And now something a bit lighter

We had friends over for dinner and I was pouring prosecco for me and sparkling cider for my daughter. I hand her the cup and she takes a sip and says, "Momma this tastes like alcohol." Nooo, I insist, it's just fizzy like champagne, I poured you sparkling cider. Would I give you prosecco? No, I would not! "But momma," she insisted, "it really does taste like alcohol." I look at the cider bottle and it's completely full. I look at the prosecco bottle and it's definitely not short only 1 glass. So I taste from my daughter's cup and sure enough it's prosecco, not cider. Slipping from mediocre momma to something a bit lower...

2009 Part III

All the rest of the shit.

I still have a job, albeit one I am not sure I really want anymore. My boss is a very strange person and his trust issues are really much worse than mine, so that says something. There is always the possibility that I could get let go- not a real or tangible possibility, just that intangible, the unspoken threat. Everyone feels it, so it's not just my paranoia. And it makes for a shit place to work. But the economy being what it is, no one will leave. I don't feel challenged, but it's really quite on me to challenge myself. And with the anemia, I don't want to be challenged. OK, so I'm a whiner, there are loads of people who would love to be in my position and I should be grateful. Sorry- no disrespect intended, but I'm really not happy in my job.

I think, if I were to sum it up, I would say 2009 sucked for the most part and was Ok for the rest of it. I would like a happier 2010 but don't see where anything is going to change, so don't know how that will come about. Wish me luck!

2009 Part II

My health in 2009 was rather rocky. I battled, and lost at every turn, to my anemia, which is causing my hair to fall out, depression, insomnia, crankiness, you name it, I can blame it on anemia. On the bright side I had an endometrial ablation done to hopefully stop my periods (yeah, surgery to clean out my uterus is the "bright side" sad I know). Oh and they found some suspicious cells on my cervix so chopped some of that away too. When I mentioned this to my aunt she said that my grandmother had cervical cancer and survived, but they did a total hysterectomy on her to manage it.

I had a double root canal performed and a bridge installed. The double root canal was interesting since they were unable to numb one of the teeth and I almost lost my shit when the drilling started.

And my foray to weight watchers resulted in a total of about 15 lbs over 5 months and a complete stall in November at which point the scale started going up again. So I will continue to do this in 2010 to hopefully resume the losing portion of the game. And with a renewed sense of commitment to my health will track every bite that goes into my greedy mouth. And take the month of January off the wine train. Seems like that must have something to do with my inability to get my shit together, so will, in remembrance of my dad's words, "Kiddo, your bar tab and mine are the same" attempt yet again to stop drinking.

My blood pressure continues to rise, much like my weight, although not necessarily in relation to each other. When I had my surgery and was coming out of anesthesia my BP was great. So I contend that my BP is ALL mental and I just need to be anesthetized in order to manage it. The nurse thought that was a bad idea and stated that she wasn't going to make another Michael Jackson!!

My vision continues to deteriorate and I need to find a new eye doctor as I just cannot deal with the blind-in-the-dark and fine print madness that I suffer.

And that is the history of my health.

2009 Part I

I don't do resolutions but think it is important to reflect back over the year. I haven't had much desire to write lately, but woke this morning knowing that it was the last day of break and not knowing when I'd have the chance again and NEEDED to write. So I thought I'd break it up into several posts, something along the lines of: relationship, health, professional, financial. I'll start with relationships.

This year I fell completely out of love with my partner. We were already on precipitous ground, with the foundation chipped away by his ADD, or rather my inability to cope with his ADD, parenthood (which put such an immense strain on ours, don't know about everyone else, but DAMN that was a tough one!), his mother. On my birthday I was given several gifts, if you want to call them that. The first was the realization that he had lied about where he'd spent Valentine's day afternoon, which as it turned out, was with his mother. The second was a trip to several doctors offices with my daughter who had gotten hit with a toy at school & had a terrible shiner. The third was that he was out of town- oblivious to the fact that it was my birthday.

