Snow Days, A New Phone, and a Trip to College Town

Not much going on except the mundane. And that's a welcome thing.

The midwest was hit with a snow storm this past week. The projection was worse than the actual storm. I told work on Tuesday that I's see them on Friday. Honestly, I totally could have gone to work on Wednesday but since I'd alreayd put on for a vacation day, I stayed home with Tom and Liv. It was nice. I baked cookies and worked on a puzzle and put medicine on a canker sore Olivia had and did laundry. The only thing that would have made it better was if Lyss had been home with us.

Thursday was more snow, more puzzle, more canker sore medicine (she was driving me crazy with the complaints about that canker sore). Alyssa called me over SnapChat and we video chatted for almsot two hours. I think she was lonely and bored.

Tuesday, 2/1, Tom's phone stopped working. Let me remind everyone that Dude had a non-smart phone. He'd been getting messages for months saying that his service would no longer work on that phone on February 20. Well, the phone decided to stop working on February 1 instead.

So he broke down and had me buy him the cheapest smart phone I could get at Walmart. I know. Once it was set up (you're welcome, Dude) he declared he hates it. He used to be able to charge his non-smart phone once every two weeks. I told him to get used to charging his new phone once a day. He was not amused. I actually kind of was amused. He's SUCH a dude.

Friday evening, I was watching Netflix and snapping Alyssa when she suggested that Liv and I come see her the next day. She hasn't actually asked us to do that and so, obviously, I agreed. When you college freshman daughter asks you to come see her, you go see her. She just wanted company and I'm glad to be that company. We went to several stores in her area looking for unusual Squishmellows. She's got quite a collection. I, um, have two and Olivia has one. I don't even know.

So that our mundane life for the past week. Why am I telling anyone this? I don't even know. Posterity?

Week In Review

The second half of January is tough. I know this is true for most of us in the northern hemisphere. It's cold, Chrismtmas is over, winter will last at least two more months...it just sucks.

Monday: fine. I stay busy at work now that I process payroll. Did I mention that at any point? My job, at which I've been for over three years, moved me into payroll (I still work the front desk too, this is an addition to my responsibilities, not an exchange of responsibilities...yes, I've been monetarily compensated for this addition.) I'm actually flattered that my boss and coworkers trust me with this job. I mean, payroll is not something to just be handed off willy nilly to anyone off the street. So there's that.

Ohhh, I almost forgot that we had a little antibody party in the front office on Monday. The owner of our company had some spare antibody tests and so about six of us poked our fingers and tested our blood for Covid antibodies. Guess whose vaccines have given her antibodies. Yep, me!! Whee! But guess who will still wear a mask and keep others safe? Yes, still me. Because I care for my fellow man even if they don't necessarily care about me. Hmmm.

Tuesday I was mostly bored, thought I did move some files from one one cabinet to another. That at least got me off my butt for much of the day.

Wednesday, I was as cranky as a toddler that had missed her nap. I can usually tamp down my emotions at work but when our shipping department brought me a 35 pound package to be taken to the post office, it just kind of pushed me over the edge of cranky to pissed off. It didn't help that this stupid package wasn't packed well. I could feel the hydrolic cylinder in there rolling around. There was no way this thing was going to make to Ukraine boxed the way it was. And let's not forget to mention that it cost around $275 to mail it. Not that it was MY $275 I was spending on postage, but it was my arms and hands carrying that stupid package into the post office.

Thankfully, I had to stuff checks that day, so I was able to go into a conference room and be alone, away from the front desk (my desk) and the phone (not that I serve as the operator for the company. A lovely older (older than me, ahem) woman does that job and she's very good at it, and get this, she enjoys it. I'm glad she does because I know I would not so there's a positive in the week.) and just be with the stuffer, sorting and organizing all the payroll checks I'd printed on Monday.

Thursday and Friday were just regular days. It all kind of blends into a sort of innocuous monotony. Which is fine except in the middle of January it makes you start to wonder what the hell you're doing with your life. I mean, I'm 51 years old. Is this it?

I come home each evening and we do homework, I make dinner, I clean up after dinner. Some nights Liv takes a bath and I help her wash her hair. Other nights, I just collapse into my chair at 8 and sit there like a giant lump of frustration.

Alas, we all know January won't last forever. It can't, February has to push her ugly head into existance. But behind February is March, with all the green that is promised and finally April and the gray skies and so on and so on. The earth keeps spinning, Covid keeps spreading, and we keep waking up and doing it all again. The alternative is unacceptable.

Stay tuned, next week I might write about how our idiotic high school is sending their choir and band to Virginia instead of D.C. because they had to make their trip 'unvaccinated friendly.' Yeah, it's as stupid as it sounds.

The No-Good, Very Bad McDonald's

We were on our way home from a track meet and Alyssa asked if we could stop at McDonald’s and get her a McDouble, fries and a strawberry shake.

I said sure and we headed north and west, toward home and the nearest McD’s. We were about an hour away from home, in Defiance, Ohio.

We found the McD’s and took our place in the drive-thru line. The line wasn’t bad when we got there. It got much worse soon after we arrived.

I placed our order: 1 McDouble cheese burger 1 six-piece chicken McNuggets with ranch 2 medium fries 1 medium strawberry shake 1 medium chocolate shake 1 large Coke 1 water

We head to the first window where we handed over our $17.31, exact change, thank you very much because I’m ancient and it’s what I do. They were lucky I didn’t have an actual change purse carrying all my coins.

We got to the second window and the girl inside asked, “What did you have?”

I told her and she handed us our water, Coke and a bag of food. I asked about the shakes.

She looked confused and asked someone inside if they’d ‘made’ the shakes.

You know that at McD’s, you don’t actually MAKE shakes, right? You just pour the milky substance from the machine into the cups. It’s not complicated.

She then asked us to please go park in “Drive-Thru Reserved Parking #2.”

Mmmm, okay. We did this and Alyssa ate her McDouble in about four bites. She was hungry. She snacked on her fries while we waited for her strawberry shake.

My mom ate her fries and we waited for the shakes. We hoped whoever brought the shakes would also bring straws for our Coke and water since they hadn’t been place in the bag with the food like they usually were.

I looked at the clock and it was 7:06. I declared that at 7:15, I would go inside, Covid be damned, and ask for the shakes.

My mom decided that was a ridiculous amount of time to wait and stomped inside.

She came out with straws but no shakes.

She said that the straws were just inside the door so she’d just grabbed them and left.

