"Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people".
So did you all miss me yesterday? What a fucking day that was. Busy, and interesting. Very interesting.
I knew I wouldn�t have Colin and Makayla, so I kind of tentatively planned a walk on the trails in Mine Falls Park with Mickey after lunch. Except, that never happened.
First thing in the morning, Nina had appointments for her kids. Of course, the appointment was for 8:45, I called her at 8:15 and said �let me know when you�re ready�, she said she just had to get Julianna dressed and she�d be ready. That took her half an hour, and she was ready AT 8:45. Piece of work. So, of course, she had to call in to see if they�d still see the kids, blah blah blah. She must be the office staff�s worst nightmare.
Anyway, so we went up there. They got done, and I dropped them off and brought Mickey for his physical. The appointment was for 10:20, and I was in the office at 10:15. That would be a disgrace to my old French-Canadian Memere, who taught me as a child that when you have an appointment, you should be there 15 minutes early. French people and their punctuality, it�s like a cultural case of OCD, I swear. Anyway, that shit doesn�t work well nowadays, especially seeing as we didn�t get in to see the nurse practitioner until 10:40.
Well, he�s doing good. At his last physical, the NP, Judy, really gave me a rash of shit about the boy. Here�s what I wrote about it in this entry :
�Took Mickey to the ped for his 4 year check-up, finally. Oh, he's healthy. And full of shots! Yey. He's also defiant, undisciplined, "young" and watches far too much tv. I know all this. And it's my fault. I'll admit it. I love the little brat to death and I love nothing more than to allow him to get away with everything. I'll regret it someday, this I know. And I think Beavis is a difficult teenager! HA! BUt, ya know, he's my baby , and he had that whole heart thing when he was born...I can't help but spoil him�
Well, I was totally expecting more shit, but she was very happy with him this time. He�s grown just fine, he�s healthy and he�s happy. He was totally the cutest while we were there. Judy let him listen to her heart with the stethoscope and he was so fascinated with that. He had a flu shot too (he gets one on account of the fact that he�s cardiac), and he was big and brave.
We ran to Shaw�s to pick up a few things after, then headed home for lunch. I�d gotten a salad at the salad bar at Shaw�s and I�d picked up some Lunchables for the boy. Ya know, allow me to digress a moment here, but I must say that salad bar salad really sucks if you leave out the fun stuff, like bacon bits, croutons, tater salad, cheese, etc. Anyway. I took lunch over to Nina�s and hung with her and Margaret for a few minutes, smoked a fatty, yada yada yada. Then I was off to my next adventure.
In between running around, I had gotten a call on my cell from Helen, Daisy�s mom (fka �The Douchebag� also fka �Esther�). She was all upset and crying and she had just found a ton of lice in Daisy�s hair and she had some in her�s. She didn�t think that we�d be able to take Daisy tonight because of it, which was the point of her call. I know that Helen is really squeamish about bugs, especially them ones that infest the body, from the last time Daisy had lice. And she was all crying, and saying she didn�t have anyone to take them out of her own hair.
Now, me, I have no problem picking nits. I�ve never had lice, nor have any of my kids, (and I�m sure that is only due to the grace of God), but when Daisy had them back in 2003, I was fairly instrumental at getting rid of them because I just sat down and picked, picked, picked. Like a frickin� Mama Chimpanzee. So, I said, �Helen, look, I have no problem picking out lice, would you like me to come over and help?� and she was shocked. Shocked and relieved.
Anyway. I brought her a six pack because that is, after all, the prescription for all that ails. Now, I got there around 1:00, I figured I�d be out of there in a few hours. Only not. Daisy has a ton of them. Seriously, a ton. I don�t know how she can hold up her head with 2000 pounds of lice in it. I picked at her for about three hours (okay, not straight through, she had to take breaks because all that sitting still was killing her) and she�s still got like half a ton.
Helen barely had any. I found two eggs and that was it.
Do you know how fucking weird it is to go through your husband�s ex-wife�s hair? Especially with the history that we have together? WEIRD. I�m sure it�s weird to have your ex-husband�s wife pick through your hair, too.
Anyway. I was there until 5:30. Daisy couldn�t handle anymore, and I needed to get home. This was after my cell phone rang a billion times. First, Beavis. Who cares what the note says, he�ll call me anytime I�m not home when he gets there. Gotta love him. Then Minnie. She missed me. I gave the phone to Daisy and let them speak. Then Butthead, who wanted to see If his �GF� could come over. Then , finally, Hub. Oh yeah and Nina called at one point, too. Geez.
We talked about the elephant. You know, the big elephant that�s sitting there, but you don�t want to acknowledge it, so you pretend it�s not there and you don�t talk about it. Our elephant is, of course, the custody trial and her ex, Chester. I�ve been avoiding this conversation because I really expected that to be the one thing that will ruin our now amicable relationship. Because I feel awful about how I handled things, about how yes I do believe that Chester touched Daisy, but no one will ever know the whole truth. About how things could have been so much different for everyone involved if I�d handled it better. If I only know then what I know now.
