The definition of pathetic.

More crazy mama drama.....So, I haven't spoken to either of my parents since the end of May.  Not necessarily by choice.  I sent my dad a Fathers' Day card in the mail (late) because I didn't go to the family reunion on Fathers' Day weekend in order to give it to him in person.  It must have arrived in the last day or two, because according to Jon, I received a letter in the mail today from my mother.  He hasn't opened it, so of course he didn't say what it said.  So now my whole day is wrecked wondering what this letter says.  Is she pissed that I sent Dad a card?  Has she decided to evict me from our house (that I make the payments on) that's in her name?  Has she decided to have Jon's cell phone turned off?  Blah.  Worry, worry, worry.

Crazy Mama

Well....my mother is in the hospital again.  In Harrison.  What the fuck, you may ask, is she doing in Harrison?  Long story short, she went nuts last night and disappeared, and that's where she ended up.  She is suffering from psychotic episodes (the doctors' words, not my own), and she has had a heart attack at some point in the last 24 hours.  I'm surprised she even made it to Harrison, since she hasn't really driven a vehicle in the last 3 years or so and never has been good at driving at night.
She's been off for a while, and has been gradually sliding into psychotic third base for a long time now.  It's just recently come to a head.  Ever since her mother died, followed shortly by her brother, she's not been herself.  In fact, it's really affected her role as my mother and my kids' grandmother in a negative way.  She's stand-offish, even cold and mean sometimes; she irritates my father on purpose, she's even more dramatic than she was when I lived at home, and she's clearly having memory lapses. Her constant drama lately has really worn on my dad, and last night they got into it pretty hard.  He had to leave for an hour or so to cool off and keep from slapping the shit out of her.  He just went to walk around at Wal-Mart.  While he was gone, Mom decided to go looking for him (so she says), and that's how she ended up in Harrison. I personally think she meant to head for Harrisonville (in Missouri, south of KC), where her longtime friend Flora Lee lives, and became confused when she saw signs for Harrison, Arkansas and followed them.
She was pulled over by the Harrison police (two of them) and a state trooper-yes, it took all three of them to get her to finally stop-for driving erratically in front of the Taco Bell. The officers realized something wasn't right with her when it took getting the police dog after her to get her to come out of the car.  They took her to the ER there, and that's who called to let me know where she was.  Meanwhile, I was busy as a pallbearer at my Great-Aunt Eva Jo's funeral.  I got the voicemail message after the funeral was over, and immediately hit the road to go pick up my dad.
We were under the impression that Mom would be transported to St. Edward's in Fort Smith, and that we needed to get to Harrison to get their car out of impound, so we headed that way.  On the way there, the hospital called again to tell me that St. Edward's had refused to accept her based on the fact that she was being evaluated for cardiac trouble and psychiatric problems at the same time.  They thought it would be best if she were kept where she was overnight, so there she stayed.  Tomorrow, if her heart issues are any better, she may get transported to Washington Regional in Fayetteville, which is about an hour closer to home than where she is now.  She'll also get a visit from a social worker, who will try to determine what kind of psychiatric help we may need to get for her.  I'm going to insist that, once we get her heart under control, she be signed into Vista Health in Barling for a sabbatical until we can figure out what's making her go batshit at the drop of a hat.  Let's just hope it all works out soon....Dad and I are exhausted and frustrated trying to figure it out.

Wow...my mother is crazy. I don't even know where to begin. I'm almost certain this won't get any better, either. I just don't know what to do.

Wow. I can't believe I made it a whole year.

I did it! This is the first time in 15 years I've been able to say I've gone a whole year smoke-free!  I am so proud of myself.  I couldn't have done it, in the beginning, without the help of Chantix.  Thanks to our health insurance through Jon's company, I got the entire Chantix program with zero copay.  Finding out it was free was what finally got me to dive in and just do it....I'd been toying with the idea for a long time, and even had my doc write me a prescription, but until the insurance change happened...it was just so expensive.  I'm so glad I was able to do this for myself and my kids.  I'm still taking it one day at a time, but it gets easier and easier as time goes on.

I plead guilty to blog neglect.

I can't believe it's been so long since I wrote in my blog.  I'm sure every blogger goes through episodes of don't-give-a-shit-itis...right?

Sooooooo.....yeah.  So I've been in a real rut lately, but it's getting better.  It just seemed like everything was piling up on me, and I couldn't get out from under it all long enough to breathe.  I'm still having car issues.  Our money situation hasn't gotten any better.  Daltrey is still a little tyrant.  My parents are falling apart.  But you know what?  It's all gonna be okay.  I'll live.  I always get through stuff...it just takes some effort and a little creativity, right?  Wrong.  It takes good antidepressant medication, that's what it takes.

