This is a true story.  Names have been changed to protect an idiot.

(Insert Law and Order “ding” noise here)

I’ve been divorced for seven and a half  years.  Tack on a two year separation (because he had to drag things out until he knocked up his girlfriend, then he had to hurry up and finalize the divorce so he could turn around and get married again) and we’re up to nine and a half years apart.  I’m fine with this.  I’m more than fine with this.  I could not give a shit less and, truth be told, if I never had to think about his wreched ass again it would be too soon.  Unfortunately I chose to procreate with him, thereby guaranteeing that I would have to deal with him in a cordial fashion until the girls are both graduated from high school. Blerg.

I know I’ve mentioned this before but he (I’m not going to mention his name but it rhymes with John) and I went to court last November, at his request, to review the amount of child support he pays.  Actually, let me back up a little bit.

He called me up one day and said “Kristie?  I think I’m paying you too much money.  I want you to agree to allow me to reduce the amount the girls get per month to about half of what they’re currently getting”.

To which I said something like “Come again”?

After much debate, during which he insisted that I be a dumbass and say “OK”, he finally believed me when I said I wasn’t going to agree to something so assinine. I told him that if he really wanted to persue this he would need to do it in court.  I got a subpeona about a month later.

Let me tell you something about me.  I was born early in the morning, not at night, though I’d rather poke my own eye out with a spork than wake up at the time of morning I was born.  Also, I was never dropped on my head, nor did I ever fall off of any type of truck while it was hauling produce.

(For those of you who are scratching your heads and asking yourselves what the hell I’m rambling on about… this is my special way of saying I wasn’t born last night, I was never dropped on my head, and I didn’t fall off of the turnip truck.  You’re welcome.)

» Continue Reading

Tonight the girls and I went to The New Guy’s place for dinner.  I cooked stir fry, Rich and the girls made eggrolls (which were da bomb diggety, omg), and his mother came over to eat with us.

The planning for the dinner has been going on for a couple of days.  It wasn’t what we would have, it was who would do the shopping to pick up everything we needed (I won this time), who would do the chopping and the cutting (which I also did, with the exception of the onion…i managed to saw into my thumb during that process and his mom took over the chopping until I stopped bleeding).

I was a little hesitant to cook dinner in Rich’s kitchen.  Cooking is one of the areas where we are polar opposites.  He likes to cook while I would avoid it if I could.  Seriously.  When the girls aren’t home I can live on cereal.  He likes to stir and taste and add stuff here and there.  I follow a recipe to the letter, cutting corners here and there so I can shave some time off of the estimated prep period, not unlike men who try to beat their drive time during road trips.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah. Hesitant.

Rich has a habit, which I confirmed with his mother, of looking over the shoulder of the person who is doing the cooking.  It’s really hard for him to give up control of his kitchen.  I was proud of him today though.  He did a very minimal amount of hovering and I know how much effort that took on his part.

I’m more than OK letting Rich do the cooking.  I’ll be happy to clean up after him.  He never lets me clean up by myself though, he’s used to being the nurturer.  I’m getting used to letting him do things for me but he’s having a little bit more of a hard time accepting the same in return.

I’ve always been a pretty independant person.  I’m getting used to sharing responsibility and I’m genuinely enjoying his company.  I’ll gladly let him hover for as long as he wants.

 

She’s 12 years old today.

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own,
even if she never wants to or needs to…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..something perfect to wear if the employer,
or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour…
 
 A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..
a youth she’s content to leave behind….
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to
retelling it in her old age….
 
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …..
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra…
 
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ….
one friend who always makes her laugh… and one who lets her cry…
 
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ….
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family…
 
 
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems,
and a recipe for a meal,
that will make her guests feel honored…
 
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
a feeling of control over her destiny…
 
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to fall in love without losing herself..
 
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to quit a job,
break up with a lover,
and confront a friend without;
ruining the friendship…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…

what she can and can’t accomplish in a day…
a month…and a year…

Once upon a time there was a lady who was having a horrendously craptacular hair day.  (I mention the hair because it is the first thing that gets done in the morning and yesterday it set the mood for the rest of the day.)  It refused to stay where she put it but since it’s now short it wasn’t too terribly bothersome, just a little irksome.

