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Oct. 30th, 2009

Wait...what?

mood: sleepy

So my mother is home. I ended up not calling her back in hospital, mainly because I am just so very....done.  And also, the crying..it serves no purpose but to froth her up. But she called me this afternoon and was all business, sounding in good health again. They got home after midnight last night. She will be needing home oxygen for some time and she  avoided my questions about that  aside from saying she would be getting it. 

In typical fashion, the woman who had desperately sobbed down my phone line on Monday could not be arsed to devote her attention to me for 10 damn minutes on the phone when other people were there. She kept speaking to someone else in her house while on the phone with me. That's charming. Really. While still trying to make small talk with me. She aske me what I was up to and I told her my car was being repaired and it was $500 I han't planned on spending today  (i thought it was universally acceptable to bitch about the cost of car repairs?)and she was just like "oh, um, yeah" I could hear her talking to someone else while I answered her. So rude.

And now onto some random bits and pieces:
  • I have been to Bayshore Mall three, count 'em, THREE times since Sunday. Dayum. The Man has been 4 times, he had to take his ipod touch in to the apple shop last night to try and suss out some software glitch with alarm and headphone volume and then i tuned out and whatever. It's logged. For those of youwho have not been subjected to Bayshore, it's a huge, pretty outdoor mall that is set up so it's like driving through a small town. Quaint. Except it is a CLUSTERFUCK because it's like a tiny small town with 1 street that is busy as hell 100% of the time.  Tonight when we were there they were doing hayrack rides!!! Because it's not shitty enough to try and drive through there without involving a horde of children and livestock?! Good Hell!!!
  • I was doing new yoga audiobook last night before bedtime, some pranayamas (breathing exercises) and imagine my surprise when all of a sudden the lady on the ipod was telling me to lift my pelvic floor. WTF? Why does breathing need to involve my vajayjay?! Is this normal or did I download some sort of freaky vagina yoga? I was pretty sure I knew what pelvic floor lifting was but I googled it today to make sure (I was right) and the site said to be sure to not hold it for more than 8 seconds. What happens after 8 seconds? Can you break your vagina? Holy crap. It scared me a little.
  • My car started making a noise last week or so. It sounded awful and got worse when I made a left turn, and stopped when I made a right turn. I checked Car Talk and asked google and they told me it was a wheel bearing. Which isn't something you can let go. So into the shop she went for 2 days. Not a wheel bearing. It was a piece of the brake heat shield rubbing on the left, but it was possibly caused by the ball joint boots which were going bad, typical wear for a car with 135k miles on it. So, about $200 more than I wanted/planned to spend, but equally as important. And while getting that information, I may have uttered the most amazingly grown up words of my life. "Since you have it there and have the wheels off, would you please look at the brakes, they haven't been a problem but winter is coming." The back brakes needed an adjustment and a cleaning for $30, but they are all in fine shape. SWEET. They also did a general safety inspection and it's all good.
  • Except...lol....on my drive home I could not make the radio work beucase it is the original Honda part with an anti-theft device. Here is how that works: if you lose power, the radio will not start until you enter a code. How you get that code is to call your dealer with the serial number on the back of the radio. Or, conveniently, take it to Honda to pay $100 for them to take it out and look up the code. Are you kidding me? So, me, the OWNER of the car cannot get the code without paying, but the cocksucker who is stupid (and desperate) enough to steal a standard honda stereo has all the information he needs to make it work. Screw that. If I have to pay $100, I'm just getting a new ipod compatible stereo. An no, there is no sticker in my glove box, on inside the main fuse box in the engine compartment, or in my trunk, on on the outside edges of the glove box, or in the coin tray and I do not have an ashtray in my car so it's not on the back of that. I had the information with all of my car information. IN MY BASEMENT in a filing cabinet 2.5 feet off the ground. So um..yeah. I called the dealer that sold the car to my inlaws and explained, and the service guy looked it up in the computer but said the code wasn't there. It was a long shot, it was 10 years ago. My last try is to call Honda directly and see if they can help me without a serial number for the part. And I will be calling the mechanic to ask if they have any avice, but if they did put the power saver thingie in the power outlet not even called a lighter in this car) when they disconnected the battery, I think it is faulty so I can't honestly ask them to pay for a repair like that since it's not actually their problem. It seems frivolous, but a car radio is really one of those things I think I must have.
  •  Oh yes, it's on. Sunday.
  • I am forcing The Man to dress up as Billy Mays tomorrow. Dead Billy Mays if I get my way.
  • I am going to bed now! Happy Halloween!!!!
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Posted at 09:48 pm | | add to the bitchin' | 1 comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Oct. 8th, 2009

