After Christmas

Well, what a week. Christmas has come and gone. On Tuesday I did a little too much, and on Wednesday I paid for it with more pain than I’d had in several days. Since my #2 nephew’s flight home from Alaska got totally screwed up by the storms around Seattle, our family Christmas got moved from Thursday to Friday. I had all day Thursday to just play on the computer and watch tv. Yeah, I needed a day with no times that I was required to be anywhere! It did make for a bit of a lonely day though. I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to spending Christmas out west with my BFF & her kids. While the oldest has been humoring us for several years with the whole Santa thing, but we did get the magic back when the baby came. I did miss, terribly the look on their faces when they see what Santa left. So yesterday I baked cookies and headed to my sister’s house around 1:30 with cookies and chex mix on hand, in addition to the gifts for the kids. It was great to see #2, who, as it turns out, had been delayed YET AGAIN, and had only arrived at 1:15 that afternoon. Now, see, I figure that’s what he gets for moving to Alaska and wanting to live there in the winter… you have to expect delays when it’s that cold outside! My sister cooked a rib roast, and my brother-in-law made the most awesome mashed potatoes using ranch dip mix, in addition to sour cream, bacon bits & chives YUMMMMY. In all honesty, today has been the day I’ve been looking forward to, for a couple of reasons, but mostly because it marked the end of a week that had some of my favorite usual activities unavailable to me, through no control of mine. Yeah, silly me, I kinda thought it might actually end up the way that it should, but alas it didn’t, and I guess I just have to keep being patient. Or else give up completely, and I’m just not quite ready to do that yet, so I’ll keep on with my masochistic ways, I suppose.

5 days later

I’m BAAACK! Nope, I didn’t fall of the end of the world. This is likely to be a long one, so go ahead and take your potty break now, grab your snack, and fix a drink to make yourself comfortable. Last Tuesday I had my surgery, and I gotta tell you, I was scared spitless going in! It was less than freezing when we got up and left my friends’ house at 4FREAKING30 in the morning to head for the surgery center. I checked in and they took me back to pre-op at about 5:45. I was scheduled to be in the OR at 7, but it was almost 7:45 when they came and took me in there, which, of course, had me frustrated beyond belief! This was my 3rd, I think, major surgery. The other 2 occurred when I was 3 & 4, so I have no memory of either of them. I remember crying and telling the nurse that I was about to DIE to go to the bathroom, but when we got there, yeah, nothing happened. I was in a private room with my friends sitting with me around noon-ish, I think. I sort of went back and forth between snoozing, and whining about needing to pee, and random goofy conversation with my friends. Finally about 3:30 I had peed enough to make the nurse happy, and they let me leave. It took 3 of us to get me dressed again, and DAMN it was cold when I got outside, but I was so happy to be able to be on my way home to my cats! I got to talk to the people I most wanted to before I went to bed that night, and my sister came by with some soup. Getting up and down in the night was kind of a trick, as I wasn’t moving all that quickly, and I was on GOOOD drugs! Fortunately, the cats behaved and I didn’t have to fight with them to keep them from tromping across incisions! Wednesday, I decided to move from the bed to the couch in the media room, because I was TIRED of being in a bed! I fixed my little nest, with a big ole glass of water, a bit of dr pepper, my bottle of pain meds, and my laptop. I don’t even remember how many emails I had when I logged in, but I waded through some of them before I took a break and laid down on the couch for a little nap with my Bowbitsy up near my head. One of my friends came by after she’d picked up the kids from school to get a grocery list I’d made. It’s just by chance that she lives about 5 minutes from me, but I was totally astounded when the kids asked if they could stay with me while she went to the grocery store for me. UMM, let me think about this for a second. 1. I had major surgery yesterday, 2. You have spent the entire 5 minutes you’ve been in my house rushing around trying to hunt down my cats despite being told that they are hiding, 3. You have a tendency to do whatever you please despite being asked or told not to do something, and did I mention I just had major surgery? Yeah, I told them that I had just taken another pain pill and needed to lie down so they couldn’t stay. OMG, holy cow, when they came back, they again ran through the house looking for the cats. Sleeping that night was a little easier, and since I had gotten out the wedge pillow, getting up and down in the night was a whole lot easier. Thursday I was moving a little better, and able to go longer between pain pills, but Helen’s car died once she got to work that morning, so that started a whole new drama about what to do. In the end, she found a ride home that night, and to/from Friday as well, with a plan to go look for one to buy on Saturday. Friday morning, I hit 72 hours past surgery, and thus was allowed to start driving. YAY! I had serious cabin fever and wanted the hell out of the house. So I got myself dressed in a shirt, and a pair of pajama capri’s which, on my short little legs, are not capris, but rather a lovely pair of highwaters! My jeans still didn’t fit, and even if they had, I’m thinkin’ the pressure of the button on my incision was really a bad idea, and since I don’t have any sweats anymore, a trip to Wal-Mart was in order. I made it to Hobby Lobby for some ornaments and gift wrap, and then to Wal-mart for some pants that wouldn’t bind or cause problems with my incisions, so I wouldn’t have to run around town in my highwaters or my Dr Pepper pajama pants until I can wear my jeans again. I lasted about 2 hours before my body decided it was time for another pain pill and a nap. I spent a couple of hours sleeping on the couch before I headed out for a few more errands. Once Helen got home, we went over to the mall to pick up a few items. Saturday morning I had to run to check the PO Box, since I hadn’t been there since the previous Saturday, and I needed to mail Darla’s box. Unfortunately, there was a HUGE line, and only 1 person working the counter. Now, WTF is up with that? It’s the Saturday before Christmas, and the PO only has 1 person working? Yeah, well, I knew that I could always go to the airport PO and mail the box today, once I actually had a box to put the stuff in. Lunch was good, and yielded prezzies from Capt, Isa and the cats! I should have brought at least the cats’ stocking in, and given them some of their treats, but that hasn’t happened yet either. I have a fabulous pink piggy moshy pillow! We spent a couple of hours at the car place trying to get Helen into a car, but eventually my body started to protest, and I had to head home, and just trust that Helen would manage. By the time I left for a sorority party that night, I had no idea what was up, but went on the assumption that she either had something, or someone to bring her home. When I got home from the party, which, fortunately, one of my sorority sisters had provided me transportation, so I could take a pain pill before we left the party and I could be ready for bed when I got home, there was a car in the driveway in her spot, so obviously things went well. This morning’s jaunt to church came as a surprise to many folks who thought I would be down for longer than what I have been. I guess that’s the beauty of laproscopic surgery, I’m back to a lot of my regular activities in less than 6 weeks. I took Erin & hers their prezzies after lunch, boxed and mailed Darla’s stuff, and then napped for a little while until I needed to get up and go hang with the youth at church this evening and watch Elf. I’d have to say, that while I do get a bit crabby when it’s time to have another pain pill, I can spend time in traffic without being a total lunatic most of the time, and I don’t feel a constant need to rip someone’s head off! This is a HUGE improvement over my moods over the last several months! Yep, this surgery is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made! A think it’s time for bed.