At work things could have gone smoothly if the lady didn’t have to wait for someone from another location, who didn’t show up until 4:30, to drop off some very important papers.  So, instead of doing the work that REALLY needed to be done she scrounged around and found stupid little tasks to make her look busy.  Keeping one eye on the clock she watched the time crawl by.

Until 5:00, 30 minutes before it was time to go home, when her computer started misbehaving.  And she managed to process someone’s title work under the wrong store, causing her to assign the wrong tags and registration (which luckily she was able to reverse and put back into inventory because she decided to have a huddle around her desk to figure out wtf happened).

After the misassigning fiasco her computer told her to “eff off”and refused to work.  She pushed a bunch of buttons, rebooted, and cussed at it…all to no avail.  It stubbornly held it’s stance and refused to budge.  The lady sent an instant message to The New Guy, which he wasn’t at his desk to see until after she said “Eff this, I’m going home.”

She didn’t go home.  She decided to go to the gym instead.  Which was a good plan but was not executed easily because she forgot to get over into her turn lane and wound up taking a very scenic route, which took her down by her house, then BACK to where she just came from using a series of side streets she’d never been on before. By the time she righted her course she was even more aggrivated. She managed to put that aggrivation to good use and had an awesome workout.

Her day, it sucked.  But her evening was wonderful.  Her stress melted away when she focused on her rugrats and The New Guy.  They went shopping for a birthday present for the oldest rugrat’s friend and they went to dinner.  Then they went home and watched a movie.  The last couple hours of the evening made it worth going through the horrendous work day.

The moral of the story is (fables have morals, right?) don’t bring your work home with you.  Leave it at the gym, where you kill two birds with one stone:  working out your frustration and burning off your dinner before you eat it.

He’s always just an IM, text message, or phone call away. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing or how busy he is…he will always answer. And on the rare occasion that he doesn’t answer he returns my call immediately upon realizing he missed it.  

Knowing that I’m NOT a morning person he sends me text messages at 8:00 a.m. that say “Good morning, Sunshine!”

Sometimes I beat him to the early morning text message and his answer to my “Good morning!” is “It is now”.

He intercepts my 9 year old’s homework to check it before my brain can process her request and enter “panic mode” because fourth grade math is HARD.

He helps me walk my rambunctious dogs at night and will carry both poop bags if I let him.

When we’re together he shows his affection by holding my hand, rubbing my shoulders, or putting his arm around me.

He plants a kiss on my forehead after I zing him with one sarcastic comment after another.

He puts chick flicks in his netflix queue so we can watch them together even if I’ve never heard of the movie, which is most of the time since I don’t watch much TV.

He always opens doors for me and will never walk through first, even if I stubbornly insist that he allow ME to open the door for HIM for a change.

He occasionally allows me to buy him dinner or Starbucks even though I know he’d rather claw his own eyes out.He will stand beside me in a book store (and not pretend he doesn’t know me) while I laugh so hard reading a Happy Bunny book that I can barely breathe.

Last night The New Guy came over, like he does most nights, and spent the evening with me and the girls. We had dinner, talked to the girls about their day, watched some TV…and then we sat on my bed, each of us playing around on our own separate laptop. (He’s a Mac fanatic while I prefer to follow the crowd on this one and stick with Windows.) Geeky, no?

When it was time for him to leave we lingered around in the “saying good night phase” for a nice, long while. We had a conversation during those final moments that I will replay for you now.

Rich: Good night, hun.

Me: (with my arms locked around him and my face buried in his shirt) “Bye.”

::brief pause::

Rich: I really should get going now.

Me: (maintaining my position) MmHmm.

Rich: (kisses my forehead) Give me 30 minutes.

Me: It only takes four minutes to get to your house.

Rich: 30 minutes and I’ll meet you in my dreams.

Me: (rolling my eyes at the cheesiness of that statement) How would I get into your dream? Is it sort of like hooking the Wii up to the internet so the Mii’s can visit someone elses console?

Rich: You had to wreck my moment didn’t you.

Me: Dude, that was a line if I ever heard one. You should know better than to try to use a line on me.

Rich: Yeah…

Here’s a picture of me with The New Guy. Thanks, Lynn, for taking it!