The Kif Pit

The good, the bad and the painfully swollen breasts

2006-11-23T09:33:00.000-05:00

So, as the true-life medical drama that is my life continues, I have discovered a whole new complaint:

During my birthday phonecall Laure complained about a photo Mom had taken of me - I was repeatedly instructed to eat cheeseburgers. I figured I was around 115-120lbs - too thin, but not freakishly so. It wouldn't take long to get back up to my preferred weight, c.125-130lbs. After all, lack of cheeseburgers was not the problem. Steve spent nearly a decade working as a short-order cook. He does food, lots of it, and can be relied upon to deep fat fry most of it. So then a friend who was moving gave me a scale. Cool, the kids'll like it. I hopped on. 105lbs. I'm not sure if you know what 102lbs looks like on a 5'7" frame, but it ain't good. You might think it's model-skinny but I don't want to be an ambulatory clothes hanger and those girls get airbrushing and professional makeup. In real life 105/5'7" is knobby knees and hip bones and my ass is gone, just plain gone.

So we tried a more generous, fattier diet. Gauge gained a pound. I went down to 102. And still so far all the docs can find is low iron in my blood. So three days ago after much discussion and a few tears, I decided that I had to put Squish on formula. Whatever is going on, whether it's a problem or just some sort of hormonal/metabolic transition, I just couldn't do breastfeeding anymore. I'm back up to 105 now... and I think most of that is just boobs. I have turned into a toothpick with pornstar boobs. Except they mustn't be touched, or breathed upon, or looked at too strongly. Owie. It'll pass.

Squish did not like the change at first - none of them do - but he's now taken to bottle feeding with gusto. As have I, oddly enough. Mostly because it's dawned on me that bottle-feeding 2-3ounces every 2.5-3hrs in one 10-15 minute shot is a hell of a lot easier than 1/2hr long breastfeeding sessions every two hours. I don't think my body was getting enough with the breastfeeding to maintain, and I think that my milkload was probably low. In the end Squish is sleeping better and "doing" more with his awake time than before.

But I mustn't dillydally in the library all day because I am here for a purpose. I must find a book, or books, with pictures of tiger lilies and buffalo skulls. I must find tiger lilies and buffalo skulls because I must do tattoos of buffalo skulls and tiger lilies. Because that's what Steve got me for my birthday/christmas. A kit. Gun, needles, inks, the works. And it will arrive today, tomorrow or on Monday. So I can't stay here, I must go home to chain-smoke on the balcony awaiting the delivery.

If I do this right, I may not have to go to Startek. I may be able to give the kids a fairly cool Christmas. I may be able to put my share in to paying off all our debts. And all I have to do is... tattoo a spiderweb on my neighbours head. Yeesh.

Squish is sound asleep right now, sucking on his finger the way I used to when I was a kid. Aww.

Happy Birthday to me.

2006-11-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

A little belated, sure. Happy birthday to you too, PeculiarSister.

Kif's recipe for a cool birthday, even if you're broke:

1. Wake-up phone call from twin sister, even though she lives an hour earlier than you. Great gab n' gossip fest. Many jokes about being "64". Mockage of boyfriends and babies.

2. Phone call from kid sister, immediately upon hanging up with twin sister. Much of the above, minus boyfriends, babies and being half of a sixty-four year old.

3. Off-key rendition of Happy Birthday as sung by five children and boyfriend. Just plain "off" rendition as sung by youngest stepson, lyrics as follows:

Happy Birthday to you.
Stick your finger in poo.
Don't waste it,
just taste it.
Happy Birthday to you.

4. Discovery that boyfriend and assorted ankle-biters rolled pennies to go to "Bunsmaster" (cheap bakery) to buy a 99-cent strawberry/rhubarb pie as "Birthday Cake". Must eat before grows mold, which with their 99-cent pies is usually the next day. Yum.

5. Spend large part of day breaking up fights over who has made the best/nicest/most creative/cutest/most affectionate/etc birthday card for mom/evil stepmother. Sacrifice 75% of household drawing paper to the cause.

Tada!

Roadkill Halloween

2006-11-01T12:03:00.000-05:00

When I lived at the farmhouse part of the household duties that fell entirely upon my shoulders was roadkill. Including, unfortunately, Captain Glorious Nonsense himself, my dog Meatball. Also a 'coon and several barncats. Steve can't do roadkill and I can't stand the smell of rotting skunk.

Aside: Steven, who had his last FOCUS group last night (Halloween, LAME) came home once all dejected because they'd completely disbelieved his homework, which was to fill out a housework questionaire. In truth, Steve does around 80-90% of ALL the household chores. I could lie and just say he LIKES doing that sort of thing, but the truth is he hates clutter and mess more than me. I was instructed to redo his homework for him - to correct it. I think they figured they had some sort of asshole and wanted to make him show me that he was publicly disparaging my efforts in the house. I corrected it - he seemed to think that I took care of "outdoor repairs" - to which I can only think he was thinking about roadkill.

Steve can't do roadkill because dead things give him the willies. It happens. It happened again, in fact, yesterday. We went to Price Chopper. There, in the middle of the parking lot was one small, very dead tabby kitten. Standing over it was a gentleman employee of Price Chopper's, with a large cardboard box and a pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves. He'd been tasked to removing the kitten from the parking lot. I guess because he was a guy and guys are supposed to be more sanguine about such things. A small crowd of female employees stood by the door, observing. From the car, where we were getting Squish out of the back, so did Steve and I.

He made several good attempts. The best involved actual glove contact with the tail. He couldn't do it.

So I grabbed a handful of newspaper from the backseat, walked over and put the kitten in the box for him. He looked fairly embarrased up close... mostly because as I got close, it was clear that this large twenty-something man was actually crying. Not sobbing, but definately very teary-eyed. A cat person, I presume. I felt sympathy, but folks, it was hard, I tell you, HARD not to giggle.

He was dressed as a giant ballerina.

So I leave you with that: The mental image of Kif rescuing weepy ballerina-boy from having to touch the poor dead kitty. That was what my Halloween was like.

Except for Pierce the Ogre (been playing Worlds of Warcraft with his Pop) and Eowyn the Ninja. And Josh the Scarecrow and his mom dressed in a killer Queen outfit that we ended up dubbing the "Burger Queen Getup". I painted my face white, made a geisha-sorta looking clown face, and dribbled blood-tears down my cheeks. No toddlers cried, and not even Squish was perturbed, but I thought I looked pretty freaky. Steven went as a scruffy contractor... oh wait....

Cough cough.

2006-10-26T09:18:00.000-04:00

We're all sick. Right proper normal viral cough cough sniffle creaky-boned shiver through your fever sick. Bloody miserable, I tell you. There is nothing in the world cuter than a sick 2-month old. You can't hold a wad of toilet paper to their noses and command, "Blow!" All you can do is run the humidifier, take lots of nice baths together, and do your best to ensure they get "lots of fluids" - which when you're breastfeeding translates to informing your boyfriend that what you'd like for your birthday is leather nipples. But it does mean you get a lot of really aww-inspiring cuddle time. Gauge is now the master of the social smile, and cries with tears and everything, just like a real boy. The smile, as I had predicted, turned out to be seriously, SERIOUSLY charming. Plus, there turns out to be a giggle - a very infectious giggle. It goes kinda like "ah-huh-huh! ah-huh-huh-huh!" very low down and deep. Then there is the sneezing... he sneezes usually in sets of three - ah-choo!... ... ah-choo!... ... ah-choo! except occasionally he misses the middle one: Ah-choo!... .... ah-...weeeeeeee... ah-choo! and then shivers all over.

Can you tell I've been stuck in bed for a week using my conscious moments to do nothing much more strenuous than catalogue the behaviours of my baby? It's been good.

Apart from that, the job that Steven apparently did get still has yet to materialize. They hired all these people for an expected contract, and the contract either still isn't in yet or they still don't have enough people to fulfill it. I'm not too worried yet, because they've already invested so much money in all the testing that it would be very bizarre for them not to end up actually hiring. The big problem right now is that in the meantime, I had an argument with the phone company and now I'm cut off, lol. Total pain in the ass. So now we have to get some other form of outside communication in pronto and then drive back up and let the company know our new number... while I'd much rather just stay curled up in bed and eat tylenol all day. But I have a vision in my head of getting back to last early spring, when Steve got the contract with the egg-grading plant, and we had that steady, good income. And we could pay our rent, in full, on time. And buy brand-name cereal. Ah, Cheerio's instead of Oatie-O's! Every time I look at the stack of bills I think we should have just taken the contract for the plant in Newfoundland... and then I look out the window and try to imagine what the weather is like there if it's this crappy here... and that we wouldn't have seen Zoe, Hunter or Jason for four or five months, and that Tony would probably be less than impressed with not seeing Eowyn and Pierce for the same period of time... or we would have lost any actual financial advantage in shipping the various rugrats around and what's the point just to not have your phone cut off?

What really sucks is not being able to work myself. I know, I know, taking care of a baby IS work. But the pay sucks and my earning potential is better than Steve's if he's just contracting or roofing. But around here there's no way I can match the income he'll get at that place we're waiting on, so then his earning potential is better than mine... and we still have a number of months left before we can BOTH be working at the same time... which will be grand, because Steve's NEVER been part of a two-income family before, and it'll be great to get all the old debts cleared up and then get to watch him figure out how quickly and easily you can get the things you want in life if both adults in the household are contributing financially towards them. Sigh, good times yet to come...

I am concerned

2006-10-12T10:57:00.000-04:00

Although I seem to be the only one who is.

My doc appointment last week went pretty much as expected. Branco was studiously underimpressed by my having to have a D&C for retained placental matter. Then he let me know... get this... I STILL have retained placental matter. Still demonstrating an almost singular lack of emotion, he let me know that it should "probably" work itself out on it's own. When pressed, he admitted this meant that my next menstrual period should be biblical. And there is that "probably" to contend with too. Not much worried about the pain, nor the fibroids - on account of the ultrasound report only mentioned one calcified fibroma, 2cm by 4.5cm. He said that wasn't all that big. I mentioned that that is half again as large as my entire uterus. A uterus is also not like say, a spleen. It doesn't just sit there being a spleen. It's a muscle, and the most powerful muscle known to humanity. If it hurts this much with just the gentle squeezings and squoshings endemic to uterus-hood, how the hell is it going to feel when I actually get my period?

My guess: Not good.

So then I mentioned my last complaint. Basically, since this round of medical crap, I've been having what some might call some urinary issues. I would say "minor" incontinence, but if you've ever suffered it, you already know there's nothing minor about pissing your pants. Now Branco's freaking. He tests my urine. There is blood and white blood cells in it. He thumps my back and asks me frequently, mistrustfully, if I have burning sensations when I pee. I am finally forced to bark that I laid it all on the line with the pain during sex and the wetting of my pants and does he really, really think that NOW I am going to balk at a burning bush? My back hurts, yes. No flaming pee, just an incredibly inconvenient inability to tell when I've started or stopped going, and two very upsetting accidents.

So he wrote me a prescription for antibiotics which I may even be able to get today (over a week later) because Steven is roofing in the rain to make it happen. Rent came first. And then food. The rest can wait for now. And he also sent me back to make an appointment to see the surgeon again. Not for the fibroid/s, not for the pain, not for the retained placenta again - because of the incontinence. I told him I didn't give a shit if I spent the rest of my life in Depends, as long as I didn't hurt while in them. He's concerned the surgeon may have nicked a nerve or a ureter. This has set into concrete my opinion that all doctors suck.

Of course, I am also concerned that my appointment with the surgeon is tonight at 5:30pm. When... Steven... is... home. And of course he says he is coming with me. Steven feels very strongly about all my recent medical woes - mostly he feels that the vast majority of them can be lain squarely at the feet of this surgeon. SO WHY the hell am I going to see him? Well, two reasons:

1. I want to TELL him, and see his face when I tell him, that he fucked up AGAIN. And that I'm still hurting.

2. During the ultrasound, they thought I couldn't speak French. They never ONCE mentioned placental debris or clots. They ONLY talked about fibroids. They took measurements of SEVERAL fibroids, not ONE. And the one tech did say the following to the other: How could we have missed this?

See, I have a theory that I don't have any placental debris or clots. I think I may just have fibroids. I think I may have ONLY ever had fibroids. I think what the surgeon took out of me at the D&C, which he later told me took far more effort than usual because it was very well adhered to the uterine wall, and didn't even really LOOK like placenta at all (at the time, I thought he was hedging his bets and making excuses) , may not have been a peice of placenta at all. I think he may have torn a fibroid off the uterine wall with a curette. I think the mistake may have been made by the radiology department, not by him. And I think they may be trying to cover their asses now by putting the blame on the surgeon.

We shall see what he says to that, too.

But you know what I'm really concerned about right now? Every town has it's top five employers. The best places to work. Steven, like most of the guys around here, has spent years nurturing contacts and dropping off CV's and gossiping about openings and recommendations for these top 5. And last week one of them called. They put 11 candidates through 5 aptitude tests and interviews for 4 positions. Steven made the cut. The day before yesterday 5 candidates were sent for some really rather extensive medical testing. The work is physical and you need to be in very good condition. Steven made the cut again.

So within the next two weeks Steven should be starting at one of the local top 5 employers - the starting salary is 20$/hour. The first raise is 2.50$ Can you say WOOHOO!! boys and girls? I know I can!

What could go wrong?

2006-10-02T09:27:00.000-04:00

Steven had to work this weekend, which in and of itself, is not a bad thing. The problem was that this weekend was one of those weekends where we ended up with ALL the kids. So it became clear that I would, for the first time ever, be solely responsible for the care of:

Eowyn, 9
Zoe, 9
Jason, 8
Pierce, 7
Hunter, 4
and Gauge, 6 weeks.

My oh my, but that's a buttload of monkeys. But, I thought to myself (rather naively, it turned out), what could go wrong? I'm a strong, independant, intelligent woman. I can handle it. So when 11am Saturday morning rolled around (Jason having been picked up the night before) it was time to go fetch Hunter and Zoe. I left Eowyn, Pierce and Jason at home (6 kids do not fit in a Toyota Corolla) under the (haphazard, it turns out) supervision of my next-door neighbours. Picked up the other two, no problem. Drove home. Grabbed Gauge and various overnight bags and figure-skating paraphenalia (Zoe takes classes) and started upstairs.

I could hear Pierce screaming inside our apartment three floors down, all the way in the stairwell.

Not "bad" screaming. Not "oh god, I tried to make toast and set the kitchen on fire again" screaming. Not "I tried to clip my own nails and accidentally amputated my toe" screaming. The other screaming. The "I hate my sister and in around ten seconds I'm going to make a serious attempt on her life" screaming. Oh christ. I race upstairs and burst in (dark glares for neighbours along the way) screaming myself: What the HELL is going on in here!? Eowyn informs me.

Eowyn: I can't help it. People just push my buttons and then I have to smack the shit out of them.

So I roar at Eowyn to get thee hence to endless night (her bedroom) for smacking "the shit" out of her brother, and for saying "shit", and for generally having a bad attitude about her own ability to control her actions. Pierce, by this point, has slammed himself into his own room. Jason is capering from foot to foot chanting that he had nothing to do with any of this, except as an impartial observer of the fact that it was all Eowyn's doing, and Pierce was utterly innocent. It was a random attack. Gauge starts to howl in his carseat. Zoe and Hunter had been standing in the doorway, struck dumb, but Gauge's protests that I've allowed myself to get more than a boob-length away start Hunter crying that the baby is crying.

HOLD ON A SEC! I holler. I have yet to see if Eowyn managed to do any real damage to Pierce, beyond driving him into an apoplectic fit of rage. The girl's a moose, and has, in the past, used one brother to hold down the other so she can smack "the shit" out of both of them simultaneously. So I go to the boys' bedroom door.

Unfortunately, Pierce was right on the other side. When I started to open it, he hurled himself at it bodily, screaming that he wanted to be left alone. The door slammed on my right hand middle finger. I started with: WAAAAAAARGHHHHH! I followed up with various terms I learned in the army. Then I had that, you know, death-to-my-attacker reaction, almost completely unconsciously. Apparently I first blamed the door, which I proceded to kick in. Then I blamed Pierce, but he is after all, the smartest monkey I've got, so even as the door flew in he was already en route to the furthest reaches of under-the-bed squealing "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" all the way.

So now all my stepkids have gotten to hear some of the more questionable terms known to the english language, and gotten to see me boot in a door and attempt to murder one of my own. Did I mention we were all of 45 seconds into my first ever all-alone with the kids weekend? The neighbour beat a hasty retreat. I took advantage of the deathly silence (even Gauge stopped crying) to do my little stompy-stompy owie-owie dance in the bathroom and check out my finger.

The story gets less interesting from here on in - mostly just about how fun it is to spend 3 hours in an emergency room with six kids. The finger is not broken, although this should sound familiar to some: they called it "the worst sprain...". Sigh. And no, like the time I sprained my foot, I put on too good a show with the not freaking out the kids, and therefore did not even score so much as codeine for my troubles. (Yes, Kif is breastfeeding, but with all my various recent operations poor ole Gauge has already sampled a rather dizzying (literally) array of narcotics second-hand). Then off to figure-skating, then home, and by the time Steven got home I'd somehow managed to import a few extra neighbour-kids and there was... er... I dunno... between eight and ten kids arranged artfully around the livingroom howling in two languages (with translations going back and forth) about The Dukes of Hazzard. Too bad the '69 Charger doesn't have 8-passenger seating.

The moral of the story is that blended families are awesome, not only for the looks of dismay and horror on the nurses' faces when they call your name into triage and you drag EVERY kid in the waiting room in with you, but also because they really do try and get you through faster, just to lower the ambient decibel level. Try bringing along a peewee baseball team to your next doctor visit, you'll see. But also because once the questions, comments, requests, whines, accusations, and recriminations start to crack even YOUR facade, you can say the following:

"Let me remind you freaks that if you can't hold it together and act semi-civilized for one freakin' afternoon, then I am perfectly capable, busted-up finger or not, of taking YOU two home to your mother, YOU home to your maman, and YOU two to your dads for the rest of the weekend."

Today I have an appointment with my "regular" doctor, who just got off vacation to discover a three-inch thick file on my recent medical woes. I am trying not to get my hopes up. My prediction, I tell him my tale, he says that's too bad. I tell him about my gut-pain and the occassional blood-loss, the impact on my urinary continence (oh joy), and the fact that my sex life has reverted to teenager status (actually, this has been kinda fun) on account of all this - he will again commiserate and then send me home... because the horrifying thing about women's health is not so much the fact that there is so little known about it, but the fact that even when they do know, they don't really seem to care. After all, who among us over the age of twenty-five has not heard the words "We don't know precisely WHY this is happening, but it's umm... pretty much within the realm of normal... just come back if it gets worse" from a gynecologist?

As Steven put it, upon inspecting my poor black and blue crushed-up fuck-you finger, "If I went in there with a hangnail, I'd come out with a splint and opiates. If you went in there with a sucking chest wound, I'd be surprised if they gave you a bandaid. You know what your problem is? You don't scream and cry enough."

I'm willing to practice.

I like Winter

2006-09-21T14:02:00.000-04:00

and so do the kids. It is a very cool name. Eowyn did think I was saying "Winner" at first, and looked like she was just, you know, being polite about it - but once I clarified WINTTTTER! she cheered up remarkably about it. Haven't run it by the stepkids yet, but then it looks like it'll be a while before I see them - Hunter and Zoe have alternate plans this weekend, and Jason is staying home because he has bronchitis... as does my friend Christy's son, Joshua. And guess who else... Gauge.

Actually, what he has is brochiolitis. The doctor started to tell me the difference and I cut him off with, "Yeah, bronchia, bronchioles, alveoli - is that why sometimes he breathes just fine and sometimes he can't breathe at all?" It is. It's been a rough couple of nights and I spent the part of the rent (albeit the same part of the rent that I was already going to be spending on replacing the part of the grocery money I had to pony up to the tow truck operator...) on a humidifier. It's the only treatment - humidity. So now my apartment is sweating like the jungles of Vietnam. I have this lovely letter from the doctor for if I have to take Gauge to the emergency room - it basically says that they are not to stick me in chairs, but that Gauge is to be seen immediately by the first available doctor. He is, after all, a very small baby, only 5 weeks old today, and was two weeks premature. Even now he's barely flirting with the 7lb mark...

As opposed to our wee Winter! Cripes almighty does that bring me back to all 8lbs 13oz of Eowyn and the thirty six hours of labour... and the six internal stitches. Way to make a baby and a half, Laure. Mom informs me that over the phone you are positively goo-goo about her, and keep informing her about just how beautiful she is. I don't quite recall if I've given a detailed description of Gauge, but for your edification, here goes:

He has his father's eyes, hazel and deep-set. His hair is dark-dark blond (but not quite brown) and may, just MAY end up having a touch of curl to it. Call it a slight wave. In the back, he has a patch of albinoism the size of a man's thumb-print. His forehead is tall and round and his nose is long and a little-bit squarish across the bridge. His father's again. From me he has inherited low cheekbones and almost entirely no chin. This gives him a rather pronounced overbite. Basically, when those first four little rodent-teeth come in, he's going to look like a chipmunk. His lips are very thin, but his whole mouth is very nicely shaped - like a recurve bow. When he smiles (he attempted, for a brief flash the other day, his first social smile!) it lights up all these disparate and rather goofy individual features with a charm and beauty that makes my nose sting and my eyes water. Then I have to kiss him all over his skinny little shoulders and neck.

Off I go to try and find good stuff on Shiva for Steven to read. He's not taking to Buddhism all that well - first off, he's hyper like a terrier, so even Pierce's attempts to teach him to meditate have failed. Also, he thinks that if he takes spare change off the shrine on the microwave, Buddha will "punish" him. But he likes enough of what he's learned to want the centerpiece of his back tattoo to be Buddha. I think that unless he learns a bit more about it, it'll be beautiful but not terribly fitting for him. So I am researching gods.

The kicker to my week, btw: When I went to Bell Mobility to get a list of their plans in order to make sure I've got the best one for my situation, I discovered that apparently I've been subscribed to a "vehicular assistance" program for years. You know - the sort of thing that if you call them and tell them you're trapped at Zellers because you locked your keys in your purse like a retard, the come and unlock your car for you - for free.

I am developmentally delayed

2006-09-18T11:43:00.000-04:00

... although I personally feel that "retarded" is still apropos when you actually *intend* to insult someone.

To Whit: The two young gentlemen who balanced themselves aboard a snow racer sled built for a single person... which was then balanced on top of two 2*4's... which were themselves balanced across two skateboards... the entirety of which they then launched down Mill Street without regard for either the traffic (myself) or their lack of brakes... retarded. Both of them.

Waiting on news from Laure via Mom - She's apparently currently in hospital with contractions 3min apart. 'Bout damn time her latest little princess decided to make her grand entrance. Fingers crossed that she sticks with the name "Ember". I would appreciate the timing though, on account of I need something to cheer me up from my day yesterday - the cause of the title of this post.

I locked my keys in the car. And my wallet. And my cellphone. The works. THE PURSE. I spent two hours having my breaking and entering attempts hijacked by well-meaning men, most of whom couldn't break the seal on a pickle jar, let alone into a car. I lost my temper with the kids, being overwhelmed with questions that a certain stress-induced lack of patience suddenly made infuriatingly idiotic.

Kif: Come on, we'll walk over to Canadian Tire. They might have a mechanic there who can help us (they didn't - garage closed on sundays)... or at least a wire coat hanger (Zellers only uses plastic).
Kids: Where are we going?

I must now point out that I was with Gauge, Eowyn, Pierce and Jason. If I say "Kids" I do not mean that they all requested the information together. Oh no, I mean they each took a turn asking the SAME question, within forty seconds of each other.

Kif: Canadian Tire!
Eowyn/Pierce: Why are we going to Canadian Tire?
Jason: Why are we going to Giant Tiger?
Kif: We are going for help. We need a wire coat hanger. We are not going to Giant Tiger, we are going to Canadian Tire.
Eowyn: Do we have to walk there?
Pierce: How will a coat hanger help us?
Jason: (ed. It behooves me to point out that the local Giant Tiger is not in the same mall as the Zellers/Canadian Tire) WE'RE WALKING ALL THE WAY TO GIANT TIGER!?
Kif: Yes, we have to walk to CANADIAN TIRE... we can't take the car, on account of we can't get INTO the car! We are not going to Giant Tiger, so NO we will not be walking there! We need a coat hanger to try and jimmy the lock on the car door.
Pierce: Jimmy is a name, not a verb. What do you mean? I still don't see how a coat hanger will help us get into the car.
Eowyn: Can't we get a lift?
Jason: (looking up and realizing that we are at the doors (but PASSING) of The Independant) This isn't Giant Tiger... I thought you said that we had to go to Giant Tiger.
Kif: Yeah Eowyn, I'll call up a friend to drive us TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD... on the cell phone THAT IS LOCKED IN THE CAR. Keep mouthing off and I'll show YOU the difference between names and verbs, PIERCE. Jason, look at me... concentrate... Canadian Tire. We're going to Canadian Tire. Not Giant Tiger.
Jason: This isn't Canadian Tire either.

In the end, after two hours I gave up and phoned Steven's boss... told him what I'd gone and done... and asked him to please bring his wayward youth and juvenile record to my aid. It was pretty funny - by that time, I'd made a few new friends. Steve and Dave show up in the pickup and Steve jumps out and everyone starts laughing and agreeing that yeah, he surely does look like he knows how to break into a car. And guess what:

He couldn't do it.

I don't know whether it's an indictment of his skill at Grand Theft Auto, or a very nice recommendation on the inherent security features of the Toyota Corolla - but after an hour we gave up and called a tow truck and ponied up half our grocery money to have him perform the entrance in a way I shall not repeat, except to say that it was insultingly simple.

Then I forgot to by both bread and milk. And left my wallet in the car (at least I know it was secure) and spent a panicked hour searching the apartment...

A bad day. You know what I need? Another neice.

And a hysterectomy.

Gonna try this...

2006-09-11T12:46:00.000-04:00

The reason I have not posted is because after months of writing witty, erudite, fantastic and all-around kick-ass posts at the local library in VKH, only to have them refuse to post, or get eaten, or disappear or whatever... I gave up.

But now I live in Hawkesbury. That will be all I'll say on that subject - except that in our building, Steven and I are the "normal" people. That's freakin' scary.

So yeah - August 17th I was delivered of a 5lb 10oz baby boy via c-section. Gauge. He is, at the moment, esconsed in a sling with a nipple clamped between his gums - not because he's hungry, but because he requires it in order to know that I am close at hand. I am apparently not to get more than a breast-length away from him at all times. Last night we did another 20min feeding every 20 minutes thing... again. He's a good eater, like Pierce.

Eowyn is thoroughly in love. She changes diapers, plays, coddles, rocks, pats, burps and comforts. I told her to grow boobs. NOW.

The point of all this to say that Gauge is fantastic and perfect and goofy-looking in a very charming way. And I really do enjoy being able to put the little bugger down.

I, myself, however am not doing so good. The c-section did not go as planned - basically, the spinal block blocked nothing of the upper portion of my uterus - and I got to find out that the removal of the placenta in c-section invovles a tearing motion... owie. BIG owie. I rocked the ward in recovery, dropping my morphine IV in record time, and bailing out entirely after two days, instead of the 3-4 they said I'd have to do. Then I started to bleed again - two weeks later. They did an ultrasound and found "large amounts of blood, clots, and placental debris" in me. Yeah - that's right - they left a hunk of placenta behind.

