Manic Monday

Another day... another dollar. Well, six hundred of them. There was six hundred dollars in my bank account this morning and I had no clue where they had come from.

I looked at the atm slip and tilted my head and tried to figure out who my mysterious benefactor might be. Court case pay off? Stimulus check direct deposit? Deciding to call the bank when it opened on a break, I headed into work, munching cheerfully on an onion bagel.

Bank error in my favor: Collect $600

I got to work and worked for two hours. I called the bank. I asked for a history of my deposits. They said cheerfully (it was a Monday. I think Officeland is run on High Octane Coffee on Monday and everyone is cheerful or at least blasted on caffeine and sounds like it.) that I had deposited the money on Thursday.

No. Really. I had not.

I asked what check I had deposited. They said they did not know. It just said check. I admitted I hated to say it but could they find out. Because, honestly, no, I had not. I do not know who had but it was not me. But if they wanted to give it to me, hey... I will take it.

They quickly advised me they would research it and call me back.

On my next break I went out and found out that:

Bank error corrected: -$600

Sigh. Well, easy come, easy go. But on the downside I would have to deposit my paycheck now. And had I spent any of that check? I would have to call the bank again.

But before I could, I had another message.

My youngest had fallen and 'maybe' broken his finger in gym, probably not, and the school had taped it to the next finger and given him an ice pack and sent him back to class and what would I like to do?

I would like to become an alcoholic but I hate the taste of strong spirits.

I did not, however, think this was the appropriate response. I called the school back and without telling them that I was already bummed because I had just lost $600 (well, I had!) and was already crabby and here they had gone and broken my baby... I asked how they had broken my baby.

I then left work (more money... can you hear the flushing noise?) and headed to Rock Creek to get the young one. An X-Ray was in order. On the way, I made that call to the bank. On 422 somewhere between Niles and Howland, I was talking to the bank teller when I noticed everyone else had gotten in the far lane. I no longer could. They had done so due to the line of police cars along side the road. The lane was still free, so I could still pass. I wondered why everyone else had gotten over.

That was when I noticed that the road was on... FIRE! There were patches of fire on the road. And I had a gas leak. Not a major one but I was driving over fire and I could smell the fire and that was probably not good and where were the police officers from the cars if the road was on fire and I was driving over it?

Oh! There they were! Up the hill... leading... Pigs??? Pigs on leashes??? Large sow like pigs not cute little piglets too. What on earth were they doing and why was the road on fire?

I did not even realize I was doing a running dialogue until the bank teller began answering me.

She was asking me where I was that this was going on... and how and why. Like I knew. I was only looking. I mean, hey. I am just the observer.

So, I got back to my kid, took him towards the hospital. But we stopped for gas. In a continuation of my random luck, he won a pack of Mentos and I won 1000 bonus Speedy Reward points when we got gas. He held up his finger and said, "I started today grounded. I went to school, was having a good day, got hurt. Then I got to go home, which is cool. Then I win Mentos. Today is a weird day." I could see his point. It sure was. For me, too.

We went to the hospital. They did not make us wait to go back. They quickly took their pics and it looked like we were going to be on time to get the other kids from MJ's.

I curled around Ash in the hospital room. We waited for his results. We crashed and fell into deep sleep. I woke with my mouth tasting like glue, looked at the clock. I realized that although I was refreshed from my nap, I was also late to get the other kids and WHY WERE WE STILL IN THE HOSPITAL.

I asked the lady in the middle that. She advised that our results just got back. She smiled. Kindly. Cheerfully. I brushed my hair out of my face and wiped the drool from my chin.

They came in. They put a splint on his (lucky again) non broken two (not one, unlucky) fingers. Off we sped and gathered the other two kids.

And in the words of the Bangles..."Its just another Manic Monday..."

Book edits... and life getting in the way :)

Sorry about the delay on the posting of more of Boo! but book edits on Odd Stuff are coming back on the 23rd and Siren's Song is nearly done so although the plan was a more steady flow of words, life got in the way. More is coming by Weds, but until then... here is what I have been up to.

