Telling it like I see it
so don't ask if you don't want to know
I'm siiihiiihiick
Dec 21st
I can’t stop shivering though I’m wearing long Johns and in bed under my heaviest comforter. I’m Dayquilled cuz I’m out of Nyquil.
Can’t stop coughing and my throat feels like fire. My chest feels like Smallchild is sitting on it and I can’t get a decent breath.
Wanna pass out. Wanna call paramedics. Want this damned medicine to kick in.
This typing thing is actually helping. Takes my focus off my breathing and slows it down. Stops the panic.
Hey the shivering stopped. Still cold tho. Getting sleepy.
Is this the hini flu?
Hope tomorrows a better day.
trying to post from droid
Dec 20th
Today was a great day…
Other than my laptop being completely fucked and pulling something in my lower back.
Took Kira to breakfast with Santa.
Got some of the outside decorating done.
Went to another “Slumber Party” and didn’t spend a dime.
Went to karaoke at Kirk’s with good friends.
Made it home safe.
Also got the car checked and oil changed this week for $5.
Found the free computer here at the complex to use.
Sent the money to Mom that I owed her.
Got hit on at Kirk’s by some guy who I probably wont call.
He seemed like an OK guy, just jobless and living in downtown Mesa, which usually sends up a “halfway house” vibe. There’s a pretty large contingent of pedophiles and other sex offenders living in downtown Mesa. But the attention was a little ego boosting.
G’night.
The Indomitable Brandy
Dec 14th
I normally don’t mention people in my blog that I like unless I clear it with them first. People I don’t care about are fair game. And when I didn’t have a chance to chat much with my other niece I didn’t really want to mention her here. But apparently I hurt her fweelings so here she is:
I barely know her. Too many years went by with that disconnection with my sister, and Brandy and Brittany never got along, and well… I have a soft spot for Brittany because she lived with me for years and that’s not really fair to Brandy so here she is all grown up and being a sweet as a tater to me. Poor kid got the short end of the stick from her Mother’s family because most of us can’t stand her Father. That ain’t right.
Hi Brandy! We should talk more now that you’re actually all grown up and a human in your own right. You turned out pretty cool.
Love actually,
Crappy Aunt Debbie
Vacation: What Else We Did
Dec 14th
Spent a couple of days at Dad’s until I just couldn’t stand the fleas anymore. Poor old guy. For whatever reason they don’t bite him so he didn’t notice how bad it was. I have flea bites on both legs and arms and across my chest. And Casey had to repair the toilet in the back bathroom too. Dad never uses it so the old thing just crumbled from the strain of all of us. Apparently all the guts just disintegrated.
- Dad is watching Hannity. I get extra points for keeping my mouth shut.
We’ve never agreed politically. We just don’t talk about stuff because every time he opens his mouth I cringe and laugh and he’s so damned serious about his opinions! Republicans.
We spent a couple of days at Mom’s too. She mentioned she had a TV in the trunk of her car so Casey tried to install it for her, but she decided that flat screen wasn’t big enough so they traded up. This comes from a woman who is so old school she never even had a VCR. Oh right, there was a new DVD player to hook up too. And what is the only DVD she bought in preparation for it?
- Someone kill me. Mom is jamming to Gaither Gospel Hour Christmas in the Country. Seriously, how did I come from these people?
Mom likes gospel. When the fuck did that happen?
We went back to Dad’s to finish up fixing the toilet:
- My father has provided my children with moonshine. Things are getting more interesting.
Strange night. Dad was uptight that I’d posted that and I tried to explain that anyone who follows me doesn’t care and would cheer them on and that nobody is going to hunt him down for breaking the law. Moonshine law? Who the fuck cares? Casey and Ginnie weren’t impressed by it anyway so after one drink we left. No, I didn’t try it.
As tourists, we went to the beach and watched these guys try to dig out a backhoe that had tipped over. Kira played (hands and feet) in the cold gulf water until she turned blue and we finally left. The next day we went to Mote Marine and saw sharks and turtles, jellyfish and a dead giant squid, manatees and dolphins. Kira’s convinced the dolphins were talking to her. Driving to Mote we passed some sand sculptures that had been there a while. Lots of pictures in my flickr feed so check those out.
Did another elderly breakfast thing. You have to do one of these sometime. You sit at long tables and eat stale donuts while they do park announcements, introduce visitors, sing some old songs and raffle off prizes. Three of them. Casey won $7 and Ginnie and I both won SBA dollars. Luck of the draw! Quaint. Casey went out to Bingo with Mom one night and to a casino on another.
