Dear Santa,

I just want to start by saying that, especially given all the circumstances, I've been pretty darn good this year. Last year for Christmas, a year I had been feeling even better about, the kids and I were served a whopping serving of heartbreak and feelings of betrayal and the shattering of our family unit. In the year since then, we've endured the struggle to remain a strong and loving family, the realized fear of abduction, absolute poverty, medically insane flatmates and a growing appreciation for our inner strength and ability to come back together as a family.

This year, do you think you could work on dropping off a little happiness? I've already handled the whole presents-for-kids situation--just send the kids the ability to find happiness on the anniversary of their mom's decision to jack things up; give them the ability to be happy with the holiday again, and to be able to enjoy it with each of their parents.

I could go for some happiness too. As much as I'd like, I won't ask for meteors (that's a request I continue to reserve for The Universe) or a booty call. My brother Jeremy says I should ask you for the red limited edition Wii anniversary bundle I want so there you go.

Strain

I think things are beginning to degenerate for Denise in her living situation with the Taylors. Not caring at all about her relationship with them degrading, but for how it may impact the way the kids are being treated.

Over the past couple weeks Denise has been asking me to watch the kids when she needs a sitter before asking them (something she's required to do by the court but has ignored as a requirement for months and months) which, due to our history and no improvement in attitude towards each other, I just didn't/don't trust is her being a more decent and respectful ex-partner. For the scantest moment I grasped at the delusion she was doing it because word got out of whatever plans I had made otherwise and she would have me take the kids in order to foil those plans. Not generally being a person who holds long to paranoia, this feeling passed and I started forming my opinion that maybe things weren't going as well with her and them as they once were.

Reports from the kids that the Taylors were being more strict with them and not letting them enjoy the same activities any more have been helping this, especially Aeia's report that they blame her and Lash for a lot of things that are actually being done by the Taylor's own boys (I know that this could be kids talking BS but I also trust my kids when pressed to tell the truth to tell me the truth, and I've done a lot of pressing them to tell the truth when topics like this come up).

Anyway, this theory ended up proving more true after talking with the girl I use as a sitter when I work on Wednesdays (Tonia). Tonia revealed to me that she was starting to be used more and more by Denise as well, and that Denise told her that Chrissy told her she wouldn't watch the kids anymore. Frankly, this pleases me just fine; I trust Tonia a billion times more than I do the Taylors with my kids. With anyone's kids, including their own. I'm just glad Rael isn't reporting getting hit by Chris anymore.

None of this surprises me though. Denise is difficult to live with even when you really like her, and our entire prior roommate situation with the Taylors in 2001 disintegrated entirely due to incompatible household styles between her and them so it has been something I'd been expecting to see. Coupled with her telling them, and the courts, that she'd be out and in a place of her own BY August and it now being months past that I'd be running out of patience and charity too. I just hope they're starting to realize just what they've signed themselves up for because two things are going to keep Denise with them indefinitely:

She is far too stubborn and insists on getting a place all to herself,which is something she can not realistically afford without drastically lowering her standards or resorting to getting roommates. Neither of which she's going to do.

She'll never get a place on her own because her credit is abysmal, her income is too low and she broke lease when she moved out of here.

I honestly wish she could provide a more stable living environment for our kids. She could flounder the rest of her life for all I care, except for my wanting the best for our kids so she needs to get her act together or start working her ass off to mend the strain she's putting on the only friendly relationship she still has.

Thursday

Things have been equally stressful and pleasant the past week. Tv good. Kids great. Rael is doing so much better in school. Car is dying. Denise is consistent only in her defiance of every court ordered visitation stipulation she demanded in the first place. Money isn't tight; it's completely non-existent.

Actually, when things are quiet the darkness really pushes on me a lot harder than the light. I think I'm drowning.

Rael Today (Multi-Posted)

Rael's teacher reports that his behavior issues are at their worst on Mondays and Thursdays, the days when he returns to school after visiting his mother. His behavior issues are also getting so bad that the trajectory he's on is going to see him expelled. For violence. From Kindergarten.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm trying so hard to hold us all together after she tore us all apart, and just nothing seems to be working.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

The weather is absolutely haywire lately. Yesterday was another sweltering summer day. Today is a gloomy rain-soaked torrent riddled with thunder and lightning. Thankfully, my mood does not reflect the weather of the day.

