.. so I’ve been gone a long time.
I mean.. a REALLY long time. And not for any reason. Well.. there was a reason but not a reason like, moving to the middle of Montana with no internet service.
I can blame it on my iPod Touch. I mean.. if you don’t have one, you may want to get one if you’d like to curl up in a ball and play endless hours of Tap Tap Revenge.
OR I can blame it on the fact that I had an opportunity to actually get paid to write. Like in money. Like the kind of money that you can actually spend :: well.. while it’s actually WORTH anything anyway :: and once that opportunity presented itself, I had no desire to write. Not even a check.. which, yknow, I’m not that fond of doing anyway. But yea.. I had an attack of self doubt which completely shut my brain down.
And then there’s that blasted family tree thing I’m doing.. which basically sapped up my brain cells.. time.. and desire to write. Sort of like replacing one addiction with another. Cuz, yknow.. my family’s hobby IS breeding and my over-achieving self had to do BOTH sides of my family at one time.
Honestly, I didn’t really think too much about it until Tosha @ THAT’S WHY left a comment on an old post asking if I was ok and it dawned on me that I miss you guys.. and I miss writing.. and I miss throwing all my shit out there for the world to see… read.. whatever.
So here I am.. sitting on my bed with the good ol’ laptop.. after having to clean up all the wrappers and crumbs from three boxes of cupcakes that the dogs plowed through while I was at work :: I know two little dogs that are going to have the major runs tonight :: bringing everything up to speed.
So the highlights:
VALENTINE’S DAY
We were still dealing with tons of snow and winter weather but on Valentine’s morning, Chief got up early.. walked.. like in putting one foot in front of the other.. roughly three miles THROUGH THE THIGH DEEP SNOW and bought me flowers.. a bag full of SweetTarts and a locket.
Definitely an AWWWWWW!!! moment.
INTERNERNATIONAL FOOD SHOW
On The Way To NYC Via The NJT
On Feb 28, the two morons :: that being me and Chief :: decided to take Manhattan and attend the International Food Show at the Javits Convention Center… an industry thing with a lot of vendors and products and samples.
Gotta love the samples!
It wasn’t so much a LAST minute decision because we had registered like, a month and a half before but because of the weather and because the wagon was inspected and registered :: still isn’t :: and the van was having transmission problems :: still is :: I wasn’t really that confident in getting there and back without incident.
‘Cause.. yknow.. whenever WE do ANYTHING, there’s “incidents”.
International Food Show
But armed with Chief’s confidence that he can fix anything that went wrong with the van, we made our way up the New Jersey Turnpike armed with coffee and a Tom Tom.
Did I tell you the story about the Tom Tom .. how I don’t like them.. don’t trust them.. and didn’t want one but got one for Christmas because Chief wanted one? Yea.. well.. let me tell you something about that fucking Tom Tom. First of all, you can’t help but argue with it when you actually do know where you’re going and it tells you to go in a different direction. But the worse.. is when you DON’T know where you’re going and the fucking thing tells you to make a left onto a FOUR LANE street with traffic going in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION from the way you’re facing.
Like it did in New York City.
Thankfully.. THANKFULLY .. when we turned the wrong way down the street, traffic was stopped at a red light so I was able to pull over IN FRONT OF AN NYC COP CAR.. :: thankfully unoccupied :: .. and turn the car around. We pulled into the first parking garage that we found and on wobbly knees, walked the six blocks to the Javits.
Yes.. that is a pig WITH it's head still on
I had never been to an industry food show before. Chief had been to this particular one before as a seller not a buyer. I can’t tell you how hard they suck your ass. They must give a class on it or something.
I’m not adventurous with food so I wasn’t doing a lot of tasting. He was.. which was good because the only thing I kept thing was “.. did you SEE how much the hot dog vendor was charging????” But we did come away with a few products that we wanted to start carrying in the shop so it served it’s purpose.
FOOD!!!
We had gotten there early and the good thing about that was by the time the place was filled to capacity, we had seen everything and were ready to chug it back home.
So we make our way back to the parking garage and contrary to everything I’ve heard, it really wasn’t too expensive. Notice I said “too” and not “that”! It was around 25 bucks and considering we almost got KILLED by the evil Tom Tom, I could deal with 25 bucks.
