27 November 2005

On this First Sunday of Advent, I am filled with concern for the world. Say what you will, I cannot but believe we truly are in "End Times."

I drove down to Dothan with my roommate Weds. night. The plan was that he would spend the day with his mother, and I would spend the day clearing one of my storage units. We left late, arriving in Dothan close to dawn. I dropped him at his mother's, and went to a nearby rest stop to catch a few hours of sleep. Crazy, I know, but I didn't want to impose on his mother.

I woke just as the sun tried to come up, and drove around looking for a place to pass the time until the gates opened at the facility I used to manage. I eventually found the local Kiwana park/trail.

To make a long story short, I got to my former place of employment in time to open the gate for my former employer, Mrs. Boss, who told me the latest news. Then I cleared a unit I'd forgot I had there-her daughter had emailed me a few days before Thanksgiving to remind me and to tell me that if I had it cleared by Thanksgiving afternoon they would not charge me. Awfully decent of them.

I understand looking out for one's family-just not at the expense of someone else. It will come back on one, and apparently is on my former employers. They treated me, and everyone who has ever worked for them VERY-VERY badly, justifying their behaviours by claiming to be looking out for their family, and simultaneously claiming to be dispensers of Christian Charity.

Uh, amoung other mal-treatments, such as firing people a fortnight before Christmas and deliberately stymieing the manager's capacity to do her job by firing the staff out from under her with no warning, and cheating her of wages and holidays not to mention respect; calling a cousin/employee her "pet nigger" to his face was for me a complete exposure of how well evil embeds in a suseptible soul.

Poor Goober-except he too calls black people "niggers" and while I was there when Mrs. Boss gigglingly referred to her husband's fifth cousin as her pet nigger to whom they kindly gave a charity job, to his face and I saw the utter shock and hurt on his face-being called that by his own cousin in law made no change in his calling blacks by a racist term.

I confess to only a lukewarm prayer for their recovery-my lukewarmness for me yet another sign of "the end" being near.

After I cleared that unit, I went to the place I'd got my things hurriedly moved to, and commenced to sorting out the mess made by the "get out of Dodge" panic.

I took a couple of breaks, and made a few phone calls and courtesy visits trying to connect with my son, who'd sent a message through my roommate that he wanted to make peace.

I left a message for him with one of his friends who was going to be spending the dinner hour with Fox, and then spent an utterly miserable rest of the day sorting through the rubble of the past four years. I waited and waited and waited-no Fox.

Completely heartbroken, I went to Entrare's to pick him up for the drive back to Atlanta; unable to stop crying, I rang him first from a payphone and asked him to come out to the curb when he saw my car, as I felt unable to face anyone in my grief.

(Sounds melodramatic until you consider what it was like for me to spend Thanksgiving alone, essentially homeless, reduced to driving around or moving from rest stop to park while waiting for something to open.)

And there I connected with my son, who never got my message until Entrare rang him to chastise him for letting me down after getting my hopes up, and on Thanksgiving no less!

Entrare's mother insisted I come in and have a plate of holiday leftovers. My son promised to help me get things sorted out about his dog, and consolidating my storage units.

Entrare and I drove back to Atlanta in time for me to shower and get to work.

Friday night I collapsed after work after depositing a frozen Tex-Mex casserole into the oven and then eating some of it. Gads, far too much sodium, and oddly, I found I didn't much enjoy it. My chest aches-my pericardium must be squeezing the hell out of my heart! And the taste of the sodium was too strong.

Saturday I spent pulling myself together.

Today I will clean, organize, and cook the Thanksgiving dinner I would have cooked had we not gone down to Dothan.

But first I checked the news online, going straight to the BBC. Oh dear heavens!

Quakes, wars, famine, and drunken riots. Murdered lady police constables, sex slave traffic dramatically increased. Racism spreading across the globe.

And bloody damned ostriches every-bloody-where.

I have a complete contempt for willful ignorance.

And I apologize for any spelling/grammatical errors.

24 November 2005

Hopefully we are leaving in an hour or so to drive south. I say hopefully, because everytime I blink, things change.

