Living in Muddy Waters

Harry Potter Day 2

2012-01-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

Sorry about my rant the other day. This past week has been horrible and to be honest, I am not sure I so much as survived it as just got through it. Hubby is feeling better, albeit very tired. His doctor put him back on a very small dose of the immunosuppressant, just enough to keep him from going anaphylactic, although not enough to prevent the welts. I just got overwhelmed. I wanted so desperately to stay home and take care of him, but working two jobs and living so far away from where I work just finally made me snap. Plus, I am an hourly wage employee. If I don't work, I don't get paid. That and the phrase "One medical emergency away from bankruptcy" keeps going through my head.

But that's not what I am going to write about. I still need to finish the story of the Harry Potter and the Florida trip. So, day two arrived really early after getting back to the hotel at 11:00 PM the night before. But we knew we had to get to the WoWiz early if we had any chance of getting in. We arrived at Universal about 8:45 AM and made our way through the parking lot, past Dr. Seussville (or town, or burg, or whatever the heck it was called). We passed Jurassic Park and arrived at the line for Harry Potter only to discover that the WofWiz had been over-capacity since the park opened for the premium paying guests at 7:00 AM. We went to the stand-by ticket line and got tickets that would allow us into Hogsmeade at 11:00 AM.

Now, the first thing I have to tell you is that in most of the park, the Universal employees were not the most polite customer service representatives you could imagine. Although I think that might have been caused by the immense amount of people walking through the park. The park extended its hours to accomodate the record-breaking crowds. I think the employees might just have been exhausted. However, once you walked into the Wof Wiz, everything changed. Almost every costumed employee was not only nice, but very knowledgeable about Harry Potter things, which was nice, since it really is supposed to be an "experience".

We went directly back to the line for Hogwarts. The line was 2 hours long but never stopped moving. I could have done without the part where we had to stand next to the water treatment area for the park, though. Talk about smelly. We got into Hogwarts and it was fantastic. It had video of the characters in each room, the pictures really did talk and E was fascinated by the attention to detail. It really was fantastic.

The ride out of the castle, well, that was not my favorite part. I don't want to give to much of it away, but I don't do IMAX things very well, and it was very much like an IMAX. It also had a dragon that got way too close to me. When I was very little, I was at a ride in either Cedar Point or Olde Chicago that had a dinosaur and the ride malfunctioned. The dinosaur leaned down towards the car I was in and never leaned back up. I was never in danger, but I was very young and it was very scary. So, the dragon spraying me with warm mist kind of made me shaky. Hubby was the only one of us that liked the ride.

The ride dumped us out and landed us in Filches Emporium. The store was built in true English style, low ceilings, close aisles and very dark. And the people....oh the people. I had to leave the store because it just made me too claustrophobic. Every store in the WofWiz had employees manning the entrances. Because of the amount of people, they were making people go in one way and out another. It made a lot of sense unless you were one of the lovely loud-mouthed tourists who didn't feel like walking around the building when you could clearly walk into the store from where you were standing. This poor girl manning the Filches entrance turned exit had to repeat over and over "This is the exit, the entrance is around the side." Even when a very tall man tried to push her out of the way, she held her ground and smiled. I was amazed.

We decided the eat at the Three Broomsticks. Again, we were herded like very well-maintained cows. When we got to our assigned counter to order I tried to get a diet coke. I desperately needed some caffeine and I don't tend to drink coffee much. The woman taking my order very curtly told me "There are no soda products in the World of Wizarding!" AGHHGHHH!!!! In case you haven't noticed from this post, customer service and being gracious are things I covet. I always try very hard to be polite. But I almost lost it when this woman not only denied me diet coke, but made me feel horrible for even asking. I was tired, I was overwhelmed and I WANTED A SODA!!!! I was thankful the food was not traditional theme park fair. We had Cornish pasties and salad. You could also get baked chicken, shepherd's pie and something else that was NOT fried fat.

E rounded out her day by shopping in a few more stores, rode the Hippogriff and we called it a day. She bought a scarf, a shirt and some Every-Flaver beans. The only thing she didn't get to do was see the wand-choosing show. She got to go into Ollivander's but the show had a 2 hour wait. She also bought some chocolate frogs. If you go, don't bother buying the chocolate. It is really old and tasteless.

Oh, one more thing, Moaning Myrtle IS in the bathroom. If you go, they only have public bathrooms in one part of the Wof Wiz. I feel bad for the crowd that is there the day those bathrooms malfunction.

Next time: Giant spiders and finding a non-I-95 way home.

So here it is...

2012-01-17T20:29:00.000-05:00

To all of you named and unnamed readers out there who leave nasty comments about how negative I am and how I bring all the drama in my world on by myself: YOU SUCK!!!

My husband is sitting in a hospital right now with pneumonia brought on by his immunosuppresant that he takes because he has an anaphylactic allergy to himself. My husband is supposed to have surgery next week but has to stop taking the medicine that keeps him alive and hope his throat doesn't close up on him to have the surgery. My fault? Really?

I had to buy a new car, which is a story in itself, because my 12 year-old one died. That means taking on a bill I can barely afford with all of hubby's chest x-rays, extra meds and MRIs. I can't afford it because the church reneged on its part of the financial deal when they brought Hubby here. Not to mention they moved us out to the country and I now drive 40 frigging miles a day. Did I bring that on myself? Simply because I didn't want E shot in a driveby? Hell no!

So you go ahead and say I bring this all on myself. You go ahead and tell me you are never going to read my blog again. I DON'T CARE!! You know why, because I am the biggest broad-shouldered bitch you have ever met and you couldn't walk 2 steps in my shoes much less live my life. I think I hold it together pretty damn well. SO get the hell off of my blog.

Mean people SUCK!

World of Wizarding day one

2012-01-15T21:04:00.000-05:00

For those of you who might not know, Harry Potter's World of Wizarding is located in Universal Studios. I, myself, have never been to an Orlando theme park. I have been to Cedar Point, the Ohio King's Dominion and AstroWorld. I thought all of these places were big, but Universal, well, Universal is the big behonking behemoth of theme parks. The thing is, it seemed to me as if it was just a place where you spent a lot of money on tickets to get to a place where you spent a lot of money on food and shopping. There just aren't that many rides.

On our way from the in-law's house to Universal, we decided to stop at the Mall of Florida first. O......M.....G! I felt like Sybil walking through the mall going "the people, the people, the people." It was easily 4 times the size of any mall I had ever been in and 4 times as crowded. It took us forever to get to the store we needed and by the time we left, checked in to our hotel and then arrived at Universal, it was 5:00 PM. We thought we were being smart. We thought that most of the families would be going home and the WofWiz would be less crowded. We thought wrong.

Now you have to understand, E had been anticipating this trip for 6 months. She did not give a flip about Jurassic Park, or that strange Toon Town kind of thing. She wanted Harry Potter. As we walked deeper and deeper into the park, each wizard robed tourist, or Gryffindor scarf, or round black glasses made her excitement that much more keen. Then, over the top of the dinosaur exhibit she saw it: Hogwarts!

We had finally arrived at the line of people waiting to get into Hogsmeade. Only, the gatekeepers were asking for tickets. Silly us, we pulled out our Universal tickets. No, they needed the timed tickets. The W of Wiz had been full since morning and they were only letting a certain number of people in each hour, for which you must have gone to a different area in the park to get a ticket. The rest of the night's tickets had been given out. The only chance now to get in that night was to wait in the standby line. So we wandered backwards to the standby line (which had a 2 hour wait) and decided not to chance getting in via stand by. We told E we would stop by in 2 hours and check how long the line was. If not, I promised her we would get to the park early the next morning and get one of those golden tickets no matter what. E was on the verge of tears. Here she was so close and now she was losing a day. Thank goodness we had bought 2 days passes. If you decide you want to go to the W of Wiz, buy two day passes.

At 9PM we went back to the standby line and discovered it was moving. Slowly we were carted along with a mass of people and eventually we passed through the gates into the streets of JK Rowling's mind. It was so dark and so crowded we couldn't really see anything, but E was happy just to know she had stepped foot on hallowed ground. She had her picture taken with the conductor of the Hogwarts Express (who was more than a little creepy) and we wandered back to Hogwarts Castle. That line was so long that they were not taking anymore people for the night. E and Hubby wandered a little more while I stood in line for Butter Beer (on E's wish list of things to experience).

First, everyone wants to know about Butter Beer. It can be purchased in two ways, cold or frozen. If you buy it cold, you are not allowed to put a straw in it because something about the foam on top makes the drink explode all over the place if it is punctured. The elf serving the beer described it as cream soda with a butterscotch froth. And that is pretty much true to its taste. I bought E the $10.50 souvenir mug of the cold beer and the $3.50 cup for Hubby and me. I purchased it from a barrel in the middle of the street. I wouldn't say it was good, but it was different.

We left the Wizarding World that night and made our plans of attack for the next day....

Part 2

2012-01-07T20:43:00.003-05:00

Ah...I left you all hanging. I am having some car drama and trying to buy a new car, which is not fun. BUT...it sure has given me some blog fodder. You'll have to wait for that later, though. Now more about my trip.

So, we stopped at hotel for the night and all was uneventful. We woke up the next morning and drove...and drove....and drove.....We passed St. Mary's (is that in GA or FL, I can never remember). When I was a child we visited friends there and we stayed in an old haunted hotel. I wanted to stop just out of nostalgia and walk around since visiting there is one of my few, very clear, childhood memories. However, when you have to drive for hours and hours and you have limited time, stopping for a trip down memory lane just isn't feasible. Somewhere around St. Mary's is the state border. We were finally crossing into the Sunshine State.

I have been traveling to Florida for 18 years now. I have flown a few times, but for the most part I have made that drive down 95 and two things never change. The first is that the minute, no...the second you cross that border the air and light around you changes. It is amazing. The air seems more tropical and the sun seems brighter. I still have not figured out how that happens.

But the other thing that happens is we always stop at the Welcome Center Rest Area. There are big signs at the entrance and exit of the rest area that let you know you have indeed made it to the land of snowbirds, sunshine and citrus groves. I have never once stopped at that rest area and not seen a line of people waiting their turns to take a picture in front of the signs. This time there was a very Italian looking family from New Jersey standing around posing in front of the sign. Next in line was a Mennonite family of 8 in full dress chatting about just how excited they were to be there. Only in Florida....

We stopped at Sonny's Barbecue since we don't have them where we live and E had the ribs. Something about the ribs set off a horribly allergic reaction in her face and she was bumpy and rashy for the next 3 days. It was very strange since we ate there again on our way home and she was just fine. Sonny's is GOOD!!! Rash is BAD!!! I, of course, was overly concerned because of Hubby's allergy to himself.

Once back in the car we were talking happily about how we were making such good time and should be less than 2 hours away from Hubby's family when we hit the outskirts of Orlando. We saw a traffic sign that said "Next 15 miles=50 Minutes" and just went "oh shit!" Traffic came to a stop. We thought it must have been caused by construction or an accident...something! It was 2 in the afternoon so it wasn't rush hour. What the heck, we kept wondering.

It was Disney traffic! It took us 2 hours to make it from one side of Orlando to the other. By the time we hit I-4 I was actually rocking back and forth in my seat trying to talk myself out of just getting out of the car and walking until Hubby caught up to me. To be so close and then get stopped like that was awful. The line of traffic exiting off the Disney and Universal exits was stunning. How do people who live in Orlando deal with it?

But we made it. We celebrated a late Christmas with Hubby's family that night and all was well.

Next Stop: Harry Potter's World of Wizarding.

Part 1

2012-01-03T19:47:00.000-05:00

We had a bumpy start to our journey to Florida. The Monday before we left Hubby took my car to the auto place because I was leaking oil and my car was giving off a strange electric smell. The auto shop checked it out, said there was no leak and told him it would be fine to take to Fla.

Christmas morning I got in my car to attend church before we left for I-95 and my car refused to start. It was dead. It had power, but made a clicking sound whenever I tried to start it. I assumed it was my starter and knew that it meant we would be taking Hubby's car. My van may be old, but it is the luxury model of its brand and very comfortable to travel in. Hubby's is an old mini-SUV with a definite....um....man smell. We were bummed to say the least. (We have since asked around and been sent to a new repair guy who only takes people through referral. His shop is in an old neighborhood across from a goat farm. I swear, I thought I needed a special handshake to get in.)

Anywho, we drove through pouring rain into the cold of night. We thought that everything would be closed since it was Christmas day so we packed a picnic lunch to eat at a rest area. Up until Sunday, we had been wearing shorts and short sleeves. Not so Christmas night. Let me tell you, that picnic was bitter cold! We inhaled our food and got back on the road. About 7PM E told us she desperately needed to pee. It was an emergency! We looked and looked but we were on a long and lonely stretch of highway through the low country. Just when we thought E would be squatting on the side of the road we found an open gas station in the middle of nowhere.

Amazingly enough the restroom was fairly clean. I had been so focused on following E into the store that I hadn't bothered to look at my surroundings. It was scary! The owners were blasting what I assume was Gangsta Rap. I call it that because other than music that I hear booming from the local cars, I have never actually heard Gangsta Rap. But as I became aware of my surroundings, the singer was beat boxing and rapping about having someone stick a di** up an *ss. I wanted to just take my hands and cover E's ears. But then I turned around and what we saw was so much worse!

There, dead center in the store for all to see, was a glass display case. The case had an assortment of drug paraphernalia. An entire shelf was dedicated to penis shaped Hookah pipes in a rainbow of colors. I saw E's eyes go big as I started to drag her out of the store. Now, I myself am not a stranger to certain illegal activities and I am not really a prude about sex objects. I do watch Californication and True Blood, after all. I even know what a Cleveland Steamer is. I think it is disgusting, but I know what it is. BUT I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO EXPLAIN A PENIS BONG TO E!!!!

So that was the start of our journey. I myself love the first leg of a road trip because Hubby and I spend a lot of time talking and catching up with each other. I just could have done without that strange experience.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

I have just returned from Harry Potter's World of Wall to Wall people. I have so much to share but so much to unpack first. Let me just tell you, we managed to go to Universal Studios on the two days that broke all park records for attendance. It was so packed that they actually STOPPED allowing people into the whole park. E has been looking forward to this trip for 6 months and when we finally got there, we were told that the World of Wizarding was full and no one else was allowed in. E was devastated! But, we waited for stand-by tickets and did make it. Let me tell you, there is not enough Ativan in my world to allow me to go there again.

Tomorrow I will share my stories of penis shaped hookahs, my broken down van, Mennonites, scary hairy spiders, fire breathing dragon flashbacks and the weird oddity that is Harry Potter's World of Wizarding.

Happy ChrisHanYulKwanzivus

2011-12-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

I have lost readers because I haven't posted in so long. My apologies. I had two shows within 2 weeks of each other and then came down with the flu. Once I got a chance to just stop and rest, I really took advantage of it.

I received a bittersweet gift this year. The woman I work for/with had a birthday this month. She has a husband and three children. Not one of her family members wished her a happy birthday or even got her a gift. I walked in with some chocolate from our local homegrown candy shop for her and made it seem so much worse. Even though I don't like her and she does some really questionable things, I would never wish anything bad upon her. To me, the fact that not one single person in her family even said Happy Birthday just floored me.

I got to thinking. Even in our darkest, poorest days, Hubby and E have always made sure to make me feel loved. The year they couldn't afford gifts for me for my birthday, they made me breakfast and Hubby wrote me a love letter. This year we are going to Harry Potter's World of Wizarding (Hubby's parents paid for the tickets since we are going to Florida to see them) instead of exchanging Christmas gifts, so Hubby and E printed pictures of what they would give me if they could afford it. I got a new car (2 actually), a new chef quality kitchen, a hot tub, a trip to Santa Fe and a week at our Wild Island. When I saw E's eyes so full of love as I opened each of my "gifts" I knew I was loved and blessed.

I hope this holiday season you all find a moment of joy, a quiet time when you can just stop and say "I am blessed." I know I have some readers out there who are alone and feel depressed. I wish you peace. This season, too, will pass. But you are not alone. I know you are there.

Dona Nobis Pacem.

Only in CountryTime

2011-12-09T22:21:00.001-05:00

One of the reasons I struggle here is because there is so much small town jealousy and backstabbing that goes on. For example, my theater company's show was originally set to go up this weekend. Well, awhile back the arts council and the local community theater had a big falling out and pulled out of their contract with the council, meaning they no longer hold their performances in the theater we use. This left the weekend before Thanksgiving available for our show and it was decided we would adjust our schedule, even though our season dates had already been announced, and take the earlier weekend. I was all for it because I had heard a local dance company (who shares students with us), had chosen our original date for their Christmas show and I thought it would be a nice gesture not to compete with them. What I was later to find out was, the owner of the dance studio had purposely chosen our original date because she was tired of sharing our students and wanted to force them to choose. Whoops.

Anywho, then several weeks ago signs started appearing all around town announcing not one but two Christmas craft fairs for the same date. I thought that was either very coincidental or very planned. Silly me, I thought the organizations had come together to allow people a full day of shopping. Only they hadn't. It turns out that each organization had tried to force their rival to change their date, but neither one would budge. So they started stealing each other's signs so no one would go to the other fair. Seriously? A craft fair is so important and original that there can only be ONE per weekend and STEALING was the answer?

Then we come to today, ever since CPS has been investigating our classroom (yes I said classroom, not the lead teacher) my teaching partner and I have been the black sheep of the school. Which is fine by me, I don't fit in with this group of women anyway. But my Thurs/ Fri class is a group of very difficult and unsocialized children. I have one with severe disabilities, 5 that are non-verbal, one with autism and twins that are so violent I am afraid they are going to seriously hurt someone one day. They keep me busy, to say the least. While we were on the playground today, one of the twins took a small toy shovel's worth of sand and threw it on the church secretary's car outside of the playground fence. Teachers are not allowed to leave the playground while children are there so there was nothing I could do about it. Then one kid tried to shove another off the top of the playground and I got distracted. I never thought about it again. Until...

The 4 year old class came out (led by the teacher who had gone to Israel and complained that the food was horrible because there were no sauces and it was all just rice and chicken and vegetables). She noticed sand on the car and complained to the director of the school. The director asked the other teachers to find out who was responsible and we admitted it was one of our kids. She was upset with us that we didn't tell her. It was a handful of sand....on a car parked against a playground fence....nevermind that I told her about the little girl with disabilites who had been shoved against the wall, or the girl who out of nowhere threw a temper tantrum and threw her body to the ground while I was holding her hand causing me to fear that I might have hurt her. No, I forgot to tell her about the sand and another teacher HAD to make sure we were spoken to. I went up and spoke to the car owner and she thought it was very silly that I had come to apologize. But God forbid I offend anyone in this town.

Frigging CountryTime, this is not the real world...this is not the real world.

They Followed That Star

2011-12-08T20:34:00.000-05:00

Our last church was an ornate, gothic old church whose congregation had been around for over 150 years. The building itself was over 100 years old and I used to love exploring the nooks and crannies. I always found some amazing things. There was an old pump organ, lovely antiques and I even once found a Life magazine from WWII. The church took great pride in its history.

I loved helping to decorate that church. We actually started out as just members of that church back in the 90's. That is where Hubby received his call and we were eventually sent back as the pastoral family. But in the 90's I was just Muddy to them and young enough to climb a rickety ladder balanced in the choir loft up 20 feet all the while dangling a heavy 4 foot wreath from a pole used to hang it on the pipes from a giant pipe organ.

The church also had a 12 foot Christmas tree. Every year someone from the church would very carefully unwrap a 75 year old ceramic figuring nativity and place it under the tree. In 1997 I was recovering from a horrible car crash and couldn't climb the ladder so I was given the job of setting up the nativity. The problem was I had a broken thumb (from refusing to let go of the steering wheel ) and so I had a cast on my arm. I was trying to be careful as I unwrapped the shepherds, the baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph. But when I got to the wise men, something happened. I sort of lost my grip as I was taking the paper off and a wise man went tumbling. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Down, down, down he fell. His head hit the floor and went rolling away. I reached out to try to grab it, forgetting that I didn't have the use of my thumb. That was when I learned how important an opposable thumb really was. The head hit the giant air-return grate located on the floor and was lost forever. I would forever more be the person who not only broke the nativity, but lost the wise man's head.

So you can imagine how I feel every Christmas when gifts from the congregants start arriving. Inevitably a congregant will give us a Bible or a nativity for Christmas, because of course my Hubby, being a pastor, would not have enough of these two items. I appreciate that it is the thought that counts, but I have more nativities than rooms in my house. I have 3 or 4 ceramic nativities, two wooden ones, 1 glass nativity and one with candles. And now I have a giant wooden pillar nativity. One for every Bible. So I guess the lesson is, if you are thinking about getting your pastor a nativity, wait. Chances are he or she is good in that department.

The Resolution

2011-12-01T20:51:00.000-05:00

I have learned a lot about life and myself in these past two days. I agonized over the E fiasco last night and awoke at 4:00 AM still furious and frustrated. I decided to email both E's teacher and the mom of the birthday girl whose party I would have thought E would have been invited to.

First off, E's teacher is the step dad of Mean Queen #1 (whom we will get to in a minute). The mom I emailed was E's 3rd grade teacher. (I kid you not about either of those facts). Even though it was 4:00 AM, I still managed to contain my fury and sent two brief emails. The email to the teacher stated that 3 of the girls in E's class had made sure to tell E the guest list of the TWO parties that she had not been invited to. I told him that as a parent, the fairness of this conversation aside, the fact that E was excluded from 2 parties sends up huge red flags for me as a parent that E is having difficulties in her social circle. Anything he could tell me about the situation in the classroom would help me help my daughter. I did not accuse his stepdaughter of anything, I did not throw blame around, I merely wanted to know my daughter's part in these difficulties.