More food
Chief tells me he’ll drive back because I’m like FORGET DRIVING THROUGH THE LINCOLN TUNNEL AGAIN and while we’re driving through the tunnel, we lose the satellite connection to the Evil Tom Tom. I guess it didn’t like me cursing it out because when it finally connected again, it directed us to take an exit with was NOT the exit to the Turnpike.. even though I clearly SAW the exit for the Turnpike ahead, Chief was like NO! NO! The Tom Tom said to go THIS way.. which put us in the middle of someplace like Seacacus or something and on a highway with a 2 car red light every 100 feet. Which considering how the transmission REALLY started to act up, may have been a good thing.
But as he promised, he pulled over and did some McGuyver-ing and put us back on the road.
We finally found our way back to the Turnpike :: I had turned the Tom Tom off :: and after almost getting into two.. count them.. TWO car accidents, we pulled into one of the numerous rest stops on the pike and had a wonderful lunch of Burger King nuked by a Mexican who could only say “Whopper”.
Don’t ask.
PROTESTING HEALTH CARE
Chief had this bright idea to drive down to Washington DC on the Sunday that the Health Care bill was going to be voted on. That’s something we’re both passionate about and really, I’m not going to get into a debate with anyone who is for it on here. We will just agree to disagree and leave it at that.
The plan was to get up around 5am.. drive down to DC.. protest.. and then drive home.
That was the PLAN anyway.. we were SO committed to going down there that we didn’t get to bed until 3am :: no kids at home means long hours playing Call Of Duty :: and then the gorgeous day we woke up to mandated that we hit various flea markets.
We’re such bad protesters!!
WEED
Weed turned 21 on March 1st.
Honestly, I have to say that he seems to be coming around. Not only has he been coming to work when he’s suppose to but he’s actually doing work. His attitude has become a little more mature but I know he still does what he does.. he’s just less obvious about it.
For his birthday we got him a cell phone. He had one from when the Crack Whore settled her bogus lawsuit but of course, by the time the first payment came around she had blown threw the money and the service was turned off.
If I had known that he could have just re-activated his old one, I would have saved myself a lot of money and aggravation.
And of course, the aggravation has to do with….
BUBBA
Let me just say that I have not had an actual conversation with Bubba since the day of his birthday when I told him that he wasn’t getting the grossly expensive lap top computer he wanted because he didn’t do anything he promised to do.. that being committed to his school work.
Did I also post before that I finally got my dryer because Bubba complained about not having any clean clothes because he never put them in the hamper?
I’m not going to rehash everything that went on, but I will say that this kid needs to be knocked down a few pegs. He still isn’t doing a damn thing in school.. does not have ANY hygiene at all.. stays out all hours of the day / night / weekend .. and I would be doing the pigs of the world a great disservice by calling him one. He’s beyond that.
And I’m over it.
I’m over his lies.. his manipulations.. him calling me a bitch because I call him out on his lies and manipulations.. his use and abuse.. He’s just an ugly person inside and out.. an unhappy person.. someone who couldn’t give a shit about anything or anybody but himself.
I don’t surround myself with that kind of toxin as a rule.. and the fact that this kid lives under my roof doesn’t change that.
Things kind of came to a head about a month ago when Chief told him that he was grounded because he hasn’t done ONE IOTA of schoolwork. Not that Chief makes sure he does his work.. not that the Crack Whore makes sure he does his work either. But as Chief said, “.. he wasn’t going ANYWHERE” that weekend. I told Chief that he was going to have to be the one to tell him that because I was done with being the one that has to issue the punishment only to have it renigged by the Crack Whore.. or worse, Bubba just not paying any damn attention to anything I say.
So Chief assured me that he was going to tell him when he came home from work. In the meantime, Spaz was had made plans to spend the weekend at the Crack Whore’s but as he was waiting for her to pick him up, Bubba started saying that HE was going to stay over there too. Spaz reacted in pure Spaz fashion.. which was to, well, spaz. He go SO upset and started crying and saying that he wasn’t going to go and that all he wanted was to have a weekend away from Bubba.
I tried to stay out of it but things escalated to a point where I had to get involved and told Spaz that Bubba wasn’t going anywhere.. to just calm down.
