Cloudy With a Chance of Redemption

Dilemma: House needed to be rented.

We had a sign up on the front lawn, Twittered and used Craigslist to advertise to the world that we wished to lease our property. We had inquiries but only one couple that we would even consider as prospective tenants. They couldn't afford it, though, which was a shame considering the chemistry seemed to be there.

I lectured myself not to worry because we had plenty of time to find appropriate tenants before we'd be in a financial bind. Still, there was that seed of anxiety that germinated in my subconscious. So, I did what my husband had encouraged me to do. I called the people that we really connected with and offered to lower the monthly rent to within their budget. They immediately accepted and I believe they will treat our house like a home.

I found peace for the first time in many, many days.

Dilemma: Son downloads $900 app from iTunes.

When he text me with this little nugget of information, my composure evaporated in the time it took for the charge to show up on my credit card. Huge parenting fail. And then I got a grip. I decided that I would make him sell his video game stuff to help defray the charges and then he would have to work off the rest through babysitting and allowance deferral. He accepted the responsibility without question. Parenting win. Then, this arrived in my email:

Dear Beth,

Greetings from iTunes Store Customer Support! My name is Mr.R and I will assist you today.

I understand that the purchase of "iraPro" application by your son was unintentional. I'm very sorry to hear that, but do not worry; I would certainly help you with this issue.

Beth, I have reversed the charges for this application to your account. In three to five business days, a credit of "$899.99" should be posted to the credit card that appears on the receipt for that purchase.

Please note that this is a one-time exception, as the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions state that all sales are final.

If you still have any further issues, please write back to this email.

Have a nice day!

Sincerely,

Mr.R
iTunes Store Customer Support

Clouds parted, sun shone...

My son when shown the email, slumped over with relief. I was pretty darn happy myself.

Dilemma: My Ex is a Neanderthal

I don't really want to be bashing the father of my children (again) because, well...he's the father of my children and I already did that here. Nothing much has evolved since then. He's still a knuckle-dragging, responsibility-shirking, emotional cripple of a man. This past weekend was his weekend with the kids and to accommodate his work schedule, they are picked up Saturday night between 6pm and whenever he bloody well feels and returned home Sunday around 5:30pm. Sunday morning, I received a frantic call from my children, from my ex's place of employment. They were hysterical and begged me to come pick them up. I didn't ask many questions. I've learned not to. I found my car keys and left the house.

I arrived at his workplace and they were waiting out front. As we were leaving, the ex thrust his head into my driver's window and bellowed emotionally corrosive nonsense at the children about being "traitors" and "useless" while the two of them cowered in fear. For the first time, I saw genuine loathing in my son's face and I understood that Dylan had reached his capacity for forgiveness. Olivia was in the backseat sobbing hard enough to bring on dry retches.

It was magnificently awful.

When we got home, Olivia went from room to room looking for Dallas. When I explained that he was out doing a few errands, she fell apart. I understood then, that for Olivia, Dallas had been her "real" Daddy for a long time. That night, when I put her to bed, she grabbed my face between her hands and vehemently said, "I never want to go back there again", meaning my ex's house. There wasn't a lick of manipulation in the gesture. She was desperate to get her point across.

It wasn't the first time that I'd received an S.O.S. from my kids and found them emotionally battered, but I resolved that this time, it would be the last. The decision to protect my children, even from their own father, has been remarkably liberating. I just regret how long it has taken me to recognize that my children needed me to intervene.

The weekend was one of the most challenging that I've had to endure in ages but late last night, as I took a mental inventory of events, I was grateful that everything turned out okay. The house got leased, the $900 mistake was rectified and I finally decided to stand up to a bully.

I guess the silver linings are always there; it's just a matter of finding them.