Frustration Mounts

So, here I am, 5 days until I have the surgery I've wanted for about 5 years now. My doctor told me back in the summer that I could have it, and I purposely scheduled it for as close to Christmas as possible, simply because it's not usually a super-busy time at work, and we are closed for 2.5 days the week of Christmas, and 2.5 days the week of New Years, so I won't have to use too much vacation time. Last week I saw my gynecologist for my pre-op appointment, and to get my paperwork to take to the surgical center for the pre-admission work up. I also called the surgical center, to see if there was a specific time to come in and do the pre-admission and fork over my share of the cost. Nope, just come on in anytime during business hours. So, this afternoon, I left work at 2:30 to go over there. I walked in at 3 (they close at 5), and was told that they only do pre-admission between 8 & 2 p.m. WTF??? The person I talked to last week couldn't have told me that? Yeah, never mind that I have about a thousand things to get done before I leave at the end of the day on Monday afternoon, and I really can't afford the time away from the office! So now I'm going to have to go over there tomorrow, probably during my lunch break. I'll just have to get out of the house a little earlier in the morning and get more done before the phone starts ringing at 7. (well, actually, it sometimes starts ringing before 7, but what the hell, who actually conducts business before 7 a.m.??? Yeah, leave me a message because I'm sure not stopping what I'm in early to do, specifically to have time to get it done before the phone starts ringing to answer your call. I had a raging headache before I even left the office, and the crazies on the road made it worse, and coupled with the fact that apparently my uterus has found out it's being evicted and is going to raise a ruckus as much as possible, so I'm cramping a mere week after my last period ended. Yeah, I'm quite happy to be rid of that particular little bit of BS every month! It seems that I get crabbier and bitchier every day, and at this point, I suspect that, despite the fact that I have wanted this for a very long time, and am looking forward to not having the periods and the drama that goes along with them, I am getting nervous about it. The last time I had major surgery (I'm not counting my Lasik 6 years ago, because, well, I was awake, and I felt no pain), I was 4 years old, and having a plate put in to replace a shattered piece of my skull. Ok, yeah, laugh if you want, I am drain-bamaged, I admit it, because about a teaspoon of brain matter was removed several months earlier when the skull fracture happened. I'm ok with it, I have brain damage and I'm weird, what's your excuse for your weirdness? HMMM?? At any rate, yeah, I'm scared, because I've not been anesthetized in over 35 years. I have every faith in my doctor, and in my support system in general, but y'know, it's still a scary thought.