My doctor changed my antidepressant from Wellbutrin to Celexa.  Big difference!!!  The first two weeks were a challenge....to say the least.  I was super tweaked out and hallucinated a lot.  The tweaking I could handle, but the hallucinations were pretty annoying.  First, the carpet in my office hallway was sand.  I don't mean that it looked like sand, I mean it was sand.  It was difficult to walk through it, and my footsteps even left small dunes in it and everything.  Then there was the lovely mall tile adventure.  I went on lunch break, heading to El Chico, which is in the JC Penney-anchored wing of the mall.  Bad idea.  It took me nearly half my break just to get there, because the tiles on the mall floor were each individually attached to 50-foot bamboo poles that swayed to and fro.  It took every ounce of concentration and focus that I had to keep from plummeting 50 feet or more.  I should've turned back and ordered something delivered, but I was determined to get my enchilada fix.  It wasn't so bad on the way back from lunch, though, and as the day wore on the hallucinations were fewer.  Next day I had another weird experience with the tiles.  On the way to the food court, which is considerably closer than El Chico, I kept having a hard time stepping on the grout lines between tiles.  I simply could not make myself do it.  It was weird, but not nearly as weird as having the tiles swaying independently of one another.  Small victory there, I guess.  Anyway, I got tired of the hallucinations interrupting my work, so I decided to take a friend's advice and switch to taking the Celexa before bed.  This presents its own set of challenges.  If I take it too close to bedtime, the hallucinations are still with me when I get up in the morning.  If I take it too long from bedtime, they make it hard to fall asleep.  There was a lobster in my room one night.  It scurried under my dresser just as I was putting my feet under the covers.  I could even hear it clicking its claws at me.  But if I take the pills just at the right time, I sleep right through the funky weirdness and wake up in a pretty good mood.  I can live with that.  In fact, since I started this new stuff, I haven't wanted to kill myself or anyone else in at least two weeks.  That can't be bad.

Here's The Crystal Method, featuring Filter, to help illustrate with "(Can't You) Trip Like I Do":

Local Tragedies.

The last week was tough.  Too many tragedies.  Earthquake in New Zealand, killing many; unrest in the Middle East, resulting in deaths in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq, I could go on and on.....and closer to home, two 49-year-old men with significant impacts on their communities.
The first, Steve Rinke, Arkansas broadcaster of note, sports fanatic, news scoop and doting dad, died Wednesday.  He was working right up to his last breath, collapsing in the production suite while doing what he loved best.  Tragically, two coworkers tried very hard to revive him while the ambulance crew were on their way, but it was too late for Steve.  He'd suffered a massive heart attack, and it was mercifully quick.  His death was immediately felt among the broadcasting community, almost as acutely as it was felt within Steve's family.  We were his second family.  You just don't realize how hard someone works and how much someone really does until they're not there to do it anymore.  And with Steve, it wouldn't be speculation to say stress played a major role in his demise.  You see, a person really can be spread too thin.  And he sure was....Steve had a morning show on KQBK Kool! 104.7, did news updates, weather updates, special features, and tons of sports programming for the 5-station cluster Pharis Broadcasting.  He'd also been the radio voice of the Southside Rebels.  Most importantly, though, he was a dad.  Every minute he wasn't working (and sometimes even when he was) was spent with his son Connor, whom he cherished and doted on all the time.  He always had some new Connor story to tickle your funny bone, and Connor was never far away from Steve at any given time.  In his studio and office, the minute you walked in you knew Steve was a dad.  His funeral was tough, even though we had a few laughs and saw some friends we hadn't seen in a while.  I left the radio cluster for another station a year and a half ago, but I still considered Steve a friend.  I stay in pretty regular contact with my friends who work there, and it was in this way that I found out what had happened to poor Steve.  What hurt me the most about his funeral was seeing Connor up-close after the service.  He'd grown a lot since I'd seen him last...and he had the beginnings of a moustache!  My goodness, he's the same age as my son T.J.!  Has it really been that long since I'd seen the kid?  It made me cry to see him more than it did to look down and see Steve in his casket.  I hope his family surrounds Connor with all the love they have, because the boy's sure gonna need it to fill in the gaping hole Steve has left behind in his heart.
The second man who passed away was Mr. David Warren, husband, father, and dedicated long-time educator.  He died Thursday after suffering a concussion from a slip-and-fall accident there at the school.  He was my son's 5th grade language arts teacher first, then his 7th grade science teacher.  He was so enthusiastic about science and learning in general.  A great educator, and a fair and good man.  T.J. was friends with and in Gifted/Talented with Mr. Warren's son Rush.  I can't imagine being a 7th-grader and losing your dad.  I told T.J. that Rush is really going to need all the friends he can get right now, and I hope they can all rally around him and let him know they're there for him.  Mountainburg's school system will still be reeling from his loss years from now, I'm sure. 
So, 49 is too young to die.  Everyone please take care of yourselves, and remember not to spread yourself too thin.  Learn to say no once in a while and get some rest.  And exercise.  I'm going to...I'm in my thirties and never thought I'd have health problems, but I can already feel them creeping up on me when I'm not looking.  Now's the time to be proactive about my health.  That said, I think I'll go have a little breakfast with my toddler and go for a walk.