So I had to have a D&C - two weeks after having a tubal ligation, lol. So I survived that (they wanted to do another spinal block, I declined and insisted on "full sensory deprivation and backup drugs!" (cookie to whomever can place that quote)...

Then guess what - I started bleeding again. At this point it behooves me to point out that pre-c-section, I had sciatica in my back and terrible ligament pain in my guts from uterine pulling and stretching. Then I had the incision and related surgery pains... and then the D&C pains... and now, I still have the same pain. It... never... went... away. So I went back to the doc's and had another ultrasound.

And I have "ENORMOUS" fibroids. So it looks like the pain I've had throughout the end of my pregnancy and until now has been acute pain due to fibroids the size of kiwis. And now they're bleeding, and have been bleeding for nearly a month. Occassionally, I lose rather frightening amounts of blood. Fun fun fun. So it looks like surgery #3 - hysterectomy is upcoming. Unless of course, they decide that it's just not warranted and that I'm fine and to just leave me like this, which is, you might be surprised to find out, a serious possibility in this particular town's medical establishment.

Except that I was really weepy at the D&C (something about being stuck in the hospital, away from my newly forming integrated family, in a HOSPITAL, with a hunk of rotting meat inside me, going into surgery again, in a HOSPITAL, and have I mentioned how much I hate hospitals?) and so they decided THAT was a problem so they... called children's services on me - because of the post-partum depression I had TEN years ago.

Have you ever tried to explain to a social worker that you don't need money, you don't need parenting classes, you don't need food, you don't need clothes for your kids or free milk and diapers... that what you need is for someone to remove your uterus, and that until THAT happens, and you are no longer bent double, incapable of carrying anything heavier than your 6lb son, bleeding like a stuck pig for weeks on end, eating five meals a day and still losing weight, with your sex life and family life functionally on hold until you can be out of bed for more than an hour... well... it can get mighty depressing, yeah - but the cure is not social workers, it's a hysterectomy.

Poor FOCUS must be so confused...

2006-06-19T18:06:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I'm visiting the parentals and my cell rings. In analog. Fuzzily, I can make out a woman introducing herself as being from FOCUS - the don't-beat-your-wife folks. Oy vey. I manage to make Mom and Pop's phone number understood and pop off the 'net to await their call. Mom is out west at the moment, but Pop is home... and has made his opinion of social workers and their programs, and what was said and done to Steven at their first meeting very clear. So I take the cordless outside because I know, I KNOW that if I'm on the phone with some earnest youngster who thinks I'm in imminent danger of being backhanded for asking permission to brush my own teeth, he's going to spend that time swatting at the kids with a rolled up newspaper or something just so he can see if he can trip me up into saying something like, "Quit smackin' the kids!" so he can get on the line and tell them exactly what he thinks of them.

The man's on steroids. We try to cut him some slack.

So first they want my "rating" of my relationship with Steven. "0" being in imminent fear for my life, "10" being perfectly secure. I say, "10, of course." This is apparently an unusual answer for them. "Why do you say Of Course?" she asks me. Because, I ask her in return, what would I be doing with a man that I felt anything less than a perfectly secure 10 with? Well, what about with the kids, she asks. For the kids, ma'am, I require an 11.

So she offers to send me a package of information. What sort of information? Well, tips and tricks to help keep myself safe... like keeping a twenty hidden in the house, purse or car that he doesn't know about, so if you have to leave in a hurry - or making sure that there's an extra set of keys to the house he doesn't know about so that he can't...

At this point I'm forced to interrupt her, because I've got the giggles. What's so funny!? she wants to know.

Well, his paycheque is direct deposited into an account in MY name. There's only ONE atm card attached, it lives in MY wallet, and he doesn't even know the pin number. We live way out in the country. Only *I* have a car, or a license. I am the only one with a copy of any of the keys to any of the buildings on my property. I'm not too worried about my escape plan - but his needs some serious work. In fact, once, when he got it into his head that he was "just going to hitchhike!" out to the bar if I didn't drive him - I took all his footwear to work with me. One may walk or hitchhike the ten kilometers to town, even in the dead of winter, but one doesn't do it in one's girlfriends' size seven four inch heels because they're the only pair of shoes left in the house. These are measures that Steven and I took on, agreed on, and that oddly enough - he THANKS me for - the way that we brought his drinking back under control. I "control" the money in that I control access to it. But our debts and bills and upcoming purchases are all up on a whiteboard, constantly updated, with our account balances etc - so he knows what is where and what is coming in and going out on what. We decide all that together - I just make sure we stick to the plan.

She really didn't know what to say. I explained to her that after his FOCUS meetings, we go over all the handouts together, discuss, analyze - try to make sense of it in terms of his previous relationships, mine, our parents', friends, and our own relationship together now. Near as I can figure it, according to the FOCUS program, I'm not even just a *little* bit abusive - I'm downright dangerous. I have far too much control in his life - going the other way, a man having that level of say in his woman's life... I'd deserve to be in the FOCUS program - and need it. I further explain that we discussed the reasons WHY our relationship is set up this way now, and the fact that it's not particularly something I like, or want to keep. It's just the way things have to be right now. He swears he doesn't feel like I'm taking advantage of the situation, I'm comforted by my own distaste for it, and in the end, at least I'm not slapping, punching, scratching, kicking him in the balls or knocking him out with a frying pan in front of the kids, or stabbing him in the ankle with a screwdriver while he sleeps - like the others.

Whut? asks the woman.

It's true, you've only known him a week. I know he looks like a shit on paper, but if you pay any attention at all, you'll realize he's the poster boy for battered wife syndrome. You have a male animator and a female animator in your group? Yes, she tells me. Watch closely, I tell her - you'll notice quickly enough that no matter how much he grumbles, he will do WHATEVER the female animator tells him to. He's able to refuse or defy men - but he cannot with women. He can be mouthy, complain, whine - but in the end, he'll do as he's told. Battered wife syndrome.

Meanwhile, in the actual course, that female animator divulged her recent diagnosis with ... argh! I can't remember the word! You know, blood-sugar fluctuations? grr. The point being is that she went on to explain that this turns out to be the cause of her sometimes getting "bitchy". She was so pleased to find out it wasn't you know - just HER. So Steven lets loose with this:

"That medical condition can make it more difficult to control your behaviour - but it doesn't make it IMPOSSIBLE. In the end YOU are still responsible for your outward reaction to your internal mood, whatever the cause. And YOU remain responsible for the way in which you treat those around you, especially when the condition is so easily treated and controlled. Many of us here in this group have had problems with drug and alcohol addictions, and spent time in NA or AA. And now we're here in this group, whose main message is also about personal responsibility for the way we treat ourselves and others... so I find it... ironic that you feel comfortable telling us it's okay for you to be "bitchy" to your friends, coworkers, family or even us... just because you forgot to keep a couple pieces of candy or an orange juice in your purse."

So that's what happened...

2006-06-13T18:58:00.000-04:00

I just poked over to Laure's site. Mucho funny tale of my nephew trying to smash a highjump bar out of the ground with his leg. Giggles all around. And there, on the side, is a photo of my dear twin looking mightily pregnant, yay! I gotta check it out - compare the bellies.

So the picture is loading up, OH SO SLOWLY... and I am explaining it to the kids.

It's Auntie Laure and George!
Oh lookit! I like that top.
Um... yeah she's got a big tummy like me, she's pregnant too.
What do you mean, with Leia or Paul? With a NEW baby, like I am.
Yes, I DID tell you. This is why I keep telling you sometimes the stuff coming out of my mouth might be interesting or important.
HEY! THOSE ARE MY SHORTS!!!

So. The question is, did I GIVE her those shorts, and have the memory sucked out of me by my demon spawn, or did she steal them? I have no recollection whatsoever.

Focus, focus.

2006-06-12T13:47:00.000-04:00

At the end of this week, I shall officially be six and a half months pregnant. This is pregnant enough to have safely passed the stage of glowy joy and get right into the part where one feels like a morose whale. Luckily whatever deities protect me from going right loopy have held off on the predictions of blazingly hot and dry summer and have instead saddled us with the spring that would not end. Basically, prime skeeter-breeding weather. I don't care. As long as it's cool enough to hide under a blanket from the things, I'll survive. In the meantime, I am concentrating on living my life, such as it is:

Work at pizza joint. I have become good friends with my boss and his boyfriend. Of course I have. We both have boyfriends that nobody else "gets". Mine because he is babbly and hyper. His because he is Thai, speaks little english, and is not just homosexual, but a right flaming queen. Oddly, his biggest detractor around town is not the hillbilly contingent (they don't care at all, believe it or not!) but another openly gay man. Figures. I don't know that I shall be able to continue much longer. Two hours a day is wiping me out already. But I don't want to stop, because then I know I will get bored at home and then go out to the restaurant just to hang... and help a bit anyways. So what's the point. I figure eventually my water will break and then I'll HAVE to stop. Plus this new kid started on weekends and he reminds me of every lad I've ever met at any folk festival all rolled into one. Very comforting.

Weekends with monkeys. Varying degrees of monkeys. Last weekend, NO monkeys, the first time in months. Usually, at least one monkey. This weekend just past, all five monkeys, all weekend long. Have you any concept how much five kids can eat? I had a box of thirty popsicles. There are three left. Monster box of shredded wheat. Loose chaff in bottom of box found this morning. Full carton of eggs. No eggs left - and we had ONE egg-related breakfast and three of the five hate eggs. Box of pancake mix. Two boxes of granola bars. A dozen peaches. I had to go fetch water in town THREE times. Six cans of juice concentrate. It's unreal. Plus they can hand-pick an entire Manitoba Maple clear of tent caterpillars in less than forty-five minutes. The only downside being the mason jars full of sweaty, half-dead tent caterpillars hidden all over the place. And if you have two seven year old boys together for anything longer than twenty minutes, one, the other, or both will find some reason to scream "PENIS!" at the top of their lungs. Soon-to-be nine year old stepdaughter will scream, "EWWWWW! THEY SAID PENIS!" in turn. Nine year old daughter will deliver series of kidney punches in retaliation for saying "penis". Four year old stepson will narc out daughter for punching boys for saying "penis", whilst adding that nine year old sister ALSO said "penis", but mostly only because seven year old boys said "penis". Adults will, with varying degrees of mirth, variously well-veiled, call for a moratorium on the use of the word "Penis".

Seven year old boy will call down staircase, "WHAT ABOUT VAGINA!? OW! SHE HIT ME AGAIN!!".

Stunned/Grr moment: Youngest stepchild did not know that peaches have pits. He'd apparently never had a peach before. Also, playing hide and seek, I discovered that he cannot count to ten. Nor can he read numbers off a digital clock. He's four and a half and starting kindergarten this year. Ouchie.

Steven and I celebrate our one year anniversary. That's right. Read back to the evening of June the 11th, 2005, and you will see that this time last year I was tarting about the Hill with Alex and a bottle of Pina Colada mix when I was introduced to a squirrely-lookin' dude with a handlebar mustache, shaved head, earrings, and his shorts tied on with baling twine. One year later... he has a belt now. He took me out for souvlaki. Mom watched the kids for a couple of hours after we'd dropped off the stepkids with all their respective mothers. We briefly considered "parking", but did not on account of car sex being hard enough to manage when you aren't six and a half months pregnant. So, souvlaki it was. He gazed into my eyes and lectured me on how lucky and happy he was to have me, how beautiful I am, how sexy, how sweet and kind and generous... and I accused him of trying to butter me up and told him to quit it on account of making me nervous.

The FOCUS program. This is a part of Steven's plea agreement. And while alas, everyone at the courthouse understood that pleading out to the reduced charge was a measure Steven was taking in order to end the entire issue for the kids' sake, as we had proved our case "out of court"(and everyone, from the Crown to the judge to Steven's lawyer were acknowledging that we had) the Crown was adamant that she did not give a flying shit how we felt about it, but that if we did so "in court" she WOULD charge Steve's ex with filing a false police report, criminal mischief and perjury - which of course would have just started a whole new cycle of bullshit for the kids to have to go through. So everyone at the courthouse knew the score and were very wink-wink nudge-nudge about it.

Nobody told the probation office or FOCUS. Probation figured it out quickly enough. FOCUS, on the other hand, is a program... it's a "don't beat your wife" program. And they're quite used to assholes who say it's all their wives' fault, or that it wasn't that bad, or that it never happened at all anyway. And it turns out that on your first day there, they lock you in a room and try to determine exactly to what extent you have a problem with violence and aggression. Basically, they put you in a series of verbal catch-22's and try to heap as much stress as they possibly can on you, to see if and when you will crack. Case in point: The gentleman they deemed the "second most violent and dangerous offender" in the room cracked and threatened the lady running the program with punching "...your fucking teeth down your throat!". And this is a THIS or JAIL sort of program.

Guess who the "most" dangerous and violent person there was. Yup. Steve. This, when told to Mom, gave her the wicked giggles. She said, "God, are they going to feel stupid once they get to know him". But it unfortunately fed into a lot of negative self-image bullshit I've spent a great deal of the past year trying to get out of him.

FOCUS: What could you have done besides hitting your victim?
Steve: I didn't hit her. I grabbed her arm.
FOCUS: That's still assault. You can't put hands on her. It's abusive.
Steve: I know. That's why I agreed to plead to simple assault. (Thinks)... I could have taken the hit?
FOCUS: What hit? What do you mean?
Steve: I grabbed her arm because she was trying to clock me with a beer bottle. I could have just let her.
FOCUS: That's not realistic. You're being difficult on purpose to try and deny your responsibility.
Steve: Well, do YOU have an idea what I could have done?
FOCUS: You could have walked away, did you consider that?
Steve: What if she hit me from behind?
FOCUS: What makes you think she would have hit you from behind?
Steve: The fact that she was trying to hit me from in front?
FOCUS: We're not impressed with your attitude.
Steve: I'm not trying to cop an attitude, you're not listening to me. It was a fight, it got ugly. We BOTH did and said stupid things we shouldn't have.
FOCUS: Then why are you here and not your victim?

And I, BTW, am not his "girlfriend". I'm his "current victim". And he's a lousy father, because he hits women. And he's a liar. It's a gauntlet, done on purpose to see what sort of levels of violence and aggression they are dealing with in their members. So after three hours of being told all this, being threatened with jail again, being told they would be interviewing not only his ex, but myself and ALL the kids, and if anyone said anything in the least bit hinky, he'd be back in jail immediately... After being told he had to tell his new job about his record, and what it was for, putting yet ANOTHER job into jeapordy, or THEY would call and tell them... how did he do?

He got stressed. He got angry. He got frustrated. They all did. But, being Steven, his core reaction in the end was: He got a little misty-eyed. Weepy. A tad. Not so you'd notice, of course! Manly man stuff and all that. Butch-weepy. THIS is the reaction of "the most violent and dangerous man in the room!"

PS - He told his boss about the simple assault charges, that it was divorce-related, that he was taking a course and had to tell him. His boss said, "I don't care." WHEW.

Soap opera life... getting weirder.

2006-04-14T13:27:00.000-04:00

I think I'm really going to have to write a book about all this.

So. Steven gets job "A". Immediately post-trial, the X goes and mouths off in front of a coworker of her mother's. More poor me, poor me. Steven didn't get what he deserved. Steven did this terrible thing. Steven got off with nothing again. Steven is a terrible man who does terrible things and gets away with them. Poor me. Unfortunately, the coworker turned out to be Steve's boss's X - in the middle of their own bitter acrimonious divorce. So she called up her lawyer, who called up his lawyer, and basically in the end it was "Get rid of that terrible man, or you'll never have your daughter there again."

So Steven lost his job. And he really liked it, was really liked there, was good at it, the works.

I don't even think his X meant to do it - she didn't know the relationship between her mother's coworker and Steve's boss. I think she was just mouthing off because nobody pities you because you made a tape trying to get the charges against your X dropped and it helped - but if it does happen and you pretend it wasn't something you had your own hand in making happen, then people feel terrible that you got fucked over by the law.

Yes, I am aware that this is all illegal. That one cannot be fired for such reasons. That you just can't do that. But I am learning that in a town of two thousand not-so-christian souls, you can and you will.

More tales meanwhile, about how Steven "got away" with stuff, how disappointed the X is, etc keep circulating. We deal as best we can, offering copies of the tape she made admitting that Steven hadn't done anything worthy of jail-time, that she regretted her decision to call the police, that she was just angry and over-reacted, that he hadn't done anything to cause her to fear him in any way, that if I was too ill to pick up the kids, he could do it, she didn't mind... we offered to make copies for anyone who was interested in seeing the lovely dichotomy between what she tells the community and what she tells the police and the crown. Luckily, people have also begun to approach us to tell us about how many versions of the tale of that night they've gotten out of her, and how none of them match. Sigh.

So Steven gets job "B". This is a very good job indeed. A very stable company. Benefits. Very good pay. It's night work, and dirty, but Steven is so pleased (especially after losing job "A") that he doesn't care. He's happy he is finally "taking care of" me. Small problem - they don't hire people with records. Small solution - his supervisor, his probation officer, and the HR lady from the outsourcing company who have sent him there are all aware of his record, and the agreement is that what the company doesn't know won't hurt them... They all know that with three kids and two stepkids and a sixth on the way, Steven needs to work. He's a good worker. They like him a lot.

And then someone calls the company proper and tells them that he's got a record. So he gets fired again. Once again, probably not the X, but quite likely a result of her stirring up a feeling of resentment about the outcome of the trial amongst people too ignorant to know when they are being played and too immature not to jam sticks in Steve's spokes for the fun of it. What does it matter if he suffers? What does it matter if I do, or the kids.

So that was two jobs in two weeks. For stupid, cruel and purposeful actions taken directly against him. And then they closed down his bank account the day before his only paycheque was to be deposited. It'll take weeks to sort out. So we're broke, we're depressed, we're a little desperate, and we're holding on with teeth and fingernails and quite frankly, things have to get better because I'm not sure how the hell else they could get much worse.

We are also, btw (and here is the treat for those who held on through the gripe all the way to the end) expecting one large, boisterous bonny BOY c. September the 1st. His name will be Guage Skyler M-J (composite last name, ridiculously similar to Eowyn and Pierce's composite last name, lol.)

Done and over with

2006-03-29T16:40:00.000-05:00

And it's finally all over and done with.

So - what the hell happened? I shall give you the short version, which, you will still see, is long.

June the 11th, the night I first met Steven, I spent the night there with Alex. He told us that his kids were coming over at around 10am so... he didn't want to be rude... we said no problem, we'd be out before 9am. That evening, a neighbour, a friend of his ex-wife's, walked up and down the street in front of his apartment several times throughout the night, talking on her cell-phone. Steven assured me that she was talking with his ex-wife. Telling her that there were women in his apartment. That we had alcohol. That we seemed to be staying...

I thought it was silly. They'd been separated for a year - what would she care? Oh, she doesn't like me drinking. Yeah, but you're not. It's premade pina colada and it sucks. Doesn't matter, she won't like this.

The next morning at 8am, the door burst open and a petite, adorable red-head ushered two children inside, announcing, "I brought you coffee, Steven!". It was a one-room apartment. One look at me, looking up bleary-eyed from the far side of Steven (into the faces of two horrified and shocked children) and Alex sitting up on the top bunk and she started yanking the kids out of the apartment. Steven leapt out of bed (he'd insisted everyone sleep fully clothed) and told her that it was okay, we were leaving, the kids could stay. The kids started to cry. She yanked them bodily out, hissing that this was typical, he always did this, look at what he'd done to the children, god only knows what sort of trauma this was doing to them, he was so...!

The coup of several days ago was to have that neighbour, who'd recently discovered that Steve's X had been sleeping with her boyfriend, to write a letter detailing that at the X's request, she kept her informed of all the coming and goings and doings' on at Steve's apartment. On the morning of June the 12th, Steve's X knew very well that she was going to shove her kids into his apartment to see, for the very first time, their father in bed with another woman. Likely naked. Possibly two women. She came two hours early to make sure that we wouldn't have left yet. She brought coffee for Steven for the first time since their separation so that the tale she would have to tell about how he'd traumatized his own kids with his whoring would be that much more pathetic - after all, she was being so nice, she even brought him coffee! Pass the tissues and the nails for the cross, please.

I didn't beleive it at first. I didn't think that anyone would do that to their own children just for a good poor me story. I thought the good poor me story was Steven's. It just seemed like bad luck and bad timing to me. I didn't know FOR SURE, until I nailed the neighbour down for a statement, that she really had known for sure we were in there.

Steven's X despised me. I had two contacts with her and one sorta-contact. In one, she left me a phone message because she was desperate to track him down and make sure he had crucial info regarding their daughter. I returned her call to assure her that I would make sure he got the info, and that he contacted her to let her know not to worry. It was the first time she and I had communicated at all. I was happy - she sounded fine, normal, lucid and ... just normal. Two hours later Steve called me from her house, and told me never, ever to call her home again. In the background, I could hear her shreiking about "that bitch!" - me. I explained that I had not called, per se - I'd returned a call. No dice. She was livid. Enraged. Hadn't been on the phone with me, but... there you have it.

Then Eowyn got her flesh-eating bug bite thing. I was instructed to get my ass hence to the children's hospital in Ottawa right away. She had an IV, a 104degree fever. She was seriously ill - and I was supposed to drive Steve to a job interview. He had no phone, he wasn't home. The only place I knew for sure he'd be was at his X's, because he visited his kids every day. I stopped by, apologized profusely, explained the situation, and she not only agreed, she sympathized. She came to the car to see Eowyn's leg. She spoke to her about her pain. She assured me it was no problem. Two hours later.... Same thing all over. Steven, totally disbeleiving I'd stopped by her house, her shrieking in a rage in the background. I was not to call, not to go to her house, not even to BE on her street.

Then she saw me pass by her street a week or so later. I was not with Steven. I was with a gang of people, walking uptown. I got another call from Steven - this one I said no way. NO, I would not refrain from being "within sight" of her home. That was ridiculous.

Meanwhile, she told Steven that until he stopped seeing me, he was not allowed to see his kids every day - only on weekends. She told her kids that it was because he wanted to spend time with me and my kids, and not them. We were his "new" family. He loved us more. When he didn't stop seeing me, she told him that if he didn't, she would do whatever it took to see him back in jail. This she also told to the neighbour/friend. This was in the statement given to Steve's lawyer and handed to the crown prosecutor earlier this week.

So you may have figured it out (I did as soon as I saw them together at home hardware, picking out paint colours) that they were, in fact, still a couple (I, who was in FACT separated from my X, knew very well that one doesn't solicit their opinions on paint colours). Their separation was punitive - once he stopped drinking, it was expected that he would be coming home. She did not count on a woman from outside the community, who did not understand this subtle fact (for most, she claimed not to be attracted to Steve at all anymore) to enter into the situation. She never thought that while they were separated and seeing other people as well (including neighbour/friend's boyfriend), Steve might meet someone knew. She did not know that while Hollywood might make movies about the pain of being dumped for someone younger and cuter, it's doubly hard to lose your man to someone older and uglier. This is not a dig on myself - she is, in fact, absolutely adorable.

So then came July the 23rd. We were supposed to go camping. She wanted to go out. She said he was passing over his own kids for me again. He agreed to babysit. She said "don't drink". He had 3-4 beers over a 4hr period. He showed up to babysit. She flipped her gourd, and said she was sick of all this shit. She was going up to the apartment to "clear us all out". He tried to restrain her. She broke away. She arrived at his place and beat on the door, screeching like a madwoman, calling us sluts and whores and cunts and threatening us. We didn't open the door. She took off. Steven arrived with his son. Alex opened the door for him and he stood on the jamb and told us not to open the door to anyone else, his X was gunning for us, she'd lost it. We were telling him we knew when she shoved him in from behind, slapped him, screamed at him completely incoherently for a moment, and then took off with their son. He let her go.

Three hours later Steven was arrested for assault and sexual assault. She told the cops he grabbed her ass - she told the neighbours that he'd violently attempted to rape her. She told the cops she'd gone "to get milk" and noticed her son's stroller outside the apartment. She told the neighbours that we were all having sex together (three men, two women) in front of her son. That there was cocaine involved. This is why I had such a hard time finding work all winter and fall - because for many people in the community, I am freak with pedophiliac exhibitionist tendencies.

So today I am pleased to report that Steven is not in jail. The letters I spent all week getting cleared him totally on any allegations of sexual assault. He was found not guilty. But because he'd laid hands on her to try and prevent her from coming up to the apartment to assault us, he had to plead to a lessened charge of simple assault. A month's house arrest, a year's probation, due to his record. The point of her doing this - to send him to jail, to destroy our relationship, to prevent him ever seeing his kids again - are all undone. I count it as a win. In fact, I also, during this past month, managed to get her to make a tape for the crown stating that she did NOT want Steven to go to jail anymore. She sang my praises to the crown, and so... hopefully... we move on.

And that's the grand tale.

Steven's Tattoo

2006-03-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

Just because I have to talk about something other than this damn court case tomorrow. Although let it be said that if ever I have to sit through another hours-long lecture on "Women and the Shit They Get Away With" I shall bury Steven in the bog. I love him, but today I had to pay double what he did two months ago to have a nail pulled out of and plug put into a tire, I told him if he'd like to take a 30-cent an hour pay cut for the rest of his life and have The Law be one of the few places where anyone takes anything you say seriously, he could be my guest. Frankly, I'd rather the extra 30-cents an hour and to take my chances in the courts like all the other dudes.

But enough of that.

Steven, at the tender age of thirteen, was given a gangland tattoo. It was forced upon him by circumstances and male relatives who currently bemoan "How Steven Turned Out". It was on his left shoulder, and consisted (briefly) of a portrait of the devil. It was poorly and cheaply done. One guitar string, some india ink, and a handful of cigarette ashes. Not a nice or attractive tattoo - and one that marked him forevermore as part of a culture that he has no interest in being part of anymore.

So Steve has this friend named Joe and Joe does tattoos. Joe did a koi on Steve's back several years ago. Joe is a good tattoo artist, but mostly because the stock and trade of tattoos is other people's designs. He learned what he knows about drawing while drawing on other people's skin. I, on the other hand, am a good artist. So when Joe asked me, "How would you like to learn to do tattoos?" and I said, "AND HOW!!" we both turned to Steve and saw a guinea pig. Poor ole Steve sat down, bared his back, and got a second, larger koi. I observed and learned.

Later, we did yet another type of koi - a koi that was clearly not quite koi. Apparently there is a story that dragons, when they die, must spend a thousand years as a koi before being reborn as a dragon again. The third koi is half koi-half dragon. I drew both tattoos. Eventually, behind all three koi, there will be a dragon, and around the tattoo as a whole, an egg-shape. Pretty, nu?

But still... that stupid face on his shoulder. Totally hideous. Totally out of place.

Enter Tony. Not "my" Tony. Joe's Tony. A buddy and fellow tattoo artist. I helped them out with some stuff and in thanks Joe handed over some ink, his own tattoo gun, and some needles.

So we got home... and I did my first, unsupervised, all-on-my-lonesome tattoo. I designed my first cover-up. (Well - not strictly true - I'd already designed a coverup for the fly on my chest... it's now a dragonfly (NOT A WORD, LAURE)) Steven's ancient hideous gangland devil-head is now a serene, wise, rather... cute... turtle. The shell covers the face. Flippers abound. There are spots. It is awesome.