My email to the mom explained that E was very hurt to find out she had not been invited to the party but she was more hurt that these 3 girls proceeded to tell her the guest list as a means of making her feel excluded. I had thought that Birthday Girl was E's friend and this all took me by surprise. I asked her to honestly tell me what had conspired and why these two were no longer friends. If E's personality is the problem I need to know so that we can learn from this. Again, no accusation, no anger slinging, just trying to figure out what my child's part in creating this situation was.

The mom replied that her daughter thought E didn't like her and has been coming home for the past month very sad at the loss of friendship. (Her daughter was one of the 3 girls going over the guest list for E.) She had "agonized" over whether or not to invite E but in the end hadn't because E had not invited her to her own birthday party. E's b-day party consisted of 3 girls, that's all.

Suddenly the light flipped on and after thinking it through and talking to E, I have a better understanding of my child and what she faces everyday. There are a group of 8 girls who have been traveling through school together since their 3 year old preschool class. 6 of these girls are from old CountryTime families, 2 are not. This group of girls is controlled by Mean Queen 1 and Mean Queen 2. They decide who is part of the group and who is not. It changes daily. They singlehandedly prevented E from having any friends save 1 girl from India her third grade year.

MQ1 and MQ2 are part of my theater program. Therefore they cannot completely ostracize E knowing I hold their future roles in my hands. But they are so manipulative and mean that they refuse to talk to E when the whole gang is together, making her feel like she doesn't fit in. When it is just the three of them, they get along fine. When a girl gets shunned from the group, the shunned girl always turns to E and becomes her BFF for a few days until they are allowed back into the inner circle and then drops E like a hot potato. E finally said enough.

So E started seeking out people NOT in the group and adopting the strays. She decided she no longer wanted to even associate with the MQ's. The 2 non-CountryTime girls of the inner circle (one being the b-day girl) who actually are friends with E felt left behind because E said she knew if she asked them to make a choice between her or the MQ's, she would lose. And this is the kicker, when E was talking to me about all of this, she took a big breath and said, "MOMMY....I want to be friends with these people but I am tired of being USED!! When they get mad at me and make everyone stop talking to me, I would rather spend the day alone then try to be like them." WOW...I have a smart kid.

So in the end, E decided to just let the 2 friends who are part of the inner circle know that she is their friend but she does not feel like she is part of the group. She knows they do want to be part of the group so that is fine but they are welcome to play with her when they want, but she is not going to seek them out when they are with the girls.

And I think that is the best thing for all involved.

And I think I have one kid who is going to grow up to be a great human being.

I HATE FIFTH GRADE

2011-11-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

I think my kid is pretty special. She is smart, funny, athletic, a great actress and just a lot of fun in general. But all of her life she has struggled with friendships. She has trouble pushing herself into group situations and so, sometimes, it is hard on her to make friends.

But that has always been okay until recently. She has one tried and true best friend who she has had since 3rd grade and the other girls just flit in and out of her life as 5th grade girls do. In fact, I thought she was doing okay this year until this weekend.

Two of the girls in her class had birthday parties this weekend and invited every single other girl in the class, but neither one of them invited her. She was left out of not one but two parties. One of the girls was not really a good friend, just a work buddy, but the other girl? Her mom made a point in the beginning of the year of saying how much she loved E and wanted to have her over and encourage a friendship between our daughters. and yet...nothing.

I have been circling through my head trying to figure out why this is happening. E seems happy this year. She hasn't complained about stomach aches like she did last year. Hubby has gone in and observed and everything seemed alright. I just don't know what to make of this.

Is it me? Have I done something? The mother in question is very upset with me that her daughter continues to not be cast in large roles in my theater program but the girl CAN'T SING!!! Plus she has an expander in her mouth. I didn't cast E when she had an expander in her mouth. You just can't get the necessary volume for a stage. Or am I just making excuses.

I know my daughter is different. She is an only child. She still believes in Santa and the tooth fairy. She can be bossy and rigid. She has anxiety. But I have talked to her teacher and I have talked to some of the other parents and they insist E is a delight and that the children love her.

So why is she the only one left out? My gut is saying this is just another way that the old families of Country Time keep the outsiders in line, but then I wonder if it is E. Is she doing something? Is she making enemies? Then I feel horrible for thinking that. How can I fix this?

God I hate this place.

A Very Muddy Christmas This Year

2011-11-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

Times are tight in the Muddy Household this year. Plus I am feeling somewhat Grinchy (again), so I have decided to take matters into my own hands. I have very little money to spend on people, but I wanted to use my money wisely, so I went shopping downtown at all the single business owner boutiques and shoppes (no, I did not misspell that!)

Sadly, I could afford very little that these shoppes had to offer. I bought some handmade soap and organic lip scrub as stocking stuffers for the women in the family. I found a lovely hand dyed scarf for my mother in law and that was about it. So I am taking matters into my own hands.

My dad is a getting a dvd of E singing Christmas carols and some homemade meringues.

My mom is getting a sweatshirt designed and painted by E and a handmade sachet made with lavender from my yard.

My fellow employees are getting homemade cranberry cherry chutney and the shut-ins are getting dried fruit truffles that I make and are really good and not so heavy in sugar and fat.

And Hubby...well, Hubby is just getting me and that will have to do.

If you have any other suggestions for handmade gifts, I am ready to hear it. I have tons of rosemary growing in my yard (for wreaths and oils) and I can hand sew and cook. After that, I've got NUTTIN'! Just remember, I was a Montessori teacher for years and know all about the cookie mix jars and beaded ornaments and such.
Being poor sucks...but to be honest, I just don't want to spend my money in the big box stores and buy junk no one appreciates. But I also know that most people don't appreciate handmade gifts anymore either. So help me out if you can.

Bah Humbug!

Snip Snip.....

2011-11-01T20:21:00.000-04:00

I have two classes of two year-olds. The first class comes to school three days a week. It is comprised of 9 girls and 2 boys. I have never had a girl heavy class and it has been so weird. Girls are so much quieter. But they are also much less independent at this age and I struggle to know what toys and work to put out.

The other day I had the brilliant idea of going into one of the 4 year old classes and grabbing some new items to bring into my class for the day. I saw a doctor's kit and remembered the hours of fun E had playing doctor and giving me shots.

I went through the kit to eliminate any small, chokeable items and set it out. There was a stethoscope, tweezers, syringe, that thing doctors check your eyes with and a pair of scissors. I checked the scissors to make sure they couldn't really cut anything and thought I was safe.

The children played well for about 30 minutes before they started getting restless and needed some adult intervention. I sat down on the floor and became the "patient." I was given many shots, had my heart checked out over and over again and pinched with the tweezers. One of my little girls came towards me with the scissors and I didn't even flinch.

So you can imagine my surprise when she put the scissors into my hair, closed down and pulled back with a handful of my unattached hair. She and I both looked at each other with our mouths in the shape of giant O's. Her look of terror at holding a section of my hair made me feel for her and I started laughing, which made her laugh, too. I really wasn't upset at the turn of event and actually thought it WAS kind of funny.

I thought it was so funny that I posted a little blurb about it on my FB page. I thought it was a perfectly innocent story and would make people laugh. My boss saw it on my page and made me take it down. She thought I made the preschool sound like a dangerous place for a two year old. I took the post down, but explained to her I only had 2 preschool parents as FB friends and I didn't even want them, I just thought it would be awkard if I didn't accept their requests. But I was a good soldier anyway.

So, here I sit sharing it on my blog, because in CountryTime, even something as silly as losing a section of hair can be misconstrued and upsetting to other people. I think it was a sign that I need a haircut.

Sigh

2011-10-23T20:38:00.000-04:00

Well....Hubby's anaphylactic allergy has finally been diagnosed. It turns out....he is allergic to himself. At first I found the diagnosis soothing. We finally had an answer and it wasn't some random allergy like peanut butter or strawberries that would creep up on him from some hidden spot and strike. But then I stopped to think about it. Hubby is allergic to himself. One kind of antibody is fighting another antibody and causing the huge welts. That means at anytime Hubby can turn anaphylactic again no matter what precautions we take. I mean, he can't escape himself!

His doctor has put him on a low dose immunosuppresant to try to calm the antibodies. It was supposed to work after three days, but Hubby is still welty and still taking prednisone, although he is taking less. But even the immunosuppresants scare me. I work for a preschool. I oversee 22 little snotty, drooly petri dishes of biological warfare and they all hold my hand, sit in my lap and shower me with wet kisses. Not only that, but the day Hubby started the medicine, the flu hit my classroom and every day for three days in a row I held feverish children in my lap while waiting for a parent to come and take the child away. Here he is with a weakened immune system and I am bringing home every germ known to man and parading it before him as if to say: Take your pick, choose your poison.

But the worst part of this is what it is doing to us. Hubby is being stoic and I am trying not to obsess over this, but what ends up happening is we sit without talking because it is the proverbial elephant in the room. What is there to say? He is doing everything he can to help himself but I am scared. He knows I am scared but it is his disease, not mine. He shouldn't have to try to soothe me when he is the one suffering.

I hate when someone I love is in pain. I would so much rather it be me in pain than have to sit and know he is. But I guess that is what it means when you say in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. If it were easy, you wouldn't have to say vows. They would just be suggestions.

Just two seconds of your time please....

2011-10-11T20:55:00.000-04:00

CountryTime has hit an all time low for my small family. Hubby went out of town yesterday and ended up crying in the car because someone in this church actually said he was sucking the fun out church. This person is upset because people no longer feel free to form a kick line in front of the altar rail during service LIKE THEY USE TO because Hubby is TOO liturgical. A KICK LINE...IN CHURCH....What the hell???!!! Who in the world of the Powers that Be thought my World's Most Expensive Seminary trained ordained minister Hubby who believes in the 2000 year old tradition of church and the reflective spirituality of the sacraments would fit at a kick line church. Next time we sing and everyone raises their hands to God, I am going to yell out "JAZZ HANDS!!!!" and see what they say. And no, that's not the only reason he was crying, but that's a good example of what he puts up with and how it's crushing him.

E cried for 30 minutes last night because she is clashing with the daughters of the old school families in her class. She will never be fully accepted at her school because we are not one of the chosen few. She has friends, thank goodness, but the Children of the Corn, I mean Chosen, torture anyone who is not CountryTime Inbred Blue Bloods. What a small world they live in.

I cried because he cried, because she cried and because the sense of entitlement and refusal to take responsibility for oneself in this town has worn me down to dust. Today was a dark day in the Muddy household. I keep telling myself it is just 8 months. Just 8 months, less time than a pregnancy.

So in my darkness I decided I needed to push myself and I went to work out and kicked my own ass. Before the workout I stepped on the scale (at 5:00PM) and I actually weighed 1 less pound than last week. ONE...Heck, I'll take it and be proud of it.

And lastly....the woman whom I wrote about last week who had gotten stuck in the machine was there. She was there and working out (although she stayed away from the offending machine.) I think I just about peed my pants when I saw her. I needed for her to keep going. I don't know why I felt that way, but I was glad she hadn't given up.

8 months...just 8 months.

Give Thanks

2011-10-09T18:32:00.001-04:00

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. Have you appreciated your pastor yet? I have. ;)

So here's to my Hubby

To the man who steers a ship that has at least 14 wannabe captains and a set full of oars that no one really wants to row but everyone insists his or her way of rowing is the best.

To the man who answers the phone in the middle of the night and disappears to sit at the sick bed of a parishioner or to give the last rites to comfort the dying soul of a friend of the family of a church member.

To the man who (without complaint) drives 200 miles roundtrip to perform a wedding for the daughter of a church member and receives only a day old flower arrangement for pay. (Okay, so I complain about it, but he never says a word to these people.)

To the man who must pray with and for the people who would rather quote religious verses than actually live out their gospel and who must smile and keep silent when the Almost Christians in our church start throwing stones at those they don't approve of instead of inviting them in to hear the Word.

To the man who can put the shazaam into communion and turn the bread into the body, because no, not just any pastor is allowed to do that.

And finally, to the man who answered a call and never falters in his convictions when the lines get fuzzy and the roar of the crowds try to block out that small still voice he answers to everyday. And sometimes that maddening roar is coming from me, but still he puts one foot in front of the other and does the best he can with what he has been given.

I love you and appreciate you Hubby. Happy Pastor Appreciation Month.

REJOICE!!!!!

2011-10-06T21:18:00.000-04:00

I went to my doctor this week for my 6 month check up. The past two weeks I have been miserable. I have hurt more than I have ever hurt, I have been so tired that I have been drinking coffee every day (I never drink coffee) and I have been crying almost every night. The long and the short of it: Hubby's idiopathic allergy took a dangerous turn and became an anaphylactic allergy and he now has an epi-pen. E has been suffering from headaches and things at the theater have become extremely tenuous as one of the partners is dangerously close to being fired. Living so far from town is taking its toll on us financially and emotionally and I have struggled to hold everything together which is why I haven't blogged. Everything was just TOO much.

To add insult to injury, I went to bed one night weighing one thing and woke up the next day weighing 6 pounds more. REALLY!!! One day. Nothing about my eating habits changed, I am still working out 5 days a week, but that is how fast it happened. No one gains 6 pounds in 24 hours but me. I felt like just giving up and staying in bed all day long. True depression, right?

But yesterday at my doctor's appointment, she was talking to me about my blood test results. She started off by telling me how much muscle tone she could see on me, she said she was so impressed. Then she went through my cholesterol numbers. They were better than they have ever been and she couldn't believe just how much I must have changed my habits to bring them down without any medicine. My "fatty" liver which I had started to develop has completely disappeared and my sugar levels were great. She said she wished all her overweight patients were as healthy as me. But then she said, "However..." She had written down my concerns the last time we met about the possibility that my cortisol levels were out of whack and causing me to gain weight. Being as there is a link between cortisol and thyroid she issued a different thyroid test on me, the one that measures the smaller increments rather than the .5-5. increments. Lo and Behold, my thyroid levels are off.

My thyroid levels are off! I almost cried tears of joy. I have been saying for years I thought there was something wrong with my thyroid and my symptoms have been worsening in the past few months. Even my memory was giving me problems. I was really scared I was having early onset dementia. My levels are just off a bit (they are 4.00 but should be 2.5-3.00 by the test I took), but she said that they are discovering that there is a wide range of how thyroid affects people. She said I didn't have enough of a level discrepancy to mandate that I take medicine, but with the problems I have been having recently, she thought I should try a low dose of medicine to see if it helps.

She warned me that the weight would still be hard to take off, but at least my energy levels should come back and that would help with the exercising. Heck, she didn't have to convince me, she had me at "however". Bring on the pills. So I took my first one today. I know realistically it takes more than one day for these pills to work, but you know what? I didn't drink any coffee today. And I haven't cried a single tear. And maybe, just maybe, this will be my turning point. Maybe I can actually hope that the weight will come off, no matter how slowly.

Today really feels like the first day of the rest of my life.

Two Perfect Examples of Why CountryTime is Killing Me....

2011-09-27T16:27:00.000-04:00

My husband was in the car with his boss, the regional poobah. His regional poobah has been ill recently with a stomach blockage or flu. He spent some time in the hospital and was released. It took him several more days for the blockage to complete the cycle. Essentially, he couldn't poop.

He decided to share his story with my hubby about his first poop out of the hospital. His exact phrasing (with the last word changed to protect my location) "I was wearing a big adult diaper and when that thing finally passed it looked like a baby from Harlem." He actually used the name of a city nearby that is 80% black but I couldn't think of any other city that is (actually was) predominantly black.

I am still just ashamed to be a part of this man's religion. I can't stand the fact that this man holds my Hubby's future in his hands. And yet, that statement is so typical of CountryTime.

The other thing that happened? It was snack time at the preschool and we were sitting at the table with the kids. My lead teacher was eating some mixed nuts and leaned the can towards me to offer me some. She pointed to a large nut (Brazilnut?) and asked me if I wanted a Ni--er Toe. I felt my head slowly turn to her, my eyes got wide and I just shook my head. I had never heard that expression before but SHE SAID IT IN FRONT OF MY TWO YEAR-OLDS!!!!

The N word offends me. I will not put it in this blog. And yet, since I have moved here, I hear that word at least once a week. But the people here claim they are not racist because they have "those" people as their friends.

I'm losing my soul. I really am.

Therein lies the truth

2011-09-20T20:41:00.001-04:00

I have a brand new class of two year olds at my preschool. Normally preschools are heavier on boy enrollment, because let's face it, boys take a lot more energy in the beginning. Girls are usually easier until puberty hits, but moms and dads of toddler boys definitely look for the escape a preschool offers. But for the first time in my career, I have a preschool class of almost all girls. They're still a little unsocialized, but they are fun and exert their energy in a less frenetic way and they lull you into a false sense of security. NEVER LET A TWO YEAR OLD LULL YOU!!

My tiniest little girl who took the longest to adjust to coming to preschool has finally come out of her shell. She is adorable and sweet and just fills me with joy when she chooses to converse with me. We talk about everything. She tells me about her mommy, her sister, her dog. Finding rocks and butterflies. I love her....at least, I did. Today unsuspecting me took a direct hit when she told the class, "Ms. Muddy is going to push out one BIG baby!" Yes...those were her exact words. I was kind of left stunned and wondering what she was talking about until she took her hand and patted my stomach and said, "SEE!"

I still love her, but she knocked the wind out of me. Here I am working out 4-5 days a week and I still have such a big stomach that I look pregnant. Why the hell am I working out so much if NOTHING EVER CHANGES?! I was not feeling too good about myself when I went to the Y today, let me tell you.

But a strange thing happened. As I was working out a very large woman decided today would be the day she started working out. I watched her finish her orientation with the trainer and after he left to go spot one of the bulky weight lifters that just happen to work out at the same time as me, she decided to do the circuit on her own.

She was doing pretty well until she came to the hip adductor/ abductor machine. This machine has two settings and she just happened to mix them up. She squeezed her legs into the machine only to discover that she was wrong and that she was also stuck. She could not move her legs and she could not reach the machine to undo the hinge to allow her to escape. I could see the tears of embarassment welling up in her eyes as some of the other people wondered helplessly what to do.

I went over to her and pulled the latch that would let her go. She looked at me and said, "I knew this was a mistake." As I wasn't feeling too good about myself at that moment, I had to think for a second what to say.

"It's not a mistake. The mistake would be if you chose to let this be the excuse that stops you from working out." I purposely stood over her so she couldn't get up from the machine just yet and I showed her what she had done wrong. Before I left her to decide whether she was going to quit or not, I took a deep breath and said, "Remember, you have to meet yourself where you are. I hate working out, but it took me a long time to get this way and it is going to take a long time to fix it."

I went back to my workout and the woman went on to finish hers. I have no idea if I guilted her into finishing that workout or if she is going to choose not to let one accident stop her. I hope she returns. All I know is that I needed to say those words. Not to her...to me.

Elise

2011-09-18T15:26:00.000-04:00

I keep reading and rereading the story on Yahoo about the truck driver who murdered several women, including one in my former area. I believe with all my heart that he is Elise's murderer. He was incarcerated in 2007. Elise was murdered in 2006 and the other woman was murdered in early 2007. His method of killing also involved strangling and beating. One woman had her skull crushed in which matches one of my visions.

I think he did it. I really do. I just feel it in my bones. This story has been haunting me since yesterday. The only thing I can't figure out is if he did it, he would have been in jail when the bodies where discovered. That one I can't figure out. As you can imagine, I will be following this story with much dread and anticipation.

Somewhere over the Rainbow

2011-09-14T20:46:00.000-04:00

I WILL NOT BE DRAGGED INTO THE DRAMA THAT IS COUNTRYTIME ANYMORE!!!

This place is not the real world. This place is not the real world. This place is not the real world.

Oh God, please...if I click my heels together enough times will someone send me home?

9-11-2011

2011-09-10T21:22:00.000-04:00

Ten years seems to have gone by in a heartbeat. In ten years I have had a child, moved twice, survived a death-defying car accident, opened and closed my own business, put the world's most faithful and loving dog to sleep and had a best friend die in childbirth. I have had a rough ten years. But at least I have had those ten years. 2,977 people have not. That does not include the number of miltary deaths that can be attributed to the "war on terror." That's just the number of people who ceased to exist in one brief moment.

I wanted to write something profound and moving in honor of this day. But the truth of the matter is, I can't. There is so much being said about this day and so much being presented on tv and radio that it is overwhelming and in some way, at least to me, lessens the true meaning of this day. To me this day is about taking stock of how much life has changed in 10 years. I look at my daughter who was born in November of 2001 and I see how much it has changed. She has never lived in a world without color-coded terror threat levels. When we fly she automatically takes off her shoes as we reach the scanning area because she has never known anything else. Words like "extremist" and "Osama" have been a part of her lexicon since entering school.

When I was 9 going on 10 I was staying by myself at home. I was walking myself to school. I was young and naive and didn't know there were people who hated Americans and I certainly didn't know what a "dirty bomb" was. I was in 5th grade learning "Deep in the Heart of Texas" in chorus and playing Bombardment in gym. My daughter is learning about the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in school and has friends whose fathers are in Afghanistan right now. My daughter lives in a world where I can not protect her from everything and things are just so much scarier..

So I think I will just end this post here. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the moment I first heard what had happened on 9-11-2001. But I shared that on my blog 2 years ago and this year is not about where I was. This year is about 2,977 who can't share their stories. Instead of sharing my story again, consider this my moment of silence. Consider their stories, or lack thereof....