Hump Day

Well, it's Wednesday again, the middle of the week, and only 7 more days that I'll be able to reproduce, thank heavens! Last night, at a meeting, one of my sorority sisters, who has clearly not been paying attention over the last 3 years when I have said repeatedly "I like children, OTHER PEOPLE'S children, that I can play with and have fun with, then give back when I'm done!" looked at me, in all seriousness, and said "And you are really ok with, you know, not having any children?" I just looked at her, trying not to look too dumbfounded. I mean, not only have I repeatedly said that I don't want children of my own, that I don't have the patience, that the 10 days I spent with newborn Nicholas 2 years ago now was plenty of newborn for me, and just last night I said at least 3 times before she asked the question "by this time next week, I will be uterus-free!!!" Some people just don't listen! Good news that I got today is that The Rogues will be playing North Texas Irish Festival in March. This makes me very happy, especially in light of the fact that they got scratched from the location I was planning to see them in February, since the venue double booked it. I have no idea why the Scottish band is playing the Irish festival, but frankly, who the hell cares, it's live pipes a month earlier than I usually get them, so I'm good with it! My rotten little calico cat is wandering around the house wailing, for no apparent reason, anybody want a cat? I'm working on a list of things I need to get work on this next year, including

• 1. getting my storage room sorted out, so it can be used for its intended purpose: GARB CLOSET. When I moved into this house in the Spring, there were a BUNCH of boxes that I just couldn't sort out immediately, and they got put into the spare room. Sure there is garb in there, but it's not in the closet, its in totes. some of it will remain it totes, but other pieces I think would be better stored hanging.
• 2. I also need to do a little more writing. What I'm going to write, I don't know, but there are several things rolling around in my head, screaming to get out.
• 3. I've also got to get some other stuff organized so that maybe my house will be able to stay reasonably organized and not get to the point that it makes me want to scream in frustration.
• 4. I have sewing to get done before faire: wrap pants for the boys and a couple of shirts for them. I can't guarantee that I'll get the shirts done, they may be more trouble than I'm comfortable with, but the wrap pants should be easy enough, since I have a pair I can use for a pattern.

Friday night should be good, I'm taking my youngest (he's 18 now) nephew and my only niece out shopping for their Christmas gifts. I don't spend nearly enough time with them, and I truly enjoy the 2 of them, and their older brother, who has other plans for that evening already. Which reminds me, I need to check the website of the shopping center and see what all is there now.

Saturday is Drink Like a Pirate Day, and a bunch of us are getting together at TGI Friday's in Ft. Worth to celebrate. It's a great chance to hang with friends and a fabulous excuse to wear garb somewhere besides faire!

Off to bed, hopefully to sleep through the night, and get more than about 5 hours straight!

Friday's adventure.