Denise was kind enough to give me SECOND right of childcare for her on Friday because the Taylors won't watch the kids for her this Friday (as we covered in last post, she's supposed to be asking me before asking them every time, not after asking them) and so I traded shifts with a coworker to get that day off so I could spend more time with the kids. I had to work today for my coworker in exchange. Denise gets Rael and Tassy on Wednesday until Thursday. I needed a sitter for Lash and Aeia from 3-6 and did as required and asked her. She turned it down. . .why? She has the other two, so why reject the others? I seriously wonder if it's a passive-aggressive response from her towards Lash and Aeia being vocally un-supportive of and angry toward her. Ah well, they had a more enjoyable time hanging out at my work for three hours anyway.

My boss and one of my co-managers are Mexican (no, NOT Mexican American) and have a very nasty habit of reverting to Spanish only when they want to talk shit about someone right in front of them (assuming the person doesn't understand them). I have absolutely no respect for these people; I don't speak anywhere near fluent Spanish but I understand well enough to know what they're saying most of the time and who they're saying it about. It's like working for high schooler ass-hats. Not working with them is one of the things I like about my usual night shifts.

Minor Annoyances. OK, actually a rant.

So we have this court order that lays out Denise's visitation schedule as well as laying out a bunch of rules we both have to abide by. It really seems that Denise thinks the rules shouldn't apply to her, though and it's irking me. Three recent examples:

The court order demands that the children be allowed to continue with all of their preexisting social activities. Denise does not think she has to abide by this and allow Lash to continue gaming, an activity he has been a regular participant of for more than five years. This is really bugging Lash.

The court order demands that every time either of us needs a babysitter for more than two hours we have to ask the other parent before seeking childcare anywhere else. In the past three weeks there have been six instances where she failed to do this (if anyone is counting, that means exactly six of the nine days she had the kids for visitation, she didn't even spend much time with them and should have asked me to watch them and did not). While I wouldn't have been able to watch them on four of those occasions, she's still ignoring this order.

And of course, both of the aforementioned orders were HER demands in the first place, so of course she doesn't think they apply to her.

This weekend the kids report she threatened them with spankings and with sitting on them for misbehavior. We aren't allowed to use corporal punishment or restraint. As these were just threats, I guess they fall more under psychological terrorism (which isn't covered by our orders)instead of actual violations but she's really pushing the envelope.

I'm writing this all here rather than blow up at her over it. It's better that I just keep a log of these things so I can use them in the inevitable return to court.

Grey Matters

I can't put my finger on a why for it, but I've been in a pretty dour mood the last two days. Really, nothing bad has happened to put me there and I'm wondering if maybe I've just woken up on the cliched wrong side of the bed.

Rael's disastrous behavior yesterday could definitely have its part to play, but I don't really feel it has. With his situation I went fairly quickly into "help my kid" mode, speeding up his intake into counseling, conferring with his principal, etc. And aside from that, the kids have actually been pretty stellar the last two days.

Aeia finally got her Visa gift card for placing 3rd in last Spring's Agribee and she hasn't wanted to rush off and go spend it--this is a good thing. I'm happy to see her controlling her impulses more and thinking about what she wants to do; a year ago she would have blown it all on candy.

Lash's settlement is being dealt with well and with no more hiccups. That's all I can say about that, but it should be enough anyway.

Last week was actually pretty damn good. Maybe my psyche just needs a day or two to balance it out. Or maybe I'm naturally a pretty shitty dude. I'm not going to discount either possibility.

I miss my friends. I really have little to no adult human interaction during the week, Of course I love my children and want them with me 24/7, but I do need to find a way to share my life with some peers as well, and not just during the 2-3 days the kids are with their mother.

The Abduction, part 1

Last night I had the nightmare that Denise abducted the kids again (specifically, she only abducted Rael and Tasmia in this dream, not that it makes the dream at all more pleasant). This is a fear (and in its event, a horror) I wouldn't wish upon anyone. It's also a horror I'd like to get over, but I fear that will be a long, long time coming.