You're Never Going to Believe Me

2011-09-05T19:56:00.000-04:00

This has been a long couple of weeks. Not bad, just long. We decided to evacuate during the hurricane. Not so much because I was worried about the hurricane damaging my house, but more because of the fact that I knew it was going to be slow moving and the idea of dealing with a frantic E for close to 24 hours just didn't appeal to me. We left to join Hubby who had been out of town all week and spent two days with his closest pastor friend and family.

When we returned, our house was completely intact, not a shingle out of place. The water did come up very close to our house, but never quite made it. Life returned to normal, or at least, to a new routine fairly quickly.

The funny thing is, however, getting me out of that neighborhood and away from constant danger has done something to me. Suddenly I have discovered some more of the old me, the me that wouldn't take crap and would talk back when I was upset.

Hubby had been gone for 7 days, through an earthquake, unpacking and hurricane prep. He returned on Sunday and then informed me on Monday that he would not be home Monday night because he had scheduled a meeting. I just about (I managed to hold back just a little) went ballistic on him. I was livid. I had been holding our lives together for 7 days without him and had really been looking forward to having one night off from being a single parent and he dared to try to take that away from me. Instead of sucking it up and stewing I told him "That is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE!" I believe those were even my words. Hubby didn't answer and I left for work thinking I was going to come home to a huge blow up. And then I got a phone call from him that he had cancelled his meeting, walked the dog and had dinner in the oven. Not only did I speak up, but I got rewarded!

Then I went to work at the theater and found out that one of our students who owed money from last year was going to have her debt washed away because of who her family is in the community. They live in a $500,000 house and have LOTS of money, they just didn't feel that they should have paid for their child's tuition. And because of their ties to potential donors they were going to get their wish.

But then I had a daughter of a single mom working three jobs to make ends meet who was kicked out of the program for past due bills. I brought up the unfairness of that and was told that the potential donors were more important. I scheduled a meeting with the president of the board for that night and laid it ALL out on the table. I told her everything that has happened over the past year, all of the unpaid bills, the arguments, the nasty emails. EVERYTHING. My theater partner the week before had lost the rights to our upcoming show and tried to blame me. Not only did I stand up to him when he started blaming me in a meeting, I told the president in my meeting what had happened. I STOOD UP !!!!! So, okay, I haven't found out what the fallout is going to be, but I was so proud of myself for finally getting angry and protecting myself. And if the fallout gets me fired, so be it. I am in the right and I am tired of taking crap. I guess I have drawn my line in the sand.

See, I told you that you weren't going to believe me.

Wrath of Nature

2011-08-25T20:48:00.000-04:00

So I guess my cloak of anonymity is going to slip a little with this post. I am in the Cone of Death for Hurricane Irene. Apparently the last time a hurricane hit this area, it was flooded for a week. My house just happens to be in a projected storm surge zone so it is almost definite it will be difficult to get back here without a 4 wheel drive (which I don't have). Also, after the last hurricane the power was out for up to two weeks, and since I live in the country, I can pretty much count on that happening as well. It may be a while before I get back online to blog.

So wish me luck and I'll see you on the other side!

I Take Myself Way too Seriously...

2011-08-23T22:30:00.000-04:00

E had a friend spend the night last night. Hubby is out of town and the house is still very new feeling to her, so I have been bringing kids home to help overcome that lost sensation. As a result, however, we both ended up being really tired today.

We decided to lie down in my new-to-me huge king size bed and take a nap. About 20 minutes after falling asleep, E woke me up to tell me I was shaking the bed. I sleepily grumbled that I wasn't shaking the bed, that it must be the super-secret military base setting off bombs again (we are now only about 3 miles from it). Only the bed stopped shaking as soon as she woke me up. It was weird.

I fell back to sleep again, but as I was dozing off I started pondering WHY the bed stopped shaking as soon as I woke up. I asked E if I had been moving in my sleep and she said, "I didn't think so, but the bed WAS shaking!" E also told me that she had heard a growling sound that made the Raptor bark.

Silly me, I began to think about all my past experiences and then I made the leap to the woman who owned it before. Maybe my bed was possessed! After all, I did receive it as a hand-me-down from a dead woman. Not to worry, however. No spiritual hijinks this time. JUST A FRIGGING EARTHQUAKE!

That's okay. It's not like I have any other Wrath of Nature type thing to worry about.

Well Hi There

2011-08-20T11:55:00.001-04:00

I am officially moved in to my new house in the Boonies. Our first full day here E spent 4 hours outside playing with a friend we brought home from church. If she continues to play outside and squeal the way she was squealing yesterday, you will not hear one word of complaint from me about the Boonies. She rode her bike all around the one street that makes up our subdivision and came home saying, "I feel so FREE!" Nuff said.

My life has, of course, been full of drama which I will fill you in on in a few days. I am still unpacking and setting up my house. I won't be able to sit down and write until I have some semblance of order, but I wanted you to know that I am okay and back online. Thanks for being patient.

Going Away

2011-08-07T11:51:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to let you know, my blog is going to disappear for about 2 weeks. Google let me know someone tried to hack into it. I think that was just random, but since we are moving and so many church people will be crossing in and out of our house(s) while we move, I thought it would be better if I lock the blog up. We'll have kids and congregants here, possibly playing on the computer, and I just want to be safe.

Don't forget me while I am gone.

Great Sadness in CountryTime

2011-07-31T18:21:00.000-04:00

I wanted to let you know I found out the voodoo doll made its way into my mailbox in a legitimate way. The sister of the woman who died last week had to dispose of her things. The deceased woman has had the voodoo doll in her car for a year and has had a horrible year, leading her to believe it was the root of her problems. The sister wanted Hubby to get rid of it in a "Jesus" way, so Hubby took it to the river, said a blessing over it and threw it into the water. It was just kind of freaky to come home, reach for the mail and end up with a handful of voodoo doll.

Now, I must tell you of the great tragedy that has occurred in my neighborhood. It is so sad. I live one-half block away from a stream that dissects my street. For over a year we have had a lovely duck couple living in the rushes. They are perfectly white ducks and the only pair to be in the immediate area, although just a few blocks away there are so many geese and ducks that I sometimes run late to work because of the birds crossing the road. Every day we walk the Raptor by their nest and they just looked so sweet and calm. In this crazy, gang-infested, drug-riddled neighborhood it was just a small serene spot to leave the mess behind.

Well, early this morning Hubby and E went to walk the Raptor and discovered one of the ducks had been killed by an osprey. The second duck was nowhere to be seen until this afternoon when we were coming home from the store and saw the sad lone duck sitting by its nest. I just wanted to run up and hug it's neck, it looked so lonely. I know that's just the way of nature, but it makes my heart hurt.

It just seemed so symbolic for this neighborhood.

Do ducks mate for life?

Dark Magic

2011-07-29T18:10:00.002-04:00

I came home today to find a voodoo doll in my mailbox.

No kidding.

Boxing Day

2011-07-27T21:05:00.001-04:00

THE Move is now just a little over 2 weeks away IF the church congregation approves the purchase of this new house. As such I have slowly been boxing up my things in preparation. My goal is to pack 4 boxes a day, 6 days a week. I am hoping at this pace I will have everything neatly organized and ready to go when the church is ready to move us. I am totally disorganized in my personal life but when it comes to moving, I am da bomb! Seriously, you might want to hire my services.

This move is a little different than our other moves, however. One, we're not going very far and there is a week between the closing on the new house and the closing on the new parsonage. I don't have to be out in one day like we normally have to be. But the other thing is for the first time my daughter is old enough to "help" me pack. Notice the "help" in quotation marks? Have you ever packed with a 9 year-old?

We started with her room first. To call her a pack rat is a backdoor way of saying hoarder. This child collects scraps of paper, pencils sharpened to the point of being smaller than her pinky, and every stupid quarter machine toy from here to Florida. Those arcade toy machines are the worst environmental waste of all times, IMHO. Here, let's put a quarter in this machine and get a lead-filled light up worthless piece of shit, or better yet, one of those disgustingly close-to-snot gooey things that leave grease stains on your wall when your child throws it to watch it stick. Grandparent magnets, that's what those machines are.

To start the packing process with E, one must be prepared to wait her out as she individually exams every...single...item and decides whether it is deemed worthy or worthless. If I actually left it up to her, every single item would be making its way into a moving box. She'll open a drawer and stare into it for a good 5 minutes, touching every single thing as she sings songs from Wicked at the top of her lungs (did I mention she bought herself an IPOD?). She'll pull out a purple headband, try it on and THEN PUT IT BACK IN THE DRAWER. I then grab the headband, say "Keep or throw?" to which she will hem and haw, wring her hands and act as if world peace depended on this decision. She's now learned if it takes her more than 10 seconds to decide whether she wants something, I throw it away because obviously it is not that important to her.

We finally packed up all the things in her room that we could. I am leaving some things out because the move is still two weeks away and she needs some items. But then we moved onto the CDs and DVDs. The task was simple, take a CD case off the rack, dust it off and check to make sure the actual CD was inside. Place CD in stack in box. Simple, right? NOOOOO, not to a 9 year-old.

"Mommy, who are the Violent Fem-MES?"

"Nine Inch Nails? Why would anyone name their band Nine Inch Nails? You would poke your eye out if your nails were nine inches long."

"Mommy, this woman looks scary. See she has a gun and a snake and some dead bird behind her. Why would she want that? What is she trying to SAY?"

"Mommy, look, I love Christmas in July, let's play this." And suddenly all packing stops as she plays a Christmas CD and pretends to sing "Joy to the World" in her best operatic voice. Now you see why my goal of 4 boxes a day is so low. I love my daughter and I don't want this process to be miserable for her, but sometimes I wish she would just stop acting like a 9 year old and get it into gear!

But, for all of that, I have been having fun finding stuff again. Our last move happened suddenly and I just kind of threw things into boxeswithout really looking at each item. When we got here, church people unpacked and put away some things. So I am rediscovering my old yearbooks, copies of commercials that I made, pictures from when I was skinny, love letters from Hubby when he was just Boyfriend. It has actually helped to lift my mood.

Oh, and I guess the Universe may just be deciding to give me a little break. One of my theater kids who E likes and is in the same grade lives just 3 miles from where we are going to live. And she has a pool. So I know there will be at least one friend for E out in the Boonies. Hey, I'll take whatever I can get at this point.

Wish me luck!

Wide Lawns

2011-07-22T07:24:00.002-04:00

I don't know what is wrong with WL RSS feed, but she has a lot of new stories up. If you haven't been checking because the title hasn't changed in weeks, you are missing out. Go enjoy....

Only in CountryTime

2011-07-20T20:53:00.000-04:00

I had a mental health therapy appointment for the first time in a month yesterday. I got to discuss the parsonage situation. She agreed the church was basically screwing with me and punishing me, especially since they keep saying that I am "getting what I asked for." It doesn't matter since I have agreed to let that situation drop.

The problem, however, came when she started to tell me a story about another client. She was trying to make a point about using other people as helpers and resources. This other client was a woman who had gone back to school. She wants to start a nursing program in the fall, but has to take a few classes before that can happen. One is a math class that she was failing. Therapist felt for her and got her own husband to tutor Patient in math.

Funny enough, I had a conversation on Sunday with a fellow church member who just happened to have gone back to school so she could apply for a nursing program. She said she had been so stressed but thankfully she had a new MATH tutor. Oh, and did I mention, several months back she had asked me about my therapist and had said she wanted to call her and set up an appointment?

So, anywho, I stopped my therapist and said, "I need you to know that I know who you are talking about. That's (blah blah blah) and I need to know that you are not sharing my stories with her because her dad is one of the church members pushing so hard for the new parsonage." My therapist freaked out, said, "Ho-ly crap!" and then started backpedaling saying she had never heard of (blah blah blah). She tried to tell me that it was just a small town, similar stories, etc.

That was the end of my session for the day. I left feeling angry. One because she blatantly lied to me, I mean, shouldn't I be able to trust my therapist? But two, because now I am wondering if she is sharing my story with other clients of hers. How many other pastors in this small area are moving from their parsonage because of neighborhood issues? Oh...I know...ONE!

I do realize this goes against my desire to stop blogging about drama, so that will be all I say on this matter. But holy hell...I can't even go to counseling here without something happening.

It just keeps getting weirder....

2011-07-06T23:13:00.000-04:00

Just when I thought CountryTime couldn't disturb me any worse I find out a new and horrifying tidbit that makes me wonder what the hell is going on!

CountryTime and the surrounding area is home to several different military bases. As such we have made the acquaintance of several military families. We had dinner the other day with a military helicopter pilot who happens to help police this coast. He was telling Hubby and me about a small patch of canals and swampy area near the coast where a Vietnamese settlement has lived in isolation for years.

This Vietnamese encampment is so well established that even the military police and law enforcement won't enter the grounds. It seems these people make their living fishing and crabbing. A while back one member of this community stole the crab pot of another member. The man then took a samurai sword and hacked the robber to pieces. When the local sheriff's deputies came to investigate the community members took offense and told them justice had already been meted out and they had no business being there. And do you know what? THE DEPUTIES LEFT!!! It sounds like something out of a Jackie Chan film, but the man telling me the story is sworn to protect our country and seems like a straight up kind of guy. There was another military man at the dinner table who backed up his story even.

This place is just frightening. Covert military bases, a caste system that goes back hundreds of years and now some Asian Underworld where people actually get hacked to death! I've got to get out of this place.

July 1st

2011-07-01T10:20:00.001-04:00

This has been quite a week. I am tired of saying that about my life. I seem to move from one drama to the next and never get a chance to breathe.

First, one of my little preschool boys came to school with a head injury. He fell on his steps at home and his mom watched him for a while but he appeared fine. I got him out of his car and he chattered away as usual and I had no idea he had fallen. His mom never said a word. I dropped him off in the classroom with the lead teacher and went back to continue to empty cars and returned to the classroom about 10 minutes later.

I walked into the room and the little boy instantly stood in front of me and started crying, saying his head hurt. I looked up at the lead teacher and asked her if he had fallen and she said no. Then I noticed the goose egg on his head. He felt clammy and started to have trouble speaking and just crumpled into my arms. He was conscious, but shaky and lethargic. I was able to learn from him that he had fallen at home and we called his mom to come get him immediately and take him to the doctor. She confirmed that he had fallen. As soon as she arrived, he started vomiting. They went immediately to the ER and discovered he had a concussion. He is fine now, but that was a huge scare.

Moral to the story: Tell your child's preschool teacher about such things BEFORE dropping the child off. Concussions in children can take several hours to present themselves. I know it seems like you are just hasseling the teacher and you may feel guilty that the child fell on your watch, but we are trained to deal with these things and a little head's up might have gotten him to the ER sooner.

Tomorrow I will tell you about the parsonage situation at the church. They are voting on Sunday to make it official to put an offer on a house. However, the house is 8.6 miles away from church and my places of employment. Which doesn't seem much to you big city folks, but this is small town CountryTime. 8.6 miles away puts us out in the COUNTRY!!! I am just left shaking my head again.

Just out of curiosity, if you have a parsonage situation with your church, how far away is the parsonage from the church?

The Harbinger of Doom, otherwise known as my mom

2011-06-21T11:42:00.001-04:00

My mother just spent the past 9 days at my house. She was only supposed to be here 7 but my dad changed his mind about coming to pick her up and we had her 2 extra days. My mother is a very easy houseguest. She wants nothing more than to sit on a chair with the tv on at a normal (my dad blares the tv) level and sit and watch tv and read a book. She eats whatever I make and goes wherever we go with no complaint. It should be simple, shouldn't it?

But no. In the past nine days my mom has said:

"You shouldn't pet your dog so much. Did you know you can get ecoli from your dog?"

"Oh no, don't ever let someone bury you in the sand at the beach, you could get really sick."

"You should never go into a public restrooms. All sorts of men and rapists hide in the stalls ready to get women."

"Never go to Detroit. Do you know the white girl slave trade is huge in Detroit and no one talks about it?"

Playing tug with the Raptor "You shouldn't use a string tug with a dog, they can choke on the strings."

Raptor chewing on his bully stick, "Aren't you afraid that's going to get tangled in his intestines?"

E standing on a chair to get something out of her reach, "You know, chairs have been known to just break underneath people."

E rollerblading, "More kids break their bones rollerblading than they do bike riding."

My impending split from the church, "Aren't you afraid Hubby is going to be punished with his next placement if you move? Aren't you afraid he is going to divorce you?"

"Aren't you afraid that one of those sink holes is going to get you and your car is going to crash to the bottom?'

OH...AND MY FAVORITE, "Aren't you afraid a hawk is going to carry off the Raptor if you leave him alone in the backyard?" (He's 18 pounds and I live in a pretty urban setting.)

And on, and on, and on.... I really hate the phrase "Aren't you afraid..."

If Hubby had a POV

2011-06-16T23:01:00.002-04:00

Before I go to the true meat of this post, I want to make something clear...the church says this move is about money and their lack of it, but the house went on the market in October. That means that since September they knew there was an issue that needed addressing. They voted in, what, January? to move us out by June if the house didn't sell. That gave them 6 months to figure this situation out. Two months ago the church decided one of the two men's restrooms needed renovating and within one month had spent $5500.00 on fixing it up. It is a very lovely place now for men to pee. The church "found" the money for that. This church is NOT poor. They find the money for the things they want. Obviously a place to park one's penis is more important than my safety.

BUT NOW:

A commenter worried about how my relationship with Hubby is fairing with my decision to leave the church...that is a slippery slope for sure. First, Hubby reads my blog. Therefore I must respect a certain amount of privacy between our conversations. However, he finds it easier to understand tough situations with me when he gets to read my thoughts first and mull it over before coming home to deal with it one on one. He's out of town for a few days so I am taking advantage of that distance. But I did talk to him before just putting this all out on the internet. He has been given permission to edit anything he feels unfair and he has given me permission to talk about this in my own way. But I may wake up tomorrow and find this changed. We'll see.

Hubby has never once told me how he feels about me leaving the church. He has told me he thinks I have already decided to leave no matter what. That I am focussing primarily on this one issue because there is so much going wrong here in CountryTime that it makes the parsonage situation feel bigger. He has told me that it will put him in an awkward position. It will make it hard for him to minister to the church for the upcoming year. But he has never once asked me not to leave or said "I am angry at you" or "I support you."

Several months ago Hubby developed welts from an ideopathic allergy. He has spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours trying to get help for this. The only thing that works is prednisone. Prednisone makes him aggressive and edgy. As a result, I have been tip toeing around him trying to avoid his anger. This past week he has finally managed to completely wean off all but a very small dose of prednisone so he has been better. But....

The night that I finally emailed the President for the first time was a very tense night between Hubby and I. We talked about the wording and what it would mean and I thought we were okay. So okay, in fact, that we became intimate. But in an unthinking instant Hubby did something aggressive, something more violent than primal, something that physically hurt me and sent me running shaking and in tears into another room for protection and away from him.

*****BEFORE YOU SCREAM ABUSE, WAIT!!!***********************

Hubby has never once laid an aggressive hand on me. He has never been anything but gentle and kind and patient. I was sexually abused about a year before we met and he waited me out many times when I would panic over flashbacks and grow suddenly cold toward him. He helped me to heal. But with all the tension in my current life, he made a stupid, thoughtless gesture and sent me reeling backwards in time. HE IS NOT ABUSIVE! He did make a mistake.

I know part of the happening was due to the prednisone. It is a steroid with all the steroid side effects. Still, the bigger part of me felt and still feels that he wanted to punish me for what I was doing. It just...felt...so...angry! He swears that is not true and has bent over backward to try to make up for what he did. I so desperately want to believe it was just foolishness...and yet...that tiny little voice inside me yells IT WAS NOT A COINCIDENCE.

And so Hubby remains silent. I think he is afraid after that incident to share how he really feels for fear of adding fuel to my already fearful mind. It's going to take me a while to get over what he did to me. I think he thinks he is being supportive by not saying how he feels. If he never says he is angry over it then I can never accuse him of not standing up for me. I think he feels like he is to blame for putting me at this crossroads and backing me up against a rock and a hard place. It is his job making me suffer, his job that put us here to begin with.

You know, we all have our truths and our beliefs. The truth is a little part of me will always believe, no matter what, that Hubby is angry at me and maybe even embarrassed, like he can't "control" his wife (that is how the church will see it.) The flips side of that coin is Hubby would never try to control me, which is why he stays silent.

The belief comes in knowing that Hubby and I have this marriage like no one else. He is my best friend and we are both hurting each other right now. I have cried so much in the past two weeks because we are unbalanced, but even in the unbalance, we are rock solid. There has been a time in our marriage when the big "D" word was looming very near, but this is not that time. It's not even close to that time. Hubby and this blog are the only things keeping me sane.

So...yes, this situation is hurting us individually and our marriage is suffering from the pressure, but no church is going to break our bonds. It is nothing that can not heal or will not fix itself. Two years from now this will be just a blip on the radar screen and we will be back to normal.

But yes...it is affecting our marriage.

Speaking of feeling beaten up....

2011-06-14T22:11:00.000-04:00

My latest letter to the powers that be:

President,

My feelings have not changed on this matter (the move). If there is no contract on the house or rental lease signed by June 30th to get us out of this house, I will be transferring my membership to the Preschool Church. Once the transfer is done, no matter what happens after that, I will not be coming back.

There were gunshots again last night. A transformer blew up last week and E ran to hide behind a chair. This is no way to bring up a child.

Muddy

Her response was to go speak to Hubby. I have tried to get the conversation out of him, but I am not understanding what he is telling me. She wants to talk to me to try to make me feel better. Nothing is going to make me feel better. As far as I am concerned this is a black and white situation.

E has been a mess over this whole situation and finally talked to me about it today. She said, "Mommy, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I feel like I am stuck in the middle."
"Honey, if you don't want to leave the church I respect that. You can stay or go with me, but I have to go if we don't move," I replied.
"It's just...Mommy...you've never been a quitter before. You never quit anything."

