YOU ARE NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN

The things I learned this week –
1. If you loose vision in one eye you should have someone watch your kids for days, get a pedicure, get your nails done, shop for hours, take pain pills and sleep for hours, then tell everyone you are going blind in one eye and a nurse is going to come to the house daily. (My daughter in law told me this, therefore I believe it and, silly me, I thought she just had a sinus infection)

2. If you are raging upset at a child that is using drugs, refuses to call you back, and works at a job where the big advantage is ‘I get to do all the free shots I want’, you should scream at the other child, who is working full time, going to school full time, and working on building credit so they can buy a house. (my husband taught me this lesson, and I am struggling with it, but it must be right, because HE does it)

3. If you really do not have a job, you should not sit in front of your living room window with the TV on, so your father can see you, then get you to come to his house and move furniture, help teardown the pool, haul stuff to the junk yard and basically work you to the point of exhaustion, then drop you off at home after buying you a can of chew and fountain soda. (My oldest son taught me this one, Dad keeps out smarting him and every time it is a difficult lesson.)

4. Never eat that cheese with the ‘live culture’ to help with regularity right before you leave for work. (learned this one all on my own, and relived the message over and over during the day)

5. If you wait until the last minute to do your taxes, you will not have to use a ‘live culture’ cheese to help with your digestive track, because you will not be able to digest anything. (again, a lesson I have learned all on my own)

6. If you spend all day of the first nice day walking around the zoo for literally hours, and then make a hog of yourself at Hoggy’s BBQ, your alone time with your husband in the evening will be spent laying around recuperating from walking for hours at the zoo and eating the He Man Sampler Platter all by yourself. (Dad and I actually learned this lesson together)

7. If you spend all day smoking and watching TV while your wife does a week’s worth of laundry, days with of dishes, preps for the week, and vacuums’, your alone time with your wife will be spent alone with yourself. (OK, I actually taught this lesson, but it is still a good lesson and really worth mentioning)

8. When a marriage near you is shattering, it is best to take a good look at what you have, there is seriously something to be said for a husband that does not cheat, that really would rather stay home with you, likes to spend time together doing what ever it is you want to do, and thinks you are the most gifted talented funniest woman in the world. (I do not like to share this one, it is a lesson I keep quiet, because I am afraid to think it out loud, that he does love me and that he really does think I am wonderful. Because the worse lesson is when you have to learn that someone doesn’t love you)

9. If you are a cute blonde with twinkling eyes that looks like a teacher and wants to be a teacher, you automatically get into the college of education – lesson is, that you still have to do the work and get the grades. (my daughter is learning this and I am learning this with her, because damn it, she looks like a teacher and is so cute, it should be that she just plan gets to be one!)

10. If you want a friend you have to be one, and sometimes we forget that those relationships take effort also. And I have a friend that needs me, not to do anything, but to be there, and tell her she is the most gifted, talented, funniest kindest, person on the planet and I absolutely love her. And no matter what drama I am in the middle off, I still need to be there for her. And this is the most important lesson I have learned this week, that my children grow up, husbands grow distant, but your girlfriends are there when you need them, when you laugh, when you cry, when you just need to go to lunch, and when you need to hear that you are all that and side of gravy.

This Shiite Sucks!

It is Monday, and I do not want to go to work, to deal with people and crap, so I whine at myself all morning. Convincing myself I am sick or getting sick, or possibly on the verge of laying on my death bed or crawling back to my own warm bed. But I drag myself to the car, up the road, to my parking spot, into my cell, and pop on the computer. And I see a message from my son, from Iraq, and I rejoice that I pulled my lazy self in to work, I say a little thank you to myself for getting it together and getting here, this is fantastic!






"shit is going down. all of the sudden its world war 3 over here. our sector is mostly shiite so this sucks. I'm not going to bore you with details. but its fucking crazy right now. sorry i havnt wrote but we are a little pre-occupied. i love all you guys and ill call when i can. i love you mom."


How am I to deal with this? How I am supposed to not scream, not burst into tears, not just curl into a fetal position? How on earth is he dealing with this, how is getting out of his bed every day and continuing on when there is just insanity? I want to get sick now, go home and crawl into bed and pray he does not call so I do not have to bury my tears and pretend that I am dealing with all this. But I just sit there and stare at the words and wonder exactly how it is that we have landed in this situation. I think of my mother who had two brothers and a husband in the "Big War" and I am a little more than jealous that only letters came her way. How fortunate for them not to get the message the moment of their loved one feels the fear, to not get a phone call from the 'front' and hear the panic in the voice so far away. I wonder how many mothers are like me and are going about our daily demands while our hearts are bleeding and are minds are shattered. I cannot even begin to think how the children of these soldiers are going to school everyday while carrying the weight of the last email on their tiny shoulders. And I get sick to my stomach. And I read it again, and again. I force myself to see the sense of humor, the strength and the love. And I know now how he is surviving. I know that without that humor and strength and love I would not be surviving.

I FEEL FINE......

White trash holiday weekend Quiz
1. You will not be having Easter at your house next year because
A) You will be doing 25 to life for killing the entire family last year
B) You will be in Hawaii on the insurance money from your husband being murdered last year
C) you will be having pureed ham in your room at the 'hospital' after your breakdown
D) you decide that if you blog it, maybe it will not seem so freakishly hideous

2. You spend the Friday night before the holiday -
A) Shopping for all the food for the dinner, because you did not have any money until Friday
B) Shopping for your mother in law because she asked you to pick up a birthday present while you are out, because she is too busy and you are going to Walmart at midnight anyway
C) You do the week worth of dishes that your husband, who is home all day every day, did not find time to do.
D) Your oldest son's second baby momma shows up with your hyperactive grandson to drop off a gift for the impending birthday party and proceeds to tell you your son no longer has a driver's license because he is so far behind in his child support
E) All of the above.

