angst

How Fresh! is the new blog from the creator of Lavender Kitchen. Her first (and to press time, only) post is frighteningly real and just plain frightening.

I am a child. I am an adult. I’m coming into my own right now, as we speak. I’m surrounded by a government that makes no sense. I see a president whose malapropisms are becoming less and less funny the closer we move to war. There is a possibility that my best friends would lay their lives on the line upon the order of a man who talks big politics at the same time he’s teeing off. ...

I don’t want to be Britney Spears. I don’t want to be Avril Lavigne. I don’t want to be the societal image of ‘girl.’ I’ve become non-gendered.

Good stuff.

bugger!

Rejection and miscommunication from every possible angle in the last twelve hours. My stomach is in knots. I think I'm pissing a lot of people off by accident. Or it could be that another rhymes-with-witch ripped me a new one for no good reason last night. Nothing tears me up more than knowing I pissed someone off, even if it was nothing I did.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa

Now every non-communication is interpreted by me as willful and malicious even when it could simply be that the other party is simply busy or incommunicado for some reason.

she-who-must-update

Last news is that She-who-must-not-be-named is considering moving out of Pegleg's trailer into an apartment near her children. Her Epiphany of a week ago seems to have far-reaching consequences. I'm starting to think her "epiphany" was her "hitting bottom" (in addict-speak) and she might be on an upswing.

To date our verbal agreement to have me have primary physical custody at the time of the divorce (Feb 21st) still stands. I have to write everything up for the court and re-distribute assets to cover the truck, but all should work out fine. Less than a month to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

boggle : or chat with a clueless woman

Just now.

bitchen.rm: Something on your profile baffles me.
bitchen.rm: You list one of my turn-ons as a turn-off: Erotica. How can Erotica be a turn off? Are we defining the word in the same way?
clueless_girl: I don't care to take it up the ass.
bitchen.rm: Huh?
clueless_girl: that is what I think when I think Erotica
bitchen.rm: Erotica is sexual stories.
bitchen.rm: They can be very tame.
clueless_girl: I love sex magazines and books
bitchen.rm: That's erotica!
clueless_girl: my bad

boomhauer-in-law

It struck me last night during Nightline that my mother-in-law, when out of her element, turns into Boomhauer from "King of the Hill."

She'd told me that there was a break-in special report during her soaps about the UN and Iraq. Her ineffectual description included intriguing phrases like "look like we're going to attack" and "the U.S. may have to go it alone." I decide to turn on Nightline to get the real facts. We watch it together. I have to translate the pundit-speak for her. Hell, I have to translate the newscaster for her. She lets it cook in the back of her mind for a while and waxes Boomhauer on me:

"You know the, uh, Bible talks about them there uh, dang Palestinians and Israelis and Arabs over there and the fighting and whatever."

"You know that guy... who was that guy? That one who lived 400 years ago. That astrologist?"
"Nostradamus?"
"Yeah, Nosterdamis or whatever, he predicted all of this. He predicted that there'd be a Saddam."

"Ah, them people over there are all nuts anyway, you know? It's nothin' for them to wake up in the morning and chop someone's head off?"
"Yeah, I guess"

Should I bother to mention that the form letter she got from Woman's World magazine was gospel to her? "They want me to send a clearer picture but they think my grandson is cute!" Then I had the decidedly heartbreaking task of explaining the letter she got yesterday after sending a second picture meant what it said--that they'd keep it on file and use it if they needed it. She was in such denial that she was baffled by the simplest of phrases. Never occurred to her that the Beautiful Baby Editor told every grandmother that sent in a picture that their baby was so cute and she must be proud.

Sad that.

mother-in-law visits the gynecologist

This is a story she was fond of repeating a while back. I thought she'd retired it till I overheard her tell it again on the phone the other day.

So I'm at the gynecologist, and it's this other young guy I've never seen before. He asks me when my last paps test was and I'm like "don't you have my chart?" you know. So asked me if I wanted one and I said "sure, since I'm here." It took him forever. I don't know what he was doing, but it hurt like hell. It felt like he was in there with a staple gun or something. After about five minutes he asks me:

"Are you sure you haven't had a hysterectomy? I can't find your cervix!"

At this point I slap my hands to my face and shake my head, kicking myself for listening to that story again.

you too, can know what it's like to live with my mother-in-law

Background: MIL is a widow of seven years, highly opinionated and uncontradictable if you don't want personal offense and a large, loud argument on your hands. In other words, she's always right. She talks to hear herself talk. She's a good storyteller when talking about past events, but her other talking is generally filled with inaccuracies and mispronunciations and statements of fact based on old wives tales.

let's read the store ads
"Now I'm not telling you what to buy or anything, I just want you to know what's a good deal and that. Here's T-bones for $2.99. I've got them for $1.99 but the price of beef is going up."