So there you have it. Mom said, "I always knew you'd be an artist!". Joe says he'll sell me the gun for 60 bux. A steal, really. Some fresh needles, disposable tubes, some good ink... and I could have a LOT of clients. I have several willing guinea pigs already, and several willing paying customers waiting on a portfolio to prove my work.

Also, I stopped by a local pizzaria the other day, owned by an aquaintance - and left with a slice and a cola for Steve's lunch, and a job. I'll be delivering pizzas again for two hours over lunch on weekdays. It's not huge money or anything, but every little bit helps - and it won't be too hard even with the pregnancy and the sciatica and all the rest.

So my nerves are shot.

2006-03-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

Literally and figuratively.

I had my second OB appointment last week - ultrasound scheduled for the 11th of April. The OB... was making funny faces. Not like, "lemme see if I can make you laugh" faces, but "hmmmmmm..." faces. Specifically, she was making them while doing the gripping of the uterus test (for boys and unbred women - in this they grip and squish your uterus to determine it's size and shape. Eggplant. Lovely.) She grips, squishes, makes her hmmmm... face and says, "Only 17 weeks you say?".

No, only 17 weeks YOU say. My own calculations put me more like 15.5. I keep my trap shut because she has her pinwheel doohickey and until there's an ultrasound, the pinwheel is god. Either way, she seems to think I am larger than 17 weeks, which since I am not yet 16 (last week), freaks me out.

Then she brings out the doppler. This is to hear the critter's heartbeat. She slaps it dead center and there is an immediate loud and healthy woosh woosh woosh. I mention that I heard it earlier this month, after a trip to emergency because there turns out to be a 220volt wire touching my hot water heater. Owie. ECG and check the baby. Owie. But I'd heard the heartbeat then too. She asks if I have felt movement. Yes, lots. In fact, I had a very awesome experience, sitting in the tub. I felt some squigglage, and then looked down and watched as the whole of my uterus shifted up from the lower left over and around to the right. I SAW movement from the outside of my body, and I wasn't even 15 weeks yet.

"Speaking of movement, there he goes again." I tell her. Sure enough, the little troll doll goes and rolls away again. So she chases him about with the doppler again. There he is on the right, facing down, but the sound is faint. So she moves to the left, angled more upwards... and there it is again. I think nothing of this at first. Two angles. Whatever. Then I look at her face again. It's cocked to the side and she's got a puzzled, yet sorta excited look on. She goes left-down... right-up... left-down... right-up.

"Do... not... even... say... it!" I hiss.

"Oh, no! no!" she cries, "You can't tell these things with a doppler. There are echoes, you can never be sure of the angles... Your ultrasound is in a couple of weeks, that's really the only way to know for sure."

But she knew what I was talking about, right away.

Plus I have pregnancy-related sciatica. Owie. Nerves shot.

Then, of course, Steven's court date is this Wednesday. There has been some unexpected, rather good news on that front. Still, you never really know with these things. I don't want to be overconfident, but I think our case is pretty damn tight, and I, and Steven's new boss at the mill (he's milling logs for log-cabin homes! toll so far: one broken finger) have finally managed to convince him that he has no legal or moral responsibility to protect his ex-wife from the consequences of filing what might be proved to be a false police report or committing perjury. She'll have to sink or swim on her own on that one.

So I'll try to post Wednesday afternoon or thursday morning to let you know how it went (3hr trial, starting at 10am) - but make no assumptions if I don't get back by then - after all, I just as likely might be curled up in a fetal position right next to him, in relief, as anything else. Wish us luck.

Another startling change

2006-03-17T11:14:00.000-05:00

Basically, I've determined that I seem to stop posting when things get either too "bad" exciting, or when things in my life change rather dramatically. I have to work up the nerve to share the latter, and often I cannot really discuss the former.

So it's been a while and we're down to T minus less than two weeks until Steven's court date, regarding the scandal in town with the (unfortunately-not-so) ex-wife. Several weeks ago, I pulled off a rather brilliant coup which I would love to share with y'all here, but cannot for legal reasons, even though I come off as a bit of a genius in it and Steve's lawyer loves me for it. It hasn't "worked"... yet. Complicated to explain without shooting ourselves in the foot... but chances are good that The Crown just might drop all the charges and not bother at all because of it. Fingers crossed.

Please rest assured that once all this shit is over and done with, I shall put up a lovely detailed post explaining all that was said and done, and then this place will read like less of some sort of code. It's the stuff of hairy soap-opera-esque fiction, and if my life with Steven didn't hang in the balance, I would be rather flip about it.

So onto things I CAN talk about: I got fired. Again. From the papers. I got sick. Very sick. Steven hauled my ass into the hospital where I was told to take a minimum of three nights off. I was ill enough that I compromised with one, non-weekend night. I called my supervisor to arrange for him to take the run that night, as per his offer/our agreeement for what we would do if such a thing should happen. Actually, Steven called him, as I did not have a voice, and had not for OVER TWO WEEKS. Very ill. It didn't so much work out. Couldn't contact the supervisor, the switchboard wouldn't contact him for us, and basically argument was had over the point of having a supervisor that did not work regular business hours NOR any of the hours at which those he was supposed to supervise were working.

The next day Steven came out with me to deliver the papers, and we were pleased to discover that they had indeed managed to find *someone* to do the previous night's papers, as some of the boxes still had them in there... cool. Then a minivan flagged me down and a lady got out and said: "Didn't XXX (supervisor) talk to you? You're fired." I wanted to be self-righteous and indignant, but being pregnant it came out as a lot of weeping and snuffling.

Upside: Steven is EMPLOYED. Like for real, full-time. So I am... a housewife... ish... again. Argh. He is milling logs for log cabin homes. Later, he will be assembling them. It's cool, because it was something he used to do in, of all places, the middle east - Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, etc. Some day I shall tell the tale of how he lost that particular job, which I have tentatively titled: Lebanese Brothels And You; A Guide to Maintaining Your Ability to Travel Through The States and France.

He's very happy, and feeling manly-manly. Mostly, I'm bored, and stressed. Some day, we will both be happy AT THE SAME TIME. It will be fun.

But of course...

2006-02-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

You see, I thought I had the trump card of terrible work stories with my "And then I heard rifle shots..." tale. But now I've one-upped myself.

So about a week ago there was a big ole storm, the sort of which resulted with a page two story in the Ottawa Citizen titled basically, "Stop calling us. Your paper was late for the same reason you couldn't even get out of your driveway. Our drivers are not equipped with anti-grav. It's a newspaper, not open-heart surgery, chances are you will survive."

They called it the worst driving conditions since the '97 Ice Storm. Pretty true. I likened it to driving on a buttered slip and slide. Fun fun fun. One of those ones where you spin out so many times you end up just putting your hands up and yelling, "WHEEEEEEE!".

So I get to Concession 10 and get out of the car (hoping it doesn't start to slide down the incline without me, but not overly concerned as there is a dip where it would stop not too far away). That particular addy is a pain in the ass not only because the box is on a hill, but because it is also set back from the road, too far to reach from the car. I get out. I take two steps. I do prat-fall onto ice.

The worst part was the REASON I fell was because the loop from one bootlace got caught on the eyelet of my other boot, effectively tying my feet together. So I didn't even just fall on ice, or fall gracefully.

I landed on my left side (tuck and roll!). I sustained bruising to my left elbow, my left hip, and left knee and entire dignity. I lay on the ice and sniffled. The bruises were not particularly dire. I didn't think on it much.

Except...

My shoulder hurt. I figured I'd jammed it good. My neck hurt. Whiplash? I dunno. The bruises healed, the shoulder and neck did not. Finally, I went to the hospital. Yeah, me. On purpose. I use this to inform you of exactly HOW MUCH my shoulder and neck hurt.

I have a broken collar bone. Please to lavish upon me the pity and well wishes now. If you aren't feeling either, consider this: No drugs for Kiffie. "Tylenol, if you MUST." I only musted once. Sigh. And so I asked the doc: How long is this going to take to heal? and he said: Ooo... these things take A WHILE, eh? Fine then, keep your pity and well wishes, the look he gave me as he said that was enough pity to tide me over until I fall into a well or cut a finger off with a food processor or whatever further debacle is waiting for me in the wings of my life.

Plus Steven has pneumonia.

Kif's Job

2006-01-23T14:17:00.000-05:00

I am still a newspaper delivery girl.

I wake up at 2:15am and putter about with the fire, make sure the kids are well covered, let the dogs out, turn the car over so she can heat up and by 2:30am I am on the road.

Not a long time to get ready for work, eh? It doesn't have to be. Mostly because I don't have to do such time-consuming things as "eat" or "dress" or "shower". Sweater on over jammies, feet in boots, and off I go. By 2:50am I am in Alexandria, at the Tim Hortons. Lyne peers out at the headlights and by the time I get in my double-double is sitting on the counter, waiting. Now I also usually pick up something like a danish or a box of timbits too... huuuuungry. A couple of days ago I dropped my cherry-cheese danish in the snow and ended up crying for an hour. It was not nice, "Oh just pick it up and eat it anyway!" snow. If I arrive past 3am they will have thrown all the donuts out already. I am endeavouring to find out where the dumpster is, or to convince Lyne that handing me a garbage bag of day-old donuts to feed my kids is not "gross". I suspect she has her own deal on the side elsewhere.

Back in car and around the corner to gas up. Lucien has either been and gone, arrives as I'm pumping, or arrives shortly or a great deal later on... I chat with the lady at the gas station, prepare my bags and place my papers. And then I'm off.

I do a long windy route on tiny backroads. I see a lot of ice, sleet, snow and critters. So far: wolf. lynx. mink. coyote. snowy owl. rat. mouse. moose. partridge. skunk. raccoon. ruffled grouse. vole. deer. dog. cat.... the list goes on. The point is that all these critters have one common feature. They are all suicidal. In the wee hours the animal kingdom comes out in droves to congregate on roads and in ditches and driveways and highways. Mostly to wait for unsuspecting motorists delivering newspapers to leap out in front of. For the first little while I was overwhelmed by the beauty of nature in all its splendiferous forms. I called Mom to gush about the wolves. Now I'm not so overwhelmed. Mostly annoyed. Deer look less like the paragons of grace and delicacy they once seemed to be. Now they mostly look like a lot of free meat.

But if you're busy thinking how terrible it is, Kif out in the dark of night, dodging retarded animals and trying not to make toyota-prints in the snowbanks, just know this: MAN is by far and shall always remain the most dangerous part of my job. This would be why I do not, ever, leave my car during my run anymore. If your mailbox is up there and the road is down here, the paper gets chucked in a bag between and I don't care how many calls you make to the Citizen to bitch. A month or so ago, I got shot at by a hunter.

It validated five years in the army. I heard the crack of the rifle, and then the pop of the bullet. I thought, "Hey. Someone's shooting. TOWARDS ME." and hit the ditch as two more shots puffed up snow in the bank around 15-20 feet away. Thence followed a bilingual tirade at the top of my lungs from the ditch. I questioned the mental state and parentage and overall hunting skill of the individual in the woods across the way. The firing stopped immediately. A grunted, "J'm'excuse." was all I got.

Now I ain't saying that the toyota is armor-plated, but at least it looks slightly less like a deer than I do.

Oh yeah - I told Tony I was pregnant. After nearly a year of almost NIL interest in anything to do with my life, where he couldn't be bothered to ask me anything about my world, not even, "How are you?"... he suddenly felt it was appropriate to question me about my finances and love life. I was annoyed but had expected something along those lines, so I was appropriately vague (after all, none of those things are any of his business) but reassuring that he would not end up "supporting some other man's baby!". Yeesh.

I had forgotten...

2006-01-16T13:26:00.000-05:00

... the joys of pregnancy.

It's an astounding process. Inside my uterus a critter roughly the size and shape of a gummi bear is floating about percolating into the sort of creature that shall eventually end up playing yu-gi-oh and arguing with siblings. It's a magical and wondrous thing. It makes one feel one's basic, primal connection to nature, the place of humanity in the universe, the point of life...

And really barfy.

I have not, as of yet, barfed. I've come darn-tootin' close. Mostly, just drooly and burpy. Plus, I'm almost constantly famished. And exhausted. Please, do NOT leave messages pointing out that these are large hairy signs of multiple pregnancies. I already know, and I've already got fingers firmly plugged in my ears singing "LA LA LA" at all those who keep telling me they have "feelings" or "just know" that I'm going to up and have a litter.

But you know what they don't really put in them there pregnancy books that I've noticed? Stupidity. Pregnancy makes you dumb like a cow. I swear I've dropped at least fifteen IQ points. People make jokes and I don't get them anymore. Not only that, but I'm too stupid to fake getting them so I don't look so stupid. Mostly I squawk, "I'm pregnant! Leave me alone!"; and run away crying. It's not working out so well for me.

I'm having a hell of a time finding an OB/GYN in the area. Apparently they're all... on pregnancy leave. And my usual birthing haunt (the Lasalle General) is now no longer an option, so there goes the dedicated single room with private jacuzzi bath and infant and significant other in-rooming. Who said socialized medecine was a total loss? Sigh. This has given me the idea of just staying home and doing it myself, probably in the bathtub. Or rather, it's given me the great joy of threatening to do it to Steven, who is apparently a fainter.

I would if I could. But I can't. If I could conceivably tie my own tubes at home too, I might... But you gotta hit the hospital for that shit. So off to evil ole hawkesbury I go. To labour in one room, give birth in a stainless steel box, and be shunted off into a dormitory to recover with a bunch of strangers trying to build diapers out of maxi pads while their babies are kept in a totally different area of the hospital because we mothers are germy and dangerous.

Well, it might not be quite that bad... but it probably won't be far off. I'm not happy.

I AM still alive. I swear.

2006-01-09T14:01:00.000-05:00

Okay then... news.

1. Still with Steven. Still ridiculously happy. He still doesn't buy it. It's all good, though.

2. Booted Alex out of Casa del Kif, on account of being a royal pain in my ass. Replaced her with "Murphy" - guitar playin' loud singin' great-grub cookin' dude you may recall reminded me awkwardly enough of Dad. Twink... YOU remember la Murph, do you not? Pierce stabbed him in the throat with a stick? Accidentally? Remember? Either way, apparently he went and contracted Guylain-Barre Syndrome (sp?) and almost died/ended up paralysed - probably from Pierce's cootie-infested stick. He survived though... "Walked it off!" as he puts it. He is my official new bestest girlfriend.

3. Steven has gone and impregnated me with his demon spawn. Yes. You read that right. I'm all knocked up and all that good stuff. I leave various others to make their own pronouncements, but there does seem to be some sort of viral pregnancy thing going around right now. Eowyn is THRILLED. Pierce is HORRIFIED.

4. There is some debate as to whether or not Kif has, in fact, been impregnated with A demon spawn, or perhaps a LITTER of demon spawn. News to follow as events warrant. But I'm far too early along to be making milk, I'm starving, I'm pukey, I'm an emotional basketcase (BAD idea to joke that the DVD player is not working), and I've dropped a good 15 IQ points. People make jokes, and I blink at them.

5. Still doing the paper run. Can now pull a Toyota Corolla out of a snowbank with my bare hands. Can change a flat tire faster than a pit crew. Can mouth off at cops (in disarming and charming way) for pulling me over for being out at 2am - "Don't you dudes KNOW me by now?"... Not thrilled with wear and tear on car, or pay, but am liking lack of coworkers/bosses. That and taking revenge on people who make spurious complaints of not recieving papers just to get the credit (which is, BTW, charged back to ME) by coughing on their paper when I have a violent chest cold. Serves them right.

6. Septic issues are resolved. Heating issues abound, but are stable. Christmas went frugally but well. Not keeping up with all financial commitments, but am neither starving, freezing, nor weeping under my staircase while I beat on water pumps or crawling about in crawlspaces swearing at furnaces. I have Steven for all that now. Plus he chops up a mean log.

I must leave you now, hopefully for not so long a period, because Murph's sister will be going to work soon and I must go fill up a dozen RC Cola bottles with drinkable water.

More news as events warrant!

Urk. Sick. Of course.

2005-09-23T14:01:00.000-04:00

I am not, as of yet, puking. I could not, as I spent all morning, not at my job delivering pizzas, but learning the route I will take to deliver newspapers. This in a rattly old banana yellow diesel volks - which did not help. I did not puke in N's car, but towards the end there, every time he lit up a smoke, I went from several shades of pink to several shades of green. Urk. Plus there is stuffiness and general malaise. I don't feel good. Pity me. Now.

The route should be okay. I can do this. I pick up my papers at around 3am and I should finish between 6am and 7am - getting me home just in time to roust all the kids, both large and small. Catch some prime nappage, and off to the pizza joint.

This could work.

Or I could turn into a sleep-deprived emotional wreck whose children don't remember her name. But man, will I have some cash around... Excuse me a moment - my priority alarm is going off... yeesh... what's its problem anyway?

No worries. The plan is to attempt both jobs for as long as I can manage, and then bail on the pizza - once the paycheques from the other are coming in. That way I stay in gas money and never ever have to call Tony and tell him I can't afford to drive the kids out, despite the fact that he actually does give me a rather jaw-dropping amount of child support.

Steven told me this morning, as I woke up going, "Urk" that all would be well...

"Don't worry, babe" he said, patting my back "You'll get home at nine..."
"... ten." I correct.
"Ten?"
"Friday. Closes at ten on Fridays."
"Well... ten then. You'll get home and crawl into bed..."
"... back into the car." I correct again.
"Hunh?"
"Gotta take the kids in to Montreal."
"Damn, baby. You're hard core."

So I am. But I think as this day wears on, my core is going mushy a bit. I might call Tony and see if tomorrow am is okay. I just don't want to be up until 1am tonight. I want a hot bath and several blankets and hugs.

Awkward segue time. My mind wandered.

I went to the bank yesterday. It went rather well. I should be able to do this. I am very pleased. I am going into the realtor's office on Monday to make an offer, contigent on financing, inspection, and (the bank's requirement) landlease for the amortization period of the mortgage. Cross your fingers for me - Operation Trailer Trash is taking a bold step. I would be bouncy and jovial about it, if I didn't think the bouncing might make me upchuck on the library's lovely clean computer.

Well whaddaya know?

2005-09-22T13:28:00.000-04:00

The local library here in the Hill has high speed internet on computers open to the public for an hour a day per person. So here I am, in a library and everything, on the net again.

I work lunchtimes (11am-1pm) at the pizza place, and then ferry Alex about until we're ready to drop her off out at the house for the kids - then I'm back at the pizza place from 4pm to 9pm...

Which means it seems a good idea I start coming here and taking care of this place again.

Per usual, a lot of stuff going on - the most notable being this morning, when Steven and I went out to the even tinier town of Dalkeith and looked at a mobile home for sale. I call it: Operation Trailer Trash. There is talk of push-up bras and animal print blouses and a mullet for Pierce and someone will have to explain to me exactly what the hell "Nascar" IS. At least I'm already bleaching my hair...

Honestly though, I really liked the place. It's cute, very well-maintained, has drinkable water and a septic tank that is just RIGHT THERE. Its got a new woodstove and a baseboard at the other end of the house. The plumbing, hot water tank, roof, electrics, etc are all new within the past two years. Also, there was a large and affectionate rottweiler named "Porkchop". He, unfortunately, is not included. At 2:45pm today I will be at the CIBC in Hawkesbury doing my best not to dive to my knees and holler "PLEASE GIVE ME MONEY!!!". We shall see.

It's all very exciting, see?

Still alive!

2005-09-19T09:55:00.000-04:00

So! Yeah. Still kicking, mostly. Might be a bit feeble these days, but what can you do?

I am starting my paper route next week - 7 nights a week, rain or shine, come potholes, ditches or deer. Currently, I am also working at the best job I've had since I worked in television. Get this: I am a Pizza Bitch. God bless ye ole Toyota, because it allows me to haul pizza's all over hell's high acre and make some fairly wicked tips. Some nights, I waitress as well, which I'm less good at. I got lost out near Dalkeith one night and had to bribe a schoolyard full of kids for directions. They were all clamoring so loudly that I just chucked a handful of loose change over the fence and ran for the car. Thank god for that fence, I coulda been killed.

But the ambiance is nice and relaxed and they like my work and I make reasonable money and it's kept me afloat. I will try to do both jobs for a while so I can save up some money...

... for a downpayment on my very own casa del kif.

As it turns out they're sticklers for that whole "first AND last" month's rent thing around here, and it ends up being around the same amount of cash, except if you buy, your "rent" payment is not hideously onerous. So that's what I'm going to try and do. Wish me luck. Steven's been working fairly well and regular these days too, and it looks like we're going to try and make an honest long-term thing of it, with house and yard and too many stupid dogs and loud children.

Speaking of stupid dogs, Ren broke my nose. That's right, the CHIHUAHUA broke my nose. Hard little head, that one. I was telling Laure about it on the phone last night, and when she asked me HOW I'd managed to break my nose again (this is the ninth break for me, it's so common for me now that I don't bleed or get raccoon eyes or anything, just swell up and look stupid and sniff a lot), Steven yelled out, "If she'd learn to keep her mouth shut, her nose would be fine!". Har-har. She then got me with a good quip, regarding meeting a lady and wanting to ask a sort of off question but then determining not to "Raise the weirdo flag right away" - last night this was so funny for me that I laughed until I cried and got a stomach ache, and even later on in our conversation, I kept giggling and she had to yell at me that it really wasn't all that funny.

It was to me.

So that's it right now: over at the Cabbage looking at properties and stuff. Yay. Going to be starting to take the kids in to Tony every second weekend, and trying to arrange things with Jason's mom so that all the kids are around on the same weekends. Steven's next court date is on Halloween... yup - that's about it - and now I must bolt to get to the Pizza Parlour on time...

Love you all!

Life... falling... apart.

2005-09-02T18:22:00.000-04:00

Just a little bit, eh?

So I lost yet another job... ish. Turns out I was mostly hired to check me out because apparently I'm good gossip fodder.

I've a line on a new job though, possibly. I might just be getting... a paper route.

*cue laughter*

Alright, cut it out. It's in the wee hours of the night and it pays good. I have a kick ass car that makes excellent mileage, and I won't have to deal with retarded co-workers or bosses who can't sit on chairs for fear of sucking them into their asses what with them being so tight-assed they cross the line into vacuum. Excellent mileage is good these days, because gas shot through the roof yesterday - just in time for me to have to drive the kids to St. Eugene - Steven to the Hill - Me to Grenville and then Hawkesbury - Steve and I to L'Orignal... and home again.

Alex's father came out and helped dig up a bunch more of my lawn. He's huge, works like a horse, and dowsed my land for the septic tank (which he called, "Witchin' it out") but couldn't do much because the house is built on about ten different springs. So we dug. It was gross.

Beyond that, I just spent every last cent we have on gas, food, and school supplies. I am dead broke. Now I have to call Tony and tell him I can't bring the kids out to see him this weekend - which sucks. But I don't have the money for gas to go there and back, or to go and pick them up on Monday and back either - but I do actually have SOME food in the house I can feed them. I hate this dead broke thing. Not only that - I don't even actually have ALL the school supplies. Argh.

So the upside: We saw Steven's lawyer the other day and after we talked over everything he was downright gleeful. It bodes well.

Been a while, eh?

2005-08-17T10:15:00.000-04:00

So today Steve had his first appearance in court. His lawyer said, "Two weeks?". The judge replied, "31st of August?". His lawyer: "Sure." The judge: "Okay, then."

Then we left, and that was it.

Which considering the buildup, was a pain in the ass. I have, for the past few weeks, been talking Steve down and down and down again - and then he'd see some buddy and they'd say something like, "Oh, you could get ten years!" and that would undo all my work again. Start again.

Plus, my septic system, such as it is, isn't. We have been having... issues. A quote from Steve: "Oh great. Someone had corn. Oh yeah, splash me right in the face. I love it. Fucking shit. Fantastic." Just imagine this coming from the depths of my crawlspace while Pop and I stand next to the furnace trying not to laugh. Also, it is possible to partially empty plumbing lines with a shopvac. When they say "wet/dry" they ain't kidding. This is how Steve has been "making things up" to me - and showing his love. In fact, both he and my dad spent a day standing ankle-deep in septic sludge on my behalf. This is the purest and truest expression of love I have ever partaken in. Lots of guys will do lots of things for you - very few will do... THAT.

Also, I have a new job. I am a cashier at a grocery store, working with my buddy Pete. He got me the job. For the kids, getting to scan things and make change is on par on the coolness scale with making television shows. It is absolute murder on my feet, but I am actually very much enjoying myself. I scanned a package of hotdogs the other day that came out to 13,716,000.01 - and I lost it so bad that I had the giggles for most of the day. Plus, I don't mind (unlike most of the other girls) the customers. We have the crazy ladies who micromanage the packing of the bags, and the old broads who have to open the giant purse, find the giant wallet, remove the smaller wallet, count exact change - but only once everything is rung up and packed and the entire line looks like they'd happily push her into an open manhole. My fav was the dude with the shaved head, tattoos, big long goatee in the cream-coloured convertible PT Cruiser. I said, "You're the guy with the incredibly cool car, are you not?" - and he said, "No ma'am, I'm not. It's my wife's."

Well done.

Also! I have yet another dog. He fits in with my dog motif - small and stupid. His name is Ren, and he is, of course - a chihuahua. He is an UNFIXED chihuahua. He will be the father to Mogs' puppies. Mogs will likely be having puppies somewhere around my birthday. Yes - the deed is done. We are expecting Pug/Shih-tsu Chihuahua's. They will be very very stupid looking.

So that's my life, again. Me, Pete, Alex, Steve, Eowyn, Pierce, Mogs, Cocotte, and Ren... without plumbing. But when I get home from work, there is a houseload of people thrilled to see me, kisses all around, food... it's good. Even with everything else going on, very very good.

Feeling a little vindicated.

2005-08-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

I'm at Mom's, but likely not for long. I suspect, I hope, that Twink is on the verge of showing up.

Beyond that, I finally managed to get it out of someone "in the know" that Steve being sent all the way to Innes instead of being detained in Hawkesbury or even L'Orignal is bloody bizarre. When the OPP told us they were not following up on Steve's charges against his ex, I brought it up, being quite angry, and intimated that this was just further proof that one party seems to be getting the bum's rush in a large and hairy way. No, no! protested the cop, it's not that unusual, it can happen!

Yes, to the letter of the law, they are allowed to do things that way, but dang if he blushed up a storm while saying it, and I didn't buy it for a second. What the original Sgt I spoke to on the street corner on The Hill told me was "the truth" - the standard - "He'll be out later tonight, possibly sometime tomorrow." Instead, it took me three days to track him down and they tried to sneak by his bail hearing without informing me - it was only his lawyer's assistant, under the impression they were talking to his mother while they were in fact talking to ALEX who managed to track me down so I could hightail it out to L'Orginal (his fourth move in not even that many days) to get him out.

But then, Friday - what else could possibly have happened? Steve lost his job. He hadn't been there for three months yet and with all the court dates etc coming up, they said he's be missing too much time, and so sorry, goodbye. It was coincidentally the same day he had to leave early to get to Legal Aid. I told the lady at Legal Aid, thinking that she must have some familiarity with all this stuff, about him being taken away and practically hidden for three days. About being sent to Innes. She was shocked. She assured me it was indeed NOT what would regularily happen.

HMPH.

