If Only....

If only the kids would go to bed so that I could.

If only I could afford a maid.

If only I could afford my rent.

If only I could afford ANYTHING!

If only I had my washer and dryer on the main floor instead of in the basement.

If only my former supposed spouse (FSS) hadn't been arrested for his 11th DUI. (Yep, that's right. ELEVEN!!)

If only the other jack-ass that I was married to before would dro..... no wait, better not say it 'cuz then he will just because I said it.

If only the other jack-ass that I was married to before wasn't such a jack-ass.

If only I was gettin' some on a regular basis....yeah, I know, too much information. But it really does do wonders for my mood. For a minute.

If only there was such a person as Prince Charming, or McDreamy, or a Knight In Shining Armour.

If only I didn't wish there was such a person as ..... all of the above.

If only.

That's a lot of  'If only's.' Probably too many.

I also have a lot of blessings in my life.  For example, I am no longer married to Jack-Ass #1 or the FSS. (One of these days, I'll explain why I call him the Former Supposed Spouse.) And I am free to 'get some' whenever I want. (Shhh...don't tell my sponsor! I'm not done with my steps yet!) And I'm not giving up the notion that I will find my own McDreamy (or McSteamy, either one will work). Prince Charming and Mr. Knight? Well, not so much. They all start out that way, but they all end up only human in the end. Hmmmm. Maybe I should START with that notion in the first place.

It's early still and the kids will go to sleep. Eventually. (I add the eventually because an enormous THUD just emanated from their room. So they are UP TO SOMETHING but no one is crying so I guess all is well.)

And, at least I HAVE a washer and dryer and don't have to schlep laundry to the laundromat. Yeah, that's not a fun way to spend a Saturday. Or a Sunday. Or any other day for that matter. I rather enjoy being able to throw in a load at 2 in the morning if I want to. (I doubt my roommate appreciates it since he sleeps right next to the laundry room, but he's a big dork anyway. Besides, he knew I was a psycho night-owl when he moved in here. AND, he took off for Minnesota for who knows how long, didn't tell me, didn't pay any rent for this month and left his psycho cat that hates me here.)

So what's my point. I'm sure I had one. Once.

Oh yeah. I may have a lot of things that could be better. But I also have an awful lot that could be much, MUCH worse. Yeah, there's that fuckin' gratitude again!! And just when I was REALLY starting to enjoy feeling sorry for myself, dammit!

Common Courtesy & The Fridge Fiasco

Common courtesy it seems has gone the way of common sense.

Case in point, the great refrigerator fiasco of 2010.

My best friend recently lost a refrigerator to an untimely demise. (That's another rant for another day - the fact that things are not made the way they used to be.)

So, $650 to replace the condenser that "shit the bed." Or $800 for a sparkly, shiny, brandy new one. Hmmmm. Might as well be $8 million as her pocket doesn't even contain $8 let alone $800. So The Friends come up with a plan to get her one to get her by. For $100 bucks. Again, might as well be, yadda yadda yadda - same story as above.

No one's using it, you might as well.

Nope, don't need to measure it, it's a cubic foot smaller than yours was, it'll fit. And it's been sitting around for a while and it's a little dirty but don't worry. I'll clean it before we bring it to you.

Well, The Friends didn't get a chance to clean it. And just how LONG it had been sitting around is anybody's guess. And whomever had emptied it didn't bother to clean it out, either. So, along with the extra 10 pounds of construction debris coating the outside, the inside was covered with soy sauce, dried blood, and the remains of rotting vegetables. Just lovely!!

And it's about 1/4" too tall. (NO, we don't need no stinkin' measurements!!) So, now it sticks out about 3 feet from where it's supposed to. Not to mention the gigantic scratch in the brand new hardwood floor. (Only a week old, by the way.)

Really? Who does that? I mean, bless their little hearts for wanting to help. But who brings a fridge (or anything else for that matter) to someone's house without, at the very least, dusting off the inch of dust on the outside? Or, after finding out the inside was disgusting as well, saying "I know it's dirty. Let me help you clean it out."

Common courtesy, and common sense for that matter, dictates to me that these things should be done.

I told her not to worry about the fact that it sticks out 3 feet from the wall. That will make it super easy to retrieve anything that falls behind it. And, when it comes time to clean the coils on the back again, you can drag the entire vacuum cleaner back there with you.