Ouch! But to which I responded that I have been fighting this situation for over a year. Sometimes when you fight and fight and fight but don't get anywhere it means it is time to give up. I explained to her that I just can't live like this anymore. I can't be angry all the time.

I hope she understood.

On a side note, the arts council has once again not given me my paycheck. There is no money to pay me. After the hard day I have had today I just said screw it. I emailed the boss and told him if I did not receive my check I would be seeking other employment.

The check was cut tonight.

It's just....it's just....I shouldn't have to fight for a paycheck. I shouldn't have to fight for a safe place to live. I'm tired of pushing that rock up the hill. I am not a quitter, but maybe I need to be.

Strange Eating Habits

2011-06-09T20:25:00.001-04:00

My daughter is an awesome eater. She always has been. We have a rule in our house that no one has to clean their plate, but you must at least try a little bit of everything offered. Because of this she eats (and likes) broccoli, salad, all fruits, sushi, grilled tuna or salmon and a lot of other healthy offerings. She does not like chips, potatoes or heavily fried things. I envy her taste buds. I even remember once, when she was two and we were traveling to Florida, we stopped in a Wendy's and I got a potato with broccoli and cheese. She systematically picked off all of my broccoli and ate it. A mother at another table with two kids very loudly pointed out that "that baby is eating broccoli!" as her two kids stuffed another fry into their mouths. The mom really made it seem as if E was doing something wrong.

However, I am not knocking bad eating habits. Chrysalis and I have put away more goopy cheese and potatoes than should be allowed in a human body. My go to comfort food is nachos or mashed potatoes. I have slowly had to retrain my lousy eating habits. But when I observe E, it makes me think about my own upbringing.

When I was an elementary student, my favorite thing to take for lunch was a sandwich. But not just any sandwich. This sandwich consisted of salami, pickles and ketchup on white bread. That's it. I ate that almost every day for a year. Occasionally I would switch it out for a brunsweiger sandwich, another favorite. E has never had either of these meats and would never have had bologna if my mom hadn't given it to her..once. She didn't like it, thankfully.

Another thing I remember eating was City Chicken. Now, this was really weird to me. City chicken is meat skewered on a stick, soaked in milk, breaded and then baked. I remember liking it, but I always thought it was chicken. When I asked my mom one day why she called it City Chicken she told me it was because it was made from veal! I have never made veal...isn't it expensive? I can't figure out why we ate it so much when we were so poor. But I have to say, I have never found anyone else who knows what it is.

Then my grandma would make porcupine. For years I thought I was eating real porcupine until I grew old enough to know that there is no such thing as a Pennsylvania porcupine. It is a Polish dish of ground beef, rice and tomato sauce all rolled into one. I don't remember liking it that much, but it could have been because I was afraid of choking on a quill.

There was something else my grandmother made...milkshakes. I hated her milkshakes and she always made me drink one whenever I arrived at her house (as if I wasn't overweight enough as a child.) The thing is, the milkshakes were made with one raw egg (from HER chickens) and marshmallows. NOT marshmallow cream or flavoring, marshmallows. Have you ever tried to swallow a milkshake with raw egg and the added chunkiness of gooey marshmallows? It's making me a little queasy just typing this.

All of this is brought on by a squirrel story I heard a few days ago. Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of Southern Victuals!

Ouch....

2011-06-06T13:19:00.000-04:00

Hello out there....is there anybody still around?

My petrificus totalus injury turned out to be more than just a ligament pull. It hasn't been diagnosed yet but I have a nerve conduction test on Wednesday because my once manageable pain went from a 4 to an 8 in about 10 minutes during the weekend of the show. I have had x-rays, started physical therapy and am now taking vicodin at night until such time as my doctor has an ah-ha moment, which probably means, "Ah-ha, you need a shot in your spine." Damn scoliosis.

I have to write a play in the next day or two for my theater kids to perform next week and the pain prevents me from sitting at the computer for any length of time, so that takes priority over my blog.

Hopefully Wednesday I will get some answers, the pain will subside and I will be able to think clearly and do more than sleep and moan.

Until then, please bear with me. I will return.

The Oldest Trick in the Pastor Book

2011-05-26T16:58:00.000-04:00

When you are a pastor's wife, you get to hear a lot of stories from other pastors' families. There was the story of the Damn Cookie wife (the woman who wouldn't bake cookies for a church bake sale on the day she was moving in). There was the pastor's family who discovered a church member had a key to the parsonage only after the pastor walked out of the shower in the clothes God gave him to find said member rifling through his drawers. And there was the story of the church who didn't like their pastor and resorted to all sorts of horrifying things to get rid of him, like placing fleas in the pulpit and shooting guns at his house.

I listen to these stories and wonder why anyone would go into the ministry. But there are other stories, that aren't so dramatic but much more common. Hubby went to great lengths a few months ago to obtain an intern from the World's Most Expensive Seminary for the summer to work with our church youth. We have an interesting assortment of kids. They're not the best kids in the world, but they're definitely not the dregs of society either. They are, however, just teenish enough that no church adult wants to work with them. Hubby is hoping this intern will help rectify that situation.

Anywho, we are sharing this intern with another church. The WMES pays his salary, our church pays his mileage and the other church provides his housing. The house is this one bedroom river house that sits OUT on the water. It is rustic and has no air conditioner save for one window unit in the bedroom, but he is 25 and a college student so it not a bad place for him.

Ah, but the thing you have to know is that this intern is Ethnic. I won't say what ethnicity he is, but he is not white. And the house he is using, which was promised before we knew who was coming, belongs to the oldest family in this area, which means they are one of the oldest founding families in this country. Remember, this is CountryTime, not an upbeat urban setting. This family and their church promised the house would be clean prior to his arrival and that his refrigerator would be stocked with food.

Hubby called the family several times last week to remind them Intern was coming and make sure everything would be as promised on his arrival. Intern arrived yesterday to a house full of dead bugs and dirt and his refrigerator stocked with 2 jars of salsa and a 6 pack of Bud Light. Nothing more, nothing less. Hubby was upset, to say the least.

I was upset too. I thought it was rude and uninviting to this man who has traveled several hours from his home to come and work here. BUT...I had heard this story over and over and knew to just wait. I knew what was coming next.

The Old family was just aghast that our nice young intern had arrived to find his house unsuitably dirty and just HAD to make amends. So the two matriarchs of the family arrived on his dock step first thing this morning with not one but two housekeepers in tow to right this egregious wrong. They went through his house and cleaned it top to bottom, all the while checking out every...single...thing he had brought with him.

I so hope that he had Playboys and sex toys lying around, marijuana or tequila, something to give them fodder for their obvious fact finding mission. This is the famous story of pastors. Something in the parsonage is left amiss for the new incoming pastor just so the snoops of the church have a reason to stop on by and right the wrong. They just have to make sure the pastor is suitably poor and conservative.

Poor Intern...he not only has to deal with our church, he has to deal with the Old's Church as well. God help him.

So tired....

2011-05-23T20:29:00.000-04:00

I am peopled out. I have spent almost every waking hour for the past 5 days with 37 dramatic children and 10 adults all clamoring for my attention. Then I had to go out amongst the crowds at the end of the show and put on a happy smiling face to say thank you for everyone telling me how wonderful the show was. And it was good, but only through the sheer force of my will. If I hadn't stood backstage and micro-managed, it would all have fallen apart. I actually feel aggressive now from being so controlling and in charge the past few days.

So excuse me if I am not ready to put out a full post today. Although I thought I might give you one small tidbit that will make you shake your head. My in-laws were visiting this weekend to see the show. They drove to church and went in to the service. When the left, someone in the church parking lot had hit their car and made a very large crunch in the bumper. No note was left and no one fessed up. They just drove off.

How mighty Christian of them.

Hiatus

2011-05-17T22:26:00.002-04:00

Show opening Thursday.

Parents coming tomorrow through Friday morning.

In-laws coming Friday afternoon through Sunday morning.

Extremely busy!

See you on the other side.

Dear L

2011-05-17T08:11:00.003-04:00

I have no idea who you are but you made my day by saying I had a "Fierce Heart!" Love it!!

Muddy Strikes Back

2011-05-16T13:40:00.000-04:00

My letter to the president of the staff relations committee that I sent this morning:

President,

I feel hurt and betrayed by the church council meeting not to move us out of the parsonage as promised. I think they took advantage of the fact that Hubby was out of town to make this major decision about our life.

I want to make it perfectly clear...this all may boil down to money for the church, but this is not about money to me. This is about the emotional and physical well-being of my child. She was witness to not one but TWO violent interactions just a few weeks ago and we are surrounded by gang members and drug dealers. SHE WILL NOT PLAY OUTSIDE AND IS AFRAID TO BE ALONE IN THE HOUSE!

IF this move does not go through as promised and IF the conference does not choose to move Hubby to another church and I am forced to live in this parsonage past June, I do not feel as if E and I can be a part of this church any longer.

Muddy

Her response:

Muddy,
As a parent my heart goes out to you. As I have said before I wish I had a magic wand to fix things. Options are being considered as Hubby told you. I keep praying to God for help. Would be happy to sit and talk with you if you would like.
President

The Meeting

2011-05-15T19:21:00.001-04:00

I am so disgusted I can only give you bare bones information about the church meeting.

The Poobah spent most of the time talking. He warned the church that if they didn't do something about the parsonage there would be trouble trying to get a new pastor because no one is going to want to come here. He stopped short of saying we had asked to be moved.

The building committee is meeting on Tuesday to see how much lower they are willing to come down on the selling price of the parsonage.

The oversight committee is going to ask around in the church to see if anyone owned any housing they would let us live in temporarily for free.

NO mention was made of the deceptive way this all came down. Nothing was confirmed about moving us out. No final date has been set.

I am not satisfied.

I will NOT live in this house past June. Period!

Why I never ask for anything....

2011-05-14T16:53:00.001-04:00

Did I tell you all that when E had her first ever acting performance on a real stage, every single other member of our theater company received roses except for her? She, the director's daughter, did not receive flowers. She was heartbroken and rightfully so. But getting her flowers was never on my radar. I was so busy getting the show ready that I didn't think about it...after all, in all of my many performances and shows, I had not once received flowers from MY parents.

Since I did not feel like eating the first meal of my visit with my family on my birthday, my dad insisted that he wanted to take me out for a birthday dinner. I could pick anywhere I wanted to go on this tiny little tourist island. Eating around my parents is a trap. If I order salad (which I usually do), I am not eating enough. If I order fried food, it is "How can you order that when you keep saying you are trying to lose weight?" If we go to a place and I get a plate that has the equivalent of two or three portions to what I would normally eat and don't eat what is on the plate, I am wasting food. See what I mean about an eating trap?

But the island has a really good sub shop that I enjoy and my dad likes their crab salad wraps and suggested I try one. I like crab salad. It thought this would be a safe choice, not too expensive to be criticized, no sides needed to be ordered and we (my dad and I) could both get something we liked. It was as a safe as place as any to go to, except when it comes to my parents, nothing is safe.

So we went out for my "birthday" dinner. MY birthday dinner. I ordered first and ordered the crab salad wrap. The woman behind the counter asked me if I wanted a small or a large. I said small and thought that was the end of it. Then my dad ordered. He asked for a crab salad wrap as well. The woman again asked "Small or large?" And the world skidded to a halt...

Apparently my dad had never been asked this question before. He had always just been given a small wrap. But now there was a choice and he had to SEE the difference in sizes. He made the counter lady go get the different wraps and show him. Then he insisted he had to have the large wrap. Ah...here comes the crisis. They didn't have enough crab salad on hand to make a large AND a small wrap. Just two small wraps.

I could see my dad getting ready to explode and instantly jumped in saying I could change my order. My dad started grumbling about how a restaurant could have something on the menu and not keep it stocked...why would they offer him a large if they knew they didn't have enough....what kind of island restaurant didn't have crab salad...and on and on and on. So loudly that my voice, begging the lady to change my order, could not be heard.

Finally my dad heard me saying I would order something else and his grumbling instantly stopped. "Well, that's damn decent of you," he said. (Jenn, can you hear my dad's voice?) And my dad got his large crab salad wrap for my birthday dinner. And for my birthday dinner, I got tuna salad....not a wrap.

And that is a prime example of why I never ask for anything.

Tomorrow: But what about my mom?

We interrupt this story...

2011-05-13T13:51:00.001-04:00

First, I did not delete the milkshake post, blogger did, but they promise it will return. Thank you to all the people who left such supportive comments. I was afraid people would think I was just being petty over food, but everyone got it that it wasn't really about food.

Second, I plan on telling you more of my identity struggle story tomorrow, but a crisis has occured and I can't focus on it. I'll share the crisis with you instead.

Several months ago, the church oversight committee voted and promised that whether the parsonage had sold or not, we would be moved to new housing in June. This vote took our request to move to a new church off the table because all of the powers that be really want Hubby to stick it out one more year here. We figured we could at least meet the church halfway if they were willing to move us into a safe neighborhood. Last month the conference committee that decides moves and new appointments met and made all of the adjustments. Last Friday was the last day of their meeting to settle moves. That "moving to a new church" door is officially closed.

So, Hubby had to go out of town on conference business on Monday. The church oversight committee knew this and met without him to discuss our impending June moving date. They voted to NOT move us out, since it would cost too much money. Then it took them 4 days to tell us.

The shit hit the fan. Hubby's mid-level poobah is coming in on Sunday to meet with them but I have officially stated I will not be in this house past June. Period. If that means Hubby gets moved to the last, least salaried position in the conference, so be it. These sneaky, underhanded people have no respect for us and will never live up to their promises.

Tomorrow: The Crab Salad Debacle and why I never ask for anything...

When a Milkshake's not just a Milkshake

2011-05-11T15:15:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago it was my 41st birthday. It was also spring break. In an effort to keep my parents from coming to me, I agreed to take E to their house for a few days. As a result, E and I drove the 6 hours to their house on my birthday.

Now, after having 40 previous birthdays, it was really not a big deal that I was driving all day on my 41st. BUT it left me with lots of time to think. My parents are retired and have changed their eating habits so instead of eating 3 normal meals a day, they eat two meals. They eat a brunch at 10:00 and a dinner at 3:00. I do not. But when I am there, I am expected to eat on their schedule.

So, it was 1:00 and I was about 90 minutes from their house when I was about to pass the first of my favorite coffee shops that are only located in that region. This coffee shop has a killer ghiradelli and espresso milkshake. Normally I don't drink milkshakes, I just have a sip or two of Hubby's. But it was my birthday, damnit, and I decided I deserved one. If you can't treat yourself on your birthday, when can you?

The simple decision to get a milkshake caused me such severe angst that I was beside myself. I knew that if I got that milkshake not only would I not be hungry at 3:00, I would be full and unwilling to eat anything. But if I didn't get that milkshake I would be denying myself and subjugating myself to my parent's bizarre behaviors. My therapist is big on pointing out when I deny myself to please others.

So the milkshake became this $20,000 object that was bound to curse me either way. I decided to have the milkshake and not eat at 3:00 when we got to my parent's house. The way my dad reacted, you would have thought I had killed a beloved family pet. God forbid I just sit at a restaurant and talk to them while they ate. It was abnormal and RUDE. I KNEW they ate at 3:00 and I was expected to eat with them, how could I go and have a shake?

And that milkshake would set off my dad for the rest of my time there. That milkshake made me finally acknowledge so many things about who I am and why I am the way I am.

I may never drink another milkshake again.

Day One

2011-05-10T15:27:00.000-04:00

It all started about a month ago. When I posted but then deleted the post that talked about my jealousy I felt regarding my daughter getting a principal role in the show we are doing. I didn't expect to feel jealous, it took me completely by surprise. I felt like a horrible person for being jealous of my daughter.

I didn't think I missed acting. I gave up acting voluntarily years ago. I gave up singing, except on the very rare occasion, as well. I thought I was okay with my choice. I never connected the years of weight gain with being part of the loss of acting. Because it wasn't really the loss of acting, it was the loss of identity.

I have sung since I was 7 years old. I was part of a professional children's choir in Chicago. I have a distant memory of "directing" a Halloween show when I was 8 as a school project. When I was in junior high and high school and the surveys always went around about "most likely to act", my name always came up. I was Muddy the actress.

Then I wasn't. Just like that. No mourning period, no good reason for stopping other than the fact that I am insecure and I am the queen of excuses. I wanted to spend time with my new Hubby. There were no shows I wanted to do where we lived because it took so much time away from him. I became a mom and my daughter needed me. I have to work so much just to make ends meet. I don't have time. Excuses...

But the reality is...I stopped believing in myself. And because I couldn't have faith in my abilities, I changed course completely. Muddy the actress started to fade away.

Why...

2011-05-09T14:58:00.000-04:00

It all started with a computer virus. My email was hacked and suddenly every single person in my contacts recieved an offer for Viagra, or a porn movie link, or something that invited one to engage in kinky sex. ALL of my contacts received this link, including my former students and my current 12 and 13 year old students, plus their parents.

My email was HACKED! I don't open unknown links or search for sex online. Heck, those of you who read regularly know I am very school marmish sexually so why would I even go to those sites? No, a computer program systematically whammied my email over and over again with passwords until it hit on the correct one. Then...BOOM!

You would think in this day and age most people would know that when they receive an email with nothing in the title and only a link in the message section, well, you would think they would know it is a virus and they should just delete it. But you see...it came from me.

My mom opened it. My favorite student opened it. E's teacher AND principal of her school opened it. Substitute grandparents opened it. People on the PTA opened it. My student's parents opened it. My boss opened it. Church people and pastors opened it. The angry emails that I received in response were endless. How dare I send such a link?

I....WAS....HACKED!!!

But because I am me, and so damn responsible, no one assumed I would be hacked. Because I am so trustworthy, it couldn't happen to me. And so the virus spread.

But what does this have to do with my Defying Gravity post? Well, it was a mirror reflecting a crisis I have been going through. My therapist says it is an identity crisis. We've come up against a great big defiant wall in my therapy that I must acknowledge and work through or forever remain stuck. I don't like therapy.

My husband was afraid I was becoming manic, because I feel things so deeply and physically. My energy level became off the charts because my heart was breaking as my self-introspection took a very painful turn.

But Schroeder, who is trying to find his own way out of some deep shit coined the term I will choose to use. I am having an artistic crisis. I am an artist in crisis.

And it didn't all start with the computer virus, but the computer virus certainly emphasized it. I'll explain that tomorrow.

But I just want to make it perfectly clear to all my readers...this is not one of my depression cycles. I am not morose, sad or pathetic. I am angry, hurting, yes, maybe even manic, but I am traveling, not stationary. So I beg that you hang in there with me while I explore this and have faith that even though I sound suicidal, I AM NOT!!!

I am not fine. I do not claim to be fine. I am the opposite of fine. But the only way out is through. And I do intend on going through. Do or do not, there is not try!

Defying Gravity

2011-05-07T22:43:00.000-04:00

The thing is...

The thing is....

I am an imperfect human who was raised to believe I must be perfect.

I spent my life being yelled at but was never allowed to yell back,

I was trained from a very early age to expect nothing, so I ask for nothing now.

I have lived in the shadows and now, when I am trying to seek the light, I become lost easily with no inner glow bright enough to guide me.

I stuffed my dreams away in closets and cupboards, old steamer trunks and tear-stained journals.

I am flawed.

But I don't want to be.

But I can't be perfect.

So I will try to mend, or darn, or melt my pieces back together. Whatever it takes to heal.

Because I can not live anymore as the person I was.

I can only be the person I am trying to become.

I just wish I knew who that was.

All I wanted was my teeth cleaned...

2011-05-03T08:14:00.000-04:00

I had the most bizarre dental exam ever yesterday. My normal hygienist is on a mission trip, so I had the fill-in. This woman was a squat little grandmotherly type lady who had an unnerving habit of constantly humming "Ho hum" under her breath.

As she set up for the appointment, she seemed very nervous. She managed to drop almost everything she touched. She dropped that paper cover they put under your mouth, the x-ray shield and some paperwork. The strange thing was, SHE LEFT EVERYTHING ON THE FLOOR!! Okay, I tried to tell myself that was for sterilization purposes, but for the rest of the appointment I worried that she was going to trip and fall over these things.

It took about 15 minutes but she finally started working on my mouth, ho humming the whole time. She used the little hose that sprayed air a lot on my teeth. At one point she couldn't get it to turn on, until she had the nozzle pointing directly in my eye. Then it turned on and sprayed me full on. It was like a glaucoma test.

Since she had such trouble with it, she decided just to leave it running. Whenever she didn't need it, she would lay it on my chest so that lovely hissing white noise was constantly blowing in my ear. It was making me very edgy. Then she put her hand on my breast for a minute while she readjusted herself, as if my boob was just a piece of furniture.

Then came the water pik. She sprayed me full on in the face no less than 4 times. My hairline was soaked by the time she was finished. I got the last laugh, however. I have severe TMJ. If you work too long in my mouth or try to make me open it too wide, it locks. This woman tried to physically move my mouth and my jaw locked and I accidentally (I swear) bit down. I didn't hurt her, but it didn't help her nerves.

I am still running on adrenalin from that horrible experience.

Legacy

2011-05-02T07:47:00.000-04:00

I took my daughter to my parents house this week. She sleeping when I heard her call my name around 9:30. It was that muffled, half alert call that let me know she was dreaming. Since she is prone to sleep walking, I went in to check on her.

As I suspected, she was trying to stand up when I entered the room. She kept saying, "She wants me to tell you....she wants me to tell you..." I got her to lay back down and she was quiet again.

