does this mean we’re supposed to get married now?

So my boyfriend totally ripped a nasty smelling fart in our bed today and wasn’t even embarrassed. I think he was kind of proud actually. He didn’t even say excuse me, just giggled.

Sigh.

 

*facepalm*

I wish I could blog at work, I mean if I could blog real time from my desk you guys would be endlessly amused. The gossip of who’s banging who, and who’s not banging who, and of course my awesome stories from the cream of the crop.
To protect my ass, I will refrain from saying where I work,  and who I work for but the people who know me know where I work. I will say, we are not in contact with the fortune 500 or even those with half an ounce of common sense in their heads. I make less than a wal mart employee, and I get treated worse. It’s a good job.

Recently I got accepted on the diversity committee, finally.. something to make me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile in that place and maybe even some time off the phones because even after over a year, I still am a phone jockey. That’s the only thing that is positive in that place right now. Other than the news that this quarter, for the first time since 2007 we turned a profit. Possibly because they didn’t give any of us raises, maybe.

Company which shall remain nameless decided to take those profits that we made, and then some, and renovate wall street office buildings instead of putting it back into their employees, possibly giving us much deserved raises or even give us back the money they took away for tuition reimbursement or to lift the hiring freeze so we’re not always back to back on calls. I’m sure office buildings are good too.

Job stuff aside, I got my kids who are getting bigger every day, saying and doing new things all the time. The baby amazes us all the time at the things she does and of course makes us way proud.

Speaking of. Nap time. WOOHOO.

 

angry cows, deer and beer

that sums up my night out camping.

We were a bit late getting on the road and it started getting dark which I was afraid of, and being in the mountains dark driving isn’t always fun.
So anyway we’re driving along, talking and looking for the turnoff and totally miss seeing this DEER standing on the side of the road. Just standing there but it scared the bejeebuz out of us because we didn’t see it until it would have been too late. So we’re on edge from that, and driving slower. It’s a small winding road, soft shoulder, long drop down so we’re peeing ourselves, essentially.
Anyway we finally start getting more comfortable and driving a little faster (read: 25mph) and the driver completely FAILS to see the family o’ dear running across the road. She’s too busy focusing on this oncoming car. I’m yelling, blubbering and pointing and she’s like “I see the car!”
Finally they clear the road and I’m like “No. DEER!” so she’s like “Oh shit how did I not see that!!!”

yeah so we drove slower rest of the drive. We didn’t see another deer but later come upon open range, and there were cows on the SIDE of the road and on the road itself. Sigh. One looked particularly angry and I guess had an itch because just as I was saying it looked angry it whipped it’s head over and was biting itself.
I’d be lying if I said I did NOT almost pass out, tunnel vision and all that.

We made it in one piece but it was a near thing. So we stop at a few campsites before we find the one we’re looking for, and sit down to drink. Aside from my friend and I being followed around by drunk horny men, it was an awesome time. It’s not every day you get to watch fully grown adults not in college do keg stands

 

Man, the apple can really fall far from the tree

I like to think I’m a really liberal person. I basically just want to live life and not hurt other people and let other people live life and not hurt others. In a nutshell that’s me. I mean, I want to conserve the earth as much as possible and all that but really it’s just about living right now.

Well so I had a long talk with my uncle on the phone. Usually that’s not a terrible thing because he’s a really cool guy. Most of the time. I now wonder if I blocked it out or if I just never paid attention. He may have just been in a bad mood but I refuse to excuse it. Man, I never thought of him as bigoted. He wants a new elected Canadian government so they will oust gay marriage, and said that the country is in trouble if states here continue to allow it.

What the hell, ya know? *sigh*
I know. I’ll get over it, it just makes me sad. My uncle knows about me, and he knows that I have close friends and family who struggle with the gay marriage laws. Man, choose a better person to spout off ignorant crap to. The gem of the conversation is as follows..
“Well gay marriage is the reason the Roman empire fell. Think about it, if nature had intended people to be gay they would have made it so both sexes could reproduce with each other.”

Yep, you nailed it there uncle

 

For Ember, a brief history of myself part 1

I’ll get in what I can, make it as sensible as possible and come back and edit as necessary. I’ll have to do most of this at night, but I’m not smart at night soooo….