I had been waiting for the straw to eat my McNuggets because I wanted to drink the sweet, sweet Coke while I ate.

I ate a nugget and took a drink of the Coke. It tasted weird but I thought nothing of it. It was similar to when I’d had issues with my taste buds right after chemo.

I finished off the nuggets with minimal sips of Coke because it really was a weird taste.

A poor McD’s worker, a very thin young man with crossed eyes, came to our car with a bag. I wondered for a moment if he’d bagged our shakes. Nope, he asked if we were the car waiting for the McDouble and 6-piece nuggets.

I replied that we were actually waiting for shakes. But as he walked away, I realized he’d brought the FOOD we’d ordered and received. He’d already walked back inside before I could ask when we might expect the shakes.

The woman in the car next to us got out and stormed into the restaurant. I got out and threw away our garbage and decided I’d go in too and see what the problem was with the shakes.

I decided that while I was already out of the car, I’d also go inside and find out about the shakes.

The woman who’d stomped into the restaurant came back out, fire shooting out of her ears.

I got up to the counter and ignored for a few seconds but then the cross-eyed dude came back in after taking something out and I asked him about the shakes.

An older (probably 30s) woman asked what kind of shakes and what size.

I told her.

She told poor cross-eyed dude to make them for me.

I waited. And waited.

The poor fella seemed to be having trouble filling the cups with the shakes. He grabbed a handful of napkins and cleaned the chocolate off the outside of the cup.

Then he came to the counter and asked very timidly, “Uhh, the strawberry isn’t working. Will you take vanilla?”

I politely told him yes, I would take vanilla.

I just REALLY wanted to get out of there. I felt like if I was in there much longer, I would never escape and it would turn into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

I escaped with my mom’s chocolate shake and Alyssa’s now-vanilla shake.

They were relieved to see me, having feared, like I had, that I’d never return from the black hole that was McDonald’s lobby.

I picked up my Coke for another drink and paused when I saw that the lid had the ‘diet’ tab pushed in.

SON OF A BITCH!

That was why my Coke tasted weird. It was DIET. I HATE diet Coke.

However.

I was NOT going back in the restaurant. I had maybe taken five drinks so it was pretty full. I figured it was the universe telling me I didn’t need caffeine that late in the evening.

The rest of our trip home was uneventful. We ranted a bit about the service at that McDonald’s but then let it go because life’s too short to get that miffed about a couple of shakes. We were in good company and had a nice evening.

When I got home, I was preparing to pour the nasty diet Coke down the drain when Tom stopped me.

He took a sip and declared it, “Deeeeee-licious.”

Then he proceeded to drank it all. I was glad because suddenly I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my money.

That One Time I Thought I was Wrong but it Turned Out I was Right

Once upon a time on a Tuesday, Alyssa had a track meet and Olivia had an orthodontist appointment. A’s track meet was to start at 4:30 in a town about 40 minutes from work.

O’s orthodontist appointment was scheduled for 4pm, which, on a typical day, would give her and Tom plenty of time to get to the appointment where I would meet them and take her to the appointment. Tom would take himself…somewhere else.

It works.

Except for those days when I need to be somewhere else, like at a track meet.

So the weekend before this fateful Tuesday, I asked Tom very sweetly if he’d do me a favor. I asked if he’d stay with Olivia for her orthodontist appointment while I made my way to Montpelier for the track meet.

He agreed, though a bit reluctantly. Or rather, he was reluctant until I offered to let him go to the track meet instead. Then he decided an orthodontist appointment didn’t sound so bad. I didn’t mention that he’d need to go through the KFC drive-thru after the appointment because it’s just what we do. His fear of the drive-thru is well documented and may have altered his choice of parental assignment.

Alas, as luck and mother nature would have it, we were hit with a cold front and a ton of snow (it was April 20th for those keeping track.)

The track meet was canceled so I met Tom and Olivia at the orthodontist for her appointment and sent him on his merry way.

Thank you LORD that I was able to send him on his way. If he’d gone into that office and been told what I was told, that man would have been livid.

See, we walked in and I told the receptionist that Olivia was there for her 4:00. The receptionist did her thing and said, “Um, I don’t see her on the scheduled.’

Now, anyone who knows me KNOWS I mess things up. I do. I can’t seem to help it. I mean, hello, I showed up for a party in Indianapolis a week early. A WEEK!

So I said, “But I got the email.”

The ladies at the front desk asked if I had my phone with me.

Duh. Of course I did. I pulled it out and there it was, the email reminding us of Olivia’s appointment at 4pm on…Monday, April 19.

Damn it.

They were kind enough to fit her in (thank goodness there had been a cancellation and her appointment was only 20 minutes long) and after her appointment we got KFC chicken for Lyss and Liv (and I encountered nary an issue with the drive-thru) and made our way home. I was going to get Crazy Bread from Little Caesars (it’s in the same business complex as the orthodontist) but I decided since I’d screwed up the appointment I wasn’t allowed to be rewarded with the deliciousness that is Crazy Bread. Sigh. Adulting sucks.

When we got home, I confessed my mistake to Tom only because I know that Olivia, that sweet darling little shit, is unable to keep a secret to save her life, would have told him everything the first chance she got.

He gave me a look that said something along the lines of, “You’re an idiot.”

Or, maybe he didn’t. I could very well have read that on his face when it wasn’t there at all. It happens.

But then he asked, “But how could you have done that?”

I rolled my eyes and asked him, “Have you met me?”

Then we decided to check it out because I’ve gotten less flakey in my middle-aged years than I was even a few years ago.

And look at that, there on the corkboard affixed to the basement door was the slip that orthodontist’s office had given us at her last appointment: OLIVIA ORDINARY, NEXT APPOINTMENT, TUESDAY, APRIL 20 AT 4:00PM.

OMG I’d given up the special treat that is Crazy Bread for nothing.

I’d just meekly accepted that I’d been wrong but I hadn’t been wrong! I hadn’t written the date wrong on my calendar at work. I hadn’t remembered incorrectly.

Of course, if I’d bothered to read the reminder email I could have called them to find out why they were reminding me of an appointment that was a day later according the slip THEY’D GIVEN ME! So yes, in future days, I will read the reminder emails more carefully.

But the real moral of this story is to NOT deny yourself Crazy Bread for a mistake that is probably not even your mistake. Because hello, even though I thought I was wrong…it turns out I was not wrong. Or at least I was not as wrong as I’d first thought and even if I’d been all the way wrong, that’s not really a reason to deny myself Crazy Bread.