Oh yeah, and the frosting on this entire cupcake? No one had actually plugged the monstrosity in to make sure it actually worked. Yeah. Perfect. (I am happy to report that even though it took a while, it did finally get cold and my friend is no longer living out of coolers.)

And The Fridge Fiasco was just one more thing on top of a heap of crap that "shit the bed" for my friend last week. Just one more thing to make it a really super-duper sucky dog-licking-ass-face week.

So, tonight when you are thanking your God for all your blessings, be especially glad that your fridge is nice and cold and purring along quietly, that all the electric windows in your car work properly, you don't have piles of homework or laundry, or a sick baby, or a teenager with a bad attitude.

And if you do - or if you've been there - say a little prayer for my friend. Ask God to lift her up and help her trudge through all this crap. Ask Him to remind her that it's all temporary - that it will all be okay in the end.

And if you don't have all those things I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago, or if you haven't been there, thank your God for all your blessings.

Love-Hate Relationship With Politicians

I simultaneously admire and despise politicians.

I admire them because it's a job I would NEVER want to do. It seems to me to be quite thankless. Someone is always unhappy with you no matter what you do or say. And God help you if you actually had a life before you got into politics because someone, somewhere is gonna have pictures, or video, or audio or proof of some sort of the (perhaps) one time there was a lapse in your otherwise good judgement and it ruins you AND ruins your family.

And I despise them because it seems that at their core, they are all completely full of total complete and unadulterated bullshit!! They will say anything to get as many votes as they can. They will say anything about the other so that they themselves appear squeaky clean in comparison. And some of them you just know are not. And, in Great Falls it seems, they will even stoop to stealing each others' campaign signs out of yards.

All in all, they seem to be a bunch of lying, cheating, back-stabbing, dirty-tricks-playing dimwits.

And any of them that do have the slightest bit of idealism (and by that I mean a basic belief that real change is really possible) arrive in Washington D.C. (even the White House, for that matter) and have it promptly stomped out of them because in order to get anything done, you have to get to be part of the "old boy" network that 1) broke us in the first place and 2) can't seem to fix a damn thing.

I have been told that if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain. So, rest assured gentle readers, I will be voting even though Montana has no national candidates. Even if it's just for the right to bitch about politicians, I will be voting.

I believe that change begins locally and spreads globally. So even though I'm only voting for local and state officials, I will choose my vote carefully and thoughtfully, not ONLY because I believe in the same things as my candidate, but also because I believe the person I choose is capable of doing the thankless job that requires them to live in a fishbowl with everyone and their brother continually bitching about all the things they are doing wrong.

VOTE THIS ELECTION DAY - NOVEMBER 2ND!!!

Where The Hell's the Bottom??

I feel like I'm in a hole that I can't get out of. And, the harder I try, the deeper it gets.

I have no motivation. I have a long list of things that need to get done. My house is a disaster. There's a mountain of laundry. The passenger side of my bed is covered with ...... well just a bunch of stuff. My clean clothes, kids' clean clothes, books, junk mail, notebooks, pens - if I had a laptop, that's where it would be....lately it seems I live in my bedroom.

And I used to like to be in my bedroom. It was my sanctuary. Now, it's starting to feel more like a sanatorium than sanctuary.

I've had this illness that started out as a head cold, morphed into bronchitis, and now has become something that just won't go away. I have no appetite, not that that's such a bad thing as I have no energy to cook anything anyway. If I do try to eat, I either feel sick or it won't stay with me very long. And I'm really kind of tired of it. My roommate says he was over his in about 4 days because he just "refused to admit he was sick." I don't even have the energy to do that.

Have you ever had that feeling like you know you're gonna fuck up, and you can see yourself while you are fucking up, but feel powerless to stop it?? Yeah. That's where I'm at.

In a hole, that I can't get out of, and the harder I try and the harder I cry, the deeper the bottom becomes and the steeper the sides get. Like the chick at the end of "Drag Me to Hell" when she's trying to climb up out of the old nasty gypsy woman's grave.

I hope I get over this funk soon.

Delighting in the Dynamic

My "Message from God" for today (actually a few days back, but anyway..):

"On this day God wants you to know...that you've been missing out on delight God has sent your way. Think back over the last day - what could you have taken with delight that you just skipped over?"