Huh? It is? You've done the commodities research then?

"It says here that the chuck-eye roast is... well I'm not sure what that is, but it's Angus. That's the best kind of cow, you know."

For what?

"They've got green beans here for twenty-five cents a can. That's cheaper than Aldi's. I think I paid twenty-nine or thirty-nine there."

So you want me to by a gross then? I can save $14.40 on a hundred and forty-four cans of french-style green beans.

"Big Lots gets that gourmet food in sometimes, you know..."

They do? The clearance store goes looking for great deals on food that would normally be served in fine New York french restaurants? What part of a box of really good cornbread mix at a good price makes it gourmet?

"You know your wife bought them special cookies or whatever they are in the cupboard and I asked her what she paid for them. She said 'five dollars, I splurged.' 'Well, Christ,' I said 'You can buy the same damn thing at Big Lots for two bucks!' That's why you never had any money, Ric, that and she used to buy from the Schwann's man the same stuff you can buy at Aldi's for a lot less."

Right, who cares that Aldi's reeks of a white trash salmonella factory and the brands you get are suspect in their misspellings of the products they contain.

"Stick with me, Ric, I'll learn ya how to save money."

Y'know I'm really trying to watch the Super Bowl here and not strangle you.


let's talk to my boss
Me: Hey, Boss, you know I'm living with my mother-in-law?
Boss: Yep! You gettin' any?
Me: Fuck you! (I like that I can say that to my boss...)

Later
Me: Hey, [MIL], I told Boss that I was living with you and he asked if I was "gettin' any" Ha ha.
MIL: Well, you go tell your boss that after seven years, it's probably growed shut.

I'll only tell the gynecologist story by request...

you can't have one without the other

MIL is just a complete mix of good and bad things. She's staying. She actually agreed to be more discrete when talking about She-who-must-not-be-named. I told her that I appreicated all of her cleaning, cooking, and 100 loads/6 weeks of laundry-doing. I also appreciate the way she's teaching the kids to pick up after themselves. And I told her so. I'd rather not live with her as a person, but it's the best thing right now. The girls wanted her to stay and I concurred.

Ironically, I believed what caused my wife's epiphany on Wednesday was sparked by a ranting speech from her mother on the phone. She-who called to bitch at MIL about her badmouthing, and MIL let her have it. Basically told her that if She-who got the kids, her depression and anxiety would plummet again and she's already in bad shape. Apparently her therapist agreed with her. I must say I'm grateful to MIL for saying things to her that I couldn't say.

They hate each other now, but things are for the best otherwise.

P.S. For the rationale behind why I'm paying for the truck to settle this, see comments on previous post.

shower head
...or how my life and wife turned around overnight

My old shower head was spraying streams in random directions. My showers had become frustrating and unfulfilling. The lingering aftereffects of a particularly demeaning taunt by my shower head inspired me to get a new one when I was at Meijer buying stuff to fix my car.

It wasn't displayed nicely with the more expensive, shiny, massaging shower heads. It sat, huddled with a dozen of it's twins--each in it's own hang bag, marked $3.49. It's white plastic shell screamed "economy!" and it's nondescript packaging struck me as what must be like homelessness to new shower heads. It asked me why I would pay a minimum of ten dollars for a low-end Shower Massage, when I could take home the runt mutt puppy of shower heads for less than four dollars? My bank account asked the same thing.

This morning, I removed my chrome-plated plastic nemesis, and screwed my new white friend on before I took my shower. I ran the tap hot before engaging the shower. Then...

The Handel's Messiah of Showers! I heard the weeping, hollow sounds of angel's song as the strong, evenly spaced jets of water assaulted my upper body in concert. No aberrant, arcing spews poked at my eyes. No dribbles fell to the tub suicidally before even attempting to cleanse me. Just strong, even, ruler-straight streams flying in military formation to conquer the despot of my filth.

This morning is a good one.

My mother-in-law is still around but not speaking to me. The best of both worlds.

My wife had an epiphany yesterday and agreed that the kids should be with me until she overcomes her depression and addiction. There will be no custody battle as long as I pay for her truck. Good deal, I say. Divorce should be final on February 21st

And showers are back on my list of tranquilizers.

i think i may have fired my mother-in-law

Now, she might have just felt threatened by my mention that my mom was retiring next week and offered to relieve her from duties for short spans if she wanted, but I'm not convinced of that.