Late in 2008 I caught him in a lie about something to do with his mother and told him that if he lied to me again it was over. I would not tolerate him lying to me. So this seemingly innocent lie was, on the surface, not such a big deal, but when examined against the backdrop of our relationship it was the straw that broke this ol' camel's back.

I tried to maintain some semblance of calm, but it's really not in my nature to just blow shit off. I need to vent. So when I did it was a big blow up. He justified his actions by saying that he knew he would have gotten shit from me about spending the time with his mother, so chose to lie about it, you know, for my own good, to keep me from being upset. Ironically my stance on him spending time with his mother is that she lies to him and says terrible things about me, so why would he want to spend time with someone like that? If it was anyone but his mother he'd have ended the relationship long ago. So I don't begrudge him the time, have in the past encouraged him to do things with her, but after all the crap she's pulled in the last 2 years I just don't get the attraction.

Next I discovered that he had met some woman on a plane and really "connected" with her. This through snooping in his e-mails where I discovered his correspondence with her had been deleted from the To and Send bins, which he's really not usually organized enough to do, so he was obviously trying to hide this from me. But he didn't empty the Deleted bin and so that's where I found the evidence. It was a high-tech flashback to a day when I was married to my junkie, abusive husband and looking through the garbage and got stuck by a needle that had been tossed in the trash. Similar motivation on my part- just need to know the truth- and similar results- I get punished. So one evening we were having a discussion about how he was making such a big effort to tell the truth (who knew it was so fucking hard?). In fact he was trying to convince me that he should be believed and in response I was citing all the lies that I knew about, which if you've ever lived with a liar know these to be only the surface of a whole lot of bullshit. He stated that he knew I looked at his e-mails and he was the model of "complete transparency" at which point I confronted him on the deleted e-mails. His reaction was to smile and go "Oh yeah, those. Thought I'd gotten rid of that. Guess I'm busted." Not an ounce of remorse, just a funny moment for him.

So in 2010 we are sleeping in separate bedrooms. I have repeatedly asked that he not touch me, or try to kiss me or make comments about my body, which he has repeatedly ignored and continues to molest me and make comments. It makes me want to vomit.

I don't think there is much hope here and know that some resolution must be found or I am going to go out of my mind.

I have continued to maintain the stance that I will not be around his mother and have requested that my daughter be similarly constrained. In retaliation his sister has stated that her family will not participate in anything his mother isn't invited to and has made it impossible for my partner to see his nephew and nieces. Lovely. I've caused WWIII with my personal decision to keep away from crazy. But it's good to know that I will likely not have to be around his family AT ALL, if this is the way it's going to go. I had a momentary thought of burying the hatchet and making amends (because I'm the one who has shit all over his family, right?) and then thought about it some more. His sister has really never put anything into the equation- she's not supportive, she's kind of a whack job, she espouses values of lying and deceit, greed and consumerism and her kids are about as fucked up as they come, so why do I want a relationship with these people? I don't. And I don't want my child to be influenced by their crap either. I decided that there is no need to worry about whether they participate or not. Not is better.

Tracking?

I decided to give WW 6 months. I'm at the halfway point and have lost (more-or-less) 10 lbs. The same 10 lbs I've been losing & gaining for the last 5 years. It's incredibly frustrating because I know what I'm doing wrong and seem to be powerless to stop myself from the negative behavior. My brain is stuck somewhere and I need to kick it back into gear. So with a renewed sense of optimism- this does work and it's workable- I will charge through the next 3 months, hoping to make up for lost time, but if not that, then just to continue to make steady progress in the right direction. WW has begun this campaign "lose for good" in which you are encouraged to donate 1 lb of food for each lb you lose and the company will donate $1/lb lost up to $1million to 2 organizations that feed people. So the immediate reaction I had was that as a child I was told to finish everything on my placte cuz there were kids starving in China and now I'm being told that I should not clean my plate to help the starving children. It's a bit of a mindshift. But my second reaction I had was that this was my private journey, one that I didn't want to share with anyone, nor did I feel it appropriate to tie some external driver to my accomplishments. It's mine, dammit and I don't want to go public with it. I'm not sure what to make of the second reaction.