Okay, off to get paint and stuff with Heather - and then home-ish, I think. Thanks fer all yer thoughts, folks. I really appreciate it.

Disillusioned Kif Requires Hugs.

2005-08-04T09:26:00.000-04:00

Pony up the comfort, my friends, I need it.

First off, the lovely folks at the OPP called Steve and made us drive all the way up to Hawkesbury on a moments notice to tell us that they were not going to pursue Steve's charges against his X for domestic battery/assault on account of:

a. It looked like a revenge thing on paper, despite the fact that he pursued it only on his lawyer's orders, and only once assured that she would only be served a summons to court, and not arrested outright or handcuffed or taken away in front of the kids.

b. He probably deserved it anyway.

Oh yeah, you read that second part right. It was OKAY for her to bitch slap him because see, she was UPSET. If he hadn't made her UPSET, then he wouldn't have gotten hit. I feel like I'm in a time warp in this fucking place. When was the last time YOU heard a cop say that if the stupid bitch had just kept her mouth shut and done what she was told, she wouldn't have taken a chop to the jaw? I ended up growling a great deal at the cop, and Steve had to calm ME down.

Then yesterday the lady from Children's Aid came to my house and spoke with Steve. I had to stay outside trying to read a book and not plotz the whole time, until the very end, when I sat with them briefly. Steven came off as well as any self-admitted drug-addicted alcoholic ex-con who's back up on charges can. The X is apparently not contesting his visitation at all, and is being very cooperative, which frankly, makes me nervous.

But some shit that woman said had me up all night, and had me crying this morning. Once, way way way way WAY back in the day, Mom had a boyfriend who would lose his cool during arguments and slap her. Years later, she told me that while she had very little pride in that whole period of her life, she was at least glad that he never hit her in front of us, and that he never hit us.

Except that, of course, he did. We knew he hit her too. Hello? We lived there. Of course we knew. You can't hear arguing behind closed doors and a slap and see Mom all red in the face and him come out with his shoulders hunched and biting his thumb in rage and not know that he hit her. And people's emotional reactions to stressors, and their interpretation of what is appropriate to do with that reaction, tends to be across the board. Basically, if you really believe that if you get THAT angry, you're justified in slapping or punching someone, then if a kid makes you THAT angry, you'll still feel justified. You just might not hit as hard. I don't doubt that Mom's boyfriend didn't hit us as hard as he hit Mom, but hit us he did.

So why didn't we tell? Because, like the cop told Steve, it was our fault. We KNEW when he was upset, we KNEW to stay out of his way, KNEW not to leave toys there, KNEW not ask stupid questions, KNEW how to be good, and we failed. We were bad kids. We were so bad, we made him so angry, that he hit us. That, in and of itself was measure of OUR failure to us, not his. I wouldn't have admitted to ANYONE that I was so stupid and bad and terrible that he'd hit me. I had more pride than that, if not more brains. This is how the psychology of abuse works.

And the woman from Children's Aid yesterday was practically gushing about Steve's X. What a nice woman, a good mother, so calm and natural with the kids! Of course, she didn't see her gibbering and wailing on the door that night like a lunatic. She didn't see her shove Steve into the apartment from behind, didn't see the blow she laid on him as their son shrieked "STOP FIGHTING!! STOP FIGHTING!!" over and over again. And because I wasn't present for the interview, and because I was too upset about all this this morning, I don't know if Steve told her that his X slapped him a lot. I know of at least three "slaps" during my short tenure in his life. At the time, until the final one, he laughed them off, because see, it wasn't like the times she punched him in the stomach, or the time she knocked him unconscious with a frying pan. And yes, all these things happened in front of the children.

And now, living with the man, I cannot help but notice that he is the poster-boy for battered wife syndrome. I still haven't convinced him that his being required to sit the children down and explain to them how he failed and what he did wrong that upset their mother so much that she had to hit him is right the fuck loony. And like Mom said to him, "You aren't THERE all the time Steve. How do you KNOW she doesn't get just as frustrated and angry with them sometimes?".

I only came close to losing it once, when the lady from Children's Aid tried to remonstrate Steve that perhaps if he tried harder to keep his X happier, things might not have come to this. Steve just sat there and nodded glumly, and I had to jump in and point out that I wasn't "allowed" to be on any street or in any area that had a line of sight view from her house. That I had to drive by the park and make sure that she and her kids weren't there before I could let my kids go play. That he wasn't allowed to mention my name, or call me to be picked up from her house. That on several occasions the ultimatum was to dump me or pay the price. That we both accepted all the terms except the last, in an attempt to make her adjustment to the new situation smoother. But that we still disobeyed, and so we now pay the price - because we just made her that angry, see?

Ooops!

2005-07-30T16:57:00.000-04:00

Twink, get your ass up here, as pronto as you can manage it. I've been bragging about y'all and you have to come prove me right.

See you soon, love you!

The Shit Hath Hiteth the Fan

2005-07-30T16:38:00.000-04:00

So yeah, been a while, eh?

First off, I got fired. The bastards, may they rot in the swill of human excrement currently baking in the sun in bags on my lawn. But then, considering the fact that I hated that job, I'm not unduly concerned. I have more faith in my ability to get more jobs now, and now I know that this new, improved, far more self-aware Kif is not able to tolerate the infinite bullshit that is an office environment/culture anymore. So there you have it.

Second off, I now own, literally and legally, one slightly mopey ex-con. This because as you will recall, I mentioned that his X was not fond of my ass, his being around my ass, or anything ass-related going on between the two of us. So last Saturday night, she flipped her lid in a large and epic way, called the cops and they took dear Ole Steve away, for several days. He went to Hawkesbury, to Cornwall, and to Innes - the prison in Ottawa - before I managed to track him down (singularily unhelpful people in the OPP, under certain circumstances) and bail his ass out. His ass, since we're speaking of it, was mightily bent and bruised, as some less-than-moral fellow inmates decided to see if they could kill it - and him.

Fun fun fun.

But oddly enough, I've made friends with several OPP officers, Steve's lawyer (a gleeful fellow, with the most overpowering stench of POWER around him I've ever gotten a whiff of) and the crown prosecutor at the bail hearing. I got to read the X's complaint against him, as in order to bail someone out, you have to know exactly WHAT you are bailing out. "These are serious charges," they told me "are you SURE you want to do this?".

I was there that night. I KNOW that out of five points she made in her complaint, four weren't just exagerations or obfuscations of the truth, but out and out fabrications. I also pointed out how involved in his kids' lives he was/is, and so the no contact order doesn't extend to them. Of course, we're having to go through Children's Aid to get access, and that takes a while, but he won't have to wait weeks/months to see them...

He told me, too, how pissed she was. About the ultimatums that she would fix things so he never saw her or the kids again, that he'd end up back in jail if he didn't break it off with me. But neither of us really thought that it would quite go this far.

Kif's Prediction: At the Discovery, when Steve's Lawyer has a chance to question her on her statement in front of the Crown, the Crown will dismiss the charges and if they don't charge her with filing a false statement to the OPP, she'll get off real lucky.

But in the end, this has been my "Week of Sin" - Started with a bang, a fight, a scene and some police - and now Steve is legally obliged to live in my house with me, abide by my rules (and you can just guess how much fun I'm having with that!), no beer, no drugs, no contact with the X, blah blah blah. So basically, I own his ass. If she wanted him to drop me, this has had almost exactly the opposite effect - cause now, at least for a month or so, we're stuck with one another. And it's good. We've been cleaning house and putzing about and missing the kids... Although Jason did come for a visit the other day, which was lovely because he had my undivided attention (tug-of-war into the beer-pond, which I I lost five time in a row, of course - climbing and collecting apples from the tree, playing made-up card games (also lost almost all of them too) etc...) and almost all of Steve's attention as he was talking with his folks about all of the above.

Oh yeah, they love me. His dad, who does not DO these things, gave me BOTH a hug, AND a kiss on the forehead. I rock.

So if you're wondering what I've been up to - living the quiet life with one terribly bruised Steven, watching porn, being childless and jobless and sober. It's like boring but with sex.

Solutions.

2005-07-22T12:13:00.000-04:00

I am praying that Pop goes over tonight and manages to fix the plumbing. My hopes aren't very high - I'm having visions of having to dig up the yard to find the tank and finding it useless and having to get a new one put in and I'm freakin' a bit.

In the meantime, I can't stay there. The smell, the gases are too much. It's not liveable. It's a dysentery/typhoid fever/all sorts of nastiness risk according to the net. And you just know you can believe what you read on the internet - at least, one presumes, when it comes to what you can catch from poop. E. coli alone gives me the willies. Sigh - so I'm technically homeless for a bit, I guess.

But the dogs are still there. I opened all the windows, but they didn't have anyone to put them out last night and I won't be able to swing by until late afternoon. So you can bet I'll be cleaning up poo and pee AGAIN. But we were myself, Steve, Alex, Eowyn, Pierce and Jason all together in a one-room apartment, on one set of bunkbeds. All the air I breathed last night had already been in someone else's mouth. We couldn't add on two dogs on top of that, even if they are tiny.

So... solutions.

1. Tonight I take the kids in to Tony's for their week with their dad. I will have to explain that there is now actually some chance that I won't be able to take them back for his second week of vacation, if the house is still in dire straits. I cried about this today.

2. Tonight I will have Steve's folks' pick up Jason, with many cuddles and apologies. My kids have very little experience with being shunted about, Jason has far too much. I feel terrible that just when he seemed to be feeling a little more secure around me (he actually DISOBEYED me yesterday, lol - a sure sign of affection and security) he has to go back because of this. I really wanted him to have some time to realize that I don't take relationships with children lightly. I cried about this today.

3. I called Voyageur Provincial Park, which is right near The Cabbage. They recommended campsite number 200, which is fire-ready and has toilets right next to it. (I mentioned I needed very close toilets, I can't have a 20m hike every time I have to pee). So I can do that tonight - pack up a bag, some stuff, my tent... and instead of having to be in the town, in the tiny apartment, I can be out camping. This I did not cry about, as Pierre and Alex had mentioned we should all go camping - and this seems like a fairly reasonable excuse.

4. Not sure about taking Steve along. Last night was... weird. We had some beer and chatted with people out on the street while the kids watched Lemony Snicket in the apartment. Steve later went down to The Windsor. And John was there. And John was unhappy that Steve was there. And there were a number of locals that seemed to be itching for a scrap. John wanted this other guy, who's huge and known as a bit of a nutter to take a swing at Steve. The guy refused, oddly enough on the grounds that, "I can't take him". Steve asked John to talk about the situation, John told him to fuck off. Steve talked to the nutter a bit, who agreed to talk to him on the condition that he swore he wouldn't hit him.

This is all just too stupid for words to me. Ugh.

So John is apparently pissed because Steve is "seeing his woman". AAaargh. Steve explained to the nutter that he knows damn well I was never John's "woman", and that he very much doubts I will ever be anyone's "woman" that way. No kidding. That's only exactly what I've been saying all along.

Either way, the whole situation with John being a shit, and then with other guys in the town milling about doing what small town boys do when they can't find women or livestock (trying to find excuses to punch each other in the head), Steve ended up all wound up and aggressive and after a day that taxed my zen life philosophy to the bitter edge, I was just totally NOT IN THE MOOD.

What I need is... a couple of books. If I had some good books to read, to turn my brain off with, I could just go spend all night and all day and all night again sitting in my tent ignoring the world.

Who am I kidding. I would get bored and lonely and sad.

Human excrement.

2005-07-22T07:59:00.000-04:00

Steve was being so sweet last night. He paid back some money he owes me, fronted again at the grocery store, and then bought a case of beer before we drove home. My feet were bothering me and I was bitter about my day at work. He said, "When we get home, you just sit down, have a beer, I'll cook some dinner".

And so he made hamurgers and I sat and bitched and... well it was nice, but hard too - on account of the smell. My toilet had backed up the night before, on account of one of the kids not remembering to wait to make sure the toilet didn't end up running and all the adults being outside and not hearing when the water ran and ran and... either filled completely or came up to a blockage in the septic tank... and then overflowed through the toilet on the first floor.

I cleaned it up, and I threw out the towel I used. Ew. But it was just... dirty-lookin water. Stinky dirty-lookin' water, but not the end of the world. I took care of it.

So last night we ate, and I really didn't want to, but I did go look in on the downstairs bathroom...

**STRONG STOMACHS ONLY**

The inside of the toilet was caked with a three inch thick scum of half-rotted human excrement and excrement-related tissue products. Gagging, I reached OVER this mess and turned on the water to the toilet to try and start getting this... down. I grabbed another cheap towel and cleared up the seat and the floor around the toilet. Chucked it. Then, as the bowel filled, I grabbed the plunger.

Thence followed an epic comedy of me plunging maniacally, the toilet gasping and burping liquid feces in soupy arcs all over the bathroom, and far from the water slowly taking the putrid crap away, it very quickly just filled right to the brim and beyond.

Remember when "Lisa" in the movie Wierd Science turned the older brother into a shit? Remember the appearance of The Shit Demon of Golgotha in Dogma? That's what it was like... except instead of eyes... corn.

I will never feed my family corn again, so help me god.

So I left a reasonably panicked message at the Cabbage and Steve started to pack things up so we could go stay at his place in town - because by now there was what would turn out to be three and a half grocery bags full of human waste on the floor and the gasses were fairly epic.

Dad says he will go over tonight to see what he can do. I think the septic tank is full and he thinks it's just blocked. Of course, if it's just blocked, that means it's a fairly easy if completely disgusting fix and that I am to blame for something I, a guest of mine or my kids have done stupidly to block the toilet. I did get him to admit that if when I went into the crawlspace and uncapped the flow-over valve on the main line and he was right, I could expect a bucket or so of crap to come out before I snaked it... but that if *I* was right, I would be trapped in a crawlspace with a flow-over valve that would likely flow far more than one bucket over...

I did it anyway. I went down and I found the flow-over valve... and never in my life have I been so relieved, so pleased to be too weak to get the cap off a jar. Darn it all, but for this I will need a MAN's help! Whew.

Either way, I got the shit cleaned up again, and we all headed into town and there my dear friends teased me mercilessly. I was fairly upset on the drive over, and got one of the weirder quotes of my life: I want to hug you and kiss you and make you feel better... but you smell like human fecal matter.

Yes darling, yes I do. But dang was that a good shower.

So today I am shaky and barfy and headachy. I never want to have to scream, "I AM CLEANING UP POO! LOTS AND LOTS OF POO! STAY OUT OF MY WAY! STAY OUT OF THE HOUSE!" at another child again in my life.

Human excrement. Everywhere.

Annoyances.

2005-07-21T13:48:00.000-04:00

1. I have figured out that the woman whom I am replacing (while she replaces another woman from A/P) has a very rudimentary understanding of computers, despite a rather respectable ability to use them. Good driver, no idea what's going on under the hood. Today, after the third or fourth time she asked to use my computer to check her emails, I finally asked how in the hell did they expect her to do her job if they didn't give her regular computer access.

Oh, she has a computer up there in accounting. She just had no clue, nor was I able to explain it so she understood, that her log in is not specific to this computer here at reception. I must have tried three different times to explain to her that she could log in under her own name on the computer she is currently working on, and she just as seriously kept explaining to me that it was L's computer, not hers, they didn't switch them when she moved up there.

But then, we are talking about someone who wanted me to use a hand-calculator to "verify" the math on an Excel spreadsheet.

2. Being stuck thinking, "Is that woman just naturally rude and thoughtless, or is she trying to fuck with me?". My best example: a lady from accounting, who seems to be offended that I have no clue about those parts of my job that I was never taught anything about, waits until 1:45pm to drop off a cheque to be deposited. Of course, I must prepare the deposit for 2pm, and I get cheques twice a day - once in the am from the mail, once in the am from her (postdated). So she sneaks in a cheque at the last minute, while my back is turned, makes no effort to point it out to me, and puts it in a new and bizarre place, thereby just about guaranteeing that I would miss it until I had to go back and fix three different levels of paperwork to account for it. So... is she an idiot, or is she cruel? Is it moot, as I caught the cheque well before anything went too awry and got it all in with no problems because this is only an example and people around here seem to have some sort of obsession with dropping things off in no discernable pattern with no instruction, whether I've ever seen or had anything to do with it or not?

3. Having no list of who is on vacation, having never been introduced to any coworkers, nor receiving any information about who is where, does what, or anything of that ilk. Having to constantly explain to callers that I do not know if XXXX is in, on vacation, or if he works here or at one of the other buildings. I don't know what he looks like, so I can't tell you if I've seen him or not. Having to transfer all calls like that to the woman I'm replacing, because everyone has continued to send her, and only her, their in/out information.

4. Being told in a tone of voice like I'm some sort of idiot that so-and-so is responsible for all office supplies because I asked where to find some 8*14 paper for the printer. Then, the next day, calling so-and-so to tell her that a box of supplies had come in from an office supply company. Having her tell me in a tone of voice like I'm an idiot that SHE doesn't take care of ALL office supplies, only this that and the other. Other dude takes care of computer stuff and YOU are responsible for THIS sort of stuff. Oh, so you mean I've discovered yet another aspect of my job I was never told one damn thing about, and which the woman I'm replacing is STILL playing drama queen trying to keep up with on top of the work she's already doing in her new position? FANTASTIC.

So I do things 1/4 again as fast as the woman I'm replacing, and I'm stuck getting in shit all the time for not having enough to do because she's still doing all the parts she never bothered to tell me about... I hate this place. One more day and then I'm back in merchandizing where if someone has a problem with me, they'll puff out their chest and tell me to my face, and I can knuckle-punch them in the throat like Steve taught me and be done with it.

Oooookay....

2005-07-21T08:41:00.000-04:00

The "Ads by Gooooogle" bar is supposed to moniter my content and then try to show items which complement the thigns I write about here.

All the ads this morning were for Vicodin, Percocet and other narcotics.

Riiiight.

Dude! Beer. Occasional cookies. Jeez. Where the hell does one skip all the way to opiates from THAT?

I'm feelin' purty durn tootin' goodly

2005-07-21T08:18:00.000-04:00

1. Stopped by Giant Tiger with Alex and the kids. My goal was to find a pair of jeans I liked, and then buy them before I lost the nerve to spend a whole 20$ only on myself. Odd, isn't it, that I can spend money on beer or smokes "for myself", but not on other things. But then, I buy those things like other women buy lovely packages of hors d'oeuvres. She might know damn well she'll be partaking, but it's under "hospitality", not "selfishness".

This is silly. I lost 20lbs, okay? My boot cut stretch Ralph Lauren's were hanging off me like cargo pants. I needed pants that didn't make my ass look flat.

The other thing holding me back is of course that I hate shopping, and I hate buying clothes especially. I can never find things I actually really like. If I determine to spend the money, I go into the store and mope around hating all the clothes.

BUT!

One pair of low-rise button-fly's with a large brown studded belt with huge silver pilgrim buckle later... my ass ain't flat and I wore them out of the store and got hit on along the way (older biker-dude, MASSIVE handlebar mustache). Get this: they are a size SEVEN. That's how stressed I've been.

2. So after shopping, I did not go home. I had Alex and the kids, and despite the fact that I had not managed to get in touch with Dale (Steve's Mom) we drove over to Moose Creek (where I've never seen either moose nor creek) and picked up Jason. He and Pierce fought all the way home.

3. Then we hooked up with Steve and Pierre in the Hill, gave them some moolah and the errand of driving to Quebec to get beer, and headed home ourselves. We like Pierre. He plays music, sings, is fun, AND has a car. God knows I love my friends, but it sucks being the only one with wheels. So within twenty minutes they were back with beer, the kids were eating, and I was...

4. A FREAKIN' BLONDE!! And I mean all the way Sharon Stone ice queen blonde. It's fantastic. I got rave reviews last night, and the reaction here at work has been very positive too. Apparently I am looking good as a blonde, lol.

So there it is: the magic formula for Happy Kif: Beer, hair dye, new pants, good friends, lotsa rugrats...

I'm waffling.

2005-07-20T12:24:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling conflicted.

In almost equal proportions, I am feeling both of these emotions:

1. Joy, excitement and relief at the idea that next week, for a whole week - for more, considering I'll be taking the kids in on Friday and likely picking them on the Sunday of the weekend AFTER - I won't have to worry about picking the kids up, dropping them off, getting them home at a reasonable hour, making sure they eat and drink appropriately, finding children's tylenol for various ailments, kissing booboos, disciplining evil behaviour, mediating fights and arguments, suggesting, organizing or (bleagh!) participating in activities...

2. Malaise, angst and trepidation about my ability to handle being away from them that long. Premonitions of the stress I will feel when they aren't lurking about my life on a consistent, daily basis. About how I will feel empty when I go into their room and there is no snoring, no gross sweat-smell, no having to heave soggy bodies up off the laminate and back onto beds.

A new and wierd habit. Pierce has been snorting. It started yesterday afternoon. I got into the car, and immediately started to blather on about work-stress to the wife. It went like this:

Kif: And then blah blah blah...
Pierce: (quietly, from the back) *snort*
Kif: So I said, "blah blah blah!"
Pierce: *snort*
Kif: You know what I'm going to do? Blah blah blah!
Pierce: *snort*
Kif: PIERCE! WHY are you SNORTING.
Pierce: *snort*

He did it ALL night. He says he doesn't know why he's doing it. He doesn't seem to be paying attention to it. He says there's nothing wrong, and there's no pain. *snort*

Which means I have to keep him away from The Cabbage until he quits - this is the sort of thing that drives them right 'round the bend.

And then the bad and the ugly.

2005-07-20T09:41:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had determined, after my craptacular day, to spend a quiet and mopey night home alone. After all, Steve was staying in town, Alex would be OD'd on the kids, and I was not fit for human consumption, being that I was (am still) feeling threatened and hurt about the issues at work.

Aside: I sent the dude who interviewed me an email today detailing my problems. We shall see.

So I went home and cooked a VERY mild thai yellow curried shrimp over rice. I wasn't up to hearing the kids squeal about it being too spicy. It was GOOD. I ate like a hog. I literally had to say, "... can't talk... eating...." to Pierce. So that at least was good. I then sat down and inked in a drawing I'd done. And oh yeah, you just know it - I went and I changed into my salwar kameez pants and my pizza donini shirt - the one I took apart and tied back together the night I had insomnia. Then I tied my brown bandana on my head and said, fuggit to the world. I was dressed 100% as myself - or, as Laure would put it - as a refugee.

Then the phone rang. It was my friends. Alex narced me out on being sad and bitchy, and they all agreed I ought to come and be sad and bitchy with them so they could at least try to jolly me out of it. Aw. On the way, I stopped and picked up a case of beer - I was due. Other people had been buying and I'd been partaking, but hadn't put into the pool for a while. Met Steve at his apartment, and we walked over to Guy's, where Alex and Pierre were.

Remember I said Steve's apartment was under surveillance? It's this one woman in particular who takes it upon herself to inform his ex-wife of anything she figures is of interest.

So we got home around 8:30-9pm, and as I put the kids to bed Steve called his X to say goodnight to his own. And she blew up at him - because the freakishly nosy neighbour lady had taken it upon herself to tell her that she saw Steve and I headed to Guy's with a case of beer. So why, if he had money to buy beer, didn't he have money to give her!?

Because, you dolt, it was MY beer. You know, the entirely separate human being with her own motivations and ambitions separate from you obsessive need to argue with your x-husband about bullshit? How compulsively focussed on one person does someone need to be that they cannot fathom that other people exist? This is not healthy. And because I wasn't in a particularly zen mood yesterday, and because I was feeling particularly aggressive about womanly social control wretched behaviour, I blew up.

Okay, I did a fifteen minute angry bitter rant about Steve's X. That's me, blowing up. I referred to her in less than understanding terms. Take that, bitch!

Sigh.

Either way, then things got ugly. Because see, I'd put the kids to bed. And it was late. And Steve and I were... occupied. And pretty distracted. And right in the middle, we got to hear Pierce chirp, in the most quizzical tone I've ever heard him use, "What in the WORLD are you two doing?".

Crap. Busted.

I did mention my bedroom has no door, right? I thought they were out like lights. Urk. So I get Pierce squared away, tell him I'll talk to him in the morning, it's late, he's got to get asleep... and sure enough the little stinker went and told Eowyn everything and next thing I know SHE's trying to wander into my room, shaking her head in rue and disgust all the way.

So I kicked them out AGAIN and we just gave up.

So add that on to the Money Money Money post, mentally. ONE DOOR.

Money Money Money

2005-07-20T09:28:00.000-04:00

God, it's good to have money.

Not like, a lot of money mind you, but to actually have some is a thing of beauty. Not that it will last very long mind you, but right now I've got that pit-o-the-stomach happy secure feeling that only having a positive bank balance can bring.

Of course, I have to go to the bank and pay my rent, deposit the cheque from the dude who rents the far end of my land to store his cement-pump truck, and repay the money that I 'borrowed' to pay for the trip to the waterslides. Then I'm thinking I need to stop by Giant Tiger and see if I can find a pair of pants that actually fit. Already gassed up the car. Gotta buy groceries. What else. Oh yeah, pay Alex. Give Heather back her 40$. Buy beer.

Yeah. Then I guess I'll be broke again. Not like, oh crap what am I going to do broke, but non-moneyed again. It's all good as long as I have groceries and gas and beer and the knowledge that I'm paid up as much as I'm supposed to be on my bills.

Eeenterestin!

2005-07-20T07:44:00.000-04:00

So, y'all remember PFF?

There's a lady here who's husband works there. You might remember him: the maintenance dude who told us to under no circumstances lift the lid of the cellophane-wrapping machine and then did it himself before even the first burger went through?

So guess what she tells me this morning? Apparently they'd gotten a contract with McDonalds. Production was going well. Then, it turned out that the big boss, the one I never even saw, the owner, had lied about it all. He pumped up the production to keep the bank off his back, stopped paying all the bills, and has now absconded.

Heresay, all of it at this point, but yowza.

This place blows.

2005-07-19T12:11:00.000-04:00

I hate office work.

You remember when I was asked not to let my brastraps sexually harass people? That apparently was warning #1. Today I got warning #2. Not about brastraps, oh no - that would be convenient, as I'd actually been TOLD about that. Today my shirt is apparently too low cut... which you could have knocked me over with a feather when I was told.

There will be no more warnings - next time I'm fired.

I did try explain that I had not been given any guidelines beyond the brastrap thing, but this is an ignorance is no excuse thing.

Which pisses me off royally because I've worked in so many places and if ever I got into trouble, it was for dressing too casually, not too sexy - and these are all the same clothes. I'm not wearing any makeup. My hair is up, but not stupidly. I'm wearing black Ralph Lauren jeans (3$ at the Salvation Army!) that are NOT tight (I seem to have lost another ten pounds...) and a black shirt with three-quarter length sleeves and a scoop neck. I guess it's the scoop neck. If I'm guilty of a fashion faux pas, it's that I'm dressed a little, "Spectre of Death" - but I wouldn't call it sexy.

I'm so pissed. Now I have to corner the dude who hired me (it was HIS boss what had to talk to me today, because of this being my SECOND warning) and ask for an employee handbook or manual.

Okay... I just asked him. He looked flighty and said he'd "Have to check if he has something" - so I don't think they even have anything like that.

Great. Here's hoping I don't lose my job for violating some obscure social rule I can't fathom on my own.

Recent searches leading here.