Siren's Song, book two of the Odd Stuff series, has been pushing me to finish it and has resulted in me losing more sleep than I can afford to lose. I have been running on mostly coffee due to the plot coming out as fast as I can type it and although this is great and my word counts are at an all time high, I keep looking back through and rereading it assuming that I must have done it wrong. None of my work comes quite this easily. But the flow is within the parameters of the outline, the word count per chapter is where I wanted it to be so I have not gone on long rants... it is both numerically and plot wise going great. My prereader is eating it up as it apparently sounds just as great as it has felt like it was going to sound.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For either something to trip me up or for it to suddenly not flow so well. But it hasn't and I keep writing it. I am kind of amazed by myself at this point. I think that I have just spent enough time with these characters and enough time in their world that I know what is going on and once I got the set up done, the middle and climax are just... well, easy.

I am going to regret those words. Eight more chapters left and I should not have applied the word easy at this point... I just know it.

Kiddos are doing well... at least two out of three are. Justice has decided it is her new life's work to drive me batty. Apparently my hair is not graying at a pace that suits her because she has gone utterly boy crazy. Her studies have tanked, I am getting calls from the principal and she has suddenly become belligerent.

Where has my sweet princess gone?

Oh, yeah, puberty. What was I thinking?

The boys have settled into the new school with an ease that has amazed and thrilled me. They both had friends and "engagements" (David's word for his plans for the weekend) set up. I am now little more than a taxi. But I am still a cuddleable taxi, so no beef on my part and their grades were awesome, so they shall live yet another day.

Now if I could just get the dishwasher here from the farm... all would be well and right in my world...

September Party

Every year for our birthday there is a party. Technically it is Santino's birthday party, but since a bunch of our birthdays all fall in September it has gotten named the September party and we all crash it and celebrate at once.

Last night (well the whole weekend really) is the September party. Me, Jus and Ash and this year Jamie, loaded up my grocery-go-getter and headed over to the barn for our "life" reunion. Better than any family reunion, better than any class reunion, the September party over the years has evolved into a reunion of all the people who matter because you chose to make them matter.

Class reunions are reunions of people you went to school with because you had to. Family reunions are people you were born into. The September party was a bunch of us who became friends, for some reason or another over the years (I got in by default at age 17 and then got custody of Santino through the divorce, or so I like to joke) and have stayed friends through thick and thin. When we were younger it was a drunken mess of us all slogging around. As we have aged, it has evolved into a tri-generational party. There is the parent generation, the our generation and then the herd of kids. It boggles my mind sometimes that the kids are now getting to be the age that some of us became friends.

For instance one of the kids used to come strolling over to my apartment when she was nine or so for "high tea" and to do art. Now she is seventeen. The age when I first started appearing on Santino's hood at Chanel Products. About a hundred years ago. About a minute ago she was even tinier and I could pick her up and carry her. She was a tiny little thing on Chestnut Street, all hair and eyes.

I stare at her the most as she reminds me how very old we are all getting.

Anyway, once a year we all herd to Santino's and eat and drink too much and visit. There is some drama, some laughter, some romance, some tears. Always it is a huge chance for writer me to people watch. Always it is a huge chance for me to let down my hair (which I don't do) and be a person not just a mother, worker and otherwise upstanding member of the community. At Santino's I am The Virg and nothing greater or lesser. I am all that I was at seventeen. I am all of my mess ups, all of my flaws and yet they like me any way. All of the gritty bits no one in the real world knows are out there when I go there... divorce bits. Nasty hide in the closet bits. Dumb things I did when I was a kid bits. And none of it matters.

And as well it is a time when I get to be proud of who I have become. I get to talk about what I have done. I sold my book. I am still able to be on my own with three kids. All of the health stuff has not gotten me down. They are my friends. It is a strange sort of safe zone. I feel really lucky to have it.