The plan has changed, we are taking one car, and coming back in the same car-no U-Haul trailer filled with my bed, table, or other misc. items of furniture. But I will have my sewing machine, so I am not complaining-much:)

This will be an interesting Thanksgiving. I am hopeful that it will turn out alright. fiancee may be staying in the apartment while we are gone-not too sure about how that will work out, since entrare and she have some spectacular fights...of course, entrare will be with me...Hope the house is still here...

21 November 2005

Good weekend. I got several home improvement projects done.

I tried not to think about my son and grandson, and tried to stay positive, thinking the return of the fiancee I think is pretty great will help Fox and his son find their way back to each other.

Somehow the anger toward Crusty and the Stripper is burned out. I hate what they have done. I hope though, that they save themselves.

Mostly, I spent the weekend trying to keep the grief from overwhelming me.

Depression is not seasonal, it is always.

18 November 2005

I'm not Job. I want MY family back, not some replacement, consolation prize.

I had a nightmare last night-I dreamt my grandson's mother is going to put the baby up for adoption to strangers. I woke in a complete depression at 0330, and tossed and turned until the alarm went off at 0530.

I'd say this depression is seasonal,but I can't, because it isn't. It my only and constant companion, and has been since 1981.

Fox is a miracle, the hope of all my lives, and his 18 month old son is the second. They embody the fulfillment of God's promise; the loss of them is the crushing blow.

What is life without one's family?

When I was a little girl, my step-mother (AKA Alice Capone/The Wicked Witch of the West) delighted in sowing strife within the family. She actively turned family members against one another, and did all that she could to destroy the unity we all craved. Loyalty was not safe, because Dirty Dort-another of her family nicknames-had ways of punishing one and all for showing any loyalty or familial love. She made the holidays especial nightmares.

But God promised me a different life, a real family, and I clung to that promise with total faith.

I tried to maintain a relationship with my brother and sisters, but shortly before our dad died, true colours made it painfully clear that I had no responsibilty towards any of them any more. I turned my back, and concentrated solely on Fox and his sister.

My daughter didn't like the rules, and at 16 she went to live with her father in Hawaii. My rules-God's, the Ten Commandments.

Fox, while difficult, hung in there until Crusty bailed, but after all we had been through, he too decided the rules didn't apply to him, and he turned away from everything clean, and wholesome. He actively shunned, abhored, and decried "wholesome.

FF to summer '03. Fox's off/on girlfriend-the one who eventually went to RI to become a stripper-got pregnant and then lost the baby. Fox was furious, because she had gone off her birth control pills without telling him. Fox was relieved she'd lost the baby.

He broke up with her, but somehow they spent an evening together, and she found herself pregnant again. He tried living with her, but they couldn't work it out, and he moved in with me for a while.

Then he started going to LaMaze classes with her toward the end of the pregnancy. When the baby was born he was there. He tried to make it clear to her that they were not a couple, she didn't get it, and told everyone they were together.

When she finally figured out he meant it, and that all he wanted at that point was a relationship with his son, she told him he could not see the baby unless he was with her.

He walked.

He cursd God, me, and everyone else, got a job, and lived in a successon of hovels until finally moving back in with me.

When the baby was four months old, she and her mother brought the baby to see me. The next day she and Fox met so that he could see his son.

A few weeks later Fox caved, and they were engaged.

They planned a wedding, I planned a family life.

Then she started leaving the baby more and more, and we found out she had been leaving the baby from the beginning, from the day she brought him home from the hospital. When I found out that one of the people she had been leaving the baby with for extended periods was her prescription drug addicted aunt with a history of DUI/car wrecks, I flipped.

I tried talking to both of them-calmly. I told her that babies aren't puppies-you don't give them away when the responsibility becomes more than you are interested in. I told Fox he needed to spend more time with his family.

Which made me the bad guy.

I went over to pick her up for work-Fox was to have the baby for the day. When I got there, he tried to get me to take the baby and go, but he didn't explain what was going on. He glared at me-as usual-and didn't explain, so when she came downstairs and told him to make sure to send all of the baby's diapers with his grandmother, I lost it.

I lost it quietly, reserving my anger for the privacy of the car as I drove this evil scut to work, and even then I stayed reasonable. I said, "There are a lot of names I would like to call you right now, but I am hoping I am just angry, and don't mean them. I am going to tell you this is a HUGE mistake, you will regret this when your son turns away from you. His whole life is you and Fox, but when he sees you his face lights up, and how you can send him off is impossible for me to understand!"