Why I Should Be Medicated

1. My son, horsing around with his friends on the bus, unwittingly downloaded an application onto his iPhone that hit my credit card with $900. Oh yes, I did say NINE HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS! . The bright side of this is that:
a)I was several miles away in my office upon hearing the news.
b)The geographical distance between us quite possibly saved his life.
c)I am not currently premenstrual.
d)It's not the first time some wiseass kid has downloaded something using his mother's iTunes account. Apple seems to know how to handle the situation although I won't rest easy until I see the charges reversed.

2. Our house hasn't rented yet, which shouldn't get my feathers in a ruffle because we've only had it advertised for a few days, right? Yes, except I got one, measly inquiry by email. One. And after providing an address and sending pictures, I never heard back from the person, which scares the bejeezus out of me. Man, they didn't even want to look at it, which brings out every, single, insecure, I-know-my-house-has-flaws fiber in my body. We've already put a deposit down on a house in the new city and since neither of us was born a Kennedy, things could get ugly really quickly if we don't put a family in our house tout de suite.

3. My job life is either crazed or not. There is nothing in between. I'm head down, up to my eyeballs in it for weeks or struggling to find enough to occupy my time. When it's nutty, I find myself begging for some relief. Trouble is, when the reprieve finally does come, I'm all out of sorts. In the face of less work, I become disorganized and scattered and develop the attention span of a gnat. Now, is a lull time for me. I should be celebrating. Instead, I'm furiously making list after list, overturning old rocks looking for new opportunities because the truth is, I'm not right in the head when I'm not fully occupied.

4. We're moving.

5. My husband lives someplace else the majority of the week and I have forgotten how to prepare a meal. We may all starve.

Does this qualify as a rant? Whine?

Ah, who cares? It's Friday and I was the lowest on the scale this morning that I've been since my wedding so LIFE IS GOOD.

Whine-O

My husband has been gone from home for the last two days and frankly, I'm coming apart at the seams.

Nobody brings me coffee in bed anymore.

Nobody is there to portion out my vitamins or help with lunch packing.

The laundry is piling up and the dust on the furniture is thick enough to inscribe one's name.

I have no freaking idea how to operate the fancy schmancy BBQ that sits on my back porch so last night, I baked the chicken like I used to do in the old, single days and when it came time to serve the kids, they eyeballed their plates with suspicion like I might be trying to feed them monkey or something. Olivia actually asked me what kind of meat it was and then asked if we could Skype Dallas, all in the same sentence. Coincidence? I think not. She was lucky to have been fed at all considering I was completely disorganized and wandered around my kitchen opening cupboards looking for provisions. I hadn't had to do a lick of grocery shopping or cook a meal IN WEEKS and it was like I had bumped my head and forgotten how to do ANYTHING WITHOUT DALLAS.

I am doing my best Beth-of-Ark impression these days complete with the discussion that I had with my children where,(voice choked with emotion), I explained that Mum needed them to be extra helpful now that Dallas was gone. My daughter is easily manipulated that way so she responded by holding my hand, kissing me and solemnly promising to do whatever it took to make Mum's life easier. Sweet girl. My son just looked at me as if to say, GET A GRIP. Dallas would be home Friday night.

I am so lame.

I need to get my single parent groove back.

Except I don't really want to.

I'd rather whine.

It goes better with the packing.

Taking Flight

My first thought upon awakening yesterday morning was, OH MY GOD WE'RE MOVING.

I've spent nearly twelve years in Bentonville which is the longest that I have squatted in the same place. Ever.

In my entire life ever.

I think I'm considered a local now, in spite of the fact that some people still cock their head to the side, squint their eyes and say, "You ain't from around here, are ya'?" Yeah, maybe not, but I can eyeball a new subdivision and tell you what was there a decade ago.

Now, I'm moving to a strange place where I will need a GPS to navigate my way around. I'll have to find a new dentist, doctor, orthodontist and someone qualified to inject Botox into my head. We're going to have to locate a gym, an organic food market and a farmer we can trust. Registering the children for school means that I am going to spend hours in my house pouring through boxes of paperwork that I have meant to file for YEARS, searching for immunization cards and birth certificates. I will finally be forced to buy that new filing cabinet to replace the one that I dented while using it as a stepladder to clean a ceiling fan. I know that I should look to the positive and embrace all my forthcoming organization but what I really want to do is just pay someone to be me for the next five weeks.

