on the road again………(yeah, another long post)

So, here I am, sitting in the dark at 6 in the morning, typing on the laptop and waiting for 1) the cont. brakfast to be served and 2) everyone to wake up. We didn’t get into the hotel until nearly 11 last night, after being subjected to literally blinding snow squalls last night on I81 for oh…2-1/2 hours?

Me, being the nervous little worrywart, had suggested that we make a reservation at the hotel we had planned to stay at, so we wouldn’t wind up getting here and not having anywhere to stay. He, of course, said “do what you think we should”, so I did.

That was when we thought the hotel was 2 hrs away.

It wasn’t.

*sigh*

I hate reading maps LOL

We thought we were using the key for the state of PA – no… 2 inches doesn’t equal 2 miles in PA – it equals 2 miles in NEW freakin JERSEY.

2 inches in PA means 22 miles.

BIG difference.

So because it’s after 6pm, we’ll get charged if we don’t show up for the reservation, and meanwhile, we’re driving past about 5 OTHER Comfort Inns to get to THIS comfort Inn. LOL

I felt like such a jerk, because if I hadn’t made the reservation, we could have just stopped. These are the days when I feel like nothing I do is right.
Oh, and as we’re driving, hubby opens up the window to take a picture of a rainbow that I asked him to shoot… and the mail I should have mailed oh..6 hours earlier?… flies out the window.

Now, anyone who lives at least on the East Coast from PA to NH can attest to, it was WINDY yesterday. So not only does the mail fly out the window, but continues to fly, and I’m doing 65.

Well, after a couple of rather heated discussions, it’s decided there’s no way we’d find it after all this time (2 min later? maybe 3)… hell, I didn’t even realize what had flown out the window for a min or two.

So, what was in the mail?

Our rent check. The cable bill check.

People suck. In the old days, you’d just void out those 2 checks in your checkbook and start over.

No, people now can take those checks, use your bank info to get NEW checks, and then clean you out.

Sooooooooooooooo, as soon as we DID get to the aforementioned hotel, I had to move our money out of the acct so that people can’t snatch it from us.

Such a long day.

The kids were really good, though. My son really got bored once his sister fell asleep, but he eventually fell asleep too, so that helped.

I made sure to pick hotels that have indoor pools in them, so OF COURSE, we get here when it’s too late to swim. Oy!

Ah, and the real kicker of the day. Well, a few days ago, I called my grandmother to get an update on the sperm-donor father that I have mentioned in the past. She’d sent me a Christmas card stating “hope you all are well.. your father is not”.

Gee, thanks.

So, I call. He’s still in the rehab, he still can’t talk and now they’re saying he’s lost what he had for memory. He doesn’t know anyone, not even the friend of 40 years that had been taking care of him, visiting him, etc. They say that now, he might have 6 weeks or 6 months. They’ve got all his final arrangements figured out, so it’s just a matter of waiting.

WTF?

The man is like… 60-62 or something.

So I call that friend of 40+ years. What’s going on? Why the death watch? He says well, it’s just that because his mind has gone, they figure his body will start to shut down. I explain to him that we’re going to be travelling through CT, where he’s at, and was gonna stop by to see him. He warns me that 1) I won’t recognize him and 2) he won’t have any idea who I am. He’d be happy to come with me, though. Well, it turns out that he can’t go on the day we’d planned to leave, so we make plans to stop on the way home, in about 2 weeks. I make sure that I HAVE 2 weeks, and he says yeah, he’s not on deaths’ DOOR (like my grandmother had made it out to sound).

Soooo, we find ourselves driving through CT yesterday instead. We decide to just go .. see him, get it over with. If you read that other post, you will remember why I’m not a big fan of his. But I don’t want the guilt of having to say that last time I saw him was ohhh… 7 years ago?

Like this has anything to do with ME… and more to do with the fact that he dropped out of existance in those 7 years, and didn’t tell anyone where he was.

Anyways, we spend close to an hour trying to find the place. I thought things would be so much easier with a wireless laptop. They’re NOT. Took forever to get a connection, then find this place on mapquest, etc.

So we go. I go in first and explain who I am and ask if I can see him. She says “Well, he’s right there” and points to someone about 10 feet away, so I look.

and I don’t recognize him. He’s lost at least 100+ pounds. Half of his face has the slackness that only a stroke can bring. I recognize things, though. His eyes, for sure.