Therapy

I made the appointment for us both to go. When I spoke to her she said it's better to start off as a couple versus starting as an individual and then trying to fold the other into the mix. Too much potential for bias. The main question that I need to answer is do I stay or do I go? And within that there are so many permutations... How did it come to this? It all started after the baby came and I had the disturbing realization that this was not going to be a 50/50 partnership. The domestic stuff, typically left to the one with the vagina, was going to be my stuff and that was the full gamut of housewifery, on top of a FT job. The ADD didn't help for when I expressed my needs, requested help, voiced observations, it was impossible for him to retain. Every day is a brand new day and it seemed that he was unable to learn. Eventually the frustration and anger settled into my bones and I began to wonder if maybe it wasn't really ADD, but passive agressive behavior. He was able to retain things for sailing and work, but not for me? Huh! And just because there wasn't enough for us to deal with add in his mother and her insanity. We tried therapy before. I agreed to it if he agreed to medicate for ADD. We had an agreement. He decided, unbeknownst to me, that the drugs were making him feel like shit, and stopped taking them. There was no discussion about it, no follow-up with any professionals, just done. We continued therapy for a few sessions, until I discovered he'd stopped taking the meds. So I quit. Pointless exercise. And one day in the heat of an argument he disclosed that he'd never shared his true feelings in therapy, that he thought he would let me do all the sharing and he could somehow passively "participate." And the realization that I really could not trust him started to set in. And then I caught him in more lies, and made a declaration that if he lied to me again it was over. And he did, so I have completely shut down.

The ADD makse communication pointless. He won't retain what I've said so why bother. It's quite daunting.

life on a tuesday

I decided to go back to weight watchers. Actually I've been thinking about it for a while. I just can't do this on my own and am tired of being the fattest girl I know. So I had a work-from-home day today & I just went. The leader was nice and the reminders are great. I plan to go to as many meetings as I need to stay on track. I know the whole diet industry is anti-feminist and the psychobabble about not meeting societal expectations is patriarchal control, but I hate the way I look, and that is mine. I hate being so out of control and that is mine. I hate feeling this way and that, too, is mine. I am trying to do something for me, so this is one step. The other is calling a therapist. I've fallen into a hole of indecision and blackness and really want out!!!

I used to be the fun girl. The one everyone called to go out and laugh with. I used to be happy & funny and witty. I always thought that when I died they'd say, "Well she really knew how to live." I've lost that. I know she existed cuz I've checked with people who have known me for many years. They concur. No one says I'm a drag now, filled with negativity, sarcasm and cynicism, anger and bleakness. No one confronts my obvious lack of enthusiasm for this life. No one calls me on my shit. I call bullshit. I call bleakness. I call negativity. And I banish them. Go away now, be gone with you. I'm ready to live again.

Home is a 4 letter word.

I'm not hungry. I don't want to eat everything in reach. In spite of my irritation with GB I don't feel like stuffing my face. His locking the door so I get locked out is, in my opinion, his way of convincing me to put a spare key somewhere so his irresponsible key losing is less of an inconvenience for him. Talk about passive aggressive. I really just don't want to live with him anymore. I find his habits & habitual forgetting to be a royal pain in the ass, creating more work and forcing me to expend unnecessary energy. The dog barking at 2am cuz he forgot to put her out. Annoying, energy consuming by the sleep deprivation. Is that it, is he on a mission to torture me- sleep deprivation, constantly doing the opposite of what I ask, ignoring my pleas for change, disregarding my opinions, losing shit all the time? It's working. I confess- I HATE LIVING WITH HIM!!!! And I'm starting to hate him.

Tuesday vent

Here's how my morning went. Arise slightly late- damn! Must get to the office so that I can return colleague's key. Rush to get ready, rush to office. Get in. Wait. Return key. Kill a bit more time and start to leave for endodontist to finish the 2-tooth root canal that was started 3 weeks ago after dentist managed to make tooth prep for a bridge into a $5000 endeavor. Run to bathroom. Tampon has leaked. Damn, only 1 pad & it's now bloody. Oh well. Get in car. Drive to endontist. Hit bathroom. Pad is soaked at front end, but back is clear. Make executive decision to turn around, knowing it will be squishy on my ass but better that than soak through & bleed all over his goddamned chair. Change tampon. Wait in lobby. Get seated in chair. Leave to change tampon again as it's blown out. Two shots of novacaine & I've blown through another tampon. Change tampon again. Wipe toilet seat as ass is now bloody. Get one tooth drilled, cleared, whatever it is the endo dude does. Change tampon again. Leave. I fucking hate dentists and my period.

