In a day that was already… well, shit, The Boyfriend topped it all this evening.

Last night, as we were on our way to get dinner, we called another couple to see if they wanted to meet us. They couldn’t, but my friend asked me if I was going to another mutual friend’s bachelorette party tonight. I told her I hadn’t heard anything about it. She said that the maid of honor had called her just the night before. I went home and listened to all the messages on the machine, but there was nothing from the maid of honor.

I thought maybe I hadn’t been invited because they figured I’d be a no-show. In the past year, I’ve missed a three baby showers, a bridal shower, a bachelorette party and a wedding. It’s not that I wanted to miss all of these events. Most of the showers occurred on weekends when I was working. The bachelorette party, I missed because I had no money to go out. And I was sick on the day of the wedding. I felt bad about all of it.

Keep in mind that I am also not exceptionally close to any of the individuals these events were for. For example, the maid of honor and bachelorette for tonight’s shindig have grown up together, whereas I have only been on the outskirts of their circle for the past seven or eight years. And it’s not as though we get together on a regular basis; I generally only see them when someone is throwing a party that we’re all attending; or when The Boyfriend’s band is playing.

Because I had missed so many events, however, and because The Boyfriend and I didn’t even RSVP for the upcoming wedding until the very last minute (we had to wait for his work schedule to come out), I thought that there might be a chance that I was deliberately not invited. And I wouldn’t have been offended.

But because of circumstances at home tonight, and the fact that The Boyfriend took off to a Tigers game when we could have been doing something together, I guess I was chomping at the bit a tad, wanting to get out of the house.

But whatever. I started to settle in for the evening, feeling quite ok with it. And then my phone rang. I answered it and it was The Boyfriend. I thought he was calling me to let me know he’d found his cell phone, but no… he’d stopped at the maid of honor’s house (whose boyfriend happens to be the drummer of the band) and he was calling to tell me that they were going to dinner at PF Chang’s.

“Who told you that?” I asked.

“Who do you think?” he responded.

“There are two people living in that house,” I said, knowing full well that he hadn’t even seen the maid of honor.

“But only one of them is here now,” he said.

I said something about not having any details about where they were going, he repeated the restaurant and then said, “In about an hour.”

And that, my friends, was the extent of the details provided to me about tonight’s festivities. I still haven’t heard anything from anyone who is actually going. And until I do, I don’t consider myself invited.

And instead of allowing me and the maid of honor to save face by having her apologize for not calling (or not getting the message, as her boyfriend might have left a message on MY boyfriend’s voicemail - if so, it was quite vague), and me saying it’s ok because I had other things going on anyway, now it’s an entirely different situation.

Also, since The Boyfriend has told his drummer the situation, he’s basically played the part of the junior high school kid’s mom, who had to call one of the other parents to get her kid invited to the birthday party.

Thanks, Mom.

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Ok, not really all that hot of a date, but The Boyfriend and I have so little time together since I’m back on days that we had been trying to make a point of spending at least a couple of hours together on Thursday nights, before he goes to band practice. Lately, though, we’ve fallen out of even that.

Yesterday was a horrid day, hence the reason I didn’t post. It was one of those days where nothing much was going right. My emotions are a roller coaster. I can go from feeling extremely good about a situation (generally involving work, because I’m really excited about my job right now) to not even wanting to exist anymore, within mere hours. I was so bent out of shape over everything last night that I just got into my car and left. I drove across town to my friend Peg’s house and hung out with her until 9:30. It helped me settle down enough to come home and go straight to bed without screaming at anyone. Or worse.

Things are so screwed up at home. It’s utter chaos. Fall semester is going to start in about two weeks and I’m not even remotely excited about it. In fact, I’m dreading my classes. I’m dreading the weekends spent trying to catch up on the homework I don’t have time or energy to complete during the week. My house is a disaster, I have family staying here for an extended time and it’s wearing on my nerves, and I can’t even get a couple hours of peace and quiet with The Boyfriend.

So, I text-messaged him today and asked him if he wanted to go somewhere for dinner after I got home from work. His response: “YESSSSSSS!!!!!”

And so we did. We went to one of our favorite watering holes, because a Reuben sounded pretty damn good to me. I also had a blueberry margarita, which was a pretty color and not too bad tastewise. The Boyfriend ordered a Bloody Mary and the bartender suggested it with gin, which was new to us. I took a sip and oh my gosh it was awesome! The gin gives it a little more of a zing. Also, the bartender said garlic Tabasco sauce is key. I almost wanted to trade in my margarita for one, but I didn’t.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable couple of hours and I’m feeling a little more relaxed tonight. Part of that has to do with the fact that the recent heat wave finally broke. It’s dropping down to 58 tonight. Good sleeping weather! I might actually get to use a blanket.