The kids think Mom is great! She’s funny and nice and pays for everything, but they don’t have the history I do. Can I forgive and forget the years of verbal and physical abuse, being told everything I do is wrong and stupid, the sarcasm… and just accept her as she is now? I don’t know. My sister holds a grudge like nobody’s business but when it’s convenient for her she acts like nothing happened. I don’t think I hold a grudge as much as hold people accountable for their actions. If they own up I’m all about forgiveness. Food for thought.
Bill is the same, blows up in nastiness at the slightest provocation, hates black people, yells at Mom over his own inadequacies, etc. She keeps saying this or that food will kill him and I keep suggesting she let him eat whatever the hell he wants, preferably that which will kill him, hello?
- Raining again. The so-called sunshine state has sucked for sunshine this whole trip.
- Son, convinced Krystal is White Castle, has sidelined us in a cheeburger frenzy. After tasting, I’m not impressed.
- Interesting name for a salon: Whack-A-Do.
- 24 miles and we’re in Louisiana. Kids are debating New Orleans on a Friday night. It’s 40 degrees and raining so I vote no.
- 100 miles to Texas. Can’t wait! I just LOVE Texas! /sarcasm
- fucking Texas has the women’s potty locked for the night.
- Found potty. Switched drivers. At mile marker 822 now. *sigh*
- I’ll be passing @aranel13‘s house in a minute, too early again. Should we kill time til she wakes or fuggedaboudit?
So we left for home on Friday. Casey and Ginnie wanted to stay longer but Kira and I were done and it’s my goddamn car. We tried to meet up with @aranel13 on the way back through the Houston area but apparently she sleeps until noon or something. Hey, it was 8am this time instead of the 6am on the way out but still not late enough. We stopped at the Alamo for a while but drove straight through the rest of the trip.
- I miss my friends. Almost out of Texas and should be home late tonight.
- 50 miles to AZ! So tired. Love having multiple drivers.
- Quick shopping stop for fireworks at Borderline Outlet. Guy closed early so I called him and he reopened. Yay Droid!
- Hello Eloy. You look familiar. I do believe we are getting close to home.
- Home.
Vacation: The Meat
Dec 14th
When we dropped Ginnie at Brittany’s apartment, Scumbag wasn’t there. B looks like shit and ranted about her mother and step-father and even my Mom and how everyone is against her and she doesn’t even understand why they took her son. When they came for him she specifically told them she didn’t want her mother to have him and yet he went straight there, so Beth must have started the whole process and knows people and so forth. She’s always been such a drama queen. I don’t believe she’s in any real danger, she just blows shit out of proportion.
One of the first things I told B was that I wouldn’t lie to her and I wouldn’t lie for her and that she needed to stop lying to herself. She was responsible for her decisions and that she needed to get her shit together. I told her we were there for her but there wasn’t much we could do unless she was ready to make big changes.
And because Scumbag was supposedly gone for the weekend, I let Ginnie stay there.
When we went to my sister Beth’s house she had a houseful. Her in-laws were there, her step-daughter Mandy and her guy and their baby, plus my BIL Mark – who I’ve never liked. 
There was this whole polite civility about the whole visit. Beth joked and chatted with us like there hadn’t been YEARS of silence from her. Not much about Brittany but it was obvious that they think Scumbag is the entire problem and B has fallen under some sort of control. So we just focused on Damien and spent an hour getting to know him. He and Casey really hit it off.
Throughout the week we did end up meeting Scumbag Dan. After all the talk about how mean and hateful he is and how intimidated they seem I was surprised as hell by how little he is. Dude is like 4’2″! Wheeny! But apparently a bit on the crazy/stalker/creepy side and it’s “what he’ll do” if they cross him. Casey and Ginnie spent way more time around him than I did. But we all came to the same conclusion: Nothing can happen until Brittany dumps his ass and works on getting her son back. She’s deluded herself that everyone is against her because that’s what he says. And slapping Dan around – because he doesn’t deserve a real man’s punch – won’t do a bit of good until B decides to leave him. I managed to make a couple of snide comments about how a REAL MAN takes care of his children and gee, maybe getting a real job instead of spending hours trying to get over on the system or applying for SSAN and grants because he has sooooo many issues. Yeah, mental ones. But he didn’t say shit to me and I didn’t get a chance to get all up in his face. Pity.
And Damien (or Gabriel as Beth and Bunch insist on calling him) is fine where he is.
We spent another hour at Beth’s on our way out of town and the baby’s Ad Litem was there as well. I did mention a few major points that B had like she wants her parents drug tested because supposedly Mark abuses pain killers and I know my sister has had her own issues with drugs over the years. I also mentioned that B is confused by the rules and what she has to do because Scumbag rattles shit in her ear almost constantly. STFU Dan seems to be what everyone wants to say.