The next morning on the long drive home, she told me she had had a nightmare. She said she was in a brick building and there was a woman with blood all over her holding a knife. I asked if her if the woman was trying to hurt her and she said, "No, she just wanted me to see the knife."

Intrigued, but not wanting to set off any bells and whistles in my extremely smart child's head, I asked her if this woman had a name. E said her name was Lillian, no, maybe not Lillian, but it was definitely something that started with an L. Leah, no LEE! That was her name, Lee.

For those of you who know me IRL, if you remember, the woman whose body I found on the railroad tracks had Lee as her second name. You know, like Brenda Lee Young. I diverted the conversation then because as far as I am concerned, this was all coincidental. But if it is not, I certainly don't want anyone to think they can use E as a messenger!

Hippie Spawn

2011-04-26T20:44:00.001-04:00

Wide Lawns new post came up in my blog feed and the title made me do a double take. It said "Getting Baked." I sat there thinking, oh, she grew up with a pot cookbook around, too. I wonder what her story is going to be. Imagine my surprise when it was about tanning (or burning, as the case may be.)

Yes, my parents owned a pot cookbook. I can't remember its title, but it was a small, card stock covered book that had such things as Mary Jane brownies, Loaded chocolate cake and Hash Goulash. As far as I know, my mom never made anything from the cookbook and my dad doesn't cook, so I suppose it was more for just show, but I definitely remember it being around.

By now I think you have realized that I was raised by parents on the fringe of the counter culture. Back in the late 60's, early 70's a lot of scientists were experimenting with a lot of things, not just in their labs. My dad was always leading the way when it came to trying new things. There's a famous story in my family about how my dad was asked to be Santa for his employer's Christmas party. One thing led to another and someone slipped a mickey into my dad's drink and Santa ended up doing things no one ever wants to see Santa do. My dad laughs about it, but the way my mom talks, I think she found him with another woman in one of the offices. She always says she forgives him for that night, but she never says what she forgives him for.

I never think of the way I grew up as being sad until I write it out. Hubby and I compare notes about our childhoods and we shock each other. He could spin a cat by it's tale and throw it and it would land in the lawn of one of his relatives. He grew up in the same 40 mile radius until he was 23. Even his boyhood church still bears the scars of his youth where he acted out, hid in the loft behind a screen and tried to spray water on the congregation below. I can't even imagine that. BUT...his mom also went through all of his records when he was a teenager and threw out the Satan music. She would make him pick out the tree branch she would use to switch him with when he was bad. He wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies. His dad drove the church bus on Sunday mornings and the whole family would meet afterwards for dinner. Which still confuses me...dinner is after 5:00 in the Midwest, but it is whatever the biggest meal of the day is here. The evening meal is usually called supper.

I grew up with the nearest relatives 200 miles away. I sporadically went to a Catholic church and went to 12 different schools in three different states by the time I graduated high school. The more music was called Satanic, the better my dad liked it. I would wake up on Sunday morning to Tubecular Bells, or Pink Floyd, or some other English rock band. Heck, my parents even took me to see Porky's in the theater. And I was never punished. In my entire life I was only grounded once and that was when I was 4 and ran in front of a moving car. That doesn't mean I wasn't struck or yelled at, but those instances were different than punishment. The idea of picking out my own switch is just preposterous.

But, yes, I realize as I read this that maybe my youth differed from yours, and maybe it is sad. I would prefer to think that it has given me a unique way of looking at the world. And... you can't choose your family. All you can do is pay for years of therapy when you grow up. And I am...paying and paying and paying.

Memories from Columbus

2011-04-25T16:35:00.002-04:00

I am suffering from Writer's Block. Actually, I am just suffering and my suffering is preventing me from being interesting AND/OR completing full, coherent thoughts. When I was 18 I developed pneumonia. I had a high fever and had to complete a course of antibiotics. It cleared up and I was fine until about 3 weeks later when I was suddenly hit with such bad pain in my joints that I couldn't lift my arm up...at all. I went to the doctor and he took some blood to discover that something was amiss. It was only slightly amiss, but he prescribed Indocin and the pain cleared up immediately.

I believe the test was for ANA antibodies. My doctor called my pain gout (but said it wasn't gout) but told me it was similar to lupus (but not lupus.) It was a very confusing diagnosis. However, to this day, whenever I get a high fever, three weeks later I am besieged by pain that cripples me until I take indocin. There's a crinkle in this plan, though, because my blood pressure medicine reacts badly to the indocin so I have to be careful how much I take. The pain doesn't disappear so quickly anymore. It will go away, eventually, but for now it leaves me struggling.

But I want to write...I need to write. That's the sneaky part of writer's block. You can write and write and write, just not well. So I thought I would write a few snippets that I actually remember from my childhood.

My dad is English and has always been a heavy drinker. I used to live on Crestview Ave in Columbus and on the corner was a bar called the Crest Tavern. My mom would make dinner and just before it was ready, she would send me up the street to get my dad. I didn't mind going into this bar because it was family run and the people all knew each other. I didn't think anything of the fact that I was a 7 year old surrounded by smokers and drinkers coming to take my dad home.

It was better than Dick's Den. Dick's Den was still in Clinton Heights, but was starting to move you closer to the Short North. The Short North in Columbus is now the hip-hop happening place to be, it has theaters and art galleries and very expensive loft apartments, but when I was a child, it was seedy and scary.

Dick's Den was home to a broad swath of humanity. You had bikers and scientists, homeless guys and executives all sitting around exchanging tales of their days. I hated going in there because there was one man who scared the bejeezus out of me. This man held court in the bar while wearing a rotating traffic light on his head. I have no idea where he got it, but you could see the red light flashing through the window.

If you traveled just a little farther down High Street you came to a strip club with a glass window case. After dark this display window held some interesting things. This one stripper would come out and try to entice men to come into the club by stripping in the window. The strange thing was, that woman got older as I got older. Remember, I left Columbus when I was 7 or 8 and returned when I was 15. By the time I was 22 and living in German Village the woman in the window was about 60 and showed all the signs of having lived a hard life. It was really sad towards the end.

But then High Street underwent a massive renovation and all the strip clubs, bars and head shops went the way of my youth, they just disappeared. School Kid's Records and Fred's Beds was replaced by fancy restaurants. The skinny drunk who picked up the bottles in Apollo's when my friend's band, The Underpriveleged, played is probably long gone. The Ohio Pen, a rite of passage for all high school seniors was torn down. How many of us snuck in there and tried to make it all the way to the electric chair?

I obviously have happier memories of Columbus, I just wonder how many people remember the stripper and the red light man?

Conversations at home

2011-04-14T15:04:00.000-04:00

Hubby and I watched Burlesque last night. While it was not an earth-shattering movie, I at least enjoyed the spectacle of it. One of the first dances lead to this conversation:

Me: Wow, that's very Fosse-esque.

Hubby: It's sad that after 16 years of marriage I actually know what that means.

(Later, when Cher sings some awful 80's sounding song that basically says she is still standing)

Me: That sounds like the exact same chord progression as Man in Motion (you know, that 80's song from St. Elmo's Fire).

Hubby: I have no idea what that means.

Me: Oh, so you understand what Fosse-esque means but not chord progression, what does that say about you?

Today on the radio I hear "Personal Jesus" AND "Weird Science." I think I might have to see if I still have my off the shoulder rayon "Frankie Says Relax!" shirt. Then I'll do my makeup like Cher and.....

Dear readers...

2011-04-13T20:51:00.000-04:00

Do I have anyone in Boulder Co who reads me regularly? I have a friend in trouble there and need to find him some help. A free room for a month. Maybe borrow a camper. Anything.

Please....

Stop the Presses

2011-04-12T20:38:00.002-04:00

Today Hubby took the Raptor on a field trip. For the first time in 2 months someone came to look at the house, and rather than put him in his cage, Hubby took the dog to run errands with him. The car is, after all, the Raptor's all time favorite invention.

The Raptor went to church and was very excited to see Hubby's secretary. Hubby's secretary is one of those woman who has a beautiful soul but has hidden her beauty away. She is so overweight she needs a walker and just hides herself in her actions and clothes. She is a hoarder and her office is a mess. But the Raptor has loved her since the first day he met her and sits on her lap (which she loves) while Hubby gets his work done.

Then they went to the post office and the Raptor waited patiently in the car (with the windows open) for Hubby to mail out some top secret, super important papers. No one was waiting by the car when he returned to inform Hubby that they would be suing us for owning a vicious attack dog so we're pretty sure he didn't bite anyone.

But then came the piece d'resistance...Hubby took the Raptor into the local coffee house which allows well-behaved dogs. He told me this and I almost choked on my own uvula...(not vulva, don't go there...and damn if Hubby didn't just say that!). Inside the coffee shop was a miniature grey hound. On no!!! But wait, the Raptor loved him. A woman even talked to him and held out her hand (seriously, we sound like actors from Jaws when we scream at people "Don't hold out your hand!") and he let her pet him without causing bodily harm.

All the rest of my world is crashing down around my ears and my dog goes on a field trip and acts like a perfect gentleman. Have I really gone through the looking glass? Is there a pill I am supposed to take to make my reality go back to bearable and even fun?

But I do like having a normal dog....

Questions with answers

2011-04-11T15:24:00.000-04:00

After this post, the few of you who may still be wondering what denomination we belong to will probably have an "A-ha" moment. Those of you in our denomination have already figured it out. Those of you with church knowledge but not of our denomination probably have your suspicions and for the rest of you, the clues today will be a dead giveaway. So if you figure it out, please don't post it in comments. Or if you do post it, know I will not allow that comment to go through. I want to remain secure in the fact that I have never maligned a specific denomination.

Anywho, long time IRL friend, Chrysalis, left me a barrage of questions that I intend to try to answer. Here goes:

Are you in the area you are in by choice? No. We are not in this area by choice. The Grand Poobah and his minions meet every year to discuss who is moving and what positions are open. They talk, argue and pray over it and then tell us where we are going. The Lesser Poobah who had been here really liked Hubby and actually went around the system to get Hubby placed here. The choice was made even before the minions met. Then the Lesser Poobah got moved away by the GP.

I will say, however, that we are coastal. That means that when we fill out our forms every year, we request to stay near the coast. You would think most pastors do that, since everyone wants to live by the beach. It seems so lovely until you actually DO...and you live through your first hurricane and tourist season. Then most pastors ask to move inland. The fact that we have been coastal for 12 of our 16 years here means that they will keep us coastal since we have proven we can take it and ask for more. So in that way only, we do choose our location.

I mean, could you request a different part of the country, or is this just where they put you? That's a tricky question. We are in this state because this is the state we moved to when we knew we wanted to get married. Ohio was too cold for Hubby, Florida was too hot for me and the World's Most Expensive Seminary is here. However, when Hubby was graduating, the pastor position at the Grand Canyon had just come available and we very seriously thought of applying for it. But leaving this area would mean moving out of our conference, giving up Hubby's tenure and for a long time, it meant losing his pension. So yes, we could leave this conference, but there would be very expensive consequences.

Also, is this situation common in your denomination? YES! I know more poor and struggling families in our denomination than I do in others. Hubby's Baptist home church pays their pastor a 6 figure salary, plus something like 6 weeks of vacation a year, PLUS a parsonage. If you are a Baptist pastor and your church likes you, you get to live high on the hog. But in our denomination it is different. The salaries are fairly predetermined on a sliding scale and pastors must climb the ladder. But remember, Hubby felt called to stay at our last church for 5 years at minimum salary. The church was struggling but money wasn't important to Hubby. That church was. When we moved here, this church had promised to make up for Hubby's 5 year drought and then changed their minds. That happens a lot on this denomination.

I ask because "B" (yes THAT B) is also a pastor, but his is ... umm... Presbyterian? Um...yeah, I want to kick the crap out of B. Just goes to show, God loves a sinner.

But is it their denomination that makes the difference? Is it their location? Blind luck? Yes and no to all three. There are some very high paying salaries in our church. But they are the most progressive churches and have the richest members. You have to pay your dues to get those jobs. Hubby is just 11 years in, which seems like a lot, but it is not, plus he started seminary at 31. We're late to the game. And, although I seem like an asset to him on paper, I am quickly taking over the "Damn Cookie" wife title. Sometimes I hold him back. Especially because EVERYBODY knows I love gay people. I don't shirk that part of me. I think it is my responsibility to be out about it. Also, I have been very vocal about the crappy way this church has treated us. I am quickly going from asset to liability.

So, in the end, where we are placed is all the luck of the draw. We want to go back to where we came from. Even if the salary stayed the same, we really call it home. But for right now, it is not going to happen, so all I can do is rail against the system here and hope I can force some changes before we are all too badly damaged for life.

But thanks for asking.

Questions without answers

2011-04-10T20:48:00.000-04:00

Today I got to call 911 at 8:25 this morning.

E has been sick since getting my flu on Friday and we both stayed home from church. Hubby had to leave early and E is on the mend, so last night I told him we would give the Raptor his morning walk. E decided she didn't have the energy to walk the whole route and decided to ride her bike.

As she was getting her bike out of the shed we started to hear a man's loud voice from the houses behind ours. It was definitely an angry voice and the man was swearing and saying words I never wanted E to hear. Then we started to hear a woman screaming for help. The screaming match was intense and the man started telling the woman he was going to kill her.

I ran inside to call 911 and they said the woman had already called for help and said the man had a weapon. Did I see a weapon, the operator asked? I couldn't see that much through the trees, but I told her that they would need to send back up because I could see at least 4 people involved. E and I left the house and took the Raptor away from the melee because if bullets started flying our house would be directly in the fly zone.

The police cars zoomed past us and by the time we returned, they seemed to have everything under control. E and I were still quite shaken but I was so proud of how calmly she handled the whole situation. But then I got to thinking about how calm she actually was. This has become such a usual event that she can rationalize her fear about it. She has long refused to go play outside because of such things happening, but now she seemed somewhat immune to it and even accepted it as part of our every day life.

MY DAUGHTER SHOULD NOT BE IMMUNE TO THREATS OF MURDER!!!!!

Yes, RV, it sucks to be me. This has been the longest week we have ever spent here and I can't help asking myself what the Universe is trying to say. It's too late to move this year. The church isn't budging on getting us out of here. We have nowhere to go and nothing we can do. But in the meantime my daughter is being raised in an episode of Cops.

Whatever the Universe is trying to tell me, I hope it doesn't kill me in trying to get the message across.

Shock and Awe

2011-04-08T20:44:00.000-04:00

I had a conversation two days ago with a former Bishop of another denomination. He was a very nice man who had himself been run out of ministry by conniving, evil church members. Apparently his "crime" was so bad that his family made front page news. Of course it was all lies, but I can empathize.

Anywho, he was telling me about a church member of OURS who had been talking to him about us. It seems this church member is upset that we are pushing to sell the parsonage. Never mind the fact that there have been 8 shootings within 1 mile of our house in the past month. Never mind the prostitute and drug ring just broken up on the next street. NO...the church member had another theory as to why we where pushing to sell the parsonage. We are trying to "rise above our station." Yes...those where the actual words used. We have "forgotten where we come from." We think we are "better than people who actually work for a living."

So now, not only do I live in the Bermuda Triangle of the South, I live in the Bermuda Triangle from 100 years ago. I am lazy, my jobs are mere trifles and Hubby only works on Sunday and we trying to rise above the alloted caste system. Because you know, I so much want to be a part of the in-crowd here. My life would just be complete if I, too, could be a rude, narrow-minded, old school family member "special friend."

And do you know, I have never even been inside a IKEA or Trader Joe's? That's how far away from the real world I live. Oh well, I better go brush up on my antebellum speak. 'Night Y'all!

It's the Last Midnight

2011-04-07T16:29:00.001-04:00

I'm having that kind of day. That kind of day when I have to keep telling myself that CountryTime is not the real world. CountryTime is some Bermuda Triangle on the Southern coast and that in two or three years I will look back and laugh at this place and the people in it. But today I am living here and I hate it.

I work at a church preschool. The closest Montessori school is 60 miles away in the next state and I am just not willing to drive that far twice a day for a job. Last year the preschool director didn't really have the funds to hire me, but she wanted my area of expertise, so she had me come on one day a week and offer a Montessori-esque day. This year an assistant position opened up for 5 days and I moved into that because it was obviously more money.

Last year I would put out a lot of different work for the kids to do and all of the long-term teachers looked at me suspiciously. How dare I not use worksheets! How dare I let children wash big conch shells...with actual WATER! How dare I let them spoon colored sand from bowl to bowl. But the director hired me just for that reason, so the other teachers could see there was more than one way to teach a child.

Fast forward to today. The church had their yardwork done yesterday. They sprayed blue Round-up around the preschool playground. Some of the Round-up blew onto the sand at the edges of the playground and the sand turned blue. My kids didn't mess with it because we told them to leave it alone. The 4 year old teacher took her kids out and let them play with it.

Now, I was inside with my kids. I never saw the 4 year old teacher or her kids and I have no jurisdiction over her. We are two separate entities entirely. But a church member saw the kids playing in the blue sand and rushed in to tell the director. The director ran out and told the kids to stop playing in it and let the teacher know that the blue color was weed-killer.

SO...the teacher brings her kids in, comes to find me and LET'S ME HAVE IT because she thought the blue sand was something I had put out there as one of my weird lessons. It was my fault she didn't know it was Round-up because I used colored sand and why should she think it was Round-up. It was my fault her kids played in Round-Up. My fault even though I haven't been a lead teacher for 8 months. My fault even though I don't even have blue sand or teach lessons anymore. MY FRIGGING FAULT!!

Then we got a phone call that Hubby is being brought before the Parish personnel committee for having a press conference on human rights. Yes...my pastor husband spoke out on issues of basic human rights and must now be punished.

Ain't life in the Bible belt grand?

Indecision

2011-04-02T17:49:00.000-04:00

There is nothing I hate more in my life than when I am faced with a tough choice that has to be made instantly. I like to mull things over and think through the multiple outcomes and then choose. Days when emergencies happen and I have to act quickly haunt me forever. Today was one of those days.

I was at rehearsal with my kids when one of my tiniest and youngest little girls (9 years old) developed a nose bleed. She as getting over a cold and I didn't really think it was that serious. I sat her down in a chair and pinched her nose and it seemed to stop. Miss State came over and took her into the bathroom to get her a paper towel to put under her lip (another stoppage trick). Only she told the girl to look in the mirror to make sure she got all the blood. Something about the sight of blood set the girl off and she almost passed out. I didn't know what had transpired in the bathroom, but Miss State dragged the girl out and told me that the girl was "falling out" on her. I took one look at the pale, clammy skin and the glazed eyes and went into action.

I grabbed the girl, laid her on the ground and lifted her legs up with my knees. I covered her in my coat and tried to call her mom while taking her pulse and checking her pupils. Her mom couldn't be reached and I had no idea what to do next. E has passed out on me before and this looked eerily similar to my experience with her. If I called 911 for just an anxiety attack, I would force the girl into a battery of unnecessary, invasive tests. But there was the bloody nose...what if I did nothing and she was having some sort of brain trauma incident?

I called one of my other theater kid's mom who is a doctor and asked her to come immediately. She agreed with my diagnosis of panic attack and told me not to call 911. It only took her 5 minutes to get to the theater, but to me it felt like an hour. I have never been so relieved to see another human being as I was to see her when she walked in. She looked the girl over and we finally reached the mom on the phone. The girl started to recover once she saw her mom and it all worked out in the end. After the girl left, all of the adults and kids swarmed around me to talk about how incredibly calm I had been and how well I took charge of the situation. It was then I started to shake and almost cried. I hate being the one in charge, the one to be cool under pressure. This time I was lucky and had made the right choice. In fact, usually my calmness can be relied on to save the day and I know that, but I also know that one day my luck is going to run out and that is the day I fear.

Thank God today wasn't that day.

Don't you know what's out there in the world

2011-03-31T22:24:00.000-04:00

I work with this amazing group of teens. Truly amazing. They are intelligent, well-mannered, fun loving...and they have decided that I am their go-to non-parental adult. I get to share in their excitement of their first kisses and first heartaches. When they have a fight with a parent, I am the person they come to seeking comfort and knowledge that their parents will forgive them. And when their energy is high and they are in full teen mode, I get a glimpse of remembrance of what it was like to be at that age.

This group of kids has decided that they want to write a play on bullying. I can see you shaking your head, everyone is jumping on the bully bandwagon, enough already you are saying. Every tv show you turn on is showing those NC girls fighting it out. Every talk show is talking about cyber-bullying and what to do about it, surely it can't be that bad. But not only is it that bad, it is so much worse.

The stories my kids have been sharing with me scare me. They talk of guns being taken away at school from students who are tormented every day for being different; fights involving large gang members pummeling smaller, weaker students, fights that are occurring in front of teachers who themselves are too scared to stop them. Packs of girls that roam the halls looking for victims just because they have decided a certain girl didn't have the right look. They are afraid everyday that today is going to be the day that someone snaps and does the unthinkable. Only it's not unthinkable.

As we were talking yesterday I asked them what they do to stand up to the bullys. Almost all of them answered, "Ignore it," or "Nothing," because that's what the adults in their lives have told them to do, to which I responded, "Do you know you are being trained to accept bullying when you do that? The bullying now is so much worse than when I was your age, what's going to happen to your kids?" They all fell silent. I asked them if anyone had ever gone to a teacher or guidance counselor to report a bully. One girl laughed and said yes, she had, and the teacher gave her a pamphlet on bullying. She received a piece of paper in place of help. And her response was, "What am I supposed to do, use it as a shield?" What is she supposed to do with it?

Everyone is talking about bullying right now, but is anybody taking the time to stop and listen? Stop and ask your child what he or she sees going on in school right now...and after you ask, don't say a word...just listen.