The Anatomical Lie

I'm in mourning. I'm greiving over the loss of trust, love, faith, lust, joy. the loss of a relationship, that, while pretty bumpy, seemed to be on the upswing. I'm sure he lied to spare me. Doesn't everyone? No one ever lies to make themselves look better, or to avoid an uncomfortable situation that they simply don't want to deal with. Liars tell lies because it's good for the the person they are lying to. They are doing us a favor. They are protecting us. From our own inability to deal with the truth. The truth might make us angry or sad or righteous. And we wouldn't want to inspire any sort of negative emotion, for after all, the liars love us.

And the little, caught lies are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. So that makes me sadder still. That even when I felt the trust, faith, love, lust and joy these feelings were all a result of the propogation of lies that I chose to ignore. And maybe it wasn't all lies, but maybe it was a little bit of truth sprinkeld with half-truths, or semblances of reality, or omissions of detail, whatever the current catchphrase for it is today.

I'm sure it was all my fault since I am so prone to fits of rage and raw emotion. That I offer my opinion, no matter how dissenting, no matter how annoying, no matter who might not like what I have to say. I say what I see and sometimes, most of the time these days, it's ugly. My rage wells up in me like a boil, about to burst forth, straining at the skin. And when I can't restrain myself any longer I explode and spew venomous bile and it's a scary sight to behold. And even then I am holding back just a bit, for if I were to let it all go, would I be able to return from the abyss that carries my anger?

His insistance that he loves me feels abusive. My emotional and physical whithdrawal feels abusive. All that I didn't want to teach my daughter is happening. How did I manage to get myself into the very situation I hoped so desperately to avoid? My daughter is going to grow up not knowing that 2 adults can love, like, lust after one another. She will think that they are adversaries instead of teammates, that there is always an underlying tension when they are in the same room, the same house, the same state. That there is no hope. Sad, very sad.

Down with Makeup

I've been reading a lot of feminist blogs and one this morning caught my eye from a blogger who is forgoing makeup. I have spurned makeup, treatments, beauty regimens and the general idea that I am a walking mannequin for the fashion/beauty industries for at least a decade, possibly longer. I wear what feels comfortable, brush my hair and teeth at least once a day and don't use makeup at all. Part of it is that I am really quite lazy when it comes to my own personal care. I love to be clean, shower daily, sometimes twice a day, but rarely shave my legs or armpits. I mean, why should I have to, men don't?? And the makeup, or lack thereof- why do I care? I don't have to look at myself and I don't spend much time before the mirror. If my looks cause pain, then look away. Plus as a fairly frugal person the stuff is frigging expensive!!

Last year a friend of mine started selling Mary Kay and asked if she could have a party at my home. I had participated in these in my early 20s, always bought shit I didn't really like or need, because they were my friends, but I'm 44 now and have had enough. I said it was fine, I'd be happy to host, but I wasn't going to buy anything, so don't ask. She said, "Oh no they have lovely stuff for your skin and hair." To which I replied, Please don't be offended by what I'm about to say, but I don't believe in makeup or beauty treatments. I think they are silly and unnecessary. I find their existence and perpetuation to be repugnant and offensive to my feminism. If you want to spend ridiculous sums of money on stuff you don't need, feel free, but do not ask me again to purchase said stuff. I won't. And the discussion was dropped.