She said "Don't raise your voice to me."

So I moved my voice 400 miles or so north.

Oh God, I AM NOT JOB!

To make a long story shorter, somehow I turned out to be the 'bad guy' and she sent the baby to live with his maternal grandparents-people with issues of their own to cope with.
On my way to the blog I happened to notice a freshly published blog on AC/DC. So I clicked, looked, and had to comment. I mean, T.N.T. is a great song, so is Thunderstruck, but Razor's Edge beats the lot hands down.

I still wish the person had mentioned Bon Scott...

Any road, life is life. I drive to work every morning and home every evening thinking essentially the same thought-why won't that jerk let the other guy in?

How hard is it to be generous? Too hard nowadays, I guess.

Tonight after work I tried something different, I got off the interstate and went to the bank. I've never done anything like that, I probably won't again-the dog left me a welcome home present.

My room mate's fiancee and her friends were over last night. I went to bed early because I wanted to have a leisurely morning instead of the frantic rush I've endured on mornings after a visit from Fiancee and crew.

The one pitfall in having a roomie who is a night person. I am certain Entrare does not become fully functional until around 7pm. His friends cheerfully admit to it in regards themselves.

I never was much of a night person, always been a morning person myself. I love to wake just before dawn and see the world (my part of it anyway) come to life every day. Very zen, that morning ritual.

I also enjoy watching the afternoon become early evening. I love the deep purple-also quite zen, if one's neighbours will only be courteous about their noises. I also despise the way some people-not to be mentioned, particularly by real names-simply refuse to shut the hell up during a zen moment.

Gods, what is the problem with silence, I should like to know! I read something on the Net last night proclaiming 'silence' to be endangered. I dare say the reporter has it right.

Not that I long for a totally silent world-PLEASE-my favorite band is AC/DC, OK? However, to hear a bird chirp is to hear the most magnificent music ever writ. I feel fairly sure the irresistible rogues might agree, if ever they were to be made aware of both my admiration for their music, and my opinion on a bird's. Pray do not ask me to choose.

Some one did once. You know, one of those stupid 'let's get to know the real you' games that involves "What three things would you take to a deserted island?"

DUH, 1-food; 2-water; 3-more of 1 & 2.

Memories are free. I would be able to pack several catalogues mentally, Bach's, Vivaldi's, Benny Goodman's, Artie Shaw's, Les Morgan's, George Harrison's, Macy Gray's, Joni Mitchell's, U2's, and AC/DC's, amoung others.

Cripes I hate "Let's get to know the real you" games.

I hate games, period, head games anyway.

Gin Rummy is good though.

Al, I miss ya!

16 November 2005

Things improve by the moment!

Thanksgiving weekend Entrare and I are driving down to South Alabama to A-allow him to make up to his mother for not making it home on actual Thanksgiving (we both have to work the day after) and B-to pick up a few of my things from storage.

I am torn between the longing for my bed, and the longing for my TV and stereo equipment.

The absolute longing and NEED for my sewing equipment has been so strong that I have almost driven down by myself to cram it all into my little KIA. My clothing is hanging off of me, I have lost even more weight since moving to Atlanta, lack of cash will do that...

I am also hoping to combine the two storage units into one, and save some money. Besides, a washer and dryer can't sit in storage too long anyway.

Any road, 'things' are looking up. I still like my job, and Entrare and I seem to be getting along pretty well. He keeps in touch with my son, and tells me the latest news...

Fiancee #...cripes, I've forgot what number the stripper is! She is the one who is the mother of my grandson.

Long story short, she and his previous fiancee had been sharing living quarters in Rhode Island. No longer. Apparently the stripper finally pushed the other almost daughter-in-law too far, and got herself thrown out. Then the other almost daughter-in-law hitched a ride back to South Alabama and is living with my son.

I hope it works out, I like her. I taught her how to sew.

My grandson is living with his great-grandfather and his live-in girlfriend. I wish I could do something about it. My son still won't talk to me because I called DHR when the baby's mother left him with a junkie.

I type these words and have to stop, and think, "How did this happen to my family?" But I know the answer.