Back in April of this year I confronted Denise with evidence of her using drugs after our split, and of her being under their influence while she was taking care of the kids. Under the advice of dear friends I let Denise know that I wanted her to seek drug counseling or provide a clean drug test. She, of course, grew agitated and an argument ensued (as happened every time we ever discussed something that wasn't favoring her). During the course of this argument I called her a cunt, something I'd never done in thirteen years together.

Two days later while I was at work, and with the aid of her parents and my self-defining "only friends" the Taylors, she kidnapped our children and went into hiding. At the time, we had been working toward divorce as amicably as possible (which still wasn't very amicable) and there wasn't yet a court order for custody or visitation. Because of this the police refused to do anything to help, even when faced with legal precedents and statutes that demanded it. Denise sought, and was denied, a restraining order against me. The abduction happened on a Friday afternoon, so I couldn't utilize the court for assistance until Monday (and was able, based on the evidence of her past neglects and her current abduction to get a hearing the very next day, Tuesday).

Friends stayed with me throughout the weekend, lending what support they could. All the while, the absence of the children was keenly felt. There was none of their laughter, none of their smiling faces, none of their playing games, none of their peaceful sleeping. Toys lay on the floor calling attention to the kids' absence. Nothing in life has ever hurt as much as this horrific act.

At the hearing that Tuesday, the courts returned the children to my primary care, allowing Denise to only see them from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. The children returning home at six that night was, equal to the heartache of their abduction, the happiest moment in my memory. What followed was four long, frustrating months of court battles over custody finally culminating in the same visitation schedule for the oldest two kids and an additional time allotted to her with the youngest two from Weds. afternoon until Thurs. morning (optional for Lash and Aeia).

The abduction has devastated what little relationship was left between Denise and the eldest kids. Lash, in typical teenager fashion just goes with the flow of the court's demands while he'd rather not see her. Aeia is instead very vocal about her feelings towards her mother and wants nothing to do with her (this week she even told her counselor and me that she doesn't like her mother and counseling isn't going to fix it, so she wants to end counseling because everything else in her life makes her happy). Rael's trauma from the abduction is keenest whenever his mother talks to him about her eventually getting a place of her own (she's been staying with the Taylors these past months), which he equates to her stealing him again and keeping him from me.

And me? Every weekend I send the kids off with Denise and feel the same emptiness of their absence while they're gone. Every weekend the fear returns that some insane thing will set this woman I believe to be unstable off and she'll take them again despite court orders. Every weekend I revisit the fear that Friday was the last time I'll ever see them again.

And somehow there are still some people who think I'm the bad guy because I called Denise a cunt.

Next Year

Last year, my New Years Word was passion (and the decision to continue on with grace, which remains the case). I don't think living a life with more passion was at all a beneficial change in life for me. Being more passionate about my friendships led to caring more about them for both their benefits and their deficiencies which led to disappointment at friends who didn't share nearly the same passion and ultimately their ending. Being more passionate about my marriage led to caring more about our varied problems and a desire to work harder to fix them. Ultimately, this too was a failed decision.

For most of this month my decision had been that this years word, this years goal for personal development and growth would be forgiveness. To work at overlooking the deficiencies of others and instead forgive them and welcome back friendships discarded for caring too much. Over the past week I held to this word-decision if only to hopefully make life at home in some way manageable again.

I can't do it.

I've grown too cognizant of the fact that forgiveness isn't likely in me anymore right now. For whatever reasons, I'm not ready to just overlook the deficiencies of others or the pain others instill. If people can't own the wrongs they themselves commit, I'm not in a place to forgive their faults. I'm finding that I instead feel quite the opposite and am intent on protecting myself instead from the bile expressed by others.

I can't do forgiveness now. So if not that, what? I'm finding that perhaps a much more important word for me to live this year is healing. I think healing will be the most significant aspect of life I should pursue internally right now and recognize in some cases where that may mean not being nice, which is why forgiveness won't always be a component of healing. If I can find myself healing, and if I can help my children to heal any pains of their own, then this years word will have been a success. The best part of healing, besides getting better, is knowing that the friends and loved ones who are there with us are all a positive part of this process.

