Living my way through here

It's Wednesday morning. Very early Wednesday morning. We're surviving here. It's not much of a life but part of me is just counting down until at least Mystery is out of our house and we can hopefully do more than just sit around this house. Can't go anywhere because Daddy thinks we'd have to take them with us and taking them with us makes me not want to go anywhere.

I have something else that's ugly. My sister that lives out of state is planning a family event for my entire birth family. No chance in the world that I'm going because one particular sister-in-law is going and that would just kill the whole thing for me. I won't go and walk around her. It would be in poor taste to go and confront her. If I ever did confront her not only do I expect that she would be unwilling to listen to me, but that I'd somehow get labeled the antagonist and then my siblings would wonder why I can't just shut up and let it lie. Well she threatened another family member, and I don't think that entitles you to come and act like nothing took place. If she ever threatens that person again I have promised that I would go with them to court to get a restraining order. Of course it's a longer, drawn out story, but part of me can't wait until mid October is past us so that we don't have to keep dodging my sister about this.

I really have tried to relax

I haven't come in here in HOW long? Part of me started thinking that I was stressing myself out more by coming in here and writing because instead of purging I was stewing. Well, the new school year is starting and it seems that we need to get the ball rolling.

Mystery - who has been gone all summer to TW's house came back the other day. Overall she has had a teensy bit more manners and 'cleared' a couple things with me. Granted she already cleared them with Daddy, so as far as I'm concerned it's just notification. Whatever. I have to say that I'm not happy about telling Daisy to go and tell Mystery to let the big dog outdoors. Mystery is downstairs and that's where we put him out. We have been dog-sitting and the little booger dog bugs the snot out of our dog, and for some reason Mystery told Daisy to put the little one out upstairs instead of putting the big one out.

I don't remember asking Mystery if the big one needs to go out. Is there a reason for her to question me? Put the effin' dog out! She wants to tell Daisy what to do, but my guess is that if it was me going down there then she wouldn't have told me that. She has a friend over and I'm not going to go and chastise her in front of her friend. I'm not sure why not, because I sure as hell would have done that in front of Glory's friends back in the day. I got up and went downstairs and put the damn dog out.

I got home from running to the store and Mystery pulls up in a small car. She's 17 so this isn't out of line, but where TF did she go, and who did she get in touch with? Surely Daddy. Sure wasn't me. She tells me that Jabber told her to tell me that he went to his friend's house. He called Daddy.

Oh joy.

I never raised kids like this and it's going to drive me nuckin futs.

On the plus side. Glory had a baby and she's healthy as can be. I'll bring her up more later when I decide on a name for her.

Discovery: The dog and I have evolved.

This one has been coming to me in pieces. First, Glory and her hubby were here for the holidays and OH was our dog happy!!! He's missed the two older kids since they've moved away and that's to be expected, but it breaks my heart for him how things have evolved in the meantime.

We got him as a little pup from the SPCA. Charming was SO excited that we had our first dog that he instantly claimed responsibility for Barkley. He was the one that went to obedience training with us, took Barkley on walks/runs, let Barkley sleep IN his bed with him, made sure he was fed, let in and out and LOVED! Glory did pretty good with attention when Charming was on EOW visits with XI, (She stayed home to work mostly, that and her social life!) but we all knew that Barkley was Charming's dog even though he has always been our family dog! Charming moved out after 2 years and Glory handled the loving and a lot of the maintenance care for Barkley, just not the walks/runs. She moved out in two more years. It is now 2+ years since, and coming up on three. Everything changes with time.

Barkley was in heaven when everyone was here for the holidays! He didn't actually seem to irritate anyone during that time too, imagine that?!

I started thinking about the differences. Charming & Glory (Then) vs Mystery & Jabber (Now), and how Barkley is interacted with by each 'team'. Then Barkley had attention that included speaking to him kindly, petting him, caring for him and interacting with him of their own free will. Now Barkley gets let into the house without a word after Daddy or I holler to the kids that are downstairs on the same level that Barkley is (and that much closer to hear him barking outdoors?) to let him inside the house. Now when one of them speaks to him it is usually in very negative tones and only for the purpose of demanding something, directing something, or because it was absolutely necessary to interact with him for one reason or another.

If you don't need him, then why would you consider him? He's nothing but a pain in the butt that you have to bother yourself to get up and let him in when you could have been relaxing. Bother yourself to reach into the bag of food and get 3 cups of his food out and into his bowl, and then geezo-peezo he needs water too! Ugh! Oh, and the bowl apparently cleans itself because we don't know how to do it. There's a boot tray under the bowls to catch 'debris' and that gets moved when we are compelled to sweep and mop the floor weekly, but cleaning out the tray is something that we need to be directed to do every couple of weeks or so. So, maintenance is mandatory, but only when told to by the adults. Why would you do it otherwise?

Barkley doesn't come to YOU when he wants something because he knows (yes, has evolved and learned) that you will ignore him 98% of the time unless you are told by an adult to do the same thing that Barkley wanted you to do in the first place. Barkley isn't dumb! He'll come upstairs and drop his signals so that we will call to them (downstairs and closer) to do it! Sometimes Mystery forgets and thinks she's an adult. Yes, perfectly normal, but she gets reminded some of the time that she's not. Usually in the form of Daddy shouting HER name for maintenance for at least a week!

"Then" he was loved, got attention including addressed warmly and was physically healthy (plenty of exercise). "Now" he's ignored or groaned at, spoken to harshly and given one or two word directions, and getting very heavy and unhealthy because he gets so little exercise. One thing that I will say that I feel bad about is not walking him, but he wasn't trained well by Charming. Charming trained him to respond to him and Barkley doesn't even begin to go for walks the same with anyone else. He's horrible! Pulls and pulls, darts around and pulls, doesn't come to you when you let him have some slack and you need to call him back. And he's big! I'm sure he's at least my weight, and he has four legs on the ground to stand his ground against me! If he wants to go smell that hydrant then by gosh he's going to! That alone severely limits the efforts to take him for walks and he has to get his exercise running around our back yard.