Tomorrow is Friday, it’s going to be a gorgeous weekend. I’m crossing my fingers for some kick-ass motivation to make a dent in this disaster I call home.

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The following is an email exchange between The Boyfriend and me:

Subject: Scenic drive
From: The Boyfriend

Do we want to plan a scenic covered bridge drive sometime soon? Woodsfield, OH. Down 26. Hotel room, two days of a nice drive.

Subject: Re: Scenic drive
From: Me

Who are you and what are you doing accessing my boyfriend’s email account???

I then sent a text message to my dear friend W:

“The Boyfriend just asked me if I want to go on a scenic drive for two days to see covered bridges. Abducted by aliens?”

Her response:

“Maybe.”

(FYI, I’m all for the trip.)

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My dad is in the hospital again. He went in on Saturday, but I didn’t find out about it until Sunday. Funny thing was, I immediately called my aunt (his sister), whom I’d promised to keep updated on his condition since she knew nothing about his cancer until he’d sent a mass email out to everyone letting them know that the surgery had been a success.  But my aunt already knew.

It’s not surprising to me that I’m the last to find out these things. Most of the time, my dad has been in and out of the hospital before I’ve even been let in on the news. An interesting moment took place this morning when my mechanic called.

Amos: How are you doing, Mrs. B?

Me: I’m fine, although I have to say I’m a little nervous. If you’re calling me this early in the morning, the news about my car can’t be good.

A: Hey, did you hear about Gary??

M: You mean, Gary, my dad? As in, he’s in the hospital? Yes, I heard.

A: Gary’s your dad? I didn’t know for sure. Yeah, I guess if he’s your dad, then you’d hear about him being in the hospital, wouldn’t you?

Me: You’d think.

********************

When I repeated the conversation to TOTO and Princess, TOTO said something along the lines of, “Imagine if you’d found out from your MECHANIC that your dad was in the hospital.”

I don’t think it’s too far from the truth to say that heads would have ROLLED.  It would have looked (and sounded) like a bowling alley.

Forgive me. I get bitchy when I’m scared and worried, and quite frankly, I’m scared and worried. I want the weather to warm up because this fucking cold winter doesn’t do anything for anyone’s spirits and I want my dad’s spirits to be as high as possible. It’s been one thing after another this winter and it needs to STOP. I am absolutely, positively, not ready for anything to happen to my father, and dammit… I think I deserve to have that particular wish granted. I already lost the only other man in my life that I’ve ever completely trusted. Is a few more years with this one too much to fucking ask?

*********************

The one piece of good news does come from my mechanic. Lulu needed the new tires, which I knew, but other than that, only an alternator belt, an alignment and an oil change, and she’s good to go for the trip to C-bus next week. Even better, new tires mean I have more confidence driving on slick roads across town, which means I can visit my dad more often. I didn’t go up to the hospital today and I didn’t get a chance to call before it got kind of late, so I’m heading up there tomorrow.

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Hmmm… according to my computer, I’ve used this title before. It had to be last year, if that’s the case because we haven’t had any snow days this year… until today! And thanks to Mother Nature, I can post something.

Please forgive my lack of an update. It’s been a grueling week. It turns out that my dad wasn’t discharged from the hospital on Tuesday. In fact, he is still there. I had some very scary moments yesterday. I’d called him in the morning to let him know I was going to come up to the hospital later. He sounded like he was having a lot of difficulty breathing. It scared me. I’ve never heard him so bad. To make matters worse, he had about 30 seconds to tell me that he was being taken to a different facility across town for a PET scan. He needed to hang up with me so he could call my stepmom to let her know not to come up.

The PET scan made me nervous. No one had mentioned it before, so I wondered what had changed. I waited about 10 minutes and then I called my stepmom. No answer. I called my stepsister. No answer. I left messages with both and my stepsister called me back a short time later. She didn’t know anything either, but told me she’d see what she could find out and call me back.

At 4:30, hearing nothing from anyone, I finally called my dad again. I was relieved to hear that he sounded much more like himself. Kat and I went up to see him that evening and we were actually there when his doctor (who is also MY doctor) made his rounds. He told my dad that pending the results of the scan, he could go home on Wednesday. (Due to the weather forecast, they weren’t going to release him today.)

Dad called me a few hours ago and told me that the scan was negative. So, tomorrow he goes home! That’s even better than a snow day, in my book.

Spring break is next week. Today is the 26th of February. You know what that means? NaBloPoMo Monthly starts in just a few days. Get ready for all those lists that I compile in my head on a daily basis. It’ll be scintillating.*

Until then, today’s snow day means I have twice as much work to do tomorrow, so quite possibly I will spontaneously combust (that’s a test to see if a certain person is still reading - and she knows who she is) and be unable to post anything until March 1st. But we’ll see.