So after all that lead in, I went to the Sept Party last night and as advertised it was all of the above. I had a few dramatic moments. I had a few exceptionally deep conversations that may or may not be remembered by the people I was having them with due to alcohol consumption. I planned two weddings and one divorce (well, I have to divorce one of them so that I can marry the other and have the second wedding...) and I got more hugs than I get in a year outside my family.

I am relaxed in a way I won't be for a year and I have a smashing headache that is fortunately my only hangover side effect.

That and lack of sleep were my only bad side effects. I have to go over and clean up. I have to get some laundry done. But part of me wishes reality could back off for another day. I have a feeling one conversation I had is going to result in an argument... but life is dull without some drama and you only live once. Once spin around per person and my friend in Warren is going through something right now which sort of brought home to me, in combination with my own health issues, that if there is something you want to do, you kind of just have to do it and let the consequences be damned. God does not promise us tomorrow. He only gives us this moment. And I took my moment. I am content with that.
For now. Then again, that is easy to say in my cocoon.

Speaking of the moment, Pray for Lucas.

Lucas is a little boy in Warren. He went to a minor league baseball game. He was sitting in the stands in his parents lap. He is four. He got hit in the head by a foul ball.

He is now and has been in Akron Children's Hospital and has had multiple surgeries due to the major trauma to his brain. They almost lost him and don't know yet what will happen to him.

All in a moment. And he is four. He went to a baseball game and was safe in his parents lap. In a moment it all changed. The team was the Scrappers and it is all over the Youngstown news but isn't getting any coverage down here. My friend Penny is his great aunt. Can you imagine?

Between that and my issues lately, I have been praying for Lucas and thinking hard about my choices. No one promises you tomorrow. Live for now, do what you can, and never regret.

*Grin* Probably I should wear a warning to that effect.

This was the newspaper article re:Lucas
http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/sep/03/prayers-go-out-to-boy-hit-by-foul-ball-at/?newswatch
He was on the news too, but I can't find the link to the show.
This is the link to the hospital if you would like to send well wishes to Lucas, he is having a rough day...
https://www.akronchildrens.org/

Well, we're movin' on u-u-up!

Today I woke up to Ashton having a conniption because he thought we had overslept because the sun had risen and I had not dragged his butt out of bed. I giggled and tried to curl him into my side and explained that it was my day off.

He was unconvinced, sure he was missing school, and trudged off to get dressed and find food.

Ah, I am such an inspiration of organization to my kids. By being a walking disaster, I am driving them to organize their own lives and become independent. Truly, it was the master plan all along.

I got out of bed, looked at the clock, and decided we had time to move some stuff to the new place. Deciding I was in much better health today (as I felt I could do, haha) and realizing I had access to strong young backs, I put the kids to moving once they were ready for school.

I can't say as this was met with unenthusiasm. They are excited about the new place. Either that or (grr) they are worried about me. And they know I am a bullheaded Irish/Italian who will and has just done it herself, so it would be done today because I hath ordered it so...

Once the car was loaded, I realized we were no longer early for school.

Actually we were tardy.

I don't know why, but this school system does that to me. Get me to Summit and we had one absent for 2 of the kids and 2 tardies the whole year. Put me in Ashtabula county schools and we max out our limit every time. I think it is that the Apathy Bug bites my ass in Bula. Apathy Bug flies in and says that if the school is disorganized and argumentative, well, I can be back.

If the school is cooperative and tries to meet my kids needs, well, I feel mean and stupid not following their rules.

Apathy Bug had a lunch lady bugging Ashton so far this year. Apathy Bug had someone call me and ask if David, who has food allergies, can sit next to someone eating beef. Airborne beef? I was appalled. I explained that food allergies were from ingesting. I explained that it is like peanut allergies. Do they separate those kids from kids eating peanut butter? Apathy Bug has bit me twice already and my bum is a bit sore over it.

Apathy, Apathy, that's our cry... a-p-a-t-h... ah, the hell with it.

So the kids were late going to school, which made Ash have more of a conniption. Which, bad mommy award, I found funny.

