A little randomata about my visit home to Michigan this weekend:
*Took the boys to see the new Harry Potter on Friday night with my cousin Heather and her two boys. This film was much darker than those prior but overall, I thought it was very well done.
*It was cool weather the entire weekend but still nice. I love wearing sweatshirts and jeans at night.
*Stuffed myself full at the Chinese buffet in Big Rapids.
*Bennett trying sushi and Dawn discovering the baboon sticks.
*I also found that the Marathon station at the Reed City exit has way better No-Bake cookies than Wesco.
*Despite several inquiries I received regarding whether or not the intent of my visit was to attend "Bike Week", I must regrettably say it was not. As a matter of fact, I had never even heard of "Bike Week" until I tried finding a blasted hotel room and could not because they were all booked! I am rather curious though about what would make someone think that "Bike Week" would be my thing?????
*Oberon and how I can't believe that I have been missing out on it for so many years prior but also how it is very hazardous to my sobriety because I can drink a ton of it. I think it's also sort of a sodium pentathol for me because at one point on Saturday night I found myself talking to my dear friend from high school, whom I haven't seen in 17 or so years, about everything under the sun from the time that I ate cat food to my vibrator. Also, it apparently compels me to join in singing "Sugar We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy at the top of my lungs. ???? "......I'll be your number one with a bullet....a loaded God complex, cock it and pull it...".
*Staying up WAY too late and getting up WAY too early.
*The boys and I bringing flowers to my Dad's grave in Hesperia.
*The World's Largest Weathervane
*I still can't get used to two-way traffic on Seaway Drive.
*Stuffed Hashbrowns at the Apple Cafe
*Delivering Jessen to water polo camp at the University of Michigan and seeing him light up like he just figured out where he belongs.
*Thinking that this is just warming me up for next month when I take Kaylie to ASU.
*Driving back home, feeling exhausted and like I didn't get to see everyone and do everything I wanted to do.
*Feeling more homesick than I have in a long, long, time.
This weekend has left me completely exhausted. Every time I am on call I am reminded of just how very much I hate it and how what I really need to be doing is focusing my energy into pursuing the means to move to another position/job. This time was particularly bad because there ended up being an issue that consumed the majority of the weekend, beginning Friday afternoon.
Friday we had our annual company picnic at Coney Island, and I kid you not, we no sooner pulled in the parking lot and I was paged for an issue! So, I ended up getting as far as the entrance and had to sit down at a picnic table and began working on it and I didn't leave that spot for the next 3 or so hours. Jessen took Bennett over to the water park and Kaylie walked around some but I didn't get to enjoy anything with them and I can't even begin to tell you how pissed I am about that. Anyhow, I worked the issue until around midnight and picked it up again on Saturday morning and ended up coming into the office to work until around 4pm. After all the troubleshooting and racking of my brain to try to fix this, turns out it was a web proxy issue where a port was hardcoded. One of the network guys made the change and BAM, everything was fixed. Grrrr. These 60+ hour weeks are kicking my ass.
I was able to salvage a little bit of the weekend by relaxing yesterday and venturing out to explore the city. We went to the Northside neighborhood and over the river into Covington. I posted some photos of yesterday and a lot of other new photos in the gallery.
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The boys have swimming championships today and tomorrow. Poor Bennett had to be there for warm-ups at 6:45am. It was fairly cool outside this morning, so I don't think "warm-up" is an accurate description of what he was doing. More like he was shocked by having to jump into a cold pool before he was even really awake and then having to get out of it and bundle up in towels, blankets and a sweatshirt!
Jessen called me a little bit ago to tell me that Bennett had won his heat in Butterfly. This is a pretty big deal and although it's just preliminaries and I don't think he'll qualify for final competition tomorrow, it's still great for him! He just learned Fly this year and he's picked it up very quickly, although it used to nearly kill me to watch him swim in when he was first learning because he basically looked like an inch worm struggling to get across the pool! I was terrified he would drown but he has improved greatly and I'm thrilled for him to have won his heat!