2005-07-19T08:06:00.000-04:00

1. "Grossest". Well. Okay. I'll give you that one.

2. "She had him pinned". Yeah, that works too, eh?

3. "Spankings blogthis my kids". Um, no. My kids, I babble about a lot, and spankings too... but not in relation to one another! See above.

4. "Bombay mahogany, stain, looks like, floor". A: GORGEOUS! But too expensive. I just did it on a desk. I'd do it on the floor if I could. Send me money and I'll try it and post pics.

5. My favourite: "Interspecies breastfeeding". This is what I get for going on about my objections to milk. If it weren't for the pasteurization issues, the fact that Tom Green's done it, and the chance of taking a hoof to the head, that particular image would sum up my feelings on milk. Urk. Oh wait... I'm betting this was a wanking material search meant to be taken the other way around... you are a sick, sick individual. I like you. Have you ever been to Eastern Ontario?

A bit of a late night

2005-07-19T07:31:00.000-04:00

I did have plans to go home and take it easy and sleep early and all that good, non-sinful stuff. Instead, I ended up over at Guy's with Alex and Steve and Mark and Pierre playing music and singing until far too late at night. It was a good time, but probably not a Monday night sorta shindig.

Jason is back in Moose Creek today for his swimming lessons. He cried, and I felt terrible, but I told him I wanted a picture of him with his certificate. Not sure when I'm getting him back though - hopefully today/tomorrow. Eowyn was a dolt yesterday - she and Pierce fought over at Steve's apartment and she shoved him off the top bunk and he hurt his arm and then she got angry because I was unappreciative of her self-defined mitigating circumstances (he punched her in the ass) and then she wouldn't do ANYTHING, not get out of the car, not put on her shoes, nuthin. Plus she crawled under the bunkbed and wouldn't come out and got rugburn when I had to haul her out. So things were sorta frustrating on the kid front last night. By the time we ended up over at Guy's Eowyn was grumping, "I want to go home!" and I was grumping, "Suffer!" right back. Sterling parenting, that.

But we did make up eventually and I took them both over to the dep for chocolate bars, courtesy of the parking change I no longer need (no parking meters in the Hill!) from the bin in the car. Eowyn got a white chocolate smarties bar and Pierce got skittles... and someone tapped my arm. I looked up... and it was Dean - Dean, the dude I painted the Zellers in Hawkesbury with - the one who was the genesis of my post-divorce epiphany that I could actually like... date... or screw around. The one who was game enough until my boss-lady didn't like the idea. Grr.

So that was nice.

Steve will be sleeping in town tonight so he can spend some more time with his other kids. Sigh.

Uh-oh.

2005-07-18T16:11:00.000-04:00

"J", a lady who works here in the office just brought in her barely 1-week old baby girl.

I smelled the head.

You must never, ever smell the head. They store pheremones in there that will induce baby-lust. That's why an infant's head smells like warm crumpets and Eowyn and Pierce's smell of dog shampoo, algae and sweat. By the time they hit the school years they've got just enough of the cute left to remind you that you do love them even if they keep saying "testicle" for no reason whatsoever. But they don't need the pheremone-laden head scent anymore - because they can holler "TESTICLE!" and then RUN.

I sniffed the head. She was awful little and dopey-lookin.

Somebody better get crackin' on makin me some babies around here. Soft, sweet, tender and quiet little babies that I can hug and hold and then GIVE BACK.

I'm waitin.

Wow. Haven't felt this in a while.

2005-07-18T13:38:00.000-04:00

At some point today, I am going to hurl.

Only slow movements, deep breathing and some rather impressive feats of willpower have stopped me from bolting for the can most of the day. I suspect that once I don't have to face the prospect of having a ton of co-workers I would probably not recognize outside the context of this office seeing me all sweaty and shaky and teary, I will have to just let go.

Not that I haven't made a record number of trips to the bathroom just in case. Ooog.

Every time I get honest-to-goodness sick (and not just mopey and sleepy, ie depressive) it just serves to remind me how often I used to get sick when I still had my tonsils in. And then I feel guilty because I STILL haven't cornered a doctor to take Pierce's out. I really have to get more on the ball about that.

And Eowyn's developmental testing. And getting my tubes tied, or at least getting on the needle, which I hear they now do in 3-month bursts and not a full 6 months - the only way I'd consider THAT again.

Is it just me, or from a body-chemistry perspective, doesn't it seem like it would be a lot more simple to shut off the production of sperm in men than it would be to control a highly individual and complicated biological function like ovulation/menstruation? Ah, but what man would risk taking drugs that fuck about with his balls? Not many... So I guess we girls will just continue to risk pregnancy, heart attack, stroke, psychosis, sweats, weight gain...

Mom says I should have a garden.

2005-07-18T07:28:00.000-04:00

Because hers is coming to fruition and now when she gets peckish, she goes and picks a cucmber and stuff and makes herself a salad or something, and go figure, that's cheap.

I would, but unfortunately I have the black thumb of death for all growing things excepting children. So Mom said, "Well what about Steve? Or maybe Alex?". I dunno, I've not yet had the opportunity to discuss whether or not all houseplants under their care die sudden withering deaths yet. But it did suddenly occur to me that Mom is presuming some of the same stuff I am - that both my buds are in it with me for the long haul.

The waterslides were AWESOME, if a little overcrowded, and even though the wait for the ferry at Oka was stunningly long. I thought Heather was going to pop a rivet for sure for a bit there. For the first time ever I gave the kids a bit more of their heads while at the slides. I was on them like stink on shit in the wave pool, but over at the beach, where the buoy line is never above chest level, I didn't worry about not being RIGHT in the water with them all the time. But I watched like a hawk from my vantage on shore, lol! We didn't go on a ton of rides (the lines were epic) but Steve and I did do the tarzan rope - and Heather balked and came down the stairs. In all fairness, she has done SEVERAL bellyflops off that thing over the years.

Yesterday Steve squinted at my filthy, cluttered and disgusting shed and said, "I'm just going to... tidy up a bit...". And so he did. He took a ton of stuff down to the shop, made orderly piles in far corners with the rest, swept and filled garbage bags and finally vacuumed for over an hour. Result: It's an actual PORCH now again. I went to pick up Alex in town and by the time I got home the downstairs was vacuumed and the dishes done. And dinner cooked for tomorrow, as we'll likely both "be fairly wiped and not in the mood". When I go home today, we'll heat up the taters and sausages, throw on a can of corn, and tada: dinner.

And we didn't send Jason back to his grandparents. He didn't want to go, and I didn't want to send him. Frankly, I don't see the point. After two, one more kid to feed is moot and they're far more distracted and active with him around than without so it's not the end of the world for Alex either, who also agreed that there was no real good reason to make Jason leave beyond habit. So he's at my house, with his sticky-outy ears and his monkey-grin and skinny legs. Steve told me that his paternity is far from guaranteed, but at the slides they were walking along next to each other ahead of us all, and all three of us remarked on the build, the gait... the ears... It was cute.

More later!

Just testin' something.

2005-07-15T16:21:00.000-04:00

I just subscribed to this www.bloglines.com thingy that I found because... well, it's not like I have a clue what it's supposed to DO, but I'm THAT bored so I did it anyway and then slapped in all fav blogs and then sat around waiting for something to happen.

Nothing did.

So I added my OWN blog, because I'm THAT much of an egotist, and now I'm gonna post something and see if something happens.

Because I'm THAT bored.

Oog. Friday.

2005-07-15T15:27:00.000-04:00

I want OUT of here.

Steve wanted to borrow a pair of socks this morning. I have thigh-high black and grey "witch" socks. I have Powerpuff Girl slipper-socks. Somewhere I've got gigantic woolies. He wouldn't wear the PG-socks. And he claims to be hardcore.

The rather attractive UPS dude who does our pick ups here at work told me that our "regular" dude would be back next week. I did't even know he wasn't it. We've been minor league flirting for the past week. I made a moue of disappointment and got a laugh and a blush. Score. If I was smart, I'd have gotten a phone number too. Must... not... be... slutty... at... work.

The only other person who is remotely flirty around here is one of the merchandizing drivers/set-up dudes who gets giggly and wet-eyed around me and keeps pushing the line with interchanges like this:

"Hey, how are you!?" (said with far too much enthusiasm, too much interest)
"Mmm. Ask me in another coffee or two."
"Oooo! Were you up late last night!?" (with eyebrow-waggling)
"Yup."
"Wait! I only want to know if it involves kinky sex!"

Yeah. Everything he says is exclaimed. Sigh. I gave him the evil eyeball and said, "More like kinky car repair." - a lie. Today he was at it again and I said that soon, if he didn't watch himself, I just might have to kill him. He pointed out the usual size/gende/strength issues. I said, "Oh, didn't R tell you that I was in the army? I was a really good shot." and went back to my work.

I figure this is fair. He bugs me inappropriately, I bug him inappropriately. We're even.

Can you believe I just had a HUGE rush? I was running around, photocopying, printing, labelling, highlighting, collating and stapling like a crazy person. Now... it's dead again. Mebbe I'll try to call the Cabbage again...

bored bored bored!

Waterslides tomorrow!

2005-07-15T07:55:00.000-04:00

OMG, this is going to be FUN.

I am daisy-trippingly happy right now. Why? Because this morning we all got up bright and early, herded the kids into the car and drove into the Hill to pick up Alex. Then we turned right around and drove out to St. Isidore to drop Steve off at his JOB. Not A job, but like, a nine to fiver, making .50 cents more an hour than me, full time, with benefits. Score. He's still rueful about the fact that they pay every two weeks, and so next week he will get ONE day's pay, and then they have their company-wide holiday, so he'll get another week's pay, and basically, it'll be a month before he really starts to see the benefit of working there, lol.

And tonight Jason will be coming over again - he was at my place for a couple of hours last night, while his grandparents were in town. He ran rampant with the kids and at one point was inexplicably wearing only underpants. There was shreiking and leaping and carousing and the kids were comatose in the car this morning because of it. Tomorrow is going to be so much fun. I'm juggling a bit to afford it all right now, but as I explained to Steve, this is tradition, it's not optional, it must be done. Plus next week I get my pay and my child tax benefit and my child support is still coming in this week - so it'll be short order to catch up.

John called last night because I was supposed to stop by and pick up some CD's I'd left at his house and I hadn't. Didn't feel like it. So then I felt bad for standing him up... until he called back in less than two minutes to say:

"Sorry, I forgot to ask you; Do you often sleep with guys who've been to prison for two years?"

I suppose this was supposed to be new information, or throw me off. I kept my voice neutral-positive, mostly impassive butwith no sullen overtones and chirped:

"Nope! Steve's my first!"

Sigh. Given a small number of personality profiles without photos, John would never be able to pick me out. I may just have to write those CD's off.

So, work work work, home home home, kids kids kids, snog snog snog, sleep sleep sleep, and then slide slide slide! If there's a way life gets better than this, someone will have to let me know so I can tell them how full of shit they are.

Utterly bizarre.

2005-07-14T15:48:00.000-04:00

So I get a call in this afternoon for a woman working upstairs. Woman. Girl. Young. Pretty. I transfer the call to her line. Within a minute, the man calls back - he got her voice mail. Could I page her? Certainly.

I do my thing and my voice (eep!) rings out across the entire shop, the offices, the corporate office down the street... over the entire company. It's all tied together. I page, it's heard across the entire town, lol.

"XXXX, please take line 2."

I go back to my fiddling about. Okay, okay, I was actually working. But then the phone goes boop-boop (not ring-ring) and I realize that the girl did not respond to the page. I have a set line for this too - I say: "I'm sorry, but XXXX did not respond to my page. Would you like their voicemail?". Fairly standard receptionist shit. So I pick up the line and I say:

Kif: "I'm sorry, but..."

That's as far as I get, because the dude on the line hears that I'm apologizing and he loses it.

Dude: "FUCK! I'm ready to go FUCKING home NOW!"

Ah. This must be the boyfriend, I think - because, after all, isn't it the highest of ironies that the only person who would ever, EVER deign to speak to someone else like that is usually someone who purports to love them? He thinks I am XXXX, hopping onto the phone all a-flutter to volunteer my excuses and apologies for making him wait. Riiight. Alas for him, I am NOT XXXX, and I don't love him, and so I interupt him.

Kif: EXCUSE ME?

His end of the line goes quiet.

Dude: XXXX?
Kif: No. This is NOT XXXX. This is the receptionist.
Dude: Oh.
Kif: No kidding.
Dude: What did... what did you hear?
Kif: I heard exactly what you said into the phone. That's how they work.
Dude: I swore...
Kif: Fuck that. You swore AND you screamed.
Dude: I'm sorry... I thought...
Kif: Oh, I know exactly what you thought.
Dude: I guess I'll just leave her another message...
Kif: Well, my guess it you'll just sit down and relax and as soon as she's able she'll pick you up. If she's late it's not because she's trying to fuck with you, it's because she has a job and that's what happens every now and then, so you can just suck it up.

And I hung up on him. My bet is he'll never tell a soul.

An interesting point.

2005-07-14T08:09:00.000-04:00

Last night I was over at the Cabbage. We (kids, Steve and I) arrived in time for me to go help dad drag the fiero to the garage tied to the back of the van with a chain. The kids played in the pool and Steve sat and talked with Heather and Mom - a scary proposition as he'd spent the day celebrating the end of his parole, and a subsequent row with his ex wherein he told her what he'd been being coy about while she still had the power to call the parole board and mess with him - that he is seeing me, that it is more than "just friends" (a misnomer in my book - there's nothing "just" about being friends with me and friends rate far higher than pretty little boys) and that it is getting serious and in all likelihood, we may just be aiming for happily ever after.

We stayed up most of the night talking about that.

John, one of the last times that we spoke, told me ruefully that what I expected from a man, I would never find. That no man would ever accept it. I didn't even bother to try and explain that my expectations are fluid, and that what I'd hoped for most, I'd already found. "Falling in love" with me was just the next step for John, something he did by rote. For W, it was what he had to do to excuse his infidelity. The person that I am, the things that I believe, that I want, my hopes and fears - they were immaterial. I was just the female end of things. I do not have the words to describe how different things are with Steve. I don't want to belittle it, and I don't want to break into stupid butterfly metaphors. He has an incredibly acute sense of smell. He told me the other night he was in his bathroom and could smell me - it was a towel I'd used after a shower a couple of days previous. He slept with it. He's fidgetty. I put my hand on his forehead and he goes limp as a noodle, quiet. He's scared I'm taking it into myself. I am an adept at sucking up my sad moods, my contemplations. Very few people have ever had the inclination or energy or interest. The shit I babble about on here is in my brain, I type it out, it's gone. I'm decided, clear. But I've never really done that in person. He watches me like a hawk, if his hands are on me he knows what I'm feeling. And he wants to know why. And he wants to make it better. And most amazingly of all - he can.

So why am I still getting my knee stuck in pull out couches, so to speak? I don't expect anyone else to understand. It's enough that Steve does.

But driving out to the fiero yesterday, Pop brought up an interesting point - that I must not be frightened that Tony wants custody of the kids, because the things I say on this site...

Would a judge frown on my actions? Damn straight they would. But the fact of the matter is that this is my forum for being wholly myself - and I am more than only a mother. If I've not been talking much about the kids lately, it is because they are happy and untroubled. Wait for the school year to start again, lol! But they are and will always be the meat and potatoes of my day, of my life. Tony knows this. But sex, even a flamingly liberal sexual ethic like mine, is not illegal. Not breakin' no laws. Everybody is of age, consenting. Eowyn and Pierce knew W and they knew John, and their knowledge was that they were my friends and that I really did like them a whole lot. They hung around and sometimes we were all talking and playing and having fun together, and sometimes we wanted to "talk alone" but in the end, everyone "went home". But this too they have seen with Twink, Saki, with Folkhero and M, with Ed, Alex and everyone else who's visited me without sex being involved at all. People have spent the night, visited, stayed up late, drank too much, gotten loud and rowdy, crashed out. But there has only been one man they've woken up to find curled up next to me in my bed, and that's Steve. That's their reality.

I look at it this way: Tony has spent many weekends going out with the kids and my old friend K and her kids. They went rock-climbing, paddle-boating, to movies, had a birthday party. Family stuff. Kid stuff. But if Tony also had a blog wherein he talked about the fact that he also happened (pure conjecture here, not my business, but useful for the example!) to be giving her the high hard one on a daily/nigtly basis and that it was hot, hot, hot... well, so what? That doesn't change anything about rock-climbing. And if he was, and the kids woke up in the wee hours of the night for a pee and heard say, creaking, strange breathing... the stuff they used to hear Tony and I do... well, that happens sometimes. It's only the end of the world if that's what you decide it is. Otherwise, it's okay. It has always been part of our discussions on the changes that would come into their lives after I left their father. I told them that there was a good chance that perhaps, if they were lucky, those people that came into their father and I's lives would also have kids, and then there would be great hordes of friends and stuff. They were hopeful.

And now look - they have K, and her two kids, or will if that goes anywhere. They have Steve, and at least one of his before the lure of time and convenient, cost-free childcare wins over the ex and the other two are added to the mix. They have new adults in their lives who care for them, and they have Tony and I - and that's a good thing. This is my children's reality. What Tony might do when they spend their weeks with me, what I might do while they are with him is immaterial to our individual abilities to love and care for them. If Tony spends every weeknight trussed up by a different crack-whore dominatrix, hanging upside down by his toenails from the chandelier, that's his own business - it's not a factor in his ability to parent his kids. How could it be?

I rock. I totally do.

2005-07-13T15:17:00.000-04:00

First off, to address an oversight I've discovered on the internet: There do not seem to be any photographs or diagrams of Ford Areostar engine compartments anywhere on the net. What is up with that?

Steve's van (aforementioned aerostar) is currently sitting defunct behind a building on Main street. It won't start. It won't turn over at all. No clicking solenoid, no reaction to boosting, nothing. Steve figured the battery was shot. Myself, with Pop (my personal meccah of car-repair) agreeing, think otherwise. Because even if his battery is poopoo, my booster is not - and so something, anything would have happened. So far, not even the engine light has come on.

Yesterday I fiddled about with the solenoid, shorting it out with a screwdriver as per the old man's instructions to see if it might be pooched. Nuthin.

So I hit the net today on the hunt for something else Pop had mentioned.

Pop is great for these things because he's known everything there is to know about cars since about the time they fell from henry Ford's womb back in the dawn of time. He got his first vehicle at the age of 13 or so, gone in three ways by the three brothers, I believe. It was what is known as a "field vehicle" - which means they ran it ragged around fields and learned various things like how to fiddle with sparkplugs and how to lever it back up onto its wheels when they flipped it. Different times, eh? I figure if my kids did that at a similar age they'd have around twenty minutes before cops arrived with child protective services in tow.

But Dad sometimes forgets that my own experience at that age involved a trip to Grandma's where he got nostalgic and was going to let me drive the van down a hill until he got to the top and with the better view, could see a cop car in the distance. After that, I learned a lot about cars just listening in on his conversations with others, and later, with my evil Topaz. But I'm no mechanic yet - though I would LOVE to be.

The point is that sometimes when I ask for advice on cars, Dad talks harder and faster and more in depth than I can keep up with. All I can do is try to memorize keywords and go hunting on the net at my leisure to try and figure it all out. Sometimes, I hit the net and recognize a word that Pop had been saying to me when I spoke to him. This is how I generally know I'm on the right track. Then, I read up, and try to actually UNDERSTAND the how's and why's.

So to whit - being that the solenoid seems fine, the starter is new, and the battery would have at least reacted somewhat to being boosted if that was the problem... in my meanderings for OTHER things, I saw the words "Neutral Safety Switch" - a term I recognized from my conversation with my dad. A quick trip to ask.com and lo and behold aerostars are equipped with neutral safety switches. It's just something that COMPLETELY shorts out the starting system if the vehicle isn't completely in gear - so it doesn't buck forward or backwards on ignition and kill someone. It is common enough - and more so in vehicles having transmission issues - as Steve's is.

So tonight I will go and jam the gearshift into park, try again, try it in neutral, and if nothing else happens, reef it about in neutral with the key in start, looking for a sweet spot. If I manage to turn it over, I'm going to proclaim myself a minor deity in internet research and car repair (Yeah, dad, I KNOW - you TOLD me... but you are already acknowledged a major mystical force in all things automotive) and dance the boogaloo right there on the Main.

Yeah, I'm a tool.

2005-07-13T11:26:00.000-04:00

This is why I have never made an application to become a mensa member. I just don't want to have to pull out the damn certificate every time I lose a sidebar that got skooshed to the bottom of the page because of my oversized posting of "What Kind of Laundry Detergent Are You!?"-esque results.

So nevermind. You can all continue to keep your damn opinions to yourselves.

I'm bored. I got my revenge regarding the other day, the "solitaire" incident. Basically I really didn't want to have to go to HR dude because it's just too whiny - and that was the point of THEIR going to him - the one who strikes first is righteously indignant. The one who responds is self-justifying.

So I went right to them, bypassing the requirement that I either look like an asshole or look like a self-justifying asshole in front of middle-management. I sent up the UPS bill. They came down and pointed out that I had not coded it (accounting codes). I in turn pointed out that I do shipping, prepare the deposit, and answer the phones. That's it. Some things, I explained, were clearly considered too minor to require specific training on. UPS apparently can wait until next week to be coded. OTHER things were clearly considered too complicated and important to be trusted to a temp. Ergo I don't know, I don't do, I don't touch. The best I can do is forward it on to you as is.

Oh...

"Yeah," I said, letting a noticeable portion of my annoyance into my voice. "Which is fine. UPS can wait, you guys can take care of the receivables data entry... and in the meantime I can sit and twiddle my thumbs and get in trouble for playing solitaire even when it's patently obvious that I have absolutely nothing else to do!"

They went really quiet. "Do you..." one ventured, "Do you WANT something to do?".

Of COURSE I want something to do. Anything. I don't care. It's not FUN to sit and stare into space, even if you're being paid to do it. I'd rather work. I've quit jobs for being like this - but I can't do that anymore.

So they've been bringing me work and go figure I'm fast and accurate and they're starting to draw the tent pegs out of their asses. Meanwhile, my desk is covered here and there with invoices and HR Dude couldn't help but comment on it, to which I replied: "Yeah, I had a talk with them, and while it's clear they're not sure I'm up to actually doing the full A/R end of this job, they've decided to trust me with this, so at least now I have something to do."

So I feel much better now.

Help.

2005-07-13T10:17:00.000-04:00

Okay, someone, ANYONE, post a comment and let me know whether or not my sidebar is loading for you. It's not for me, and it's driving me nuts.

In the meantime, I shall regale you with my one little piece of sunshine here in uber-receptionist land.

The people who work here in the office, like people who work in offices the world over, dress conservatively. You can wear jeans if you want, and sometimes people even do. But basically, especially with retarded sexually-harassing brastrap laws and shit like that, the dress code and "look" is business casual.

And then there's me - and you just know I gotta wear my jeans - and my nose is pierced and my tongue is pierced and now I've got some sort of weed-whacked abbreviated mohawk going on to boot. One of these things is not like the other, boys and girls. Can you tell which one?

(Aside: Oddly, most of the women here (and more oddyly, NOT the men) have tattoos, many of which are visible in whole or part even in business casual. I too sport some body art, but it's all "hidden" so to speak. Well, until I get my wings on...)

But there is one other exception - the girl who sits in the cubicle just beside me. She sports more face-jewellery than me, far funkier hair, and her belt is bigger, blacker and more studded than mine. She is, of course, the boss's daughter.

We're getting along fairly well. She's my smoke-break/bathroom break replacement. Not exactly a kindred spirit or anything, but we understand each other.

Where oh where did my sidebar go?

2005-07-13T08:21:00.000-04:00

'Cause I don't see it.

Computers suck.

Some news on the Steven front: Monday night, at 12:01am, his parole officially ended. This is a good thing and a stupid thing - because it is good not to be on parole because it is stupid to be on parole. Alas, due to the nature of his conviction, he still can't travel internationally. Now, and I shudder to actually type this, but now only ONE of my best friends is on parole.

Yeah, that stung, lol.

Twink, I deem you American ambassador to Steve and Alex. You shall have to come up and meet them, and then return to your nation with your report. I even washed the sheets, so it's like, safe, I swear.

He also finally found some work to tide him over until his contract came in - makin' hay, so to speak. It's hard, dirty and painful work, and sorely underpaid too. But it's work. But then he found out that the contract won't be in for at least another month and so now he's off to this local window company (NO, not THAT one!) that several weeks ago, when he was already working, had offered him a job. It might be nights, but it will be a wee bit over what I make (of course) and it will be full time with benefits. If he gets it.

He chucked a thousand bales of hay yesterday. He was sore, exhausted and filthy. Yum.

Alex and that guy Mark who bears the striking and disconcerting resemblance to Pop circa 3 decades ago seem to be hitting it off rather well, and I'm enormously glad for her. He's a nice bloke and they both seem well pleased. Score.

My plan.

2005-07-12T12:13:00.000-04:00

Okay, yeah so I'm bored again. Whatever. I'm supposed to be on lunch, but I don't wanna go outside to sit in the heat. So I'll just... sit here... with the phoneset on my head, but still technically just fuckin' about on the computer.

I have a plan.

Tony is working this weekend. Last week was Heather's birthday. We have a family tradition - on or around Heather's birthday, we all go up to the waterslides at Pointe Calumet. This has technically already been done this year. But it was done while Eowyn's leg was putrifying (she stayed home with Ed) and while I was at work. Poor Kif and Eowyn. But what luck! It turns out that our family is fond enough of both us AND the waterslides that they are willing to suck it up and go again.

So that's where we're going this weekend. Me, Mom, Heather, Eowyn, Pierce, Possibly Dad (might be working), Steve, Alex and Jason. I asked if anyone would mind if I brought Steve and Jason along. They laughed at me. Then Mom asked with that "Oh god, you haven't gone and been RUDE, have you!?" attitude whether I'd neglected to invite Alex along. Or rather, INSIST Alex come along. It was a, "You DID invite Alex, didn't you? Alex HAS to come!" thing.

So yay, waterslides!

And then another work of week here at reception. Yeehaw.

And then the kids are gone for at least a week for visitation on Tony's vacation. Which is both a WOOT and a EEP situation. I appreciate my free time as much as the next person, but these are my monkeys and a week is an awful lot of free time.

I'm also a little torn about the fact that Tony actually has TWO weeks off, but has only "offered" to take the kids for the first week. I understand he'd like to take advantage of some downtime on his own too, but there's a large part of me that wants to explain to him that as absolutely as he expects me to take them back because it will suit his purposes and convenience, I was expecting him to take them for the entire duration of his vacation. I planned for this, I budgetted for it, I even had plans. Now it's shot (feh, it's like, OKAY, but still!), and without so much as a, "Could you...?" or "I'm sorry to have to ask this but..."

You know what it is? It's that they get so much less time with him than with me and I really want the three of them to have as much opportunity to create their own little family unit dynamic as they can - and that takes not "quality" time but "quantity" time. It's the single father thing - and part of the single father thing is that when you need a break, you get a babysitter.

Ah well. I should just shut up anyway because these are all theoretical oppositions. After a week and a half (weekends!) I'll be beyond squirrelly to get them back.

Rock on. That's cool.

2005-07-12T11:41:00.000-04:00

She who changes everything she touches has a new post up, claiming to be the Tarot card "The Empress". Good on you girl, that fits.

So I hadda do mine.