The Great Unfriending, part deux

mood: okay

"i do not care about birthdays, i never remember birthdays or any of that suff, they are just another day, they mean nothng to me! You know this is how I am. I have never in my life forgotten your birthday!"

Allow me to translate this for those of you who do not speak crazymother:

"If it is my birthday, I care. A lot."

Instead of posting a facebook message, I bought a card. I like cards. I'm a card person, I like the personal touch of sending a borthday card. I didn't send it on time, I was debating sending it at all. My husband kept urging me to ignore it. I really thought about that. I thought about it too long and the card did not get mailed on Saturday. Then Sunday evening I started to feel sickly, Monday I was downright miserable with the nutmeg migraine, tuesday the pain was gone but the dizziness and icky feeling lingered. I could have called on the phone, but I won't lie: I didn't want to talk to her. I felt too siclkly to deal with drama and since my whole plan is to not engage her, I knew it would be pointless. She would find a crack in my wall and I would fight back and 1. I will never ever win and 2. it was her birthday.  

So I still had this card. I ran errands yesterday: post office to drop off a larger Etsy order that was insured, so I wanted a receipt for the time of mailing from the AWESOME Fred Johns Station post office where it is clean and smells nice and the people are NICE and HELPFUL and the patrons never smell like beer, or ass, or worse. Perhaps you thought these qualities were inherent in a postal outlet. Go hang out at the Hampton Post Office and then you,too, will sing the praises of the glory of the Fred Johns Station on Silver Spring and 91st. Mmmkay? I forgot to throw the card in my handbag. Then I ran to the market. I grocery shop all the time these days. Like at the real grocery store. I know. Just the small Sentry on Lisbon and 92nd, but it's still kind of a big goddamn deal for me and every time I go it's another bit of victory, it's another checkmark in the positive experience column. But don't let me get sidetracked....

I got home with my groceries, put them away and checked my email to see if Paypal has decided if a payment I got on Monday is legit or not so I can ship her stitchmarkers. They have not (which is a whole other pile of WTF) Then because it is to me like crack to, well..my sister...I hopped on facebook.
And after about 2 seconds of weeding through mafia wars and farmtown notices ( I don't play, but i get everyone's notices...) I realized my mom's crap was gone from the highlights sidebar.
Yep, she unfriended me. I guess it is because I did not make a big public to-do about her birthday? She did not give me a reason, and I'm not asking for one. And I noticed it hours after she did it rather than taking 7 days. I guess she thought she would fix my wagon and make me grovel for her attention and approval.

I went ahead and ran and dropped the card in the mail though, I jotted a note on the envelope about it being late since I was sick with a migraine since it was the truth. I see that's a mixed message since I feel much more relieved than hurt by her petty behavior. But I also know that it will come up at some point that I went out of my way to hurt her by ignoring her birthday (oh, i know! the crazy..it burrrrrns) and the truth was that I was just unwell.
But since this time it was her choice, I'm letting it lie and won't be adding her back in even on the off chance that she feels silly when she gets a card today or tomorrow and adds me back. I find it slightly amusing, in a weird way. I think it's just rich, really. She hasn't been able to get a rise out of me thus far  through either sending me private messages saying I should stop being mad at her "for my own sake" (holy WTF, batman?!) or posting things on my wall that have hidden meanings so I guess this was how she felt she could get her big dose of "Vitamin Victim" this week. I think it is more likely she will send the card back as return to sender if she is feeling this petty, but if she does, it's her choice. I only have to feel OK about my actions, and I feel ok about wishing her well even though it was late. Too late, I gues.