Another Thanksgiving, one in a long line since 1998 that have been horribly lonely.

And Christmas is right around the corner.

Thanks Crusty.

12 November 2005

We were heroes, once. I scorn those that scorn that truth in an effort to avoid their personal responsibilities.

We are all of us responsible to that legacy, and to the responsibility to behave heroically no matter our situation of birth. Every man, woman, child, must strive to behave heroically in every single moment of their lives, or else we as a species are truly doomed.

Which is why so many are trying so hard to evade the responsibility so to do.

Personally I find that not only contemptible, and despicable, but infuriating. How dare anyone tarnish heroism in an effort to avoid being responsible to it? These people are dangerous, and certainly the enemy.

But equally offensive are those who sigh and are complicity in the evil by permitting themselves to believe they are powerless. The justifications are legion! "I'm only one person..." "The Good Book says that evil will have it's time..." Jesus weeps!

George Santayana wrote that a people are doomed by their refusal to learn history because then they would repeat the mistakes of their collective pasts. He meant 'truth' when he said 'history' and I am bloody sick of people who take advantage of a type of willful ignorance so as to prolong their self-delusion that they are guiltless.

Consider but two modern examples:

John F. Kennedy Sr. was a modern hero. Until his heroism was denigrated by 'revelations' of his personal moral collapse. After all, logic demands that a man who will betray his wife and family will have no less a moral dilemma betraying his country. Those revelations about his lack of character make it ever so much easier to scorn his demands that Americans hold themselves to a higher nobility.

Dr. King, too; after his murder, did not the stories about his personal failings make it possible to spit on his dream? Never mind that Dr. King's dream extended to all people, that dream was instantly discredited by the revelation that he cheated on his wife. The man was now a 'false shepherd' and how convenient for those who really prefer that the dream be confined to one race.

I am a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. (Oh, and a female-let's not forget the WASP Princesses everyone loves to hate!) I was a little girl when Dr. King's famous speech was broadcast, and it was a moment in time for me that I will never forget. I sat transfixed before the TV, because Dr. King had just said the words I knew would carry me and my fellow human beings into a new and peaceful kingdom.

'Cept painfully few wanted that kingdom. Just me, Dr. King, and God. Honestly, that is how it feels, especially when I would try to join public commemorations of his too-short life's work. I don't bother anymore. I'm sick of going to a march, rally or ceremony only to hear "Whitey go home." I see, Dr. King is a hero only for Blacks. Which makes it easier for Whites to continue dis-enfranchising Blacks, and easier for Blacks to continue to hate Whites.

Dr. King is rolling in his grave.

Tell me his dream did NOT include the hope that one day Blacks and Whites would look at each other in first glance and see only a new friend, a new compatriot in the fight against the evil that seeks to dis-enfranchise all Mankind.

Try to tell me that one more time, and I will no longer be able to keep myself from knocking your dust from my sandals.

How bloody convenient for you, but more importantly, the enemy, that we cannot share the same heroes, the same dreams, the same hopes! How horrifically easy to break those saving aspirations to true Human nobility if our heroes have been 'revealed' as liars, cheats, pathetic lip servers!

But I have to say, what has inspired this morning's blog is the fury that is born of the realization that you incredibly stupid brats think you invented this scheme to avoid responsibility.

George was so right. Not one of you brats know your history, not one, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, no, not one. And you are perfectly willing to permit some bastard to strip you of your heritage, your history, the bloody damn truth, if it will buy you your fifteen minutes of fame-(Warhol gave me the creeps, he made cynicism fashionable again. I hope he's roasting. Well, sort of.)-or just 15 more minutes of lack of responsibility!

HEY-Life is NOT on 'SNOOZE'!!

The truth is that the propaganda of discrediting a potential hero is one of the oldest tricks in the so-called book. It started when Adam pointed his wretched finger at poor Eve. What ever you believe the Bible to be, the plain fact is that Adam evaded his responsibility to Eve-the responsibility God gave him (re-read the bloody thing you stupid bitch-gods I am sick of ignorant 'feminists') the moment He carved her from Adam's rib.

Presume for a moment that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of morality tales, OK? So, for five thousand years, man has been conditioned to point fingers, and to do so with a crudely effective vulgarity. And hey, since you refuse to believe in the usefulness of the Bible, well-a-day, doesn't that make it even easier to evade the responsibility to behave with common courtesy?