I wish we could have stayed longer and that I had somewhere to dump Kira so we could get all confrontational. It’s hard to start a fight with her underfoot and NO WAY would she stay with Mom or Dad. Personally I think Dan is all bullshit and if we had more time and could lean on him we could get him out of the picture pretty easily. Then again I didn’t see him go off so maybe he is fucking crazy. Either way, it’s up to Brittany. I told her when we left everyone in her family loves her and is trying to help and to stop burning those bridges just because they’re not doing it the way SHE wants.
Whatever.
Vacation: Nawlins and Finally Florida
Dec 14th
So Friday morning we decided that as a treat for getting out of Texas we’d stop in New Orleans for lunch. Again with a couple of taps on my new phone we were directed right to where we wanted to go. Someone had suggested a nice restaurant around the corner from Bourbon Street, but we opted for the much cheaper pizza place next door.
Casey managed to find a drink and Ginnie and I enjoyed some of the old architecture before Kira got bored and started getting into trouble. Time to go.
- Stopping in Pensacola for the night. Can’t stands me car no more.
- Spent the night in Pensacola. Now if I can get these lazy slugs moving. I’m thinking about a more scenic route today.
- Kira practicing her evil laugh in Destin FL.
She’d been so good the whole time in the car. On the radio which was actually turned down pretty low because we were talking, someone did a muahahaha. Then Kira entertained herself for a good half hour muahahahaing to herself til she got it just right. We couldn’t stop laughing.
- There should be a law that it can’t be freezing cold at the Beach.
- For some odd reason this package of unscented baby wipes smells like old dead Budweiser.
- SmallChild has decided the lyrics should be “We will we will rock n pooh rock n pooh!”
So I’d been stupid. Really stupid. We discussed taking the scenic route down the Gulf side instead of staying on the Interstate. There are some beautiful little towns on that route around Panama City and Destin. It took us WAY longer than I had anticipated and then once we gave up it took even longer to find our way back to the highway. And the weather was horrible – pouring rain and fog. We got into Bradenton around midnight and Brittany begged us to let Ginnie stay with her so we had to find her place, drop Ginnie off and got to Dad’s quite late for him.
Got up and met Dad’s girlfriend Bonnie. I really like her. Then we all went to Sunday breakfast at Dad’s Eagles Club and then on to my sister’s to see the reason for the trip in the first place, Damien Gabriel.
Vacation: Texas Sucks
Dec 13th
This is gonna run long. I didn’t have internet for more than a few minutes the entire trip and there’s only so much I could do on my DROID.
- Aaaand we’re off! 8:58 AM Dec 2nd
- GirlChild driving now. 300 miles to El Paso.
- Stopping for dinner in Van Horn TX.
Lousy place, Papa’s Pantry. We walked in and though the place was fairly full, nobody on staff even came over towards the door. Do you seat yourself or wait there like idiots? Finally we were waved into a dark corner where the overhead lights didn’t work. Yeah, yeah we should have left, but it’s fucking west Texas and stops are few and far between. Slow unfriendly service, lousy food, unclean bathroom.
- Texas sucks part 3: GirlChild gets us pulled over for speeding. Cop searches all of us and unpacks the car.
This was ridiculous. It was like he was bored or something. There was hardly anyone on the road and he came zipping up behind her when she was passing a truck so she changed lanes without signaling just to get out of his way. So he popped her for that, for going 79 in a 65 and because I didn’t have a light on my license plate – I totally didn’t realize that one. He put Ginnie in his car, Casey off between the cars and had me in front of mine while poor Kira is shrieking in the car in confusion. We were all polite (my kids were raised watching Cops) and he still searched the car and then started pulling everything out of the trunk. And it was frikking COLD out there, snow on the ground and dark as hell. Asshole.
- #texassucks pt 4: After successfully dodging a dozen deer Son runs over some pteradactyl’s dinner.
Too funny, I was dozing and could hear Ginnie and Casey mentioning deer every few minutes when Casey suddenly swerved and hollered “What the FUCK was that?” and Ginnie was howling. He thinks it was a giant owl and I (who didn’t see a thing) expect it was more likely a vulture but either way it was trying to drag something huge across the road and Casey hit whatever the roadkill was. We laughed for hours over that one.
- #texassucks Unfortunate HOV turn dumped us into downtown Houston. Light rail stations look similar to ours.
We couldn’t figure out the HOV thing at all. There needs to be a Just Passing Through lane on interstates. Their HOV on the I-10 had three different acronyms with various tolls and we couldn’t decide if it was OK to use then figured what the heck why not, except at some point it emptied into downtown Houston street level. Thanks to my handy dandy DROID we turned the GPS/Google Navigator and got right back out again.
