As I sit here in the silent dark with no music playing and the light from my television that isn’t broadcasting anything but an annoyingly blue screen, all I can say is, “This was the scariest, most emotionally gut-wrenching day I’ve had since I don’t even know when.” Yes, I’ve had scary days, and; yes, I’ve had gut-wrenching days. Having both at the same time has worn me the fuck OUT. It’s not the “good” kind of worn out where you can’t walk straight without looking a bit off and hoarse from all those vocalized “prayers.” This is the really bad kind of worn out where someone or someones you love is in imminent danger of death, is finally retrieved, but only after absolute panic and lots and lots of prayers to God. Now, take that and multiply by two and you’ll have the first reason I’m worn out.
I had to start up iTunes and take a swig of bourbon and Coke to tell this story. Mind you, if you’d told me a month ago that I’d be drinking bourbon, I would have laughed at you. However, this seems to be a time of dramatic change in my life. Why not change my drinking habits, too? So the Absolut is sitting in a bottle as I’ve almost gone through a sampler pack of Jim Beam. Whatever the drink and the music (Gipsy Kings), it is entirely possible this post will be floating in a sea of swearing. Sensitive eyes should leave while they have a chance. I’ll wait.
. . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . Long enough. Here’s what happened.
By now, anyone who’s been reading for a while knows that my mother died recently. She and I shared a home–when she wasn’t trying to throw me out because I’d rather not talk to her when I’m furious for fear I’ll tell the truth that should not be told to someone who you’re not really sure is all there, or; when she’s just generally pissed off and accused me of disrespecting her for any of a zillion reasons I can’t even think about now. Don’t get me wrong, I truly deeply loved my mother, but I don’t kiss anyone’s ass, including hers. It’s just not who I am. I’d rather say nothing than something that’s going to lead to God-only-knows-what. Mom didn’t work that way, although she should have gotten a clue or dozen even before I was born because, although I didn’t know it, my father did the same thing, I’m sure to keep from wringing her neck. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the bastard that was her second husband/predatory pedophile did the same thing. This will become important toward the end. I just had to get it out now.
Due to my mother’s death, I have been left to try to keep the house running without the electricity, water, cable, Internet, phone lines, etc. being shut off. I have purchased exactly one indulgence: the aforementioned Absolut and the Jim Beam sampler. I guess that’s two, but right now, $5 for the sampler is chicken feed compared to what I need. I suggested that my cousin’s boyfriend, Chad, move in. I’ve got the room and he was in real need. Besides, I knew my cousin, nicknamed “Mickey,” the child I wish I’d had, would more or less live here too. I honestly didn’t know how much I needed another person, especially a male person, in this house. It’s as though there’s life here now and it feels good to come in knowing that I’m not going to get thrown out and that there are people here who miss me when I’m gone. Chad cooks, which is beyond cool. Mickey kind of tries, but she’s messy as hell! I just about lost my mind the first time I saw the kitchen after she’d made brownies. Let’s just say that I left notes where they could not be missed. It was eventually worked out, but the more I learn about Chad, the more I know he and I needed not only each other, but Mickey, too. He has definitely been fucked over by his mother, a woman who should be rounded up and sterilized if she’s still in her childbearing years. His sister who, I am very sure, is reacting, and has reacted all her life, to being emotionally abused at least as much as Chad, isn’t much better. The situation became intolerable. I’d met him when Mickey brought him over a few weeks ago, therefore, I was comfortable with him. The girls love him to pieces. They can see he’s really a great kid in need of gentle encouragement and people who believe in him. I think he’s been here two weeks, (but it could be slightly less) and I consider him family. I am one very fierce C.A.B. when it comes to my family.