I struggle with it a lot, and I feel so much guilt over everything. I know it wasn�t all my fault, but I don�t like how I handled things. I was immature and ignorant. I am always wishing I could go back in time, to the beginning of Hub�s and my relationship and done things differently.
Goddamn elephant.
Anyway. The subject of Chester came up. I knew where it was going to go and I started to get really nervous. She said that she is not glad about what happened and how it happened, but she is grateful that the whole situation got her out of the relationship with him. That she acted like she did to protect her family, her daughter and herself. And that she hated me, from the time Hub and I got together until about last year or so. Which, I point blank told her, I don�t blame you for hating me and I wouldn�t blame her if she still did. She said then that, �No I don�t hate you now, it�s the opposite now. And here you are helping us pick lice and I don�t think you�d be here if you didn�t care�. Which is right. Not only do I care, because she is Daisy�s mom and therefore is family in a big roundabout kinda way, but I like her now. And I never thought that would be possible years ago. She�s not a bad person (not as bad as me, anyway).
I�ve learned so much from the whole situation with Helen. It�s changed how I look at people and circumstances. It will forever change how I deal with people, especially in situations like we had.
Anyway. So I didn�t know what to say to Helen about the elephant. So I said, �Helen, I can apologize over and over for the way things happened, and I don�t feel like it would be enough. The best I can say is that I am sorry, and if I could go back and change things, I would have handled it differently. It bothers me almost every day and I can only promise that it will never happen again�. And we teared up like a couple of little babies.
And it felt good that we talked about it, we talked about the past since I�ve been with Hub, and she went into her side of the divorce. There are two sides to every story, and why the fuck did I not fucking consider that before? Dumbass.
Anyway, the elephant will always be there, but we can talk about it now. That�s not to say that sometimes she might say the elephant is gray and I might really believe it�s brown, but we can agree to disagree and move on. And in the end, the one who benefits the most is Daisy.
Now, If I could just get this kind of vibe to work with Shauna, Butthead and Hilda�s mom, we�d be golden. Only that one�s a bit tougher. I liked Shauna in the beginning, but I have a big problem trusting her, based upon her behavior in the past few years. Eh. I�m going to try to be cooler with her, no matter how much she irritates the shit out of me.
I want good vibes! Happy, positive vibes! Love everybody! No more hatin�!
Okay, so the last line is more difficult to accomplish. What would this world be if there were no one to be pissed off at and hate? I�ll have to keep the hating down to folks I don�t know in real life, like terrorists or Dubya. And we�ll tone the �hate� down to �extreme irritation�.
Lastly, I fear that little Butthead and his �GF� are headed for a break up. At 16, after a year and a half, I think it�s kind of a big deal. See, Butthead actually knew his �GF�, Jen, through his ex before her, Kristin. And they�ve all been friends and hung out for the last year and a half. Well, now Jen had some kind of falling out with Kristin and actually forbid Butthead to hang around with her. And of course, Butthead being the dink that he is (hey, he openly admits that he�s a dink!), he�s not into that, and suddenly is making more of an effort to hang out with Kristin. It is kind of bullshit, that forbidding thing, but anyway.
She came over yesterday in her new car. I guess they hung out but didn�t talk much, and she finally just took off. So, Butthead had to go return some Halloween mask to Kristin�s and he went there. Well. Jen called later and Beavis got the phone, so he asked me if Butthead was home. I said, no, so Beav tells Jen, �No, he�s not home� and she�s all like, �WHAT?!? Where did he go?�, so Beav asked me and I didn�t remember him saying he went to Kristin�s specifically (beer, oops), so I said, �He went to return the signed Jason mask back to whoever�s it is�, Beav relays the info to Jen and she flipped and yelled, at Beavis, �That�s Kristin�s! I told him he can�t hang around with that fucking slut!�.
Poor girl. Butthead says suddenly that Jen is deathly afraid that Kristin is going to steal him from her. Of course, I had to be an asshole and tell him that it�s fine for him to hang out with anyone, crack heads, junkies, anyone as long as they�re not fucking sluts. Yay for me and my poor taste, I�m glad Jen didn�t hear it.
He�s also been hanging out a lot with this other chick, Danielle. I know he likes to hang out with girls more than guys, but I have a feeling about this one. In relaying the message that Jen called, I remarked that I thought they might be breaking up and he didn�t deny that, or even see it as a bad thing. Young love lost. Sad.
Andrea just called. No Colin and Makayla again today, they�re sick and she�s home with them. Hopefully, I won�t be spending this afternoon picking nits and maybe I will make it over to those trails at Mine Falls. We�ll see. For now, I have bloggage to catch up on.
Arrividerci!