I then went back to look at our new home and fully invade it with Jordan in tow.

Tony had remodeled it. Justice has a room. It has an antique dresser that folds out into a desk and this pretty little chair and a lovely desk. I put her clothes in it and Jordan made the bed and I need tacks for her Twilight poster. She has her own room again.

The boys are bunking up together. Another lovely old dresser. David has a full and Ashababy has a twin. I giggled. They have a room again.

I have a room. I have a desk to write at. I have a room.

He made a little dining room by the furnace and He arranged the living room around the huge projection TV and I have a breakfast bar. I was thrilled.

We are on our own again. No roommates. Just us. I sighed. Our space. Our home.

Told you I felt better today.

Now off and going to argue with the school and US gov. Good times.

Lots of Blood and Gore (Graphic-Adult only)

I awoke feeling sticky and a bit moist when I heard the alarm go off at 4:30 this morning. Blearily I silenced it and fumbled for the lights. I glanced back at the bed and saw the blood and tried to decide where it had come from.

Honestly, I never guessed me.

I went to the bathroom, deciding to deal with it in a minute, having more urgent morning matters to deal with and found out where the blood had come from completely by coincidence.

Huh. Well that was odd. I cleaned the sheets and the mattress cover which had been saturated as well (still not really thinking too deeply what that amount of blood could mean) and woke up the kids for school.

We all know, show must go on, and this is what pads are for. Not that I have ever had anything remotely of that nature happen. Actually nightly nothing ever comes out. I lay down, stuff stops. That's how I flow. But, hey, I am old now. Maybe stuff changed. Whatever. School to be gotten to, work to be done.

I dropped off the kids and went to work, still determined that it was going to be a normal day.

The pad was full and there was way more still coming.

I cleaned up again and it had only been an hour.

Again, whatever, clocked in and a little voice in the back of my head popped in with a service announcement. I have little voices that do that. It reminded me of a fact learned at some random point. The average menstruation is something like a few tablespoons of blood. This had to have been more than that. Like this had to have been cups by now.

And it was bright red like I was bleeding. But what could I be bleeding from? I was not injured. I had not had... ahem, interaction, so I knew it was neither pregnancy nor failed pregnancy.

What was bleeding and why so much?

I again decided I could ignore it. It was probably just something I ate, didn't eat, hormones, stress, something dumb. Nothing to fear.

By 8:30, I had filled another pad and I passed a clot the size of a baseball.

This, even I could not ignore. This was something wrong. Something was wrong and I could not explain it so I was going to have to do what I hate most of all...

Get it looked at.

I HATE HOSPITALS. I ALSO AM NOT FOND OF DOCTORS. I respect their position. I have an enormous crush on House. I am, however, terrified to the 9Th of medical professionals the way some people are of clowns and spiders.

There is actually a story behind this and it is longer than this blog was initially intended to be, but what the hey, I am feeling chatty and am stuck with my feet propped up anyway and you are still reading, so here is the root of my medi-phobia.

My best friends growing up were members of our church. Their names rhymed and were Wayne and Kane. Yup, boys, go figure. We won't go into Kane as he has no bearing on my phobia. Wayne was awesome. He had curly blond hair that was long, as was cool in the eighties and now, and freckles. His eyes were always a laughing blue. He was clever and fun and loved Lego's and Star Trek.

Wayne lived in Mentor and I lived in Painesville and we never would have met had we not gone to the same church. His parents were awesome. Wayne Sr. taught me lots that I, as a growing techie, wanted to know. Of course this was back in the day when my Commadore 128 was cutting edge as it ran both the 64 and 128 (only old folks would even get that, but then again, I still own Wayne Jr's Atari... not game system, computer. Talk about a dinosaur.) He also introduced me to the wonders of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Debs was everything I used to wish my mom was. Stay at home mom, which my mom wasn't and I can't afford to be and she was fun and liked to laugh and hang out and was cool.