Immediately Bubba started saying shit to Spaz and to me so I called Chief and told him what was going on. He told me he wanted to talk to him so I gave Bubba the phone. I don’t know what the conversation was but at one point, Bubba said something about me not letting him use the PS3 head phones :: a long story :: and I called him a “Little Fuck” to which he started whining to his father like a little bitch.
I get back on the phone with Chief and he tells me that I was right to do what I did. I told him that I didn’t give a fuck whether or not he thought I was “right” or not .. he wasn’t here and it isn’t fair to Spaz to be tormented by Bubba the way he is.
I hang up with Chief.
He calls me back about 15 minutes later and asks me if I can pick him up from the shop because it was pouring out. I told him I would then went back to getting ready to go out because I really just wanted to get out of the house.
A few minutes after we hang up for the second time, I hear Bubba leave the house. And I’m like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
And when Chief calls me about a half hour later to tell me that he was closing the shop early and that I can pick him up at any time, I cut the call short because I was in the bathroom.. almost getting physically sick over this fucking kid.
I go down to the shop and I don’t know what made me say this in the way that I did but when I walked in I said, “… you know that Bubba left the house, right?”
He says, “.. oh yea. He went to stay at his mother’s.”
When I tell you that I have NEVER felt like a bigger asshole in my life. HE was the one who INSISTED that Bubba was NOT to leave the house for the weekend which made ME make an issue out of it earlier when he was tormenting Spaz and then he let him go to his mother’s?
Where’s your fucking balls, man?
So I got torqued beyond ever being torqued before.
And I couldn’t look at him.. be near him.. talk to him.. breath the same air as him.
So I stayed in the living room while he tanked out in the bedroom and remained there until the next day when I had had it SO up to here that if I had a box and some place to go I would have packed all my shit right then and there and left.
We had it out the next day.. big blow out.. and when he tried to blame it on the kids I told him all about himself and told him that it’s HIM. That he says one thing and does another and doesn’t give me a heads up. Like the cell phone.
Remember Weed’s old cell phone? The Crack Whore wanted it back so that she could have it reactivated for Bubba. Chief went on a looooooonnnngggg tirade about how Bubba doesn’t deserve one.. that he can’t have one until he brings his grades up.. blah blah blah. Not five minutes.. FIVE MINUTES after he told me that on the phone, the Crack Whore texted me and told me that she had just left the deli and that Chief said he didn’t have a problem with Bubba having a cell phone as long as he doesn’t have to pay the bill for it.
And I called him out on that. And called him out on a million other things that I’ve been holding down. When I tell you that that was the closest that we’ve come to breaking up.. then that’s the closest we’ve come to breaking up.
I told him that if he still wanted me in the picture then he better prepare himself for me not doing anything for Bubba. That I was going to treat Bubba the way that he treats me. No more driving him to school in the morning.. no more doing his clothes.. no more driving him here or there or to his friends. That I was going to email his teacher’s and inform them that from now on, they would have to contact him and the Crack Whore and when Bubba gets into the trouble he’s on the path to get into, don’t expect me to be sympathetic or supportive. Wasn’t going to happen.
So that’s the way things have been and to be honest, Bubba is rolling off my back by rain on a duck.
SPAZ
He’s still having his issues but nothing worse then normal 11 year old shit. He, at least, understands why I’m hard on him about school.. about being neat.. about brushing his teeth and taking showers. Knowing that I don’t want him turning out like Bubba is his big incentive. And as sick as it sounds, knowing how I feel about Bubba is giving him the cujones to stand up to him.
BUBBA: Dad doesn’t love you.
SPAZ: At least he doesn’t have to by me Comet to scrub my neck with
NOTE: Because Bubba doesn’t take regular showers, his neck and knuckles get BLACK. At one point, Chief told him to use Comet to scrub his neck with to take the dirt off.
I almost pissed myself laughing and was like You Go Spaz!!!
The only thing that I can’t really explain to him is why the Crack Whore will buy Bubba a laptop .. will buy him an iPod Touch.. will get him a cell phone when he does nothing to deserve it but when Spaz asked her to contribute to help pay for the two trips he’s going on with the church group ( one is 400 the other is 65), she started yelling and screaming at him that she isn’t made of money and why am I not paying for it.
So that’s basically what’s been going on.
Now that I got this post over with, I’ll get back to my old routine :: 2800+ words will do that to you! :: so buckle up, I’m sure it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
LIVING ME 101 