I will add here that there have been periods when both Mystery and Jabber have allowed him to sleep in their beds with them. Mystery has a queen sized bed and got tired of kicking him off the bed because he'd just sneak back up. Jabber liked having him sleep with him until he found a tic in his bed one day. Please! Don't wash the dog, right?! Just kick him out of bed!

Every now and then Jabber gets ambitious about Barkley. Takes him for a walk while riding his skateboard, plays ball-on-a-rope pulling with him. It might last a couple hours one day it might last for a week that he keeps it up. Barkley is happy for a week.

I feel bad for our dog. If Charming had a place where he could have a dog we would let him have Barkley ONLY because Barkley would be so gosh darn happy and healthy too is my guess! It almost happened about 2 years ago and then fell through. We'd never get rid of him though and that's not what we were trying to do. I just wish that the people in our family would try to be nicer to him and treat him with kindness. Talk to him kindly, pet him, smile at him and let him know that he's loved and appreciated.

And then it hit me. They consider Barkley and I on the same level. Think about it.

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I need to find another word for useless!

You see, I'm trying not to use that one for Glory's hubby. It's what pops into my head all the time though! Ok, probably because Daddy uses that term when describing him and he really is spot-on!

The name I have for him in the left column index just isn't working for me! I have to say that I don't hate him and want him to vanish off the earth, but because Glory loves him fiercely I sure wish that he'd wake TF up and see that there is more to life if you actually DO something!

Just before Christmas Glory called to tell me that she's pregnant. This is her 2nd pregnancy and she's really nervous because her first ended in a miscarriage right after the beginning of her 2nd trimester. Very bad scene to say the least. (Had to have 2 D&C's and then also contracted salmonella!)

And her husband hasn't been employed since May. His family that is near them has basically shut them off because they wish he'd straighten his @$$ out too. He can't get a job because his SSN gets run and he needs to 'clear a few things up' about his previous job before anyone else will hire him. Read between the lines here and you'll know what I'm saying, ok?

They came to see me for Christmas. Having him in the hosue and seeing how useless he is on a daily basis is completely frustrating. One day I took them out and had him throwing a wrench into that even though we dropped him off while we went shopping. I'll mention that one of the days he went to visit a friends he left the cord to recharge the cellphone. The friend left to visit family several states away, locking the cord inside. Looking around we found several places that had the cord for $40. FORTY F dollars! Maybe that's not a lot but when you're on vacation, out of state, barely swung the $$ for the plane tickets... who TF needs to spend $40 on replacing something that you just should have been responsible about in the first place?!

And who gets to pay for it? Not his no-job-having @$$!

Now they are back 'home' where they've been living and looking into moving to another closer state. She gave her notice at her job and plans for a week of settling things for the move. I've suggested that she send her husband ahead so that he can begin job hunting and settle the dogs in. (They are sharing a housde with friends, so that's at least taken care of ahead!) Let him start standing up and taking some responsibility! I understand that she is beginning to feel that if she's not there that it won't get done, and that he NEEDS her to guide and prod him. That is SO not the way it's supposed to be though! Heck, she already has one baby, him!

So, can you think of another name for him that isn't 'that' mean? I love lists to choose from! HELP!!!!

Some things are just designed to make you crazy, right?

I keep saying that I'm going to post here and then things take me away and I loose my mind trying to wrap myself around whatever's current. I can't type when they're here because of over-the-shoulder syndrome and then when the house is calm and mostly empty I'm just so glad NOT to think about it! Kwim?!!

Ok, I've got one that I think I can wrap up without going on and on! I'm going to tell you what I think at the end and you tell me if you think I'm right, ok?!

Recently I had a family event on my side of the family. My father had one of those big milestone birthdays. The kind that you have to make sure to do something for him because you think ahead and wonder if he'll be here for the next decade to have another big milestone occasion. I don't communicate with my father very often by choice because I hate feeling powerless and that's a whole 'nuther story, but we'll just say that all the siblings made a plan and we all gathered for a surprise event for him.

Daddy wanted to be able to go with me and Daisy for the events, but Jabber has sports games on the weekends when he is at TW's house and Daddy always provides the transportation. He told Jabber to ask TW if she could bring him to his games (2 that day and one the next) for that day only, so that he can attend my family events that day without having to just meet up after the games were over. Daddy almost never asks anything of TW, never mind ask for something for himself, maybe once every other year he's done it.

You know her answer, right? No.

Insert expletives here calling TW every name in the book that means selfish bitch. Never mind the fact that her son is playing in the games (and is a "star" player in both of his sports BTW!) and she can't consider going to watch the game(s) to support him. She doesn't enjoy sports, therefore doesn't participate other than the odd drop-off ride once or twice in a season. She drives him there, lets him off and leaves. Anyway... the extra shitiest part of this one is that Daddy picked Jabber up from her house and brought him to the game. He decided that he'd have to skip the afternoon game that week because it was just going to be impossible for him to attend with us at all if he didn't.

Guess who showed her ugly @$$ up at the end of the game to pick Jabber up?

She couldn't call anyone and say that she was doing this? She couldn't even tell Jabber, so he could share the information? No.

I truly believe that this is her way of telling MY husband that she still has control of him and can make him do things at her beck and call. That she is more important than I am and that whatever happens SHE is the one calling the shots.

Of course he lets her, but (expletives again)!!!!! I can't wait until those two are old enough to be out of my house and never to consider having contact with her again! What do you think? Spot on or some other explanation?