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Kelly Goes to College

I sent my first child off to college in August of 2003, the next in 2006, and the next in 2007.  Sending kids to college is old hat to this old mom.  However, sending this one was going to be harder.  She is the baby girl, the youngest girl in our family, and always the youngest in her class.  She will turn 18 next Tuesday, the day after she starts classes.  We were both expecting it to be horrible.  She said, “you’re going to have to peel me off you like you did when I went to kindergarten when you leave.”  “Um, Kelly,” I said, “I never had to peel you off me when you started kindergarten.”

And i didn’t have to peel her off yesterday either.

After we finally talked to the people in financial aid and the bursar’s office and financial aide and the bursars office and financial aide again, we were a little stressed out, but I managed not to pop an aneurysm, and much like in other areas of her life, Kelly was sort of like what? what is going on? why is this stressful? I am not stressed.  Also, thanks in no small part to her older sister who is a UMHB alum, she landed a SWEET work study gig in IT, or as they are calling it now InfoTech.  I am not sure she realizes how lucky she is in this regard, but when she realizes that that sweet gig will last her whole career at UMHB, she will.

Anyway, after a quick bite at Jalisco’s we were back on campus to get the girls back for their 4 o’clock meet and greet with their family groups.  UMHB does an amazing job of getting these kids hooked up with small groups and getting them involved.  While she did that, Casey and I went back to the room to try and make some sense out of it, which included putting the all important Twilight posters up. Since Casey has lived in that very house, she was moving desks and the refrigerator and the bunks around like tetris pieces until she was happy with the outcome.  By the time we were finished, there was floor, there was a place for her food, there was a set up desk, and it was good.

With our work done, there was nothing left to do than the inevitable. It was time to leave. Hugs and kisses all around and she walked us out, more hugs and kisses and we were off…Go Cru!  (she is holding up the “C” for Cru, which is short for “Crusaders,” which is their mascot). 

Nary a tear was shed in this whole process, short of the ones I shed on the way down there when those two hateful children told me the story of the The Giving Tree which rendered me practically useless for a few minutes. 

Also, how in the world have I raised five children and not read that book? Seriously?  The only thing I can think of is that I got wind it was as bad as I Love You Forever and just steered all the way clear of the evil thing.

When Casey and I were nearly home I said “Thank you for going with me to take Kelly to college today,” and she said

“Thank you for not making it painful.”

Which, as a mom, is sort of my job.

putting some beer on it

I have a friend whose ex-husband and his whole family are from somewhere in the high mountains of Virginia.  Oh, the stories he would tell of these “mountain people” who hoard canned goods and bury their dead in the sides of mountains and believe that Campho-Phenique cures everything from fever blisters to malignant melanoma.  If at any point in time you were at their house and say, you accidentally cut your finger off, well…they were going to put some Campho-Phenique on it.  It was their magic potion that made everything all better. 

Which is exactly what beer was to me for the better portion of the last decade or so. 

Happy?  Have a beer.

Anxious?  Have some beer.

Stressed out?  Have a keg of beer!!!

Beer was my Campho-Phenique.

I have purposely not really said much about the specifics of why the party stopped here at the Casa, as I didn’t really feel like it was my story to tell.  In my mind, it seemed that I was just the Best Supporting Actress at the party.  I rationalized a lot of things. I told myself that of course this was okay since in my previous life all that fun stuff was as tightly controlled as a high fashion model’s caloric intake.  I told myself if the fun was becoming a little problematic, and I first realized it was back in 2005…(or 2003 when we stopped wearing watches and started wearing flip flops all the time after our South Padre Island vacay and went on permanent vacay mode in the backyard), it was okay because hey, i wasn’t locking myself out of the house in the middle of the night or falling overboard like meg ryan in “When a Man Loves a Woman.”

We were just having fun.

And it was fun.

I’m not even going to lie.  It was fun and it was a very meaningful time of my life.  I think I will call it the Backyard Era since that is where we practically lived…and if it was summer, you could take away the practically and just say lived.