I am Strength

Strength represents patience and compassion. Getting angry is easy when events turn sour, but dealing calmly with frustration takes great strength. So does accepting others and forgiving mistakes. We need strength to mold situations softly. The Chariot controls through mastery and authority. Card 8 is more subtle, even loving. Notice how the lion (itself a symbol of strength) is being guided and tamed by the woman's gentle hands.

For a full description of your card and other goodies, please visit LearnTarot.com

What tarot card are you? Enter your birthdate.

And just so you know - Eowyn is the same card. That figures. Pierce, frighteningly enough, is The Hierophant.

EEEEEEEEK!

Insomnia, cachexia, coma.

2005-07-12T08:06:00.000-04:00

Urk. I may, or more likely, may not have as much as an hour and a half to two hours of sleep on board. I ate some chips, but ran out of old cheddar cheese, so I couldn't finish them.

That's how I eat chips. I nibble some chips, I nibble some cheese. If I run out of one or the other, I'm screwed.

I stayed away from the pepsi, because I didn't want to further shoot myself in the foot on the caffeine front. I'm on my first cup of the am of coffee now, and fully expect to have two to three others, until I'm coherent. Or at least wired. Possibly weepy.

Also, I shaved Coco and I cut most of my hair off again. We both look appropriately weed-whacked. I was followed around during all my nocturnal meanderings last night by two small, golden, retarded-looking dogs. Coco is fat. She would fit in well at The Cabbage, being sausage-shaped.

The upside: The kids' room is CLEAN, and all the sheets in the house are brand-spanking fresh.

Now I just need some branding or spanking.

Cocotte

2005-07-11T16:00:00.000-04:00

Cocotte the Pomeranian did indeed come to stay. She is about the size of Mogwai, but has a corona of poofy dense fur and an obviously much longer muzzle. She looks surprisingly like Fizgig from The Dark Crystal. Mouth opens all the way to asshole with a shitload of teeth inside. The fur is lovely, and the same colours as Mogwai, but she seems to be in the midst of a protracted, slow motion explosion. She spent some time in the car with me. I'm still choking up her fur.

But she makes up for it all by being prissy, prim, bitchy, incredibly loud and by fighting with Mogwai. The problem there, however, is that Cocotte is a lapdog and knows it. Mogwai goes tense and stiff on people's laps. She's a grounddog. She might not be one herself, but damned if she's going to allow this strange critter to come into her house and try to sit on her people. Cocotte goes to jump on Alex's lap, Mogwai bites her ass as she goes. Cocotte, having apparently very little experience with other dogs, turns around and attempts to kill Mogwai. Screaming and barking ensues. Steve breaks it up.

So as you can see, she's a lot of fun. Mogwai is game enough (they seem to have worked out that in the end, Cocotte WILL be allowed to continue sitting on people who do not shove her off no matter what Mogs thinks of it) and is trying to teach her to play. Alex adores her. And she makes me adore Mogs all the more, for being short-haired, lazy and quiet.

Why working with women sucks.

2005-07-11T12:24:00.000-04:00

Because women deal with conflicts, and even create conflicts, differently than men do. To whit: a situation from my day:

Kif is bored, because she doesn't have much to do until the phone rings. Or until the mail comes in. She's waiting for the phone to ring... the mail to come in. Perhaps someone will drop a package off on her desk to forwarded to South America again? You never know. In the meantime, you do the army thing - hurry up and wait. This is typical of reception work especially. You make the "big bucks" because if a dozen calls come through at once they need to know you can keep it all straight and work it all out without cutting anyone off or sending them astray. But that doesn't mean you're going to be juggling 12 lines, constantly. I take care of 24 lines here. Mid-morning and mid-afternoon get medium wild. Mornings and evenings... not so much.

But this is not the only reason I've got a thumb up my ass. The dude in charge of HR here hired me because I have reception experience, and data entry and bookkeeping experience. This was apparently necessary because the position uses it's free time (of which, as I've explained, there can be a fair amount) to help out with A/R. I've watched the lady whom I'm replacing prepare the daily deposit (and toddle off daily to make it), print out the A/R statements that reconcile the cheques we've recieved, verify and then input them... But I've only been taught how to prepare the deposit, and how to find/print out and verify the A/R. The monster, IMPORTANT part of the work - the inputting of the data - I was told that someone from accounting would be taking care of it. The annoying, time-consuming part - going to the bank, standing in line, stamp-stamp, come back - someone from accounting would be taking care of it.

So that one part - the data entry - and the trip to the bank... those would account for around 1/5 to 1/4 of my non-telephone-waiting portion of this job. And I don't do it. The A/R chick does. On top of her own work. Because despite my being hired specifically because I have the knowledge and experience to do it by the HR Dude - they've independantly decided that it's too valuable and important a job to trust to me, and made arrangements to take care of it themselves.

Which is annoying, but very, very typical of office politics. Part of it is hedging your own skills. Some of it is legitimate fear. All of it should be moot when one makes a candidate jump through as many hoops and have as much experience as I do. It's one thing when this happens on your first job when you're 16 and couldn't tell an invoice from a statement to save your life - it's another when you're sitting on a decade's worth of administrative experience. But it happens, and I'm familiar enough with temping that I don't let it get my panties in a twist too much.

Unless, of course, you are the person who has taken it upon themselves to appropriate 1/4-1/5 of the job I was hired to do on top of your own work, overwhelming yourself, and then go whining to the HR Dude because I'm so bored I'm playing solitaire and you find it "offensive". So give me my work back, tool.

So it will be interesting to see what happens once I get my deposit done this afternoon and am once again left with little to nothing to do. Because you KNOW I will be calling the HR dude and saying in my best dumb blonde voice that I just feel so badly about this morning, and that I understand that she's nervous about and doesn't want me doing the data entry, but if she has anything else I might do... filing? anything she's comfortable with, I'd greatly appreciate having it. After all, I know that having to take on such a large portion of the responsibilities of my positon on top of her own work... No wonder she's so overwhelmed. I feel so badly. Honest.

Cause I don't think anyone here is so naive they think she filled him in on any of THAT part of it.

Laure... I may have an idea... ish.

2005-07-11T09:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, so Bell reinstated my cell phone account, even though they'd sent me a nasty note saying they didn't want to have anything to do with my anymore. Turns out if you give them most of their money back, they forgive you. Dude, I TOLD them I was going to pay them eventually...

But they reinstated my good name, just about two weeks after I chucked the defunct, piece of crap cell phone out. Why would I need it? It was broken and crappy and Bell had told me to go fuck myself.

So I called them up to complain that I am once again being billed for a phone that I no longer have after being told I was no longer welcome to be a customer. Grr. But in the end, what I'm doing is paying off the balance of the bill and then I'm going to get a new cell phone. My very own, of my own choice.

But I had an idea, while I was doing my research online into what sort of phone I might want. There is this phone called the "Sanyo 7300", sold through Bell Mobility. It's built not so pansy-assed, your-kids-will-break-it-just-looking-at-it as most cell phones seem to be today. Of all the phones I saw on the site, it's like the one... the only one... that I actually liked. It's around 150bux. And get this - it's also a walkie-talkie. A CROSS CANADA walkie talkie. or 15bux a month each, if say, me, Laure and Mom each got one (and Mom is SO due for a new phone) we could talk whenever we wanted, for as long as we wanted, singly or ALL TOGETHER. If I had that, I'd just dump all my home phone long distance stuff entirely, because with the amount I call Montreal/Tony, it's fairly moot.

Mei-mei, Mom - go check out www.bell.ca and tell me what you think. Too goofy? Too gadgety? Not actually any cheaper? Silly Kif?

Can I call it or what?

2005-07-11T08:18:00.000-04:00

Of course, it's so much easier to call behaviour when it's your own, and you know damn well you're going to do it.

Dropped the monkeys off at their Dad's and I not only slowed the car down, I came to a full and complete stop. Then I drove back into the Hill and Alex and I spiffed up. I wore the shirt that ick bought me for my birthday 2... 3? years ago. I saw it once on television - on BUFFY. That's how spiffy a shirt it is. It's made of netting, and has a big messed up skull on the front. If the skull were just a little bit better place, I wouldn't have to wear something under it. I love that shirt.

Then we went over to Mark's - MJ and Cote were already there, and Mark's nephew (17yo, eek), and this guy Pascale. Some interesting bits about Mark. He's a big boy - like, six foot or better and LARGE. Not fat, just big all over, kinda like Heather - and only kinda like Heather because he is almost exactly like Dad. I swear, I have seen photos of my dad in his early twenties and this kid is eerily similar. Plus... he works as a cook at the restaurant (and he's really good - omelette and pierogies Sunday morn!) and he plays guitar. It was eerie.

So we sat around and played music and sang and drank all night long. There was a period of time out in a field sitting on an abandoned foundation. I stepped on thistles. I had to pee. I was drinking something called "Sourpuss", which was vile. I got bit by a lot of mosquitoes. Then we went back inside and everyone went to bed. 17yo alone... Mark and Alex in the bedroom... leaving me and Pascale (from whom I'd been getting the finest of all foot rubs most of the night) in the livingroom.

Which was all good because Pascale is this musician/tattoo artist with longish curly black hair who was having issues with his English as the night wore on so we fell into French together. I played translator. We hit it off. Then I got my knee stuck in the tiny loveseat we were making out on (and expected to have to crash out on) and discovered metal bars and cheap ass mattress - Pull out! Score! It was too late for my knee though. It's massively bruised.

It was a good party, all around.

Saturday Steve and Alex and I drove Jason home to Moose Creek (isn't that a fantastic name for a town?) and then picked up a case of beer and Mark. Hence omelettes and pierogies the next morning. Alas, Pascale had gone back home to Quebec, possibly Lachute. Where Keith was... although he'd called me twice the night before, at 3 and 4am. So we sat around my house and did our best to freak the hell out of Mark (who is new in town, only a couple weeks, from Toronto) and I daresay succeeded. But he was still around last night at Steve's when I stopped by to watch season 2 of the Chappelle's Show. I guess we didn't traumatize him too bad.

Yeah. A good weekend. I think I made out with Alex a bit. It's all a blur. But in a good way.

... but names will never hurt me...

2005-07-08T16:07:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows what Anorexia Nervosa is. High strung young woman with delusions of inadequacy starves self in order to create a false sense of personal control over a life usually dominated by a hysterical, over-bearing and self-involved mother.

That's not me.

So I was kinda shocked when, during my post-partum depression many moons ago, the docs referred to me as being Anorexic. It set off a very large ranty lecture on my own personal opinion of dieting (highly negative), of my body (positive!), and then it set off a giant crying jag. The truth was I was existing on a diet of RC cola and Ketchup chips. I couldn't stomach anything else. Thus I learned that "anorexic" is simply a medical term for loss of appetite. Anorexia Nervosa = Not me. Anorexic = sometimes me. I get highly stressed, I don't wanna eat nuthin.

But see, I.. *I* know this. Other people do not. You just can't use a word like Anorexic. People make presumptions because the word has got too much (BAD) press. But I'm a purist when it comes to vocabulary. It's a quirk of mine. I don't want to say, "I'm not hungry right now". It's inaccurate. The truth is that I'm not hungry right now, nor was I this morning, nor will I be, likely, until the following day. People notice shit like that. If you just say, "I'm not hungry", they think you're ashamed, they think you're hiding. There is a word for what I am - Anorexic. Here and there. When I'm under stress. I have a natural 10lb weight fluctuation because of it - when I'm calm and happy and life is good, I'm around 135/140lbs. When life is bad and I'm stressed, I'll drop 10lbs. I'm as pleased with my looks and my body at one weight as I am at the other. Weight loss isn't the point. I couldn't care less.

(and please, nobody tell me how they wish they could drop 10lbs, how they wish they were my weight, how they wish their "anorexia" was like mine. I couldn't care less aout that either. I've been up to 160lbs and down to 110lbs and it was all still plain ole me - goofy-lookin, mouthy and ME. If you dislike your body when it's big, guess what - the same flaws will still be there, but scaled down when you lose the weight. Plus, big girls have nice bonny full breasts - and that's the first place the weight comes off. So suck it up.)

But there's nothing like having someone you're trying to explain why you're just picking around the edges of your plate to interupt you to let you know that you really ARE thin. Duh, I know. So basically I try to avoid the subject entirely, or just avoid food-related social occasions entirely. Or discussions. It just gets like this post - too long.

But I found a new word today! Cachexia. It's all the stuff you get with loss of appetite, but it's specific to someone who is NOT attempting to purposefully lose weight.

Fantastic. Nobody has heard this word, so when I pull it out of my ass the next time someone asks me, "Aren't you having some?" I won't have to spend half my time and effort explaining what the difference between "anorexia" and "anorexia nervosa" is.

Urk. I'm dying.

2005-07-08T14:54:00.000-04:00

Of boredom. BOOOoooored.

I was hoppin' before, but now I'm not. I shoulda just taken my time.

I almost forgot!

2005-07-08T08:26:00.000-04:00

When we were still working at PFF, Alex asked me if ever she bought a dog, if she could "store it" with me at my house. I said sure, as long as she remained responsible for food, vet bills, accidents, etc. The dog would have to be female, or fixed if it was male. Blah blah blah. If it destroys something of mine, she'd be responsible. Blah blah blah. Frankly, I put so many codicils on it, I figured she'd just wait until that elusive day when she finally gets a trailer put on the plot of land adjacent to her folks' place which is nominally hers..

Yesterday she bought a 4yo Pomeranian named "Cocotte" from a coworker. We will be picking Cocotte up this afternoon, after work, and introducing her to Mogwai. Cocotte will be living with me for several weeks, or less - until Alex gets her living situation squared away properly.

I'm actually excited about it. I think it will keep Mogs far happier on those occassions when I can't have her right there with me, and I've got all fingers crossed that they get along and that Cocotte doesn't turn out to be a car-ralpher. Or a kid-nipper.

More news as it breaks!

OOoh this is going to be bad!

2005-07-08T08:02:00.000-04:00

I can just tell.

The kids have missed two weekends of visitation with their dad. It was all good, I mean, I love them, and I'm not "alone". Mom and Dad and Laure et al had Pierce while Eowyn was really sick, they kept both while I was working several times. Alex is a godsend, watching my kids for "Whatever you can give me..." - which so far has been 60$ a week, and which I hope, on weeks where I get my Child Tax Benefit and my child support in to bump up to a more reasonable pay... And now I seem to have Steve in much the same way too - we hang out evenings and feed the monkeys and he's teaching Pierce "to fight!" and agrees that the only word that fully describes Eowyn is the French word, "Sage" - which means wise and quiet and self-contained and easy all at once.

But essentially I've had them for three weeks straight now, and I'm tired. Pierce hollered, "That's it! I'm not ever going back to the city!" this morning and I said I was going to duct tape him and throw him in the trunk and not even slow down as we passed his Dad's. He pointed out that if he was in the trunk, I'd have to in order to get him out. Literalist. I felt bad because I was chafing with the kids last night and I ended up blathering at Steve about how much I hate it when I get nitpicky and short with them like that - and he told me to get over it - That if that was me on edge, after three weeks, I should see his ex after half a day with Jason. He's got all three of his kids this weekend, and when she found out that he had Jason too, she said they couldn't sleep over at her place. :(

So I'm dropping off the monkeys tonight with thier Dad and Steve will have all of his... And while I do want to stop by and see Jason if it won't bend the ex too far out of shape, the fact remains that I've been invited out to a PARTY.

That's right. A real grown up person PARTY. With beer. And people. And, I hear, a guitar and singing. This at the house of a coworker of Alex's. And this friend of hers is in town, an army boy no less, and yesterday we ended up on the phone (never met this guy yet, lol) and he asked me out! I had thought he was asking if we could all three of us go out and have fun, but when I pointed out that he was in my house with my kids, who alas, must have adult supervision, he said, "We'll get Alex to babysit!". OMG, yer askin ME out. Is this some bitter side move because Alex keeps turning you down? (that was an in-my-head-thought).

And Keith is in town too...

So just imagine it folks - Kif will be loose on the town after three weeks of being primarily MOM, and after at least one, possibly one and a half of highly stressful occurences etc. This could be bad. Very bad. Or at least, highly sinful.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER

2005-07-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

I am just going to have to assume that you and Mom, or Dad, or you alone, or either and any combination of the above people are hitting the 'net hard today. I have been trying to call you to wish you a happy birthday since 9am this morning, to no avail.

So I put it here - Happy Birthday! Happy happy birthday! I'm thinking of you. I hope you're doing exactly what you want with your day, and that you are doing it, like Twink said, in your longjohn's with the buttflap.

Who am I kidding? I'm totally going to keep calling until I get through to you, and then I'm going to bitch about how long it took, and then I'm going to holler at you for apologizing as if you'd done something wrong. Then I'm going to sing off key in three languages, loudly.

I love you.

This is your Kif, at work

2005-07-07T12:39:00.000-04:00

I work in two different places, technically. The first is as receptionist at the main plant/head office.

The last time I was a receptionist, it was in Death and Disability Claims for a major insurance company. I hated it. The call volume was phenomenal and NOBODY was happy. Plus, I discovered that everything you may suspect about making a claim from a major insurance company is true. They do it all on purpose. It's policy.

Here the call volume is minor (in comparison) and nobody is dead, dying or in pain. They just want to make thier walls look pretty. I got one phonecall that turned a little irate because I could not find the name of the individual they wanted on my lists, and they'd expected them to be "right there! waiting! that's what she just said! I'm just returning her call!". In the end, when he upbraided me for not even being aware of the names of the teachers at the school I was working at, even if I was a brand new relief receptionist, I got to inform him that I don't work at a school at all - but at a company that makes mouldings. He apologized and insisted that he'd not been the one to dial the phone...

I hate that. Nobody is too important not to dial their own damn phone.

They keep the air conditioning too high here, but they give me free pepsi, the fools. It's not all answering phones, either. I do deposits and some A/R and stuff like that. Lotsa shipping.

But I much prefer it when I'm at The Arena - what they call the building where their Merchandising department is housed. It's a big warehouse, I'm hired to "operate the computer!" and to do whatever else they might need - from redesigning the filing system to sweeping up to packaging materials for displays (at 10ft by 2.5ft, large and heavy work!). I get to exercise my brain and my body. They let me use power tools. They gave me safety glasses and big gloves. The work can be very physically demanding so the emphasis is on steady as she goes and get your shit done, and not the McDonalds' philosophy of work environments - busy busy busy, even if you're not!

This appeals to me.

Plus I'm making some fairly comfortable money at all this, and my boss at The Arena says that as long as I don't mind the work and can keep it up, I'm welcome to stay - most of the employees there are "temps" like me. It could go for a ways beyond the end of the summer. Coolness. Plus they don't air condition it there - it's just naturally a little dark, cooler, and comfortable. Also, despite being portly, middle-aged and not what would be qualified as "handsome", he wears the same cologne as Keith, the friend that Steve brought over the other week there... for which there are many quite pleasant asociations for me now. I must withhold myself from sniffing him. It's all good.

Except yesterday I got dinged because apparently in this uncivilized province, where you have to go to "special" stores to get beer, you can't wear spaghetti straps or have brastraps showing in workplaces, because it is supposedly under the aegis of sexual harassment. Yeah... right. I offered to remove the bra forthwith (my shirt was good, but the stupid strap kept migrating on me) but was asked not to. I asked then what I ought to do - if my breasts are harassing people without my knowledge no matter which I do - wear a bra or not.

This is obviously an interpretation of sexual harassment law to be credited to some individual who never had to wear one of these stupid things.

Houseloads of Rugrats

2005-07-07T09:07:00.000-04:00

They're fun to come home to. That way you don't end up being the one who spent all day with them, looking haunted and hunted.

It wasn't that bad. He did look a little peaked, but it wasn't kid-related. It was ex-related.

This is how the rumour mill on the Hill works. Steve called two people - his contractor/buddy/business partner, and his parents - to let them know where he could be reached. (Jason apparently campaigned hard to be brought over to my place, so of course he was) But beyond those two calls, I was in and out of the Hill for only minutes picking him up the night before. Based on these things, the Ex found out that he was at my place, babysitting. So she gave him crap because howcum he can do these things for me and my kids, and not her and his own? Of course, she'd also told him she didn't want him to call or see the kids on weekdays anymore (at least until he stops seeing me) before, so...

Yeah, seriously. I'm flabbergasted by this woman.

Being what I am, a recently "divorced" woman, a single mother... (Laure, stop screaming SLUT! at your computer!)... I kinda presume that those in my situation are working with the same sort of priorities and goals. Redefine yourself. Rebuild your life, daily and long-term. Heal, learn and recover from the failed relationship. But above all other things, keep the kids as safe, secure and happy as you possibly can. Keep disruption, strife and stress to the absolute minimum. For me, that this means you have to deal with, put up with things that you dislike, that rankle you, that disturb and annoy you, even things that hurt... a lot... you do it. You suck it up. I can't fathom and I can't countenance this person - who thrills to frighten her own children, to rage and threaten and for what? Justice? Control?

Not that I don't think Steve didn't hurt her, a lot. Of course he did. If he hadn't, they'd still be together. If Tony hadn't hurt me, I'd still be with him. I didn't leave out of BOREDOM, for christ's sake. Sometimes, just looking at him makes me want to cry and to scream at him all at once. Sometimes, when he talks about the things he's been doing with K and her kids, etc, I get that selfish stupid pang in the pit of my gut that says, "You don't deserve to have another woman give you a chance!". But so what? I don't even want to imagine what his deepest darkest thoughts are when he sees me.

But I can't even bitch clearly about the things that Steve's ex has been saying and doing. It's too silly, stupid... embarassing. She comes off looking like a total jackass.

Did you know?

2005-07-06T12:49:00.000-04:00

That tomorrow is Heather's birthday? I did, but what I'm worried about is that even though I spoke to her yesterday and wished her an early happy birthday, that'll I'll forget tomorrow and then only get to wish her a belated happy birthday later on. That would be in keeping with my brain and my luck and the luck that my brain is making for me these days.

I got pulled over for speeding this morning. Plus I had no babysitter because Alex was working at the restaurant.

In the end, the cop knocked nearly 15km/hr off my speeding and gave me a much reduced ticket, and completely ignored the fact that I've completely neglected to re-register my car as Ontario-ian. THAT would have been bad. Plus Steve came over last night and agreed to watch the kids today. He also spent a bunch of time fiddling with my small and modest collection of cast-off televisions and my run-over-by-lawn-mower antenna cable and various other bits of wire etc and now I get not NONE, not ONE television station, very fuzzily, but FOUR very clearly. WOOT. Eowyn kept yelling at us to leave the TV alone and call a "Mechanic!".

Ugh. I'm really tired.

Feelin' a bit better now.

2005-07-05T12:07:00.000-04:00

Because yesterday see, I had a wee epiphany. Mostly that I have no obligation to invest time and effort in placating people who call me up drunk in the middle of the night to yell at me and call me names. So instead of going over to John's, Steve and I took his son Jason (the one that is not his ex-wife's, and so is not under her bizarre injunctions) over to my place, and then some neighbour kids showed up.

So I cooked dinner, Steve did laundry, the kids ran around. Mogwai killed stuffed animals and ate grass and panted a lot. Eowyn got busted downing her pants (Truth or Dare, Moon us!). Jason has taken a total shine to me, and I to him. He's six, with a skinny little neck, big ears, blonde hair and a heartbreakingly hopeful grin. He growls and is hyper and doesn't listen. In other words, nearly as perfect as Pierce.

Oddly, Jason and Eowyn get along better than Jason and Pierce do right now. Mostly I think because they met first, during the whole "flesh-eating disease" thing. Give it time.

So John called me again in the wee hours, having apparently deduced that I'm not happy with him. Go figure.

Of course I'm out of money, beer, advil and I'm on my period. But I couldn't even bitch because at least I know when all those things will return/end and my friends are less certain. I figured out my finances today and I think I'm going to be okay for the summer at least. So I invited everyone (Alex + Steve = Everyone) over for steak and mushrooms and stuff tonight. I can't eat it all just me and the kids, so why not?

Gotta get in touch with The Cabbage, for Alex is working at the Restaurant tomorrow and can't watch the kids...

But I'm better now. Nobody's being mean to me, I'm not fucking anything up, and nobody's sick or hurting.

Happy Fourth of July

2005-07-04T12:04:00.000-04:00

Here's hoping it's better than my Canada Day, which I can pretty much say sucked ass all around.

Yesterday was the worst. Eowyn, having survived her brush with flesh-eating disease-mimicking infections, went on to try and cram nearly a week's worth of bouncing and hollering into one day. Pierce and I, in turn, developed very high fevers and lapsed into comas. During this coma, Steve's Mother, whom I met this weekend, called me. She was friendly and happy. I may or may not have been lucid. I crawled back into bed. Giddy that Steve's Mother seems to have taken to me so quickly, I fell asleep thinking how sad it was that his ex seems so bent on animosity. She's had to leave me a phone message once (had to get info to Steve), and I returned it immediately with assurances I would see he got it (it was important). She was polite. I picked Steve up at her house once, and then dropped by quickly when things came to a head with Eowyn this weekend (I had promised to drive Steve to pick up a cheque, and obviously couldn't). On all occasions she was polite and neutral with me. Later, with Steve, she blew up about these things. It's bad. Like, threatening to refuse him permission to see the kids if he doesn't stop seeing me, bad. Which I know is ridiculous and not a legal option, but it just makes TROUBLE, you know? And they broke up nearly TWO years ago... yeesh. I feel bad for her in some ways, but then, it's all just so weird and unaccountable... so silly...

*enter dream sequence*

Steve's ex calls me and we talk. We make it past neutral and polite. It's all good. Things are better. I am happy. We hang up. I realize I'd forgotten to pass on the message that he should call his mother. I call her back...

*exit dream sequence*

I am standing up on the landing of my second floor on the phone... with Steve's ex. I have woken up because she suddenly seemed not to remember our conversation of moments before. Which of course she doesn't because it was all in my brain. UGH.

So she of course blows more shit all over Steve again, which he totally did not need. Because of me.

Then John calls late at night and we have a raging 2+ hour telephone-slamming massive fight in which he calls me many terrible names and demands things I simply cannot offer him. Now I am stuck having to BREAK UP with him, even though I never even agreed to DATE him... and I've hurt him, because he loves me... Christ, what for I don't know - not that I don't know I'm lovable - but he barely LIKES me, so I just don't understand what this is beyond, "Thanks for not fucking off on me once you realized I can be a dick", and I can't fathom that he really believes that he wants more out of me than he's already got. But he feels he does and it hurts him and he doesn't understand why I won't agree to it and there he is... hurt. Just like Steve. On the same day.

And me with two sick kids and a bad, bad fever and no money left because I spent it all on gas driving around to hospitals... Not a good weekend. Bleagh.

The IV is out, woot.

2005-07-02T18:26:00.000-04:00

Eowyn is officially mostly okay. Thanks for all the best wishes and I'll check out yer blog, Bev - and add it to my list! - as soon as it isn't intolerably rude of me to be sitting here ignoring everyone for the internet.

Steve is over here at the Cabbage with me and I'm obscenely happy. To quote Portnoy the Groundhog of Bloom County: "People in love are a royal pain in the patookus."

You know what's not fun?

2005-07-01T14:29:00.000-04:00

A necrotizing fasciitis scare with your eight year old.