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This week is shaping up to be insane. Championships today and tomorrow and then Wednesday I am going to the Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick show at Riverbend with Tim and Craig. I'm thrilled that Tim is coming into town! I don't think I've seen him since Craig's wedding which would be 2007 maybe??? Anyhow, I think it's pretty hilarious that we're actually paying money to see these bands but with beer and those two, it should be a great time!
We are heading up to Michigan on Friday for the weekend and then dropping Jessen off at water polo camp at U of M on the way home on Sunday. It's already shaping up to be a packed trip but I have plans to see a lot of friends and family I haven't seen in a LONG time. Plus, it looks like I will even get in a Dutch Henry show!
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Last week I started to go through my mom's things. The boys and I packed up her apartment after she died and carried all her belongings down to my basement where they have sat. I see them and smell them...taunting me with grief every time I go down there. I don't know what was different but last week something just said, "It's time.".
I opened a bag of her clothes and the smell of stillness seeped out. Clothes long unworn and permeated with the scent of the same laundry detergent she's used since I was in high school. I recall unpacking that smell so many times, coming back from visits home. She always washed our dirty clothes before we left; said there was no sense in getting home to just have to do laundry. It was her way of showing me she loved me. It's then that I start to cry.
I'm ashamed of being busy. Of willing my mind to go elsewhere and not let it remember these things about her.
When I was nine or ten, my mom made me a quilt. She had never taken on an endeavor like that but she was very good with a sewing machine and I recall her letting me cut out the squares from old clothes and sheets. The end result was her first (and possibly only) quilt. I loved it and when I was a little girl, I used to lay on top of it on the floor in the living room on Sunday nights to watch tv. It kept me extra warm in the cold Michigan winters and lay folded at foot of my made bed. I still have it, it's folded up and stored in the basement and needs a good washing but it's still there.
I've decided to make a quilt. I will use some clothes from my mom and dad, baby clothes from the kids, and some personal sentimental items of my own, but I am really going to try to do this. I don't know the first thing about using a sewing machine, so this will prove to be quite a challenge, but I am hoping it is therapeutic at the same time. I love the idea of wrapping myself up in a blanket of such good things and good memories. Just the thought makes me feel closer to them - like I'm keeping their memory alive within my family.
I'm still trying to figure out how to get all this started but it's been added to my life list and I'll keep you updated on the progress.
+++++++++++ Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.
Bennett's hamster died while I was in Houston. Well, technically he died while I was en route to Houston. I received a frantic voice mail from Kaylie, when I touched down, requesting I call her immediately. Upon calling her back I received the news about little Jack the Hamster. Kaylie said that she wasn't really sure what happened but that he kind of went crazy in his cage and the next thing she knew he was lying on his back with his eyes wide open and not breathing.
Meh.
Bennett was at Cub Scout camp, so thankfully he missed the event, but he found out Thursday when he got home and Wow, I was not prepared for how hard he took it. His little heart was just broken. I was also not prepared for how much it overwhelmed me to see him so upset and to know that there wasn't a thing in the world I could do about it. We ended up having a long talk about life and death and the life expectancy of hamsters (two years!) and how Nana probably recognized him when he got to Heaven and how she'll look after him until Bennett gets there.
So, we put Jack the Hamster in a shoe box and buried him in the flower bed in the backyard this past Saturday. We all said a prayer and a few kind words about what a good hamster he was and recalled some fond memories. Bennett decorated a rock to commemorate his life and we placed it on top of the soil.
Safe journey, little guy.
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I arrived in Houston (The Woodlands) yesterday for work. I am only here until tomorrow night...most grateful thanks to our most Heavenly Host.
It's SO hot here. I heard Al Roker this morning live from Galveston, saying that it's so going to be so hot in Houston today that people will melt if they are outside for more than ten minutes. No lie.
I still get excited when I hit the MI/OH border and see the "Welcome to Michigan" sign.
I still turn the radio to WGRD right around the Muir exit.
I love that I can buy no-bake cookies at Wesco.