My sister, who always looks beautiful, classy and well-put together (I've always said she could wear a potato sack & look glamorous) does buy this shit. And whether it's the hugely expensive snake oils or just natural & a really lucky genetic disposition, I'll never know, but she looks great, all the time. She has also had some treatments, botox, laser something or other, and convinced me to go for a consult. The woman at the spa counseled me that I'd have to stick to a really strict daily regimen of cleansing, moisturizing, sunscreening, avoiding the sun, etc. I said, No, that is not how I operate. I wash my face with water in the shower and never put on sunscreen. I refuse to spend an hour in the bathroom to cleanse, tone, demist, mist, etc. Can we work on some of the wrinkles without all of that insanity? What are my other options? She said perhaps I should see a surgeon. HA!!

Oz

As always when I was in this shower this morning I had a ton of ideas of what I wanted to write about, then I get on the road, am annoyed at the assholes who insist on tailgating, jumping lines and generally being inconsiderate narcissists, and everything had flown right out of my head.

Lat night I was in the middle of a dream about climbing a mountain when the alarm went off. It was midnight. My partner needed to get up this morning and, since he's a guy and changing the alarm time doesn't require a penis he somehow gets it wrong EVERY time; this time was no exception. So I was taken out of this dream, where I am sure my brain was going to try and repair itself.

The dream comes about, I think, because I've recently discovered Facebook. And I've made contact with people I've not seen or talked to in almost 30 years. When I was about 11 years old (33 years ago) I was hanging out with a much older crowd of teenagers. There was one girl in this group, the younger sister of my boyfriend, who I think was 10. Physically I was a developed teenager & I looked about 14 or 15, but the younger girl was tiny & undeveloped, like a typical 10 year old. It was upstate NY so there were lots of place to hide - in the woods, up a mountain, along a river or lake. This group of about 8 kids ascends a mountain to get drunk & stoned and make out. The little sister of my boyfriend gets alcohol poisoning and ends up in the hospital. The sheriff pays a visit to my house to get me to tell who bought the alcohol & who supplied the pot. Yesterday I made contact via Facebook with the guy who supplied it all to us.

I can't remember if I ever told the sheriffwho it was and I'm unsure if the incident where my mother beat me with a billy club was related or a separate incident. I think, as a result of my noncooperation, my mother raided my room and found my pot stash. She wanted to know where I got it, I refused to tell and then the billy club came out. As she was beating me and screaming at me I simply went away. It was like my brain and body parted ways for a little while so I could endure the beating. My father walked in and when my brain saw the look on his face everything came back into focus and I got the hell out and locked myself in the bathroom. My mother threw both me and my father out of the house that summer.

After I got back to sleep last night I dreamed about tornadoes in California and there was one bearing down upon us but since we don't have basements, there was no place to hide. It was terrifying and I woke back up at 3:30 with my heart racing.

Connecting all of this, when I lived in MN we had tornado warnings all the time, it seemed. I was the only one who took them seriously and when the sirens sounded I grabbed a wineglass, a corkscrew and my cat and would head to the basement for a little comforting vino and shelter. Everyone else was on the back deck looking for the funnel cloud. Since I now haven't had wine for 3 days, I wonder if my brain is asking for the tornado so I can have the wine. Or perhaps it was triggered by the power outage (I really wanted a glass of wine last night during the power outage, but didn't cave to the temptation). Or maybe my life is like that tornado, bearing down upon me with no place to hide and the wine has been my comfort, the thing that helps me forget, just for a little while, all that was.

Bar tabs

I've decided to give up my wine for the month of March. Sort of a lenten sacrifice, although, being an athiest, it sounds like a poor excuse. Lately it's been every day of 1/2 to 1 bottle of wine. And I really don't need the extra empty calories. I am haunted, too, by the memory of my father who used to pass out sitting at the kitchen table nearly every night after consuming what I think was scotch. Later in life it was wine. But there was always something. He gave it up, cold turkey, in the late 1980s. He also quit smoking and lost 100 lbs that year. It was quite an accomplishment. In 2002, relatively early into his Parkinson's/Lewy Body Disease, while he still had the capacity for speech, albeit with some truly mixed up word choices, he said to me, "Michele, you & I have the same," and he struggled to find the words but came up with , "bar tab." It's true. We do. We both consumed to excess, almost everything in life. We don't have a "stop" signal and so go on way past the time when others would cry "whoa."