Just 30 Minutes

One day last week, between track meets and doctor appointments, I left work at 3:30 to meet Lyss at the doctor for her second meningococcal vaccination. The appointment took all of five minutes and we were on our way at 4:02. She had to be at work at 5 but figured what the heck, she’d just go in early. That girl…

I could have gone back to work and worked 15 more minutes until the ‘end of day’ but because my 18 year old has a better work ethic than I do I went home.

I got home a half hour earlier than I usually do.

But what do you know? Olivia didn’t have any homework that day. I know! Miracles abound.

I called my mom to check in, it was her and my stepdad’s 26th anniversary. I told her how cold it was supposed to be the next day and suggested that she skip the track meet and just stay home and warm.

Then I called my dad to check in with him since I hadn’t talked to him in a few days and he had been in the emergency room just the week before. He was doing well, but, in his words, just didn’t have much gumption. I told him he should just rest and continue to recuperate.

After that phone call I went down and transferred towels from the washer to the drier.

I put a few pieces together in our current puzzle.

I packed Alyssa’s and my lunches. (I know, she’s a senior, she usually does pack her own lunch but on days when she has to work until 9 or so, I pack it for her because I want to and I like being able to do small things to still take care of her.)

I made dinner for Olivia and by 6:30…the evening was spread out before me like a blank canvass. What WAS I going to do with myself?

It’s amazing how that extra half hour seemed to stretch itself out.

Yes, there were a few things that coincided with making those 30 minutes seem like a lot more. No homework is a HUGE gain in time. Dinner was just reheating leftovers rather than actually making something more involved. The towels were already clean in the washer, just needed to go into the drier. But oh how good it felt to have a whole evening of nothing ahead of me.

I think I’ll enjoy retirement when it finally rolls around in fifteen or so years…sigh.

Blank

There was a morning recently where I stood in front of the timeclock at work and just…blanked. I walked in at 7:00am. The man in front of me clocked in. The dude behind me was waiting for me to clock in.

I grabbed my timecard and stood in front of the clock watching as the seconds ticked by, switching the clock from 7:00 to 7:01. And I froze.

It was a half a second before I said out loud, “What am I doing?”

The guy who’d just clocked in called out as he walked up the stairs to the sales office, “Clocking in.”

The guy waiting for me to get my dumb but in gear just laughed and said, “It’s Monday.”

I finally remembered the process of clocking in (um, you hold your card in front of the clock, it clicks, you tap ‘in’ on the screen…that’s it.) and went about my day.

But that moment of blanking was eerie.

I might be losing it over here.

Nicknames

Nicknames Way back when I was at my old job, we had a new guy, a young man, start working for us. He was probably in his early twenties.

He had the same name as one of the guys who’d been with the company for centuries.

In the beginning, everyone called the new guy “New J” and the one who’d been there “Old J”.

Alas, the seasoned employee did not actually appreciate being called “Old J.”

Someone suggested the younger, newer employee be “Little J” which would make the older employee be “Big J.”

Do I need to say that he didn’t like that one either?

I finally suggested that we call the older, longer employed guy “Real J” which caught the younger guy off guard because, as he pointed out, that would make him “Fake J”. Well…duh.

Luckily, in the end it didn’t matter because the Js didn’t work in the same department and so were never really near each other and they didn’t really share close co-workers so if someone called for ‘J’ most people knew who was being summoned.

But yes, the whole ‘real’ and ‘fake’ monikers amused me greatly, as anyone who knows me would expect.

Blue

I want to paint our front porch ceiling blue. Tom thinks that’s stupid. I don’t actually care what he thinks. But…I have to figure out how to tell him that gently without hurting his feelings. He’s not used to me not caring what he thinks. I’ve mentioned that he has an opinion on everything. Well, sometimes, I don’t actually want his opinion. I just want him to let me do what I want to do and accept that I’ve done it. Like painting the porch ceiling blue. I’m not talking some heinous, bright blue. Duh. Lots of people paint their porch ceilings blue. It’s an actual thing. And honestly, our porch ceiling is currently nasty. Rust, wear and tear, twenty four years of yuck have accumulated on that thing. You’d think he’d want me to paint it because I’d obviously have to do some pre-paint prep which would involve cleaning, priming, etc. So…just let me do my thing. Here’s the thing…I want to start living more authentically. Gosh, that sounds so…pretentious. But even if it is pretentious, it’s also true. I want to stop tiptoeing around other people, even my husband and just live my life how I want. I want to paint my ceiling blue and I want to bring more green into my bathroom. I want take more walks and be in less pain. I want to enjoy moments of every single day. I know I have to continue to work. I know Olivia will continue to have homework. I will keep doing what needs to be done but I also want to do things that just make us happy. As long as those things aren’t hurting anyone else, what’s the harm in finding and doing things that makes us happy every day? Like painting our porch ceiling blue.