Oberon and Edie's in Baldwin actually serves it on draft by the jar. : )
Deep fried mushrooms.
The Pere Marquette River.
The radio always seems to play songs about coming home (i.e. "Homeward Bound", "I'm Coming Home").
The radio is also an asshole and seems to play songs that make me miss him even more.
Well water and how the smell of it reminds me of my parents house which makes me cry.
Cool nights and having to put on a sweatshirt before sitting outside on the deck.
Driving in the sunshine with the windows down and never turning on the a/c once while I was there.
The smell of Lake Michigan.
Feeling like I belong and things make sense.
So much has changed, yet so much is still the same.
Do you ever feel like it is just taking everything you have to go through the motions of existing through the day?
Thankfully, it's a very busy time, which is helping keep me preoccupied from other thoughts that want to creep into my head and overtake my will to breathe. Funny relationship with me and stress, it somehow compels me to clean the shit out of house, which isn't such a bad thing but I tend to go overboard and for the last three days my hands have been permeated with the smell of bleach and I can't seem to rid them of it no matter how much Johnson's baby lotion I rub on them.
I'm sorry to be such a downer. I'm just in a rough place right now and I don't know what to do about it. I don't think there is anything I can do about it.
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Ok time for something else. Despite my pensiveness, here are things which are bringing me a little bit of happiness today:
Red Wings winning game two against the Blackhawks last night in OT
Coffee and the fact that the barista at the coffee stand inside our building calls me by name
Two days away from having three days off
Ryan Adams
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Can you hear me? I sent a message out into the dark.
I'm reeling from the events of the last few days. None of which I will be discussing here but still those which are nonetheless leaving me hollow and broken.
I guess the pain of whiplash reminds you that you are alive.
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I've been putting some considerable thought into the message we received at church yesterday. We are continuing the series on the "Creed" and yesterday's message focused on the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection. I was especially struck by a video played of Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller fame). A self proclaimed and outspoken atheist, he was giving a personal commentary on an experience which occurred after one of his shows in which a man came up and spoke to him and gave him a bible. I'm trying to locate the video to post it here but what he said had quite an impact on me.
*edit* here is the video of the message.
and here is just the Penn video.
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I've started to put together the video for Kaylie's graduation party. I took some old negatives to Walgreens yesterday to have some photos reprinted. Turns out, they don't have the equipment to run reprints on 110 film anymore but they did get the 35mm printed ok. I ended up having some photos from Woodstock and also some from a trip I took to New Orleans with Olaf, included with the prints. It's amazing and sad to look at those photos of a younger me. I see her and how happy she was in those moments....she didn't know what lies ahead. Pain, sorrow, end of a marriage, loss of her parents, raising children on her own, finding love just to lose it again. I wish I could tell her. Maybe she could have cherished those moments just a little bit longer.
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Twenty years from now, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do, rather than the things you did. - Mark Twain
If that doesn't compel you to do a careful combing of your life's back stairs then I don't know what does.
If you followed me over from my old blog on Blogger then you would know that this is probably round 4 or so of this exercise.
Pick 15 people and say something about them that you wouldn't normally. Names are intentionally omitted and don't assume that what I am writing is about you. Put yours in the comments.
You need to grow up. You are 36 years old...not 17. Your addiction and self destruction is what has pushed your husband and your son away. Grow up and get your shit together.
I'm glad you found someone and I'm happy for you that you are finally doing the things that you should be doing but I still think you are gay.
I miss you so much...every single day. It still hurts and I still cry.
Letting go of our friendship was one of the best things I could have done for myself. I don't carry bad feelings for you and wish you only the best.
Thank you for being my friend for the last 28 years. I am sorry I missed your wedding. I love you, friend.
I'm so proud of you but I'm scared to death to watch you go out into the world on your own.
I can't believe the way you manipulate people. Working with you makes me miserable. You are always playing the victim. One of these days your lies will catch up with you and I sure as hell hope I am there when they do.
Sometimes I don't know whether I should hug you or kick you in the balls.
