Wedding Day #2

Paladin is off at therapy.  I just realized that I haven’t been here in like 2 weeks.  Ya’ll need a quick catch up.  So here goes: 

* We’re doing a menage a therapist thing now.  That’s right.  It takes 3 of them for us.  lol  Nah, it’s not quite that dire.  Dr. Mark went on a rotation for 2 months and handed us off to Dr. Max and Dr. Randy.  Dr. Randy is just for Paladin.  That was good because a fair amount of our time in therapy was being spent as one on one time between Paladin and the docs.  He needed his own thing for a while to sort through everything he’s gone through since his illness began all those years ago and to build this new life and find a direction for himself after his forced medical-retirement.  I kind of wish I were there though.  Paladin has significant short term memory loss, and I’m not there to be his short term memory bank.  As for Paladin and I, there are still issues but they are no longer BIG fights.  Just small quiet ones.  That’s progress.  Right?  Eh…

* Brian’s truck broke down and we spent several days shuttling his brother, Manjina around to temp jobs.  Manjina finally got enough cash together and the truck is back on the road… for now.  Brian’s step-brother, Ralph Jr., wants the truck back and since the VA has now taken Brian’s entire $900+ check, it’s a matter of time before the crap hits the fan on that one.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it happens off our property.

* The last kids weekend was spent coloring pumpkins (we’ll carve them this Saturday) and then Sunday after church, we had a picnic/tea party.  They had fun and I took a bunch of video for Youtube (honeywine2000 is the username if you’re curious) to send to the grandparents.  Paladin’s Dad got very emotional over the video.  He is a sweet man.  He and Paladin are both big ol’ girls.  🙂

* Here’s another kick in the lady balls for those of us with no children.  Did you know that if you’re married to someone on Social Security disability you only get benefits if you have children with them or are 62 or older?  Isn’t that lovely?  Doesn’t that fall under some sort of discrimination?  Seriously?

* Then Tina called asking if I’d talked to our Dad recently.  I haven’t.  Heck, I barely get the time to scratch my own butt half the time.  Tina couldn’t get anyone on the phone for a couple of days and finally started calling around.  Where was Dad?  JAIL!  Why?  Apparently, he and Step-slag got into it and he threatened to off himself.  She had the cops take him away.  I guess there’s a backlog of some sort because he’s been in jail a week now in protective custody waiting to see the regional head-shrinker.  Tina called Uncle Jim who lost his mind over this.  I was even surprised at the names he was calling the Step-slag.  At any rate, the last I heard a few of my uncles were getting together to go break him out.  Tina, Uncle Jim, and I have all offered to put him up over here.  Step-slag isn’t answering at their place in Mississippi and for all we know, she’s jumped ship with the contents of the house.  I guess he’s taking too long to kick the bucket.  All those multiple insurance policies must be getting expensive to keep up.  So, I guess I’ll find out eventually what’s going on there. 

* We’re also busting our humps to get everything around here done in preparation for spending more than 2 weeks in San Antonio starting the middle of next week.  A lot of it is that little stuff you do to get ready for winter like build a dog house and take out the air conditioners and repair a broken window.  But, when you’re trying to get all of that done, keeping several medical appointments, taking care of the kids, and taking care of paper work (Paladin is still trying to get his TDY crap fixed…we decided to get an advance for the trip because they’re backed up on TDY payoffs to the point that if we’re lucky we’ll get our last 2 TDY payments sometime in 2010), it all gets to the point where you don’t know what you’re doing from one minute to the next.  I haven’t even thought about what to pack yet!  And then there was special paperwork.