I feel like I’m writing a poor me post to make people feel sorry for me for the “tough” life I’ve led. I want to clarify, I like my life. I like who I am now, and without my life I wouldn’t be me.
Where to start? The beginning, I suppose eh. I was born May 7 1980 in a small town in Ontario Canada. My mom, a single mom with no possibility of a relationship with my father, so much so that even as an adult I don’t know who that man is. My mom had some serious issues. Low self esteem, depression that was either severe or bi-polar in nature. She self medicated with drugs and alcohol. I don’t have any issues with weed or hash or any of the like, but it affected her judgment in so many ways. And it wasn’t just weed, we’re talking everything. Whether she took the hard stuff while pregnant with me or not, I don’t know. I know she drank and smoked. We moved, a lot. We found ourselves homeless a few times living in the upstairs “apartment” over the restaurant she worked for. We lived with my grandmother in a large house with the whole family for a few years, then my grandmother died when I was around age 5, and we had to move again. We did finally wind up in a duplex. It was home to me, not horrible, it had a back yard and a front yard but if I were to see it to this day I’m sure it’d be a slum of sorts. River rats in the basement, bugs, leaking water and an old gas stove that once had the pilot light go out while we were gone, filling our home with gas.

My years in that house were filled with nightly parties, random men in my mother’s room, my mom’s friend having sex with her boyfriend in the living room, smoking, drinking and snorting cocaine while I slept and played upstairs, creepy “uncles” wanting me to come and sit on their lap and leering when I walked around in my underwear. I knew what hash looked like and what “hot knives” were before the age of 9. I knew that the rolled up Canadian Tire money was mom’s and I shouldn’t touch it. I was a latchkey kid, responsible for getting myself to school and spent a lot of nights home alone until all hours of the night. If I wasn’t home alone I was at different babysitters houses. I mean it wasn’t ALL bad, but there were drunken fights, my mom getting pushed around by various boyfriends and a lot of things that I hope my children never see.

When I was about 7 or 8, I was riding my bike to the park and rode it across this bridge that led to the playground. The bridge had a ramp on the end that ended in a sandy dirt area and my front tire hit it and slipped sideways, sending me flying face first over the handlebars of the bike. I landed on my chin first. Dazed and embarrassed, I got up and brushed myself off. There was a lady coming towards me to make sure I was okay and she freaked out. “Oh my god you’re bleeding!” I looked down at the blood coming down my chest and touched my chin and freaked out when my hands were covered in blood. Screaming they tossed me in their car and drove me to my house, where they got my mom who also freaked out, and we all went to the hospital. No, we didn’t know these people but it was a small town so you just did things like that. 14 stitches, I was fine but my jaw was dislocated and I couldn’t eat. I distinctly remember trying to eat after, and my jaw would click and snap, and it would hurt so bad I’d start crying. Mom’s friend Noeleen ever so sweet yelled at me to quit being a whiner. I think my mom felt kind of bad, and so she made me a slim fast shake to “eat”.

We were poor. Dead poor. My mom was a server (back then they were still called waitresses) and had a drug and alcohol habit, so you can imagine how much money we had for food in the house. We rarely had food, and I remember being so hungry so much of the time. One time, I went to the church for food. I was an active member, and I was pretty devout at the time, and I told them that we didn’t have food. They came by with a box of food one day, and my mom was so embarrassed. She screamed at me, and told me to NEVER tell anyone we didn’t have food, ever again. I didn’t, but she also picked it up a bit, and bought food more often.
I spent a lot of time in bars, in a small town your children were allowed to be in the bar until 9pm, so I’d hang out there in smoky bars, playing pool until she made me go home. She had second and third jobs, bartending, bouncing, whatever she could do to bring in a few extra bucks (and still get to drink). Then the party was always at our place after work.