He was my first "real" boyfriend. I wrote his name in hearts in my books. He took me on my first date. I won't go into the traumatic scene with my mom before (aren't there always at least one) but I will say I was teary eyed when my makeup was finally on. We were going on a Valentine's Day trip with the teen group (he was 15, I was 14, Gods we were young!) to Brown Derby. I walked into our dining room and he had gotten me a four foot tall Ziggy card. He had also gotten me a heart shaped box of chocolates, a red heart shaped pair of earrings, a dozen red roses, and a golden love knot ring with a real diamond in it (it was tiny, diamond dust really, but it was my first 'real' piece of jewelry as well).

I looked at it all and looked at him and those laughing blue eyes. Those same blue eyes had laughed at me from up in a crab apple tree as he had pulled me up and taught me how to climb a tree. Those same blue eyes had laughed at me as he had reached out and pulled me onto a merry go round the first time we had met. Those same blue eyes had laughed at me more recently when he had pulled me close in a corn field when we were playing hide and seek and I had thought he was going to kiss me. He had not.

Now they laughed down at me and he had said, "I wanted to give you a date you would never forget. Figured this would be hard to top." I reached out and his eyes laughed down at me and his strong fingers closed around mine. I remember thinking they always would. And that it was good.

I am thirty-two in a few weeks. He still hasn't been topped. It was the best first date. He was the best first date.

A few weeks later, the back pain he had been having, the pain he had gotten a new bed for because no one knew why a fifteen year old boy with a history of only asthma who never had been one to complain and now said his back hurt all the time... well, they figured out what was causing it.

Cancer. His kidney was the size of a cantaloupe and it was all cancer. Vigorous, aggressive, life altering cancer.

I remember he didn't seem scared. His faith, always more indomitable than mine, did not waiver. I was always, still am, one to curse God and shake my fist. He just said, it would be okay and gave me a hug.

There was talk of hope, and prayer and how strong he was being.

Everyone continued to watch me do all the wonderful things I did. I was still golden and healthy and terribly smart, or so everyone said. And I hated it. I hated being me because I watched as his curls, curls I could wrap around my finger around, when we were in the car and he rested his head in my lap, and coil them tight and then watch them bounce back into place, fell out. They fell out and I stayed healthy. We listened to Free Fallin' by Tom Petty and I continued to play with those last few strands of curls as he got more tired and more sick. Finally, there were no curls.

I got a pin that said, 'bald guys are sexy,' which he showed proudly to his nurses. The nurses all knew who I was. How could they not? He had my picture, pictures of us, pictures of me modeling, pictures of me healthy while he was sick and dying, plastered all over his wall.

It made me hurt. I smelled his skin and it smelled of medicine and not of Wayne. I saw his backpack, the one that had liquid food in it because he was too sick to eat, and I hated eating because why should I be able to eat when he couldn't? Nobody noticed I lost weight that year. They put a tube in his chest for the medicine, that was supposed to make him better, but that just made him so frail and thin. They taught me to clean it out. I smiled and joked with him but inside I was screaming.

I hated the doctors. I hated the hospital. I hated it all. They kept saying it was getting better and they lied to me. They smiled and they talked of hope and I smiled because he smiled and I watched him get worse. I kissed his head and I would leave and I would hope that I wouldn't make it to see him because it hurt to see him. But always when I did, those blue eyes laughed at me. And his hand, his hand that was always so much stronger and bigger than mine, would reach for me. And when it did, maybe things weren't so bad. Because, really, as long as he reached for me, it was ok.

And I would curse God because Wayne was good and kind and had faith and could make good things happen and I was really good at messing things up. I was good at not having faith. I was good at being bad. What kind of world was God making it if he would take someone out of it like Wayne who could do so much good if given time, and leave someone like me, instead?

I was fifteen when he gave me Goofy for my birthday. Goofy was a stray cat, meaner than piss. He knew we would like each other. (We did and I kept her, then one of her kittens until last year when he died of old age.) We had a date scheduled. Wayne was now sixteen, and had gotten his license. We were supposed to go on our one year anniversary date for Valentine's Day. He had gotten tests back that said he was in remission.