Some years ago, when Robert Downey Jr. was on Inside the Actor’s Studio, I heard him say something that struck something in me.  It was back when I first started paying attention to the fact that perhaps we were tiptoeing into very deep water.  He said:

“to say it got in the way would be to say that what i was expressing did not have validity for the suffering that i chose to put myself through. if it is all for nothing, then it is a tragedy and if you put it down and move on, then it is a way just to demonstrate that that is something that occurs and there is really really really nothing that anybody can’t survive as long as they survive.”

Reading that, I can’t really tell you what exactly it was about that that struck such a chord for me…perhaps that whole “as long as they can survive” part. 

Because here is what I knew.  Substance abuse, of one sort or the other, is prominent in our families.  Two of my uncles, one of whom became my father, were alcoholics big-time.  My dad/uncle died in his 50s and my uncle Ray is 70-something and has drank away his whole life and everything he owns in the world can fit in a few boxes.  The more I saw their faces in my mind, the less fun the party was for me…then a lot less fun…and then i was just like oh ferpetesake can we just stop this already?

And then Rob got sick and suddenly, in an instant, drinking was not an option anymore.  So I stopped too  (I also quit smoking which he has not yet, but my arms starts hurting if I start patting myself on the back too much about it) and our lives were instantly and profoundly transformed.

So, as it turns out, this was my story to tell…I mean, not saying out loud that I think I had a drinking problem didn’t change for a minute the fact that I did. 

Okay already. The point.

As I said last time, lately I’ve been feeling a little like a wet dish towel.  Out of the blue, I will cry.

Then I will stop.

I call it hitting emotional air pockets. 

I also laugh a lot. So, so much. I laugh a lot with my children. I relish in the times we are together and laughing. I hope that when they are old they will relish those memories, too, of us all around the dining room table…laughing. 

See, what has happened over these last nine months of my beer-free life is that I have learned to feel things again, and in this next year, I am going to experience taking my 17-year-old to start college, the college graduation of my beloved Longhorn, and the marriage of my oldest daughter and I am going to do it all without putting beer on it.

A friend of ours came by to bring some brisket last night (because that’s what we do in Texas…we comment on our neighbor’s facebook about how whatever he’s cooking sure smells good and BAM…knock knock knock…and you got yourself some brisket) and we got to talking, really for the first time since we put down the cans, and he just was looking at me all….like…not to be corny, but with wonder, which made me go all WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT DO I HAVE A BOOGER!?!?! 

But as it turns out, he was just noticing how happy I seemed, how smiley, how serene.

How nice is that to hear?

Specially since the next buncha months are going to be a lot about having a new freshman in college, lord help us all, and Reagan getting ready to jet off to New York City forever leaving me here in the Texas dirt, and wedding colors and bridesmade dresses and flowers and my firstborn walking down the aisle and leaving me here in the Texas dirt, and there are going to be plenty of times when I don’t necessarily feel happy or smiley or serene…

but the point is that I am going to feel.

understatement much?

Wow. It’s the 11th. Of August. How’d that happen? Gah. I have some catching up to do.

To put it simply, there is a lot going on in my life…if  by “a lot,” I mean so many big things…HUGE things…not like a new refrigerator or a new dog or a new job….those are all things I’ve talked about before.  Those things are easy to talk about.  Those things have preloaded adjectives like SHINY or SWEET or AWESOME and make for a quick blogpost:

GOT A NEW FRIG!  IT IS SHINY AND SWEET AND AWESOME. WOOT! <insert picture here>

The “a lot” going on now is the sort of “a lot” that makes me stand at the kitchen sink washing dishes and think a lot.  I also think a lot before I go to sleep at night…while I’m driving…while I’m at Walmart…while I clean house.  My brain has been like a refrigerator full of those word magnets and i am constantly manipulating in order to get what all is up in there out…and what always happens is that I get the first sentence and…the next thought pops in and I’m done.  It is exactly like someone has the remote control to my brain and is a channel flipper like Rob…they leave it on one thing just long enough for me to think of a sweet, poignant way to talk about how my baby girl is leaving for college and FLIP…we move on to NYC Prep…FLIP…get more coffee…FLIP…work.