Oh and guess what made me sick? Probably a slice of cake my husband picked up for our anniversary on Sunday two days before her birthday. Did she acknowledge my anniversary in any way whatsoever? Of course not. See, she cracks me up.  I started reading this book last night called Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers and um, yeah.... I'll be good enough. I only have to be good enough for me.  Also, I got a brand new chocolate brown hoodie from the UPS guy about 15 minutes ago. I love it. So I put it on right away, working on that not saving thing....:

So in internet terms I gues I am now dispwn3d.

 


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Posted at 10:01 am | | add to the bitchin' | 5 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 26th, 2009

Tito, hand me a tissue!

mood: crafty

I know, I already have the express pass to hell.

Way back  in time when my sister was less psycho crackhead (well, less crackhead anyway....), George MIchael wasn't sexing himself up and passing out in Land Rovers, Michael Jackson was Awe. Some. and McCauley Caulkin was but a zygote.
You know you spent more than one afternoon painstakingly learning The Thriller Dance. The wolfish raised arms to the side part, the scrapey foot in front while doing the sideways head bop part and the impossible turn and step to your right while doing tiny little pelvic thrust maneuver. I was pretty good at it if I was one of the backup zombies where looking stiff and disjointed added to my overall performance.

And I seem to remember an entire, glorious, weekend spent at Nickie Patrick's house where she choreographed a truly awesome baton routine to PYT. Yeah, that song got pretty creepy in the 90s.....

I was a Wham! girl, though. I was all about Wham! and Culture Club, my taste in swanky gay Brits was established early on, surprisingly influenced by my father. In perhaps his one good parenting move he took me to Sears (god, remember when Sears sold record albums?!) to buy the Quiet Riot album I could not live without. As we stood there in line at the Sears in the Concord Mall  my dad flipped the record over and looked at the song titles. Loves a WHAT? Bitch? Cum on..WHAT? This was unacceptable! I was nine, I just thought they were lousy spellers.
He dragged me right out of the queue and back to the records to put it back. He was huffing and puffing at the salesman about how there was no way he was going to buy THAT for his little girl. There was a huge Boy George poster on display and I remember him saying "Who is that? Is she any good? Yeah? She's not dirty? Great, give me that poster and that album." The middle aged man happily picked them out and rang us up and 25 years later I still love me a big old nelly Brit.

But my sister was all about Michael Jackson. She had the yellow sweater poster, you know the one with the yellow bow tie? She used to sing Ben and Rockin' Robin all the time. She also had one of those cheesy Tiger Beat magazine faux scrapbooks and it was a prized possession. Interestingly enough, her next huge crush was Corey "wanna be Michael Jackson" Feldman! I guess she had a type, too.
 
Fighting wih my sister when we still had to live in the same state house was pretty much constant. She would pick at me behind my mother's back until I just lost my shit and then I would get in trouble. And she was quick to get physically violent and even though I was much taller and two years older, she was crazier and meaner. So I had to be sneakier to get to her, something that was rare because I was too quick to fly off the handle. But really, you would be, too if you'd been stuck with her.
She did something to me, I don't remember what it was, but I was obviously quite upset about it. Upset enough to search out all the leftover wallet size photos  from my third grade pictures, some scissors, and a bottle of Elmer's glue I took her beloved scrapbook to the basement one afternoon and set to work. I spent hours cutting out a pile of my heads from the picture packet and then carefully pasted them next to her beloved Michael in every photo where he was with a date and let it dry so the pages were not glued together. Then I cleaned it all up and put the book back where she had it and waited.
It took weeks for her to see it and lose her shit for a change, but they were sweet weeks filled with anticipation knowing that I was going to get her and get her good.
It was worth it. Honestly, it's one of the fondest memories of my childhood.
So, to you MJ, before the cheese slid off your cracker, you were pretty cool and I recreate that happy afternoon using a snapshot from homecoming 1990:
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Posted at 07:55 pm | | add to the bitchin' | 2 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend