Susan’s Journal

It’s been almost two weeks since I wrote here. (That sounds like the beginning of an AA meeting, doesn’t it?) I’ve been trying to get into a routine, having good times, having bad times, and generally trying to enjoy life, though it isn’t always easy.

I sit here with my hands on the keys, and there’s a hundred things I could tell you about, but I know that certain people read my journal that would take my words and smear them in my face. So I digress, and I feel censored. Let’s just say I didn’t really enjoy Thanksgiving, and I somehow managed to go all day without a single beer, even though I had two six-packs in the garage fridge.

Friday I am supposed to be getting on a plane to LA to attend a videoblogging-type weekend. Scott is not coming down for the weekend, so even though I have had this planned for months, I suddenly am stuck, even though he is asking his sister-in-law to help. I had a friend offer to babysit for the weekend though, and I had another friend tell me that I can’t give up when things are down–and isn’t that what I told him? he said. I had to stop myself and think about that for a moment. Life goes on, and as they’d say to me in the Air Force, “press.” So dammit, come hell or high water, I’ll be in Los Angeles Friday night.

The happier things in my life usually involve my kids. I have made Tuesday “lunch with a kidlet day,” and I alternate Tuesdays with the kids. This week it was Dylan’s turn, and he asked for KFC popcorn chicken, so I obliged. I just wish they had Teriyaki dipping sauce… oh well.

A good thing that happened recently is that my SXSW panel got picked–though not for a panel, but for something new called a “core conversation.” That’s still good for a free Gold pass, and since I had already paid admission, I’ve given a free pass to someone I know… and no, I won’t tell you who it is. It’s a secret surprise.

A good thing in the future is my date with Billy Joel on December 4th. Well, he’s not exactly my date–he’s way too old for me–but I’ll still be at the concert in Dallas. He’s one guy I never thought I’d get to see again, and I feel so lucky to be going to his concert. I haven’t seen him since “The Bridge” tour, when I was what, about ten? I LOVED that concert, and I’m sure I’ll love this one too.

But see, every time I have an event like that I want to go to, now I have to get a sitter… and for example, that one’s on a Tuesday, a school night… I always feel so guilty asking my neighbors and friends for help with the kids. That’s a hard thing about flying solo. So I’m trying whenever I can to say hey, want me to watch your kids? Does so-and-so want to have a sleepover?

Something I keep thinking would be hilarious is a “Webkinz LAN Party.” If you haven’t heard of Webkinz, you can visit their website here. Basically you buy a stuffed animal, and it comes with a little sealed tag that includes a code. You enter that code into their website, and your stuffed animal comes to life in their website, playing games and earning points and such. The kids LOVE it, and I know quite a few friends who have kids who love it as well. So can you picture, eight kids, crowded around a kitchen table, each on a laptop, clutching a small stuffed animal, and playing online? Just seems hilarious to me.

“Everything’s a story.”

I find myself saying that all the time lately. There’s this new friend I’ve made, and his name is Jason; and the more time we hang out together, the more I find myself saying to him, “Want to hear a story?”

Everything’s a story, I say.

And every song has an image, a mental snapshot, a ten-second short film associated with it. Whenever I hear a song, any song I know, I remember how it makes me feel, or where I first heard it, or what situation it makes me think of. That’s just how I tick.

I started this blog seven years ago (can you friggin believe it?), and when I did, most of what I did was tell stories. I told them because I wanted to remember them, and I wanted them searchable by me, and I wanted details captured–details I knew would fade over time.

So here we are.

Of all the stories I’ve told in the past few weeks, they were all situationally pertinent, but they mostly escape me now, except for the lunch time one (which I actually had to ask to be reminded). We were walking, or running/hopping, down the stairs here at work, when I thought of it.

There are so many stories (especially after beers) that start with “this one time in Korea” much as one might remember the line “this one time, in band camp…” from American Pie. Well, this one time, in Korea…

When we used to go downtown off base at Osan, the bars were often upstairs… and the stairways were very narrow, shoulder-brushing, no handrails, and with steps that are shorter than you would expect American stairs to be. After a few rounds of drinks, one would think you should take these stairs carefully; but for me, as I told my friends, “if I don’t run, I’ll fall…” meaning I had to bam-bam-bam down the stairs, sometimes two or three at a time, and jump past the bottom four or five. It was the only way down without falling.

The only way down without falling…

Any way you roll it, yesterday was all about the kids.

Both had been asking me time and again to come to school and have lunch with them when I work from home, so I talked to them and we agreed I would start doing it on Tuesdays. Next week will be Rainlin’s week.

This week was Dylan’s week, and Tuesday they had Thanksgiving lunch. I showed up with just a minute or two to spare before his lunch, signed in and got a visitor’s pass, and started wandering towards the cafeteria.

On the way, Rainlin’s teacher caught up with me in the hallway to talk about Rain. She’s really smart, she’s doing really well, I’m giving her extra work (so she doesn’t get bored), she was saying… but she is still talking out in class. Her voice’s volume “goes to 11,” so to say. We talked for another minute, and I thanked her for all the things she was trying, and I continued on to the cafeteria.

By this time, I was about ten minutes late, and a lot of second-graders were already eating. I couldn’t pick out my little blond kid from the crowd, so I finally asked a member of the staff for help. He pointed to Dylan’s class’s table, and there he was, tucked neatly between two of his little guy-friends. He already had his lunch, and they were about half done, and the lunch line was long, so rather than wait in line and get a lunch, I just sat down across the table from Dylan to talk to him. He lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw me. I got to meet his two little friends, and a girl that joined us and sat next to him. Are you his girlfriend? I asked, and I got a “NO I AM NOT!” response. Too bad–she’s a cutie. Anyways, the kids yapped, and ate, and I watched, and I snapped a photo or two. This is one of them.

I went home and continued to work from home, but not before my laptop decided to white-screen, make funny noises, and lock up about three times (don’t ask). At about 4pm I gave up and picked the kids up from school.

We headed to the dollar theater a few towns away. The movies are almost-to-DVD, but they are only fifty cents, and the kids love the theater. We settled on Mr. Bean and walked into the theater about five or ten minutes after it started. Unfortunately, the first five or ten minutes apparently explain the whole movie, because I found myself lost as to what exactly was going on. The kids enjoyed it, though, and that’s all that mattered.

Dinner was after the movie, which is backwards from the way we usually do it, but it ends up putting us home earlier. Denny’s has kids-eat-free night on Tuesdays. I had half of a burger that I really didn’t like, and Dylan had a burger with cheese that he did like, and Rainlin had grilled cheese that she did like. The kids were happy, so that was all that mattered.

On the way home, it was already dark, which takes some getting used to after the time change. It’s been unseasonably warm though, and it was probably over 70, so I rode home with the sunroof and the window cracked open. By the time we hit our driveway, both kids were out cold–so cold that I practically had to rattle Rainlin awake and drag Dylan from the car. I enforced the brush-your-teeth rule and sent them to bed. By the time I went upstairs after brushing my own teeth to formally tuck them in, they were both already asleep again… and the kids getting good sleep, especially Rainlin, is really all that matters.

I have my glasses on, sitting in front of my computer, but my eyes still hurt right now. It’s a dry, I-haven’t-slept feeling. A nap would be nice about now.

Friday afternoon I screamed out of the work parking lot right at 5pm. I flew through traffic, called my neighbor because I didn’t think I would get to the kids in time, and ended up pulling into the parking lot with only five minutes to spare, and my kids were the last ones there. I hate that feeling.

At home, I got the kids fed and showered (it gets late quick when you work an hour and a half from home) and tucked into bed. My neighbor came over with a beer for each of us, and she sat and talked for a while before going out for a date with a guy.

It wasn’t an hour later before she was SMSing me and asking if I was home. I told her I was. The date had gone awry, and she needed a shoulder. I hate seeing my friends upset.