Ok, yeah, I should have written a little each night, but since I was offline all weekend, it wouldn’t have gotten posted anyway, so here we go. Friday I left for the airport around 2-ish, because I had a couple of stops I needed to make on my way over. First stop was this great little shoe store because Dawn, whose blog I follow, convinced me that I NEED a pair of these THAT DAY. Unfortunately since my EU shoe size is like 37/38, and not 41 or bigger (that’s 10-10.5 US), yeah, I was SOL. I did, however go ahead and buy a pair that are not limited edition or with a really cool print. Second stop was at Chase to make my car payment. Now, my November payment was about 2 weeks late, but my December payment was like 3 weeks early. I had 2 checks written. Each had my loan number on them, and either November or December payment written on them, along with “apply overage to principal”. They were not in the same amount, because I’m paying some extra in an effort to pay it off sooner. So the drive thru teller gets them, and I guess does some weird voodoo ritual with them for 8 minutes or so before the following conversation ensues: Her: “ma’am, are these payments?” Me: “yes, my account number is on there, in the memo section.” Her: “ok, and you want to apply the overage to the principal?” Me: *SIGH* “yes.” Her: “ok, how much is the overage?” (clearly it was too hard for the BANK employee to look in her handydandy computer and see how much my payment is supposed to be, then deduct that from the amount of the check and apply the difference to the principal) Me: “I don’t know, because I haven’t gotten this month’s bill in the mail, and I don’t have last month’s with me.” (Ok, since they are idiots and usually apply at least part of the overage to the NEXT PAYMENT DUE, instead of to the principal, my payment amounts change my several dollars every month) Her: “Well, I’m going to send you out a form to fill out with the amounts and then I can apply it properly.” WTF??? I’ve just told you I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH IS OVERAGE! UGH! In the end, I estimated , based on what I think was roughly the payment due on the last bill I saw (November’s), how much my payment was and how much was overage for each check. Next stop, Love Field, for my 5:30 flight to Hobby Airport. I get all checked in, like an hour and a half early, in the hopes of getting on an earlier flight as stand-by. Yeah, the upgrade to full fare for the 1 flight cost almost what my round-trip ticket cost when I bought it over a month ago! AND then my flight was delayed. *sigh* We were scheduled to depart at 5:30, and at 5:32 the inbound flight on our plane pulled up to the gate to unload. I think we finally took off right about 6:47. The flight was uneventful, and we made it to Houston, at which point I realized that I’d left my full itinerary at home, so I had to go get in line in order to get a copy of it from an agent. I had to have a copy of it to rent my car. I got to the rental car location, got processed, and by now it’s close to 8, and I was supposed to be in Galveston, at the restaurant for dinner at 7:30. I’m walking out the door with the guy, who says to me “you’ve reserved an economy, what would you like to drive today?” I looked at him and said, “you know, NOTHING has gone right since I left work this afternoon, I should have been in Galveston ½ hour ago, and I don’t much care what I’m driving, so long as I’m driving SOMETHING.” God bless him, he looked at me, and the cars that were available and said “how about a free upgrade to this Nissan Rogue?” Well, now, I may do some crazy things, and I may be weird, but I’m not an idiot, so of course I took him up on the free upgrade. Brand new car, had like 241 miles on it when I hit the road. OMG, if I was in the market for a new car, I would SO look at one! It is spacious inside, more in the passenger area than my Escape is, though you give up a little of the cargo space. It drives beautifully, and virtually no road noise as I was pushing 80 mph to get to Galveston before dinner was done! In the end, I’d had them order for me, and I walked in literally seconds after they put my plate on the table! I was quite definitely ready to be in for the night by the time we got to the house a little after 9! I’ll eventually get photos uploaded and included in the post, but for now, I’ll stop blathering one and actually do a little work.

FINALLY

I’m in a good place, I think, finally. The last few weeks have been dramatic and trying for me, and I’ve been rather a whiny brat, I know. And those of you who have put up with my whiny, ranting, frustrated or just plain down in the dumps texts, bulletins, blogs, and tweets, I love you and thank you for your patience with me. I know I’ve been hard to live with for awhile. Maybe it’s that the 341 Christmas songs on my Ipod have finally penetrated my brain. Maybe it’s that I see the light at the end of the tunnel to being uterus free. 11 days for those of you who are counting. Maybe it’s that I’ve come to a better understanding with someone who has frankly confounded me for the last couple of months. Maybe it’s a combination of those things. I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t really care, I’m just glad that the happy pills are kicking in and I’m not so crabby all the time anymore. In about an hour, I’m leaving the office to run by the bank before I head to the airport for my weekend in Galveston. Last year, the first time I went to Dickens on the Strand, I loved it. There were several shops that I didn’t make it into, and I’m hoping that they are not among the ones that have elected not to return after Ike. I had a grand plan to get together a whole Victorian outfit for this weekend, but alas, life intervened, and I didn’t get it done. Perhaps next year I will be healthier, and thus feel better and be better able to get my shit together. Yeah, don’t hold your breath for that, I’ve been saying it for years. I’ve done a lot of traveling this fall, and I can honestly say that this is only the 2nd trip that I’ve truly been looking forward to. Sure, I was looking forward to the others, but most of them, by the time they came around, I was not as enthusiastic as I had been, and would almost (and in a couple of cases definitely) rather have stayed home. That is not to say that any of my trips were a waste, they were all a learning experience of one sort or another, and they afforded me the opportunity to spend time with people that I enjoy, and only get to see once or twice a year. This is my last trip for the year, and quite frankly, I think it’s high time I stopped for awhile. Among all the faires and festivals I’ve been to, I’ve been at faire/fest a total of 16 weekends, traveling for other Celtic events 2 or 3 weekends, family related travel 2 weekends, plus I moved in March and early April, I don’t think I’ve been that busy in YEARS! I’m TIRED, and am going to take advantage of the time off after surgery to try to finish getting my house in order, and do some real relaxing. Back to the Christmas music… I LOVE Christmas music, and this year, one of my purchases was the Tartan Terrors’ Christmas album. Carol of the Bells has always been one of my favorites, and as much as I love the bagpipes, I never thought about having a version of that tune done on bagpipes. Yep, I love it. What’s not to love, it’s bagpipes, right? J I should create links in this post, but you know what? Right now I’m not gonna, because I’ve got a couple of other things to do before I leave, but I’ll probably get back into it and create them later. Have a great weekend, I know I will!

