Random Outlaw

The Miracle That Will Solve Everything!

Ever since R found the people to run his store, I have been daydreaming about moving to day shift and putting the Moosh in school during the week.  I have this harebrained notion that this switch will solve all the problems in my life!   Well, it probably won't, but a girl can dream, right?

Problem #1: Morning Blah

I am not a morning person.  I practically have to flagellate myself to do T-Tapp first thing in the morning.  On days I don't do T-Tapp I sit around staring at the wall, or reading, or watching TV until I realize that I have wasted 3 hours and now I have to rush to get everything ready for the day in less than 2 hours.  I hate this. HATE.  And yet, that is how I am.

I think being on day shift will solve this problem by forcing me to get up and DO SOMETHING first thing in the morning.  Then I will be home during the late afternoon and evening, and therefore accomplish more. \

Problem #2 The Lunch Doldrums

As you can imagine, if I spend the hours from 9 AM - 12 PM sitting around or staring at the TV, I have planned nothing for lunch.  By the time lunch rolls around the Moosh and I are both restless and want to get out of the house.  This leads to eating lunch out more often than not. Not that eating out is super bad, but it does add up if you're doing it 5 out of 7 days in a week.  Oops.

Day shift may or may not solve this problem, because those jerks have a tendency to order pizza and other tasty items.  However, I hate eating early in the day and I don't tend to get very hungry until noon or 1 o'clock.  Then I'm typically not hungry again until 4 o'clock.  Unlike on evening shift where I get hungry at 4 o'clock and STAY hungry until I get home, leading to egregious unhealthy snacking.  That oatmeal cream pie scenario was not an isolated incident, let me tell you.

Problem #3 Double Damage With Dinner

Once again, as you can imagine, if I have planned nothing for lunch, it stands to reason that I have also planned nothing for dinner.  Further complicating things is that because I work evenings, I will not be home for dinner.  So I either a) throw something together for the family as I run out the door, but neglect to prepare anything for myself, b) prepare something for myself but nothing for the family, or c) prepare nothing for either myself or the family.  All of these scenarios means eating out in some form or fashion for up to 2 separate entities (myself and/or the family).  If we've eaten lunch out on the same day... well let's just say it gets expensive.

If I switch to days, at the very least I will only be buying lunch out for one person, and I will be home to prepare dinner or purchase dinner for the family.  I think this will really help the food situation.

Problem #4 The Bored Child

The Moosh begs to play with friends every hour on the hour.  He is tired of TV, tired of his toys, and tired of staying home.  He really, really, REALLY wants to go to school and he was very excited at the prospect of attending school with other kids so that he can make "lots of best friends."

If I move to days and put him in school at the very least he might have some of his extrovert cup filled by the time he gets home.  If not, I can schedule a regular activity (soccer, basketball, what-have-you) for him after school.  The varying schedule of playdates is maddening to me.

Problem #5 Curing The Free Spirit

I hate schedules.  I hate making them and I hate being tied to them.  Hence the three hours of time wasting every morning.  However, I think that my lack of ability in this area is having a negative affect on me and on the Moosh.  Not negative in the sense that it would ruin us forever, but in the sense that I think our lives would be easier and flow better with some sort of schedule or routine in our lives.

Moving to days would inject some order into our days.  Get up, go to work, Moosh goes to school, come home from work, pick up from school, go home, fix dinner, etc. 

I'm nervous, that's for sure.  But I think this could be a really good move for us.  Now to convince R. The main stumbling block is Saturdays.  If I move to days, I will have to work all weekend.  R will be home on Sundays, but plans to work on Saturdays.  We could do drop-in care for Saturdays, but that adds $200 per month to our already tight budget and I'm not sure we can afford it.

Small Town Drama

When I moved to the town where I live from Dallas, my mom said something to the effect of how I was going to have to get used to living in a small town again.  I laughed at her.  Seriously, I mean, yeah, I was no longer living in "the big city" technically, but I was right up the road!  No big deal, right?

Oh how incredibly wrong I was.