Saturday we did a couple chores and made a Wal-Mart run, mostly for cleaning supplies. The kids were a big help–they unloaded the car and help me put everything away

Then we were off again. Rain and Dylan’s cousin had her birthday party almost an hour’s drive from our house. It was a little awkward–what do you call your sister-in-law when you’re not going to be married to her brother-in-law anymore? The kids had a good time, did gymnastical stuff, ate cake, and poked through goody bags. Instead of just leaving, though, we brought the birthday cousin with us. She stayed over our house for a Saturday night sleepover, along with one of the neighbor girls a few houses down from ours. The evening was all estrogen, and then poor little Dylan. He rarely has little boys visit, but there’s always little girls at our house.

We ordered two medium pizzas and ate all but two slices. The kids made blanket tents with the kitchen table chairs. Rain and her cousin played Barbies. The neighbor girl played Tony Hawk on the PS2 with Dylan. At around 8pm, I suddenly found myself exhausted and falling asleep in my Archie Bunker chair; but I forced myself to stay awake for another couple hours. 10pm is bedtime tonight, I told them, and around 9pm I pulled out the futon upstairs in front of the kids’ TV. They watched The Incredibles, and I put all four of them on that futon–two one way, and two the other way. It wasn’t barely an hour later when I went upstairs to check on them and all were asleep. Thank goodness–because I crashed shortly after.

Sunday morning was church. My (sister-in-law?) came over to pick up the cousin, and rather than just going home, she went to church with us. I pulled into the parking lot and called Rain’s coach to double-check what time her indoor soccer game was–it’s at eleven, his wife said. Well, I’m at church, and I’ll probably be a few minutes late, but I’m going to enjoy it with my family. It would be the one week she joined me for church that the pastor talked about all the upcoming projects and went on a tithe crusade. I told her afterwards that service wasn’t always like that… was it wrong to feel bad?

As the offering plates were going away, we ducked out of the service, scooted down to pick up the kids, and the cousin headed home with her mom while I hit the highway for Rain’s soccer game. I MISSED THE EXIT and was pissed at myself for adding the three minutes’ time to her arrival. It ended up not mattering though, because the other team didn’t have enough players and forfeited… so we gave them a couple of our players and scrimaged for the hour clock time we had.

Down the street from the soccer place is an Arby’s–a restaurant I haven’t had a lot of interest in the past few years because they stopped carrying my favorite sandwich–something they call the Arby-Q. I hadn’t had one since I lived in Mississippi–man that was so long ago. So after the scrimmage/game, I took the kids there, and another couple and their kidlet came with us too. We sat and chatted while the kids scoffed down chicken and curly fries.

(This was yesterday’s post, and I never did get around to posting this, so I am now…)

The next morning my dad left for work around 5am, as scheduled. I laid in bed, tired and sad, and listened to him shuffle around the house. When I heard the garage door creaking open, I wanted to run out into the garage and give him a huge hug, but I didn’t. I just laid there. I’m really going to miss him.

I got up, showered, and headed upstairs to spend some time with Mom before leaving. She was taking off around 9am to help her friend, and I figured I’d be heading out about that time. At 8, though, I found myself bored, so I told her I as going to go ahead and take off. She gave me some advice, and I ended up in tears again, and I packed up the car and left. It was another day in the rental car, on the highway, in tears. Things would look up though–I was determined to teach myself to not just let one little thing ruin my day. (Well, not little, but…)

From Maine, I headed down the highway to New Hampshire. My last living grandparent, my mom’s mom, lives there now in a home. The home is about ten minutes from my aunt and uncle’s new house. My sister and niece (see yesterday’s photo) were going to meet me at Grammy’s place, but I was running ahead of schedule, so it gave her and I about an hour to spend together alone. Somehow, by the grace of God, that hour with her was just what I needed to forget about everything for a while. She told me stories, she showed me pictures, it was really nice. I hadn’t seen her in over ten years. She had lived in Florida, but when her daughter across the street from her died, the daughter up in New Hampshire had her move up there. She’s not completely happy, being away from her Florida friends, and being away from the Florida weather; but she does what she needs to do. I would really love to dig through the albums and boxes of photos that I can just imagine she has.