OK, so my pity party isn’t over. I can only hope that once the next couple of weeks are done, some of this craziness in my head & body will go away, once my surgery is done. Sigh. I HATE people who whine and moan all the time about how awful their life is, yet I seem to be becoming one of those people. I seem to have become very negative here lately, and I suspect it’s causing me to push people away, that I really don’t want to push away. Maybe I’m not even pushing, maybe they are just deciding that it’s better to avoid me, I don’t really know. I’m not sure how to ask either. This weekend I have plans to go to Galveston for Dickens on the Strand, and I’ll put on my happy face and get through that, hopefully without too many questions that are going to send me back into this dark place I seem to have found myself in. I’ll be spending time with people who bring great fun and joy into my world, and hopefully that will help. If not, well, at least I’ve done my part to help with the recovery from Ike, right? Off to bed, as my meds are kicking in.

On a better note

It was a hellish week last week, and I've come to a couple of conclusions. First off, I try to do entirely too much. I don't necessarily overschedule myself, I just tend to forget to schedule myself some downtime on a regular basis. I never really thought about it much before, but in the past few months, I have not had a whole lot of just mindless, quiet time. There are several reasons for this. The biggest, I think, is the presence of another person in my house. When there's a roommate in the picture, and you've lived alone, save for the cats, for 6 years, it takes a little adjustment. I can't just go in my room and close the door, because that locks the cats either in and screaming because they want out, or out and screaming because they need the litterbox. The roommate situation should resolve itself by the end of January, but in the meantime, I need to work out how to achieve my own quiet time with someone else in the house. The second reason I haven't had so much down time is because I've done a good bit of traveling over the last few months, and it seems as though I'm always packing for a trip, or unpacking from a trip, or planning what to pack for the next one. Mostly I've enjoyed my travels, but quite honestly, I am glad that this weekend is the end of my traveling until probably spring at least. Secondly, I am so wired to be a caretaker to the world, that I tend to get swept up in helping other people and doing for them, that I forget to make myself important too. Ultimately, this leads me to begin to feel taken for granted. I suppose that the bottom line is that with a couple of exceptions, I AM a better friend than I HAVE. I need to remember to be a better friend to ME, which may sound selfish, but at some point I wind up having a breakdown and getting hysterical over stupid stuff because I've gone too far for too long for too many people besides me, and get, I don't know, lost, I suppose for lack of a better word. Yep, I reached that breaking point over the weekend. It is not my responsibility to save the world, it is my responsibility to save ME, and THEN do what I can to make the world a better place. I am also beginning to feel a little stress over my upcoming surgery. Two weeks from today, I will be uterus-free. This makes me quite happy, as I have had now a total of 371 menstrual cycles. With the exception of 1 that was only 3 days, and 1 that went on for 2 weeks (yeah that was a nightmare let me tell you), they have all been 5 days long, almost identical to each other. Yep, that's 1862 days of everyone's favorite aunt flo. Add to that anywhere from 5-8 days of PMS each month on top of those actual periods, and that's another 1800-2500 days of hormonal bitchiness, crying, and general BLAH-ness. Yep, I'm done. I'm over it. I've had plenty thanks. In the last couple of years, the PMS has been getting worse, I've cramped more than ever, and I just keep being more and more miserable each month. I've had several people ask me if I am sure about the hysterectomy, because, well, there are other options, such as endometrial ablation, which is a 70% chance of no more period. Umm, yeah, thanks, but since the cost is about the same for both options, I'll take the one that is a 100% chance of no more thankyouverymuch. That doesn't mean that I'm not nervous about the surgery. I mean, the last time that I had surgery was when I was 3 and fractured my skull and required neurosurgery (yep, explains a lot doesn't it?). I have no memory of that incident, so I have no idea what really to expect as far as reactions to medications, etc. Fortunately, it's a laproscopic procedure, so it should just be day surgery and I should be able to sleep with my cats that night. I do have someone lined up to wait at the surgery center for me, and take me home, then stay with me until my roommate comes home from work that night. I think I've got someone coming the next day, and beyond that I've not got worked out yet. I've been told by a couple of people that I'm going to want, and actually probably need someone there at least the first week or so. I guess I better get cracking on that. The bonus to the surgery is that I will have a couple of weeks off from work and hopefully get a little sewing done for faire in the spring.