What a terrible day.

 

Daniel Powter's "Had a Bad Day" describes today for me....started out rough (Monday) after a weekend that almost didn't count as a weekend, then gradually got worse.  Yuck.  It's one of those days when you wish you could get a do-over right from the beginning.  I woke up knowing this was gonna be a rough week, since we're pretty much broke...well, beyond broke really.  Spending all the money we spent on my car, another washing machine, and the house payment pretty much tanked us.  

Then I got to work and it was okay for a while...until my Mom called to tell me my Dad was puking his guts up.  I felt bad for the guy, but gee whiz, I had to get stuff done at work, ya know?  I told her to call if he got any worse, expecting him to rest and feel better later on in the day.  I managed to eat my lunch (leftovers...yay...) and get a few more things done, and then Mom called again.  This time she was hysterical.  Dad was puking blood now, and she didn't know what to do.  Instead of telling her to call 911, I told her to calm down and that I'd be there as soon as I could.  I let my friend Carol know I needed to go, and she sent me on my way.  

When I got to my parents', Dad was lying in bed.  He was cold and clammy, sweaty, and was retching and heaving.  It was hard for me to hold it together...I'm one of those people who pukes at the sight, sound or smell of someone else puking.  I did my best, though, because I knew my Dad needed me.  Mom doesn't drive anymore, so it was going to be up to me to get him to a doctor.  I saw the blood my Mom was talking about, and it was more like streaks of blood than pools of it...that was a bit of a relief.  Still, though, he was pretty bad off, so Mom insisted that I go ahead and try to get him seen by a doctor.  

I managed to get Dad to lie down in the back seat of their car and hit the road.  He wanted me to try the walk-in clinic first, so we headed there.  On the way, he puked two more times.  Thankfully, though, we'd thought ahead and brought along a wastebasket with a grocery sack in it.  I pulled into the parking lot at Pro-Med and told Dad to stay put for a minute.  The lot looked really full, so I decided to go in first and see how long the wait was going to be.  Good thing I did...the wait to even get evaluated was over an hour.  With my Dad's history of heart problems, I didn't want to take the chance and wait that long.  Nausea and vomiting are a few symptoms that can present themselves as precursors to heart attacks. 

So I decided that the emergency room would be a better choice, since they triage patients in order of the severity of their problems.  As I was getting back into the car, I misjudged a little and whacked the crap out of my forehead on the door, cutting a gash right over my left eye.  GREAT....icing on the bad day cake.  Nevertheless, off we went to the ER.  I dabbed my cut on a towel we'd brought along until it was only just oozing a bit, and pushed onward.  

The triage nurses got Dad right in and did an EKG and drew blood first thing.  When they determined that he wasn't having a heart attack, they downgraded him a little and allowed some more urgent cases ahead of us.  About an hour later, we were back in a room.  The ER doctor came in and talked to us, then decided to order some X-rays to check for obstructions in his digestive tract.  He got those done, then the nurse came back in and told us his labs showed that he was dehydrated from all the vomiting he'd done.  That meant he needed IV fluids.  The bag got hooked up, and he was given some medicine to help with the nausea.  So we waited.

The doctor came back when the IV drip was finished, and he reported that the X-ray was fine.  He said Dad probably had one of the many stomach bugs that are going around, and that he just needed a little more rest and plenty of fluids.  He gave Dad a prescription for phenergan and something else I've never heard of (for the stomach upset, I would assume), and sent us on our way.  

Dad had perked up in the last hour or so of our ER visit, so I figure the IV fluids were exactly what he needed.  And I'm sure the injection for nausea helped a lot, too.  I got him back home, and managed to get myself home just in time to catch the end of American Dad with my kiddo T.J.  Now I'm off to bed.  I'm gonna try to sleep in a bit, since Daltrey stayed the night at my sister-in-law's tonight.  Wish me luck for a better day tomorrow.  I just hope I don't wake up with a horrible headache to go with the gash and the huge goose-egg on my forehead.