After two and a half days of not being able to control the fever, swelling or pain I took Eowyn into the hospital in Alexandria. An hour and a half later I was headed into CHEO - the local big time children's hospital in Ottawa.

So she doesn't have it, but she does have a HELL of an infection. She has an IV in her hand and I'm taking her every eight hours in to have hard-core IV antibiotics. She's going to live. She's going to keep her leg. She's going to drive me nuts. She's crying up a storm, getting "therapeutic hugs!" from Auntie Laure, because she can't go in the pool.

Okay, now she's laughing. She's pretending to puke on her aunt.

But if I thought the infection itself, or her popping the lesions was gross, I got the mother of all gross-outs last night. Her fever peaked, her pain peaked, I threw her in a luke warm bath, she got out, incapable of bearing any weight on it... and it burst all on it's own. Thank god for my inadvertent anorexia, or I'd have blown chunks on the spot.

Flushing IV's out is weird.

Ugh, nearly three pm here now - four is her next treatment.

But it's hot, humid and it's Canada Day - and I bought FIREWORKS.

At work, but not for long.

2005-06-30T08:39:00.000-04:00

I'm leaving early so I can find a doc to take a quick look at Eowyn's legs. I hopped her up on motrin last night and was rewarded with her coming downstairs saying, "Look, Mom. I popped them. All this gross stuff came out."

And so it had. I cleaned her up. Ew. But actually this morning they were looking much better, and she was walking again, so that's good. She actually asked me why we hadn't popped them earlier, and I had to remind her that they were so swollen and sore that she cried if we wiped them down with antibiotics, so "popping" wasn't going to happen.

No more fever, the swelling is down, but they're still big and red and angry and puss-filled. Puss-y. Not pussy, like I first typed that, lol.

Had a fight with John yesterday (by fight I mean he looked his usual underwhelmed to see me, I hollered that I wasn't staing because I just wanted to get the kids home, he couldn't hear me because his music was on... blah blah blah), because I was burnt and premenstrual and I took off on him again and cried in the car all the way home. He called almost as soon as I got there, we yelled at each other, laughed at each other... but I wasn't going anywhere because Steve was at my place, cheering me up.

With a friend.

That... that was fairly epic, and I was fairly cheered up, I tell you.

The grossest thing ever.

2005-06-29T12:27:00.000-04:00

Is an infected mosquito bite. Or rather, whatever the hell bite it is on Eowyn's leg that is infected. It's awful.

Yesterday morning Eowyn woke up telling me all about her bug bite. It was a bit more inflamed than one might usually see, and by "telling" I mean howling and crying. She's good with pain, terrible with discomfort, go figure. So I gave her some antihistamines and some motrin and she went on her trip to Upper Canada Village with the rest of the family. After work I went and picked up Heather, and then we diddled about killing time and eating ice cream until we could go pick Steve up.

I must say I was fairly impressed - I got two messages from the crew at the Cabbage regarding our tardiness, but none intimated that I must have forgotten or fucked something up. Just a "Just checking to see if you're over there ... we're holding dinner for ya!".

So Steve finished up his day's work and then we all drove over to The Cabbage - where we discovered that Eowyn's leg was mighty messed up. She had a fever, the leg was swollen and red. She couldn't walk on it, and they told me earlier in the day the center of it had been GREEN. Oh hork. Gak. But Mom and Laure had started up a regimen of tylenol and thorough cleaning and by the time I left, she was sleeping comfortably.

The kids slept over there again. This morning Mom told me her fever was gone. Whew. So mostly (when I wasn't in the pool) I was sitting with a feverish cuddle-muffin on my lap - which was the sum total of my parenting for that day. But I did give Ma their OHIP cards (medical insurance) and instructions to call Alex so she could bring her to the hospital here in Alexandria...

Argh. Parenting doubts suck. But then... I HAVE to work. It's not like, optional.

Best line of the evening:

Steve: I was roofing today...
Dad & Ed, together: (large, sympathetic groan)
Ed: You win.
Dad: Only an ex-con would roof in weather like this.

No independant word on what anyone thought of Steve yet - except for Heather, who said: "Dude. You're dating ME.". Predictions: Mom wasn't paying attention because it's either you're serious or your not and there's no point in paying attention to anyone I bring home unless trips to the movies, steak dinners and monogamy are involved - ie "seriousness". Shit - I could get that out of John fairly quick these days - and despise every moment of it, and never be a whit more serious about him than I am right now. Dad will shrug and say, "Seems nice enough, I suppose. For a con. *snicker!*". Laure will say, "Look, do you know how many cosmopolitans I had last night? All I remember is that he was drinking Blue Light. What's up with that?"

Checking the calendar...

2005-06-28T12:48:00.000-04:00

I've realized that despite the fact that I have two boyfriends, I've not had sex in damn near a week. I may require a third, at this rate.

Also - does anyone have an email addy for Shayna (no idea on spelling) of "Harry Mary" fame? Adorable cutie Shayna? I'm trying to track down a phone number for that guy Adam we were hanging with at Old Songs, the one who is currently living in Montreal. I said I'd call him and import him to small town Ontario for drunken debauchery and have since had it pointed out to me that he fits Alex's, "Cute, interesting and NOT from The Hill!" criteria admirably well...

So like, email me... with her number or his, or email for either of the above if anyone has it.

Lunchtime.

2005-06-28T12:29:00.000-04:00

Food is for mortals. I'm just going to subsist on a helping of Internet today.

My wrist-slashing incident was this morning, and involved not taking the stupid knife out of my jeans before gathering up laundry and not pressing the piton that makes the blade stay inside its stupid sheath. What can I say, I'm like, retarded that way.

I am of course being mocked mercilessly, because while last week was Receptionisty and girly, this week I am surrounded by older men in a giant warehouse. I am creating a filing system again, which sounds fairly secretarial, I'm sure... but around these here parts it means I have to build the whole thing from the ground up - as in I've been building custom sectioning to install into filing cabinets. How cool is that? My boss asked me if I minded fucking around with sharp knives and t-squares and saws and grinders and I just grinned at him like a cretin.

John left me a message saying he missed me on Friday. Then he called late Sunday night and let me know the myriad ways in which he missed me - most of which involved him having to put on his own sunscreen and all his buddies having their girlfriends around to "take care" of them and him being on his lonesome. God, I can't even imagine what sort of a relationship his parents must have that he thinks lacking a second pair of hands to apply sunscreen is a good example of the ways in which one misses a significant other. I am worried that I may be becoming more significant to him than he is to me.

Steve's life seems to be falling apart at the edges, poor lad - his truck died (transmission) he's roofing in this heat (horror) and his compressor broke down so he's doing it all by hand (hard work).

Pierce passed kindergarten with flying colours. Don't know on Eowyn yet - today was supposed to be her last day but the whole fam-damily was off to Upper Canada Village so I thought, "Der, that's way more educational!" and sent her with them. Cross your fingers that they aren't in the same grade together next year, lol.

PS - the boss here says that he wants to keep me on as much as possible. That as long as there is work here for me, I'm welcome to it, and that I should be good for longer than just August. Score. I won't be hired as a permanent employee, no union, no benefits, but I should be able to just keep working. This would be a good thing, a very good thing. Especially here in merchandising where I can dress like a refugee if I feel like it and get to play in ways that require safety glasses and where they blast oldies all day long. The Cars are playing now. I have to go sing off key and bounce around the shop to it.

CYA!

Blogger ate my post

2005-06-28T09:44:00.000-04:00

On Old Songs, etc. Things are going well. I ADORE working in merchandising. At the moment, I have a big ole bandaid on from ACCIDENTALLY slicing my wrist with an exacto knife. Not badly, and I didn't even do it at work.

Steve returned my empties for gas money and thought I would be ANGRY that I didn't have to load them all in the car and unload them, etc. I asked him this morning (his truck is dead) as I drove him to Lavoie's to meet his ride if he thought he might be up for a swim tonight. He said, HELL YEAH. He's roofing right now... in this heat. When I go see him this afternoon, I will let him in on the fact that the pool is at my PARENTS home. Seeing as since he already invited me to meet his mom, I don't think he'll freak or anything, lol. In fact, I don't think he'll freak on it pool or no pool because he doesn't seem that sort anyway.

I work from 7:30am to 3:30pm now. Isn't that cool?

Yeah. Wow.

2005-06-24T12:02:00.000-04:00

So I leave for Old Songs tonight... after work. After I pack (not too complicated, this one). After I take Mogs out to The Cabbage. That one was stupid of me - I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night going, "Crap! THE DOG!". Plus I was even AT the Cabbage yesterday dropping Heather off from work.

Yeah... that one was funny too - Mom reminds Heather on Wednesday that she will be without a lift yesterday and today. Heather nods. Kif thinks, "Well good. I won't have to do it.". Then I talked to Mom yesterday and the spiel was could I go get Heather? Um... why didn't Heather ask me YESTERDAY, when I was RIGHT THERE? Dunno dunno dunno. But then... despite her claim that she doesn't even appreciate them, she had partaken of a cookie.

But I've got bigger Wow's to publicize today. On that same phone call to Mom yesterday, I was informed that either the neighbour's dog or a 'coon had torn my garbage up all over my lawn. Dad said it was fairly epic. I asked (I know, I'm stupid, okay?) if perchance he'd cleaned any of it up. He laughed at me. No. So I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of heading home to clean up garbage that had been sitting bare in the sun all day.

But I cheered up because when she picked me up, Alex told me that Steve, having seen my car at her parent's house, stopped by to see if perchance I was there. Nope - I was workin. Alex and her mother had just discovered that Pierce had never so much as cast a line, let alone caught a fish, thought it bordered on neglect on my part, and were taking him out to fish (baby smallmouth bass).

I felt pretty good that he'd stopped there to see if I was there. Believe it or not, even though he seems to be stopping by a lot when I'm never there, it still seems a little unbelievable to me... I keep thinking that it's not really that he likes me, that it must be something like he wanted some information or to give me a message or something... a no-choice thing. It would be too perfect if he was coming to see me just for me. Too scary. Too much risk. Too much to lose.

The further part of the info Alex gave me was that he would stop by (he doesn't have a phone, lol) that night at c. 8pm. If I wanted him there, he'd hang out. If not, he'd go. Yay! Double purpose: interesting and stimulating adult intellectual conversation in between bouts of particularly raunchy and mind-blowing sex. Score.

So I got home... and he was already there. He'd picked up the garbage on the lawn. He'd washed my dishes. He'd cleaned my kitchen. He was cooking cajun shrimp (which HE'd brought, not rooted about in the freezer for). He'd replaced the beer and the smokes, as promised. So we sat down and talked and talked and talked...

And the gist of his end of things was that he really hoped he wasn't making an asshole of himself, but for whatever reason, he really really really enjoys my company. That he hopes I feel the same way. That he'll back off if I want him too, but he really hopes I don't. That he knows it's silly because we've barely known each other a month... but there it is.

Right now... OMG, I so adore this guy. I am absolutely and totally unaccountably fond of him. I want him around all the time. He makes me feel calm and happy. But then, I'm totally on edge too, because I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. And the odd thing is I know his history, self-confessed - and it quite rightly counts as one hell of a shoe... and I can't figure out why, but it doesn't FEEL like a shoe to me.

He's been to jail. This is usually a "So what?" situation for me. Most of the men I've known in my life have been to jail, or at least had some negative relationships with the law. Mostly drugs, dealing, simple assault, etc. The "barfight"/"party" type crimes. But Steve's conviction is for a more serious offence. I won't say what here, because I've not yet asked permission to discuss it here, even though I doubt he'd mind. But it weren't no misdemeanor.

Maybe because he's done his time, because when he talks about it, he doesn't romance it up.

No man, in my entire life, not even Tony - with whom I spent nearly 11 years - has ever reacted this positively towards me without asking for a single concession from me in any part of my life. It was always soemthing along the lines of, "I sure do like you, but I wish you wouldn't see other people. Except for girls. That's cool, as long as I'm there." - "You're super keen, but why do you always dress so dumpy?" - "I think you're great, but I don't understand why you would rather stay home and watch movies instead of going to a blazingly loud club full of pretentious 19yo's wearing ridiculous clothes whilst looking bored to indistinguishable dance tracks".

And not once... not ONCE in my whole life, has it mattered to me as much as it matters to me right now that THIS man like me as much as I like him.

Because he's spiffy and fantastic.

Can you believe this shit? Yikes. That and I made homemade jam, ON PURPOSE. I am turning into a girly girl. Any day now, I'll start wearing perfume and going to other people to cut my hair.

Did y'all see that kid?

2005-06-23T14:37:00.000-04:00

The one in Utah? The one who got lost in the woods and then hid from rescuers for four days because he was scared of "stranger danger!" and kidnappings and being stolen?

I thought, when I saw his pictures, that I had never before seen such a miserable and angry kid in my life. And no wonder, discovering in such a painful and horible way that you were led astray by those you trust most. And yet, if one casts ones mind back, it's understandable from the other end too - after all, he comes from the same state where the most terrible and classic of all "strangers" broke into a girl's bedroom and stole her away in the night.

And that's the problem. Strangers. It means two things - people we do not know and people who are bizarre. Kids are naturally wary of people they do not know - bu that lasts all of a quarter second, until the person says, "My name is...". Then they aren't a stranger anymore. They are far more wary of people who are bizarre in appearance - but even that can be tolerated in return for sweets or attention or whatever. So for kids... there is no such thing as a stranger. It's all just people they haven't met yet.

But it's not the only problem. Danger. What the hell is danger anyway? Eowyn spends fully 1/5 of the time she is on our property an average of around 25 feet off the ground in the apple tree. If she falls, it will be very serious. But I, taking responsibility for the decision as her mother, have decided to let it be. I allow it, despite the risks. Pierce isn't allowed up the tree. The fact of the matter is Eowyn has only ever injured herself falling (off the fence) once, and Pierce is covered with bruises as the result of his efforts at walking across flat ground.

My point is that in some ways... I am a danger to my kids. But if I want to restrict the chances of physical injury to my children, I have to amend what I do in that sphere. Telling Eowyn she can't sit in her tree won't stop her from being molested or kidnapped.

Molested or kidnapped. Those are the boogeymen we're really after here. One, will likely never ever happen to anyone we know. If it does, it will be almost certainly perpetrated by one or the other of the child in questions' parents, as the result of an acrimonious divorce. The other... the other... very unfortunately... the chances are very good it WILL happen.

And that is the one thing I hate most about the world in which we live. Nobody talks about it, but it's true. I can count on my bodily digits all the women I've ever met in my life who were NOT sexually touched/molested/abused/interfered with or attacked before the age of 18. For men, it's trickier, because if you ask them, they will laugh and say, "Of course not!"... but half the time if you ask them how old they were when they lost their virginity you will hear something like 12 or 13... and if you ask them if they slept with a woman over the age of 25 before they reached 18, they will admit that too... Sigh.

Kidnapping I don't worry about a lot. I have faith, to a certain extent, if I may be flip on the subject, that anyone who nabbed one of my bleaters would probably drop them off in a couple of days. Tony isn't going to do it. I'm not going to do it. So on that front, statistically, they're as golden as kids can get.

As to molestation and it's ilk, if... oh god... when... it does happen, my chances of it being some bum who calls himself Emmanuel, wears robes, doesn't bathe and whom I've never met before in my life is extremely thin. In fact, if I recall correctly, Emmanuel DID know his victim - he'd done odd jobs for the family. He wasn't a total stranger.

So what the hell are you supposed to do? Well - the best I've ever come up with is the following:

1. I have told my children about molestation, what it entails, and that yes, it happened to me. Matter-of-factly. They know that it is possible that some adults might have such a motivation towards them.

2. I never told them not to talk to strangers. In fact, I openly encouraged it. I encouraged them to talk to any and everyone who struck their fancy. And then we talked about the person. We would decide that the old man on the bus who glared and ignored was a mean old man who didn't like kids. The guy who patted them on the head and laughed too loud and walked funny had too much beer. The lady in the store liked them. This one thought they were too loud. And this one... this one was WEIRD. I taught them to make a judgement.

3. I told them from day one, that their control over their bodies was absolute. Nobody, not even a relative, or a social situation, is allowed to demand that you cede a kiss, a hug, anything that you don't want. If they try, warn them. If they don't listen, then you are allowed to do ANYTHING it takes to make it stop. I will never, ever discipline them for anything they do to anyone who did not listen when they were told to stop infringements upon their physical persons.

Which is the best I've been able to come up with - but god knows with the psychology behind molestation, I'll have to wait until the teen years to know if it worked out...

But in the meantime, the above policy was the genesis of the infamous Pierce/Nun-Slapping Incident.

They arrived!

2005-06-23T07:56:00.000-04:00

Mom went to pick them up in Ottawa. Leia looks adorable with her short hair. Paul looks very, very handsome with his long hair. Laure looks beautiful in her ring. I brought Alex with me, and we fed Heather a cookie before anyone arrived, so any anticipated stressors were... dampened.

Beyond that, freakin' about Old Songs a bit because I do not technically have tickets, camping or food. Real on the ball, aren't I? Also, I'm getting a sore throat - because I can't go carousing on a campground if I'm healthy.

The kids went swimming and exhausted themselves. Had to haul Pierce bodily up the hill and then later discovered him passed out in the middle of the living room floor, still in his coat, still wearing just the one shoe he'd not managed to lose coming up the walk (found it this morning).

It took me a moment because I was distracted by the flowers on my kitchen table. And notes. From Steve. He picked me wildflowers from the long grass while he waited to see if I would be home. Second note told me to come see him tonight.

Before you get too "Aw", this was STEVE, so I am perhaps one of the few women who would find the notes "Aw". There were dirty bits in the notes, apologies for drinking some of my beer and smoking some of my cigarettes, and a claim to have had carnal relations with Eowyn's sock puppet. I wasn't taking any chances - I threw it out.

Sneakin'!

2005-06-22T08:44:00.000-04:00

Can't stay on long!

Laure arrives tonight. No time to check up on all yer sites, feel bad. Just snuck onto hotmail this morning - only slightly disappointed that the world did not end without me. Mostly relieved that we aen't totally made asses of ourselves yet.

See you all Friday night at Old Songs!

(sotto voce)

2005-06-20T13:20:00.000-04:00

This is me at work, with another five minutes before they finally loose me on the phones.

So far:

Despite not having a freezer venting -75 on my feet all day, I am freezing. It's far too air conditioned here.

My new shorts/skirt turn out to be rather complicated to get in/out of, making my bathroom trips suspiciously long.

I used my psychic powers for good - to find a Kentucky Fried Chicken. I am now ready for a 2+ hour nap.

The work, administrative, reception, it's all coming back to me now. Oh yeah. I can feel my ass expanding already.

While walking down the main drag in Alexandria, I was hooted at by a car load of men. Refresh me - that's a good thing, right? Like I said, the skirt/shorts are complicated, but dang cute - as anything in pink plaid is.

So that's it thus far!

I am in big trouble.

2005-06-19T12:38:00.000-04:00

I spent Friday night and a goodly part of Saturday with John. If this is him being "nicer" to me, I'm not enormously impressed. So far, it seems to involve almost all the same mood swings and self doubt, but with more exposure of WHY he is the way he is - basically, he's been sharing more of his past and stuff with me. That and they (he and Danny) cooked me a masterful, and I mean MASTERFUL home-made pizza. Drool.

Which I do appreciate. I understand certain things a lot better, and understanding makes it easier to... put up with. But that's not the right words, because I am bound and determined not to "put up" with things that I find objectionable - and I don't find John at all objectionable... yet. But that IS the thing. Yet. I can just tell... that some day it will all just be too much. Forgive me, but I just can't commit in any way to morose, sullen, moody and withdrawn men. Go figure. But what he doesn't seem to "get", and what I'm waiting on, is to see if he ever comes to any sort of curiosity about me. He's never questioned me on my past, my views, my politics, nothing. I don't volunteer them. If he notices their absense from the conversation, it doesn't seem to faze him any - but I suspect he doesn't.

Then his buddy Al called and he and Danny made plans to go out to Hudson and girls weren't invited (grr). John said, "You don't mind, do you?" and I said, "Don't you worry about me, darlin'. I can take care of myself just ffff...." and he covered his ears and said, "I don't want to know about it!".

I was freaking out on Vankleek Hill for a little bit there anyway, because at 7am I took Mogs out for a walk and passed two little girls. One of them looked up at me and said, "Oh! You're Eowyn's Mum!". HOW she knew that, I do not know. So when John was leaving I packed up my stuff and wandered down to the guy who's apartment Alex has been crashing at's place. There he told me that Alex was still at work, but that some man had been by HIS house, looking for ME. He apologized for not remembering his name, but said he was in a green minivan...

Oh. Steve. So I walked over to Steve's place.

So Steve and I have now officially hung out like... three times. And... well... it's hard to explain. I asked Mom if she remembered when I met Folkhero. I questioned her about blue hair. She answered. We stared at each other. I asked, "So. You want a beer or something?". She replied, "Hell, yeah!". I gave her a thumbs up. And that was it. Kindred spirits sort of a thing. We just clicked and there has never really been a question of one taking too much from the other, or any sort of "putting up with" or any question that given the opportunity, that we would of course hang out together.

I counted myself very lucky, very very lucky, that I had pretty much the same thing happen with Alex out here. I had brief misgivings about our age difference... and once John said that he thought she might just be using me for a ride into town - which made me laugh, because as I told him, someone who is using you for a lift will ditch you in an hour or so - nobody who is using you for a lift hangs around for a day and half. That's not a lift, that's a friendship.

And now it has happened again, with a BOY. With Steve. I can't even begin to explain how I feel with him. We talk. About books. Politics. Languages (he speaks Hebrew!). Sex. Sociology. Family. Kids. Travel. Dreams. We just babble at each other like cretins. And it's fantastic.

News and more.

2005-06-17T10:03:00.000-04:00

1. Yes, I got the job at Alexandria Mouldings. I will be their receptionist, and a "floater" for the merchandising department. It's on contract, only a couple of months - but at 12/hr and 40hrs a week. Can you say, "WOOT!", boys and girls? I knew you could.

2. Yes, Eowyn quoted an ad for the "Adult Fun Superstore" at me last night. She then asked me if I wanted to go. I said, "NO!" and hid under the blankets. Then she told me that they had the largest selection of sex toys. I still said, "NO!". She lifted up the corner and said, "They have DVD's too!". Then both kids wanted to know if I would take them to the Adult Fun Superstore when they were grown up, kinda like I said I would take them to a bar once they were eighteen. I said, "NO!". Then they wanted to know if I liked sex toys. Then Pierce started screaming, "Sex toys! Sex toys! Sex toys!". Then I had to explain, very very circumspectly, what sex toys were, so that he would stop, and swear not to do it at school - as when I tried a hearty, "Because I said so!" he ignored me. Finally I asked Eowyn where in the name of all that was holy she'd heard about this place. She said, "Duh. On the school bus. There's a radio. Every morning, someone calls in and if they answer three questions right, they get a gift certificate for 10% off at the Adult Fun Superstore. If they don't, then they say their name on the radio. Do you want to call in some day? You could get a gift certificate for 10% off."

"NO!"

Then I called Laure, cause I was starting to trip out pretty bad.

3. Wednesday night, post coming home and discovering my dead computer, I called Laure (and told Rick to "throw her on the phone" - which meant I got to listen to:

*phone hitting desk*
*tromp tromp tromp*
Laure: "Hey... what are you doing... HEY put me down! Stop! What are you... YEEEAGH!!!"
*sound of Laure hitting the phone*

Are they just perfect for each other, or what? If I can convince them to get married "twice", once while out here and once out there, then I'm going to dress in head to toe black, perhaps even fashion myself a veil, sit up front with a roll of cheap toilet paper and HOWL throughout the whole marriage. I will teach the kids to sing them a song in honour of their nuptials:

"DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD!"

While on the phone with Laure, being called a slut (hehehehe), the phone beeped - another call. It was John. I begged off with Laure.

Long story short, instead of staying home and mourning my computer, me and the kids all went and slept at John's. He gave them stuffed animals and they slept on couch cushions in the second bedroom. Pierce did not fall down the stairs. He fell UP them when we arrived, which takes more skill. John then proceeded to actually give me some details of his past, including the fact that he'd been in a serious and committed relationship that he'd thought was "it". There were children involved, not his, but kids. He loved them. They loved him. He'd lost them, because he and their mother broke up, and she didn't want to have to deal with him again. He'd lost their mother. At the time he'd met me, he described hismelf as being in "a very bad place". He'd been calling her several times a day.

This pisses me off - the bit about the kids. I know where the anger comes from, because I talked about it with Mom and she started growling and pointing her finger in the air and declaiming how no man can spend 3 1/2 years raising kids with a woman and NOT have a right to see them, even if they aren't the product of his own genetics. Should she ever actually meet John, he can expect a lecture about how he should take that woman to court and at least fight for the right to see the kids that were such a large part of his life. Having been raised under this attitude, this makes perfect sense to me. In Kifland, should John and I embark upon a serious relationship, and he and the kids become close, then after any breakup, he would of course have every right to see the kids and the kids would have every right to see him. You can't jam and yank people out of your kids life willy nilly. It's cruel, to everyone involved.

Either way, he then continued on to tell me that he'd been thinking about it, and that he wanted me to know that he was really enjoying my company, and appreciated it, and... and... I don't know what I'm trying to say here, he said. Don't worry, I replied. I get it. You're trying to say you LIKE me. Agh! NO! I didn't say that! Yeah, but you do. You LIKE me. HEHEHEHEHE! I told him now was not really the time to revisit our "agreement" - because I'd given myself at least a year or two for what Laure keeps screaming SLUT! about, and...

Yeah, you want to see that DJ guy again.

Nope. I told you, that was a one-time thing. You don't have to worry about him, you have to worry about Stee...

Okay! Okay! You know what, that's all cool and shit, but... I don't want to know about it. Use a condom.

So that's where we are. I am employed, computerless, a slut, and I've hired Alex to care for my kids over the summer. It's all good.

I have another job interview!

2005-06-15T13:27:00.000-04:00

Alexandria Mouldings. They called within an hour of my sending them my CV. So I have to be spiffed up and present for 5pm. Is 1:30pm too soon to start? I think so.

I will definately need a shower. I have about a half-litre of drool in my hair. Some of it is even mine. The rest is Pierce's. Knowing him, it could also just be head-sweat. I would be undecided on which grossed me out more if I wanted to actually think about it.

The kids will go straight on to the Cabbage after school and I will meet up with them there. I will wear my "nice" pants. And my one and only bra. I will look spiffy and good and be professional and yet somehow, without begging or crossing the line into desperation, manage to convey that I actually NEED the work, that I do NOT, as everyone seems to suspect, have people banging down my door trying to get me to be their secretary. The upside is that while it is reception, my off-time from reception will be in the packaging department - and he seems unsure about ending up with someone who can deal with both being the girl behind the counter, and with hauling boxes around too.

Well, darn it, that's me!

More crossed fingers. If I recall correctly, AM is one of them companies around here what pays some real money. And has a union. Too bad I couldn't have the kids in the know - yesterday I had them surrounding the toyota-dude chanting, "Please don't let it be too expensive, Please don't let it be too expensive!" and look how well that turned out. Hafta think of something reasonable I can offer up to my gods in exchange for work/money.

Racoons and drunk girls.