My last couple of trips have not turned out as I had expected or hoped, but I'm determined that this weekend will be different. I am headed down to Galveston for Dickens on the Strand. Yes, Ike did some major damage, and Dickens won't be the same as in previous years, but the festival is most definitely an indication of the island's desire to rise from the rubble and return to normal. Lots of entertainment and vendors, though smaller than usual, it should be a good time. I'm staying with friends, in their historic home, which was fortunately not as seriously damaged as it could have been by Ike.

thanksgiving sucked

/28/08 This has quite possibly been the worst Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. I am finding that I have less and less patience for people in general. I drove 6 hours to come to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere to spend a few days with 3 of my very favorite people. I knew going into the trip that I was going to have to suffer the presence of 2 of my very least favorite people. Darla is my very best friend ever, and honestly I would do anything in the world for her, however I think I have found the one thing that I won’t do. I can deal with her snotty, bitchy sister and her smarmy brat niece, or I can deal with her drunken asshole boyfriend, but I have found that I cannot deal with them all at the same time. I have spent the better part of the last 41 hours either drunk, or crabby, or both. Neither of those 2 adults has reached the conclusion that there are other people in this house who have an opinion, or feelings. Lisa has spent most of the time I’ve been here telling Darla how to parent Nick, because, well, since Darla has managed to raise Nathan to the ripe old age of 17, he’s not been in trouble with the law, he’s doing fine, for the most part in school, and in general he’s a well-adjusted kid, clearly Darla’s an incompetent parent! Rick, on the other hand, has spent most of the time I’ve been here completely drunk and in general being an asshole to everybody except the baby. Last night, once the baby was asleep, the bratchild was also asleep, Nathan had gone to his room, and I laid down on my bed (the couch) in the living room to try to go to sleep. Rick and Lisa decided that they were going to stay up and watch the end of US Marshals or whatever the damn movie was. I plugged in my IPOd and tried to ignore them and go to sleep. Yeah, notsomuch. Asshole decided that he couldn’t hear the movie well enough, so turned up the volume, now that the baby was asleep in his room. I tried to ignore them as best I could until the movie ended. Silly me, I thought that I would actually get to go to sleep. Lisa headed to bed, but oh no, not asshole. He turned on a light, dug around in the cabinet and got out yet another movie to watch! I asked him if he was going to watch movies all night and his response was “oh, just for a little bit.” I got up and started into his bedroom to get in bed with Darla and he acted all offended, but I just told him “I can’t sleep with that TV on. I’ll go in there and sleep in your bed, you can stay up and watch tv all you want.” I eventually fell asleep, about 12:15 in the morning, in there with Darla. All was fine until 4:30 when he decided that he was ready to get in bed, at which point he came and tried to rouse me out of my spot. Darla told him to leave me be, so he slammed outta the bedroom and came out to the couch. I’m ok with it. Fucker. I got up around 7 to get up and hopefully get to spend a little time texting with Tom before he had to go to work, and sent Rick into his bed. I had about an hour of peace before Lisa & bratchild woke up and came out. While I was in the shower, Rick found it amusing and appropriate to try to gawk at me through the shower door, and bang on it. WTF??? He wasn’t even drunk yet… I think he was on his 2nd beer of the day. In all reality, if not for the fact that I will be unable to travel at Christmas, thus unable to do what I have done for nigh on 10 years now, which is spend Christmas with Darla & Nathan, I would not be here at all. I would have stayed home, gotten a few things done around the house, and started getting ready for Christmas. Unfortunately, next year, it will be Lisa’s year to have the bratchild at Christmas, so they’ll be back here again, which means I will NOT spend Christmas with Darla & Nathan for 2 years in a row. Sigh. I want so desperately to talk to someone specific, but even if he was not at work, I am not sure I could talk to him without being completely negative and bawling my eyes out, and I just don’t want to subject him to that. He doesn’t deserve my ranting and whining, because he brings a smile to my face and light to my world, and I hope that I do the same for him, at least sometimes. Eventually I think