The nurses’ aids recognize me, though – talking to each other as I walk over, they’re saying how much I look like him in the eyes. As soon as I’d turned and looked at him, you could see that he knew who I was. He got all animated.. as much as he could, anyways. So I ask him if he knows who I am. He nods his head. I ask “are you sure?” and he nods his head and I ask if he’d like some visitors and he nods his head.

Sidenote: My children have NO idea that the man they call Pepe is not their “real” grandfather” – and I have no intention of changing that. I’ve explained to my 9 yr old that this is a family friend only.

So, out I go and gather up my family. We go back in and an n.a. brings us & him to his room. The kids tell him hello and I give him a framed pic of us …which, as it turns out, SOMEONE has already given him. I see pictures on his board that my grandmother has apparently had scanned and printed out for him, cuz there’s his 2 grandkids, staring back at me (I’m sure my son is completely confused by this little fact, but he doesn’t say anything). As a reminder, he cannot talk. One of the strokes took that abiity from him. He keeps staring at my daughter, who looks alot like me when I was a baby, and I feel like he really does remember, even if it is just in snippets. He waves at her, she waves at him. Hubby takes a couple of pictures for posterity. We leave.

I was very surprised at how emotional I got when I first saw him. I nearly cried, which really is unusual for me, and the feelings I have for this man. But I stowed them away so I could get the kids and go back in. Now, we’re back in the car, heading for lunch and I can try to process.

Half of me is kinda proud he remembered who I was, half of me thinks he deserves what he’s got.

But it’s really sad. He’s in a wheelchair, can’t talk and obviously has lost “something”, because he didn’t really communicate much, except to wave his fingers. 20 minutes was enough for me.

So, now if something does happen, I have that image in my head forever. Ugh. Rather than the last time I saw him, 7 yrs ago, when he was him. Making promises he never kept.

You might ask… why doesn’t my kids know that he’s (one of their) grandparent. But you see, I love my kids, and will always do whatever I can, whatever it takes to take care of them. My 9 yr old doesn’t need to know that this man who is technically his grandfather, only has seen him now 4 times in his life, not out of inaccesibility, but out his own selfish reasons, which I’ll never know.

He’s always known where we were. I can’t say the same. My son won’t spend these years wondering “Why didn’t grandpa come see us?” Those questions inevitably turn to “Doesn’t he like us?”

Nope, not gonna do it. When they’re older, I’ll show them the picture, ask if they remember the visit and explain who he was. But he doesn’t deserve the title.

Ya know, this wasn’t supposed to be this long LOL

Ok – so today, we’re going to explore Gettysburg, PA and see the sites before heading down 81.

Miss me yet? lol

ramblings pt. duh

So anyways, after gettysburg, we’re heading to visit always his angel, my very good blogging friend. I’m psyched to meet her, as we were fast friends and she’s a really good friend.

After that, it’s on to TN and hopefully, a couple of weeks of fun in the sun. Ok, I know it’s still winter, BUT 30 degrees warmer, no matter wat the temp, IS 30 DEGREES WARMER!

I know, I live in NH so I can’t complain about the temps, but by March, I’m READY for spring. Hell, my flowers are already pushing out of the ground – they’re ready too!

While in TN, I’ll also get to meet another blogging friend, but since I don’t know that she wants me to put her location, I’ll not for now But I am psyched to meet her as well.

So anyways, keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well. We bought a laptop, so I’ll be logging in from time to time (have to drive to town to get wireless, as all they have is a reallllllllllllly slow dialup and even slower computer LOL

ttfn!

ramblings

We’re getting ready to visit hubby’s family in TN tomorrow, with a couple stops on the way. We’ll be there for 2 weeks, which is a HELL of a long time to be somewhere “else”, but we haven’t seen them in 2 years (don’t get me STARTED on that), so since he’s out of a job again, why not go catch up. Yay.

Yes, that’s sarcasm dripping from my words. Hubby’s parents… well, his whole family, are umm.. different. Sometimes, I think they are (OR I am ) from a different planet, instead of just a different region of the country. The history is too long and sorted to go into, but lets just say, it’s not a trip I look FORWARD to. But over the years, it’s gotten easier to handle. Communication between hubby & I has made all the difference in the world, because he just didn’t SEE what was going on, because he was so blinded by the whole “I’m HOME” thing. I’m hoping that this trip and visit will go better.

The last time we went, 2 years ago, wasn’t so hot.