If we don't protect our children, who will?

Sick Day

2011-03-30T10:50:00.003-04:00

I am staying home again from my preschool job because even though I am on my third day of antibiotics, I am still sick. My strep throat is getting better, but I think I also had some nasty chest cold that was being masked by it. I have never taken this much time off, not even when I had pneumonia. But I don't want to get pneumonia again, so I am taking time off. Vicious circle.

I haven't been able to sleep at night. I try, but the congestion is killing me and keeping Hubby awake. My house is so small I can't go into the living room and watch tv because it will wake E and I can't stay in bed because it keeps Hubby from sleeping, so I have been going into our tiny office, closing the doors and surfing the net. Have you ever surfed the net at 3:00 AM?

First, I have found, no one is on FB at 3:00 AM. I suppose that's good. But it is so addictive, I would keep checking just in case. Then I would stalk people and look at their photos and info pages. Finally, I searched through ALL the friends it recommended I friend and decided to play 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with my potential FB friends. First you have to check through all the recommendations and find the celebrities. But it can't be their public page, it has to be their personal page or it ruins the fun. I think everyone has a friend who has a friend who knows someone.

In my case FB recommended I friend Andrea Bendewald (courtesy of Chrysalis who really is her friend). I went to this site and entered her name. Shazaam! She was in Picture Perfect with him so I won. Next I tried Nathan Fillion (damn Stoney Westmoreland) and again, shazaam, they were in Super. Again I won. But then I was sad. I typed in Celia Rivenbark. I know she is a writer but I thought maybe, just maybe her tv appearances would link her. Alas, I lost. Sadly I lost one more time when I tried Dan Knechtges. He was the Tony award winning choreographer I went to school with. Again, no match. But may I say, of all the people in the world I went to school with, he is NOT the person I thought would make it. He was an awkward little guy, kind of socially backwards and a little shy. Look at him now, who knew?

Anywho, then I started watching 80's music videos. I watched all of the Alarm videos! I loved Mike Peters. I also watched some Nik Kershaw, Limahl and very young U2 at Red Rocks. Oh the hair! I also watched snippets of Moonlighting. Now that I am older and more worldly I see just how much that show stole from famous writers. They pull scenes directly out of Neil Simon plays and pay homage to Danny Kaye's Court Jester. But it still stands the test of time. I loved Bruce Willis then (not so much now).

Lastly I stared at those encrypted notes the FBI put out yesterday. I stared at them for a long time but I got nothing. Nothing! By this time it was time for E to get up. I waited until she went to school and then I went back to bed. I should also mention that I have been watching Doors documentaries. When I finally got to sleep I had all of these weird dreams. One had a voice in my head saying, "This is your life" as I saw glass doors opening and then saw an old Super 8 film of things I had seen in "When You are Strange." Bizarre. (although I would highly recommend the movie Sliding Doors/Glass Doors? with Gwyneth Paltrow.)

I am sure this is all more than you wanted to know, but I am bored and lonely and decided to blog today. Lucky you!

Just a blurb

2011-03-29T21:02:00.004-04:00

I was watching an old x-file episode today and it was about a southern loch ness monster. There were two kids who were driving through the country in a pop-up VW van sitting by the lake. Seeing that van brought back memories.

We had not one but two VW campers while I was growing up. The first one was that godawful 70's orange color. It had a back seat that pulled flat into a bed just big enough for two adults. It also had the pop up top that contained a foam pad where two kids could sleep. There was no bathroom, but it did have a little stove, small fridge and the front passenger seat turned around to face the back seat. It even had a hammock for toddlers to sleep in. There was a hole in the floor that allowed you to put up a small table where the family could eat. I loved it. It had no air conditioning and the windows had roll things to open, but I saw a lot of Texas in that van. My family and I would drive it down to Galveston and spend the night on the beach.

After we moved back to Columbus when I was a teenager, my dad bought another camper. This one was cream colored and HAD air-conditioning. Unfortunately my dad never opened the fridge before he bought it. We got it home and as I was exploring I opened the fridge door only to be hit by the worst stink ever. I can still smell it to this day. The previous owner had left some sort of raw meat in the fridge and forgotten about it. The fridge was crawling with maggots. We cleaned it out and bleached it, but we never could get the smell out.

The cream van held a lot of my teenage angst in it. My friends would come over and we would just sit in the van and talk for hours. I remember having long discussions with Chrysalis and our friend Pete about the movie "When Harry Met Sally" (it had just come out). Could a man and a woman just be friends? If I am not mistaken, although we were both just friends with Pete, we weren't just friends with Pete, if you get my drift. I know I at least fooled around with him in that van.

I only drove the van once. When I was 16 or 17 I flew back to Houston to visit Jenn. My dad had business in Houston but wanted a road trip so he drove up with the intention of me driving back with him. Only I was young and stupid. Jenn and I went to the beach that weekend in her Javelin (or did you have your Nissan by then?) For some idiotic reason I refused to wear sunscreen, even though we were out in the sun for 5 or 6 hours. I was SO sick. I never went to the ER although I probably should have. I had blisters upon blister, I shook for hours with chills and wished that I would die, all the while Jenn's mom was yelling at me about how my parents were going to be so mad at her that she let me get sun poisoning! I think she even told me I better not have sunstroke or she might kill me.

When my dad came to pick me up I thought he was going to kill me. We got on the road and started to head back to Ohio. Somewhere along I-40 you go through the mountains and the road is really windy and curvy-maybe Nashville? It was then my dad decided to punish me by making me drive. VW campers had giant steering wheels and the seats were this tweedy material. I was fairly new to driving so I had to manhandle the bus to keep it on the road. Every movement was a new experiment in pain. Trust me, I am the world's largest proponent for sunscreen now (and yes, I get a skin check every year!)

When I was in college my dad finally decided to get rid of the bus. I was so sad, but it had a lot of miles on it and was starting to cost us money. I asked around at school and my friend Mel said he wanted it. Mel was the greatest guy in the world. He had long blond hair, played all sorts of sports and was just a total surfer dude. He never met a person he didn't like and he just made you feel like you were the most important person in the world even if he was surrounded by people (which he always was!) I warned him the van was in bad shape but he didn't care. He brought his father and his French girlfriend over to our house with a $1,000 check and bought the van right then and there. My dad still talks about how his girlfriend said, "And I will make you crepes for breakfast every morning."

Mel took that van another 50,000 miles. He drove to Mexico that summer (deep into Mexico, not just the border), around through California and back to Ohio. The next year he drove it to Florida and parked it in a tow away zone. That was the end of the van. It got towed away and he never had the money to get it out. He and his girlfriend hitchhiked home and he was still getting bills and notices on it by the time I graduated college and left him behind forever. I hope they auctioned it off and someone else got to spend a few more years bumming around in it.

TGFA

2011-03-28T14:51:00.000-04:00

Thank God for Antibiotics. I went to the doctor today and found out I had a raging case of strep throat. Who knew? Just 3 hours after taking my first dose I can actually sit up and think, something I haven't been able to do for days.

Good to Know

2011-03-27T12:10:00.000-04:00

I always wondered if I was hallucinating when I saw "things." I always thought that maybe there is a glitch or a loose wire in my brain that creates this sense of images of the paranormal. I have never actually hallucinated before, so I had nothing to judge.

But I am incredibly ill. Whatever this sudden flu is, it has me in a bear hold. But at least I know now what a hallucination is. I looked out my back door and saw a large yellow monkey climbing up the gum ball tree. (Not real chewy gum balls, the seed pod gum balls). But the monkey was real. Or at least, my brain saw it as real. I know there is no such thing as yellow monkeys running wild in the...oops, almost typed my location. But it sure did look like I could send the raptor out to chase it. So it has to be a hallucination. Definitely a different sensation entirely.

Rule number 1, one should not Facebook when feverish. Rule number 2, one should not blog when feverish.

I'm going to go back to the couch now.

102.3

2011-03-25T21:48:00.001-04:00

I am invincible!!! I developed a 102.3 degree fever and still stage managed tonight for a show that just had it's final dress rehearsal tonight. Ha HA!!

Everybody sing with me:

I've got the flu, flu, flu, flu,
down in my gut (WHERE?)
down in my gut (WHERE?)
down in my gut!

I've got the flu, flu, flu, flu
down in my gut
down in my gut today.

I have heebie jeebies
Oh heebies jeebies,
Heebie jeebies and little
green men.

They're very creepy,
I'm so so sleepy
Let's hope my fever doesn't
rise again! (okay, so rhythmically that doesn't work...but I have a friggin high fever, what do you expect?)

Thank you...thank you very much! I'll be performing here all week!

Dear Hubby

2011-03-19T20:21:00.001-04:00

I promise if you don't divorce me I will try to never PMS again during the biggest full moon in 18 years. You have the patience of Job.

And no..your mere existence is no longer repellent to me.

Love,

Wife

If you think my blog makes me sound mean and irritable, imagine what Hubby must have gone through these past two days.

As if I needed proof...

2011-03-15T14:55:00.000-04:00

I don't have a whole lot to write today, but I have been feeling very dour towards CountryTime these past few days. So, just in time for my REALLY bad attitude, our not-so-secret military base that doesn't exist down the road has decided to have some kind of major drill. Bombs have been going off every ten minutes for the past hour. I'm not talking little hand grenades, I'm talking shake the house, stop you in your tracks concussive bombs.

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

If it happened in America

2011-03-13T12:48:00.000-04:00

I sit here and I watch the horrible images on the tv of the devastation in Japan. I see flooded cars, daring water rescues, burning buildings and the worst environmental disaster (mark my words, it will be named as such) ever. But I also see people standing patiently in lines, government officials speaking kindly to evacuees instead of barking orders, and I see the older people being helped by the younger ones. And it makes me ashamed.

I have lived through 24 hurricanes, for at least 8 of those I was in the eye of the storm. I have lived on an island that was ground zero for one hurricane. I have experienced flooding in my house, no electricity for a week and relying on the Red Cross for my meals. Where I was there was no chaos because our governor had the foresight to put the National Guard on the island BEFORE the hurricane hit, so when the storm was over, everyone was on the ground running. But I still witnessed greedy store owners selling bags of ice for $5.00 and gas for 2 to 3 dollars more than it should have. I saw people complaining about the food being distributed instead of being thankful for a hot meal and a full belly.

In America during a crisis, you see looting and people sitting on their building with guns in their hands desperately trying to protect their property. You see fighting over supplies and people yelling at the news reporters that "someone has to pay!" You see people whose houses have been destroyed running through window frames with big-screen tvs. Where in the world are they putting that tv? But in Japan, you see patience, humility and compassion. They seem to understand that right now in their lives, a big-screen tv is NOT important. They say thank you when they are handed a bottle of water. They are grateful for a little bit of shade.

Sometimes I wonder how we got here....but more often I fear where we are going.

Demon-be-gone

2011-03-10T14:52:00.001-05:00

Oh Lord.

You are never going to believe what happened to me the other day.

Hubby is on this council of local ministers. There are about 12 ministers of various denominations and color who get together once a month to see how they can work together to better the community.

Sometimes they do really good things, like raise money to donate to the local schools, organize volunteers for local non-profits, etc. But several weeks ago someone got a thought in their head and I ended up in the hot seat. They decided they wanted to have a Unity service and get local representatives of the arts, health, law enforcement, schools and one other thing I can't remember to be at the service to be prayed over. They mapped out the service and asked a local "Bishop" to preach a sermon. The service was expected to be one hour long with the sermon being 15 minutes of that time.

Now, the group wanted my boss to come and represent the local arts community since he is the executive director of the local arts council. My boss had a few problems with doing that. First, he is very busy as this is prime grant writing season. But second, he is an openly gay man living with a long time lover. Not the kind of relationship most area churches approve of. So, since I am the director of the local kids' theater and my Hubby was helping to organize this, he asked me to go in his place.

I should have said no. But I have this little problem in that I love my Hubby and try to support him. But I should have said no. I knew better, too. Any time you get a group of pastors together, they feel like they have to out-do each other. In other words, this service was doomed to fail from the outset.

Now, it started out okay, with a really good musical group performing two very long songs. They were a little on the holy roller side and the lead singer was proselytizing a little too much , but they sang well and so I was okay with that. But then the representatives were asked to come forward one at a time to have a preacher chosen just for them pray over them. My "preacher" was a parent of one of my theater kids, so I thought I was safe. The prayers started, only they weren't just prayers. Each pastor needed to have his moment in the spotlight so they were more like homilies (mini-sermons). Each pastor was spending about 7 minutes praying over their person. Remember, this service was supposed to be one hour.

So my turn came and I reluctantly stood up front and the preacher/parent came forward. He is of a Protestant faith, so I really thought I was safe. Really!!! Oh, I was so wrong. He started out by reading a passage from the Bible, but then went on to rant against artists who sin against God. He prayed that God would forgive us for our wicked ways and turn us back towards Him so that our art might glorify Him only. Um...yeah....I may not do religious theater, but I can tell you, none of my theater kids are out there doing Equus. I was furious and felt singled out. If Hubby had not been on the spot, I would have left right then and there.

So by now we are 55 minutes into the service. It is time for the "Bishop" to preach. Only before he preaches, 3 of his 10 sons come onstage (and that's what it was, a stage, not a pulpit) and sang some song. It too was very good, especially since it was all a capella and in perfect pitch, but they took 10 minutes to sing the same damn line. Over and over and over! AND...the woman seated beside me started to speak in tongues. I have never truly been to a Charismatic church and as she babbled, I was going through my head trying to remember if I had ever learned the proper protocol to follow when one "falls out" with the spirit.

But we only had the sermon and one hymn to go and this nightmare of a night would be over. The sermon was going to be 15 minutes. The "Bishop" opened his sermon acknowledging that his wife was his time keeper and he would be brief. ONE HOUR AND 15 MINUTES LATER HE WAS STILL TALKING!!!! He posed and preened onstage, licking his lips and sticking both his butt and his tongue out. He seemed almost serpentine to me, but the crowd seemed to love him. ME? Not so much.

So after 2 hours and 30 minutes I was finally able to take my sinner artist self and escape. But as God is my witness, I will never be prayed over again!

It was just a dream....it was just a dream...

2011-03-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

A little over 100 years ago, CountryTime was the home to a famous murder. A woman disappeared from her house and several months later her body was found floating in the middle of the river. The news made the national papers especially when the few suspects the police had suspected of committing the crime started mysteriously dying. To this day no one knows the true story behind her death, but people still talk about it.

There aren't a lot of safe places to walk the Raptor here. I usually walk near the river, around by the church and back home. But sometimes I talk a longer walk and head downtown via the scenic river houses and I pass hers. I've always found it curious that, even though I seem to have some, shall we call them sensitivities, I have never once gotten a vibe from her house. Nothing...nada. Not even something I could remotely say was a feeling that she was there. I mean, murder victims seem drawn to me and yet I was drawing a blank.

But I have been reading the Harry Potter series with E and I think I read too late into the night last night. I didn't give my mind a chance to rest before I went to sleep. I hadn't been asleep very long when I started dreaming that I was floating in the river. I was dressed in turn of the century clothing- a high necked white blouse and long A-line skirt. I had long dark hair that was floating all around my head and it was very peaceful. I was me, but I wasn't, you know that strange dream phenomenon.

Anywho, suddenly I was looking down on the me that was floating in the river. I was extremely angry at the person in the water and I started choking her. The eyes that looked back at me were terrified and I just kept choking and choking this woman. Only in a second everything changed and I was once again the woman floating in the water. Before I could look up and see who was now doing the choking I suddenly had an inverted inhale, the kind of breath you take after being released from the water and I started coughing and gasping in real life. I couldn't stop coughing because I truly had the sensation that I had been choked.

Hubby woke up and rolled over to ask me if I needed a drink of water. I answered that I was okay and then closed my eyes again. I thought I had either fallen back asleep or dreamed our conversation so I rolled back over, woke him up and asked him if he had offered me water. He said he had so I asked him if I had answered him. He again said yes, so my last question was, "Did I answer you in my own voice?" When he again answered yes I relaxed and went back to sleep, but this morning the dream is literally haunting me. It was so violent. Do I hate CountryTime that much that my subconscious is working overtime? Is it Harry Potter invading my brain? Was it the dead woman finally finding me?

Hmmm... I guess we'll never know.

A very low day

2011-03-01T17:34:00.003-05:00

I think I may be at rock bottom.

Hubby and I had an argument the other night about all of the crap that has been occuring. Through all of this our marriage has been the one saving grace, but now I am so sick of all of this that I am angry at him. I am angry that he won't get angry at THEM. I am angry that even though the committee is supposed to be dealing with this woman, he is bending over and meeting with her instead. I am angry that he has this job that opens us up, not only to constant criticism, but to a seeming sense of entitlement these church members seem to have in regards to their criticism.

I am angry that I need a good girl's night out and I have no girls.

I am angry that I need to have a really good cry, but due to working two jobs and working out 10 hours a week I have no time to sit down and sob (my nose gets bulbous and red and stays that way.)

I am angry that I really would like to go out and get lousy stinking drunk, but my name makes the newspaper here every 3 weeks or so and I can't get drunk in town. I don't like to get drunk around my daughter and it's no fun driving an hour away (the nearest city with bars) and getting drunk only to have to drive an hour back. And no, I would NEVER drink and drive. That's kind of the point.

I'm just angry all the time and I am not an angry person. The worst part of all of this is I can't write anything creative. I finally saw the ghost down by the river and I can't write about it because all I can seem to come up with is "Oh, I finally saw the ghost down by the river." This place is sapping my soul!

Sorry, I have no friends here to hear me rant and rave and I just really needed to dump that on someone. Thanks.

It's like being in High School again...

2011-02-27T13:40:00.000-05:00

So, when last we left an evil woman had gone to the Poobah and complained about all sorts of things. Things that occured before our tenure at this church, things that Hubby has nothing to do with, things to do with selling the parsonage (because apparently it is okay with her if we live next door to the 5-Star general of the Bloods-our newspaper's term, not mine). Oh, and me. She complained about me.

So the church had a meeting, got all uppity that this woman had forgotten decorum adn gone above their heads, and they decided it was time to do something about her. The head of the staffing committee and another member went to the evil woman's house and met with her to discuss her "issues". The woman became upset and claimed that she was being made a scapegoat for merely bringing to light the things "other" people had been complaining about. She swore she was not being negative BUT she still thought that Hubby's assistant was lying about the number of people in church each Sunday (she claims attendance is down...NOT). She also said that I....yes, sweet little mousy pastor's wife me, had offended her because she swears that she invited us to dinner and I started listing off all the things I could or would not eat. Yes, I am so rude as to take a dinner invitation as an opportunity to insist someone cater to my nutritional needs. Let me tell you, she never invited us to dinner and I have no nutritional needs that I would impose on another person feeding me. As a general rule, when church members invite us to dinner, it is usually some pasta dish because it is easy and the host can sit with us while it cooks. I NEVER complain about that even though IRL I try to avoid pasta. NEVER!

So the meeting didn't go as well as planned, and when I heard I was once again being maligned I whipped off an email to the head of the committee, just letting her know that these new charges were ridiculous and reminding her that she needs to remember I AM NOT A PAID STAFF MEMBER!!!! I am supposed to be off-limits and by listening to her complaints and not stopping them, she is allowing a member of the church to be intimidated and maligned.

I didn't even make it in the door of the church this morning when another member stopped me, took me aside for a private conversation and said, "So, Mac said you are under attack this morning." Yes folks, I wasn't even on the premises and this woman was sitting in her Sunday School class making up even more fabulous stories about me. I looked the woman in the eye, said, "Yes, I know someone is unhappy with me but I choose to just not respond to it" and walked away. I can fight back and be catty in return or I can accept that life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how I react to it (my new mantra). But if this woman doesn't stop, the conference will have no choice but to remove us. The pastor's family is supposed to be protected. You can't have effective ministers if their family is constantly under attack.

So I guess the question becomes, does the church want us enough to stop this woman who had been a troublemaker for 20 years, or do they decide that she's "just like that" and we leave? Right now I am actually hoping the church takes no action and we have an excuse to leave.

I didn't like high school the first time!

Someone else's story

2011-02-25T18:19:00.000-05:00

Let me start off by saying this is not happening to me. This is happening to the person I work for, but I am so angry at what has happened that I have to pass it on. You are welcome to share your opinions.

My co-worker, we'll call her Deb, has a 13 year-old daughter who attends middle school. I believe she is a seventh grader. This girl has a phone that her mom makes her hand in at 9:00 PM every night. She gets the phone back in the morning on the way to school. This is not a punishment, just her exercising her parental rights.

Well the other night after the cell phone had been turned into Deb, a text appeared for her daughter from a boy at school. The text read, "Tomorrow we are going to F*^%. I will text you the time to meet me in the bathroom." Only he didn't use symbols, he texted the word. Deb was furious and didn't even know what to say. Her daughter insists she has never had sex with the boy although he has texted her stuff like that before. She says she always finds excuses not to show up. That's neither here nor there to me. Both kids are in the wrong in my opinion, BUT...

Deb made an appointment to meet with the principal of the middle school and showed the woman the text. The principal's response, "Oh my....well, it happens." Deb became furious and stood up, asking what the woman meant by that and what she intended to do about it. The principal responded that there was nothing that she could do about it, they didn't have the staffing to man the bathrooms at all times and that the kids will have sex no matter what she does. Deb insisted that she do something and gave the principal 24 hours to contact the boy's family.

Later that night Deb ran into a school board member that she knows and told him what happened. He was shocked and said something needed to be done, but to let the principal deal with it because if she (meaning Deb) approached the boy's parents regarding this text, the boy's parents could press charges against HER!!!

