You are currently browsing all posts tagged with 'mama'.
Displaying 11 - 20 of 27 entries.

So I guess I’m not interested after all…

  • Posted on July 16, 2009 at 10:55 am
This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series Man Shopping

I was in the dairy section when I looked up and there he was. A regular customer that I wanted to get to know better outside of work.

He mentioned a 20 yr old daughter and I asked “How do you make it past 16 without wanting to KILL THEM DEAD??!!??” He reiterated the mantra I’ve been citing the entire time: You laid the groundwork, it’s hard, but you have to let her make her own decisions and be responsible for the outcome.

I told him how my issues with anxiety make me tend to flip out on her hardcore when it’s not really warranted – that I overreact.

He segued from that into his ex-wife’s mental issues and how difficult they’d been. And how she’d snapped and that led to their divorce. That she was making friendly overtures and he’d talked to his mama about it and welp….

“I’m just gonna be her friend”

You know what those italics mean, right? Yeah, you know what I mean. Of COURSE you know what it means.

Ex-sex.

I blinked, said “I hope that works out for you!” and took my leave, mind reeling and eyebrow twitching.

Care to leave a comment?

I landed on the duct-taped parts

  • Posted on May 4, 2009 at 1:06 pm
This entry is part 8 of 10 in the series atypicalrelationship

I am not the right woman for him.

I refuse to discuss marriage.

I am shoving my children down his throat.

I am just using him for sex.

I am under my mama’s thumb (and after her money).

I let That House come between us.

I wouldn’t have nothin’ if it weren’t for my Daddy dying. HE worked for it all.

I’m looking for a father for my kids, not a relationship.

The texts keep coming. I flipped the bitchswitch, the cold-as-ice, the “there’s no way in hell I’d speak to you again” mode as soon as he accused me of shoving my children down his throat. I’m already a single mom – I already do it all alone. I’d rather do it alone than with a jackass any day of the week. He asks, textingly, if I miss him. I reply that it doesn’t matter if I miss him or not, he’s not the man for me or my children.

Weeks go by, and I call/text. I need to know when/if he is going to pay his portion of the phone bill. He goes off on a tangent.

His wife, his soon-to-be-ex, his friend stops by and speaks to my manager at work. Leaves a letter for me with him, telling me to leave “her husband” alone. No calling, no texting. He’s in my past, it’d be best to leave him there. Complete with a copy of NC’s “criminal conversation” law. No problem – I call the phone company and have service to that line interrupted. I will not be responsible for a phone bill when I’m “not allowed” to call or text that line.

His parents come in the store, and I ask if he’d reconciled with her. They look at me like I’ve grown horns. I showed them the letter, and how it sounds as if they are back together. They say they’ll take care of it, and we go our separate ways.

Care to leave a comment?

Wobbling

  • Posted on May 3, 2009 at 1:02 pm
This entry is part 7 of 10 in the series atypicalrelationship

I call, he does’t answer. I text, he answers. My head explodes more. We do this dance for another month, with me trying to get him to talk to me, explain himself, make this right somehow.

Valentine’s day rolls around, and he calls. Invites me to dinner and “to talk”. It’s too late, it really is and I say as much and hang up. Curiosity overwhelms me, and I call back. No answer. I text, he answers. He came by the store with a smug grin on his face. Confident that just the sight of him would make me melt into his arms, I suppose. Earrings. He picked out earrings for me. Is that supposed to make me snap-to and drop my panties and forget what an ass he’s been?

He wrote Mama a letter. A grammatically incorrect, misspelled HORROR of a letter. A letter that made me suck my girlybits up and drop to my knees thankful that I did not get pregnant by this man. It said:

In the month of December, we came into an agreement to do labor on the house.  The set price for this job was around $9500 this was including price of materials and contract labor.  Since our agreement, you have been negligent in paying your bill.  In addition, I have had nothing but interference and delays on your part as the client.  You have paid $3000 on your bill.  You elected to end the verbal agreement on 2/6/09 for reasons on your part that were personal and not professional.  So through no fault of my own, I was prepared to finish job.  Therefore, I do not owe any money back. Cause materials were purchased for the job. Therefore, I have lost time and money because of delays and interference on your part. So I am sending u a bill for what u have paid. In addition what you owe for my time invested in job. As of my experience doing work for you. I will no longer being doing work for you in the future. I hope you understand that when you hire someone to do a job. You must let them do the job set forth as they were hired to do. Very little money was provided for this job and time was wasted. In addition there were many delays on your part., So through no fault of my own was I negligent on the job.

He sucks at grammar, he sucks at math. She paid him $5000. I want her to take him to court. She won’t, of course. It was an expensive lesson learned.

Care to leave a comment?