I haven't known you long but I absolutely adore you. I'm so glad we've become friends.
I'm thankful that we have put our differences behind us and that out of tragedy we were able to find common ground. I've missed having you in my life.
I'm so happy for you that you are finally experiencing the love that you so very much deserve.
I wish we lived closer and could spend more time together. I think I talk to you the most out of anyone else in my life and you are 800 miles away!
You give me that soda in my veins feeling. I think you are perhaps the most amazing person I've ever known and I can't help but fall for you.
I try to keep myself up on the goings on in the world but I've had a very long and busy week which has kept my exposure to current events to a minimum. Luckily, HMG is paying attention and pointed this out to me.
An iPod?
REALLY?
You are the leader of the free world, paying your first visit to the Queen of England, and you think to yourself, "Self, what that Old Queen needs is an iPod. Pre-loaded with music and photos."
(I just reread that last sentence and giggled, thinking it would likely be something I'd overhear walking around in a gay bar.)
I've got to get better about writing in this damn thing. I just renewed my domain for another year, so you would think that I'd be all like "I just blew another $109 on this mutha, of course I'm going to write something." Yeah, not so much. Apparently, I just like knowing that I have a blog. Writing in it is an after thought.
I could probably make a killing if I could setup an auto-writing blog. Like maybe you could just enter key words like "crack" and "chicken noodle soup" then click a button and voila, you'd have an incredibly interesting and witty post about Dog the Bounty Hunter.
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Bennett came down with a fever yesterday. I could tell immediately when I picked him up from school that he wasn't quite right. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes droopy with that "I don't feel good" gaze. I checked his temp when we got home and sure enough, 101.5. Poor little guy. He slept the majority of the evening and ended up climbing in my bed around 2am. This means that I'm probably going to get it next, although I have been trying to bribe my immune system with chamomile and vitamin c to let this one slide by.
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Did everyone watch President Obama's news conference last night? I walked away from it bored and unmoved. Nothing he said reassured me that we are indeed on the "right" track. As a matter of fact, I'm really wondering just what the hell it is they are doing over there?
I sat there listening to him give campaign-style answers to specific questions about the economy and I just couldn't believe how shallow all the responses sounded. The answer regarding why he didn't speak publicly about the AIG bonuses pushed me right over the edge though. His response was that he waited because he wants to be certain that he knows what he is talking about before he speaks. I'm guessing that President Obama didn't catch the bonus restrictions info in the Dodd amendment on the first read through????? Was it not clearly spelled out? That must be it. Hell, I can relate. I had a similar experience that time a grammatically impenetrable translation of The Communist Manifesto kept me from further enjoying the works of Karl Marx and Co.
I think President Obama must think I'm a chump.
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In other news, I'm happy today. I am working from home, watching the rain fall through my window and enjoying the aroma of rosemary mint wallowing in my hair.
Myself and a few neighbors have been corresponding with the Hamilton County Sheriff's office for the last couple of weeks about our new neighbor. I got an email early last week from their office stating that they had been working with the adult parole supervisor and that they were encouraging him to find another place to live. Then, by the end of the week I received an email stating that he had moved. I'm not sure if I totally believe it yet and I will continue to keep an eye out for him but I do feel a little bit better.
The primary issue with where he was living in our neighborhood is that the elementary school is less than 1000 ft from where the scum bag lives and while that SHOULD be against the law for him to reside so close, inevitably it is not because of the time frame when this guy was convicted. Of raping a child under 13 years of age! Apparently his conviction date wasn't grandfathered into the new legislation. How the hell that happened, I seriously don't know.
At any rate, I did some research and it looks like that oversight will be remedied soon. The Ohio Senate passed "SB 42" which will make the 1000 ft rule retroactive no matter when the offense was committed. I'm not sure how long it will take for the Ohio House to get this through but I've heard that Governor Strickland is ready to sign it as soon as it gets to him.