ETA: I have a working washer again and much to the relief of my colleagues, I have clean clothes to wear to work.

*Probably not so much, but scintillating is such an awesome word, don’t you think?

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It started out innocently enough. I was trying, yet again, to locate an old friend who moved to California a couple of decades ago. Not finding him through the usual sources (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), I figured I’d peruse our local auditor’s website to see if his father still owned property in the area. Only one listing came up with his last name and a little more investigation showed that home ownership had transferred back in 2000, shortly after the man I thought might be my friend’s father had passed away.

“Ok,” I thought, “what would Nancy Drew do?” I smiled to myself and started looking for an obituary. If it indeed WAS my friend’s father, there might be mention of where my friend now lives.

Alas! My local paper only archives its obituaries online back to September 2000. The man I was looking for passed away in June of that year. But I knew that I’d located obits online before; I recalled reading my grandfather’s online not long ago. Damned if I could find where I saw it, though. As a last resort, I signed up for a trial membership to Ancestry.com.

And that’s where it all went to hell.

I don’t know how I actually ended up starting to document our family tree. I started with myself and my parents, and added my sons and my husband. Then I cursed the program for not letting me add the boys’ sperm donor biological father without somehow connecting him to me as a spouse. Dear God, NO! I refused his half-hearted proposal when I told him I was pregnant. (Coming, as it did, on the heels of “Are you sure it’s mine?” Oh, so romantic.)

But I digress.

I have an aunt on my father’s side who has painstakingly researched the history of our family all the way back to our relatives in Europe. That became even more clear when I entered my paternal grandfather’s name into my family tree and it immediately called up the names, along with the dates of birth and death of his parents.

On my mom’s side, however, I know next to nothing. My maternal grandfather died six years before I was born. My great grandmother (my maternal grandma’s mom) was in a nursing home with dementia by the time I was old enough to know who she was. Everyone else was already gone, save for a few great aunts and uncles, most of whom I never met or saw frequently enough to make a family connection.

My grandfather apparently lived a hard life, and his parents gave him little or no affection. As a result, he didn’t really keep in contact with his side of the family, effectively cutting off any bonds that might be forged in later generations. It’s sad enough that there are probably cousins galore out there that we’ve never met, but the thing that really bothers me now is that my mom and her brothers can’t even tell you the names of their ancestors. My dad can tell you who is who for at least two generations above his own parents. But I had to trigger my mom’s memory for her grandmother’s first name.

I was up until 3 a.m. Friday night, chomping at the bit to tell someone, ANYONE, that I had just located an online newspaper archive containing my great grandparents wedding announcement in 1907. Every five minutes, I can be heard muttering to myself, “This is so COOL!” Even my kids think so. And my mom? Well, let’s just say that as much as we tease her about her memory fading… the conversations we’ve had over the past few days have triggered a lot of memories. And I’m pretty sure she’s enjoying the discovery as much as I am.

So, I admit it. I’m hooked. I love a good mystery, after all, and it’s high time I figured out the other half of my origins. If not for my sake, for the sake of the generations yet to come.

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As if my Christmas weren’t lovely enough, then I had to go ahead and have a spectacular New Year’s Eve!

The Boyfriend and I were invited over to the home of our friends, Pat and Dawn, for dinner and general merriment. The food was absolutely fantastic. I swear, I would like Pat to give me cooking lessons. Or maybe they could just adopt me?

As delicious as the food was, the best part of the evening was hanging out with people I haven’t seen in so long. I don’t think I really realized how far removed I’ve been from everyone and everything lately, until last night. I plan to change that this year.

And there was one thing that took place last night that really almost makes me want to cry (in a good way) when I think about it. The Boyfriend said something about this being the first New Year’s celebration where he’s been in a good mood. I can’t remember the exact words he used, but essentially he said that he felt like things were coming together. He has made so many inroads this year toward his own well-being, both physically and mentally. It hasn’t all been perfect, but it’s definitely going in a good direction. While I think I’ve been a good influence, this is all him. I’m very proud of him.

Both of us are participating in 101 Things To Do In 1001 Days. No, we’re not done with our lists (those things are hard!!) but we’re making progress. He suggested last night that we sit down on Sunday and finish putting them together. I’m shooting for either January 7th or 14th to start.

This concludes my first post in 2008. Here’s to a good year for all of us, in and out of the blogosphere!

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Damn The Boyfriend.

I’ve been very quiet this year about our annual Toys for Tots open house, because I was so angry with him over last year’s event. I tried to be understanding since he was working on promoting not one, but two gigs that his band was playing around the same time. But he did very little to help with the planning and preparation, and I was really stressed out over the whole thing. So, I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up this year. If he wanted the party, he was going to have to mention it and he was going to have to take the lead in planning it.