Did I mention that I am master accumulator? Oh yes. After our moving scare last year, I promised myself that I would be much better about my purchasing habits. I vowed that sale prices would no longer cause a blip on my shopping radar. If those cute pair of silver sandals made my Fred Flintstone feet look like encased sausages, the $12 price tag wouldn't matter. I'd leave them on the shelf. I told myself that just because I entered a bookstore did not mean that I had to actually purchase anything, especially considering the fact that there are STACKS of unread books littering my nightstand.

Well, my promises ended up going the way of my New Year's resolutions and yesterday, I paid for my sins when I tackled my closet. It took me two hours. I ended up with a bag of garbage, three bags of clothes, a bag of shoes (some I'd never had on my feet) and Christmas decorations that I hadn't seen in five years. There was a stack of VCR tapes that had been in my possession since before my thirteen year old son was born. I'd held onto them because they were not labeled and I was hesitant to throw them out in case they might contain an episode of Miami Vice that I hadn't seen. It took every ounce of strength but I purged. My closet is now a clean, organized work of art. It may be the only thing that I show potential renters when they come to look at the house.

Yes, renters. Our housing market is still in the tank so there's no way that we can sell either one of our houses right now. We'll be repeating the process we went through last summer trying to find a suitable family to lease our home and I am assuming things will go more smoothly this time around since every single nutbar within fifty miles answered our ad last year and we should have weeded though that element already. Sweet, sweet Jesus, I hope so.

There is a bright spot to all of this work, though. I love our new house. It's got everything we need, in a great location and roomy enough that I will be able to hide from my children if need be. I especially love that we don't own it. Sounds a little looney to shell out an obscene amount of money for rent, eh? Yeah, it sure does and it goes against every financial principle that I've ever learned but at the end of the day, it all boils down to freedom. We've already got two houses we're maintaining and it's not like there's a long line of bankers queued up outside our door wanting to lend us money for a third. Besides, if there is one lesson that this slump in our economy has driven home to me, it's that less debt equals more freedom and I like knowing that we can disencumber ourselves with a mere thirty days notice.

In about three and a half weeks, we will no longer be Bentonville residents. I couldn't identify it Sunday morning but I think that niggling emotion in the pit of my belly was excitement.

Bus-ted

Yesterday was the first day of school for both of my kids and besides being one of the most JOYFUL (should we drive to Missouri and get ourselves some tequila to celebrate?)times of the year, it also means that I've got to get my crap together in the mornings.

I struggle with that. Badly.

Dallas has always masked my deficiencies picked up the slack but come this Monday, he's going to be living in another town during the work week and I'm going to be left behind, miserable, single parent-like, making my own damn coffee. I shudder.

Anyway, back to the first day of school thing. I drove both children to their respective places in the morning and gave them their bus cards which listed which buses they would have to get on that afternoon to get home.

Olivia's day ends around two thirty so when I was getting ready to leave work around 3:30, I text Dallas to ask him if she'd arrived home yet. Negative. Hmmm...that worried me considering she'd been out of school for the better part of an hour. Concerned, I left work immediately and went home. It took me ten minutes. Still no sign of my eight year old.

Dallas had already walked to the park to see if she'd made a detour there which has been her M.O. in the past. Not there. I walked down to her best boyfriend's house (whole other post wrapped up in that discussion) and rapped on his door. No Livvie. At this point, the first tendrils of panic began to weave their way into my thoughts.

It was closing in on four o'clock, there was no answer at the bus information phone number. I started dialing the school when Liv walked in the front door, completely unruffled, no tear streaks and no mud from the ditch that I had pictured her to be lying in.