I live on a quiet street, in a quiet, middle class, neighborhood. My neighbors take care of their yards and homes. They are friendly people who wave and always say hello to me when I'm out walking my dogs. My neighbors one house over to the right are awesome (and liberal!) and their son is also in 3rd grade. He and Bennett were BFFs from the start. Our kids play together after school about every other day....it seems one is always at the other's house. My neighbor across the street coordinates a luncheon twice a year for ladies on our street. We meet at a restaurant for a "garden" party in the summer and then again for another meal around the holidays and eat and do a yankee swap gift exchange for fun. The neighbors to the left are a retired couple and the husband is always loaning me various tools I need, but don't seem to have, when I'm fixing something or doing a home improvement project.
This is a good place to live. I got an email yesterday, however, that rocked my happy little suburban bliss.
You see, awhile back I signed up for this service through the Hamilton County Sheriff's office where I would receive an email alert whenever a sexual offender registers at an address in my neighborhood. I had pretty much forgotten about signing up for it until yesterday when I got an email alert letting me know that a child rapist had moved in just down the street.
I have to be really honest. This has got me freaked out. The house he is registered at is across the street and three houses down on the right. It has been occupied, although I don't really know the woman who lives there, but he is apparently living with her. It just makes me feel like I'm living in a fishbowl. Like potentially, this child raping barbarian bastard could be peering out his window, eyeing my house and more importantly my children with his perverted demented thoughts. Then I realized I was thinking a bit irrationally and I needed to calm the fuck down. I have to be cautious. I have to talk to my kids about being cautious. But I can't let the mere potential presence of this guy control or change the way we live. I haven't actually seen him yet, so I should probably get a reasonable handle on the situation before I do, and I go off and lose my shit.
So, I had a talk with Bennett last night and to be honest, I think I might have done more harm than good. I tried to explain things to him in a way that an 8 year old would understand without scaring or scarring him but he seemed pretty freaked out. How do you explain to child that there are adults out there who hurt kids on purpose? I just tried to reassure him that I would never let anyone him and that he can still play outside but he just has to be more cautious now.
I also talked to Kaylie and Jessen. I especially warned Kaylie because she is home alone sometimes in the afternoons and she walks the dogs after school. Since this man's victim was a female child, I want her to be especially careful. I told her that if she is home alone then the doors should be locked. If she takes the dogs for a walk she should take her key and lock the door before she goes. I realize this is probably common sense to other people but we really do live in a quiet neighborhood. I never lock the door when I'm out walking the dogs. Hell, there have been several occasions where I have left the house to go shopping or something and I have forgotten to lock the front door. Stupid, I know.
The thing is...this whole situation has me rattled. I am questioning myself and wondering, "Am I overreacting?" Maybe he isn't the serial pedophile I've painted him out to be in my head. Maybe if I really knew the situation then it wouldn't be what it seems. Maybe he was falsely convicted. All of these scenarios going through my head and then I kind of snap back to reality and I think , "why the fuck are you giving him the benefit of the doubt? This guy is convicted of raping a child!!!!".
I need some advice, friends. Am I nuts about this? Am I wreaking panic in my family and blowing this out of proportion? Am I not doing enough?
From this article in Time Magazine. It was so true, I just had to share.
Facebook is five. Maybe you didn't get it in your news feed, but it was in February 2004 that Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, along with some classmates, launched the social network that ate the world. Did he realize back then in his dorm that he was witnessing merely the larval stage of his creation? For what began with college students has found its fullest, richest expression with us, the middle-aged. Here are 10 reasons Facebook is for old fogies:
1. Facebook is about finding people you've lost track of. And, son, we've lost track of more people than you've ever met. Remember who you went to prom with junior year? See, we don't. We've gone through multiple schools, jobs and marriages. Each one of those came with a complete cast of characters, most of whom we have forgotten existed. But Facebook never forgets.
2. We're no longer bitter about high school. You're probably still hung up on any number of petty slights, but when that person who used to call us that thing we're not going to mention here, because it really stuck, asks us to be friends on Facebook, we happily friend that person. Because we're all grown up now. We're bigger than that. Or some of us are, anyway. We're in therapy, and it's going really well. These are just broad generalizations. Next reason.