It is very annoying.

That said, I better get on with it and catch y’all up…in bullets.

• I am going to be the mother of the bride.  My oldest daughter, The Teacher, and her long-time BF, who for a long time we referred to as Not the Boyfriend, are getting married next summer! 

He is a Marine and stationed in Japan, so a few weeks back she went over to visit and he proposed on the beach…in the rain <swoon>.  When she got back, she came over with all the Japanese schwag she brought us and we talked wedding for a long time and she passed right out on the big couch in the den.  I sat there across from her…this big girl all sprawled out, sleeping the sleep of someone who just lost 12 hours on a plane ride across the water, and just watched her sleep.  Like I used to do when she was a baby, leaning over the side of the crib, amazed at what a beautiful baby she was…awed over the fact that she was mine.  And I kept thinking where did that baby go?  Then I remembered this book I used to read to her called “Where Did the Baby Go?”  The next day I went tearing through stuff, trying to find it, but couldn’t. Somehow we kept a lot of lame-O kid books and sent THAT ONE to the book program at school. GRR.  So, I ordered a new one.  I will probably write something on an amazingly sappy card about how she will always be my baby and how when she reads it to her baby girl of the future, she should always remember how fast she is going to grow up and how she should treasure each moment with her.

 

hang on. I have to get some tissues.

See, that’s another thing.  I am soooooooooooo soggy lately.  Yesterday I was reading a wall-to-wall between my Longhorn and her childhood friend, Hunter, who is also going to be a Longhorn this year, and I GOT ALL TEARY for petesake.  I’ve taken to just walking around with a dish towel over my shoulder to wipe myself up after each emotional air pocket I hit or that Walmart commercial about the kid going to college…which leads me to bullet #2.

• Next Wednesday, I will be making that drive down 35W with my baby girl to drop her off at UMHB so she can start another chapter in the book of Kelly. 

She is 17 and acts 17 and sometimes will languish about, forgetting to feed herself or drink or move or blink, so I worry about things like if she will remember to eat.  Dane is younger than her, but she is definitely ‘the baby.’  She will be rooming with her BFF Joelle, and her oldest sister is a junior there, so I won’t worry quite as much, but it is definitely going to be weird just leaving her there…like really? am I just going to LEAVE HER THERE?  And I will probably write something on an amazingly sappy card about how proud I am of her and as is my tradition, I will choose a song lyric.  The one I have chosen for her is by John Mayer, Great Indoors…

so go unlock the door
and find what you are here for
leave the great indoors
 

And I will cry when I write it and have to wipe up with the wet dish towel I have on my shoulder.

• The Longhorn is back from New York and ready to start Senior year in Austin. 

I am so proud of that one.  She lived in New York all summer and will be going there to live after graduation, which makes me all like YAY YOU DID IT YOU ROCKED COLLEGE at the same time as I’m all like CRAP COLLEGE IS OVER AND YOU ARE GOING TO LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY WHICH IS FAR FAR AWAY FROM ME. 

Wipe. Wipe.

I am tempering the sadness of  her moving with the fact that I can go visit and stalk Robert Pattinson and on the way home stop over and see Casey and Lincoln wherever they are going to be stationed, which leads me to bullet #4.

• Immediately upon becoming a married woman, my oldest child will pack all her stuff and move.

Move far, far away to another state to be someone’s WIFE for petesake.  So, while I’m all like WOOHOO WEDDING PLANNING IS SO FUN LOOK AT THE PRETTY FLOWERS AND THE CAKE, OMG THE CAKE…I’m also realizing that she won’t be down the street anymore and I expect after the wedding it will be like after Christmas, when it is all over and you are standing in the middle of the room with all the boxes and paper and everyone has taken their toys to the other room…and it will be all over and she will be  GONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

West Virginia, that’s where.