I was totally floored. I know high schoolers may get away with things like that, but these are middle schoolers...Having sex....AT SCHOOL!! The boy sent a lewd text to a minor and not only does the school say it can't do anything, but the minor who received the text's mom could be charged?

This could only happen in CountryTime.

SCREW IT!!!

2011-02-24T14:00:00.001-05:00

I have agonized for the past week over whether or not to be run out of my blog. My first blog was discovered and I had to close it. But I like this blog. I like the title. I love my readers, even the ones who yell at me for being so morose sometimes. This blog is really where I am in my life right now and I don't want to give it up.

My life has been nothing but drama for the past 10 days. An evil wench of a woman filed a formal complaint against me and Hubby with his regional Poobah. She went in with a list of complaints actually, mostly lies. Hell broke loose at our church and our lovely island vacation was not as stress-free as we had hoped. But amazingly, the church rallied and the woman is going to be censured and/or brought up on church charges and asked to leave.

On top of that, when the regional Poobah originally told Hubby about this woman, he made some comments that sounded as if they came straight from my blog. Specifically he talked about our desire to move and the parsonage situation. He knew about these issues already, Hubby said it was just very cryptic how he spoke about them. So, just in case, I checked my site reader and discovered that I now have a reader from CountryTime.

BUT....the former assistant to the Ultimate Grand Poobah in our denomination found my blog and has never turned me in or censored me. I have never mentioned anyone's name, our denomination or even the state where we live. I have never lied or purposely used this blog to hurt anyone or any church's reputation. AND I AM NOT A PAID STAFF MEMBER OF THE CHURCH! So for now, the blog stays up and running.

Truthfully, I have no idea how this woman could have found my blog. I have never mentioned it to anyone here. E knows about it, but swears she didn't say anything. I locked my blog down as a precaution since I would be away from computer access for a week. But nothing else has been said, and I am sure the meeting would have gone differently if people had been reading my blog. So I am going to assume that it is just coincidental that the Poobah made those comments and I have a new CountryTime reader.

And thanks, WL (and friends), for the support. I had just opened my blog to delete the whole thing when I got your message. I'm tired of running from church members so, for now, I am back!

Big Feet, Bigger Feet and Mango Salsa Couscous

2011-02-05T20:05:00.000-05:00

Today was a good day. An expensive day, but a good day. Why, you might ask? Because necessity forced us all out of CountryTime and I got to experience simple joys that I have not experienced since moving here.

Apparently I am the only person in CountryTime who has a wide foot. We have 3 shoe stores (2 of which are the same store just in different parts of town) and a Walmart at which we can buy shoes. As you may have heard, I have been working out like a madwoman and my shoes get a lot of abuse. The three shoe stores do not carry wide sizes. The Walmart does, but...you get what you pay for. In the past 3 months I have worn out 3 pairs of tennis shoes from Walmart that never fit that well to begin with. I decided I couldn't keep spending $25.00 every month for crappy shoes that hurt my feet when I could go buy one $70.00 pair that lasted 3 months.

E also needed to buy new tap shoes and jazz shoes since one day hers fit when she went to bed, but upon awaking the next morning and putting them on discovered her toes were suddenly trying to make a break for it and pressing incredibly hard against the leather. It always amazes me that growth spurts can happen just that fast. CountryTime does not have a dance supply store so we made a journey up to the nearest big city that happens to have real places to shop.

After driving an hour we landed at the dance store and received great, pleasant customer service. It was so nice and we walked out practically glowing at the fact that someone actually smiled at us as they waited on us. How odd it was. Then we went to Michael's (the arts and crafts store). Can I just say...Heaven? There is not a single arts and craft store in CountryTime. Not one. E and I walked around just browsing and inhaling and dreaming of all the things we could make if we just had the time or money. E had a gift card from Christmas and bought herself a lip balm making kit and two magic kits. I bought some stuff for my preschoolers and we headed to the shoe store.

I hate trying on shoes. I have big awkward feet that are really long and wide in the front but shamelessly narrow in the heels. I need Ronald McDonald shoes...seriously. Here my day stopped being fun as I tried on 12 pairs of shoes before settling on a decent pair of Sketchers Sports designed for treadmills, elliptical and bikes. They're still not perfect, but my feet hurt a lot less when I wear them.

But then the fun returned. It was time for lunch. We couldn't afford to go to any of the striped awning family restaurants since we had already spent so much money, but we still had choices! Choices I tell you! CountryTime has all of the burger joints, all of the greasy chicken places and lots of pizza. Oh, plus they have the 34% percent meat "faux Mexican" place. But that's it. There are no Hibachi places, Pita places, wrap places. Nothing but junk! But here there was Panera and Chick-fil-a and Chipotle's and Moe's. All places where I could get healthier choices and stay away from the fried stuff. Ahhhhh!

After lunch as we were about to head home when I told Hubby that I really wanted to grocery shop for the week at Harris Teeter. We have nothing but Food Lion in CountryTime and while it is adequate, it's not Harris Teeter. The produce is always mushy and the meats somewhat gray. Forget about getting fresh fish (although being so close to the ocean we do have a seafood market in town, but it smells more than it should). I really wish we had a Whole Foods or Wellspring or Trader Joe's (I've never even been in a Trader Joe's). But all we have is the Lion.

But we walked into Teeter's and the first thing we saw were Florida strawberries! Fresh, in season strawberries. And little mini whole wheat baguettes. And I could get my blueberry balsamic vinegar for my asparagus which I haven't been able to find. There was a man behind the counter at the fish department who talked to me about salmon! They had meatloaf mix instead icky, week-old ground beef. I was walking along like a country bumpkin in NYC. I should have had an Hawaiian shirt on and a camera around my neck. I flitted like the girl in Enchanted from one side of the aisle to the next. They had lentils and quinoa, wild rice and COUSCOUS! I can get one kind of couscous here. There I had 10 choices at least. They had sweet peppers and real olives! There was a cheese section with REAL cheese, not the almost cheese like substance that lives in tear away packaging. As you may have guessed, we spent $200.00 on groceries. But lord, I have mango salsa couscous and organic greens to go with my pecan crusted wild-caught salmon tomorrow night.

And the best part of it all...Hubby didn't receive a single phone call while we were gone. It was just pure, unadulterated quality family time.

Sigh....

I need a Dog Whisperer

2011-02-04T16:16:00.000-05:00

I have a question that maybe someone in the internet world is qualified to answer. I have googled this and I have never seen an answer, but maybe I am asking the question wrong. It's about the Raptor. Now, the Raptor is almost to the point of being a normal dog. He has snapped at someone who failed to follow the "ignore" him rule when they entered our house awhile back, but he has not been food aggressive or destroyed anything since, well I can't remember since.

He's wickedly smart. I taught him how to beg in two tries. Now he begs everywhere. He begs for treats, he begs to go outside, he begs when I am sitting at the computer typing. It's really hard to refuse a cute little fox terrier-ish dog on his hind legs with paws out.

But the question I have is why does my dog like standing on his head? Seriously. He stands on his head and sticks his butt up in the air. And it is not a "sniff my butt and let's get to know each other" pose, nor is it a "you're the boss" submissive pose. It's a full-out "I am excited and I like standing on my head" pose. He pushes himself so far up on his head that eventually does a somersault. It is something I have never seen a dog do.

Any thoughts?

This Church is Going to Kill Me

2011-02-02T21:40:00.000-05:00

Our house has been on the market now over 100 days. There are approximately 13 houses in a 3 block area up for sale. Ours is the third largest in square footage but not by much. We also have the highest price listing. Remember, no one can get a mortgage on the house until the moisture issues are resolved, The realtor suggested the church come down $4000.00 to be more inline with the other 12 houses for sale. The church's response: no. Because that would mean they would have to be willing to accept even less than that and they are not willing to do that. I think my head may blow up.

These same people who have said no live in houses worth $4-500,000.00. They live in safe neighborhoods and have no children. They don't have to wave at the gang members as they drive by in low-riding cars with the bass rumbling. They don't know what it is like to be charged by one of the pit bulls running loose. They don't get to stop and chat with the hooker down the street (who is actually very nice.) Our safety is not worth $4000.00.

Idiots!

A day of highs and lows

2011-01-30T13:34:00.000-05:00

The man who told Hubby the Tootie Green joke came all the way from his job as Assistant to the Grand Poobah to preach at our church today. He is a very nice man and preaches a decent sermon. Most people look at him and see a serious, earnest pastor with the aura of faith circling round him. I know him as Hubby's friend, capable of downing a few beers at a time and a man who likes a wicked joke now and then.

Anywho, there I was today sitting between Hubby in his clergy robes and AGP in his clergy robes and the devil got into me...just a bit. All I could think was I must look a bit like the stuffing in an oreo. This made me start to giggle. Of course, once you start to giggle in church you are going to hell in a handbasket and the only way to escape is to pass the giggles onto someone else. So I innocently leaned over to Hubby and whispered in his ear, "Tootie!" That was it for Hubby. Here we are singing "Shout to the Lord" and his face starts turning pink as he tried to stifle his laughter. I almost leaned over the other way to whisper "Tootie" in the AGP's ear, but realized it was a long time ago that he had shared that joke with Hubby and might take it out of context. God forbid he thought I was telling him I farted. So I kept quiet.

I had been asked to sing a solo song for the offertory in honor of AGP's visit and I did. I chose a song I wouldn't normally do, but it fit my voice and was easy to sing. When I was done, everyone was telling me how beautiful it was, yadda, yadda, yadda. I appreciate the compliments, but my voice is just a part of me, like hair or eyes. It makes me uncomfortable at how overly complimentary these people get when I sing when they are just as quick to cut me down because I am not friendly enough.

But, I was having a pretty good day (even though I was at church) until after the service. One man, trying to be nice, came up to me and said, "You really missed your calling. Such a loss." Now see, I hate the back-handed compliments. It sounds like what he said was nice. He was trying to imply he liked my singing. But it really came out that my time was over and I had wasted my talent. Which I don't think is true. Heck, I teach kids how to perform 4 days a week and I sing to my two-year olds all the time. The best compliment I ever received was a letter from a three year old that said, "I love when Muddy sings, it makes my ears happy." That's a compliment I can sink my teeth into! Just because you don't know my name doesn't mean I have wasted my talent.

But then another man came up to me and did the worst thing of all. He worked for a subsidiary of Columbia records for 30 years and he pulled the "I know people" line. I can not tell you how many rabbits I have chased down holes because a person told me he "knows" people. He said I should have been recording and with my voice I would be famous. He could make a call....And that's when I stopped him. I politely told him that I used to be a professional singer and even made a cd, but I left that life a long time ago because it was not conducive to married and family life. Because people like that aren't really trying to help me, they're trying to relive their own glory and power days. I long ago gave up believing anyone in my world could just make a call and make me world famous.

So I was deflated as I walked out of church. Neither man was trying to hurt my feelings. They were just trying to be nice. But as I was walking out the door the AGP grabbed me and said, "I really want to get you at the Annual Gathering and have you sing." Now that would be something. For just a few minutes I would be famous, at least in my state. I jokingly told him he would have to get me to the gathering first (it's not my scene) and left. It would be nice to sing in front of a large crowd again. I just wish it didn't have to be a damn church song. I want to sing something raunchy! Something rock and roll. Something where I can dress all in black leather and spike my hair.

Maybe I'll even call myself Tootie!

You get to be the judge

2011-01-28T21:19:00.000-05:00

Hubby thinks this joke is funny. I have heard it twice and, although I get it once he clarifies it, I don't get it. Here it is, as told by the Assistant to the Grand Poo Bah:

A new pastor is appointed to a church. While being introduced to the church, he has a conversation with the deacon: "I just needed to warn you about Tootie Green," says the deacon. "She's a woman in our church who is just beautiful, but she's a vixen and can get a man in a lot of trouble, so just watch out for Tootie Green."

On his first Sunday in the pulpit, the pastor is sitting next to the deacon when a beautiful woman wearing a very short skirt comes walking down the aisle. She sits on the very front pew, and although he tries not to look, the pastor can't help but notice that the woman isn't wearing any underwear. Of course, he thinks this is the woman he was warned about, so he turns to the deacon and asks, "Is that Tootie Green?" The deacon leans over and looks closely, then replies to the pastor, "No--I think it's just the lighting."

I am a horrible, horrible person

2011-01-27T14:15:00.000-05:00

Our church is about 3 blocks away from our parsonage. It's in the same neighborhood but on a main thoroughfare so the crime issue isn't as visible. The church does not have a paid secretary just a woman who is retired and volunteers about 30 hours a week to act as a secretary. She is a very nice, caring woman who has a heart of gold. She was the person, in fact, who filled out the paperwork requesting the church's new pastor. All the things she asked for where exactly who my Hubby is. She got just what she wanted in a pastor with my Hubby. Unfortunately, that's not what the church wanted.

Anywho, as I said, she is sweet and nice and spends a lot of time in the unlocked church all by herself. She is in her 60's and has a severe weight issue and cellulitis in her legs. She uses a walker to get around and I would never in my life wish anything bad on this woman. She has gone to bat for me and Hubby numerous times recently.

And yet, yesterday, a street person who is known to be schizophrenic came into the church while she was there with just a few other people. On his way out, he attempted to steal some items from the church. When I heard that church people caught someone who is regularly on my street in our church trying to rob it, I almost jumped up and down with joy. Finally they had to admit that there IS a problem in this neighborhood.

But then I thought, oh my God, what if the secretary had been attacked? Here I am excited that something bad happened, but the fact is, something REALLY bad could have happened and I was celebrating.

What has this place done to me?

Josephine

2011-01-25T19:59:00.001-05:00

My theater kids have received a fairly large grant. The grant is for a multiple of uses, but the only string attached was that part of it had to go to a specific project that deals with art and healing. As a result, we have coordinated with a senior residential home to create a multi-generational dance program.

Yesterday we took our younger batch of kids to the home for the first time and got to know some of our older dancers. There were about 10 women sitting in chairs around the edge of the room when we entered with 8 of our boisterous students. Miss State is leading this program so she asked everyone to go around the room and tell their name and how old they are. This led me to my first lesson in aging.

The first woman in the circle was named Josephine. Josephine is Italian and wasn't sure of her age. She thinks she is 95 but she may be 100. Although, if she was 100 she would have had a big party and surely that would be something she would remember, she said.

The next lady (and all the rest as a matter of fact) would not disclose her age, just the year she was born. She said she was born in 1922. I did some quick math in my head because I knew the kids were going to ask and said, "So you are 89." Never say how old someone is if they choose to just tell you their year of birth. The woman became very agitated and insisted that she was NOT 89 years old, that she was born in 1922 and that was NOT 89. I just smiled and Miss State went on to the next person.

We got to the last woman in the circle and she said her name and that she was Lebanese (which she referred to often during the hour) and then she said, "I think I am 75...no, maybe I am 80." And she was serious, she wasn't sure. I found it very interesting, as if once you hit a certain age the year no longer matters.

We led the group through the process of creating dance out of life time memories and most of the older women seemed to be enjoying themselves. No one had to get out of her chair and they got to interact with elementary age children , who, even though they were very outgoing, they were still very well-behaved.

At one point Miss State wheeled Josephine's chair into the middle of the circle in order to have the children create a shape with their bodies around her. Only she is hard of hearing and didn't understand what she was supposed to do, so she started leading the group in a dance. She was having the time of her life and her spirit was infectious. We all followed her movements and she was very animated as she led us through "washing dishes till they hurt" and "pushing that lawn mower over that gosh darn miserable grass!" It was wonderful and by the time she wore out we were all laughing and enjoying ourselves. All of us, but one, that is.

There was one woman sitting in a chair in the corner who refused to participate and refused to smile. She never asked to leave, but she just seemed like a dour spirit lurking in the eves. Josephine turned to her and said, "I am going to make you smile! You sit there, Lily, with that grouchy look on your face and make these kids think getting old is all about grumpiness. But I am going to make you smile! Life is supposed to be about joy!" Right then and there I thought there was going to be a knock-down, drag out in the old folks home. Lily was so offended and embarrassed that no one knew what to say.

But the thing is, I find myself more and more looking like that angry old woman Lily. Things just keep going wrong here. There's something wrong with the parsonage that means no one can obtain a mortgage on it and it will cost $1600.00 to bring it up to code. The church isn't willing to shell out $1600.00, so right now it can not be sold. The Raptor had some sort of stomach ailment that we thought was a blockage but luckily worked its way out, but still scared the crap out of us. Hubby is still having chest pain and is dragging his feet about getting it looked at again and things went all to hell at E's school. I just feel like I can't catch my breath and overcome this crap. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I honestly can't. And it is not because I skewered my eye.

But then I see Josephine and she brings joy to everyone around her. She's one of those very rare bright souls who just electrify the room. I want to be more like her. Is it wrong that I am going to spend the next few weeks doing my best to just soak her in? I doubt that I will ever in my life be a Josephine. But I really don't want to end up like a Lily.

Dear Universe...

2011-01-19T14:55:00.003-05:00

ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is all. Just....

ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait, no it's not. I had a dream that my husband was having an affair with a MAN at church and I wasn't even that perturbed or hurt. Being married for 16 years sure does change a person.

Now back to...

ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

2011-01-16T19:41:00.000-05:00

DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH!!!!

If you are squeamish and choose to read this post, I cannot be held responsible for your heebie jeebies or possible vomiting.

In November I went for my annual eye check and discovered that, truthfully, my age has caught up with my eyes. I cannot see things that are incredibly close to me. I should have gotten bifocals, but I was too proud and not ready to admit that I needed them. Of course, I wear contacts most of the time and was wearing them today, so I am not sure that the incident that occured today could have been prevented by anything but me being more alert.

I also woke up at 4:00 AM this morning having had nightmares after watching a scary X-File from season 2 about child possession. Shows and movies on demonic possession scare the hell out of me (no pun intended). But I watched it anyway. Which led to nightmares, which led to to me being very tired today and not quite on top of my game.

It was my turn to sing today for both church services. After my songs were done for the second service, I walked out of the sanctuary before Hubby started preaching. E followed me out as well as another woman who had sung for both services. We walked over to a small table in the foyer that had chairs on either side. On the table is a fake floral arrangement with several long reeds that look like 18 inch skewers, just slightly thinner. I bent down to put my music binder on the table not realizing the close proximity of the "reeds.'

The next thing I knew I felt this mild pain but couldn't see anything out of my left eye. I straightened my body wondering what I had done when I noticed out of my right eye that I could see the long end of a skewer STILL ATTACHED TO MY BODY! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the skewer had gotten poked into my left eye!

For just a moment I panicked and wondered what to do. I know you are supposed to leave things that have punctured you in...not pull them out and risk injuring yourself more. But I was there with E and I didn't know how she would react seeing me with a foot and a half long stick hanging out of me. I also wasn't in a huge amount of pain. If this thing had actually punctured the orb itself, wouldn't it have hurt more? I reached up and pulled it out. It took a good 3 or 4 minutes for my sight to return to that eye and there is a red scrape mark, but I really don't seem much worse for wear. The nearest I can figure is, amazingly, the reed must have traveled in a diagonal fashion and slid between the eye and the skin of the socket and gotten caught in that lower eye pocket. Hubby disagrees and thinks it might have actually pushed in my eye.

I don't know...it wasn't like I was going to wait long enough to walk to a mirror and look. Oh wait, I COULDN'T SEE!!!! But anyway, that was my adventure for today. Go ahead and laugh. Eventually I did.

Like a Man-Bra, but Bigger

2011-01-11T19:32:00.000-05:00

Okay...Hubby has pleurisy AGAIN!! But he will be fine.

Now...on to the subject.

I have been exercising very hard now for 7 long months. I have spent 8-9 hours a week at the Y doing cardio everyday and weight machines three days a week. I had lost 10 pounds. But the holidays hit and I gained 4 back. Four I could handle, even forgive myself for, but last week hit and I gained the ALL THE REST BACK. I swear, I didn't eat more or cheat on my diet. I have even cooked from scratch all but one meal in the last two weeks. I have decided that stress makes me pack on pounds, whatever my diet. I have had several people make that comment here, but I don't understand how it can add pounds when I am not adding calories. But I have to admit my stress level has been so high this week that I have almost ended up in tears several times. And the weight just piled itself on so there's got to be something to that.

So, I have decided to redouble my efforts and make a change in my workout. It was time for me to change the weight routine anyway, so I lowered the weights and am doing fast reps to complete muscle failure. I'm not talking 15 or 20 reps, I'm talking 45-50 reps. It must have worked because I am one sore puppy. Trust me, it hurts just to type this post. But the other thing I implemented today (and it was one of the hardest things I have done in a long time)... I started running on the treadmill.

Now first, remember, I hate sweating. I loathe that tickling, dripping feeling of sweat running down your back. I hate clothes sticking to me and my hair getting frizzy. I....hate...sweat. But I hate running more. I hate running because I still have some chest pain from time to time after my lovely medical drama last year and I am slightly afraid of it. When I started running today I had such a tightness in my chest that I was about to call for the defibrillator myself. But I kept telling myself that it was just anxiety and I worked through it.

But the real reason I hate running is because I have a big old BUTT. I have a big old butt and chunky thighs. When I run I feel all that weight bobbing up and down. It's like the Anti-Baywatch, where their boobs just sway back and forth when they run. My butt lobs itself three feet in the air and anybody who dares to get in its flight pattern better be wearing full body armor. It's embarassing and a little painful. I feel like I need a butt-bra just to contain the thing. But alas, that would just be biker shorts and I am definitely not putting my ass on that kind of display.