What you have to understand about MIL (Mother-In-Law) is that the way you get along with her is to let her rant. She rants for hours on end--and never contradict her because she's always right. Some of her rants are stories (she's an effective and funny storyteller), some of them true rants about what shit She-who is doing or other relatives or whatever. And she has no problem ranting about She-who in front of the kids--a fact that irritates me to no end.

When she's not ranting to me, she's ranting on the phone to her friend or two. My eldest has often asked why grandma has to tell all of her friends about "us" kids. She does it because she is acting in loco parentis for my wife. She has gone as far as imagining that she's their new mom. Since I'm home with them only for a few hours a night during the week, her live-in babysitting, laundry-doing and child rearing has been welcome. She makes a point of telling me how the kids were that day or when I wasn't around and what she said to the children.

After an hour-and-a-half rant last night I couldn't keep silent. I broke the unspoken law about contradicting her. There was no way I couldn't gently recommend that she not disparage their mother in front of them and to them.

She didn't get it.

She insisted that her daughter was lazy, insolent, incompetent, etc. I told her that, while this may be true, you don't have to constantly repeat it to the kids. You can say "I know you are not used to picking up after yourselves, but we're all going to try to do better," rather than, "I know your mother let you get away with not picking up after yourselves but things are going to be different with me." It's a subtle but important difference. The semantics were lost on her. My long-time readers know that She-who has a problem with understanding why semantics are important, but knows what they are. MIL has no clue.

"I suppose you've never said anything bad about her to the kids?"

"[MIL], I bend over backwards not to talk bad about her in front of them. If I do, it's what's necessary and a fraction of what you do."

She took it as a personal affront and started down to her bedroom weeping, "I'm going to pack up. I'm leaving."

"What? You're packing?"

"You heard me. I'm packing up and leaving. Your mom is retired, let her take care of them."

Sigh.

So, I don't know if it was an empty threat or not, but it did sound like she was down there packing last night. She could be gone today, I don't know.

My mom certainly can't come stay with me--nor would I never allow it, she'd drive me--literally--crazy, plus she has dad to babysit. MIL has nowhere to go. She has so much stuff in my house now...

I don't know...

On the bright side, a beautiful young woman invited me to a party thrown by other people I know this weekend. (A super bowl party on Saturday--go figure. The hostess says she doesn't want to be up too late on Sunday night.)

woo-hoo! i'm number ten!

Google Search: britney spears abs breasts

new years eve 2003

Life is tough when you have such magnetism for the opposite sex. You can't really go anywhere without them swarming. And if there's a camera around, forget it. They all want to be on permanant record as having been seen with me.

Thanks to Catalyst and his trusty digital camera, my New Year's Eve was not a quiet one. Every time he raised the camera, every babe in the room would be right there. On my lap. Around my neck. Thank God that cameras were barred from the Little Boys Room or I would have found no respite. "Take my picture with Bitchen Ric!" "No me!" "No, I want to." Good Lord, it was finally nice to find a room to hide in so I could get some sleep that night. Well, I mean, thank Christ that Keith Richards doesn't want his picture with me or I'd have never gotten any sleep.

I wish Charlton Heston felt the same way. My ass was never really the same after that one.

the middle child

I've never come up with a pseudonym for my middle child, who is ten years old. She doesn't really have a pretend name or anything, so I think I'll call her Mallory after "Malcom in the Middle" (and a little "Family Ties").

Mallory lost a tooth last night. Actually, I pulled it. In the bathroom. It was just hanging there. Afterwards, I closed the bathroom door and asked her confidentially:

"Mal, is there a Tooth Fairy?"

She grinned and giggled, "no..."

"Oh. I wasn't sure if you knew. Did I tell you? How did you find out?"

"I saw you bring in the dollar the last time," she chuckled.

"Oh. So I can just give you a dollar then and eliminate the hassle?"

"Sure."

I pulled a dollar out of my pocket and handed it to her.

"Thanks!" she said joyully.

"Don't tell The Rooster."

"I won't," she grinned and skipped off to her room.


A friend at work tells the story of his last tooth fairy visit when he was seven. He was feigning sleep on the couch one Friday night after watching "Shock Theatre" and when Mom-cum-Tooth-Fairy came to deliver the goods, he lept up and screamed at her, scaring the bejesus out of the poor woman. His dad was so mad about it he blurted, "You're going to be a rich little kid, 'cause I'm gonna knock all your teeth out for that..."

guess what she got for christmas

To My Most

Fabulous Most

Outrageous Daddy!