A house disrespected

  • Posted on May 2, 2009 at 4:58 pm
This entry is part 6 of 10 in the series atypicalrelationship

I went to the house he’s been “renovating” for Mama. The demolition has been done, and the wall repair/primer is up. He told me the stucco crumbled when he pulled the wallpaper down, and therefore the entire kitchen must be redone. He says that putting panelling up would be less expensive than replacing the drywall. In the rest of the house, the old carpet has been pulled up, but the old pad is still there – ostensibly to protect the floor. The floor that is going to be covered by new carpet…

There is only one small section of wall that is stucco in the kitchen- where the old chimney is. The rest of it is drywall. He had hammered holes in the drywall, looking for the studs. He sees me looking and tells me not to worry – there’s only a week’s worth of work left and then he’ll be done.I know better. There is too much to be done – the house is an old one and a job that SHOULD take a day usually takes three. I take my leave, having reviewed the to-do list with him.

Days later he calls to tell me the panelling is up, so I make arrangements to go by the house and see what he’s done. Mama and her friend (who is a contractor) come with me, so we can have a “professional” opinion. Shock. Horror. Amazement. Trepidation. These are not words you expect to use when viewing the work of Someone To Marry. Especially when they’re doing a “labor of love” for you.

There is demolition debris still on the floor. There is…stuff…on the wall. It’s not panelling it’s….oh dear lord it’s luan plywood. Some of the panels are hung vertically, some horizontally. That will not work – it has a grain to it. He’s used button-cap nails to fasten it – which means they will stick out. He didn’t use straps to bridge the no-longer-standard gap between the studs, so when you place your hand in the center of the panel and push, it bows in. A lot. I walk through the rest of the house – it looks like nothing else has been touched. What in the WORLD has he been doing for the last two months??!!?? (Obviously? Not working on the house.)

There is yet another meeting with him. Neither of us is happy – he wants to be left alone to work and that is not.going.to.happen. Too much has already gone wrong.

Another month goes by. He calls to tell me the fuel oil tank is empty. I ask if he’s there, I’ll have the oil company deliver a minimum order ASAP. He’s not.

I stew for a bit, then hop in the car to meet the delivery guy. Someone DOES have to be there for it, after all. My head exploded when I walked in the door. Demolition debris? STILL on the floor. Drywall had been hung (over the phone jack and a power outlet), but not taped/mudded. I picked up a shovel and dust mask, taking my fury out on the largest pile of debris. The rest of the house is STILL in the same state it was.

He’s fired.

Care to leave a comment?

Exhilarated, excited to be in love(ish) again

  • Posted on April 30, 2009 at 12:57 pm
This entry is part 3 of 10 in the series atypicalrelationship

We go out as often as we can, but I honestly prefer hanging out at the house with the kids. He keeps asking “would you marry me?” and I keep ducking the question. It’s too soon, he’s too still-married, please stop asking. Okay, if I answer will you NEVER ASK ME AGAIN? Then yes, I quite possibly WOULD marry you. If I actually believed in marriage. Privacy is impossible at our respected homes, so he occasionally gets a hotel room. It is a source of….not argument but something close to it. He doesn’t understand my general “hotel rooms squick me out” attitude (if I didn’t clean it, how do I KNOW it’s clean??!!??). But it *is* nice to be able to snuggle up and enjoy each others company.

Unease rumbles through my gut, punching me periodically. The things around the house he said he can do? are not done. Nor have we discussed WHEN they would be done. These are not small things, either: weatherproofing a window, changing the oil (he didn’t want me spending $30 at the quickchange) and replacing the brake pads on my van. Blowing the leaves. But he does go with me to select a new washer and dryer. And then a dishwasher. It’s odd, but nice.

We do not spend Thanksgiving together (he says he did not drive and ended up going to several relatives homes) but he does manage to come over on Christmas day.

The boys and I go to his house for New Year’s dinner. His house, his mama’s house is chock full of breakables. I don’t relax until the children go outside to play. He notices I’m giving myself a headache and directs me to get the bottle of ibuprofen from his desk. Next to the bottle of ibuprofen? a bottle of vicodin. I pull him to the side and ask about it – at no point did he tell me about this. “This?” he smiles condescendingly at me. “That is codeine. The muscle relaxer I take.”

2 comments on Exhilarated, excited to be in love(ish) again

Hoping this time would be different

  • Posted on April 29, 2009 at 12:54 pm
This entry is part 2 of 10 in the series atypicalrelationship

The accident happened and I slid into another world. Answering the phone, shaking hands, hugging people whose names I remembered but either had never met or hadn’t seen since I was a child.

He became my rock in the storm.

He held me when I cried, handed me tissues. He came to the wake and stayed there (directly in my line of sight) the entire time. Three hours of nonstop handshaking and hugging and Thankyouforcoming and Weappreciateyerprayers and Yeshewillbemissed. He stayed the entire three hours just to be sure I was OK.