• Rachel, my adorable, angelic, soon-to-be vegetarian stepdaughter, is heading to UMHB today. 

Her purple go-car is loaded to the hilt and she will hit the highway after she says bye to her daddy when he comes home for lunch.  There have been times over the years that I’ve almost resented the relationship those two have, but now I just think how lucky they are to have each other.  He loves me, but she is and will always be his little buddy.  She was when she was 2 and she will be when she is 30.  She “gets” him and he her.  She’s a sweetheart, that one.

• My baby boy, my youngest chiild, is about to be 11.  E-LEV-EN.  Please, someone, anyone, tell me how 11 years have gone by? 

He is going to be in 5th grade,  then in middle school, THEN IN HIGH SCHOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.  GAH.

Oh, but this boy. He is so funny and so bright and he really gets me.  I’d always heard about how different relationships are with mothers and sons, but I only just “get it” recently.  I am having fun watching this one unfold and for now, other than the fact that he has gotten so big allasudden, I don’t have to get the dish towel.

 

So, it occurred to me the other day that I didn’t have one single picture that wasn’t from christmas morning of all the kids together.  And it became very urgent for me to get one before they all scatter.  So, on what had to have been the hottest day of the year, we journeyed out to take one.  This one says it all.  WE’RE DONE. HEADING TO THE CAR. IT’S HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

and then we raced to Sonic.

I can’t imagine my life without this amazing bunch of people.  How I got this lucky, I’ll never know.

Where’s my towel

I’m Adopting…

the one on the right…at least for the summer…at least I am going to try to.

His name is Sam and he lives about four blocks that way and is pretty much the only kid around for Dane to play with.  He’s always been sort of a quiet one who bordered on shady to me…a little sheisty…and perhaps not the most ideal best bud for my kid.  But there is something about this boy that just won’t let me cross him off the buddy list, even after an incident at school last year when he could have gotten my kid in a heapin’ helpin’ load of trouble. 

Dane, of his own accord, distanced himself for a while, but all was forgiven and he wanted to play again, and I let him. 

On our Austin trip, where that picture was taken, I got to know Sam a little bit better, as I sat across from them on the bus ride down and was tickled by their incessant use of “DUDE!” whenever they addressed one another.  And to be clear, it was DUDE!, not just Dude.  More and more Samuel seemed to warm up to me, asking if he could call me “Mrs. Y” and flashing a quick, bright smile that went all the way to his velvety black eyes that look so much like my boy’s.  He’s built a lot like Dane, too, and from behind the only thing that really distinguishes the two is that Samuel is a little taller and his hair is longer and wavier.  At Luby’s, where we stopped for dinner, he sat with Dane and I and we got to know each other even better.  I learned that he hates strawberries, but loves just about every other fruit, and that he can put about four straws together and drink a Coke, and that I had this inexplicable desire to make him eyes smile.

So, yesterday, the boy and I went down and grabbed Samuel and I took them to SnoBiz for a snow cone.  Dane, of course, being the big fan of snow cones that taste like frozen adult beverages that he is, ordered Pina Colada, and Samuel blue coconut, which told me all over again that he was a good egg, since blue coconut is MY favorite, too.  We drove around a bit, the boys happily slurping their cones and DUDE! ing.

As we drove by the courthouse, Samuel said matter of factly, “I’ve been in there.  My dad sued my mom and I had to go in there.”

Nice, I whispered to myself, shaking my head and quickly talking about how it was such an old building and I bet it was so pretty since they remodeled it, blargy blargy blargy, because, duh, I can’t stand even thinking about that scenario…but the deep quiet in his black eyes started to make a little more sense to me just then. 

And he started unfolding. 