But today on the treadmill I would walk for 8 minutes and then run for 2 minutes. I know, 2 minutes is not a a lot, but it was the most I could do at one time and I ended up doing it 4 times. I have to start somewhere. Maybe when my butt reaches a manageable size I will be able to run a mile, but until then, if you see me at the Y, be prepared to duck!

Quick Updates

2011-01-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday was Hubby's yearly review with his boss. It was the day we had to officially declare our position on staying or going. Hubby told his boss that while we want to move, after having received the advice not to from several friends (one being the assistant to the Grand Poobah), he will not officially be asking for a move this year. In other words, more than likely, we will be here one more year.

Hubby started having chest pains on Tuesday that have not subsided and is seeing his doctor today. I think it is stress and depression, but I am not a doctor and better to be safe than dead.

E's thyroid tests all came back within normal limits. Her doctor, however, was home sick and is supposed to call us today and let us know whether or not he wants to get the node biopsied since thyroid cancer does not affect the levels. I believe he is going to tell us she is fine, since he was more concerned about Grave's Disease.

Our house was shown for a third time to the same people who also requested to see the home inspection. I hope this means we can expect a decent offer. But in case we don't, I stopped and had a pleasant chat with one of the neighborhood prostitutes (I want the gangs to know I am supposed to be here) and she was very nice. But it just added to the surreality that I am living in right now.

I just keep telling myself the only way out is through.

Deep breath-es -es -es

2011-01-04T18:59:00.000-05:00

My goal for 2011 was to have a drama-free year. Knowing I cannot control those around me, I decided that I would not participate in any drama being thrown at me by other people. I would not engage rumors, battle lies or try to be someone I am not by "being involved" in the trivial goings-on of CountryTime. Little did I know that the potentially biggest drama of my life is about to unfold and it is coming at me from E.

I took E to the doctor today for her well-child appointment. The doctor was 40 minutes late because he had to rush to the hospital to see one of his patients. In fact, while he was examining E he had to leave the room to answer a call from the hospital. He was frazzled, to say the least. He mentioned that E was a little underweight for her height. She is still solidly in a healthy weight zone, but he was concerned because her height and weight growth were not quite proportional. Then I asked him to look at her eczema which has made a reappearance. All seemed okay, until he had her stand in front of him so he could check her thyroid.

He started the exam and a worried look appeared on his face, he poked and prodded her and was just about to say something when he got called out of the room by the hospital. When he came back in he put her in position again and said he was trying to see if he was feeling a node on her thyroid. He eventually determined that he did and he went in to high anxiety mode. He issued an order for a blood test to check her levels, spouting terms like Grave's Disease and endocrinologist at me. He went to talk the the nurse since E has a tendency to pass out with needles and they discovered that the last lab drop of the day had occurred and they could not take her blood there. He then wanted me to take her to the hospital for the blood work right then, but my insurance company treats any hospital test, even one ordered by a doctor as a hospital visit and I end up paying 100's of dollars out of pocket. I told them I would bring her back first thing in the morning and he said okay, but it has to be done tomorrow.

So now I am scared , but trying to be nonchalant for E's sake. I Googled this, but now I really wish I hadn't. Oh please, blog friends, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. And if any of you has had a child with a harmless node on his or her thyroid, please let me know. She needs to be okay. I need her to be okay.

Oh...MY...GOD!!!!!

2010-12-29T22:39:00.001-05:00

First off, I have had almost 4 glasses of wine as I write this. Please forgive any typos that may be forthcoming.

Hubby, E and I made it through the two days with my parents (it would have been three but snow overtook us) and we headed to the middle of our state. I had found this lovely cabin near our destination to stay in. We had friends with family in this area come just to spend time with us. The idea was our two families would meet at the cabin and have dinner.

We arrived exactly at 4:00 as the proprietors had requested to check in...only there were no proprietors. We walked around the property for 20 minutes waiting for them to arrive. Finally, after being visited by the mangiest collie I have ever laid eyes on, they arrived and I suddenly heard banjos playing in the background. The man was wearing his camouflage pants and orange hat, and the woman had bleached white hair and was missing her front tooth. The woman apologized for being late, she said they had thought we were arriving tomorrow. (I have the email that says otherwise.) And she walked into her house to get some "towels" (they looked as bad as the collie) and led us down to the cabin.

I had looked over their website with a fine-tooth comb. I was promised a fully stocked cabin with nice furnishings. What they had in their pictures was not what they actually had! She showed us upstairs and as I was looking at the bedspread from the 70's when I noticed something. It was several small objects, oblong and brown. IT WAS MOUSE DROPPINGS ON THE BED! I immediately said I couldn't stay there and the woman tried to convince me it was bird droppings. She tried to tell me that a former customer had left the door open and a bird had come in. I KNOW BIRD DROPPINGS!!! THIS WAS MOUSE!!! ON THE BED!!! It doesn't really matter what it was, the cabin was a good old bait and switch and I was not spending my hard-earned money on it.

Needless to say I am typing this from a very nice Marriott and have had a very nice evening and feeling very tipsy. Bird droppings my ass!

A Gift to Myself

2010-12-25T12:45:00.000-05:00

This year has been a rough Christmas for me. I won't go into depressing details, but the Holiday Malaise hit me hard. But therapy seems to be working and making me a stronger person willing to address my needs, so this year I gave myself the best gift ever. I gave myself the gift of simplicity.

Hubby has three church members who have separate mysterious, undiagnosable and possibly terminal illnesses. He has not been home much since the nearest big hospitals are an hour away in a different state. He's been going back and forth to three different hospitals AND working extra hours to create a meaningful Advent season for the church. As a result, the season preparations have fallen to me and E to do by ourselves. Instead of going out and getting a large real tree for the living room we are never in (as we have done every year), we bought a smaller, skinny fake one that fits in our tiny family room. I'm not normally a fan of fake, but it was so easy. I still baked 6 dozen cookies, but instead of making them all from scratch, I bought the pre-cut refrigerator cookies AND I didn't bake anything else for the shut-ins. Instead I took all of the sugary treats my preschool parents made me and split them up for Hubby to take and share. That way they didn't destroy my diet and I didn't drive myself crazy by trying to add one more thing to my already packed schedule.

Instead of buying tons of presents for each other, we decided we wanted to spend our money on going away to a cabin in the middle of the state this week. E still got a few gifts from Santa, but then we set a $15.00 limit per person. I am so looking forward to getting away (as long as the hospital people stay out of ICU). We are meeting some friends who have two daughters around E's age at the cabin and I am finally going to get to talk to a girlfriend. Plus, the husband is one of Hubby's best friends and also a pastor, so you can imagine how much bitching is going to occur.

But the best gift I gave myself this year was refusing to allow my parents to come up for Christmas. Unless snow prevents us from driving the 5 hours to their house, we are going to leave right after church tomorrow and go to our old town and spend a belated holiday with them. Which leaves just the three of us here spending quiet family time together. I didn't realize just how much I struggle with people here at Christmas. It doesn't matter if it is my parents or Hubby's, I become obsessive about creating the perfect Christmas for others and ruin my own. I gave myself the gift of no criticism this year. If I burn something, forget something, drop something, no one will care. If I am tired and just want to watch TV with E, no one will complain. I don't have to entertain, feed or worry over other people. E and Hubby wouldn't care if we just had tv dinners for Christmas. For the first Christmas in a long time, I can just breathe.

And lastly, (as weird as it may sound) for the first time in 17 years I gave myself the gift of a sports injury. Wednesday when I was doing a chest press on the Cybex machines, something in my chest popped and I had shooting pain. I stopped that exercise and continued with my workout. When I went back on Friday to do another weight workout I noticed a muscle in my chest was tender and swollen to the touch. Not enough to prevent me from working out, but enough to make me realize just how far I have come this year. I am damn proud of this muscle strain. It's symbolic to me. 6 months ago I was terrified of my back going out, or my neck twitching and I couldn't lift a thing. This Christmas I worked out so hard I popped something and went back for more. I call that a win.

So while I may be struggling through Christmas this year, I think I have a lot to be proud of...and thankful for. It's been a tough year, but I made it through. And I made it through by becoming a stronger, better, healthier person. Here's to 2011!

Merry Christmas...or as Charlitan says, Happy Holiday of your choice!

Have a good laugh....

2010-12-19T13:12:00.002-05:00

The women's circle at our church today presented me with the "unsung hero" award. I just don't know what to think.

Where I stand....

2010-12-16T09:42:00.001-05:00

1. I think E has a crappy, burnt-out teacher this year. The teacher is very nice, but completely disorganized and can't follow through with anything. This is what I have observed with my own eyes.

2. The parents her teacher is dealing with are the same parents I deal with at my theater. They are a formidable group when they all get together.

3. These parents and the gifted teacher have a folder of studies that show gifted children thrive when placed in one single classroom instead of being mixed in with lower performing students and have used these studies to create an "elite" society, of which E is finally swimming on the edges of instead of being completely shunned.

4. I think the showing of the movie was totally appropriate and generated the discussion for which it was meant.

5. The troubled girl could not have been stopped from making her admission and yes, I know the admission to be true. Her parents have been in jail for at least 2 years. As for medication, I do believe that to be true but can't confirm it.

6. As for E, this girl's admission gave my child a great deal of relief. E is smart and empathetic and totally gets the kids with issues. Her best friend for the longest time was an almost non-verbal autistic child. When E heard this girl's meanness was not a result of a fault of E's, but something unrelated, she felt better. She felt that the things the girl had been saying about her were not true, just a result of trouble at home. And knowing the girl was on medication made E feel better as well. I explained to E that just because this girl admitted all this, that still doesn't give her a right to be a bully, but E felt better just knowing that someone was trying to control this child.

7. I believe the parents of the gifted children created this problem by constantly forcing the class selection for so many years. Yes, gifted children may thrive when placed with similar children, but that is not the real world. In the real world they must learn to adapt and help, not look down and intimidate. I have a Montessori background and expect E to step up and help a child who may be struggling to read, or tutor an child in math. But, I also expect her to receive that special attention that challenges her and makes school a fun place. Neither is happening right now because the parents created a monster system...and in effect, a monster child. I am not sure she would be so disruptive if she weren't in a classroom where EVERYONE was so much smarter than her. If she was in a blended classroom, her self-esteem would not be suffering as much. She'd still be a problem, but....

8. I know this because the shoe was on the other foot last year. E was tortured by her class mates because she was the smartest kid in the class, in a class of the lowest performing children. She had one friend and that was it. Only she didn't act out, she retreated, but it is the same concept.

9. I know that many parents are in an uproar about this movie and girl's admission and I am being asked to join the crows and complain, only it is the one thing this year that I agree with. Do I maintain my silence, join the group and try to use this to force the teacher out because of her other flaws? Or do I stand up against the crowd and speak my peace, dooming myself and E to be outcast yet again just when she is finding her place amongst her peers?

I wish there was an American Girl movie for adults in this situation.

Where do you stand?

2010-12-15T19:34:00.002-05:00

Here's the story but I am not going to say which side I fall on. I will when all the verdicts are in.

My daughter is in the gifted program at school. There are 350 fourth graders of which 22 are in this program. Over the years the parents of gifted students and the gifted teacher here have banded together to keep these students in the same class. In fact, most of them started together in the same preschool I teach at now.

Last year things hit a boiling point, however, and the closeness became a problem when Mean Girl Syndrome hit. Some of the gifted girls started bullying each other and were understandably miserable. Last year, when this was all going on, E was not a part of this. Even though I had written on her entry forms that she was in the gifted program, somehow her records never made it to the new school. She attended the gifted program but was not truly considered "part" of the program. Her class last year held 16 of the lowest performing students in third grade and 3 students similar to E who had also not been earmarked yet. Her teacher, however, was exceptional and although E struggled with having no friends, her teacher more than made up for that.

This year is different. E's fourth grade teacher is brand new to this school. She is an older woman who has taught for many years but is currently in school to receive her masters. She is absent at least 2 of every 10 days. Since she is new and the gifted kid's parents complained about last year, the gifted kids were split up into two classes, one being hers. Essentially she was given this gift of 11 high performing, love learning kind of kids, but she also got 3 on-level kids and 3 of the worst discipline problem kids. This has created a situation.

The 3 discipline problem kids have been allowed to take over the classroom and create an environment almost impossible to learn in. Several parents have talked to the teacher. The teacher's response was to say she would never allow HER children to attend this school and she's never even heard of kids as bad as the kids she is dealing with. This prompted the parents to go to the principal who has made several visits to the classroom.

So here is what I would like your opinion on:

Bullying is a problem in this classroom. The teacher showed "Chrissa Stands Strong" to the students, an American Girl movie on bullying. After the showing, the girl in the classroom who is the most disruptive to the class stood up and told the whole class that her parents were both drug dealers and are now in jail so she lives with her grandmother. She then went on to tell the class that she had to take a pill everyday to help her control her anger.

Question: Was it appropriate to show this film and allow this child to make this admission?

Feel free to answer however you would like. I know exactly where I fall on this issue, I would just like to know how you feel.

Brain-Dead Me

2010-12-14T19:59:00.000-05:00

E likes to make presents for the family for Christmas, so we bought a fizzy bath salt-making kit. You mix two ingredients together with some water and place the batter in a mold to dry. It seems pretty easy, doesn't it?

We had placed the molds on a cookie sheet and left them on our table in the living room. All evening the Raptor kept barking at the table. I had left two Christmas gift bags on the table to take to work in the morning, so I just assumed he was barking at the bags. He does that occasionally, barks at indiscriminate objects. Although he is much better than he used to be. But I digress...

Well E and I must have gotten the amount of water wrong. It turns out the fizzy bath salts weren't exactly hardening, they were fizzing. They fizzed right out of the mold, off of the cookie sheet and onto the 60 year old table. Raptor must have heard the fizzing and thought there was a snake on the table. He is a terrier after all, aren't they small snake and rodent hunters?

Anywho, our realtor called and said a family was coming to look at the house. Our house was pretty clean, but I didn't want the family to come in and see hard pink goo on the table. I tried to pick it off with my fingers-didn't work. I got a knife and tried to scrape it off-didn't work. I stared at this stuff and started to panic...after all, the table is an antique and it doesn't belong to me, it belongs to the church. Had I just ruined it with fizzy bath salts?

Um...but then I thought about what it was. It was fizzy BATH salts. The word bath must imply that it dissolves in water. DUH!!! I got a wet paper towel and the problem was dis-solved (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) in seconds. I'm such an idiot! But in my defense, I have a nasty cold and blame the snot.

Oh...and for the third time in two weeks, the realtor never showed up and never called us to let us know she wasn't showing up. All the while the raptor and I walked around outside in 20 degree weather so we wouldn't be in anyone's way.

Maybe I need to take a nice warm, fizzy bath.

And a shot of whiskey with some rock candy.

And Nyquil....lots of Nyquil. (I've never taken it before, does it work?)

Argh, the show.....

2010-12-13T13:48:00.002-05:00

So as you may imagine, CountryTime is a fairly small town. The population now stands at just a little over 20,000. The downtown is a blend of abandoned buildings, two formerly grand hotels now being used for low-rent senior citizen apartments, an overly large and overwhelming museum that has more space than artifacts (thanks to a local boy politician who filtered a lot of money to this area) and Main Street. Main Street is the glittering jewel in an otherwise drab and depressed city that is CountryTime. It has an old-fashioned department store, pharmacy, a hand's-on kid's museum, restaurants, book store, candy maker and the arts council that houses my theater. There are 5 bed and breakfasts downtown that caters to the visitors who come just to spend time on Main Street and enjoy the harbor. It's amazing.

What I have come to discover, however, is that there were no fewer than 4 vaudeville theaters in a 2 block area. Very little remains of these spaces, but I am currently working in the one that survived and my theater company will soon be renting space where a second resided. The main stage has been renovated and is on the second floor of the arts council. There is main floor seating and a balcony that seats on the third and last floor of the building. When the theater was renovated, a group of local citizens poured a lot of money into making the space "multi-purpose" friendly. It's a great space for meetings, weddings, concerts, essentially things that don't require lots of people on stage or large set changes. None of the local citizens consulted theatrical experts, however, so there is no fly-space, no way to change backdrops, no space behind the cyclorama/backdrop, only 10 feet on either side of the stage to hold people and props and the lights don't plug into the electrical bar, they actually have to plug into the ceiling. For non-theater people, that will mean very little to you, but for those who have stage experience, you're probably rolling on the floor laughing at me right now, glad that you are not me.

So, my space has limitations, but I have dealt with worse. After all, my theater in Columbus started in a building meant for making carriages and horse-drawn buggies. My children's theater operated out of my van and a steamer trunk. I can handle any space. But remember, I am working with a 6'4" Brother Boy (from Sordid Lives) and Suzanne from Designing Woman.

Well, last year when the three of us got together to discuss what Christmas show to do, I suggested this nice little (easy) Christmas musical that would use 25 students. We had a lot of new, no-experience kids and this was supposed to just get their feet wet in preparation for our huge upcoming spring musical. We all agreed that enrollment in our program did not guarantee a spot in the show. The children not cast would be given an opportunity to do a "Glee" kind of opening act that would allow us to keep a manageable amount of people in the wings.

Well, Miss State (the president of the theater company) decided all of the children needed to be included, so smack dab in the middle of the play she added 4 dances. Now all of our 40 children are onstage. Then she added her 29 member adult tap class. Did I mention all of the dances occured during a 12 minute period? All 69 people were onstage or backstage AT ONE TIME. Oh, and we had a full size sleigh, a Christmas tree and props that took up space in the wings as well.

Guess who had to make this all possible? Miss State is a visionary kind of person who has grand ideas that are beautiful when orchestrated. But I'll tell you, as the person backstage who has to make it all come together....I was pulling my hair out. Here I am calling sound cues, light cues, set changes AND I am managing traffic patterns of 69 people in a space built for 30. 69 people who could never remember where they were supposed to be at any given moment.

Then, the boy who was cast as Santa didn't learn his lines and threw a hissy fit onstage during one of our final rehearsals. I may hold my tongue in real life and not speak up, but when it comes to my teaching, especially directing, I do not censor myself. Parents and kids know coming into the program that they will be treated like professionals, not kids, once we get into rehearsals. I let that Santa have it. I was on fire and lit him a new one. He tromped offstage for a minute but had a slightly better attitude when he reappeared.

When the rehearsal ended I was looking to my right answering a question the lighting tech had asked. When I turned my head back to the left, I discovered 4 of the volunteer parents arranged around me, insisting that I recast Santa two days before opening. It was like a swarm of crows. I told them they had to talk to Miss State since my decision-making power had been taken away with the jazz pant debacle. They swarmed over to her and she stood her ground and said she would take responsibility for Santa's bad behavior. But the parents were not happy.

In the end, Santa learned his lines, the show held together, and we performed for over 1,000 people (not bad for CountryTime). The parents ended up being satisfied and I, well, I ended up missing work today. I think all of the stress and lack of rest got to me. I have a cold that has taken charge of me and I just didn't feel like taking it out on my poor little 2-year olds. So I stayed home, sat on the couch with the raptor on my lap and blogged.

Actual Conversation I Had Today

2010-12-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

A woman I work with at the preschool is a Pentecostal. She's very nice, but....according to her all Catholic people are going to hell and if you are not from the South you aren't worth spit. This same woman just returned from a trip to Israel. I kid you not, I worried just a little bit that I would hear about some international incident taking place and I would know whom to blame.

She returned to work today and I asked her how she enjoyed her trip. She found it very fulfilling to walk where Jesus walked, but didn't like the food. According to her it was all "fruits and vegetables, nothing but fruits and vegetables. And for dinner they would bring you a salad with this dressing made from oil. Then they would bring you a bowl of rice, no sauce, no gravy, no nothing. I would sit there with this bowl of rice getting cold until they served the chicken. And it wasn't fried either. It was just plain grilled chicken that I had to mix with my plain cold rice just to give it some taste. I couldn't even drink anything because they wouldn't give me any ice! Even their desserts weren't sweet, just flaky. I ate a lot of fries, just fries."

And after this conversation I had two thoughts in my head: No wonder America is the fattest nation in the world and no wonder most other countries hate us. This woman just couldn't grasp that water is a fast disappearing commodity that ~~some~~ all countries need to conserve. And that most people don't have the luxury of using precious things like flour and grease to make artery clogging gravy instead of stomach filling bread.

After our conversation we went to a gathering our school was having wherein every family brought a dozen cookies. Two tables worth of cookies. The irony was not lost on me.

Quickie

2010-12-09T07:42:00.000-05:00

My show opens today which is why I have been absent. It's been a rough two weeks. My lead actor turned into a diva who refused to memorize his lines and I had to kick his ass. I shall return in a few days when I have a moment to breathe.

You put your right hand in....

2010-12-03T21:13:00.000-05:00

I am a very active teacher with my two year olds. I believe that they need to have "adult-free" playtime, but I also believe some guided playtime is extremely important. Usually at the the end of their day we do yoga together. Let me tell you, two year olds love "oga." But sometimes I succumb and do normal things, such as sing the itsy bitsy spider song (which truly makes me want to poke my own eye out.)

I also refuse to wear expensive clothes to my class. More often than not, my clothes attract hands with yellow paint all over them, or lovely green snot rockets (yes, I had to go there), and occasionally even the wet bottom where the diaper leaked. It's just not worth it to wear anything fancy or not wash and wear.

So the other day I was wearing a pair of knit khaki colored capris that have become well-worn and a little too big. As I was leading the kids in the hokey pokey I noticed all of them were holding their pant legs just above their knees. It was the weirdest thing. Why, I wondered, would they be holding their pants? But just then, as I went to put my left foot in, I discovered that I was holding my over-sized pant leg up...just above my knee. The kids were only imitating what they were seeing.

So know my husband calls those particular pants my "hokey pokey" pants.