There are things that need to be done around the house – he says he can do those things. I nod my head, relieved that I won’t have to worry about them. There are renovations that need to be done, a house prepared for sale. He talks to Mama about doing the renovation work for her – bids it as a complete job.

On the day we’re supposed to work around my house, he is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t answer the phone, and I’m NOT going to call his mama. He had taken a “muscle relaxer” (he calls it codeine) and slept most of the day. We rescheduled for the next Saturday.

The next Saturday he tells me he’ll be at my house after he takes care of blowing leaves at his Grandma’s house. Again, he’s a no-show.

Care to leave a comment?

I got to hold a baby yesterday.

  • Posted on April 27, 2009 at 11:54 am

A tiny snuggly baby-baby. He was sleeping when she handed him to me, and he stayed asleep while I baby-dance/rocked and his mama and I caught up.

Holding him was bittersweet. I’m never POSITIVE that I’m done having babies, but having more is simply not practical, affordable or do-able by myself.

As we stood there talking, me rocking, my back muscles reminded me of their existence. Firmly.

My mind see-sawed relentlessly, back and forth and up and down. Would my back ache like this were I to have another baby? How would that affect Dan and Joe? Pregnancy would help me get re-used to this, wouldn’t it?

And then the reality thwap comes. Oh, wait…I can’t do this right now anyways, so stop worrying about something that cannot happen right now, and SHOULDN’T happen anyways.

(It still takes two to make a baby – leaving me one short.)

Reluctantly, regretfully, I handed him back to his mama. Sighed.

And took two ibuprofen.

2 comments on I got to hold a baby yesterday.

Short attention span. I has it.

  • Posted on December 17, 2008 at 8:15 pm

I decided I might be a bit on the snacky side so I went into the kitchen.

Mama said she wanted the kitchen phone moved to the bedroom, but the cord isn’t long enough to reach her jack. And as it turns out, the cord was hardwired into the phone. I discovered this when I took the bottom of the phone off. (I thought it was just a base and that I could unplug the cord and replace it with the cord already in Mama’s room.) I said a few choice words when I saw the hardwiring job, and dropped a screw.

I thought the screw had rolled under the stove, so I pulled the drawer out. Didn’t find the screw.

Did find a filthy mess, though – so I got the broom and swept the toys and measuring spoons out and dampened a washcloth to spotscrub the floor.

Scrubbed a few spots, then realized that this really ain’t gonna work. So I pulled the stove away from the wall, swept the floor again and scrubbed it with the mop.

Then I looked up and realized that the sides of the stove were filthy, so I cleaned that too.

Then I remembered that I’d wanted to cook something to eat.

4 comments on Short attention span. I has it.

This is SO not worth it…

  • Posted on September 25, 2008 at 10:36 am

Kid does not want to get out of bed.

Kid gets pulled out of bed by me – and then noodle legs himself into the floor.

Kid gets picked back up by me AGAIN, landed on his feet, and gently nudged in the general direction of the kitchen. Noodle legs again.

My head explodes just a smidge, and I yell “Papaw YOU get him up, I need to get the OTHER kid ready for school” (Papaw’s response: to sit on his ass and yell “Kid? get outta bed!”)

I run and get Kid2 started on breakfast, snatch NoodleLegs up out of the floor and land a swat on his behind – which as usual results in an ear-piercing scream. You know the scream – the one that sounds like a serial killer just found a victim.

Said scream brings My Sainted Mama running “to the rescue”. She’s been in her room the entire time (as usual) and has absolutely no clue what’s been going on for the last 20 minutes. She picks him up, carries him into the kitchen, sits him down in his chair, and pours the milk over his cereal. And then stares at him in wide-eyed wonder as he noodlescootches his way out of the chair and onto the floor, leaving said cereal to turn to mush.

She put him back in his chair and tried to hand him his clothes – and of course he promptly dropped them on the floor.

She stared at him.

And stared.

And said “You’re going to miss school if you don’t get dressed!”

And I said “That’s the general idea, Sainted Mama o Mine. He DOES NOT WANT TO GO.”

I picked the pants up and put them on him. I pulled the shirt on over his head and slid his noodlearms through the sleeves. The lightbulb finally, blessedly flickered on in Mama’s head and she went to retrieve his shoes so I could finish putting the lunches in boxes and doublecheck backpacks.

~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the school year – mornings exactly like this one – are being looked at with an extreme distaste. They like being with the kids in their classes (up to a point). The homework is for the most part busywork – practice on skills they’ve achieved proficiency in. They have been out of school (sick) almost as much as they’ve been there.

I want to let them go back to homeschooling. I just don’t know how we can achieve that without my head exploding.

2 comments on This is SO not worth it…

Adding injury to insult

  • Posted on August 14, 2008 at 3:41 pm

In the mail today: the county association’s “welcome to homeschooling/how to” packet.

Addressed to My Sainted Mama.

2 comments on Adding injury to insult