Because yes, the whole point IS "Goodness for goodness sake."

DUH!!

Whoa, reality check-I just ran spell check (because when I rant I want the reader to be undistracted by mis-spellings,); the computer wanted me to replace 'vulgarity' with 'Belgrade', whoa! Who knew a computer could be Freudian?

03 November 2005

Amazing. From no food to an embarrassment of worldly riches-at least to me.

I get my first paycheck tomorrow. Naturally a good bit of it is already spoken for, but that spoken for part includes a grocery list that will carry me through two weeks. I plan to make a nice roast, and carve it for sandwhich meat. I am also going to buy fruit-fresh and tinned. Interesting what foods one dreams of whilst temporarily deprived of choices...Any road, I will have a nice lunch to carry with me every day starting Friday morning! I feel a veritable queen!

And cable will be turned on tomorrow while I am at work. Thank-you God, thank-you so very much! I know it seems shallow that I am so very grateful to be able to feed my 'Aaron Brown' jones, but hey, I firmly believe there are worse jones...

Thanksgiving will be interesting. Entrare and Fiancee are going to invite his mother and grandparents here. Oh yes, this should be agonizingly interesting. The last time I did a full blown family for the holidays, it was not pretty. Well, it was my family, so perhaps it will different with Entrare's.

Um, maybe not.

Last year Entrare, Fiancee, Mom, and Grandparents went to Mom's cousin's in North Alabama. For those of my gentle readers who saw any of the National Lampoon Vacation movies (Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, and Randy Quaid) should think of Entrare's Mom's cousin as the Randy Quaid character, minus the charm. Fiancee tried to adjust the cousin's attitude with a phillips head screwdriver-through his heart. Fortunately she was not entirely serious, and 'missed' his head by at least six inches, embedding the screwdriver in the trailer wall instead. Honest. Trailer. I think it was a double wide though.

Yes indeed, an embarrassment of riches...

Naturally my Thanksgiving story trumps even that.

Thanksgiving 1998. Crusty, Fox, and I have been living through an absolute nightmare time. Fox sleeps during the day so that he can be awake at night while Crusty is in town. I spend the days trying to keep Crusty from going into Fox's room, and trying to get Crusty to leave the house period. He refuses to leave, although he consents to move into the living room so that I don't have to sleep with him. Fox sits on a chair in my locked room with a gun in his lap while I try to sleep...

A day or so before T-Day, Crusty calls from his job site in Columbia, South America, and tells me he expects a full spread for Thanksgiving dinner. By this time I am numb, exhausted, frightened completely, and so I go to the store, buy everything, and get started cooking. Crusty's flight gets in the night before, I pick him up, and we go to the house. He falls asleep on the couch, Fox and I go into survival mode, and the next morning, Fox has already stuffed and put the bird in the oven, so I go about getting the table set, etc.

Crusty sits down to the table, drops his face into his plate, and seems to be inhaling everything on it. I swear he did not leave so much as a drop of cranberry sauce. Fox and I are so revolted by the carnage we cannot eat, and can only watch dumbfounded as Crusty eats EVERYTHING on the table, goes into the kitchen for the rest, and proceeds to eat everything in there as well.

Then he leaves. Fox and I make ourselves some toast. We don't speak, we just load the toaster, and Fox brings out some of the food he has stashed. Smart kid. (His first complete sentence was "Daddy is an a--h--e." And no, I didn't teach him that!)

We hear a truck pulling into the yard, and look out to see a large U-Haul van backing up to the garage.

Crusty packed the rest of the day, and into the next. Finally, after he took everything that was paid for including the rest of the food from the pantry, most of Fox's and my clothing, he passes out again on the sofa, then wakes with the dawn, demands that Fox and I give him a good-by hug, and leaves.

Once Fox is sure that Crusty is really gone, and not coming back, he brings out some more of the food he's stashed, including a small and complete Thanksgiving Dinner.

So, how bad can it be to have Entrare's family up for the holidays? Maybe I should hide the tool boxes though...

But oh Lord, how I wish that Fox and his son wanted to be here too. I call my grandson 'Boogar Face." I miss them both so much!