His mother, it seems, lives in a neighboring town with his brother and sister.  He lives here with his dad and (stepmom?) and an older cousin.  His mom bought him a four-wheeler, which is awesome, and she is from Puerto Rico and used to work at that nursing home.  His aunt’s last name is Zoolu, he wants to live in Manhatten when he grows up because it seems “so cool,”  he got the Most Improved Wildcat award at the end of school awards ceremony, and he dyed his pitch black hair blue the last day of school to celebrate. 

And I became positive that I wanted this boy to be that kid who is always around, flopped over this sofa or that, playing video games and eating our food.  He dyed his hair blue, ferpetesake

Anyway.

I’m going to take those two to the pool on Saturday and I’m going to find a shady spot to sit and read Twilight and sweat…and watch the dudes play while I soak up the sounds and smells of summer…Texas country music blaring from the sound system and chlorine…and I will smile.  I don’t have too many years left where I can do that without looking creepy, so I want to enjoy it while I can.

oh, and when we got home yesterday, Dane was positively beaming and proclaimed, while throwing his arms around me, I was the best mom ever.

Funny how something so simple as a snow cone run with a buddy can do that…  

Score.

I Never.

You know those memes that go around that have you check off all the things you’ve done in your life?  You know the ones where you check what you’ve done and copy and paste it and send it to your friends…you know, the ones who have also done crazy and fun and exciting things?

Well, they sort of depress me. 

Not because I am not happy with my life, because I am, but because they remind me how little craziness there has been in my life. 

I am the one at the county fair not riding the Zipper.  I’m also the one not parasailing, scuba diving, hang gliding, zip lining, bungee jumping, and jumping out of airplanes.

And it isn’t because I don’t think all those things would be absolutely crazy fun to do, because I do.

It’s because I can’t.

There is this button inside me.  My own internal shutoff switch that activates itself whenever I get within sight of a roller coaster.  I can go to Six Flags and have every single honest intention of actually riding a roller coaster, but when I actually get there.  The shutoff switch overrides my brain and game off.

I can’t help it.  And for the most part, none of those things actually even come up anymore anyway. 

But there is another thing I’ve never done that doesn’t involve being in the air, under the sea, spinning upside down, or jumping off of things.

I’ve never gotten a tattoo.  Not because I have anything against them or the people who do get them, though I don’t really get why it is that so many people who get one feel driven to get 40, but because I’ve always said that in order for something to be inked INTO my body, that something better have some relevance, some meaning, or usefulness even….like “Remember to _________ ” tattooed on my hand.

So far, I’ve made it to age 45 and nothing has met the criteria. 

I do, however, play the game with myself where I ponder what I’d get if I ever were to get one…a watch…some nice white anklets…the words “bite me” somewhere…so this morning I was piddling around, doing my morning trolling of the internet, and I found this site with Chinese symbols. 

And there it was.  My tattoo. 

an means peace, quiet, tranquility and calm.

It means: When there are no wars or disasters, everything in the land is safe and calm.

 

 

 

 I love peace.  I love tranquility.  I love quiet and calm

I’d get it….only…

Somewhere only I could see it.  It could remind me to be peaceful, tranquil, quiet and calm…and to hope for a land that is safe and calm.

Yep, I’d totally get that.

or get Casey to draw one on me with a Sharpie.

My May

I’ve always rather liked May, what with all the flowers that the April showers bring and what not.  I have had my May marked up on my big desktop calendar since January: 

 

 

 

• End of Pay Period on the 2nd and 16th.
• Paydays on the 8th and 22nd.
• Austin trip with Dane on the 1st (which was later changed to the 15th because of our Swine Flu Vacation).
• Austin trip to move Reagan on the 16th.
• Family Supper at Church on the 20th (which I completely forgot about due to brain fatigue from two trips to Austin).
• Band Banquet with Kelly on the 23rd.
• Kelly’s high school graduation on the 29th.
• Kayla’s wedding on the 30th.
• Reagan to the Airport on the 31st (to fly to NEW YORK CITY for her summer internship).