Next stop: self-loathing. All aboard.

As a thinking person, I know that my emotions are ruled by chemistry in my brain.  As a feeling person, it seems to me that they are ruled by things that happen to me that are beyond my control.  I wish my thinking self would push my feeling self out of the way sometimes.  I wish there was a pill I could take every day to even out my moods.  I wish things would get better in my world, so I wouldn't stress so much in the first place.  I wish sometimes that I could just die in my sleep instead of having to wake up and deal with my fucked-up life.  Then I realize just how awful and selfish that sounds, and hate myself even more for thinking that, instead of thinking of how I can improve the lives of those around me.  My kids would benefit from a stable, confident, even-tempered mom, and my husband would benefit from me being able to help him solve problems that arise in our life together. 
I hate myself for being an idiot in years past and screwing everything up in my financial life.  I hate myself for putting my oldest son through hell with me in my search for something real.  I hate myself for putting my parents through hell worrying about me.  I hate myself for breaking Jon's heart the first time we were married.  I should have stayed and helped him through his hard times instead of abandoning him to deal with it alone.  It was wrong of me to treat him the way that I did.  I hate myself for marrying a dimwit who ended up being mean to my kid and me just because I didn't want to be alone.  I'm ashamed of the situations I got myself into during that period of time in my life. 
I hate myself for letting my body go to hell.  When I quit smoking, I replaced it with another vice...eating too much.  I'm hungry all the time.  I hate the way I look right now.  I hate that I don't have the energy or the desire to get off my ass and exercise this extra weight off, and I hate that I like food so much.  Sometimes I just want to cut the fat off my body with a knife.
So there, I admit it...I hate myself.  I don't feel any better now that I've said it, but there it is.

Bad Luck

I must have some really messed-up karma or something, because the last few months have been pretty rough.  First, my old Honda's transmission went kaput on me...and Xmas was really slim.  We got another car for me, this time a Hyundai...and I've been very happy with it.  The price tag, however, eeeeek!  I still haven't been able to come up with the money to pay the sales taxes on the damn thing so I can get it tagged. 
We thought 2011 was going to be better, but it's started out very rough.  Then we got screwed on our taxes and didn't get the refund we were expecting.  Now that Jon and I have both spent an entire year working at our new jobs, we've found out that we "make too much" to qualify for the EIC, which has inflated our tax refunds in years past up to at least $2000, sometimes as much as $3500.  Not anymore.  Now our refund depends solely on the child tax credits and the childcare credit.  It sure didn't amount to much. 
There's more to this story, too....surely you didn't think I was finished yet, did you?  Our youngest has always been a demanding little tyrant, it's true...but he's almost intolerable now.  I know we shouldn't compare our kids with one another, because they're individuals and all that...but good grief, I don't remember the oldest being this way!  Maybe it's me, maybe I've lost patience as I've gained age....maybe it's hormonal....maybe it's the stress from everything else combined with the pressure to be a great mom to a high-strung kid.  I don't know, but something's gotta give, and soon! 

The icing on the cake was today....a complete nightmare of a day.  It started off at 6:30 with the youngest driving me insane, whining about wanting some cereal.  I got him some cereal.  Then he decided he didn't want it.  *Sigh*  Frustrating, yes.  Cause for explosion, no.  Then a couple hours went by and he decided that, after all, he really did want some cereal.  Let the whining begin.  I hesitated at first, and then gave in.  Sure enough, he wasted yet another bowl of cereal.  I sent him to his room and I went to mine.  Mommy needs time-out sometimes, too.  I cried for half an hour.  Then Mother Nature brought me a lovely Valentine's Day present.  Oh, joy.  That explains a lot of my irritability.  Note to self:  Look up PMDD later on WebMD.  We'd planned on going out for dinner, possibly to Chili's, where I could relax with a nice meal cooked and served by someone else, and a margarita strong enough to warrant letting Jon drive home.  But nooooooo...that was not in the cards for today.  We made it about 5 miles, and my beloved Hyundai died in the middle of the road.  Perfect.  Something to do with the fuel system.  Jon thought at first it was a fuel filter, so he went to get one after the tow truck brought the car and him home.  We'd had a friend of ours rescue the kids and me, and I'd started dinner while I waited for Jon.  He got the fuel filter replaced, and of course that wasn't it.  Now he's thinking it's the fuel pump.....oh happy day.  Hopefully the one out in the workshop leftover from a previous vehicle will be a match....wish us luck.  Just not bad luck, okay?  Thanks.