Yep, it took us forever and a day, but we finally got wedding 2 done.  🙂  I think it was my favorite.  It was sweet and simple and something of an international affair at that!  We just headed up to Natchitoches to Front Street and had the parish Justice of the Peace meet us there.  Front Street has such great scenery and even though it was a wet morning, we got great pictures.  We even had a local photographer who is also the Cane River Heritage Area office manager pop out and take a few pics for us and she posted them online here.  Then an older gentleman popped out and took our picture telling us that he only spoke French.  Before I could use my extremely limited high school French to ask “French Canadian or France?”, he disappeared.  Then when we went into the Les Saison candy shop for our wedding dessert (handmade chocolate truffles…mmm…so good…I get at least one every time I go), we were congratulated by a gal from London.  We were a real sight, I guess, because people were stopping and waving.  I do love living in the South sometimes.  🙂  Everyone seemed so happy to see us everywhere we went.  I would have thought they’d be jaded seeing people taking wedding pictures all the time on Front Street.  It was truly lovely.  It made me wish I’d skipped the first wedding and just had this one.  We had lunch at The Landing and then before heading home, Tina and I went into the local Goodwill.  If we were a sight on Front Street, we must have been something else at the Goodwill!  lol  One lady stopped me and asked if I was buying my dress because she was putting on a bride of Christ passion play.  😀  I’ll say it again:  I love the South.  Just to put the cherry on top of such a Southern experience, I bought several pairs of tap shoes for my Borrowed Girls (they look just like plain mary janes and I was desperate to find them inexpensive dress shoes for the holidays).  On the way back, we stopped at the Nat’l. Guard Armory and Tina dropped off the last of the ex-husband’s things (he’d left some stuff including his paternal grandfather’s coins behind and I wanted to make sure he got them before they deploy in the next couple of months) and he told her that his maternal grandfather died back in May shortly after he’d moved out.  I feel really sorry for them.  I loved his grandfather.  I really did.  Then, after all of that, we stopped at Mom’s to drop Tina off.  I wish I’d had the camera running because Mom was so happy she was about to jump out of her skin.  She said, “So now I really CAN say that they’re my grandkids!”  I just told her that I thought she already was.   They’ve been calling her Grandma for months now.  It was just a really happy day.  And here’s the proof:

Of course, if you’re on my Facebook, there should have been a link to all the photos over on Walmart’s site.  I won’t even lie and begin to promise to talk to everyone any time soon.  I’m hoping that with all the down time stuck in the hotel room in San Antonio that I can catch up for a while at least.  I’ll talk to you soon-ish though!  🙂

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Blame Karen

It was her stolen idea, and now, I’ve stolen it.  Just a bunch of lazy thieves around this place, I tell ya!  I have two great reasons: I have extra time for a short post.  And, I do have a few things on my chest.  I usually just spit it out, but I’m really good at hiding things from the people I’m in a relationship with and those I love.  I’m not sure if its a byproduct of being a woman or of being a fat woman.  It sometimes seems like those of us in the dreaded “fat” club (and I’ve known skinny girls in it too) just don’t always feel able to speak up to those we love or those we want to love us.  So here goes…

Ten Things I Wish I Could Say to Certain People- (I’m not going to bother with the disclaimer.  Feel free to guess the person in question.  It will be like a game show!)

1. I faked it every…single…time.
2. I was told it was an olive branch.  I just want to stick it up your whooha and make tapenade!
3. I almost cried when I realized that I had a grandpa again.  You’re one of the few reasons that I’m sorry its over.
4. You’re a teenager.  I don’t care what you tell yourself or how old you are physically.  You ARE a teenager.
5. I’m not sorry it’s over.  It’s actually a relief in some ways.  I’ll regret it, but I also breath easier.
6. I have wiped your ass.  You should never speak to me in less than the nicest of tones.
7. Are you ever going to tell him that the REAL reason you waited so long is you are absolutely shallow in every sense of the word?
8. I know what he said to you.  You and I both know it wasn’t an accident.
9. YES!  It is a sore point.  It always will be and I’d think that after I’ve told you that in every subtle way I can that you’d get the clue.  You’re not stupid.  Are you just playing dumb?
10. You have completely devolved and I don’t know who you are anymore.  I don’t think I want to know either.  I’m sorry, but I think it was meant to happen because we just don’t fit anymore.

Maybe I should have just written about the Gosselins or Rachael Ray?  I can’t stand either one of them.  Ahhh…celebrities…the last people we’re allowed to bash.  I love them so.  You can’t just say to someone, “You suck as a parent and I wish your kids would get put in foster care because they’re bound to do better than you even in that system!” in real life.  Why not?  Because that’s irresponsible.  If I said everything I wanted to say to the people in my life?  I’d be one lonely hermit which is the same thing everyone else would be.  Stupid society and it’s rules of behavior.  Bah!