I have an acute sense of smell and can recall the smoky smell of my parents' breath. It was the 70s and everyone smoked and drank all the time it seemed. One of my first boyfriends smoked. He was 16 or 17 and I was maybe 10 or 11. I loved the taste of cigarettes as we kissed. I craved the warm smell of smoke in his clothing as we feversihly made out and dry humped like dogs in heat. My next boyfriend didn't smoke, but by then I did. His clothes had the fresh scent of laundry soap and I longed to bury my face in his body to extract that clean smell. I worry now, that each night, as I tuck my daughter into bed that she smells the wine on my breath as I kiss her soft cheek, and that she will seek that smell in a lover. It's a dangerous smell to be sure, particularly when you have this family's bar tab.

karmic retribution

Interesting world of Facebook has recently come to my attention. My partner of almost 6 years (in just a few weeks) also joined this week. I know only because I snoop. Interestingly he has not invited me. He's pals with his mother, his nieces and a friend who moved away. He lists himself with no relationship. Also from snooping I know that he spent last Friday with his mother, took her out to dinner, rushed back home to furtively by v-day stuff for me & his daughter. In retrospect, when I queried him last night about what he was doing and his answer was "Ummmmm" I should have just walked over and poked my nose right in, but I was on a mission to get laundry, food, something done. I'm sick to my stomach, weepy and want to get mad, but am not finding anger, of all things, readily accessible. He's out of town, conveniently. I'm sick, it's been raining and my birthday is tomorrow. Conveniently he's out of town (I already said that, didn't I?). I have so much to be happy about. I'm employed, live in an amazing home so close to my sister I can walk (but fat ass that I am, never actually do). I have a beautiful, funny daughter and good friends. OK, tomorrow's a new day. No energy to analyze, just wanted it all recorded for posterity or something. meh, ugh & blah.

MIL will be the end of this relationship

Trust issues. They keep coming up and I don't know what to do with them. They sit in my gut like a stone, wake me from terrible dreams and set me back emotionally decades. This weekend my partner picked up an appliance from our old house (in prep for sale). His mother was supposed to be in town for a sailing regatta and was going to leave a truck for him to convey said appliance from old house to new house. My gut said NOOOO, don't use the truck, rent a truck, borrow a truck from a friend, carry the frigging thing on your back, anything but rely on the most unreliable, screwed up, narcissist (his mother) that I've ever met. I got lazy and said nothing. On his way out the door he took a chandelier. When I inquired about it he said it was to stage the house. Yes, I said, but your mother, who insisted that we sell the house so she could get her money out of it, turning our lives upside down for 18 months, is supposed to be FULLY in charge of prep & staging of the house (which was supposed to be done by end of December and it's now mid-January, but that's another blog), so WTF, why are WE supplying stuff for her to stage? Reply back was snarky, "If you don't want to stage it, then I suppose you're willing to forgo the proceeds?" At this point, if it makes your mother go away permanently then, sure I'd forgo the proceeds. But right now, I'm tempted to ask you to go too, asshole.

Flash forward. I arrive home to find that he's back, appliance is installed and he's got some god-awful smelling substance permeating the house. WTF (again) and he says, "Sorry I put down this resin to prep for tiling and it's just really awful." How'd you make it back so quickly, I innocently inquire, already knowing in my heart the answer. "My mother followed me back." So you've been a dick to me and shown your mother where we live (which I really have made clear I did not want to have happen, she has been HORRIBLE and I want nothing to do with her, including her knowing where I live. I've even blocked her from calling my house as she thinks that 6:30 am - 11pm is an acceptable window for calling BS with her son). "She didn't come in the house, she just sat outside." The woman wears 400 oz of the most nauseating "perfume," probably to cover the stench of her evil, and coincidentally my partner has dropped some resin that would cover the smell of death. But she never came into the house. Right. I call bullshit and I am pissed.