Now, here's Social Distortion, performing "Bad Luck"....

So tired of winter.

Wednesday brought almost 9 inches of snow to my neighborhood....and forced me to work from home.  That's all well and good, but these kids are driving me nuts!  I got out with them and played in it for a little while yesterday, but we're already tired of it.  Thank goodness this weekend is going to be significantly warmer, so all this crap will melt.  This is the second week in a row that our school district has had to postpone PT conferences because of the weather.  It's really getting old!

"Make the Snow Go Away"...a parody song just for the latest snow piles.

Not Enough Sleep

I don't know what the deal is, but lately Daltrey has kept me from getting enough sleep.  I don't think he's having nightmares.  I try to put him down earlier or later than we usually do, and neither way helps.  I'm at my wits' end.  Last night I had myself a tantrum of my own after Daltrey woke up at 2:30 and WOULD NOT go back to sleep!  By the time it was over, all of us were miserable and mad.  I hope tonight's not the same way.  I was sure one tired Mama today at work. 

The Snow is Melting....

All the sunshine yesterday melted most of our snow....but our front yard is pretty shady.  There was still plenty of snow left to make some snow people with my kids and have a family snowball fight.  It was the good, wet kind of snow that sticks really well, rather than the powdery kind we had last week.  I hate winter and everything that goes along with it, but I can deal with it if I can at least have a little fun in it.

Tell Old Man Winter to Kiss My ASS!

I think this little ditty pretty much sums it up.  This is EXACTLY how I feel about winter right now. 
On a happier note, I did come home to a warm house, thank goodness.  It cost us over $300, but we'll be warm for another month or so.  Propane prices went up from $2.24 a gallon to $2.89 a gallon since December 6th.  I don't even think the prices at the gas pump have gone up that much!  Outrageous!  Old Man Winter can just kiss my ass!

New Eye Exam Equipment

The song for today's post is "Doctor My Eyes" by Jackson Browne...

I had an eye exam today at Dang Eyecare & Associates, and they had the most interesting new piece of equipment...a high-resolution digital retinal camera.  The doc showed me the images he took of my retinas and explained all the different things in the photo.  It was probably the most informative and interesting eye exam visit I've ever had.  Of course, my pupils had to be dilated, so I got to drive back to work wearing these flimsy plastic sunglasses.  Now my pupils are still dilated and I look like a crackhead.  Joy.

Edit: Check out the machines they used to test my eyes here... http://www.dangeyecare.com/tech.htm

They left me cold.

I'm dedicating today's song, "Five Finger Crawl" by Danzig, to the Coleman/Titan Propane Company.  They left me cold.  And believe me, I'm gonna make sure they get an earful when I finally get them on the phone....at the very least, they could have an answering machine or answering service to let customers know they're not in the office, with a number for emergencies and the ability to leave a message or something. 

Sick of winter.

Not that I mind the occasional snow day, but this is getting ridiculous.  If it's gonna snow, it needs to just snow big and get it over with.  I hate ice and sleet and freezing rain.  You can't make a sleetman....well, not easily, anyway.  Besides, snowmen are the only real reason to have snow.  If there's not gonna be enough snow to build a snowman, well it might as well not even snow.  Dammit.  We've got some snow, but it's mostly been sleet and ice....and well, that sucks.

Tax Bracket Blues

According to the IRS, Jon and I earned "too much" to qualify for the EIC, even with two kids.  I thought it would be great, both of us working full-time and earning enough dough to get by.  Then we got hit with a garnishment from the NICU bill we racked up when Daltrey was born.  It sure doesn't feel like we make as much as we make.  Hell, 25% of Jon's check is gone before he even gets it.  And of course, we didn't pay in enough to the feds to get a decent refund.  Dammit.  Mo' money, mo' problems....Biggie, Puffy and Mase said it best, and that's today's song.

Burrito Day! Hooray!

Self-explanatory....Thanks to my friend Martin Miranda, my buddy Carol Patterson and I ate a great lunch today.  Yum yum yum!!!

Thanks to Parry Gripp, I have a song to describe it.  =)

State of the Union

I just finished watching President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address.  The main subject of his speech tonight was "Winning the Future".  The general mood of the address was hopeful, and the President seemed to have a solid plan worked out and ready to go.  I feel good about it, and I hope Congress will work with him to help make all the pieces fit together and get our nation back on track again.  Here's a little diddy by Electrolightz called "Future" to illustrate how I felt about tonight's Presidential address.