I woke the week of Valentine's Day at 1:15 in the morning. I stared at the clock. I remember I could have sworn I heard Wayne say my name. I went to school and wrote my friend Trish a note and told her all about it. She still has the note. She wrote back that I should call him and make sure he was ok.

I came home and was going to call Wayne and tell him. I asked my Dad to use the phone to call him. It was long distance and remember, fifteen. He said no and that my mother would talk to me about it when she got home.

Like a typical kid though, I didn't let it go. I pestered and wheedled until he said, "He died, ok! He died so you can't call him. It happened last night."

I looked at him and I remember I felt nothing. I remember I told him that he was going to get in trouble for lying to me.

I called my mom at work. She said, yes, he was gone.

I still did not believe it.

I called Debs and she said that the tests were wrong, switched or something. He was worse. Basically, the cancer had taken him over. He had come home to die. No one had told me. No one. He had sat in a chair and fallen asleep and just stopped breathing. Peacefully.

At one-fifteen.

When she said one-fifteen finally, I don't know why, I believed her.

I still did not cry.

Through all the funeral preparations, of which Wayne and Debs made me a part of, through the beginning of the calling hours in which I, like a raving bitch ordered they take the lipstick off him as it was wrong, I did not cry.

Until my mom showed up. She asked me if I had touched him. I rolled my eyes at her. I was, after all, a teen. "No."

She took me back to his coffin. I looked at him again. His hair, if memory serves, was dandelion fluff. Not grown in. Not full bald. His freckles were even on his head. His face was well remembered and he looked asleep. His eyes did not laugh up at me and he did not smell like medicine. That, at least, was good. I touched his face. I adjusted his jacket. I talked to him.

I don't remember what I said. Something stupid, I am sure. "Hi, me again."

Automatically, I reached, since I was touching him now and talking to him, to twine my fingers with his.

And for the first time since we had met those fingers did not catch mine. He had always closed his fingers around mine. He had always held me back. Wayne was the one unconditional in my life. My mom was not. No one else unconditionally just caught me, no matter if they should have been mad or not and just held on. Wayne's fingers always wrapped around mine. My fingers tightened in his and reality crashed. I was alone. He was gone. They had really all lied. There was no hope, he was gone forever and I was really alone.

And holding his hand desperately I broke on the inside. I cried, finally. I am not entirely sure I ever entirely fixed that broken piece to this day.

And I learned that doctors don't always
a:know for sure what they are talking about. Sometimes they guess based on the information and they are just plain wrong.

b:tell the truth. Sometimes, when talking to the dying, the young, the love of the young, or the weak, they lie, sugar coat or otherwise give you false hope. AKA LIE.

c.read the information correctly. He was never in remission. There really was a test that came back and said he was. The test was someone else's and it got swapped. Based on that I was able to delude myself further into denial.

Based on all of the above experiences, I do not terribly trust diagnosis.

Further, I have never been able to convince myself entirely that I was not meant, as obviously the greater evil, to expire in his stead. God knows, literally, I offered.

So when I was bleeding profusely and realized I was going to have to hop my happy butt into the hospital or risk bleeding out from the... ahem, nether region, and that I was going to have to do it alone and that it was likely going to require an exam... which I detest as it is humiliating...

I chain smoked and was shaking. Blood loss I can ignore. A looming building thick with nurses and doctors... I was trembling like a leaf in a hurricane.

I went in and advised them as to my condition. They proceeded to poke, prod, test and retest me. The diagnosis?

More tests. 'Something' is very wrong. You are bleeding. There are many clots on your ultrasound. You are not able to work. You cannot work tomorrow. Here are some meds for pain.'

Me-"I'm not in pain. I don't need pain meds. Why am I bleeding like a stuck pig? Why can't I go back to work? Look, can you just make the note cover that I was here so I can go back and so that today is not a complete wash?"