3. We never get drunk at parties and get photographed holding beer bottles in suggestive positions. We wish we still did that. But we don't.
4. Facebook isn't just a social network; it's a business network. And unlike, say, college students, we actually have jobs. What's the point of networking with people who can't hire you? Not that we'd want to work with anyone your age anyway. Given the recession — and the amount of time we spend on Facebook — a bunch of hungry, motivated young guns is the last thing we need around here.
5. We're lazy. We have jobs and children and houses and substance-abuse problems to deal with. At our age, we don't want to do anything. What we want is to hear about other people doing things and then judge them for it. Which is what news feeds are for.
6. We're old enough that pictures from grade school or summer camp look nothing like us. These days, the only way to identify us is with Facebook tags.
7. We have children. There is very little that old people enjoy more than forcing others to pay attention to pictures of their children. Facebook is the most efficient engine ever devised for this.
8. We're too old to remember e-mail addresses. You have to understand: we have spent decades drinking diet soda out of aluminum cans. That stuff catches up with you. We can't remember friends' e-mail addresses. We can barely remember their names.
9. We don't understand Twitter. Literally. It makes no sense to us.
10. We're not cool, and we don't care. There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook. That time has passed. Facebook now has 150 million members, and its fastest-growing demographic is 30 and up. At this point, it's way cooler not to be on Facebook. We've ruined it for good, just like we ruined Twilight and skateboarding. So git! And while you're at it, you damn kids better get off our lawn too.
I don't own a gun. I also don't think poorly of those who do. It's a personal choice and I've heard varying reasons of why personal friends do own firearms and I don't feel like it's my place to judge whether they are legitimate or not. Bottom line, those are their reasons and that's how they feel. The 2nd Amendment gives them the right to own a gun and thus they have every right to do so.
That's America.
What I do take contention with is Americans who choose to exercise their 2nd Amendment right and then do so with no responsibility. If you are going to own a firearm, you have an innate responsibility to take care of it and prevent the loss of innocent lives due to accidental firing as a result of having that firearm. Simply put, keep your guns away from kids, JACKASSES.
Let's looks at this realistically. How often do we hear about gun owners using their firearms to protect their homes, property and families from intruders? . I can't even remotely begin to tell you the last time I heard of any such thing. Ok, so how about the last time you heard about a child shooting another child, or himself, or an adult with a loaded firearm that was just lying around a house and not properly cared for and the child not properly supervised? Yep, you read that about 2 seconds ago, huh? You can hear about it almost every day on the news. Why? Because people are fucking morons. I seriously doubt that our founding fathers knew how stupid Americans would get over the next century. I feel quite certain that they had no intention of an 11 year old shooting a 7 year old when they penned the 2nd Amendment.
This is a real fear for me. I fear the possibility of my children being accidentally shot by another child while playing at a friend's house due to an irresponsible gun owner FAR MORE than I would ever fear having my home invaded. I have had extensive conversations with my children, especially my sons, about guns and what they should do if they are ever at a friend's house and that friend wants to show them a gun. I can only hope that I have instilled in the fear of losing their life due to negligent gun ownership. I know it's possible to be a responsible gun owner. I have a couple of friends (neither who have children at this time) who are the PSA poster children for responsible gun owners. The lock up their firearms...one friend even has a gun safe that requires fingerprint access to even open it. I'm sure there are a lot of others out there too but there are certainly enough statistics showing accidental deaths of children due to loaded gun accessibility to make us pay attention and realize that responsible gun owners might just be a minority.
So what's the answer? We can't go into every house of every gun owner to police them and make sure they aren't be lazy dumbasses with their firearms now can we? But some things we can do are maybe require new gun owners to take a class to teach responsible gun ownership and safety? Perhaps offer classes in elementary schools to teach kids why it's a bad idea to play with a gun or handle a gun when they are not supervised by an adult to help them? And, I'm sure this will spring up a lot of controversy, but I believe that gun owners who don't take care of their firearms and then those firearms end up killing or harming a child need to be charged with a crime and penalized...I say jail but I'm sure others would say that is too harsh. Ultimately, it's child neglect, as far as I am concerned, if you give a child unsupervised access to a loaded firearm.