To my fabulous most outrageous Daddy,
       Hey good look'n, you fabulous beyond
fabulous dad. Daddy you are so funny,
awesome and cool. You are my universe. My
dad. The one and only.
       Do you know what I want for
Christmas? I know what I want for Christmas.
I want a $50 gift card from Wal-Mart. For
your princess. Your angel. The one and only.
I must, let me repeat, must have this.
       I must say that this gift, that I know
that you'll get me, will show you that I can be
responsible, you won't have to take your time
away from us, it will only take ten minutes to
find it, it's the perfect gift for me and always
will. You know that mom used to spend $150 on
gifts for me, so this is a bargain, and again I
must, repeat, must have a $50 gift card to
Wal-Mart.

              Love,
                     You Sweet Angel Daughter,
                            Katie

custody again

For those of you following along in your Bitchen! Manual, I got custody of my middle child on Saturday. I now have custody of all three. I could not let her stay in the environment that her mother was putting her in. (Suffice it to say that the situation was drug-related.) Until we get a court order, I will only allow her supervised visitation. By law, there's nothing preventing her from taking my kid(s) into her custody, so all I can do is prevent her from having them alone.

Now, if my goddamn lawyer would return my phone calls.

"don't settle for anything less"

I don't know if I've ever told my father of the important lesson he taught me when I was twelve. He wasn't trying to teach me a life lesson. He was trying to teach me how to roll up my sleeves.

My father was a rolled-up-sleeve kind of guy. Hated the button-down shirts he always wore. Every shirt he ever wore when I was a kid was a two-pocket, long-sleeved, button-down broadcloth shirt. (He didn't graduate to Oxford cloth till I was in college.) He always had two pockets--one for cigarettes and one for a notepad and pens. He wore long sleeves to protect his arms at work. (I wear long sleeves because short sleeves give me that "K-Mart Manager" look.)

He was an inventory cycle counter for International Harvester and did a lot of walking around all day. His overweight and the factory environment made it a hot day and he always ended up with his sleeves rolled up by the time he climbed in his car to come home.

As dutiful, emulating sons, my two older brothers and I learned to roll up our sleeves at school when things got steamy. It was not uncommon for the four of us to sit at the dinner table eating mom's meat and potatoes du jour, all with rolled up sleeves.

One day when I was twelve, he watched me clumsily roll up my sleeves and decided to comment:

"What do you call that?" he asked, in a sort of nice belittlement.

"I rolled up my sleeves."

"Let me show you how to do that. Roll them back down."

I pushed the crumpled and rolled cotton cloth back down my arms and smoothed out the wrinkles.

"Here," he said, folding the cuff back right on the seam. "fold it back like this and smooth it out."

Where the cuff fell, he bent the cloth to make another overlapping fold and another, folding the cloth up my arm rather than rolling it.

"You try," he said, indicating my other sleeve.

I folded the cuff back like he had and attempted the second fold. Without the stitching as a guide, the cloth started to wrinkle as I folded. He gently took the cuff from my hand, unfolded the sleeve and began folding it again, showing me how to smooth the cloth from each fold before attempting the next to preserve the clean lines.

"When you fold each one, smooth it out completely," he said, smoothing his most recent fold, "don't settle for anything less."

That statement changed my life. So many times after that when I found myself doing something that was turning out half-assed, I'd hear my father's words. The admonishment was not, to me, just advice in rolling up your sleeves nicely, but in doing all things nicely.

"Line up those pages before you staple, don't settle for anything less."

"Make sure that code is bug-free, don't settle for anything less."

"Make sure the floor is completely clean, don't settle for anything less."

And ultimately:

"Be a total father, don't settle for anything less."

tears

This entry from Chappy has me near tears. Not the entry, but that my middle daughter is ten and that's what her handwriting looks like and that's a note that she'd write.

I haven't seen her since last Friday. She is with her mom and her one-legged boyfriend in a mobile home 40 minutes from everywhere. She was supposed to start a new school this week. Her mom was supposed to get a phone. She-who's cell phone is shut off due to non-payment and she has no phone yet. I didn't get to schedule visitation this week. I'm worried terribly about my daughter. And I miss her. And I can't even get ahold of her or her mom.

I'm just gonna drive up there after work. What other choice do I have?

I hope she's okay.

Daddy's coming, honey.

the savant-symbolic-spatial mathematical rooster, part 2

Back in April I told a story of the amazing "savant-symbolic-spatial" mathematical skills of The Rooster, my seven-year-old daughter. I've seen a couple more astounding examples in the last week, and I thought I'd share. Sorry if I come across as one of those annoying proud parents, but I am one of those annoying proud parents.