Small town is snooty.  It's also landlocked, in that there is very little undeveloped or unclaimed land in the area.  The school district is excellent, but the high school suffers from a fair bit of overcrowding.  The problem is that there is no where to build a new high school. In fact there is a pretty major lawsuit going on between Small Town and Big City over a very large piece of land that is located just south of Small Town, and which Big City apparently bought in an illegal deal from a power company.  There is a lot of land, and Small Town has set it's greedy landlocked eyes on that big chunk of land.  Legal proceedings have been going on regarding this land for 3 years with no end in sight.

Meanwhile the high school continues to be overcrowded, so some bright bulb on the school board had a bright idea that they would create a small magnet school (maximum occupancy of 500-700 students) that would be located on a different campus in order to take some students away from the high school.  However, the problem persists of where they will put the damn thing.

I was at the park the other day and these yellow signs were plastered everywhere.  Ever curious, I left the Moosh playing in the sandbox and went over to read one of them.  The sign stated that the school board had unilaterally decided to close one of the elementary schools in the area so that it could put the new high school in it temporarily until the lawsuit with Big City is settled. 

Thing is, it's not just any elementary school, it's OUR elementary school.  The one the Moosh is supposed to go to in Fall 2008 for kindergarten.  The one that is less than half a mile from our home.  The one we pretty much based our decision to buy the house on.  What better than a small school (14:1 student/teacher ratio!) within walking distance?

I am pissed.  I think the school board is being utterly ridiculous in it's plans.  They are not intending to open a new school (no space for that), instead they intend to merge 400 students into 3 other schools in the area, but they're not sure where, exactly.  But they'll figure it out.  Meanwhile they'll be displacing 400 elementary students for 100 high school students all with an eventual plan of winning the legal proceedings and getting space to put the permanent magnet school.

I really hope they don't close our school.  It took me a long time to make the decision to send the Moosh to public school, and I will be upset if I have to start making plans all over again.  Argh.

Today Was Kind Of Awesome

R stayed home today to spend time as a family for the first time in 2.5 years.  The Moosh was in heaven.  R was in heaven.  I cleaned.  By myself.  Without the TV blaring in the background and without a bored kid dogging my every step.  While I won't go so far to say that I was in heaven, I was happy that I accomplished so much and that everyone was happy while I was doing it.  We even went out to lunch!

R drives me nuts, though.  He spends 80% of his time making derogatory comments about, well, everything.  The kitchen is dirty.  I never clean.  I spend too much money.  The Moosh has too many toys.  We wouldn't be in debt if I would control my spending. I never clean.  The kitchen is dirty..... etc., etc., ad infinitum.

It used to really bother me.  Now it only marginally bothers me, mainly because I am no longer invested in our relationship.  I have told him time and time again (and will continue to tell him, no doubt, until our relationship is kaput) that if he is unwilling to clean, then he must accept that the cleaning will be done on MY schedule.  Is that so hard to understand?  If you don't like it, clean it.  If you don't want to clean it, then you have to wait until somebody else is ready, willing, and able to clean it.  If that doesn't work for you, TOUGH.  You are choosing not to take control of the issue. The end.

I accpted long ago that R was never going to take responsibility for the housework.  I don't even mind that I have to do it all (much....). There are only 3 people in our house.  It's not like I'm cleaning up after 8 people like I did when I was a teenager living in my parents' house.  That truly sucked.  In fact, if R is home every Sunday the house will probably stay pretty clean if I put in an hour or two every weekend. 

It's just... ahhhhh! Be a fucking team player!!!

But other than that it was a lovely day.  :)

Good News

Sorry for the long absence.  As I said in my last post, I had training all last week, then R had hernia surgery last Tuesday so things have been utterly crazy.  The best part of the surgery was that R insisted on going out that very day to buy a HD TV. So there we were, in Best Buy, 3 hours after he woke up from the anesthesia searching in vain for a TV that I found on the website (it said it was an open box item) to no avail.  R spent about 1.5 hours harassing the staff in the Best Buy TV department before he would let me flipping ask them where the stupid TV was.  It turned out that the TV was in some dark corner of the store room, and we never would have found it if we didn't ask.  So now, after all that angst, we are the proud new owners of a very fancy TV. 