we’ll reach the point that I feel comfortable telling him what all is going through my head and fussing and crying my little eyeballs out when I’m overwhelmed, but I’m not sure he’s ready to deal with that right now. Saturday, November 29th dawned and Lisa & bratchild finally left. Soon after that, Darla & I headed for the big city. In that part of the state, that means Midland/Odessa… big woo, right? Well, our first stop was The Candle Café in Midland. It’s absolutely my favorite candle shop. More on that later, when I can gather my thoughts for a more positive, less rant-filled post. One of Darla’s other friends met us at the Candle Café. This is a person that I was never terribly crazy about, but in the last couple of years, she’s made some choices that cause me to want nothing to do with her. At any rate, I knew we were going to have to meet up with her, as she had some things to give to Darla for Christmas, but I told Darla to begin with, I do NOT want to spend the whole day with her. It’s bad enough that we get less than 24 hours of time for just us (except for dipshit rick and the boys). So we were driving into Midland, and we passed a street on the outskirts and she said “her aunt lives down that road”. Now, see, I was willing to begin with to meet up with this chick because I thought she lived in Abilene and was only in town for the holiday weekend. But HELL NO, she fricking LIVES THERE. She lives less than 2 hours from Darla, yet the only time that she can find to see Darla is when I have driven 6 hours to see her. WTF???? So as we were leaving, Darla retrieved her things from the chick’s car and the chick said she would follow us to the Christmas bazaar that we were planning on hitting next. As Darla got in the car I said (probably rather loudly, and honestly, believing that chick was in her own car already) “Oh HELL NO, I am not spending all day with her, how long is she planning on following us around? I did not drive 6 hours and 400 miles plus another 120 today to put up with her bullshit today!” Chick pulled out of her parking space before we did, but not angrily as far as I could tell. Darla said we’ll just tell her we’re heading back home after the bazaar. When we got to the bazaar, she wasn’t there yet, which surprised us, but in all honesty, I didn’t care, since I really didn’t want to be with her anyway. She arrived a few minutes later and we set about wandering around. As is our nature, we wind up being in different booths at the same time, but we always manage to hook back up every few minutes. I hadn’t seen her in about 30 minutes, and it had been about 15 since I’d seen Darla, but I did find Darla again and was at a booth with her looking at hair stuff, when chick came up with her bags acting all pissy, and told Darla she was leaving. Darla asked her if there was something wrong and she said no, that she just needed to go home. Off and on throughout the rest of the day Darla fretted about why she left early, if Darla had done something to hurt her feelings or piss her off. I tried to get her to not worry about it, I suspect that perhaps she heard my rant about not wanting to spend the whole day with her, and I don’t rightly give a damn. In the last 6 years, I have NEVER been able to have a visit out there with Darla without her horning in on something, on at least 1 day of my visit. She’s self absorbed, and always has an agenda. When Darla had Nick, she was Darla’s coach in labor & delivery, and she stayed with Darla when she went home from the hospital until I got there. Darla’s choice was to breast feed, and Darla was open about this, though because of some delivery complications, her milk didn’t come in very quickly, and so Nick had to be started on formula. Until I was there and I was able to have a say so and support Darla, chick was doing everything she could to hinder breast feeding. Again, I say WTF??? She was totally unhelpful about making sure the pump was nearby and as soon as he started fussing, instead of handing him to Darla (who wasn’t allowed to lift anything over about 3 lbs, and had to be off her feet except to go to the bathroom for a week after he was born), she carried him into the kitchen with her while she fixed a formula bottle. Yep, she is just one more person in Darla’s world who wants everything her way, hence I don’t want to deal with her if possible. After the Christmas bazaar (which was fun, but that will all go into a nicer post as well), we headed back to Midland to hit the mall, since I THOUGHT that’s where the nearest Lane Bryant was. Talk about a fustercluck mess! The first entrance/exit that we came to was closed off, so it took 20 minutes to get into the stupid parking lot. Yeah, no Lane Bryant. Picked up a few things at Bath & Body Works as long as we were there, then hit Victoria’s Secret to see if they had the sweats Darla wanted. By the time that we got to Academy to pick up what pinhead had sent $ for, and got to Walmart, it was 5:30. We made our rounds and got everything that was on our written list. I had forgotten to write one thing down, but it wasn’t anything major. By 6:15, I was over it and burnt to the ground, so we went to find an open checkout lane. UMM, you know those commercials now, about opening more checkout lanes on Saturdays? I think they forgot to get that information to the Walmart in Midland, right there on I20. I swear to you, there were 8 self-checkouts, 3 express lanes (20 items or less), and 1, yes, I said ONE regular checkout open. uMM, yeah, a total of 12 out of I think 36 or 40 lanes were open. Helpful, since I needed to reload a gift card, and we had about 30 items. I just gave up on the reload, and we did the self checkout, after which we noticed as we walked out, that 2 more regular lanes had been opened. GRRRRR! We rolled into the driveway about 8:45 or so to find that we had company, one of butthead’s co-workers. No idea how long she’d been there, but of course butthead was drunk, the baby wasn’t bathed or ready for bed, AND as I discovered when I heated up some potato casserole and got some carrots for MY dinner, NOT FRICKING FED YET! Therefore, instead of eating my potatoes, I had to feed them to the baby. The company left around 10:30, and the baby was bathed by then. When Darla tried to settle Nick down to sleep, butthead had to keep trying to “help” however in his drunken state, and because he will tell him “you don’t have to go to sleep, but you have to sit here with me and watch tv” the baby thinks he’s going to be rescued and not have to go to sleep yet. I think finally around 11:30 butthead went to bed, and within about 10 minutes, Nick was out for the count. So, finally, it’s nearly midnight, and there’s now way in HELL I am going to try to get the itunes stuff transferred from my computer to Darla & nathan’s so she can sync when she wants to update it. I also discovered that asshole had opened and drunk half of each of my last 2 Dublin Dr Peppers. OK, now screwing me out of my Dr P is a killing offense in my book. And this pinhead has opened not ONE, but TWO, and drunk the sum total of 1 of them, leaving the halves to go flat. Not that I would drink out of anything I know he’s drunk out of, since he’s got a wad of chew in his mouth most of the time, so God knows what his drunk ass left in the cans after taking a swig! Sunday morning I was hoping to be on the road by 10 a.m., but that didn’t happen because I had to do the whole itunes transfer thing, and even then, it didn’t transfer into her Itunes, it just went to her music folder. So I left Nathan in charge of making sure that everything got into the proper place, as well as recreating the playlists, but I was hysterical before I gave him the task! OH, and Lisa called to see if I would go to the Cracker Barrel in Abilene and pick up the baby doll that bratchild left the day before when they stopped for lunch. Um, yeah, that is a great big NO! Especially since I didn’t plan on going through Abilene! I wound up leaving about 11:30. Stopped in Ozona at the DQ to get a DP and some lunch. Yeah, I’d filled my cup with some on my way out the door, not realizing that dipshit had given the company something to drink in it the night before, and left fricking LIMES in the bottom. I HATE LIMES! Yep, we’re up to 3 wasted dr p’s now, 2 from Dublin at a cost of about $1.25 each, plus a regular one. So, I place my order “Hunger Buster with cheese with KETCHUP AND PICKLES ONLY, and a large dr pepper. “ she repeated it back to me, correctly, gave me my total, and I pulled up. I got my drink and about 3 minutes later they told me to pull forward and wait. Sigh, so I did, and about 5 minutes later, here came my food. Go back 2 sentences and see what I said. Go on, I’ll wait. Yep, clear as day I said KETCHUP & PICKLES ONLY. My burger came out “sub ketchup for mustard” WTF??? It’s a good thing that my aversion to onions and tomato slices has to do with flavor/texture, and not an allergy, because hot damn, there they were, nestled in among the shredded lettuce. As frustrated as it made me, it just wasn’t worth the bullshit of waiting in line behind the million cars parked, or the 7 in the drive through to raise hell about it. I only made 1 stop after that, in San Angelo for gasoline and a potty break. It took me a total of about 6 hours from door to door, including the 2 stops, so I made pretty good time. When I got home, the house was pretty much in the same state I’d left it in, which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t a huge deal, but since I’d been hearing for a couple of weeks that Helen’s plan was to do some cleaning while I was gone. Oh well.