2005-06-15T07:53:00.000-04:00

Tobby, who'd been out and about, one presumes auditioning new families, has returned. He appears to have lost a terrific battle with a bush full of burrs. Eowyn said we should shave him too. I said she was welcome to try if she was brave enough, but that Mommy doesn't shave cats that are as mean as Tobs.

Meanwhile, it turns out that he is not the only critter to be gracing my lawn recently. Alex tells me that last Sunday night, she went on a rip and managed to procure a ride as far as my house. There, she panicked and decided it would be in poor taste to wake me up in the wee hours (although it was apparently barely 11pm) and so, instead, curled up on my lawn. She said that shortly after hearing a snuffling, looking up and seeing a racoon trundle by, she decided to walk home. So she did. All of this opposed to just walking into the house she knows she is welcome in and crashing out in the nice warm bed with the nice warm blankets that is right there on the first floor. But, as she pointed out, she'd been on a tear and it was likely her synapses weren't all firing together. Decision making capacity what?

Either way, the kids too were disappointed that Steve wasn't still here in the morning. I asked what they thought - they said, "He's okay". If he'd brought juice boxes and brownies and let them fall down his stairs, they would like him better, I'm sure. Eowyn thinks John is cuter, but did not agree that Steve is "scary-lookin'" at all. "He doesn't scare me," she sniffed. Of course not. NOTHING scares you, except for perhaps itchy tags in t-shirts. They wanted more opportunity to check him out. Hell, so did I. When I said I surely did like him a whole lot, Eowyn said, "OOO LA LA!" and I hadda say, "Girl, you got NO idea. That man is a whole lot o' OOO LA LA!". For this I earned a, "Gak! Ick! MOM!". Serves her right. Pierce I just had to cuddle a lot and reassure that come what may, he is always my lil' dude.

But for a "dry run" so to speak, of having an actual man come over to my house, it went pretty well. The kids didn't freak, didn't seem troubled or upset. There were no big questions, they didn't bring up Daddy or fidelityor anything like that. I think it helps that I told them right from the outset that on both sides, mine and their father's, this would eventually happen. Meet new people, like new people, see new people, and eventually even have new people over to spend the night, etc. From their perspective, they're just waiting for step-siblings and new people to bug for snackfoods on a constant basis.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure I understand why some people are so recalcitrant about talking to their kids about these things. It's not like I or anyone is going to tell a couple of kids that every bitch needs a bone here and there. Sure it's sex, but it's not like you're obliged to go into any sort of unnecessary detail. "Huggin' and Kissin' stuff" seems to fulfill their understanding perfectly. They knew it when I was with their father too, so... It's just that especially when you're newly single, with kids, this is such a large and new part of your life, how can you NOT prepare your kids in any way for the eventuality? I couldn't imagine just leaving it to having Pierce wander in for his regular 4am attempt to crawl into bed with me to find some strange man he's never met nor seen before there, in what he likely considers HIS spot. That, I know, would freak him out right royally.

:D

2005-06-14T22:53:00.000-04:00

Steve just showed up at my house.

Awesome.

He went home, alas - his apartment is under surveillance by nosy neighbours who want to report to his ex-girlfriend who stays at his place and when and for how long he is gone. I am not kidding. It's taking me a while, but I'm starting to understand that people around here do pay attention and do care about these things. In Montreal, nobody could be bothered, and even then, single guy, single girl, whazza problem? But here... here it is a small town. Here it is STEVE, and they know his ex, and they have history and vested interests and they pay attention and they talk. Personally, I'm not too sure I care if they talk, but Steve is from here and of here, so he does. And he doesn't want his ex hurt. Neither do I. So I'll deal.

But apart from that, Dang, could I ever get used to that man in a hurry. More babbling. More fornicating.

John called. Three guesses on his level of inebriation. Not exactly sober. He wanted me to come over, to take the kids to The Cabbage, to bring them over to his place, whatever. I was like, "Dude. It's 10:30 at night. I can't do that." I would do it tomorrow, (to his place) - but tomorrow I know he won't want to know from me like he does tonight. Sigh. I told him to take care of things himself and I'd see him on Friday.

So right now I am feeling annoyed with John, pleased with Steve, and just about ready to break into a really crap rendition of It's Raining Men.

I am the UBER-MOM.

2005-06-14T19:28:00.000-04:00

A good day.

1. I applied for several jobs. Including one that I had to CALL for - I left a message. I hate telephones, I suck at them. But I did it anyway. Next time I go out to the Cabbage, I'll stop by Skotidakis and Delta Foods.

2. I called and got an appointment to have the Toyota dealership service center in Hawkesbury take a look at my "Check Engine" light. Dude asked me my name, I said "Moody" and he realized it was my first time there. Apparently, this involves some large amount of question and answers that he didn't feel inclined to undertake. So he said, "Don't tell anyone... I'm just going to give you a freebie.". I did not make any dirty jokes, although I was sorely tempted. So he came out to my car and guess what - Because my gas cap is not the original (drove off with it on the roof of my car, got a new one) it was not sealed all the way. Yeah, that's right - my gas cap was loose. That was it. SCORE!

3. I got bored during the day, and because I had already cut Pierce's hair the day before, and because Eowyn was not home and would not let me even if she was, and because I am job-hunting and it's apropos to have "normal" hair right now... I shaved Mogwai. She looks... stupider than usual.

4. Because I shaved Mogwai, I had to show her off. So I stopped in town and tooted Alex. She came out and we ended up wandering (stalking, prowling) with the kids. We took them to the park, I scored some shop-vac filters at Home Hardware, and then Pierce had ice cream and we all had slushes. We walked and talked for like, two hours. Her ASO is NOT leaving his girlfriend, so she was glum. One of them folks what don't like her pushed her up against a wall. Unhappy Alex.

So we just got home, the kids cooked some grilled cheese sandwhiches (what FINE children I have that they cooked for ME) while I cleaned out the car. No more Doritos all over the back seat. No more old salt and gravel underfoot on my side. No more grubby kid-prints hither and yon. It looks sooo purty right now.

So it will shortly be bedtime, my feet BOTH hurt, but it was worth it. I did not get drunk, although I will be taking a Tylenol 3 shortly. I did not sleep with a guy, although I did see Steve talking to ex on the street...

Also, Alex and I figure that some enterprising soul informed John of where I spent the night within twenty-four hours of my doing it. My prediction: come Friday or Saturday night, he will get drunk and unhappy and call me to yell at me, wherein I will have to explain to him (again) that this is exactly what he agreed to, and that the alternatives involve a lot of shit I KNOW he doesn't want, like spending time at my house, meeting my kids and folks, and being civil and putting out during the week. Men. Frankly, I don't get them.

How miserable was last night!?

2005-06-14T11:26:00.000-04:00

VERY miserable. I stayed up until nearly 2am with a flyswatter, playing bait for mosquitoes. It was awful hot and stuffy. I've been waking up at around 5am recently, I suppose as my body gets used to not working nights. This morning the alarm actually woke me and I was so sleepy and groggy. At least, I thought I was, until I saw Eowyn, who was nearly comatose. Pierce didn't even wake up, not for the alarm, not for me getting Eowyn ready for school.

We JUST woke up, if you can imagine it. I bailed on the idea of keeping things boarded up because... drumroll please!... the rain finally came! YAY!

So it's a fine soft wet day and I've got a little boy who's slept a large part of the day away. This means I have to find a way to get him tuckered for tonight, bleagh.

Forecast is for rain, rain, and more rain in the coming days. It's high time. My lawn was starting to look fairly peaked.

I woke up...

2005-06-13T23:59:00.000-04:00

... because I heard one of the kids crying in their sleep. I went into their room and discovered Pierce moaning, "It iiiiiitches!". Eowyn was nowhere to be seen. I set up mosquito netting over their bed and offered Pierce a cool shower to take care of the bites he already has. Ah. There's Eowyn, asleep on the bathroom floor.

Odd, isn't it, that as an adult, being so out of it that falling asleep on the bathroom floor is an occasion to end up on penischeek.com, while in a child, it's just par for the course? At least it seems to be in my children.

Either way, I got them both up, stripped, and in the shower. Then, cooled and mostly itch-free, esconsed under mosquito netting. Meanwhile, I discovered the missing ingredient to a really effective lip-plumper. The key to bee-stung lips without collagen injections, without permanent change of appearance, without it wearing off in around ten minutes is mosquito bites on the lips. Someone has to isolate the active allergen in mosquito spit, and create a little kit wherein one lightly scratches one's lips and then smear that crap on. I look like a scrawny Angelina Jolie.

The house is now thoroughly battened down. Near as I can figure, all points of ingress are securely sealed. If I can kill all mosquitoes currently IN the house, we should be good. After that, until my blessed wind comes back, I'm not opening shit up and I don't care how stuffy and unbearable it gets - it's better than kids crying in their sleep because of mosquito bites. It's better than saying, "Eomyn, you're asweep onna bafroom fore. Crap, dey bid me on da libs!" at midnight.

I guess I ought to elaborate...

2005-06-13T17:31:00.000-04:00

On "Elsewhere", as he is single, and I will likely be seeing him again.

Saturday night was the night that John was otherwise occupied and I had a vested interest in not going home. We determined that we would take advantage of Kif's lack of distraction to introduce her around to people about whom she has heard tales, and whom are now hearing about Alex's new "Hippie Freak Friend". So it was to that end that I was prowling.

Like every night that Alex and I go out together, it was utterly dead. NOBODY was around. It was looking like a bust. Any time she is NOT with me, Alex runs into Pat... otherwise known as Garbageman Dude Who Used to Work at PFF. Yeah, HIM. I have a beef with that guy, because he said he would, "Stop by and see me some time" and then did not. Plus, he is a garbageman, and I have a garbageman fetish, borne of the beyond hot garbagemen who used to do Mom's route in the city. Both Mom and Laure, I am sure, can confirm. Pretty, pretty boys. But per usual, we did not run into Pat. We did run into Cote and MJ. They're okay, but they weren't doing anything either.

We did not run into the one I really want to meet - whom I shall refer to as "A.S.O." for "Alex's Sorta Obsession. He is a guy she used to see, but who got back with an ex who is apparently, psycho, and who is now in the process of leaving that girlfriend, quite likely to take up with Alex again.

We DID run into people that Alex seems to dislike almost as much as they clearly dislike her. Alex assures me that it all involves long stories, but they did yell, "WHORE!" at her off a balcony. I know that story - that story is; "I'm not happy with my girlfriend and I sure do like you and we're both drunk and in the mood so why don't we?". I personally think she should call back, "No, slut. SLUT!". She didn't think it was as funny as I did, but then, she has to live the history behind such occurences.

But we did meet Steve. Steve lives in what clearly used to be a very small storefront. It is now a tiny apartment. It is a room with a bunk bed (for when he has his kids) and a small kitchenette and a small bathroom. That's it. Oh. A dresser and a TV. We assured him that his wall to wall carpetting no longer smelled of cat pee, which he assured us that it had, when he moved in.

Steve is a roofer, a worker, a jack of all trades. He has the same mustache as the guys on that TLC show where they make cool choppers. His head is shaved. He's sorta scary-lookin'. But... he babbles. Like Laure. Possibly worse. And, endearingly enough, when you babble back, he listens. We talked about our kids and child-rearing, mostly. Theory and practice. He said we could crash there, as our other option was an older guy named Don who gave me the serious creeps. He winked and said we could crash anywhere we liked... top bunk... beanbag chair... his bed. Alex and he have a brief history, a "been there, done that" sorta thing, but nothing beyond.

So I crashed in his bed, momentarily platonically. He crawled over me to get to his side, and on his way, kissed and then nipped me on the shoulder. Alex was out wandering again. He said, "Sorry, couldn't resist!" and I responded, "Well, don't stop!" and it was all... uphill... from there.

I'm going to be a little crude here. Pop, Mom, if you're reading this and you just don't want to know, skip the next paragraph.

OMG. It's a wonder that man can get a hard-on without fainting. I didn't know the human body had that much blood in it. Holy crow. Laure can make her like-a-baby's-arm jokes, but damn - not even. A toddler? A preschooler? Plus, he's like... horny like a teenager. Like... me. He'd worked a 14hr day roofing, and we stayed up all night making Alex's night on the top bunk really er... interesting. Every time we slowed down, we babbled at one another. It was really hot, so we slept all night holding hands. Aw.

This is going to sound stupid, and will probably not be borne out in the long run, but I'm having fun with it right now. I really like this guy. We clicked on several levels that I've not clicked on with anyone since I met Alex. I haven't clicked with a guy this way in a very long time. I suspect, I hope, that even if we don't end up regular lovers, we will end up very good friends.

If I could...

2005-06-13T07:11:00.000-04:00

I would post this on Honi Soit, but for some reason, it won't take me to the "post comment" page.

My vote for the ring engraving: the Clan Marriage Motto - "Might as Well, Eh?". Or perhaps, "You'll Do" (Apt variation on "I do"!) or, if it fits, "If he bails, I get the couch" - a sort of metallic prenup, disons.

Also, I sure hope the wind that never fails, but which HAS failed me in recent days picks up again. Without the howling gale to blow them all over to The Cabbage, the skeeters have found Casa del Kif. I managed to curl up under a light blanket and not get eaten too badly while avoiding sweltering to death, but they found my face. I have a skeeter bite on my face. A biggun. It's gross, and itchy. Here's hoping it goes away before I take my "looin' fer a job" drive.

Although today I have to finish amalgamating the Old Songs Order and I have to get it in... Fun, fun, fun. I'm so sure I'm going to fuck this up it's not even funny. I keep panicking and then realizing, "Dude, it's celery. If we end up with not enough celery, you can hop in the car, drive to the store, and buy celery. Relax."

A typical post.

2005-06-12T09:20:00.000-04:00

I got drunk. I fucked a guy. My foot hurts.

Actually, most of the foot damage was on Alex's half. Bare feet + gravel = bad. But get this: she has this plan - get a job on the Hill, get an apartment, be independant again before the summer is up. So yesterday, wandering (or prowling) around town after a very good cookie, something strange occured. Kif saw Lavoie's Restaurant and was suddenly famished. Cookies will do that, but I absolutely HAD to have a cheeseburger immediately. We went in. Delivery dude J was there, an older gentleman who'd spoken to us the night before on the street. We sat with him. He said, "You lookin' for work?" to Alex, who said avowed that she was.

So looks like she's going to be working at Lavoie's as their dishwasher. I told her that she'd be getting paid to do what most women do for free, and I pumped her up (her and J) about how she stuck out PFF to the end, that she'd stick with it. Talked her up about "movin' on up" in a place like that - tryin' to teach my work ethic to my grasshopper. They wanted her to start THAT night, which wasn't happening because we were both there with a bottle of Strawberry Daquiri and a bottle of Pina Colada jonesing for burgers. So she like, got a job, just like that. I got the lowdown around town on who's hiring too. So I think things should be okay. It's all good.

John had a golf tournament through his work and was gone until the wee hours. I was lurking about in the wee hours (as I was in no condition for driving) but never saw a light on or activity. I slept elsewhere. Elsewhere was fun.

OH YEAH! GUESS who showed up... I would say "on my doorstep" but he just walked right in... at my house? Wayne. Walked right in, forcing me to make el mad dash for my bathrobe (nekkid naptime). Seemed somewhat sober, but was telling me he "knew" he'd been "distant" recently. Ummm... try "absent"? And he did that whole lean over my chair (yes, the one I was sitting in) and christ almighty, I think he thought he'd score a piece of ass. He wasn't taking many hints and when I went into my bedroom to change he FOLLOWED ME IN. At this point I got a little freaked out and said I hadda call my friend. Called Alex and invited myself over and got out fast.

And that's how I ended up having a beer with Alex's folks and having her dad question me in the most wonderful way about my sexual orientation. Her Mom was preparing steak for dinner. He looked at me and asked:

"So Kif, do you like meat?"
"Meat? I love meat. Carnivore."
"You don't.... look... like someone who likes meat."
"Looks can be deceiving. I adore meat. I'm all about the meat."

I didn't go into sides of meat substitutes and he didn't make any commentary about vegetarians picking from HIS garden, but we understood one another. It was beautifully done.

A plan...

2005-06-10T10:54:00.000-04:00

Last night, before the whole "fucker" thing, me and the kids spent some time laying in my bed together discussing how things are changed now that I'm not working anymore again. We made a plan for today - mostly Eowyn came up with it.

Basically, I can drive them in to their Dad's on Friday's again, but I don't want to do it during rush hour. Evening is better. They miss going to The Cabbage, and there was some grumbling about the lack of a pool over here. Their Dad told them, as they were leaving last weekend, "Don't forget your bathing suits next weekend!".

So Eowyn's plan was this - How about we wear our bathing suits to school, like underpants. Pierce can wear his like shorts! Then, instead of you coming to pick us up, we go on the bus straight to Grandma's? Sure. I can drive over there this afternoon and meet the bus there! Then, we can go swimming in the pool, and see Oscar and the goats and Lennie and the dogs! Exactly. And when evening comes, and you're all tuckered out and the traffic is good, I can drive you in to see your Dad. And we'll have our bathing suits, because we wore them all day. Less driving for me. Get to see Grandma. Get to go in the pool.

Eowyn is wicked smart, dudes.

So I was thinking about taking the mower out again on a shorter setting (had to do it on the highest setting yesterday, the grass was WAY too long) but oddly, without money coming in, I'm feeling iffy about using up the gas. So I think I'll just pack up a bag for the kids and head out to the Cabbage to hang with Mom... who must be there, as the internet is engaged and I can't get through. If she reads this, she'll know to expect me - if not, she'll be surprised.

Got paid today - I now have 154$. Need to go talk to Mom anyway about what proportion of it would be best to put into the pot for everything. I'm thinking I could do the full 100$, and I want to, because it's my last hurrah for a bit until I find more work.

The new level on which I've discovered I am offended by Ketty's outburst last night: *I* fucked everything up... one assumes by leaving. Not her son. He was innocent. He didn't fuck anything up ignoring me for a year. Grr.

Fucking typical. (Angry Kif Rant)

2005-06-09T22:31:00.000-04:00

The danger of not working at night is that the phone will ring (long distance) and you will be loopy on painkillers and forget the only people who call you long distance in the wee hours. My ex-IL's.

Ketty made many noises about how glad she was to finally get through to me. I pointed out that it's a lot simpler to get through to me when one calls when I'm not working... and I was working nights, remember? Nope. Moot. My shift got laid off. How are you? Well - my shift got laid off, that's not good. Oh. And outside work? I sprained my foot again. Oh! Come up this weekend and spend the weekend with me. I'll take care of you!

Eek.

So no, on account of A. My car is fucked. I'm not doing anything more than essential driving until I know what's wrong with it. B. It wouldn't be me and the kids... it would just be me... because YOUR SON has his children on the weekends. and C. I have a date this weekend. (my weekly snoggathon with John).

Oh.

Thence came the usual complaints about how her son is upset with her, how he doesn't call, won't go over - it's been X weeks since he's been supposed to come over and do some computer stuff for his dad. The end point is that I am supposed to either intercede on their behalf or bring the kids over myself - either on my time or his, but certainly at my own inconvenience - not any of theirs. This is not going to happen. Those are WIFE duties, and I ain't the wife no more. I could not help but notice, however, that those X weeks... they happened to coincide perfectly with the number of weeks that the kids have been coming home sunburnt and thrilled with tales of going rock-climbing, paddle-boating, this that and the other-thinging with their dad, my ole friend that he's been seeing, and her two kids. Tony is otherwise occupied.

So I told her about the fact that he's been going out with the kids, jogging, doing all sorts of stuff that is healthy and happy and good. That he'd been hanging out recently with an old friend of mine, nothing too serious as of yet, but that it seemed to be doing wonders for him and that the kids were really happy with it.

She blew up at me. Said it gave her, "Mal de coeur!" to hear that we were both moving on with our lives and added, very upset, that, "T'as tout fucker!". Basically, it makes her sick and I fucked everything up. Yeah, everything but the fact that we're both happier people now.

Then came all the avowals that she still loves me and that she just wants me happy... and her son... but not like ACTUALLY happy, apparently. What the fuck is wrong with these people? I just don't get it. Ten years they know me and they think I'm going to move to a whole different PROVINCE out of some minor fit of pique? Just to take a couple of months off? That I'm bound to come home any day now? What, exactly, did she think was going to happen? Did she really think that Tony would fight for me? And she's known HIM for his whole life. Anyone who was paying any attention whatsoever, who knew us at all would know I would only leave if the problems were serious and terminal, and that Tony would only ever say, "Oh, all right then."

Fuck this nonsense. No more answering long distance rings past 9pm. I'm sick and tired of having it forced down my throat that the only reason they want to talk to me is to see how soon I might be coming back because I was the only one in the entire equation with any interest in actually putting in EFFORT to make sure that the kids got to see their Tayta and Gedho. They whine and whinge about how Tony won't come see them, but it's not like they'll drive out to see him or anything. I know Tony doesn't want his Dad driving the kids (truth be told, I'm not horribly comfortable with it either - TAILGATES HORSES, hello?) but they could stop by and go to the park with the monkeys... anything. But they won't. And Tony isn't into them enough to spend the 1-1/2 hours on bus-metro-bus to be trapped at their house eating hors d'oeuvres and watching his mother make a federal production out of a simple visit.

But that's it for me. If I'm the petite conne qui a tout fucker, they can just go to hell. I don't need this shit.

Done my lawn.

2005-06-09T19:49:00.000-04:00

Now it looks real pretty.

I was right, too - it was out of gas. I caught myself in one of those weird "girl" moments. I was thinking, "That was pretty fun, actually. Too bad I have to wait to finish until Dad can come here and help me get the mower up and going again."

But then... why? I'd seen him put some gas in from a can in the shed off the shop. But... what if that wasn't gas? What if I was mistaken? Then I realized that if at thirty years old, I can't figure out what the hell gas smells like, I've got bigger problems than an overgrown lawn.

But where is the gas tank, anyway? How do you get it in? Um... chiquita... GO LOOK at the damn thing before you determine you won't be able to figure it out.

But how do you even open the hood on it? I don't remember how Dad did it!

And on and on it went. Finally I just went and got the can of gas, sniffed it, yeah - that's gas all right - pulled on the hood, hey, it opens... and look - oil there and gas here - the big ole tank that is EMPTY. There was even a funnel on top of the gas can. Duh. So I filled the tank, started her up again and off I went.

So now I'm sucking back a Bracken Homebrew and wondering if I ought down a Tylenol 3 with it - turns out pushing in the clutch when one's foot is sprained is more OW. I saw a vole fleeing the lawnmower up near the ruins of the Cheese Factory too. Very cute. The kids only had to be hit with debris once each to figure out to stay the hell away. I clipped the overgrown bits near the walkway with scissors.

Some day, when I am employed again... and have money again... I will invest in a whipper snipper.

I mowed my lawn

2005-06-09T15:45:00.000-04:00

On the ride-on mower. It took me almost five minutes to get it started. I stalled it a couple of times. It may be out of gas. I couldn't get it to start again. I put it in neutral and made Pierce steer while I pushed it back into the shop.

Pierce... not so good with the steering. "Dude! The door to the shop is twenty feet wide and You're MISSING IT!"... "DUDE! Turn AWAY from my car!". But he did have a big ole smile on the whole time. Personally, I was bitter with him for coming in to my room while I was reading earlier in the day, taking a quiet moment to stare RIGHT UP MY NOSE and then remarking, "Mom. You have hair in your nose. It looks like there are WEEDS growing up there.".

Eowyn is pissed at me this afternoon. Why? Because I dressed her in her sleep this morning, and because I didn't have to hear her shreik or catch her to do it - I decided to take the chance and put her in a skirt. She noticed just before she walked out the door. Displeased. Mightily. Went to pick her up - still displeased.

"You DO look good in it though."
"Yeah, but Mom. I hate skirts."
"I know, I just don't understand why. Do people tease you when you wear skirts?"
"No. I just don't like to wear them."
"I don't like to wear skirts very often either... but I still do, sometimes. It's good for you, it... (thminks) ... challenges your self-identity..."
"I wasn't CHALLENGED. I was HUMILIATED."
"But why!?"
"Because! I was IN A SKIRT."

You see how I'm an idiot? You see how I try to trip her up into saying that she's nervous about her underpants showing or that boys try to lift the back or just to give me any quick-fix/easily solveable issue that I can just clap my hands, say tada and forevermore just dress her as I please? Only to be completely undone by an eight year old? Might as well spend your time trying to get Pop to admit that the reason he doesn't want to wear a flowered mu-mu is because it shows sweat too easily.

I guess I'm starting to freak a little.

2005-06-09T10:39:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I'll get my last paycheque tomorrow - and it'll be a thin one. After that, child support on the 14th... and then my child tax benefit... which should be enough to get me to Old Songs - which I have to attend because I'm working there this year.

EEK.

I'm really hoping the oil company calls me back. Dad bought me a beer at the St. Eugene Tavern yesterday and told Simon, the proprietor, who coincidentally enough, used to ALSO be the sawmill operator at Upper Canada Village to hire me as a bartender. Lol. Simon actually looked like he'd like to - if he actually needed someone. Ah well.

So once again into the job-hunting fray - which for me has so far involved hanging about the house in my sparkly jammies, dancing to the Sisters of Mercy (ow, my foot) and cleaning up the entire upstairs, except for the kids' room (more ow, my foot). I'm going to go look at the job board again - once I'm done posting. And the Review's website. A job on the Hill would be sweet.

Mustn't forget to call the school and let them know that until further notice, possibly until the end of the school year considering my luck with jobs around here, that I will be picking the monkeys up in the afternoon.

And that engine light. Yeesh. I hafta take it to a garage to their computer can talk to my car and tell me what's ailing it. If the car dies, I'm fucked.

One of them days...

2005-06-08T20:26:00.000-04:00

The good:

I left a message for the dude at the oil company this morning. He called me back. I went in at 1:30pm for an interview.

I hadda be outta there for 2pm. Hadda go pick up Alex and Marlene because I was told when I called in to PFF (Mom and Pop and Heather all had the day off, were going in to Ottawa, and were hoping not to have to break it off to get the kids, but alas TODAY I had work...) that "Unless something breaks!" I had work...

It went really, really well. He went into immediate babble mode about the company and what the job entails and the benefits etc and... we can only pay 11/hr - is that okay? Dude. NOT a problem.

So then he switched to me - and literally said, "Tell me about you, what brings you here, how did I get so lucky as to get YOUR resume on my desk?"

This is a GOOD sign. They want to hire someone fast, but want to hedge their bets and make sure they've seen everyone they have an interest in. So wait wait wait and feel super extra bad if they don't call because the interview went so swimmingly and I worked hard to convince him I wasn't going to get bored, or feel underpaid.

The bad:

Night shift was laid off tonight. We went in, punched in. I took my codeine (whee!) and took the laces out of my boot and my foot still wouldn't fit in the boot. We were told to go to the lunchroom. The big boss came in and told us so sorry, but you're all laid off. No work. We all got up to go... he said, "Oh no! There IS work tonight!".

The ugly:

We all just walked out on him. There was snickering and laughter and we all said a collective roundabout, "Oh, fuck off." and walked out. I said, "Sorry dude, but I'm not killing myself for one night's work when I can't even get my foot in my boot." We left.

Alex drove me home (too much whee!) and we updated our resume's and printed out some copies... and we checked the boards and the websites for local newspapers.. I told Marlene (who still has no car!) that if she needed my help looking for a job (drivin') to just call.

And the check engine light came on in my car.

Sigh.