And that bothered me because I don't very often take delight in the good things. I am far to focused on the bad things and have a great tendency to wallow around in the crap.

This not only endangers my precarious-at-best mental health, but also my sobriety because I am supposed to be keeping an "attitude of gratitude."

And I'll tell you - that attitude is damn hard to keep in the face of everything I deal with every day.

I did some bitching in an earlier post about being so horrifically tired. Started last Monday and never really let up until Friday. But even though Monday was bad, the rest of the week I was able to get some rest. Some much needed, much appreciated rest. And I feel bad because the laundry didn't get folded and the dishes didn't get done. But as a result of having rested, I feel kind of almost something approaching good. I was able to take the kiddos to McD's for dinner.

And through the day, really, I felt better. I got to the store and got what I needed to get some things done.

And then actually got those things done.

And that made me feel a little better about myself. And because I felt a little better about myself, every little tiny thing that comes along didn't bother me quite so badly and I wasn't quite as cranky as I usually am.

I even let the kiddos have the toys in their happy meals BEFORE all the nuggets were gone. Usually I sound like a broken record - eat your food eat your food eat your food EAT YOUR FOOD!!!!! But on this night, I was able to put the record player away and just let them be kids. (And they did eat all their nuggets even though they got the toy first!)

Saturday and Sunday were not as good but still pretty okay. And then on Monday we were back to the cranky, tired, bitchy person who feels like crap. I did manage to stay awake all day, though. And the rest of the week was just okay. Sunday sucked the life out of me again. I spent most of the day napping on and off and as a result have not slept. So, if I sound a little nuttier than usual, it's becuase I'm riding a caffeine enduced, sleep deprived roller coaster of free falling thought.

And I've decided that I DO need to take the time to not "skip over" the small things. So, here's a few that I noticed over the weekend....

The leaves. They are mostly turned to varying shades of yellow, gold, orange and red. I love the colors of fall. I did, however, feel a bit sad as it seems like just yesterday the trees had finally all turned green and now, in no time at all, will be bare again.

The length of shadows. The tree on my boulevard only shades the very front part of my lawn during the summer. I noticed yesterday that the shadow now reaches all the way up to my front steps.

The temperature. It varies wildly from day to night. Sometimes even from day to day while Mother Nature tries to decide if it is still summer, or if it is truly autumn.

And as I'm noticing these things, I'm also noticing a theme.

Things change. The weather, the seasons. People.

The nature of the Universe is dynamic, not static. EVERYTHING changes.

And I can either roll with them, or be rolled over by them.

Magical Laundry.....As If!!

I wish my washer and dryer would do the laundry like Kelly Rippa's Electrolux set does.

I want my clothes to magically leap into the baskets and then into the washer. That would be so much better than spending two hours on a scavenger hunt through the house - the hamper, behind the hamper, the bathroom, behind the bathroom door, under the kids' beds, in their toy boxes, behind the couch, tucked in the cushions of the chairs, hanging from the ceiling fan (yes, that actually has happened), even stuffed in the bottom drawer of the their dressers because ..... well I don't know the because, but I'm sure it's a good reason.

And then, after it's all been gathered, it has to be packed down to the basement to the dark, dreary, spidery laundry room.

I swear I don't know how two little boys can generate so much laundry but it seems like I do laundry every single say. And if I don't do laundry at least every other day, by the end of the week, there is a mountain of it and I want to do it even less because now it's a ginormous chore and not just a minor inconvenience.

DOING the laundry isn't so bad, but folding the laundry really sucks. It's tedious. It's time consuming. It's boring. And there are never enough socks to go around. It doesn't matter how carefully I gather the laundry, the socks NEVER match up. There's always an extra one from about 4 different pairs. I think the washer eats them. And the socks have never ever happily folded themselves and jumped neatly right into the drawer. Never, not once.

And have you noticed how easily stains just float away from the clothes in the commercials? No matter what stain remover is being pitched, it is always the BEST, the MOST effective, the FASTEST, the EASIEST to use. Please. Not one of them ever actually WORKS as good as they claim to. The stains are less obvious to be sure, but even the best of them leave just the faintest outline of the stain so you can't really see it anymore but you can never completely forget what happened there.