I lost my iPhone and am in a quiet panic over that because it has more than enough info to ruin my life, including some song lyrics I haven’t filed with the Copyright Office, passwords and all sorts of shit. Now, you’d think that I, being a reasonably intelligent woman, would have purchased AppleCare or some sort of package through either Apple or AT&T that would allow me to at least find out where the damn thing is. Uh uh. Nope. Trying to remember my movements when I went to bed quite happily and deservedly stoned off my gourd was fairly impossible after spending hours and hours on the phone with various creditors who haven’t been paid since Mom died because she was way under-insured and what there is is coming at a snail’s pace, not to mention I just haven’t had the time or emotional wherewithal to fill out forms. In addition, I’ve been so focused on the house I really did forget a few creditors or thought they’d been held at bay. Nope! The bank is threatening foreclosure although I told those sons-of-snakes that she’d died and that I really needed to see her accounts to find a policy I’m fairly sure she had that would help a little. I brought the documents I was told, only to have some damn bank manager say they weren’t the right documents all without once losing his smile or ever offering a word of condolence. I had to leave the bank because I was planning on punching his smiling face, which, of course, wouldn’t do anything except make me very happy. Be that as it may, it is clear that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing at Key Bank National Association.
I forgot to mention that Chase Bank is trying to repossess the mini van that holds my electric wheelchair and a portable ramp giving me just enough of a grade to get said wheelchair in the back of the mini van. It won’t fit in a sedan or an SUV. Without a van, I am pretty much housebound with no life and often no way to even get to my doctors’ appointments, of which I have many. Yes, there is a paratransit service, but they need 24 hours’ notice, which is often impossible.
I have but one question: When am I allowed to stand still without the weight of my world on my shoulders long enough to just be a grieving daughter? No one gives a rat’s ass about that.
I spent Monday through Wednesday nearly non-stop on the phone. I actually lost my voice Wednesday trying to cajole someone–ANYONE–to give me a break. I made headway in a couple of places and went to see my shrink and FedEx Office (aka Kinko’s) with a briefcase filled with papers and notes on my iPhone about who needed what. Thankfully, I still had the damn phone at the time. Anyway, I stood and copied my little debit card out, trying to match each document with a recipient. Then, I got a call from another cousin checking on me. We’re all becoming a family of orphans and it’s breaking our hearts. This branch was always a bit snooty, but between one of my two great aunts’ death and my mom’s death two weeks later after being 86 years old a whole five days, we’re coming together like I’ve never seen. I called a truce between the smaller group I was fighting with and had been for years and let everyone know that I expected them to do the same or I’d call them out in public and kick some ass–verbally, of course. š The only miscreant is someone I mentioned in another post and is most assuredly a waste of my time and valuable air.
I remember having the phone when I got in the van after Kinko’s because I decided I wanted to hear one of my playlists instead of the country station I’d listened to on satellite. I remember driving out of the Kinko’s lot and going to McDonald’s because dinner wouldn’t be ready soon. That’s all I remember other than coming home. I didn’t realize that my phone was missing until I’d eaten my MickeyD’s and gone upstairs, shortly followed by my cousin with some really great dessert. As I noticed making less and less sense, I threw them out, closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until Friday morning. It was then that I got that, “OMFG!!!” feeling about my iPhone. I searched the bed linen, because I am forever losing that damn phone with a dark blue cover in my dark blue sheets. No joy. I tried to remember what I had on with only partial success. I remembered what pants I wore, but not what shirt, whether the shirt had a pocket and whether I was wearing a jacket, which I kind of doubt, but can’t say for sure. Panic was setting in big time, but I swallowed it and went into the garage, searched the floor, went to the van, searched the driver’s side because I couldn’t get over to the passenger’s side, but I know I’ve lost all sorts of things over there.
Acknowledged, but not watched in my search, the girls followed Chad and I into the garage. In the process of searching as much as I could of the passenger seat, some parts of my anatomy that are usually trussed up within an inch of their lives apparently landed on the garage door opener. Out went both Micki (the bitch) and Snippet. Berry walked out, but was not in any way interested in leaving her happy home, thank you God. In the meantime, I heard tires squealing, didn’t see either of the two reprobates and took a small sigh of relief. I closed the garage door and ran into the house to see if Micki had allowed herself to be caught, which, thankfully (Thank You, God!) she did.
A small diversion, but this is still fairly well amazing to me. I have tried to pick the adult-sized Micki up many times. She weighs between 50 and 55 lbs., especially since I’m giving her the amount of food she should have been getting all along and taking her treats into consideration as well. But when Chad picks her up and carries her with his arm around her chest and the rest of her facing front, she looks completely nonchalant. In truth, she looks like she likes it! I just shook my head, happy that at least one of the two hoodlums was safe and rolled out of my driveway in search of Snippet.
All of the streets south of mine on do weird curvy thingies. There isn’t a straight street that will reliably take you where you want to go if you don’t know the neighborhood. As it happens, as long as I’ve lived in here, I haven’t really explored more than a couple of side streets south of my house. I can go on the street directly behind mine, which is what I needed in my search, and pretty much tell where I am in reference to my own street. I called and called, but didn’t see Snippet. I wanted to cry so badly, but realized that wouldn’t help her since I had to accept she really was lost. She hasn’t lived here long enough to know much of anything about this street. I live on a main boulevard where it’s nothing to see cars going 45 or even 50 MPH. Hell, I have been known to put the peddle to the metal here. A young kid was about to walk in back of the van as I was pulling out of my driveway for the second time. I asked him if he’d seen a little white dog and he had. When he told me where, believe me, the pedal damn near went through the floorboard. I didn’t see her where I thought and I had to choose whether to go straight or turn right, left or make a U-turn. Something told me to make that U-turn and I am so glad I did! There she was, running back to my street after running, very lost, from one of the side streets just where the kid said she was. I would have missed her if not for pure luck.
I threw my car into PARK with the hazard lights on and got out of the car, across traffic that didn’t want to stop. I didn’t care. I had to get my baby. There was nothing more important at that moment, even my own life and health. I called to her without watching the traffic on her side of the street. She almost didn’t make it, but she came to me on the boulevard strip. I caught her by the collar, but she struggled and I was afraid she’d get away, so I pounced on her regardless of what that meant we landed in. (Boulevard strip, other dogs/owners, daily constitutionals, get it?) I held on to her tightly and closely. I couldn’t get up without at least one hand and they were both making sure she didn’t take off again. A lady passed in her car, saw that I was down and holding a small dog and asked if I was OK. In a rare bit of humility, I told her that I’d just found my lost dog, but I couldn’t get up while I was holding her. Two teens got out of her car and took Snippet so I could get up. The adrenaline was pumping so hard and my heart beating so fast and loud that I almost lost it as the girls carried Snippet to the car and I got all of the windows rolled up. Would you believe that I forgot how to roll my own windows up from the driver’s side? I’ve had the van since ’08!
I still don’t have my iPhone, though I had AT&T lock it in case anyone tries to use it. I need to find my phone, but there is no way in hell it’s worth a hangnail on any of my furbabies. It is only because of them, in various configurations, that I have life. Every time I think about truly ending my life, especially since I now know what will and won’t be enough to do the deed for real instead of ending up in the ER with Narcan in my stomach and then up to ICU, I think of my girls. At most, I have someone who’ll take Micki. There are several who’d take Snippet, but Berry would be left out in the cold. I can’t have that. She, alone, has kept me alive so many times I can’t count them. She’ll be 12 around Thanksgiving and she is most definitely someone for whom I give thanks. She always knows when I need her. Mom and I used to share her. Mind you, Berry could do whatever the hell she wanted whenever she wanted. However, if I expressed to her that I missed her the night before, she’d sleep with me that night and Mom the next night. She’d keep this up until she sensed that I didn’t mind if she slept with Mom for a while. Now, I have her full-time. Snippet is with Chad and Mickey tonight/this morning while Berry, Micki and I sleep in my bedroom.
I’m going to leave you with something of a musical discovery and recommendation. Jason Aldean’s CD My Kinda Party was released in late 2010, but I’m new to country and am, therefore, just discovering him. I’ve got a couple of tracks and will probably end up using Complete My Album on iTunes to get the rest. I particularly love Fly Over States and Dirt Road Anthem [remix] (featuring Ludacris). I’m certainly going to do so with Lady Antebellum’s Own The Night released September 2011. I’ve put Dancin’ Away With My Heart in heavy rotation on my now-lost iPhone.
And with that, I’m going to try to sleep. The sun is up and I haven’t even finish writing about everything that happened. Yes, there is more. It’s been one freaky damn Friday!
P.S.: I’m experimenting with adding the ability to comment.
Naked 