Example 1

Me: "Roo! What's seven times five?"

Keep in mind that she hasn't studied multiplication, but has rather gleaned the concept from her older sisters. Her eyes roll up as they have since she was doing addition at age four. You can almost see her moving blocks of data in her mind. She does this for about fifteen seconds.

"Thirty-five?"

"Yes, Rooster! I'm so proud! That's right! How did you do that?"

"Well, seven plus seven is fourteen. Fourteen plus fourteen is twenty-eight. Twenty-eight plus seven is thirty-five."

My God, I think, She's grouping and sub-multiplying. She totally understands the concept and has found a way to not only keep a running sum, but keep track of how many sevens she's used (even though she had an odd number of them and used them in twos), and how many are left.

Example 2

"Hey, Roo! What's eight times three?"

Again the eyes roll and fifteen seconds pass...

"Twenty-four?"

She's only seven? "Yes! That's right" I'm beaming, "how did you do that?"

"Well, I figured eight times three is the same as three times eight. So if you do eight plus eight you get sixteen plus four is twenty, then plus the last four is twenty-four."

Splitting down numbers into managable parts to use easier intermediate sums. AND! she either deduced or learned from her sisters of the commutative property of multiplication. Holy shit.


Her grandmother will be quick to point out that when she woke up every morning before Christmas she could instantly tell you how many days until Christmas before she was even awake--and The Rooster is definitely not a morning person.

setting the lust record straight

Let me set the record straight right here and now.

Mr. Artist rendered that picture from an inspiration triggered by my musings of having taken my oldest to see her in concert. I told him there were exactly two type of people there: Pre-teen girls who'd love to meet her and get and autograph, and fathers there to stare at her body. He needed a "father" for the picture and asked if I minded being the model. I thought it'd be funny. But let me say this:

I am not a breast man.
I do not stare, leer or even notice breasts unless they are totally out of the ordinary. I've never looked a woman's breasts before looking at her eyes. But let me say this:

I am an ab man.
Well, derriers certianly rank right up there, but there's nothing like a woman with a hint of a six-pack to do the trick. Now Britney's got some great abs, but she's no Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. I mean, just look at that!

I hope that clears things up.

dream, artist's rendering

The artist at work is working on a label for a Britney parody product. He graciously included my likeness as part of the illustration.

This really doesn't go very far in contradicting Allen's mention (in comments) of the Britney Shrine in my office, I guess. What he doesn't realize is that I've removed that shrine and redecorated with a Mary-Kate and Ashley Shrine.

Oh, I also liked Mary T.'s interpretaion of my dream:

    "I think it sounds like you wish you could make all
    your daughter's dreams come true...and find a place
    to exist that is in the middle of a peaceful nowhere!"

Sounds damned innocent of me doesn't it? Awwww....

dream one

I slept a bunch last night. Mostly owing to the fact I fell asleep with all of my clothes on and my contacts in at about 9:00 last night. Hadn't intended to. I've been doing that a lot lately. I don't know if it's depression, lack of sleep, or the fact that She-who-must-not-be-named always yelled at me to wake up when I did that before.

Long story short, I woke up refreshed at 4:30 this morning and remembered a couple of dreams that I'd had. In the second one we were living in a remote, rural house (that I did not recognize) and we'd come from a charity concert that I was in. Evidently, Britney Spears was at the same concert but I didn't realize that.

Apparently, her entourage/convoy got lost leaving the concert and they stopped by our house in the middle of the night. Now mind you, Britney never admitted that they were lost, only that she was really, really tired.

"I know this is really awkward and a bad time and all, but my girls would be thrilled to meet you," said I.

"Of course!" she cheerfully agreed. So I went and woke the younger two up and she said "hi" and they hugged her elatedly. (I refrained, you sickos.) Then I took her into my 11-year-old's room and she hugged Britney sleepily and Britney laid down beside her to catch some Z's. In the morning, all were ecstatic to have breakfast with her.

Then I woke up.

I just love reading stories of dreams, but I seldom remember mine. Since I remembered this one so vividly, I thought I'd share.

mea blogum culpa

I've been off of work all week. It's hard for me to blog at home. I've been doing other stuff.

I seldom blog on weekends. I'm gonna put my laptop in my bedroom, then when I get a PCMCIA modem (or PCMCIA USB + USB modem) I'll probably start blogging from bed. :)

It's a bitch with my computer in the basement.

I am considering setting up a PayPal donation button to offset my legal fees for my upcoming custody battle. Is that gouche? Some people have set them up to finance vacations. Hmmmm...