Things have been going pretty well between R and me relationship wise.  That's not to say that we are madly in love, but we are making it through most weeks without dissolving into screaming matches.  This is a good thing.  As long as there are no screaming matches and I get paid every month I am good to go.

Part of this improvement is indubitably because we have both taken steps toward acceptance of how things are going to be with the business.  I have taken steps toward understanding that ending this has to be R's deal.  Nothing I can do will make him go any faster. For his part, R has realized that he can't continue to work at the business forever (at least not on a 8 AM - 10 PM, 7 day a week schedule) and is planning how to gracefully wrap things up by the end of the year.

Sunday morning on his way out the door R mentioned to me that he wanted me to write up a contract to turn over operations of the convenience store over to some people.  He didn't have time to elaborate, which left me kind of in the lurch for the rest of the day wondering what was going on.  That night I got the full story.

Apparently a local couple have approached him about taking over the convenience store.  They have just returned from India and are in need of work and have a lot of experience with running convenience stores.  Initially they wanted to wholly control the store and it's earnings, but didn't have enough money to pay the rent, so R offered to have them work for him with the goal of improving sales volumes.  He offered them a base monthly salary plus a bonus if they can improve sales over a certain amount. In exhange they will run the store for him 7 days a week, leaving him free to run the garage.

I think he fully expected me to flip out and get mad, but I think it is a brilliant idea.  At the very least it will be a stop gap measure to get him through the remainder of this year without killing himself, and in the best case it could turn the business around and allow him to keep it.  As long as he's able to make decent money and be home at a decent hour, I really don't care what he does with the business.

The best part is that if this works out, I could move to day shift and we could put the Moosh in school 3 days a week, and we would ALL be home in the evenings to spend time as a family.  R would have Sundays completely off.

I wrote up a simple contract, but as of yesterday R is still putting the final touches on the deal. 

I really hope it works out!!

I Wish I Were More Organized So I Could Find My Hairshirt

I wanted to make sure I posted today because I'm going to be on days in a training class for the next 3 days, then off for the weekend. I didn't want to leave you hanging.

Oh, and this post is brought to you by Baby Ruth, procured from the Evil Vending Machine (TM).

The Moosh and I had a bad weekend.  Or, rather, I had a bad weekend and the Moosh was my unwitting victim, poor kid.  I am a whole heap of mama guilt, y'all. 

For some reason I was in a snappy, bitchy mood from Saturday and I continued on through Sunday until I left for work.  After I got home from work last night I was fine, and today was fine.  I think the problem is that I am suffering from a massive amount of mama burnout. 

Saturdays are the only full days the Moosh and I spend alone together in a given week.  I work Sun-Thurs, and only have him in the mornings those days, we spend Fridays at my parents' house having fun, and then Saturdays we spend at home driving each other crazy.  It doesn't help that I am now having to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:45 AM on Saturdays to mow, either.  That means that I hit exhaustion and screeching level way earlier than usual.

I think the main problem is that I am an introvert and the Moosh is an extrovert.  When I am feeling out of sorts, I need to curl up with a book or sack out in front of the TV for a couple of hours to recharge my batteries.  When the Moosh is feeling out of sorts, he wants to spend time with other people, and on Saturdays the only people around are me and, well... me.  So you kind of get the picture of what's going on. He demands my attention all day, I am already tired, I start getting snappish and try to carve out some time for myself, this in turn makes him feel rejected and he starts to whine and follow me around demanding even more attention.  I swear to you, he must have said the word "mama" 300 times on Saturday.  And it just got worse and worse the longer the day wore on.

So what the fuck do I do?  The reality is that the bulk of Saturday needs to be spent at home catching up on all the stuff that didn't get done during the week.  But then on the flip side things are far better when we spend the majority of our time away from the house and engaged in activities.

I've been thinking that I should find a neighborhood older kid and pay him/her $5 an hour to play with the Moosh so that I can get a break.  However, the problem is that my "alone time" bank is already so depleted, a little does not go a long way.  In fact, I often have a problem limiting and balancing my need to just veg and the Moosh's need for attention.  For example, some days we'll to my parents' house and I'll start playing a computer game, but only for an hour (or so I tell myself).  What ends up happening is that I am actually having fun, and don't want to stop once started.  So end up selfishly neglecting the Moosh for a longer time than I should, and then I feel truly awful.