A Week at the Post Office

I’ve mentioned (ad nauseam) that I go to the post office every single day for work. Some days, weeks, months, I only have to go into the part where the post office boxes are so that I can pick up the incoming mail from the six post office boxes that my work has. Why yes, I feel quite important when I pull out the key ring with SIX post office box keys on it. I’m way cooler than you over there opening your ONE PO box. Ha on you, only having three envelopes. Look at me with my bags of mail. Yeah, mail is super fun, except when it’s not. See, one recent week, the post office was getting on my last nerve. I had to go in and talk to the ladies (it’s always ladies. Why are there NEVER any men working the stupid counter?) at the counter. They’re the ones who deal with the general public and I feel for them because the general public is stupid. I feel stupid when I’m a member of the general public. Just saying. So that week, I had to go up to the counter every single day. So frustrating. The first day is was so I could try and sent a garment back to the UK. It was a return. The company send a label and everything; except, since it was an international return, I had to fill out customs paperwork. And apparently, the label they sent was just an address label. It didn’t include postage, which was going to be $14.95. The hell? So I took the stupid customs label and told Kathy behind the counter I’d be back the next day. The next day, not only did I have my return, I also had a check from work to pay for the six post office boxes for the next six months. AND I had a yellow ticket (of leave? Alas, no, no yellow ticket of leave for you, prisoner 24601.) that indicated there was something that hadn’t fit in the P.O. boxes. That’s SUPER fun. First, I gave her the check my boss had given me for the P.O. boxes and…it wasn’t made out for the right amount. The label with the amount they’d sent in was faded and the last number, a 6, looked very much like a 0. Kathy asked me if I wanted make up the $6 difference. I did not. While I might have had cash on hand, I didn’t want to part with it even though I know work would have reimbursed me. But damn it, I shouldn’t have to pay for stuff like that with my own money. Then I gave her the yellow ticket that had been in the box from the day before but that I hadn’t seen until I got back to the office because there was so much mail it had been buried in there amidst the checks and catalogs and invoices. Kathy took my yellow ticket, disappeared behind the wall that separates the general public from the VIPs of the postal world. She returned with a big ass box (not so big, but it was heavy, which is actually just as annoying as being big…I HATE big, heavy boxes. This is probably a bit PTSD from when Tom used to send ridiculously large and heavy boxes with me to my previous employment to be shipped via UPS, which pissed me off to no end and was one of the very few things we’ve ever had actual fights about. This box, for the record, did NOT have a P.O. box number listed. It actually had a street address, which was not the street address of the plant I work at. My place of employment has four plants within a one mile radius. I work at plant 1. This box was addressed to plant 4. The hell? Why was it waiting for me to pick up when it could have been sent with the freaking mailman to the actual street address on the box? That this point, I was very near my last reserve of patience. So finally Kathy perused my customs forms and asked me the company name for the return. I don’t know. I didn’t buy the stupid garment. I was returning it for Alyssa, who’d bought it for her sister, bless her heart. But it didn’t fit her sister and who wants a $40 bra that doesn’t fit? Not us. You want a bra sitting around your house that doesn’t fit anyone? Give me a call, the stupid thing is still in my purse. Anyway, I told her I had no idea what the business name is and took the package, the customs paperwork and ANOTHER customs form because Kathy had helpfully stamped the one I’d already filled out with that day’s date and so I’d need to do it all again for the next day. I told her I’d take the check back and have my boss issue a new one. Whatever! The first was empty. Wheee!!! But guess what? As I was checking the first, empty post office box, I realized I’d forgotten the heavy-ass box Kathy had brought up for me before the whole customs issue came up. It was still sitting on the counter beside Kathy’s workspace. So, I went BACK to Kathy’s counter to retrieve that stupid box. But there was this DUDE standing there talking to Kathy about I don’t even know what. And he was in my way! Instead of standing directly in front of Kathy, where there is plexiglass protecting her from creeps like this, he stood off to the side, directly in front of the stupid heavy box I didn’t even want. Except I needed that box because it wasn’t mine, it belonged to plant 4 and I needed to take it there. Or, you know, back to plant 1 where I could then send it to plant 4 via ‘interoffice mail.’ Sigh. Kathy’s coworker saw my frustration and retrieved my box from its purgatory in front of annoying dude who does not understand personal space. I took that stupid heavy box out to my car and then went in to actually get the mail out of the other five post office boxes. The next box I opened…had another stupid yellow ticket. Are you freaking kidding me? I had to go BACK IN TO THE COUNTER for the THIRD time for anyone who’s counting to get whatever was waiting for me behind door number two. It ended up being a packet of mail that was just too much to fit into the box. Figures. The next day (third day of the week, for those counting) I had to go to the counter to try and send that stupid bra back to England AND pay for the P.O. boxes with the corrected check. Somedays, I think the post office is more trouble than it’s worth. Then I remember that Kevin Costner movie, The Postman. Did you guys see that one? One scene has the bad guy about to kill two of the postman’s mailmen. These two boys stop and introduce themselves to each other and the bad guy realizes that if these two don’t know each other, his rival for world domination has already gotten away from him. That’s not really a good description of the scene but close enough. What I’m saying is, that movie reminds me that we’re lucky to have mail service and it keeps us connected in a way that even the internet can’t quite do so I’ll try and not let my trivial annoyances stop me from mailing a letter every now and then.

A Long Drive

Alyssa’s car has been acting up lately. Tom thinks it might be the fuel pump. Sometimes, it just won’t start. The battery is fine, it has a spark, it just…won’t start. After a couple of tries, it usually fires up but it can be very frustrating when you’re somewhere that is not home and your car isn’t starting.

I supposed it’s a rite of passage to have to deal with an unreliable car. We’ve all been there, right?

My first car, a 1975 Gran Torino Elite was a wild ride. By the time I finally retired that thing (around 1990) I had to have a bottle of gasoline in the backseat of the car so I could prime the carburetor each time I wanted to start it. I couldn’t fill it up with gas because there was a hole in the top of the gas tank and every couple of days I had to top off the power steering fluid.

Yeah. Those were fun days.

But…because we can, we’re looking for a different car for Lyss. She has a lot going on and we want her to be safe while doing all the things.

Tom started searching on FB marketplace. He found a car with 90,000 miles that was for sale for a decent price. It was in Huntington. He contacted the seller, who told him there were no issues with the car. He gathered some cash and away we went.

Okay, that sounds simple enough. It wasn’t quite so simple. We left at about 5:15 on a Tuesday. Olivia and I had already done her social studies homework and her spelling homework at home. But we took her math worksheet with us so she could finish it in the car. We had a 73 mile trip ahead of us.

I sat in the backseat with Olivia so I could help her with her homework. For what it’s worth, she did it mostly by herself. Go Liv!

Alyssa sat up front with Tom, who drove. Even though he’s very familiar with Huntington, Tom had Lyss use the GPS on her phone; which was the first mistake.

Wait, the GPS was the second mistake. The first mistake was even bothering with this car, though maybe that’s not fair, the pictures posted on FB marketplace were excellent pictures, they just didn’t tell the whole story.

Anyway! We drove, Olivia did homework, Alyssa studied for two exams (physics and anatomy) and I sat back and enjoyed not having to drive.

We followed the directions given by Alyssa’s phone…sort of. Tom did make poor Siri recalculate the directions a couple of times. But whatever.

We finally made it after driving for an hour and fifteen minutes. Tom pulled into the driveway of an out of the way farm. There were about a thousand chickens running around along with at least fifty cats and kittens.

There was only one dog loping around with a woman and two men. One of the men was in filthy shorts than hung to below his knees, socks that came up to mid-calf and a greasy T-shirt.

Tom got out of the car to go talk to the dudes about the Fort Taurus they had for sale.

The girls and I watched the chickens. At one point, a rooster attempted to accost one of the hens. Olivia saw the action and said with glee, “They’re going to do it!”

Let’s remember, she’s 13 and so is surrounded by 13 year old boys. Yikes.

The hen did not consent and so nothing untoward happened beyond the rooster making overtures that were firmly turned down.

After about twenty minutes Tom and one of the dudes got in the car that was for sale and went for a drive.

It was at this point that I realized that Tom had taken the keys to my car with him.

Let that sink in. He drove away with a stranger (neither of them wearing a mask!) with MY keys. The girls and I were left in my car with no way to leave if the need to leave happened to arise.

I told the girls to lock their doors. We continued to watch the chickens and the kittens. One chicken hobbled toward the car and we realized she was missing most of her right foot. It was so weird and creepy.

The dude in the filthy shorts stalked around the farmyard. The woman and her dog went about their evening business.

The car continues to get hotter and hotter. It wasn’t exactly hot outside but with three of us in that enclosed vehicle, breathing our hot breath and occasionally laughing because of the insanity of the situation, the windows steamed and the interior temperature rose.

Tom and Dude 1 came back. They talked a little more. The girls and I cracked our doors open, scaring some chickens and getting fresh air.

Tom came to the car and told Alyssa she should drive it.

Then Tom and Alyssa got in that sketchy car and drove away, WITH MY KEYS AGAIN. This time, they left just me and Liv in my car, in that farmyard with BOTH of the creepy dudes hovering.

I felt like we were writing the first few pages of a horror story.

We locked the doors again and waited.

And waited.

And I got antsier and antsier. Olivia announced that she had to pee but she was going to wait until we got home to do so. Smart girl. (Spoiler: we took her to a grocery store in Huntington; she didn’t have to wait another two hours to relieve herself.)

Tom and Alyssa FINALLY got back from their little drive. Alyssa returned to the car, where she declared, “It’s a no.”

Tom continued to talk to the dudes, who tried to convince him that this car was totally a most excellent buy for our teenage daughter. It had a WOOFER in the trunk.

Tom told them Alyssa wasn’t quite the woofer type.

Then he told them that the pictures they’d posted did not show dents in the hood, the broken cruise control or the weird cobbled dash.

They argued that the cruise control being broken didn’t make the car undrivable.

Okay. I mean, that’s technically true but when you’re thinking about spending money in the four digits, you want something better. Or, if nothing else, you don’t want to feel like you’d been taken by some well-angled pictures.

Tom finally pulled himself away from the owner (though, apparently, the guy selling the car was actually the grandson of the owner…which…okay…that’s sketchy as hell) and his mechanic friend (that was the dude in the filthy clothes) and made his way back to the car.

We left as quickly as we could and made our way to town where we all used the facilities in the local grocery store and then went through the drive-thru at McD’s.

Tom drove into the McD’s parking lot and started to hand Alyssa a pad of paper, telling her to write down exactly what she wanted.

I offered, “You want me to do the ordering?”

He took me up on that offer so fast you’d think he was shy. Nah, dude just really hates ordering at the drive-thru.

So he took my place in the backseat, I took the driver’s seat and ordered food for my family without a single word being written down.

Tom was stunned by the low, low price of the food but then realized I hadn’t ordered anything for myself. My jaw had ached all evening and I just couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. I offered to drive us home so he could eat.

We made it home safely and were in bed a half hour later. It was an exhausting trip, is what I’m saying.

A Very Brady Rant

I had to get blood drawn for labs. I went to the hospital at 9:30 one weekday morning. My thought was that it shouldn’t be all that busy at that time. I mean, people work, right?

Apparently not around here, they don’t because that hospital was crawling with people. Okay, so the people weren’t actually crawling but they were everywhere.

One dude in particular was especially antsy about the wait.

After I’d checked in with the receptionists and got my pager for registration, I sat down to wait.

This dude was sitting in a chair about ten feet from my little couch. His chair faced the registration doors. My couch faced him and the television that was mounted above and to his left.

The television was tuned to HGTV and they were showing episodes of A Very Brady Renovation. Yay! Except freaking Marcia Brady kept crying every time a new room was revealed. Chill the fuck out, Marcia!

This dude, though, damn he was irritating. He sat slumped in his chair for a few minutes, then he’d sit up straight and look at his beeper. Then he’d stand up and stretch, which always let to him clutching his right shoulder.

I was about to ask him if maybe he should be in line in the emergency room when he’d sit back down again, glance around to see if anyone was looking at him and then grumble under his breath.

I wanted to tell him to relax, watch a bit of A Very Brady Renovation and stop fidgeting. Obviously all the fidgeting was bothering his stupid right shoulder.

What was most irritating for me was that I had to look past him to watch A Very Brady Renovation, which meant that every time he looked my way, I knew it. I was never actually looking at him, because, duh, A Very Brady Renovation was on, why would I look anywhere else? But I knew he was looking and it was creepy as hell.

Thank Pete, (not Pete Brady, who used to be my favorite Brady brother until I watched Christopher Knight on his stupid reality TV show where he married America’s Next Top Model season cycle 1 winner Adrienne Curry. I think the show was called My Fair Brady, which, can we all agree is a REALLY stupid title for a REALLY stupid show? I only watched a partial episode on the Youtubes once but during that episode Chris was a raging dick to Adrienne and that made me detest him. And now, damn it, I guess I have to pick stupid Greg as my favorite Brady brother even though I can barely stand him because Bobby aka Mike Lookinland is just gross. That dude has NOT aged well at all. Oh, and by the way, Cindy Brady? The eighties called and they want their hair back.)

Ahem, where was I?

Oh yes, thank Pete that fidgety, creepy dude was called before I was and he left my line of vision. I was able to watch Marcia cry a few more times before my beeper went off and I got to go back and have a needle stuck in my arm. Good times; takes me back to my chemo days when I got stuck weekly. Ahh, memories. But wait, this time was actually different. This was the first time in all the times someone has stuck a needle in my arm that the person doing the sticking told me I have tiny veins. What? I have given blood my entire adult life, well, until I was diagnosed with cancer and had to be pumped full of chemotherapy, thank you so much. Now they don’t want my precious AB+ blood. So have my veins shrunk in the last two years? Is that even a thing?

Umm…I have no idea where I was going with any of this. Maybe there was no actual story here, except that the hospital was crazy busy and it wasn’t even because of Covid because if you suspected you had Covid-19, you weren’t even supposed to go into the hospital. There were signs all over the freaking place declaring that.

Alas, perhaps these days there is no ‘good’ time to go have blood drawn, unless you figure that anytime HGTV is airing A Very Brady Renovation is a good time to go so you have something to watch while you wait eleven hours from registration to blood draw is a good time to go. Then, well, check your local listing.

I don’t even know.

Putting the P in Postal

I go to the post office every day for work. I pick up the incoming mail from the PO boxes (yes, boxes, there are six that I check daily) and at least once a week, I have to go in and actually interact with postal workers. They’re fine, very professional, maybe a little irritable sometimes but they deal with the general public and let me tell you, that would make me cranky too. And we’ve all figured out that you just can’t fix stupid.

On one recent trip to the post office, I had to drop off a certified mailing, get the date stamp on my receipt for the certified mailing and buy twenty rolls of stamps.

While she was waiting on me, Annie, the post office employee took a phone call. From her side of the call, I could tell that someone wanted to put their mail on hold.

Annie explained that the customer would need to come into the post office and do this in person.

After some back and forth, Annie offered the option of going online to make this request. She told the person it would cost $1.05 to do this online. Then she gave the address to the website.

We all know the postal service’s website, right? USPS.com

Annie said just that, “Go to USPS.com and click on the change my address link. No, that P as in Paul.”

The customer on the phone thought Annie had said B as in boy.

You guys…why would the United States Postal Service’s website be USBS.com? I mean, sure the B could be for BULL and the S could be for SHIT but come on!

I kind of love that Annie said, “P, as in Paul.” She’s way kinder than I am I would have said, my voice dripping in sarcasm, “P…as in POSTAL.” The ‘duh’ at the end of that sentence would have been unvoiced but VERY implied.

After she hung up the phone and rang up my $1100.00 worth of stamps, Annie gave me a smile and as a way of explaining that exchange said, “She was young.”

Just being a customer in that place for ten minutes makes me understand the whole phrase ‘going postal.’

Like I said, you can’t fix stupid but the young do (usually) grow up.

Taking No for an Answer

I don’t think I would handle rejection well, which is why I avoid the possibility of rejection whenever possible. I haven’t actually had to deal with rejection often in my many years in this world. I’m lucky, I know.

But I am also able to read a ‘soft’ no and accept it without pushing.

Example 1:

At work we have an overstock of no-touch thermometers. I asked the engineering manager if I could buy one. He asked how many we had in stock. I told him there were 25 in the area I could see.

That was the end of our communication, all of which took place over email. There was no face-to-face conversation here.

When he didn’t get back to me after I’d told him how many we had, I let it go. I took his non-response as a no, we are not selling the ‘extras’. No need to follow up. No need to make him come out and say no. I don’t need a reason, I don’t need a clearer answer. I get it and I accept it. What else can I do?

Example 2:

My aunt had a pool. We’ve taken Olivia to swim there a few times this summer. It got her out of the house and into the sunshine. My aunt and her husband both said, “Come over anytime!”

Okay. That’s great and all but…no. I’m not going to just arrive at their house and swim in their pool without prior authorization. I just can’t.

So one Friday in late July, I texted my aunt and asked her if I could take Olivia to her house the following Sunday to swim.

My aunt responded with an attachment that I couldn’t open. I replied that I couldn’t open the attachment.

She said, “Oh, it was a good message.”

…

And that was it. That’s all she said.

Do I need to say that we did not go swimming that weekend? I was NOT going to ask again. I wasn’t going to say something like, “So…is that as yes or no to swimming?”

Why? Because her non-answer was a no to me. I didn’t want to put her on the spot. I didn’t want to force her to say no if she didn’t want to come out and say it.

I can take no for an answer, even if the no is never actually verbalized.

Obviously, I would be a terrible sales person. “Oh, you don’t want this vacuum? Okay then, bye.”

I probably wouldn’t have been a very good cis-dude either, what with their inability to take even a clear and firm NO for an answer.

And how about that that, I managed to turn this into a male-bashing post after all.

Permission

Alyssa and I went to a graduation party last week.

Oh, calm down. We weren’t there more than ten minutes, we wore masks the entire time and we didn’t eat or touch anything. Sure, no one else in the entire room (it was the gym of an old school) wore masks and everyone else was acting like there is not pandemic but we were most excellent social distancers.

Also, we dropped Liv off at my mom’s along the way to keep our own numbers down and let’s face it, she has a hard time keeping her grubby little hands to herself, though to be fair, she is VERY good at slathering hand sanitizer on those grubby little hands all the way up to her arm pits.

This party, or open house, or celebration or whatever, was on a Friday from 5pm to 9pm. We arrived at like 5:10. We planned it this way so that we wouldn’t have to breathe the stench of a thousand other maniacs as the evening wore on.

I didn’t tell Tom about this little venture into the world of semi-socializing until the morning of the event. No need to stress the poor man any more than he already stresses. Dude needs to turn off the damned television, is what I’m saying.

I mentioned the grad party as I was walking out the door to go to work that day. He gave me a look that said he doubted my sanity in this decision and I shrugged and said, “We have to make an appearance. We’ll be careful.”

He retorted, “Well, since you’re not asking permission, I guess I can’t say anything.”

Permission?!? Hahahahaha. I am so sure.

Any of you out there who actually know me in real life, can you even imagine me asking permission for something like this? And let’s remember, I’m not contrary, not at all, but if he were to try and tell me we couldn’t go, guess where we’d go and stay for HOURS? And if that isn’t just cutting off my nose to spite my face, I don’t know what is.

I just laughed at him because, yeah, okay, I’ll ask permission.

I think he was sort of joking but I also know he really didn’t think it was a good idea for us to go.

Guys…will this ever end? Will we ever get back to just living our lives? I just wanted to drop off a card with some money in it and tell this young lady I was happy for her. We didn’t hug, we didn’t shake hands, we didn’t eat a ‘walking taco.’ Hell, we didn’t even stick around for cake. That’s what this pandemic is doing to us, it’s taking away our CAKE.

Olivia has seventh grade orientation on the Monday before the girls go back to school. Tom will not be attending this orientation. He feels (and rightly so, if I’m perfectly honest) that if everyone is smart, one parent will attend with their child. This will limit the number of people attending and will hopefully aid in social distancing.

So I’m taking Liv to her seventh grade orientation. Because you know me. I don’t miss this sort of thing. I’m THAT mom. And I never even asked permission before I became THAT mom.

One Headlight

We keep a running list of items needed. You empty the box of Cheezits? Put it on the list that’s always on the microwave with seven pens, six of which don’t write. If you’re me, you will always have to try all seven pens to fine the ONE the works. But you won’t bother to throw away the six that don’t work. I mean, who do you think you are?

One recent Saturday, I went to get the grocery list and found Tom’s debit card on top of it with an item (or two?) listed. A stop at Auto Zone was going to be necessary to pick up this particular item.

He’d written “headlight bulbs, set of two, for 2012 Chevy Equinox.”

I was immediately disgruntled.

Wait. I know. Let me acknowledge right here that I KNOW I’m a brat. I also know that I’m spoiled.

But seriously, what the hell is the point of having a HUSBAND if said husband won’t go and fetch these sorts of things himself? So what if these particular bulbs were for MY car? Also so what if I didn’t even know I had a headlight out. I rarely drive after dark, so I had no idea how long I’d been driving with one headlight. Sue me.

So yes, since Tom was at the post office (as he is often on Saturday mornings) I had a mini tantrum over having to stop at Auto Zone and get bulbs for my car.

By the time he got home, which was right before the girls and I were leaving to go buy groceries…and stop at Auto Zone, I thought I’d gotten my little snit out of the way. I blandly said I’d seen the addition to the list and he joked that at least he wasn’t expecting me to go to Walmart and try and find the right bulbs myself, that at Auto Zone you just tell them what you need and they go get them for you. I may have rolled my eyes like a big old baby. I can’t be sure, I wasn’t looking in a mirror.

Apparently my ambivalence toward purchasing those bulbs came through, though, because we’d been on the road for maybe three miles (not long enough to cross the state line into Indiana) when Tom called.

Alyssa answered my phone because, hello, I was driving. She spoke briefly with her father.

When she hung up she said, “Dad said you don’t have to go to Auto Zone. He’s going to go to an antique store later today or tomorrow so he can stop and get the bulbs himself.”

Huh.

Well.

Never let it be said that I’m not contrary as hell.

Now that he’d said I didn’t need to stop at Auto Zone, guess who was going to Auto Zone.

My mom laughed at my bratty behavior and said that I was lucky to have Tom.

Yes, Mother, I know.

I really do know that. But I also STILL wish he’d just gotten the stupid bulbs, changed them and told me about it after. Sure, the trip into Auto Zone took less than five minutes but now I have to spend about five more minutes feeling bad for being a spoiled brat.

AND! And I had to go home and apologize to my husband for it. That’s just annoying.

Smelly

Olivia and I go to my mom’s house at least twice a week during the work week.

I walk in the door each afternoon around 5pm and she greets me with, “Can we got to Gram’s?”

Sometimes I groan and tell her that I’m tired and just want to be home.

But other times, I hand her my phone, tell her to call Gram and see if she even wants company (if she’s home, she’s ALWAYS up for our visit) and off we go.

I do realize that O is stuck at home all day every day and so our visits to Gram are her way out of those four walls. Poor kid has had quite the sucky summer.

One recent afternoon we arrived at Casa Gram’s and found the dear woman hard at work canning relish. Olivia walked in and gagged at the smell. There was a strong smell of vinegar in the air.

After about fifteen minutes, Liv was able to remove her mask (she was ever so glad she had it) and declared that she’d gone ‘nose-blind’ and was able to breathe without gagging. She’s a funny girl.

After an hour or so Olivia and I left and once in the car, I declared that our car smelled very much like Gram’s relish. It wasn’t so much unpleasant as it was…there.

I smelled myself just to make sure the smell really was from the relish and not because my deodorant had stopped working.

Yikes. I reeked.

When we got home, I immediately added ‘new deodorant’ to our grocery list. I figured my body had done that thing where it just stops letting the deodorant work and my natural stench was pushing its way through. Not a pleasant thought. I wondered if I’d stunk all day at work but everyone was just too polite to say anything. What a horrible thought.

I have this real fear of being the stinky girl that everyone notices but no one lets in on the secret of the stench.

But wait! After dinner (and being disgusted by my own smell) I went up to take a shower and de-stink myself.

Guess what?

When I took off my shirt and sniffed myself sans shirt, there was no stink. I didn’t have horrible body odor after all.

I retrieved the shirt I’d just shed and sniffed. Yuck!

It wasn’t me. It was the shirt. The shirt I’d been wearing at my mom’s had absorbed ALL THE SMELLS and was horrible.

But man was I relieved to not be the stinky chick. If people at work are talking about me (and I seriously doubt they are. I try hard to blend into the woodwork) it’s not because I’m smelly. I take a lot of comfort in that knowledge.

I’m leaving ‘new deodorant’ on the grocery list, though. I’m going to buy a brand I don’t currently have so that I have new on hand just in case my current choice does stop working.

One can never be too prepared when it comes to stink prevention.

Simplifying

I read several blogs and follow a few Instagram that talk about downsizing and simplifying their lives.

I don’t necessarily want to downsize. I kind of like my 2600 square foot house. I love that Tom, the girls and I can all go to our separate corners when needed.

But I would like to simplify our lives and our stuff. We have so many things, clutter that just makes our huge house look messy and disorganized. Of course, the fact that everything IS disorganized doesn’t help.

So…what do I do first?

Purge the stuff?

Probably.

Some days, though, it feels like a monumental task and I don’t even know where to start. I know that if I start small it will feel less overwhelming.

At work one day, I realized that I currently have 17 different kinds of oils for my diffuser. I probably only like about half of those but I try and use all of them through the week just to try and use them up. That’s so stupid.

But! I told myself recently that I am NOT allowed to buy any more oils until I use up some of the ones I already have. See, I can practice a little restraint.

Speaking of oils and diffusers, I have at least seven different oils upstairs for the diffuser by my bed. The problem is, I think I only like two or three of those. I need to offer the others to Alyssa for her room. The problem I have with at least one of them is that it smells like Desitin, you know, the cream you wipe on a baby’s butt to prevent diaper rash. Yeah. Not necessarily what you want to smell as you’re trying to fall asleep.

That’s one area I could organize and simply.

Look at me, already working through where to start. This whole stream of consciousness thing might work out for me yet. Only too bad for the three of you who still read here, having to wade through my ‘deep’ thoughts.

The Little Things

My house is a disaster.

We’ve lived in this house for almost ten years. The first year we lived there, I painted every room on the first level except the tiny half bath. It’s fine.

I painted the upstairs hallway, both bathrooms and two of the four bedrooms.