He agreed that it was best that she not be invited to our new home. He agreed that she wouldn't. He said he respected my feelings, didn't agree with them, but would comply with my request. So now, what am I to do? he's clearly decided that my feelings and requests are not worth his regarding. Do I just go out and fuck strangers and say, Gee sorry honey, I guess I "forgot" that I wasn't supposed to? Do I leave? Do I toss his ass out? He really isn't leaving me with much choice. When your supposed-partner completely disregards your feelings, where do you go from there?

Crazy Train

I'm standing at the station of the crazy train. My MIL who requires so much explanantion is suddenly (after 4 years) concerned that she doesn't have a place in her son's family. My suspicion is that she has finally figured out that I will not engage in her mind games, that I will turn around, shut down, leave altogether and take my daughter (her "granddaughter" by biology but not anything else) with me. She is also about to lose the last foothold she has into our lives, the house she and my partner jointly bought.

I finally said F-it, in the midst of the falling real estate values, in spite of it having been my daughter's home for her whole short life, regardless of loving the town and the neighborhood and getting to say I live on an island, I finally said, let's GO! Over the last year my partner's mother has engaged in the most manipulative emotional blackmail and I just couldn't take it any more. She's financially set, living in a completely paid for multi-million dollar home, stocks, rental units, social security and a pension. She decided that she wanted her "half" of the equity in the place we were living in. The place that, almost a decade ago, (before I entered the scene) she and her son shared a downpayment on. Since that day, she hasn't paid another penny. Most unfortunately she is on title as a joint tenant. And since her original demand last year she's vacillated between demanding "her half" and telling my partner that she plans to put her share into a family trust and it would go to him upon her demise (which couldn't happen soon enough says the bitter woman I'm becoming). Someone had to stop the madness.

Maybe she fears losing her baby boy. She won't. He's incredibly forgiving and tolerant. I'm not.

What she should have gotten a whiff of is that I came from crazy, lived with and survived crazy, rejected crazy in my own mother, with whom I have chosen to not have a relationship. She's never met her granddaughter, I haven't seen her in 20 years, haven't spoken to her in longer than that. She was physically and emotionally abusive and when I escaped I made the decision to not go back. As a result of my upbringing, I have an acute aversion to crazy and drama queens. My partner's mother is both.

A mother's love

My almost 4 year old daughter is now re-potty trained. On on outing this weekend she insisted on going to the bathroom by herself and locking the stall door in a public restroom. Against my better judgement I relented. Naturally when she tried to unlock the door she was unable to do so and proceeded to panic. I reassured her through the door, tried to coax her into continuing her attempts at unlocking it and after several tries, gave up and crawled on the floor (ugh!) into the stall to free her. Several women in line commented that my action was a true demonstration of love. And I laughed and flippantly said, "A mother's love knows no bounds." And while I inherently believe that same love should extend to all other living things, I can't say for certain that I would be so generous with a stranger. Would you crawl under a public bathroom stall to free someone you didn't know?

Message to my nephew who got 2 puppies

Drew & Savanna- Y'all have let the Texas heat go to yer brains, child! Whaddaya thinkin'???? Cute, sure. Mischievous, you betcha. But they's gonna grow up to be TWO BIG SMELLY, HAIR SHEDDIN' FLATULATIN' POOPIN' beasts!!! Y'are crazy!!!
Seriously, they are too cute. And now you have a reason to keep your jobs, never leave the house without them, wake every morning at the crack of dawn when THEY decide they want out and generally turn your lives over to a being that has a brain 1/4 the size of yours but somehow knows more!!
And remember when they chew the remote and your shoes and the CDs you left out, and when they dig up the entire acre of plants you spent ALL weekend digging and planting, and when they tear holes in the screen door cuz they want out, they don't mean to be bad, they just can't help themselves.
And everyone lies. Dogs are not "just like having kids." Dogs you can leave outside all day (unless you live somewhere godforsaken, like Texas), dogs will be OK if you forget to feed them once or twice. Dogs will self-entertain for a long, long time. Dogs will not pretend to be potty trained then change their mind, while they are sitting in your lap. Dogs will not make you get up 6 times in the night for months at a time. Dogs do not have an uncanny ability to know when you are really in a hurry and stage a meltdown 5 minutes before you are about to walk out the door. Dogs don't projectile vomit down your front and back & sides, leaving you to wonder how a stomach so theoretically small could possibly hold that much. Dogs won't say to their teacher "Mommy hit me." Dogs don't announce during a quiet moment, "That man has a penis. He has a penis. HE HAS A PENIS, doesn't he momma????!!!" Dogs won't ever say that the busboy is "ugly" leaving you to wonder in which plate he's going to hok a huge looey. Dogs don't turn into teenagers, they just get old and start behaving like your parents- whining and arthritic. Insisting that they must stay right next to you every moment you are around.
Congrats! And, get them and you trained. I think you're going to need it!!