I already know I'm being too hard on myself and that he will probably be fine despite this stuff, but it really bothers me.  The Moosh is stuck with me all the time, no matter what.  He can't just go off and take a break when I am being a crazy bitch... his whole world right now is defined by me.  It tears me up that I am this much power to make him miserable.

Any ideas?

Vending Machines Should Be Outlawed

I have been in my standard state of frenzy these days, and as such I've left the house for work without taking dinner with me,  leaving me at the mercy of fast food.  I've been avoiding the vending machines at work since I stopped drinking cokes a couple of months ago, but yesterday I was foodless and my friend loaned me $3 so I didn't have to go out to get something to eat. 

Today I ran out with broccoli salad for dinner, because I am deluded and stupid.  I thought I would be happy with broccoli salad.  I thought broccoli salad and I could have a  meaningful relationship together.  Sadly, broccoli salad left me unfulfilled and I had change left over from paying my friend back.  The allure of the vending machine captured me once again.

Vending machine: Don't you want some Snack Ramen. 

Me: No, shut up!

VM: It's chicken flavor.... soooooo tasty.

Me: Snack Ramen is full of sodium and fat.  Besides, I have broccoli salad.

Broccoli Salad: You know you want Snack Ramen.  Why do you lie to yourself?

Me: I am NOT lying.  I LOVE broccoli! Come here.

BS: Well, it was worth a try.

Me: Yeah, see this broccoli salad is, um, like, good.  Yeah... tasty.  Er.... ish.

VM: Snnnnaaacccckkkk Raaaammmmeeennnnn

Me: Resist! Resist!

VM: Fine, whatever.  I'll be here when you cave. 

- 5 minutes later -

Lisa: Snack Ramen is good.  Who cares about sodium and fat?

VM: Victory is mine!

- 2 hours later -

VM: Lisa.... hey Lisa.  Aren't you hungry? I have junk food.  See if you have any money left.

Lisa: Shut up, you.

VM: Look.... Snickers! Fritos! Mmmmmmmm.

Lisa: No.  I am eschewing you with a firm hand.  I will NOT eat any more junk today.

VM: Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie

Lisa: What was that?

VM: Oh, nothing.

Lisa: No, seriously, what did you say?

VM: You're not eating junk food, remember?

Lisa: You'd better tell me what you said, or so help me...

VM: Fine! Seriously, I try to make you happy and look where it gets me?

VM: I said Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie.  There, are you happy?

Lisa: I don't know, let me check my change situation....

Lisa: Mmmmmm.... Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie

Evil, I tell you.

Elegy

I wanted to write this post for my grandmother from home, in case I started crying.  We'll see how it goes.

My grandmother was born in 1926 in Farmington, Maine.  She began playing the violin when she was 10 years old, and from that point on, dedicated her life to music.  Whenever I think about her, she was always doing something musical.  She and my grandfather lived in south Texas for most of my life.  She taught elementary music and gave private violin and piano lessons for more than 30 years. 

We used to spend vacations with my granparents in south Texas.  My grandmother always made these visits special: beach trips, cookies, meals out, you name it.  We always came back totally spoiled, according to my parents.   

I don't know exactly when my granparents retired from work, but it must have been sometime in the late 80s. It was around that same time when my grandmother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.   After my sister AM was born in 1990, my parents asked my grandparents to move to north Texas so that they could take care of AM and so my mother could be closer to them if they had health problems.

It was a hard decision for both my mother and my grandmother to live close to each other again.  They always had a rocky relationship.  Although my grandmother loved babies, she didn't get along so well with older kids.  I was 13 when she moved, and we spent next few years at each other's throats.

Initially my grandparents lived in a small apartment, but when my parents moved to a bigger house, they moved in with us.  I tell you, it was nuts... completely nuts.  9 people in one house is a lot, I don't care which way you slice it!

Once AM was old enough to go to school, my grandmother once again immersed herself in music and volunteer work with the local senior center.  Meanwhile, her Parkinson's was advancing and her mobility began to be severly impaired.  She started using a walker and had to have help to stand up from chairs and to get out of bed.