And then, JL and JM both moved back home. I sort of assumed that we just weren’t going to have it this year; that he understood there’s just too much stuff to deal with finding places for.

Silly me. I forgot his style. His last minute style. He sent me an email Wednesday night, suggesting that we have it at D’s house, or maybe over at S’s place. That last one cracked me up. S just had a baby. Like… yesterday? Sure… she’ll be up for hosting a party that starts at 3 p.m. and goes until the wee hours of the morning. Who wouldn’t be?

I responded that I’d rather have it at MDFW’s house because I think the layout is better. But I was pretty sure that MDFW wouldn’t go for it. I asked and I could tell she wasn’t thrilled with the idea. The Boyfriend had said that the weekend of 12/1 or 12/8 would be best. Well, 12/8 doesn’t work for MDFW since that’s her weekend to work. As I figured out later, it doesn’t work for me either. I was thinking that was finals week. That’s my last week of working second shift until spring semester starts and it’s the perfect week to host the party because I actually get an additional two days off.

But finals week doesn’t start until 12/10, which means I have to work on Sunday, 12/9. I’m not hosting my one and only annual party and then going into work the following day at 3:15. And then I got to thinking… what would I realistically need to do in order to have the party at my house?

I soon realized that it wouldn’t be that difficult to manage. Reorganize the basement, move the desk and filing cabinet currently in the dining room and we’d be ready to host a gathering of many people. I started getting excited! I started planning what would get done first, started kicking around menu ideas, decorating plans. And when The Boyfriend returned a call to me, I said, “We can do this at the house, if you can meet one condition: we need to have it on the 15th instead of the 8th.”

No go. He’s scheduled to work.

Had he brought this up a few weeks ago, he could have requested that weekend off. But they are so shorthanded right now, he doesn’t know if there’s any way to trade.

He sounded so bummed out when I told him it’s not happening. But it’s a deal breaker. We are not having a party the night before I have to work, especially before finals week when our hours are extended anyway. After what I put up with last year, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. If he wants to continue this tradition he started, he’ll need to make it happen.

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A blissful and relatively solid eight hours of sleep was had last night. Such joy!

Since The Boyfriend and I went to his endocrinologist last Thursday, he hasn’t had an insulin reaction. Granted, I still didn’t sleep on Thursday night, but that had more to do with the wind gusting outside than The Boyfriend’s blood sugar. They’ve made one switch in his insulin, moving his long-acting shot to the morning instead of before he goes to bed. If he does have a drop, it’ll come during the day when he’s awake.

The doctor also recommended that The Boyfriend consider an insulin pump and we’re going to look into that further. Going to these appointments with him is beneficial for me, because I end up learning more about what he’s dealing with, and at the same time, my own emotions over it are validated. Dr. B told The Boyfriend, “Lows are worse on the people taking care of you than they are on you.” Amen, Dr. B.

Which, don’t get me wrong, The Boyfriend knows it’s frustrating for me. And even though it *is* frustrating, I don’t get mad at him for it… as long as I know that he’s trying to manage it better. He hasn’t always done that, but just in the past month, I’ve noticed a difference. He is making a definite effort - even going so far as to curtail the amount of beer he has at band practice. That’s HUGE. I’ve been wanting him to do that for as long as we’ve been seeing each other, but he does things when he’s good and ready to do them and not a minute before. Huh. Kinda like me.

Anyway, it was nice getting some sleep and it was even nicer waking up and realizing that he was just fine. I watched him sleep for a little bit and noticed that for the first time in days, he wasn’t frowning in his sleep. Probably because I wasn’t waking him up every two hours asking if he was ok.

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The Boyfriend didn’t have an insulin reaction yesterday morning, which was good because I wasn’t here to help him out. Since the university was on fall break Monday and Tuesday, we were only open from 8 to 5, much to the consternation of a few students who apparently planned to settle in for a long evening of studying.

I woke him up before I left and made him check his blood sugar. He tested at a nearly perfect 88. You’d have thought I’d be happy about that, but instead I just wondered how much it would drop a couple of hours after I left. But it didn’t. He checked in at noon and he was only down to 87.  Whatever he did Monday night worked.

But I must be getting pessimistic about these things, because as tired as I was last night, I’m wide awake at 5:30 this morning, listening to him snoring and wondering if (or when) he’s going to start shaking and sweating. On the one hand, it might be interesting to see what, if any, things lead up to the point where I’m startled from sleep. On the other hand, I’d give almost anything to BE asleep in the first place.

Oh well. It’s not like I have anywhere to be until late afternoon tomorrow. The house is quiet right now and it’s really the perfect opportunity to work on my research paper.

Or maybe just rest my eyes for a moment….

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