I can say things like:

Octomom, you’re an idiot.  Didn’t you know America only likes people who have 8 kids AND a husband?  There has to be someone around to hit in the head when things are going wrong!  And would it kill you to drag everyone to church constantly to show just how much you believe in God?  See, then you wouldn’t have to be nice to the people around you.  I know, Angelina gets by without going, but she’s also spreadeagled over Brad Pitt every time you turn around.  She gets a free pass.  You’ve got to aim lower…cable television lower.

But, I can only say it to celebrities.  I can’t tell every whore I know, “You keep going to church and announcing it to everyone around you like you’re curing cancer.  Why is that?  Ok, so you went to church.  None of the messages are creeping in.  That just makes me think there’s something wrong going on in that church.”  Seriously, why is it that the biggest whores I know are constantly headed to church?  Do they even make it in the doors without feeling a little electrical shock?  Or, do they get side tracked by the pretty lights and the shiny pole on their way there?  What is up with that?

Obviously, I had extra time on my hands here.  Don’t you miss those days when I had tons of extra time and could write this sort of stuff constantly?  If so, then you really must be bored too.  🙂  Some people aren’t bored enough though.  That blogroll on the side there is going to be pared down one of these days.  There are few things lower than the blogger who shows up just long enough for you to add them to your blogroll and then disappears.  I realize some people blog for the camaraderie and to build friendships.  I guess I do to some extent, as well.  The truth is that I like the distance sometimes.  I love knowing all of you.  It’s just that life inside this box gets to feeling too tight.  The human contact thing is slightly important to me.  I’ve never been all touchy-feely but human connection is vital to everyone.  On the one hand, I don’t feel the need to forward ya’ll emails about soldiers fighting in their underwear, but on the other hand, I would like to go beyond the homepage especially when you’re hurting or going through something you are trying desperately to handle.  The truth is I’d rather you just pick up the phone.  Remember those quaint pieces of machinery?  I’ve never had any intention of saving the world, but I always want to be a safe place to fall.  So, if I don’t get on your site constantly, it’s not that I’m not thinking about you.  If I’m not emailing you twice a day and sitting on Yahoo Messenger stalking you, you might just have to live with that.  I’m still around.  I’m just difficult to reach.  Oh, and Der Stalker, I changed my phone number.  Everybody else can have the new one though!  🙂

Go on.  Say something without fear of retribution.

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Schadenfreude

I have a wicked case of Schadenfreude going on this morning.  You’ve got to love karma sometimes.

 

For those of you who don’t know, I’ll give you the short version of my story with Joe.  Joe is was the love of my life and my soulmate.  Ours was a tempestuous, senseless affair (literally I had no sense left when he was around).  He was in a loveless marriage, but I didn’t find that out until I was in too deep (don’t bother to berate me because I already did that…for years…you never think you’re that person until you’re in that position).  When we met, his wife was out of the picture and wouldn’t even come to see their son.  I openly called and visited his home.  He spent days and whole weekends at my home.  There was no reason to doubt him.  That changed ever so subtly over time, and I made a personal decision to give him time to end their marriage even though it was killing me.  Once he had passed that deadline (I hadn’t told him he had a deadline btw), I hung on a little longer.  It wasn’t just me that was deeply caught up in this.  He was too.  Where I was scared and grateful to have found this person I had been looking for, he was terrified and tried everything he could to put up barriers and push me away.  When we were together time stopped and all was right with the world.  But, by the time he drove 20 minutes to his home, he’d tell me he was going to meet someone else.   Yeah, it was sick and twisted.  It was the most anguished time of my life.  Infertility has nothing on it.  Eventually, I stopped it because I could no longer look myself in the eye, and it almost tore me apart.  I spent months blocking him mentally because I could feel him reaching out for me (in case you haven’t guessed, I tend toward the spiritual, New Age-y side of things…I believe in past lives and this isn’t the first trip Joe and I’ve taken…I’m also relatively experienced at astral travel and I spent time with M. in Iraq and could tell him who he talked to and what happened each day…freaked him the hell out  lol).  I saw Joe a while back and I was happy to learn that much of his hold on me has gone.  I no longer swoon at his mere presence, thankfully.