Now, to some, I guess that isn’t a whole lot to do in any given month.  But for me?  Listen, going to Walmart every two weeks pretty much all the fun I can stand…wish I was kidding….but I’m not.

So yeah, heading into May I was a little anxious, but excited mostly…and then, the bottom dropped out of my world when my phone rang and my Big Boss called me to inform me that my pay was being cut 30 percent blah blah blah industry standards blah blah blah buzzzzzzzz. 

To this day, I couldn’t tell you what all she said because after that 30 percent paycut part, I think I blacked out and fell onto the floor, in a livid, pissed off heap.  And then I cried.  Now, to be sure, not everyone got how monumental this was to me or how much it was going to change my life…and I was pissed off at them for not getting it…and I stayed pissed off at them for not getting it for a good long time.

At any rate, given the fact that I was considering strapping 25 sticks of dynamite to myself and walking into the California office, and then the Pittsburgh office, and then flying to freaking Mumbai and walking into the Mumbai office, and blowing them all to kingdom come, I decided it was probably best I resign, which I did as soon as I found another job…

another job that wasn’t going to pay anywhere near what I was making before the 30 percent paycut and only marginally more than what I would have been making after…but I was in whatthehellever mode and was going to show them good. 

At any rate, there are many, many things about the new job that I love so much I want to marry…the doctors, for one.  Oh, these doctors know how to talk and I love them and want to kiss them on the face for being so clear and considerate.  The owner of the company is wonderful.  The QA lady is wonderful.  Everything is so freaking wonderful…

except the money.

Blah blah blah. Sad I can’t just go buy two of anything I want anymore. Broken record, side two. WAaaaaaaaaaaaHHHHHHH.

After all that fun came the big Swine Flu Quarantine of 2009 and our schools shutdown for two weeks, wreaking havoc with the other things on my calendar, like the trip to Austin with the entire fourth grade class, which was an amazingly fun time and not something I wish to do again EVER, which is a good thing since I will never have a fourth grader again.  I loved the capitol and the Texas State Cemetary and the Tres Leches cake at Luby’s. 

Mostly, though, I loved my sneakers finally being on that bus headed home.

Some things I learned on the trip:

• Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin were not BFFs.
• Sam Houston hated Austin, TX.
• Everything in Austin is either uphill or upstairs.  Everything.
• All fourth grade boys go by “Dude.” 

I forgot to add that I woke up the morning of the trip with that all to familiar dull ache in my right jaw that would would yield to a dental abscess from the recesses of hell by the time I got home Friday night.  NO FUN.

The trip to move Reagan back was fun, too.  The Teacher played hookie and came with me and the three of us had lunch at the best mexican food place EVER (edited to say it is Trudy’s, since that picture is so teetiny) and I’m not even joking.  Like, you know what is better than the best mexican food ever?

The best mexican food ever served on plates as big as a turkey platter, that’s what.

She also took us for the best ice cream EVER (edited to say it is Amy’s since that picture is so teetiny)

Again, not even joking.  If you ever go, try the coconut kreme pie with coconut and graham crackers.  Seriously. It’s worth the trip. 

So, that more or less brings us current, less than 60 hours until my youngest daughter graduates from high school…leaving me with just one left and a blissfully long break before it’s his turn to walk across that field. 

After this month, I need me a long break.

 

 

 

 

 

Miss me?

I haven’t written here in a long time. 

I haven’t written anywhere for a long time.

And for the longest time I blamed the whole no writing thing on the whole not drinking thing, which may have been true in the beginning, but not so much now.  It occurred to me this morning that the reason I am not writing is just that is has become a habit more than the fact I no longer find every bit of my creativity and wit at the bottom of a Natural Light while mah Pall Mall burns down in the ashtray.