"WHERE have you been?" I asked.

"Oh, the bus driver got lost," she answered.

Turns out the bus driver was new to the route and spent an enormous amount of time going around in circles until one precocious eight year old girl walked up to the front of the bus and asked him if he needed help. (Guess who that was?) Olivia took him back to our subdivision and directed him to the different stops he needed to make, finally ending with hers.

"You told the bus driver where to go?"

"Uh huh," she said.

This morning, I dropped her at the stop one minute before the bus was due to arrive and panicked when I didn't see any other kids. I figured she'd missed it and I was dismayed at the thought of trying to fight traffic to get her to school and then to get myself to the office on time.

"Relax, Mum," she said. She felt that he might just be running late since he was new to the route and that we should just wait a few more minutes.

"Tim will be here."

TIM! Clearly after yesterday's drama, they were on a first name basis.

She turned out to be right. "Tim" pulled up five minutes later and opened the door for her. They greeted each other and as the bus pulled away, I could see Liv pointing down the road clearly engaged in her new role as bus stop tour guide.

Breaking News

Hey kids,

Do you remember me telling you the saga of Shifty? If not, you can read all about him here and here and here. Those posts are not an example of my finer moments but more Dixie Carterish in their feel. Except I'm not nearly as clever as Dixie was and I curse like a sailor.

Anyway, back to the present day and breaking news. This week, Shifty was finally sentenced after pleading guilty last fall to half a dozen counts of theft. Apparently, he showed up to his sentencing and tried to get a fourth adjournment which didn't sit well with the judge who specifically commented about how disappointing it was that Shifty still refused to take responsibility for his behaviour especially considering the amount of time he had been given to reflect upon his transgressions this last year.

Nope.

Instead of walking into the courtroom with hat in hand, Shifty offended the court by again suggesting that he was completely innocent of all charges, in spite of irrefutable evidence to the contrary and umm...HIS GUILTY PLEA.

Guess how that strategy worked for him?

THEY THREW HIS SORRY ASS IN JAIL
for nearly two years. And, he will have to pay a huge chunk of cash in reparations to the community, which makes my toes tingle with happiness and not because I'm some crazed wackado wishing him dead (well, not often anyway). It's incredibly good news only because Shifty will be forced, by the law, to get a job to pay his fine. For once, the absurd theory of trickle-down economics will actually work because Shifty having a job "on the books" means that he will also, by default, have to pay child support, which is something he has avoided doing up to this point. My niece and two nephews deserve those funds.

Well, Internet, hell hath frozen over. The fat lady, dear god, has finally sung.
Like a true sociopath, Shifty's response to the sentencing was to announce that he would appeal. Appeal what, exactly? The sentence? The reparations? His guilty plea?

Whatever.

My advice to Shifty?

You might want to keep your trap shut in the BIG HOUSE, pal. You don't want to invite your foot or any other appendage in there.

Another PMS Rant

Gosh, it's been a while since I've ranted so you might want to buckle up.

Glenn Beck is an idiot. There is just no nice way to put that. At the gym that I attend most days of the week, the television set in the cardio section is tuned to FOX and since Dallas and I are creatures of habit, we tend to be at the gym at the same time every day. At the end of my weight lifting workout, when adrenaline is high, and the endorphins are flowing, I usually head over to the treadmill or bike for a twenty minute interval session. And EVERY SINGLE DAY, I am there during Glenn Beck's hour of lunacy. I wholeheartedly agree that in a democratic society, the voices of dissent should be heard but Beck takes it to a whole new level of ignorance.