One time, desperate for my mother to pay attention to me, I pretended to faint. I was at a sitter’s place and the sitter and her boyfriend were at a hotel, to which they had dragged me. They had a knock down drag out fight, he put his fist through a window and there was something about a metal baseball bat, and so I “passed out” supposedly. The sitter freaked out and took me to the emergency room to be checked out. My mom, awesome parent of the year she was, didn’t stop partying, but she sent my uncle to come get me. I freaked out and screamed and said NO! because I wanted my mommy. They finally called my mom, the cops came and she took me home. Not to be outdone, my mom had friends over and when she asked me why I threw such a fit I told her that I wanted HER to get me, not someone else. She freaked out. Screaming and yelling, saying she needed to do something for herself for once and the one time she did I pull that crap. So bad, that my godfather dragged her away from me outside and told her to quit being a bitch, and if she was that mad to hit him because he wasn’t going to let her hit me.
That was one time, out of many incidents where I’m pretty sure my mom lost control of herself. I could name so many times when I was being beat or slapped around chased under furniture where I tried to hide, or trying to lock myself into my bedroom. Waking me up at 4am so I could dig through the trash to find my mom’s chunk of hash that I threw out in a fit of anger. To say she was mom of the year is an understatement. I refuse to blame her, she was screwed up and had no way of fixing herself and nobody tried to help her. Hell I thank her as an adult. Had she not shown me what parenting *isn’t* I wouldn’t be where I am now. She wasn’t all bad, either. She had a good heart. She loved me. She was just a screwed up person. She didn’t have a chance to continue to screw me up however, and while I hate what happened and I miss her more than I can describe I think it was a good thing to happen.

It was the end of April in 1990 when I got off school. It was a beautiful sunny warm day and I was in a great mood. School was going well and I loved being in the 4th grade. Where I went to school, we were the “seniors” there and I ruled that school. It was awesome. I skipped to the chinese restaurant where my mom and all my aunts had worked. The owners there were like family. Ping and Mrs. Tam. I loved them, and he’d seen me grow up. He saved us so much, often he would “accidentally” mess up an order and would tell my mom she could take it home to me. He’d give me free lunch there every day. I went there and my mom came over to me. One of her friends was having a hard time, her boyfriend had been seriously hurt and was in the hospital in another town. She was drunk, and still drinking and mom kept giving her drinks to try to make her feel better I guess. Mom told me she was going to go with her after work to the hospital so she could see the boyfriend. I honestly don’t remember the friend’s name any more which is funny because I thought I’d hate her forever. Mom gave me the keys to the house and told me that she wouldn’t be home till late, so just hang out. Besides it was “Junior Soldiers” night, so I’d be occupied. I ran off to go home and when I got to the door, I had an overwhelming urge to go back to my mom. I did, and I kissed and hugged her again and told her I loved her and would see her later.

I went home, ate some food and watched TV waiting for my ride to church. When someone knocked on my door I didn’t think twice about it because I was expecting it. I opened the door and there was the Lieutenant as expected, but he didn’t look happy to see me at all. I looked past him and there stood my neighbors and a few other people on the sidewalk behind him. People kept patting my shoulder and hugging me, telling me that everything would “be okay” and I was totally clueless. TOTALLY. Nobody told me a thing, until my uncle and his friend pulled up in their truck. “Nadine, your mom has been in an accident. We’re going to go out to the hospital right now okay? We have no idea what happened yet but I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
I saw the Lieutenant from the church pull up then to pick me up, and the look on his face as he was filled in.

So, I got in the truck and we drove to the next town. On the highway going to the hospital I saw the accident site. It was a mess, the car. The windows were all busted out and it was upside down and crushed like a tin can. I thought, “well Mom’s tough, I bet she’s fine.”

Turns out, mom wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and in her poor judgment allowed the drunk friend to drive. The wheel come off the shoulder and hit the dirt, and she overreacted, the car’s wheel hit a ditch and flipped several times, throwing my mom out the rear window head first. She was found several feet behind the car, when the emergency crew arrived, and she was still mostly alive at the time. She died on the way to the hospital in the ambulance. That’s about all I know. The head trauma was so severe that there was no chance that even if she had lived, that she would be “her” again.
I got to the hospital and there was the woman who was driving. She had a dislocated shoulder and I had no idea of mom’s condition so I went to her and asked her if she was okay. She said she was sorry, so sorry.. and then my aunt came out of the family room and took me back there. Inside, they shut the doors and I sat down. I looked down at the bible on the table at that moment. This is important because I think this is a major turning point in my life. As I stared at that bible, my aunt told me my mom was dead. I wanted to see her. My aunt said okay, and went and asked the doctor to let me in the room. There was a quiet, but heated argument and I only heard some of it but “we haven’t cleaned her up yet” was part of it. I didn’t care. I said “doctor, that is my MOM in that room. I need to see her because I’m not going to ever see her again. I don’t care what she looks like.. she’s my mom”. After a while, he let me in.

The following is pretty graphic. Skip if you need to.

