said i had an appointment and i don’t. i told her i’d see if i could change things around and it was a complete lie to buy me time. when i called back i told her that i wasn’t able to move things enough to be available for the whole time she needed a sitter. then i said i wasn’t sure how things would work with my little one taking a nap and her little one needed to take a nap at the same time. this part is true. it’s so unfair of her not to even consider my daughter’s needs as well. i shouldn’t need a babysitter to be her babysitter.

i do love kids, but her children are strange. and the last time she brought them over to for me to babysit, they were dirty, sick and the older one has no idea how to interact with anyone but her parents. it was frustrating and rude, and i told her as much when she and her husband came to pick them up. i had to have hubbin come home and keep boo upstairs, because i didn’t want her interacting with dirty sick kids. she was only about six months old at the time and hadn’t been sick. i wasn’t about to have her first illness be the jesus freaks fault. and i’ve been dodging her requests for me to babysit ever since.

well, i’ve waited until the last possible minute to get ready for this trip. i might have to shower when i get up there - which won’t be so bad after being in the car for an hour. funny how long car rides can make you feel gross.

so after flip-flopping all day about whether or not i was going to podcast with fellow-bitch JCSG, i did go.

i bought wine-coolers.
we had a blast.

JCSG came up with such a brilliant Bitches book rating system, i want to cut myself for not thinking of it first. she is definitely the smart one. wait until you hear it!

Here we go with the memeage of the past…
Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be.

1. Who was your best friend?
psycho jen and gib

2.What sports did you play?
i played basketball - and i smoked the whole time!

3. What kind of car did you drive?
loving nicknamed the bundy-mobile - it was a 1973 Ford LTD.

4. It’s Friday night, where were you?
bon fire at jen’s

5. Were you a party animal?
umm…does cutting class to sit in the parking lot drinking guiness and watching purple rain make me a party animal? you decide

6. Were you considered a flirt? a flirt, no. a tease, yes.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
gospel choir

8. Were you a nerd?
no. duh…i just said i was a tease.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
yes, twice. once junior year, once senior year. senior year i was sent home for smoking on school grounds.

10. Can you sing the fight song?
yep. hail to breck, our alma matre. to her we’ll be true. honor god and country, flag of gold and blue. our strong bonds will ne’er be broken, through we stray apart. friendships formed within these walls will live within each heart.

11. Who were your favorite teachers?
Paul Thomas and Paul Thomas, oh and there was Paul Thomas.

12. Where did you sit during lunch?
at the cool kids table - nah. the seniors had their own cafe. we would sit around and watch to see which teachers were coming out of the smoking lounge. usually i sat with jen, courtney, kate, jane, phillipe, gib, marty, etc. that is, when we ate at school.

13.What was your school’s full name?
Breck

14. School mascot?
The Mustangs

15. Did you go to Prom? yeah, twice. i was waiting for my kinda-boyfriend, kinda-friend Chad Dunkley to ask me and he never did. so when Sarah Dorman asked me in Aesthetics class who i was going to prom with, i told her i hadn’t been asked yet. Alex Britt perked up his ears and jumped at the chance to ask me out - even though i had a four year on-again-off-again relationship with his best friend Gib Bendell. i couldn’t shoot him down in front of the whole class, so i said yes. we doubled with psycho jen and her BF Dan Page. Then Andrew Greenberg asked me to his senior prom, at another school, SPA. he was two hours late picking me up (but it was ok, cuz he kept calling - he was at a stop hunger benefit). my mom took a picture of me sleeping on the couch in my prom dress all dolled up waiting for him.

16. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
nah, once was enough.

17. What do you remember most about graduation?
graduation was a blur. i was really sick with a fever and stuff. i remember that PT mentioned something about the snotty, rich kids being able to change their mind about as quickly as they would turn over in a tanning bed. that was hella funny and only made me love him more.

18. What was your fav. class?
art, and anything with PT.

19. Where were you on senior skip day?
i think i was drunk at Dawn Arnolds house….not sure though.

20. Did you have a job your senior year?
not during the school year, just babysitting.

21. Where did you go most often for lunch?
Burger King

22. Have you gained weight since then?
um…only about 100 lbs.

23. What did you do after graduation?
we had a senior lock-in and i was so sick i fell asleep.

24. When did you graduate? 1989

25. Who was your Senior prom date?
duh - see above. Alex Britt and Andrew Greenberg

26. Are you going to your 10 year reunion?
already did, and the 15 year reunion

27. Who was your home room teacher?
we didn’t have home room.

28. Who will repost this after you?
no one.

who knew i’d be a drama nerd?

from the freshly finished The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery…

“Some people consider their animals their substitute children. Certian psychologists explain away the loving relationships between people and animals in terms of thwarted parenthood. There psychologists have identified a group of physical traits, such as the flat face and big eyes of pug dogs, that they call “baby releasers”, and claim the sight of these activiate a torrent of misplaced maternal feelings towards animals.”

especially funny since psycho jen has had three pet pugs in the last three years. and is now pregnant with twins after bitching endlessly about not being able to get pregnant.

“…I stubbornly refused to blame the snake for all the trouble with Adam and Eve. I suspected God did, too. After all, He kicked the people out of Eden, but He let the snake stay. Ever since we left that garden, we have been longing for Eden. It is a testament to human blindness that so few of us find it.”

love the reference to the garden, and the fact that even though the snake tempted Eve; it wasn’t the temptation we remember, it is Eve’s giving in to the temptation that men hold against us.

“Often - too often - despite medicine and prayer, despite strength and faith, the ones we love are torn from us, sometimes viciously, for reasons no one can fathom.”

no comment necessary.

and lastly….

“The word compassion means “with suffering”. To have compassion is to willfully join in suffering - to show those you love that you will not let them suffer alone. And this is the most you can do: offer your presence.”

this weekend was tough. and i can’t believe that this will make sense - since all of this sadness and sorrow are still swirling around inside of me (how’s that for alliteration?).

the thought of sunday - mother’s day - on saturday, made me so mixed up that my mind and body shut down and i slept for most of the day. hubbin decided that at 4PM i’d better get up, so i did. but the thought of mother’s day without my mom….there aren’t words for that. and i hope hope hope with all my heart that you never really come to understand that. thankfully, it’s fishing opener, so my Dad was up at the cabin working it out with jameson and buddies. maybe i should have thought of that.

the other side is that i was filled with such euphoria and gratefulness at being a mother. few of you know what i went through to have boo. i cherish every bit of her, every iota. and to have a day in celebration of that - well, what could be better?

so when these two very intense, very specific, universes collided - there was nowhere for me to go.

i am out here floating.

i am keeping with my mom’s tradition of gardening on mother’s day. we went to bachmans and i got some things for an herb garden and some ornanmental grass. i have an aloe plant for about ten years now and every three years or so, it splits off, and these little new shoots of aloe plants come up. so i divided that up, re-potted all of them and gave the two little shoots to my neighbours.

we went to the cemetary to give my mom and my aunt flowers. i bought a bouquet to split between them, and some extra single roses.

my aunt’s grave is marked, but my mom’s and my brothers are so new i couldn’t tell which was which. there aren’t markers yet - since they both passed during the winter. and that about killed me.

one fresh grave is bad enough - but two?

i did my best - and also put a rose down for my grandmother - she died when i was seven.

and as the tears came, it started to rain slightly. probably a heavenly cloudburst right above where we were standing. my mom letting me know that she’s heartbroken too, but that it’s going to be ok. it’ll wash away at some point. it always does.