Does the Y chromosome make you unable to think about others?

My partner travels about 50% of the month. It's OK with me for several reasons. One is that he has ADD so whenever he is gone I can be as compulsive and obsessive as any mother of a 3 year old is allowed. The surprises are reduced significantly (as in Surprise! The milk was left out all night long (again), or Surprise! The flame on the stove has been left on all day or Surprise! There's no more (insert common household item here) and you'd better get creative cause you still need to pack a lunch). The possibilities are endless. The second reason is that I've been pretty self-sufficient and independent for a long time and grew up in a household with a parent present only about 25% of the time. And thirdly he is an absolute slob. So when he said that he'd agreed to put up his 16 year old twin nieces for 3 weeks in our already overcrowded 1100 square foot house I was understandably reticent. The week & the weekend before their arrival he was out of town. I caught a monster cold and had no relief for a full 7 days, plus had looming pressure of important deadlines at work and no way to get any extra time in at the office. I was, understandably, stressed. I had asked for the schedule for this 3-week-visit about a dozen times (not an exaggeration, this is life with someone with ADD, you can ask, but you are unlikely to receive) and had not had a chance at all on the weekend to get any groceries in the house. So I left work a little early on Monday hoping to get a few things done before the arrival of the nieces and he calls me while I'm in the car to say that he's going to get dinner ready for the girls & was planning to put chicken on the grill & then head to Trader Joe's for food for them for the week. I reminded him that I'm a vegetarian and probably wouldn't eat the chicken and asked what he was planning to get for his family for the week. Nothing- this is just a trip for the girls. Then my eyeballs exploded out of their sockets and I saw red and just lashed into him. How inconsiderate. And I was reminded of an evening at the end of a long weekend when he & I and our 12 month old were at the grocery store and I was so very tired I coul barely think and he walks up to me & announces that he's found something for himself, we can go now. He just presumed that the kid's menu was my responsibility, like he assumed that it's my job to make sure there is food in the house for the family and despite him making dinner, he wasn't about to make the effort to make something that we all (including me) could eat. Just didn't occur to him at all. Is it the ADD? Is it the y chromonsome? I checked in with my sister and she said her husband does the same thing. Comes home with a bag of groceries for himself, without calling to see if she needs anything at home. Her husband doesn't have ADD, but he does have the Y chromosome...

Dear Joan Letter

Dear Joan,

My daughter, your son's daughter, is now at an age where she asks a lot of questions. She is completely observant of her world and capable of expressing many facets of emotion. Your presence is confusing to her. Who is this woman who periodically shows up at my house? Why doesn't she engage with me? Why is my mom so tense when she comes? Momma, did she hurt your feelings? She doesn't know you as a grandmother, she doesn't know you as part of her world. Do I answer her questions honestly, " This lady is not our friend. In addition to being a bitter, jealous gossip who spreads lies (yes, Joan everyone you complain to about me tells Greg what you have said, your daughter included, and he shares everything with me), on the 3rd day of your life she passed out drunk with you in her arms, she is abusive to her grandson and she is an inconsiderate, narcissist who is unable to relate to another person. She is too self involved to be trusted with a child. And if that isn't enough to convince you, she is happy to see your home, all that you have known for your short life, taken away from you in her fit of greed and vindictiveness."

I think you will agree that it's best for everyone if you just stay away from my child and home. You were allowed in on Saturday as a nod to Shannon, who probably doesn't know how horrible you truly are, but I'm not feeling so forgiving any more as I see what your presence does to my child.