Re-Tweeted

You may or may not have noticed that I've included my Twitter feed to this blog for the past few months. It's a chance for you to have mini snippets of me during those times I lag a bit more than we'd all like between posts here. And if you're inclined, you should totally follow me. Blah blah blah.
So today I tweeted (egads, I really do cringe at Twitter-speak, though I still use it for its growing universality amongst those who use it) the following: " evan_up Ironic from me, I know: Lately I find myself wishing more of the people closest to me would see the happy things in their lives. "

After the events of my post two previous to this one (that is, after I withdrew from certain other associations), Denise and I spent a good month or more (more) arguing, in our way (which means a lot of arguing from me and a lot of ignoring me slash escaping from reality into a book for Denise) as we worked through a personal problem that'd needed sorting for a couple years now, overshadowed previously by other matters. I feel that, while nothing is ever perfect and never will be, we've come through this together finally and into a much better place for it. I see in Denise though a reticence, a "is this just the calm before the next fight" quality to her demeanor. I regret that I'm probably deservedly to blame for her worrying this way but I hope I can get her to see that I'm happier now we've been working together and I look forward to the future we have more than I ever had in a long long time. I hope she can see the same bright star ahead soon; I'll have to work harder to help show her.

And then there's Aeia. The other day she made up this very charming Christmas card for me and Denise. Anyone who has ever received a homemade card from Aeia knows exactly how special and quirky wonderful these cards can be. This one, amidst all of its quirky Aeia-card perfection was also this bit of a gut puncher: I hope you and mom have a really nice Christmas, at least someone should have one.
Me: *dumbfounded* Sweetie, what's this? Don't you think you're going to have a good Christmas?
Aeia: No.
Me: You think you're going to have a bad Christmas?
Aeia: No. I think it's just going to feel like a regular day for me.
I don't quite know how to tackle that one. I hope we can find a way to make Christmas more special for her. Actually, I think as I typed the preceding sentence I figured out just how. I'll come back to this in a week and let you know how it worked.

To all of my home-fries out there (and if you think this applies to you, it probably does): finals are over, your friends and family love you, stop fretting over the minor stuff (especially, if it applies to you, Burgeropolis), stop worrying about what might happen with situations you haven't even started yet and start them instead--then worry about what to do about them; have more fun, laugh a little more--if you need help with this, call me, but me a drink or come over and kill some zombies or something.

words and music by Eric Idle

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

Kidding

This post will be less of a whiny "State of the Evan Union" post than the last one was. But I do want to give a quick thank you to Alex and Kayla for deciding to drop by Wally World in order to cheer me up after reading my last post.

I haven't talked much about the kids in a while, so for those family and friends with an interest in such things, some updating:

I'm going to start off with Aeia and completely buck the idea of any conventional ordering. The last month saw Aeia making a concerted push at getting me to re-implement the concept of allowances. Ironically enough, my decision to capitulate to this request has resulted in her deciding to be the one who least does their chores and therefore earns the least allowance. Over the Autumn Break (aka Thanksgiving Week) she had a family tree homework assignment. The parameters for this only required focus on her family tree through her grandparents, my and Denise's parents but Aeia was so interested in exploring as much of her geneology as she could that she pursued filling the tree out back through the generations out to my Great-grandmother. It was fun helping with this and it was fun listening to some of her reactions and revelations. She is very concerned with the large number of unwed pregnancies and multiple marriages in both my mother's and grandmother's generations. Aeia's also taken an interest in choir and I look forward to eventually, hopefully, getting to see her perform.

Lash is struggling with the same things he's been struggling with for some time now: friends and grades (he isn't making/keeping any ((and I think the situation in my previous post is negatively impacting his one close friendship)) and his grades are poorer than ever before. Le sigh.) while at home he's really begun to rise up to improving how helpful he can be with the other kids and with his chores. Far from perfect, but improving. I'd like to get him involved with some sport again.

Tasmia and Rael are both very frequently pretending to be dinosaurs, running around and growling at everyone else. Rael has begun playing the Lego Rock Band game with me on occasion--he only has the attention span for 2 and a half songs--and he does surprisingly well for his age, even if only on "super easy" mode for guitar. He's definitely interested in performance as he really adds some rocking out to his rocking out.

Tasmia is freaking scary intelligent. None of the others were as loquacious at two, none as communicative of their canniness (though all have proven to be pretty darn canny and loquacious). I think Tasmia's going to end up ruling the world--sometime after she learns to be less messy when she eats.