In the ensuing years, I have painted…nothing. It’s just not high on the priority list.

The clutter is what’s getting to me; the boxes of crap sitting in corners of rooms. It either needs to be tossed or stored but I need to get it out of the corners. And yet, I’m never actually motivated to just sit down and go through these boxes when I’m actually at home. They sit there, taunting me as I’m doing other things, things that can’t be put off, like laundry, dishes, making food for my family to consume.

Sigh.

It feels like a metaphor for my life. The clutter that is in my head, the crap I put into my body. I need to do something about all of that too and yet…it sits there, like the boxes in the corners of my house.

Hon

I work with a few women who call everyone endearments like ‘dear’, ‘hon’, ‘sweetie’.

I don’t have a problem with this the way I do with men who call women things like that.

See, women don’t single any particular gender out when they do it. They just generally call people these things.

Dudes, though, do NOT go around calling each other ‘darlin’ or ‘dear’. So…yes, it’s irritating when men do it but okay when women do.

That’s just the rule, deal with it.

But, this isn’t actually about that.

It’s about the women who do it and how they came to be women who call people, not family, not dear friends, but EVERYONE by endearments.

I am not one of those women.

I might call you ‘dude’ but that’s the extent of my familiarity with people. Sure, call my daughters ‘lovey’ and ‘baby’ but they’re my children. And I will call my husband ‘sweets’ because it amuses me to do so.

But these women who call people ‘hon’. Have they always done it? I mean, honestly, can you imagine a twelve year old saying to her teacher, “Here you go, hon,” as she hands in her homework?

At what point in a woman’s life does she become an endearment dropper?

I’m truly curious about this.

One of friend’s mom is one who calls people ‘dear’ and ‘hon.’ She’s lovely and again, it doesn’t bother me but has she always done it? I didn’t know her in her teen years and I don’t feel like I can ask if she did it back then because she probably isn’t even aware of doing it.

I don’t think her eighteen year old daughter does it but I will ask Lyss.

I remember back in my waitressing days when the women who were older than I was at the time (but most certainly younger than I am now) were endearment droppers with the customers. Maybe some of them picked it up when they got jobs like that. I suppose calling some gross dude ‘hon’ might actually make him a better tipper. I mean, anything is possible.

Maybe this fascinates me so much because I’m naturally kind of stand-offish. I will make conversation with the cashier at my local grocery store but I’m not going to call him or her ‘dear’ when I thank them for my change. I will smile through my mask and wish them well but that’s the extent of my friendliness.

And that’s okay too. You do you, Hon and I’ll sit over here with my dudes and we’ll all be happy and non-judgmental and go about our lives in bliss and harmony.

Imposter

In my head, I am never good enough.

One recent Thursday, I got home from work around 5pm. Alyssa and Tom had been there all day, just hanging out. Olivia was with my mom and wouldn’t be home until at least 7pm.

I’d planned to put on my new roller skates as soon as I got home and work on breaking them in.

Instead, I plopped down on the couch next to Alyssa for an hour.

Tom mentioned pizza for dinner.

He and Alyssa bickered over who was going to make it. He ended up going in to the kitchen and I heard him chopping onions. At that point, I assumed he was getting ready to put the pizza in the oven.

At 7:00, Alyssa went into the kitchen and exclaimed, “Dad! I thought you were making the pizza!”

He declared that no, he wasn’t making it. He’d chopped the onions but it was her job to put the pizzas together and get them in the oven.

I felt so defeated by this whole thing. By the time the stupid oven heated and the pizza cooked, it wouldn’t be done until at least 7:30. I decided then and there I was NOT eating that late.

I know. I’m only punishing myself. But it was so frustrating. If I’d known he was doing some kind of power play with Alyssa, I’d have gone out and put the stupid pizzas in the oven myself.

I went up and laid in my bed with a fan blowing on me. It would have been lovely if only I hadn’t been feeling sorry for myself. I was hungry and yet…I knew I wasn’t going to eat.

Olivia called me from town to let me know she and Gram had just dropped the boys off at their house and they’d be home in about a half hour.

I went back downstairs and put a can of soup in my bag for lunch at work the next day. I couldn’t bring myself to cut up a cucumber or make a salad. It frustrates me so much that I am so self-defeating.

Olivia got home, we all welcomed her as if she’d been gone for weeks instead of 36 hours.

The pizza got done just as she was getting home so she was just in time to eat a couple of pieces even though she’d had McD’s an hour before.

While I sat at the table with the girls as they ate their pizza, Tom brought three pieces of pizza to the table for me.

I glared at the pizza and asked him, “Where’s yours?”

See, let’s back up a bit. He’s been eating salad for dinner every night for a week. NO WAY IN HELL was I going to sit there and eat THREE pieces of pizza while he stuffed lettuce in his face. Nope.

I let the pizza sit there while O finished eating her own. Tom did end up getting one piece of pizza for himself. While he ate it, I got up and put the leftover pizza away, including the three pieces he’d set out for me. Full disclosure: I ate several mushrooms off one of the pieces he’d give me. So I didn’t completely abstain from dinner that night.

As I was putting everything away, he came over and started washing the dishes.

I could tell he was pissed. When I asked him why he was mad he said, “You didn’t eat, there’s no need for you to have to do the dishes.”

And okay, that’s very nice. But…damn it, it made me feel terrible.

Why?

Why does it matter to him if I eat pizza or not? I’m FAT. I’m gross. I can skip a meal or twenty and not be anywhere near starvation.

I often feel like nothing I do is good enough. I can’t skip enough meals to be thin enough. I can’t be gentle enough to be a good mother.

I don’t exercise enough. I don’t model good choices for my girls. I don’t keep our house clean enough.

Let’s be clear that this is all me. No one in my house says anything to make me feel this way. It’s all my own issues and my own sense of not being nearly good enough. Everyone THINKS I’m good enough but that’s because I’m faking it just enough to make it in their eyes.

When I tucked O into bed that night she said, “Was it better while I was gone?”

Oh. Oh no, not even close. I told her I didn’t sleep well the night before because she wasn’t there. I told her life is NEVER better when she’s not there.

Now, let me be clear, I do not think that my husband’s and children’s lives would be better without me. As bitchy as I sometimes get, as awful as I often am, I never imagine that they’d be better off without me.

They love me. They love me despite that fact that I can’t seem to love myself. So Imma stick around even though I often don’t feel like I deserve any of them.