What happened to the time when parents received a piece of mail from their child's school communicating important bits of information? I missed a crucial football meeting for my son because the coaches relied upon thirteen year old boys and their version of the telephone game to get their message across. I appreciate that they have that kind of confidence in the maturity of their team but wouldn't it be smart to have a back up plan? Like an mass email? Instead, besides sharing it with the boys, the meeting date was published on the school website five days before it happened. Like I'm clicking over to the school website on a daily basis to see what's new. Like I'm THAT parent. I'm way too damn selfish to be THAT parent. After calling the school counselor, I learned that my son was one of about thirty boys who seemed to have blanked on the meeting and the ensuing practices. So, Dylan was transferred into regular PE instead of football PE. I've never seen such a relieved kid when I broke the news to him. He hated football; LOATHED it, like any nerdy, braniac, nose-in-a-book boy does. Apparently, I'm not hearing my son very well these days.

Poop. What in the world is up with dog owners who think it is okay for their pets to use our neighbourhood as their own personal toilet? I don't let my cat defecate in your flower beds so why do you think it is okay for your schnauzer to lay a log on my lawn? Or the public walking trails? I understand that when a dog needs to go, he needs to go but for goodness sakes, pick the CRAP up!

So, I've got an iPhone and like lots of other iPhone owners, my battery life is terrible. Rather than fight it, continually worried about where I was going to plug in to charge it up, I waved the white flag and purchased a Mophie. It's a fantastic idea and when it works, it is fabulous but the problem is that the failure rate of this battery pack is absurd. My first one worked for a day. Really. ONE DAY. My second one (that was sent as a replacement) worked for a month. Now, it won't hold a charge, either. At the Apple store, the salesperson told me that they get returns all of the time on the Mophies. Their profit margin has to be massive because there are whacks of reviews on the internet from mostly unsatisfied consumers and yet, the company is still in business. How does that happen? I will admit that their customer service department is pretty good, which is surprising, considering the volume of mail and calls they must receive but wouldn't it be more profitable to just build a bloody quality device in the first place? Hacks me off.

My daughter has been in a day camp sponsored by our local school system for the summer. Included in our weekly fees are meals and snacks. As the first day of school neared, we were informed that the children would be moved from a single collective center to their respective schools. This meant each child would now need a packed lunch from home as school cafeteria facilities would not be operational until Thursday. I was thrilled. I prefer this, actually. The real kicker, the thing that got stuck in my craw was the warning that accompanied this announcement. We were told that our child's lunch must contain a grain, a fruit or vegetable component and some sort of protein. If the school looked and determined that the sack lunch was lacking, they would provide the missing ingredients at $0.60 each.

Bravo, I thought.

Until Olivia woke up one morning and begged me for breakfast at home since she wanted to avoid the POP TARTS they were serving at school. I didn't make a fuss (honestly, I didn't) but I find it offensive to be lectured about nutrition by a system that serves Pop Tarts for breakfast and Hot Pockets for lunch. It makes four letter words dance on the end of my tongue.

Finally, there is the media aimed at my children. We've got television sitcoms that feature wiseass, prepubescent kids who portray every adult as gullible, pedantic and irrelevant or we've got "reality TV", which has made stars of the vapid like Snooki and Sarah Palin. And how about the music scene? Ke$ha's music is fun, absolutely, but hearing my eight year old daughter sing lyrics like," Boys trying to touch my junk, junk
Gonna smack him if he getting too drunk, drunk" makes me wince.
And nostalgic for The Brady Bunch and disco.

Well, maybe not disco.

A Rosie Time

This past weekend, I had one of my long lost cousin/sistas in town for a visit. She was present during the most formulative years of my life and thus, she knows from where my most neurotic personality flaws originate.

She knew my father.

I don't often chat about him because we have been estranged for sixteen years and there isn't much reason for him to pop into my mind. Since becoming a parent, I probably understand him a bit better and consequently, on those rare occasions when he enters my thoughts, the overriding emotion is pity because I realize that he was just a product of the messages that he received as a child.

Sometimes I hate him, though.

Truth.