There she was, her freshly dyed hair was still burgundy except for the spots that were matted. Around her ears, and in her hair was a lot of blood and pieces of something. Her features were somewhat deformed, the intensity of the damage to her skull had done some facial trauma even. She was still, however, my mom. I needed that moment to look at her and know she was really dead. She was naked, and her cut up clothes were still on the floor in the room. There was still blood and resuscitation materials.. it was all so surreal. It was exactly the closure I needed.

In a haze from there, I left the room and spent some time with my family listening to them grieve. I didn’t cry for a while. I kept looking at the bible on the table and the cross on the wall. I refused to let the clergy talk to me. I didn’t care. Eventually I was driven home and expected to continue breathing.

(back with more later)

 

This is why I can never blog..

Seriously.

I finally finish signing up, I activate my blog and then;

Me: Monty, go get some clothes so we can go to the zoo.

Monty: *carrying his empty plate* Okay.

*crash*
*Sigh*

Me: What was that?

Monty: I dropped my plate

Me: *Sigh* did it break?

Monty: Yeah.

So I go clean up plate. Sit down and kids want a movie. I put movie in. TV is on wrong channel, can’t find remote and you can’t put it on the right channel without it. Find remote, no batteries. Put batteries in remote. Change channel. Sit down.

Fighting between toddlers ensues.

Finally everyone shuts up for 5 minutes and here I am. Sigh. Please, have no great expectations from this damn thing ok

Edited to add: My son just informed me he has no shorts. Awesome. At least I managed to get one entry in

 

Part 2 in the not so brief history of me

I watched my house be basically torn apart. We lived in such squalor that it was literally disgusting. Looking back it was bad. The basement flooded regularly and that’s where my toys were kept so those were thrown out. The bed was gross and thrown out. Bags and bags of clothes were thrown out in preparation for me to move. The night after my mom died, we had KFC for dinner. I ate my food sort of, I took one of those lemon finger wipes and went and sat on the steps outside and cleaned my hands. For some reason I remember vividly rubbing that wipe on the metal bars and watching the wet streaks disappear. I thought of how quickly things in your life disappeared. That night I went upstairs and fell asleep on my mom’s bed wrapped in her coat and holding a keychain in my hand, in it was a picture of me that my mom carried.

The funeral was nice. My mom was very loved, and there were hundreds of signatures on the guestbook. Lots of flowers. My class came to the funeral. I looked one last time at my mom, I kept meaning to go back but I couldn’t after that one time. I sat with my friends and I cried. My godfather read a beautiful and funny eulogy and people passed condolences to my family and myself. After the funeral was food, for some reason my family always made food a big part of death. That night after the funeral, we sat outside on the deck and the adults had a beer. My uncle brought a beer out for me (trust me, I’d had plenty as a kid. My mom thought it was smart to get her daughter drunk on new year’s eve so I’d go to sleep and let her party) and we talked about my mom, and toasted her memory.

We had moved me, temporarily, into my aunt Corinne’s house to finish out the school year. My birthday was 10 days after the crash, and I still wanted to celebrate it and try to have fun. My classmates threw me a surprise party in class, with cake and the like in an effort to make me happy. My party was such a shit storm, I was angry and just basically hated everyone, and wound up driving everyone away and they all went home. I finished the school year, and most of the summer at her house. I hated it there. I was a bed wetter, and my mom had never tried to figure out why, and every time I peed the bed at my aunt’s house, my uncle would put me in the corner. There I had a dunce cap and a sign I wore, that said “I’m a dirty bed pisser” and I was to stay in that corner for an hour, each time it happened. I didn’t hold my silverware appropriately, and would frequently get hit on the hand with my uncle’s fork for holding it wrong. If I was late for dinner, I wasn’t allowed to eat and went to bed without dinner. He would often get drunk and belligerent and I’d wind up hiding in the bedroom.
I chose to go live with my other aunt, her and I had a great relationship so I thought that’d be the best. A new town, a fresh start.

So, I moved to the next town over. It was a big change for me, I moved in with my aunt and uncle and wound up taking her bedroom over until he moved out on his own. Looking back I know she tried her best but she had this pissed off 10 year old thrust on her suddenly, with no means to support me. She had a job previously but was laid off. I don’t think she had a job in the next 8 years I lived with her, but I could be wrong.

She had her own problems, anger issues mostly. We’ve since forgiven each other and I did my fair share of shitty things to her.. she was smack in the middle of my turbulent and horrible years.

Coming up; the teenage years