Hubby’d just lost his job, but we had our tax refund, so at least we had money. It had been 18 months since we’d been there, and baby girl had been born. So travelling with a still breastfeeding toddler was fun (actually was pretty funny, because I’d just hover over her in her car seat while we drove LOL).

2 days after arriving, my son came down with some sort of stomach flu that lasted 7 days. 7 DAYS and nights of things flying from him from every place…. it was gross. And heartbreaking, because he lost so much weight so fast.

My birthday is March 12. We managed to venture to Walmart to get him some Pepto. He threw up 3 times while we were there. I got left at the jewelry counter with a “here, pay for this” comment while hubby escorted my poor 7 yr old out the door to do it again.

Back at his mom’s house, she’d baked a cake. And left it on the counter. Never said a single word to me about my birthday (like… “Happy Birthday”). Just baked the cake, left it on the counter. I just felt SO special.

It was a shitty day, shitty birthday.

I’m hoping this one will be better.

On our way down, we’ll be stopping in to see My parents, which always makes me happy and crazy and glad I don’t still live there LOL

Then on to Pennsylvania to visit Gettysburg and show our son some of the sites that we’ve been talking about in our studies about the Civil War (did I mention hubby’s dad still refers to me as a yankee?).

So, hubby & I, our 9 yr old son and 2 yr old daughter all piled into the car, drive for 2 (or 3) days, get there, pile all of our stuff into his old bedroom (because yes, all 4 of us sleep in this 10×12 room that’s already overfull with furniture), and then we get to share daddy with his brother, who is my age, who (used to) spends all of his non-working, non-sleeping time engrossed in sports or video games. Now, that’s how it’s been for the 11 years I’ve known the family. So when we go there, they spend these huge blocks of time playing video games while I get to keep our kids amused, out of trouble, and oh yeah, away from the various dead animals they have around the house ( I promise I will provide pics). It can get on your nerves!

From what I’ve heard, though, brother may have actually gotten a life, although from what mama says, it’s not necessarily a good one.

We’ll see. Hubby being the big brother, is gonna check into this and try to get him set straight.

at 38.

LOL

I love my man.

I’m here, really I am

Valentine’s Day was awesome. Incredible. Extravagant! My wonderful man made it truly a wonderful day, and even BETTER night!

Omg.

I’ve been working on a bunch of things, so that’s why I have been pretty scarce. For one, I’ve once again decided to go back to teaching all sorts of technology classes at the Women’s Entreprenurial Network place that I”ve taught at before. This pays me 60% of the class take, which isn’t too shabby. But better than that, it gets me more exposure for our business (web design, graphics design & website marketing), and since now that hubby’s out of work, we’re working hard on getting that truly going as a business, and not just some cute business cards.

I’m also now an Education Specialist for Ebay, which means I can teach Ebay classes WITHOUT GETTING SUED, which is what they’d started doing. This will allow me to teach all-day seminar-type classes on the ins and outs of selling on eBay to various small business people and individuals. I’ll also be able to offer continuing education “units” for people who need them to retain their certifications in various professions.

All in all, a very busy few weeks! I promise, you haven’t missed much kink, but that’s ok – we’re happy, we’re healthy & we’re here.

happy happy

csi subbie

Did anyone else catch the little exchange between Gil & Lady Heather this week on CSI? Gil says something about letting them handle things, and Lady Heather replies “you lost the right to give me advice a while ago” or something.

I think Gil submitted to her!

Anyone else, or am I thinking about this too much? lol

pillow talk

So, we’re laying in each other’s arms, winding down from the day. Try, if you can, to imagine this conversation…

Me: So, I found a really cute Valentine’s card for you today, but I have the feeling I might have bought it for you before.

Him: What’s it look like?

Me: Well, the cover has 2 elephants on it, and they’re kissing.

Him: Nope, you’ve never bought that one.

Me: How can you possibly remember 10 years of Valentine’s cards to know with such certainty that I’ve never bought it.

Him: Because elephants don’t have lips. Have you ever seen an elephant pucker? Because elephants don’t have lips. So they can’t kiss. So you can’t have bought that card.

I’m here, really

Things have been weird around here. Hubby’d pretty much reverted back to “Flippy the Wonder Dolphin” again thanks to alot of shit going on at his job. He’s been totally distracted and every waking moment was devoted to this job shit. (Un)fortunately, the job is gone, and so now I’m hoping that my MA’AN is back

The good news is that he’s already got a job interview for Monday, and it sounds good.

Keep your fingers crossed!