My sister and niece showed up a little while later, and we headed out to lunch. Where do we go? Grammy asked; and I mentioned that I had seen a quaint little downtown area just a little ways away. We drove up the hills, around the corners, past the beautiful autumn orange and yellow leaves, and found the cute little downtown area. I picked a sandwich shop and ended up hitting the jackpot with it. They had wonderful bowls of soups and chowder, and great sandwiches. My niece even got a big plate of Shepherd’s Pie (which I’m sorry, but you can’t get made right anywhere except in New England), and I found myself with a giant scoop of it on a plate in front of me. Everything was delicious, and the restaurant itself was quaint–the light shades above us were terra cotta pots, and the curtain tiebacks were bent spoons.

After lunch, we headed back to Grammy’s so my sister could get her truck, and we toko the two vehicles to my aunt and uncle’s new house. The lady in the car got us a bit lost, but after a phone call to my aunt and a couple simple directions we were back on track.

The new house is nothing short of stupendous. It has a little shed and visitor’s house on the property, and probably about five acres of land. The house itself is probably at least 6,000 square feet, nestled right up against the edge of a beautiful tree-lined lake. The sun sets in the west, across the lake, directly into their back windows. The floors are wood and the back deck is long and beautiful. Besides the house, though, seeing my aunt (and uncle, who had come home from work just to see me) was a treat just in itself–we did the math, and I hadn’t seen them in twenty years or more. In walked their daughter, now 18, a young girl that I’d never met but am related to. It was all a bit weird, and a bit wonderful at the same time. It’s so great to me to have a family that I share memories with, and I’m very glad I took the time out during this trip to visit them all. There are family reunions and other type events that they have, and I hope next year I can head out to at least one or two of them. My cousin, as it were, and my aunt were both mesmerized by my iphone, and they spent forever poring over the photos I had of my two kids, which they have never met. Next summer, I hope to go up in New England in June for a week, and I’ll bring the kids with me then.

My neice had to go to work at four, and I still had a friend left I wanted to see, so we only stayed an hour or two before hitting the road again. My sister headed home, and I headed towards Boston. Susan, whom I hadn’t seen since I lived in Massachusetts myself seven or eight years ago, lives in Waltham, and I stopped by to pay her a visit. She has three cute little multi-colored dachsund-type doggies, and at first they were watch dogs, chasing me away from their mom. After a while they calmed down and forgot about me. I told her about the family I visited and about the goings-on in my life recently. She told me that she had been through very similar circumstances. I keep seeming to be surprised at how many of my friends have been through all this–I am definitely not alone. I took a picture of her with my iphone to add to my address book, and I was off on the highway again.

We found the Build-A-Bear store, the biggest one I’ve ever been to in my life, by the way, and picked out an unstuffed Wally from a bin. I brought it over to the stuffing machine, and a young girl puffed him full of stuffing for me. Then he had me pick him out a heart, and she had me give it a big kiss, but she spared me the theatrics of the rest of the Build-A-Bear experience. Five minutes and thirty bucks later, I was walking out the door with my very own stuffed green monster. I was very happy… but still cold.

Our next quasi-stop was by Cheers. We didn’t actually stop in and have a beer, but I went downstairs into the store and got myself a girly-cheers-T. I like shirts cut for girls–but a lot of times the problem is that my boobs are too big for them. I didn’t try it on that day but hoped for the best.

The next stop was to find a couple good Red Sox World Series souvenir shirts, of course. We bounced back and forth in between two stores for prices and selection. Between the two of us, we picked out a few shirts, and I bought a couple Green Monster black-ink pens for the kids.

We were done, we had what we wanted, and we had enough of the cold. On the way home we stopped at one of my favorite places, Papa Gino’s, (Steve Garfield will be cringing about now) and ordered a pizza. While we were waiting for it to be made, we popped down the street (did I mention it was cold and raining?) to a grocery store for a bottle of sour mix. We piled out of the cold and into my sister’s warm, snuggly house to eat pizza, drink vodka sours, and watch a movie called The Notebook. I’d heard of it a hundred times but had never seen it; and I’m not often enthused by so-called chick-flicks; but I was surprised to find out I really liked it.

Sunday morning was definitely more pleasant, though still as cold. My sister poured water into the coffee maker, and she waited ten or so minutes until the beep-beep sounded, telling her the coffee was ready. It wasn’t exactly ready, however–she had rinsed out the pot and set it on the counter instead of putting it back into the coffee maker, so the coffee was all over the counter and the floor. Want me to go to Dunkin Donuts and get you a big coffee? I smiled. Sure, she said, as she mopped up the mess. I returned to the house
twenty minutes later with a coffee, a soda, a pumpkin muffin, and a chocolate covered donut. We ate our little breakfast, and my sister dozed off on the couch. I woke her up a few minutes later to let her know I was going to hit the road.

My first destination was Providence, RI to meet up with my friend Doug. He’s a videoblogger, and he has a daily show called “Coffee with DougRI.” We had burgers and reubens at a little New England-ish pub, then walked the streets of Providence, talking about nothing in particular. One of our last stops was at a bookstore, where Doug got his infamous coffee and I picked out a mocha frappe thing. He’s a great guy, and I had a really good time.

After a couple hours of hanging out with Doug, he walked me back to my rental car, and I headed on up the highway to Maine. Along the way, Scott called, and we got into a huge argument–well, it wasn’t really an argument, he told me something that got me very, very upset. So I spent most of the drive up to Maine crying, talking to my sister on the phone, and crying some more. My parents called me by chance when I was ten minutes from their place, and I told them I’d like to go somewhere for dinner where I could have a beer. They got all ready to go, and walked out of the house and got into my car when I showed up.

The three of us went to a little sports bar/restaurant place to have steaks and fajitas for dinner. The cowboys were on, but I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention. I got my one single beer and chewed on my fatty steak while telling my parents about goings-on in my life, most of which weren’t pleasant. I did tell them that the kids were doing fine, and that really I’m doing fine, even things aren’t exactly ducky. I was really sad on the inside, and we left about ten minutes before the end of the Cowboys/Colts game, with the cowboys down by about four. I was sure they’d lose.

Back at home, I called back my best friend Emily, who had called me while we were driving home. I told her a little bit about recent events, then told her I loved her and would talk to her another time. Here I was, at my parents’ house, just for the evening, and I felt guilty spending time on the phone. Upstairs, they were watching Desperate Housewives on TV, which I’ve never really watched before. It seemed like every ten minutes was about someone cheating on someone else, and I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to watch that crap, so I went downstairs to make another phone call. I called Scott back and spent a constructive half hour on the phone with him, talking about the things that had made me upset and why, trying to get him to see my point of view. He seemed to. He wants so hard to be friends with me, it seems, but he just can’t seem to understand how bad he hurt me, no matter how many different ways I try to explain it to him. Such is life, I suppose.

I brought a yellow envelope full of photos upstairs to Mom and told her to pick out the ones she wanted. They were school photos of Rain and Dylan, and a couple of Rain’s soccer pictures. Dad headed up to bed and gave me a hug–the last one I’d get while I was there, since he left at 5am to head into work. I gave Mom a hug too and then headed down to bed myself.

It all started Friday at 12:01am. I went to pick up Scott at the airport, but due to a miscommunication I went to the wrong airport, so I had to drive to the other Dallas airport to get him. I was exhausted when I finally got into bed around 1am.

Five hours later, I dragged myself out of bed, got ready for work, and finished packing my carry-on bag. We all piled in my car, dropped the kids off at school, stopped to get gas, then dropped me off at work. Scott kept my car and hung out with the kids for the weekend.

My friend Jason from work dropped me off at the airport around 4pm, and I caught my flight to Boston uneventfully. I followed the crowd to baggage claim and the bus stop for the rental shuttles, and as soon as I stepped outside into the Boston air I realized HOW FRIGGIN COLD it was. I’m sure it wasn’t to the Bostonites, but my teeth were literally chattering. Thankfully, the Enterprise bus wasn’t long, and the driver was very pleasant and had the bus nice and toasty. As the shuttle bus pulled up to the car rental building, two or three people walked out with smiles. “Welcome!” they said happily. “Come on in!” another said. A third shoved a bottle of water at me and said, “Would you like some water?” It was the warmest, pleasantest greeting I’ve ever received at a rental car place. I was very pleased–and simply based on that, and the fact that Enterprise had the lowest rental price, I’d recommend them to anybody. Now my car, it was an economy–a Ford Focus, which I hated–but that’s not their fault, I’m just a cheap bastard (and I wanted good gas mileage).

I work with some guys in Argentina, and they came here to the states to visit a few months back. When they did, they got a rental car with a GPS in it. They called it “the lady in the car” because the lady was always telling them where to go. Since then, I’ve bought a GPS of my own, so I have a lady in my car now. When I go on a trip, I take it with me, so I don’t have to spend twelve bucks a day and rent one from the rental car company. It’s kind of like owning bowling shoes. Anyways, the lady in the car told me how to get to my sister’s house, and honestly I didn’t pay attention to the route it took me, and apparently it kind of took me the long way. My sister called me when I was still twenty minutes away from her house and asked me where I was. I told her, and she asked, “Why did you go that way?” Well, the lady in the car told me to. The rest of the time I was there, for the route to my sister’s house, I always did “find alternate route” to take the way she had suggested–it was a lot easier.

By the time I got to her house, it was around 11pm, but we were both too excited to sleep. We stayed up for a couple hours and talked about all kinds of things, and it was just so nice to be with family. I don’t have any family in Texas, and though I love Texas, I’m realizing it’s kind of sad to not have family around. I love my sister, and even though we are thirteen years apart, we have a lot in common. I finally gave up and collapsed for the night.

The next morning, Saturday, it was cold and raining. Did I mention that it was cold? My sister and I went to a late breakfast at a little restaurant near her house. We ordered about four people’s worth of food and ended up taking half of it in three to-go boxes. It was so good, but a person’s got to know when to say when.

My sister suggested we stop by her daughter’s (my neice’s) new place, and we stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way to bring her a coffee (and to get my sister one too). Dunkin’ Donuts are on every street corner in New England, but in Texas there’s a novelty–I only know of one in the ten-town radius that I frequent.

My neice shares her townhouse with her boyfriend and another roomate. It’s a cute little space with the rooms painted all kinds of pretty different earthy colors and a big black mutt taking possession of her couch. His name’s Molson, and I actually got a video of him singing. My neice took me on the grand tour of the townhouse, and I really liked it–especially the top level, where you can see the roof. There’s this window about three feet up the wall, and there is a set of about four stairs that go up to that window. Is this weird to anyone else but me–stairs to a window? It’s a fire escape thing, we guessed; but I admitted that if my ass was on fire I’d just be jumping out the window–no need for stairs.

After spending some time with my neice (and bringing her our leftovers from breakfast to enjoy) my sister and I decided to head out to Boston. There’s a Build-A-Bear inside Faneuil Hall that you can go in and make a stuffed Green Monster. As I’m sure you can imagine, I had to have one. Did I mention that it was friggin cold–and raining? We circled the neighborhood like vultures for about five minutes before we found the parking garage. Once inside, I stuffed my wallet and phone in the pockets of my jacket, and put my purse and the lady in the car into the trunk. We headed down the elevator and out the glass doors of the garage towards the shopping district across the street. It is a group of stores down a long corridor that is open-air, which stank considering the weather; however, I guess it could have been worse, because it wasn’t pouring.

Things can always be worse.

Sometime, somewhere in the past, I have had a post with that name before.

Anyways, tonight I’m flying into Boston to hang out with family, and tomorrow I’m hoping to meet a friend of mine in Rhode Island named Doug. I told him I had a song I wanted to sing for him, and I slowly started to realize I didn’t remember all the words. Here they are, in all their splendor:

there’s an old percolator sitting by the stove
sitting in the kitchen in ohio
they can’t smell the coffee because it’s gone cold
the kitchen’s on fire but neither one of them knows

wake up.

Doug’s vlog show is called “Coffee with Dougri,” so I thought this would be an appropriate song. I haven’t listened to Billy Falcon in a long time, mostly due to some things that took place, but I have to overlook things that have happened and enjoy the songs for what they are, and the memories they hold for me.

Oh–and this blogging once a day all month long thing… as usual, I’m a day late and a dollar short… I wonder if it counts if you start on the second day…