I have the shittiest vacuum in the world. The belts on it seem to break all the friggin time and it's just so annoying. Another belt broke the other night for the umpteenth time and, of course, I was out of any replacements so I had to pick up some more last night at Target. So when I finally got home from running the kids all over the place and started doing my evening cleanup, I got the stupid POS vacuum out to replace the POS belt. I hate this task, not because it's especially hard to do, but it's just the fact that it's a waste of my life. I have to unscrew the top of the vacuum which involves finding the right type of screwdriver, right size, etc. and then I have to take off the old belt which smells like burnt rubber and is dusty and dirty. Then I have to put the new one on and have to pull really hard and get the stupid roller thingy in just the right way or it snaps back and I have to do it all over again. It's just a complete and total waste of my life. The worst part of this particular belt changing instance is somehow I cut my thumb in the process. Who cuts their thumb while changing a vacuum belt? I don't know, but apparently I do.
So, while I'm cleaning and bandaging my bleeding thumb, I think to myself that I didn't always have this shitty vacuum. In fact, I used to have a very nice vacuum, probably at least an A- on the vacuum grading scale. I bought it after I got both my dogs because, while Huskies don't shed on a constant basis, they do blow their coats a couple of times a year which can get very messy and I have dark rugs which seem to accentuate the minimal shedding of my light furred dogs so it's good to have a quality vacuum for my particular situation. I had always owned fairly cheap, shitty vacuums previously so this was a big deal for me to buy this moderately expensive, nice vacuum and I was really excited about and it worked so well that I actually enjoyed vacuuming. I realize that sentence is sad on a lot of levels but just work with me here for a minute, ok?
I bought my most awesome, cadillac of vacuums while I lived in Phoenix and brought it with me when I came back to Cincinnati. Then somewhere along the way my mom broke my kick ass vacuum. First, it was the cord. Apparently she ran over the cord multiple times with the vacuum itself which put cuts in the cord and eventually shorted it out. I can bet you can take a guess at how pissed I was about this but my devotion to this vacuum was strong so I took it to the Hoover repair store and had that cord completely replaced and paid like $50 for it too. So, now I had my great vaccum that was moderately expensive PLUS $50.
Now fast forward a few months later to just before my mom moved out of my house into her own apartment. I go to use the vacuum one evening and it's not rolling right on the floor so I turn it off and flip it over and realize that my mother had broken it yet again! This time she had taken off the plastic cover thingy on the bottom to clean it but apparently had not put the screws back in tight enough so one of the screws was missing and the cover thingy was off kilter and a little plastic piece had broken off and well, long story short, it was just completed effed. But, again, my vacuum love knows no boundaries so I patched it up as best I could and used that thing until I could no more and it was basically falling apart and my mom had cut up the new cord and it shorted out altogether. THEN and only then did I concede and bury the vacuum in the back yard under the old oak tree. Not really, but you get my drift. So, naturally, I was a bit gun shy in purchasing another kick ass vacuum again becuase of the scarring experience I had just been through so I ended up buying the POS I have now.
So, there I am thinking about that awesome vacuum and bandaging my bleeding thumb and hating my shitty vacuum that breaks belts all the time and I'm thinking how pissed I am at my mom for breaking my nice vacuum repeatedly and then I feel bad for being pissed because it's just a vacuum after all. It's not like she did it on purpose. There are far more important things to be angry about than a broken vacuum and I feel so sad because if she were here I'd tell her that I'm sorry I got so mad about the vacuum but I can't because she's gone and it's not fair and then I start to cry. I'm crying over a stupid POS vacuum.
And I sit there thinking to myself , "Is this the grief? Am I in the grief?"
I don't know. What I do know is that my heart feels sick and I am going out shopping this weekend to buy myself this.
Me, Jenny, Tim and Craig at the Def Leppard show @ Riverbend.