One night in 1998 my grandmother got out of bed, fell, and broke her hip.  She had to be transported by ambulance to the local hospital, where they operated on the hip to repair it.  Unfortunately the hospital was under construction, and the OR they were working in was not sterile.  A staph infection developed in the wound, and her recovery slowed as they tried to combat the infection.  Eventually she was sent to a specialist who operated again and managed to remove the infected tissue. 

However, the damage was done.  She was now bound to a wheelchair and started having lapses in memory and exhibiting odd behavior.  My mother was took a few weeks off of work to care for her, but the main problem is that she was up all night, trying to walk and getting out of her wheelchair.  My mother had to work, so she was constantly battling with my grandmother to keep her in bed. 

Eventually it became evident that my mother was going to have to get help to care for my grandmother.  She involved the local elder care social worker to see what kind of assistance she could get.  The social worker evaluated our situation, and determined that someone (other than my grandfather, who was too frail) would have to supervise my grandmother 24 hours a day, and since we didn't have people at home all the time, she insisted that we put her in a nursing home.

I think this was the hardest part for my mother.  From the time my grandmother entered the nursing home, she always talked about bringing her mother home, but there just wasn't enough money.

A couple of years after she went into the home, my grandmother became senile.  She didn't remember things and thought that my siblings and I were all still children.  When we would visit she wouldn't recognize us.  It was incredibly sad.

After the Moosh was born we started visiting with him about once a month, and she always remembered him.  My mother said that she talked about seeing him for days afterward.   The Moosh, for his part, loved going to see her and wasn't bothered in the least by her disabilites.  It was so sweet to watch them together.

A few months ago she stopped eating, and started losing weight. My mom would take her milkshakes every day (or as often as she could) because my grandmother would drink them even in her sleep.  I remember my mom laughing about how normally you'd never have someone drink milkshakes every, but what the heck, her mom was 80 years old, and it was not time to worry about her figure.

Looking back on it now, her death was imminent, but we just didn't realize it.  She wasn't eating and she'd been sleeping all the time for months.  But on Friday, April 20, the nursing home called and said that they were pretty sure that she was going to die, and it came as this huge shock, for everyone.  I remember that my mom went into instant denial, assured us that it wasn't serious, and refused to notify my sister C in Denver that she might need to come home ASAP if she wanted to say goodbye.

By Saturday, the nursing home was requesting a DNR and had a doctor come to evaluate her.  He said that she was dying, and that they should tell my mother to put her in hospice care.  My mom was still not ready to accept this, and said that they would wait until Monday.   But when Monday rolled around and she spoke with the director of nursing, my mom realized that the end was imminent.  She put my grandmother in hospice care that day.

On Tuesday they requested that someone be with her 24 hours per day on a death watch.  I was going to go to work that day but when I got to my parents house to drop off the Moosh, they told me we only had hours left, so I stayed home.  It rained like the dickens that day.  The roads were flooding, and R was supposed to come up so that he could say goodbye, but nobody was sure if he was going to make it because of the weather.  He finally got there at 8:30 PM, so we went there to see her and she just looked awful. 

By the time we wrapped things up on Tuesday night it was too late for the Moosh and me to go home.  We ended up sleeping at my parents' house.  The Moosh was initially upset by this, until my mom told him that the kitty might sleep with him.  Then he was all about staying overnight.

I'm so glad we ended up staying, because at 8:00 AM the next morning, we were called to her bedside to sit with her while she passed.  And... it was difficult, and very sad.  She just looked so tired.  We all held her body while she passed away.  I'm so glad that we were able to be there and say goodbye. 

Her funeral was Monday morning, and it was so hard.  It's hard for me to watch my mother suffer, and she is suffering right now.  Taking care of her mother was a HUGE part of my mother's life.  My mom's whole schedule revolved around work and her mom.   And now there's this huge hole in her life, and it will probably always be there. 

My grandmother was my last grandparent.  My sister and I were talking and we both agreed that the hardest part about this is knowing that one day we're going to be standing in my mom's shoes, mourning the death of our mother. 

I can't even comprehend it.