So, when my cousin pulled up in her rental car and opened the door, I was unprepared for the immediate jolt back to my childhood. Rosie most definitely favours that side of the family, as I do. We share a Jay Leno-like chin. She giggled and the sound was as familiar to me as my own voice. It brought memories of our cottage and fried clams, wild blueberries and coarse, blonde sand. It reminded me of a house on the hill with corn fields, tractor rides and endless hours playing in the labyrinth of a basement where every room had a nickname and a purpose.

Over the five days that she visited, we reminisced and filled in the missing details of our adult lives. Sentences began with either, "Do you remember.." or "Tell me about...". We examined each other's children, assigning noses, foreheads, hands and teeth to the different branches of our family. We looked at old, old pictures, in awe of our shared history and unexpectedly, found ourselves quite forgiving from our perch of middle age.

There was one photo of my mum in curlers, pregnant with my brother and wading in the shallow end of a pool. She was looking directly into the camera and she seemed relaxed and happy. Directly across from her stood my father. He was still thin back then, balding, and impossibly young. In the picture, he is turned slightly, his gaze focused on my mother. The way he holds his mouth, with a mixture of contempt and anger, caused a shiver to travel the length of my spine. I recognized that look. I wanted to jump into that frame for a second, grab my mother by the shoulders and tell her to RUN FAR, FAR AWAY!

We all have a path, I suppose.

The weekend passed by in a blur of activity with BBQs, swimming, a day on the lake and one ill-fated visit to the gym, which left Rosie reacquainted with her ass and begging for ibuprofen. We laughed, sometimes riotously, and we discovered that there are things that we have done (like spew in our purses) and continue to do (step away from the Crispy Crunch) simply because we share the same DNA. I'm not kidding. In the great battle of nature versus nurture, we are poster children for strong but undesirable genetic traits. We sat our kids down and told them that because of the blood that coursed through their veins, they would have to be especially careful or they could easily end up homeless in the parking lot of a Tim Horton's Donut drinking rum from a paper bag and licking powdered sugar from their fingers. "Heed our advice darlings. We know whereof we speak," we said.

I'm sure one day, when my children seek therapy in an effort to unravel the dysfunction of their childhood, that particular discussion will figure prominently in the CRAZY THINGS MY MOTHER TOLD US column. Oh well. I still feel good about warning them.

Predictably, our visit with my cousins ended with hugs, kisses and promises to get together again in the near future. As we watched them drive away, I felt a stinging lump form in my throat because no matter how many years pass between visits, family is everything. EVERYTHING.

And the goodbyes never get any easier.

Retail Therapy

Last Friday, my husband and I anticipated that he would be receiving an offer from a company that has been courting him for the past nine weeks. Yes, you read that correctly.

NINE, LONG, BUREAUCRATIC BULLSHITIFIED, WEEKS.

And it's not like Dallas is playing hard to get. This job looks like a good fit for our family but it does come with a few drawbacks because like the idea of soul mates, the notion of the "perfect" job is delusional. This one comes pretty close though. It boasts a good income, good benefits, a clearly defined career path and it's in an industry where integrity and hard work still mean something. On the down side, the position is located in another state and the hiring process is about as efficient as BP sealing an oil well.

Friday, I lost my mind after finding out that the latest meeting was just another friendly chat that did absolutely nothing to further the process. I was so angry that we would soon have to dip into our savings just to pay bills. When were we going to catch a break? To me, it seemed that we get two big leaps ahead only to fall three steps behind. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

So I went shopping.

Along with a boatload of desperately needed new clothes, since those hanging in my closet dated back to the Reagan era, I casually dropped into the Apple store.


Isn't it gorgeous?

I love it.

Steve Jobs is my hero.

Now some HUSBANDS might comment that a handful of dark chocolate would likely have soothed the beast and that I didn't just browse the Apple store, I AMBUSHED it but, on Sunday morning, when I handed my hubby a fresh cup of java and our shiny new iPad with the New Zealand Herald in all it's high definition glory glowing on its face, I could have sworn I heard him say,

"Oh yeah. Come to Papa."