Halloweened

Halloween week was pretty good here:

Tasmia had her second birthday. She completely fell in love with her giant stuffed frog that Denise bought for her. I was particularly taken by how carefully she chose to eat her cake: like some sort of prim and proper gentlewoman with the tiniest dainty bites and zero mess or use of just fingers.

Halloween itself was another great success. Friday night we hosted our usual Rock Band party and made sure to include with the invites that the occasion would be a Halloween costume party as well. Everyone who came was up to the task and came costumed or made up to fully celebrate the night. Big ups to everyone who came!

Trick or treating was fun. This was Tasmia's first year as a full-on door-to-door trick-or-treater and she was great with the "Trick or Treats" and "thank you's" at most every door. Costuming this year saw pirates and ninjas setting aside their ages old feud in order to celebrate the gathering of candy together, all under the watchful eye of Jason Voorhies hacking the way to every house for them. Lots of good fun, and loads of pictures have since been uploaded to my Facebook profile.

In non-holiday updates, work has been very busy but nowhere near as frustrating or annoying as it can tend to be. I miss the absence of some friends, though I'm moving on fairly well. This week was also the anniversary of my grandmother's passing and that continues to be hard, but I bottle it well enough *wink*. I think Denise and my relationship is growing stronger and much better communicated, even if the process of getting there sometimes makes it feel otherwise.

It's been a week of fun times, more hope, some stress: the usual.

Dos

Someone's turning two today!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Tasmia,
Happy birthday to you!

Too Long For Twitter

Three or so weeks this time. . .things have been good. And not so good, but the not so good is really not so bad.

For years now I've been getting this recurring pain in my feet, usually when the weather changes significantly. I've always attributed this to joint pain/arthritis from complications coming out of the many ankle injuries I've had from when I played volleyball. It turns out that I've been partly right all along--it has been an arthritis of sorts. The past two weeks I was suffering some incredible foot pain, often so bad that it made me physically ill as I tried to tough it out as I usually do. Eventually it grew so great that I decided to go to the emergency room right after work (at 2a.m.); my McMinion and buddy Lex did me a massive solid by coming with me (a solid that proved necessary once the pain meds they gave me in the e.r. made it quite impossible for me to drive). It turns out I suffer from gout. Look it up on Wikipedia. Foot still hurts, but being tended to properly and feels much better.

On the moving front. . .Denise and I eventually grew so frustrated and tired of the search that we decided to put the move off at least another year, waiting to see how other things pan out before making the ultimate decision as to when and where to move for the long term. The positive in this is that we then took the money we had saved for the move and did some much needed home refurbishing. It actually almost feels like we have a new home anyway.

This week has a trip to San Francisco that, while necessary, I'm really not looking all that forward to (and a pre-emptive massive thanks to our friends for both helping with childcare and the loan/swap of transportation. Neither of our cars have air conditioning and that alone would make the journey misery); with a repeat trip later in August.

Oh, and a quick shout out congratulations to one of my favorite people, Adrienne, for the birth of her second child!

That's enough brain dump for now.

You've Got Mail

My next door neighbour just delivered mail of mine that was delivered to her on accident. Except the mail is 3-4 weeks old (as what she brought me was a cable bill that's now 3 weeks past due) and it's been opened. This particular neighbour has never given any sort of problem before, but I think this is going to have to end up being a call the cops sort of infarction.

The kids are on vacation for a week again, starting today, and have way too much pent-up energy. Personally, I wish this vacation were a week earlier or later. I'm taking four of my five vacation days this week and was looking forward to some peace and quiet interspersed between being available to help some friends out if they need us.

Microsoft decided it would be cheaper for them to send me a new Xbox 360 rather than repair my broken one, and included a one month extension of my Live Gold account. I'm ok with this. The only downside, I had to re-download the 14 or so gigabytes of downloadable content I had in order to assign the license for them to the new console. Everything else is upside.

The past week saw Chris & Chrissy's 15th wedding anniversary and Aeia's 9th birthday. Happy Anniversary to the Taylors and Happy Birthday to my daughter!