My thoughts- If you people took my blood, looked in my body, used an ultrasound, made me drink a gallon of water, did another ultrasound, and you still are not coming back with anything better than 'something is wrong' I am going to work. And apparently you are all deaf. I am not in pain. I am just bleeding. A lot.

"Let me get the doctor."

So she hustles out and comes back with the doctor. He looks at me. I am fully clothed now, cell in hand, name tag for work back on. I am ready to leave.

"You have clotting and blood loss. You need to go home and relax today and tomorrow at least. I am not releasing you for work. You are not able to work."

I glare at him.

"I sit. At work, I sit."

He cheerfully glares back, "Go home. Relax. Go to a gynecologist. Find out what is causing the bleeding. It may be stress or it may be hormonal, but you may need it taken care of. After the rest and follow up, you can go back to work. I released you to work Friday."

I glare more.

He does not release me.

I cannot work. I am not released. I cannot not (double negative makes a positive, so yes I have to) turn the paper in. If I don't, then it looks like I just bailed work mid-shift for no reason.

I stomp out of the hospital and am hit by dizziness. I glare at the cement and grit my teeth. I light a cigarette. This raises blood ox levels. I figure this will counteract the blood loss. This, my friends, is called Virg-logic.

I call work and cannot get my boss. I bicker with one of my best friends who has my best health interests at heart, dammit.

I am so not happy. I foresee more tests. I loathe tests. Then they are going to make more guesses. Then I will not like the results and they will call for nasty things. Surgery. Medicine.

Things that I have absolutely no faith will fix anything.

I have faith in God. I have faith in many things. Sadly, a long time ago, I lost my faith in medicine when I realized they don't know everything. And they lie.

A Vampire In a Daylight World

The shrill bleeping of the cell phone interrupted the interlude between me and my lover. I jerked alert and blinked at the hallway which was in my immediate range of sight. Nighttime noises, snoring and the dog lifting his head, greeted me. I fumbled to silence the phone. I fell out of the bed, as my coordination had not caught up with the adrenal rush of the alarm and made it to the bathroom relatively unharmed. I glared at the image in the mirror.

I do not look good at four thirty in the morning. I showered and cleaned most of my body. It is funny how when you are half-awake you decide which bits really need cleaned and which bits are unimportant. Or at least which bits you don't give a darned about because if you don't clean them you are pretty sure they won't stink.

I crawled back out of the shower and rubbed vigorously with a towel, crept gingerly into my clothes as my skin was super sensitive as it would rather be tucked into bed and went to jar my children to life.

They awoke and off we went. There was a minor incident with David. For sake of his pride, which is sensitive at ten, we won't go into it. Needless to say, eleven was nearly not seen.

We made it to the sitter where my elder two collapsed and immediately went back to sleep. Ash proceeded to play his Guitar Hero Air Guitar (with Amp) at full blast. The babysitter, clutching her coffee, was defended by me when I explained that no one wants to hear Iron Man at 5am. No one. Please, although you got it for your birthday, do not play it till the sun comes up. Ash, grudgingly, agreed, and I trudged off again to work.

But the scene with Ash had me too late to go the way that would swing me past Starbucks. And when I tried to run through Mickey Dees the line was too darned long.

Coffee-less. Oh, yeah. Ba-a-d choice. And I forgot cash. So credit card and no coffee in hand, I got to the office.

There is a strange, unearthly stillness to an office first thing in the morning. I have never been there that early. The phones had not started going yet. People were talking amongst themselves. They all had coffee. I shuffled to my cubicle and logged on to my station.

I logged onto my phone.

It did not ring.

It rang maybe three times that first hour.

I eventually began stabbing myself with a pen to stay awake. I tried pulling out my hairs one by one. I tried slapping myself but this drew attention so I went back to the stabbing as it was more quiet and efficient.

I wished for a stapler. A nice Swingline. Staples would have kept me awake.

Finally it was time for my break and coffee mug in hand I ran to the new coffee machine that accepted credit.

There was a page of instructions on how to use it. I read them. Swipe card. I obediently swiped. Make selection. I selected. Coffee. Strong beautiful coffee.