Hey big city sign people, make sure outsiders can figure out what your signs mean. Here in Phoenix that whole I-10 / I-17 / 51 / airport thing is completely confusing and I LIVE HERE. Especially since you can’t rely on direction as the left of the V actually goes north before it goes west while the right of the V goes west before it takes you north and crosses over the road you should have taken to continue west way back there! Anyway…
- Fuck Texas! We’re outta here!
Here’s where we started Day two.
Be Our Guest!
Dec 13th
Do yourself and your guests a favor. Seriously… do it tonight. Be a guest in your own home. Whatever you provide for guests, that’s all you get.
Where do your overnight guests sleep? Do you put them in your kid’s room, have them suffer the couch or are you lucky enough to have a guest room? You should sleep there for the whole night. Make sure the bed is sleepable. Make sure there’s no strange odor or sound (clocks Mom?) they can’t control. Make sure the light switch is obvious and above all else, make sure the room isn’t infested with fleas (thanks Dad) because you never use it.
Then there’s the bathroom. Use whatever bathroom your guests are using. Can they easily find spare rolls of TP if they’re stuck? Have spiders made a home in those spare rolls because the guest bathroom is seldom entered? Use the shower. All showers have idiosyncrasies, but does yours require a manual for use? Does the shower shoot every direction but down like my Dad’s? Or is the water pressure non-existent, relying completely on gravity like Mom’s?
And another thing, do you keep stuff in your cupboards or fridges in packages originally designed for something else? Like is that old milk jug filled with plain water or moonshine, cuz they seriously look the same. You might want to label your questionables when you’ve new people around.
We all want our guests as comfortable as we can make them. Be your guest tonight so you can catch those problems before your real friends and/or family do.
If I hear one more time “Well, we never go in there” or “I never use that room,” I’m gonna scream. It’s Florida people, nature will take over if you don’t WORK to keep it at bay.
There's a big ugly.
Dec 2nd
There is. A big ugly as we call it, means something ugly happened and we need to talk about it, or deal with it, or bury it in the backyard.
It’s really personal, so if you’re just a random Debbie’s kinda funny reader ya might wanna skip this one.
Ready?
A couple of months ago Ginnie mentioned that Brittany (my niece who lived with us for a couple of her emotional teenage years) told her a big ugly. That Buck had touched her (at least once) inappropriately. That’s about all I got… you know getting information second-hand isn’t something you act upon. My first thought was bullshit, then well… maybe who knows right? Thousands of spouses always say NEVER! So I suggested to Ginnie that she maybe ask her girlfriends in a round-about way if anything he did made them uncomfortable. Other than him just being himself; he always made the kid’s friends nervous.
And then it festered in the back of my mind and I mentioned it to a few close friends.
So… Casey and Kira and Ginnie went to their father’s for Thanksgiving. Apparently the liquor was flowing freely and when Ginnie’s boyfriend Roger went to pick her up TheNewWife kept him busy chatting and then told him to leave, meanwhile Buck kept Ginnie distracted until she was so drunk she passed out.
Then sometime in the middle of the night he crept in and groped her. His own daughter. Complete what the fuckage. She said she pretended to be asleep and kind of moved away and waited a few minutes til he left the room. Then went out and told him she needed to go home RIGHT NOW. He said he was too drunk to drive (which come to find out he was) but she didn’t care and he brought her home.
What the hell happened to the man I married? This person, this THING he is now is so not anything like he was then. I could have never imagined he would act this way. I don’t understand it. FUCK blaming it on the drink. Does the constant drinking just make it easier for him to violate common decency?
So we don’t really know what to do. She’s not going to raise a stink about any of it. She’d rather just never get anywhere near him again than be all confrontational. And with it being all she-said and he’ll-deny…
I know you read just about everything I post, so here’s your head’s up. If I ever see your miserable face again you son of a bitch, I’ll scratch your fucking eyes out. Fuck with my kids again? I’ll pay someone to cut your dick off and feed it to you. I have lots of friends now, someone will know someone. And the moment I have some sort of proof or evidence or something other than her word against yours, your ass is fucked you PRICK! Vengeance is mine sayeth the Mom. I hope you rot in your bottle. All that drinking can’t be doing much for your new wife… that OR your tiny useless dick… but do you have to get your thrills from your own daughter? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Road Trip!
Dec 2nd
Yup, we leave tomorrow morning… er, as I notice the time I should say we leave later this morning. As soon as traffic clears, like 9ish. Casey, Kira, Ginnie and I. Max has decided not to go, which doesn’t surprise me. He’s supposed to be looking at houses later this week.
So I’ve been mostly packed all day, most of the food/drink is taken care of, and I got my new DROID phone today so I don’t need a map anymore. I’m just waiting on everybody else.
This should be fun! No really, we’ve always been a road trip family.
Should be fun.
I’ll check in. Or you can monitor my twitter page for updates.