Home For the Holidays

Randomly mentionable ephemera:

I need to get one last ingredient today for my award-worthy cranberry sauce and the expectation of it waiting for me come Thursday. And though I have to work Thursday morning, I'm not too bothered over it; it means I get to escape the stress of all the other cooking and entertaining until then.

TV is more and more boring, poorly written, not riveting. . .this season. And then there are gems like Pushing Daisies. Canceled gems. I swear the TV Gods have it in for me: "Hey, check it out, Evan just fell in love with this quirky/entertaining/original show. . .let's make sure no one watches it so it'll tank!" a la Veronica Mars, Wonderfalls, Firefly, Angel. . .I've decided I need to convince the TV Voodoo that I really LOVE everything on the CW, House and the Law & Order franchise, while I really hate the shows I really love. . .

My grandma's memorial is Saturday. I have trepidation.

Blatantly changing painful subjects. . .Black Friday is nearly upon us and I haven't amassed enough crazy wealth yet. That said, if you are someone I would typically be sure to include in holiday gift-giving, I'm likely to just send you a well-wishing note this year in order to focus all my energy on the kidlets. Much love to all.

This has been a very enjoyable quarter for me when it comes to video games. For the first time ever, I have too many new games bought or borrowed that rock and demand my time, and not enough time to play them all equally. For those of you who've been wondering, and don't need full-fledged reviews to convince you (other than my golden word), Little Big Planet, Rock Band 2, Fallout 3 and Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe are all worth their price tags. I am a little annoyed that XBox Live is turning into a clone of the Wii, but am happy to be able to Netflix via my XBox--I might even use that feature now.

Kids are all healthy and happy and enjoying their Thanksgiving breaks. Denise has recently been diagnosed with an amazing number of allergies, and I'm leery of how this will effect the home life for all of us, even if I do want her to have more comfort.

Wow, it's 2 am. . .I should go to bed. 'Night!

Freaky Friday

New Halloween pics on facebook.

The kids had a great Halloween. As you'll see, Aeia was a witch, Lash was Boba Fett, Rael was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Tasmia was a jack o'lantern. We, as usual, did our trick-or-treating together with the Taylors and were out for about two hours. The first hour Rael would come running up to me after every house (he was led to and from every house byLash) to let me know he wanted "more house dad!" During the second hour he started getting tired and demanded I carry his candy bag and Chrissy carry him to each house. He also made sure she knew he wanted to go home with her and "protect her from getting hurt." He was very sweet. As the weather was constntly on the verge of torrential downpours, Tasmia and Denise stayed home.

That day I also had the annual parent-teacher conference for Aeia. She's doing exceptionally well, enough that her teacher suggested we might have her tested as a gifted child. She also shared a writing activity the students had done about their lives that week. Aeia had written about her visit to my grandmother's this summer and how much she loved that time with her. This choked me up a little.

I kept Rael home from "school" that day due to an incident at his HeadStart preschool the day before (the other kids were given the day off by their schools) that left me and Denise needing to discuss whether we could continue trusting his school to supervise him and keep him safe. Rael had decided he wanted to see his brother, so he left his preschool and walked to Lash's school (they're on the same block) looking for Lash, without his preschool (6 adults to watch 18 kids. . .) realizing he'd left. The good staff at Lash's school took him in, protected him and got him returned to where he belonged, while Rael's teachers floundered about. Today I received notification that Rael's school has been cited for this incident and could lose their liscence if any other incidents occur. I can't say that I disagree with this. Of all my kids at that age, Rael is definitely the biggest handful, but taking care of and supervising kids, even energetic ones like Rael, is part of their training and job requirement

As for the rest of life: work sucks. My PS3 had a system update that caused my 3rd party controller to stop working with Little Big Planet so now I need a new controller. I don't feel myself conneting well with others right now and I feel pretty alone. Oh, and it's my turn again to do the part time shifts at the Wal-Mart store, which always completely sucks ass, but at least I don't have to do it on December for the holiday rush.

Silent Hill

This past Saturday I got my nipples pierced. It hurt. A lot. Very few other pains in life that I have experienced do I recall hurting more. I'd rather sport an eyebrow piercing but, well, that would make me less employable. Interestingly enough, my piercer turned out to be someone I already knew IRL, my friend Bandito's band-mate Dirty Jim. "I got my nipples pierced by Dirty Jim" doesn't exactly sound the safest, eh?