I waited. The machine beeped. It turned blue and nothing came out. I growled at it and swiped again.

Made selection.

Beep! It turned blue.

I growled at the machine. I was smarter than a coffee machine. I read further in the directions with my coffee-less, sleep deprived, desperate brain.

Something about a five dollar hold on my credit card... whatever! I don't care! Take five hundred! Give me coffee!

Blah, blah, press complete. Okay, swipe, select, press complete... wait.

Nothing. Growl. Punch machine.

People are beginning to gather and stare.

Read again. Whatever. I don't want to read the damned directions. I can't read anymore. I need coffee to read.

I smack the machine. I open the plastic door by force and stick my mug in and smack the machine again for emphasis. I order it, "Give me coffee!"

I swipe. I make my selection. It closes its door. I wait. Nothing. I smack, swipe, select and kick it and yell, "NOW!"

Apparently this time the machine was afraid or had gotten enough money off my card to send a Colombian family on vacation because sweet dark heaven poured into my mug. Applause broke out.

I chugged half of it and stumbled back to my cubicle.

The rest of the day was a blur really.

But it was fueled by coffee.

Really, really expensive coffee.

Words fail me...

Why is it those who are closest to you hurt you the most?

I have got to have something cheery and funny happen soon because lately my blog has become bummer central and previously I loved the fact it was pretty upbeat and funny (or so I would like to think) but today I had something big and bad enough happen that I want to get it off my chest. And as the blog is my vent space, I am venting.

Today was Ash's 8th birthday which was a big day for him and me. He is the baby and we woke up and I looked at his almost-grown-in two front teeth and again thought that my baby wasn't much of a baby anymore. He grinned up at me and unlike his older, more demanding siblings, all he wanted for his birthday was his family to be there. He, this birthday, did not ask for the usual (mom, can I have a laptop, a zebra, a trip to the moon).

Instead he asked me for his dad to come. He asked if we all could just hang out. He asked if we could do it at a playground so he could play. He wanted a cake that he had picked out and had told Jamie about. He wanted us all to go. That was it. He wasn't being his usual demanding self. He was upbeat and chipper and cuddly.

So I went off and Jamie and a friend pulled off the cake and they showed up. Michelle and I pulled together a few presents last minute even though the budget is so tight right now my eyeballs are being pulled out my ears. Ray came in from Madison because Ash asked him to, even though I am sure he had better things to do with his time and that it was vastly uncomfortable for him. We did it because it was all the kid asked for.

Mom asked, "What? Why would you want me there?"

I don't know why it hurts me so much that she didn't go. I don't know why it bugs me so damn much that when we pulled in and he looked around and he asked me where she was that I had to tell him she wasn't coming. He was cool about it. I don't know why it bugs me other than he is eight and he should not have had to be cool about it.

She should have been there.

And when I asked her why she did not come her answer was that simple, "Why? You did not need me there. Its not like I am his real grandmother."

If not her, who, exactly? She is my blood mother. She gave birth to me. I gave birth to him. He is my son and my life and I cannot comprehend how she can treat her grandchild with any less than the same love than she treats the rest of my kids.

But to say, well, fine, you are being unfair to my child and if you cannot treat my children equally, you cannot be around them, which would be the general solution to the issue in any other case, does not work in this case. Because to do so punishes not only her but my other two kids and my dad. And then I am the bad guy. A double edged sword in so many ways. Or continue to allow my youngest to be treated like... words fail me. A solution in this case has been such gray area for years and I have tried multiple different approaches and obviously nothing is going to work.

So what to do? Today was the straw on the camels back, that I know. I cannot look at that little kid, who I love so much, who is so full of life and has so much to give and watch him hurt for no better reason than an adult is playing petty games and does not care about his feelings. I am his guardian. I am the dragon at the gate. I must breathe the fire both literally and figuratively. I think a lot of parents forget that guardian means just that. We are the guard dogs.

I have to bite in this case.

I just wish that it wasn't my guardian that was making me growl.