And that stops today.  This all started for me.  It felt good at the end of the day to sit down, drink a few (thousand) beers, smoke  a few (thousand) cigarettes, and write.  In blogging, much like in much of my real life, I felt so much more hysterical after I’d had a few…and somehow, peach tea wasn’t giving me the same result…so I just didn’t write.

Oh, I’d sit down to write…I’d mull things over in my head before sleep at night…I would fashion elaborate pieces in my head about the asshat at the four-way stop on Woodard who was on her cell phone…but in the end, I’d hit delete and go find something else to do.  A lot of it, I think, had to do with the fact that when I would write after a few (thousand) beers, I really didn’t edit myself much and seemed to always have something to talk about. 

Without the few (thousand) beers, I am very careful…leery of stepping on toes, leery of oversharing. I have come to realize that much of what I have to say now has to do with God and what I have seen him do in our lives over the last six months, and I am leery about that because I am not a “spiritual” writer and this isn’t a “spiritual” blog and so many of the ones that are sort of get on my nerves and I don’t quite know how to work with that. 

But, again, I can’t let that matter to me anymore.  I am going to write again.  And sometimes I will use the word “blessed,” probably a lot, actually…and sometimes I will call someone who was on their cell phone at the four-way stop an asshat, but I’ll say it in love.  Really.  Seriously.

The fact of the matter is this, in four short days I am six months off the juice and smokes and I cannot say that without becoming a little emotional…

Because I know I didn’t do it by myself…

and that deserves talking about. 

And besides that, there is so much else going on in my life that warrants talking about.  I have this bunch of children who do fun and exciting things that warrant talking about and I have these awesome floppy yoga pant things I got from Old Navy that warrant talking about and Dane’s sunflowers are huge and I have passion flowers by my bedroom window that smell like heaven must smell, and my Easter lillies from two years ago are blooming and I have this awesome new(ish) refrigerator that doesn’t really work right because it needs Randy the ApplianceMan to come out and fix it so that it won’t freeze up solid (here’s to doing your internet research before buying)…but look at it…isn’t it so pretty and shiny?

 

So, yeah.

I’m back.

 

 

 

Those who dream by day…

 are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Thanks, Edgar A., I’ll keep that in mind.

I’ve been divorced a long time and in that long time, there have been a small handful of times that me and “Dad,” as I’ve taken to calling him, because the only time I really ever talk about him is with the girls, whose dad he is,  so it is perfectly reasonable to call him “Dad,” have had a pleasant chat or shared a laugh without this heavy undercurrent of discomfort. 

Well, at Senior Band Night for the Senior, where the parents walked her onto the field and posed for the worst picture ever, a picture, whilst the announcer announced who she was and who we were and where she was going to go to college and what she wanted to be when she grew up.  It was the first in our many kid-related Senior activities where I just said screw all that tension, I’m going to enjoy this one…because, she Senior is our last one to do Senior Band night…EVER.

Anyway, so, I’ve never really had a dream with him in it that I would call “good.”  I’ve had dreams where he was mean to me and his parents were mean to me and I was trapped in a house with all of them being mean to me, but I’ve never had a good one.  So…

Imagine my surprise when, as I am lying there dreaming away and I realize I am having a most pleasant dream with him and Dianna and his folks, and some other people, and the kids and Rob and we’re all having a big ol’ barbecue and I’m cutting up with him and his parents and they aren’t throwing rocks at me and I don’t have that feeling of OHMYGOD IHATETHIS DREAM LET ME WAKEUP.

Nope, it was perfectly pleasant.  And I looked pretty cute in this bathing suit top and this sarong thingie, only I had a tattoo that was sort of crooked on my midsection, so that was sort of tacky, but other than that I looked good, and I like it when I look good in dreams…and I made jokes with his mom about how come the potatoes I needed for the potato salad were on their bedside table and numbered har har what’s that all about LORETTA har har.\

It was all very funny and over the top dreamlike…what with me in a BIKINI TOP, FURREAL.