3. The Saturday before the holiday is really busy because,
A) You have to attend a birthday party for your juvenile delinquent granddaughter at your oldest son's first Baby Mama's house
B) You have to find a ride home from the birthday party because your husband 'does not feel well' and leaves after about 10 minutes.
C) You have a weeks worth of laundry to put away because no one in the house is able to identify their own clothes.
D)You have to listen to your husband rant about how little the ham is that his brother actually bought for the holiday (note, the first time anyone else actually bought the meat for the holiday)
E) All of the Above

4. Easter eve is always hectic because
A) Your brother in law shows up with a new ham but hints that he is a little hungry
B) You are prepping all the food to feed an unknown number of guests around 2 the next day
C) Your son and daughter, go pick up and pay for pizza and wings because you are too busy
D) You dye eggs with your grown children at 1 AM and cannot stop laughing
E) You blurt out 'I feel fine' for no apparent reason other than to give your children ammunition for making fun of you all the next day (note, you do not really feel fine)
F) All of the above

5. Easter morning is excruciating because
A) you have to get up at 6 to start the dinner for what is now 16 people
B) your son in Iraq calls just to tell you he loves you, and how he was ambushed and very frightened and you let him tell you and you try to sound amazed and proud
C) you spend an hour throwing up and bawling because your son in Iraq called to tell you he loves you and how he was ambushed and very frightened
D) Your husband is ranting, literally ranting, about how Easter was almost ruined with the wrong ham
E) Your daughter in law calls because she is in Georgia on an army base alone, with a husband in Iraq and she is crying and worried and you have to lie to her and tell her it will be fine
F) your mother in law calls to tell you she can reimburse the birthday present Monday, but she will have to give you a check because the ATM will not give her cash.
G) all of the above

6. Easter dinner was a little chaotic because
A) Your step daughter from your first marriage brings her two foster children who are 3 and crack babies, to dinner and continually screams at them to "settle down, leave things alone, don't touch that,"
B) Your step daughter from this marriage brings her boy friend and her husky/ border collie/ lab / beagle mix dog to dinner
C) your mother in law brings her check that 'should be good on Monday' and her shiatsu to dinner
D) your two crazed inbred Pomeranians begin alternately humping and fighting the intruding two new male dogs (note, all are marking their territories, hence more screaming)
E) your husband and his brother are almost at fist-a-cuffs because of the f***ing ham
F) All of the above

7. Directly after dinner, things do not settle down much because
A) the dogs had been forced outside, where it was extremely muddy and you have to give your Pomerania a bath (note, your step daughter did offer but your dog bites and you do not need that at the moment)
B) You tell the crack babies that the shrimp are really baby snakes, which you soon realize makes them scream and run
C) your grandson, son, and future son in law are in another room playing video games and kicking all the other kids out of the room
D) your husband will not shut up about the stupid ham
E) Your step-daughters and your husband keep disappearing into the garage and then returning all red eyed and devourer all the desserts
F) Your Step daughter's boyfriend now has to give his dog a bath
G) All of the above

8. The crowd starts to thin out and you realize
A) Your house now smells like wet dog and dog urine
B) You forgot to turn off one of the crock pots and the noodles are really thick and extremely hot C) You are the only one doing dishes
D) You may not have showered in two days
E) all of the above

9. In an effort to find the positive side of things
A) You realize you have managed to get all the dishes done
B) your step daughter did clean up after the crack babies
C) your son is staying home tonight so he can go to a job interview in the morning
D) Your daughter in law in Georgia has made it through the last major holiday that she will ever have to spend on her own
E) The police did not show up this time
F) All the food tasted fantastic, not one bad dish
G) You are going to have to tell someone about this weekend
H) All of the above

Answers : You know the answers! And all of them are true, every last ridiculous detail. And when asked how I was doing all i can say is "I feel fine!"

What is a Memaw to do?

So I had promised myself that I would write every day, to get it out, to hopefully get the tension off myself in a effort to keep the meds at a reasonable dosage and my thin line of sanity intact. Instead I continued to wallow in this depression that has become my life. I cannot even begin to tell you why, okay I can tell you why, but to do so is to face it, and leave myself no choice but to change it or accept it. (Hmmm, is that not in a prayer some where?) How do I accept this latest hand that I have been dealt? I made the choice to NOT have sex with my boss, who continually pressured me for about 2 years, and when he decided that I was not going to give in, found a woman that was more than willing. Now she is my boss, and knowing that she was his second choice, she is doing everything she can to drive me completely crazy. This is just unbelievable to me, because one would think that at close to 50 years of age I would not be in this position. It is not like i am some freakishly hip and cool Madonna like 50 year old. I am a Memaw. What the hell?! The most hilarious part of it all is that we are in the middle of taking these ethics classes at work about harassment, and the president of our company has a girl friend (and a wife, of course) and she has been promoted to director. And quiting for principle seems to not be an option, when you have a house and kids in college and health issues. Therefore I am stuck in this impossible pathetic situation where I am being tortured daily and lied to with no hope of it ending. Truthfully I know it cannot continue , I cannot continue.