 

My hold on Joe is another story entirely.  You see, once you’ve had that miracle, Hollywood movie kind of love, it’s never really over.  Never.  Joe found out about my marriage not long after M. went to Iraq.  It’s probably the best thing that ever happened to M.  When a man is far away in a life and death situation, it’s pretty hard to cheat on him unless you’re completely bereft of a conscience.  It was a test and I passed it.  I had developed Joe-immunity.  Like any good Hollywood movie, Joe realized what an idiot he had been and what he had lost…too little, too late.  All Joe has left is the hope that M. will screw up enough to send me running back to him.  To that end, every now and again I get an email from Joe.  Almost any excuse will do: Christmas, a birthday, a season, a hurricane.  Yep, Joe used the recent hurricanes as an excuse to email me.  I always respond with a curt sentence or two keeping it very formal, and usually it ends at that.  For some reason, it didn’t this time.  Joe wrote again telling me all about his recent life.  Enter the Schadenfreude!

 

Joe’s life over the last year or so has been a disaster.  He moved to Texas and changed jobs because for years a female friend of his had been trying to get him to come there (I learned the hard way that Joe’s female friends are actually ex-lovers for the most part…he makes their friendship legitimate by working his guts out for them instead of just admitting to himself that it was all about the nooky…I’m pretty sure that I’m the first and only woman who never took anything from him or used him in any way…lucky me).  Once he got to Texas, he moved in with her and within 3 weeks she met a guy online and got married sending him packing (what I am for pregnancy, he is for marriage). 

 

Joe always lands on his feet though, and this time he landed on a young white woman with an inter-racial child.  He did for her what he had wanted to do for me.  He began divorce proceedings against his wife (just before I met M., Joe moved out to live on his own hoping it would be enough to convince me he had changed…it didn’t).  Unfortunately, she didn’t get along with his son and basically, Joe had to choose between his child and her (the only good thing about Joe is that he has always tried to put his son first).  So, Joe moved out again and was back in Louisiana but still working 50 miles away in Texas.  This girl must have put it all on him too because he went looking for her a while back wanting to know if they were still on or not (entirely out of character for the Joe I knew…he always pretended not to care and was downright haughty).  Her family apparently loved that she had been dating him, and then he found out why.  He was the first white man she had ever dated.  In the end, she ditched her own child and moved 300 miles away.  Joe was devastated, and if I know him, he’s doing his best to build a denial wall about a mile wide.  I had always hoped that some of the truths I had held up to him would sink in, but I guess he had to learn the hard way.  The same way I had to learn them.

 

Then the icing on the cake…Joe’s soon to be ex-wife has “come out” and is now living with her girlfriend openly.  That’s right.  He turned her.  LOL 

 

I know I shouldn’t take such pleasure in his misery, but for all the days and nights of tears and incredible highs and devastating lows, I sadly DO find some pleasure in knowing that without me he is MISERABLE.  The pain I have felt in this last year of trying to get pregnant and the misery Clomid has made my life are nothing compared to watching him leave the day I called it all off.  Everything in me screamed for him to turn around and wake up.  I couldn’t believe that he could give “once in a lifetime” up so easily when it was all I could do not to curl up in a ball and die right there.  Yes, I feel guilty for enjoying this, and I don’t really want him to be in pain.  But, I definitely see the finger of Karma in all this. 

 

Am I a Drama Queen or what?  C’mon, make me feel better by admitting to your own Schadenfreude!

 

 

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February 2-Infidelity

 Two blogs in one day? Christ on a cracker!  This one is VERY long and revealing (in fact it’s so long that I’ve only loaded some of it and left the rest as a downloadable file…feel free to skip it…that’s what those sidebar lists are there for).  Enjoy it while it lasts (or don’t…how do I know if you like this crap or not?)… 

Note: This post is inspired by Dead Baby Jokes’ ethical dilemma concerning a friend who is embarking on an affair but thinks it will make life with hubby better.  And, the fact that the rest of you are putting it all on the line and I’ve definitely been holding back (it’s my old-fashioned sense of propriety and nothing personal). 

M. and I met online through a personals website (Matchdoctor.com if you’re wondering).  We’re both older and had been around the block (if you include a German red light district in the block…M.’s contribution not mine).  And, we had both been in serious relationships which ended due to the other person’s infidelity.  We are not cheaters by nature.  

That being said…

Rest of Infidelity Post

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