Now, if I go poking around in my grey matter about why in the world I am having dreamy barbecues with my ex, I’d have to go out on a limb and say it’s probably because he and Dianna and the Teacher loaded up and went to Austin to bring some of the Longhorn’s stuff back for the summer and my brain was sort of in family mode, with family including “Dad” and Dianna and his folks, etc.   I think it also could mean that I am for real finished with the uncomfortable way it has always been.  I think I am realizing that with the impending graduation of the Senior, our last daughter, and then the college graduation of the Longhorn next year, that our NEXT get togethers are more than  likely going to be wedding/weddings and baby birthings and the last thing I plan to be while I’m being the mother of the bride and the Nani of the grandbaby is uncomfortable, and by gosh, by the time the Senior graduates from college, we oughta be bridge partners or something.  Seriously.
So.

It’s time we get on with the barbecuing.  I’ll make the potato salad.

maybe it’s just me, but…

there seems to be a lot of throwing around of the word ‘deserve’ lately.  I first noticed it while watching Jon and Kate plus 8.  If you aren’t familiar with J and K plus 8, it’s a show on TLC about Jon and Kate and their twins Mady and Cara and the ‘tups, as they are called on the internetz…the adorable sextuplets (Aiden, Joel and Colin…and the girls who are going to grow up to treat boys just like their mother, unfortunately).   anyway, Kate throws the word deserve around a lot.  Like this one time when they were on this one family vacation (totally free vacation) to Disney (or the ski trip to Colorado or Hawaii, etc) when Kate says over and over how her kids ‘deserve’ to travel.  When they moved into their 3.6 million dollar new home mansion on 26 acres in Pennsylvania, Kate talked about how her kids ‘deserved’ to grow up in a place like that.

Then, the other evening I was enjoying a nice drive in the country on the way to the Senior’s winterguard competition in Aledo, TX (aka the most perfectly gorgeous little town ever) when this commercial for these ‘free’ laptops came on the radio.  And to be honest, I couldn’t even tell you the particulars about what all hoops you have to jump through to get one because i was so fixated on the lady in the commercial talking about how her kids ‘deserve’ to have themselves a shiny new laptop computer delivered to the door FOR FREE.

And talking about commercials, that commercial where the people owe the IRS 20 bazillionty dollars but they are only going to have to pay 2000 DOLLARZ gets on my last nerve.  Is it just me, or is it annoying to hear people talk about how they aren’t going to have to pay what they owe, they’re going to pay JUST A FRACTION OF WHAT WE OWE.

Well, excuse me…but when I was growing up my mom ingrained in me that you work hard for what you want, whether it be our first fancy new 19-inch color television or my first 400-dollar car or a laptop, or newnew to us leather furniture (that we bought off craigslist from the fire chief from the most perfectly gorgeous little town ever) for the den.  You get cool stuff because you EARN IT…or maybe it is because I’ve always had to work so hard for the things I have and for the things I give my kids that it sort of irritates me to no end this whole sense of entitlement that people have…this I am here gimme gimme.  I don’t like it.

As my mom would say…I wasn’t raised that way.

and please, don’t even get me started about the tax thing.  you know what i owe?  394 dollars.  you know what i’m going to pay?  394 dollars.  And in the years where we owed 3900 dollars, we paid that, too, even if it meant a payment plan where we paid til it was paid of.

Oh, and i also paid off my credit card debt, even though it meant getting rid of all my credit cards and enrolling in a debt consolidation program and making payments forever 5 long years and change.

Is any of that fun or instantly gratifying?

nope.  not even a little bit…

so, it may just be me, but i think you appreciate things a lot more if you work for them and they aren’t just handed to you.  I mean, I’m pretty sure that if the credit card debt fairy had swooped down and paid off all those cards for me, i would have probably turned right back around and gotten 5 new ones and i wouldnn’t have learned 1 single thing about managing money.

eh. i don’t know. call me crazy, but I also don’t pay my kids for good grades either.