Saturday I also invited a coworker to join our regular Rock Band get-together, and she brought one of her friends. And J&J both were fairly ogling and gawky. I hadn't the heart to tell them that the ladies were gay (so very many of my Burger Workers are. An unusually large percentage of the population). All had a blast, as usual.

Retrieved Lash & Aeia from my grandmother on Sunday. Both had a fantastic time on their trip & I'm glad they got to have this special family time they normally don't get as much of. Things are quickly back to noisy normal here.

Work still sucks, but they convinced me to stay (ok, Denise did) and I will continue looking in earnest for something better. Sigh. Denise has some tests she needs to take tomorrow for job qualifications of her own. Loots of luck being wished on that one.

The wildfires here in northern California continue to blaze. There has been very little of this summer that's been smoke-free and safe for the kids to play outside, swim, etc. This is frustrating. I've friends with homes in danger, and this worries me (we had some stay with us one night while they were evacuated. I can't imagine how horrible the feeling is for them). I just want the fires to end. There's been so much ash and smoke thick in the air for so long that I'm beginning to feel like I live in Silent Hill. And it's very hard on me and my incomplete set of lungs as well. Sigh.

I have tomorrow off. A little job searching and some decent r&r would be nice.

Next time...

Waiting

I've been boring. I'm going to work on that.

Eldest kids are at my grandmother's this week, camping, fishing, meeting new relatives, having a fantastic time. Lash caught his first fish and apparently really dug it. I only wish I could have been there.

Haven't seen any of the movies I want to see yet, and am more likely not to at this point. Bummer. Ah well.

Oh boy did my birthday suck. Really, really suck. I don't want to elaborate, though as I am now past that. But it s-u-c-k-e-d sucked.

Still waiting for news on my pitch, which will go slower now that it's convention season...working on something new though for another small press.

Saturday nights are becoming a regular Rock Band party here, which has been fun.

I'm Not There

A couple weeks ago Tasmia had her regular baby check-up and they detected a heart murmur, so today was the echocardiogram to test whether the murmur is a problem or not (again, not there due to Burger Emporium not giving me the time off requested). I hadn't mentioned any of it here before because I didn't want to put it out there and give Denise more to fret over. So anyway, they won't have an answer as to what the echo showed until next week, so we still wait wait wait, but with less fretting under the assumption that if there was something overly worrisome, it would have shown in their reactions. Anyway, good vibes and all that jazz please.

Rael is fine, thanks.

Lash's regular baseball season is over,but his team did well enough that they're in the local play-offs (play-off record of 1-1, two losses will eliminate them). He's still enjoying them greatly and work has kept me from viewing as many as I'd have liked.

The kids finished school today. Both did spectacular on their report cards. Next year Lash will be in 6th and Aeia 3rd grade. Lash had a great time at Whiskeytown Environmental Camp too. Groovy.

I'm working on a couple new writing pitches with another company in mind--spreading out my writing search.

Rock Band is still my mistress but some of its idiosyncrasies leave me a little ambivalent. My band with John and Brian is named "The Gay Cabelleros" and Microsoft chimed in when we selected this to let us know that the name was unacceptable for online/community standards and we wouldn't be able to play on XboxLive without changing the band name (we haven't, and I rock it hard with my pink chaps and cowboy hat). Then, when Aeia was singing "This ain't a scene, it's an arms race" by Fall Out Boy, I realized another quirky censorship issue of theirs: in the chorus when he repeatedly sings "god damn arms race" Rock Band has "god" deleted, it's just a silent vocal beat there, but "damn" is still there. Funny, not ha-ha, to me as I would have prefered Aeia not saying "damn" over her saying "god." Funky. All of the songs are radio edits (which is no different from Guitar Hero), so no "so fucking special" in "Creep," etc.

Still, extremely super fun and addicting. Just waiting for EA to send me my replacement for the defective guitar that came with it; thankfully the GH guitar works with Rock Band (but not vice-versa, grr).

Work. . .blows. And we've added more things to the menu that I won't eat.

Old friend Adam is coming up for a visit this weekend, am looking forward to some groovy hang-out time, see the Hulk, go buy another auction car. Good times.