I do however really like the new Bounce dryer bar. It really IS easy to use and it really DOES work. You stick it and forget it for about 30 days and you don't have to cuss because you forgot to put the dumb sheet in and now your silky, lacy panties are stuck to the outside of your blouse and you didn't notice until you got to work and the cute new guy that works in your department peels them off your back and hands them to you.

Yeah. SUPER way to start the day!!

Crankiness

There are so many things that make me cranky. Here's just a few of them...

1. Incorrect punctuation/spelling.

To me, there is no better way to reveal your ignorance than by writing an entire paragraph without a lick of punctuation.

weve all seen those posts and stuff that dont have any capital letters no commas no periods no nothing and they run on and on theres no way to know where one sentence ends and the next begins it really makes it difficult to understand what you are trying to say i mean i can understand not having commas where theyre supposed to be who the hell can figure that out anyway i would think though that a person can figure out where to put the period.

I often wonder what Mrs. Margaris would think about texting and Facebook and the tendency to use abbreviations for words. I think it would make her perfectly shaped helmet of hair stand on end.

2. Incorrect usage of homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings).

This one almost makes me crankier than the punctuation thing. I see it all the time, everywhere. In the newspaper, in articles on the web, in Facebook posts. And some of these things are being written and edited by people with advanced degrees. Here's a list of just a few. This is a very short list and there are SO MANY MORE I couldn't begin to list them all. Here's a link if you want to know more:

http://www.homophone.com/index.php

You're - Contraction for "you are"
Your    - possessive pronoun, indicates ownership

     You're stupid.
     Your stupidity is showing again.

They're - Contraction for "they are"
Their    - possessive pronoun, indicates ownership by a group
There   - indicates placement

     They're stupid.
     Their stupidity is showing again.
     Go over there and be stupid.

Accept - to take what is offered
Except  - to exclude something

     Just accept the fact that you are stupid.
     He's cute, except for the fact that he's stupid.

3. Putting empty containers back on the shelf.

If the bag or the box or bottle or whatever container is empty, THROW THE DAMN THING AWAY!! I realize that it's a whole three extra steps to the garbage can, but you people are young. You can handle it.

4. People who drive 20 mph regardless of the posted speed limit and come to a full stop at every corner even if they don't have a stop sign.

I know it's a big scary world and lots of people drive like maniacs. But still. It really is okay to do the speed limit. Maybe even a teeny bit more than the posted speed limit.

5. Emergency Broadcast System Tests.

I completely understand the need for the EBS. But it never fails. The test always comes at some critical point in the show that I am watching. Why can't they ever happen during the commercials??

6. Drinking the last cold pop and not putting any more back in the fridge.

The box is sitting beside the fridge. Take one out of the fridge, put one back in the fridge. It's not rocket science and it won't take but a second.

7. The Weather Channel

Local information used to scroll along the bottom of the screen and it was handy to flip over there to see how warm or cold it was outside. Now, someone in their infinite wisdom, has decided to scroll information for lots of major cities around the country rather than just the town where you are watching. This wouldn't be a problem for me IF I lived in one of the major cities. But I don't. And, I recently stayed overnight in Helena and noticed that THEY still had their local weather at the bottom of the screen. What's up with that?

And this is a very SHORT list. I could write a post a day, twice a day, every day there are that many things that make me cranky these days.

And the older I get, the more things there are that make me cranky. I was just on the phone with my friend Shelli and she reminded me of another one - cars parked in front of the house that are left running with the music blaring. So not only do I have to listen to (and smell) the gigantic diesel pickup running, I also have to hear the bass thumping so hard it rattles my windows!! Yea!!

I remind me more and more of my grandma, Etta Mae. Those of you who went to Flathead High School might remember her - or at least her name. She ran the A La Carte counter in the cafeteria for like, ever - Etta's Corner.

And she was cranky. And loud. And she cussed. And smoked. And hollered at all of us grand kids all the time. (My cousin Laura even named her Harley after her). AND she was one of those 20 mph drivers - 10 if the weather was bad.

BUT - she was also one of the strongest women I have ever known. She raised 10 kids of her own and mothered probably 1000s more. So, maybe she was entitled to be a little cranky. But as much as she hollered, she laughed that much and more. I miss her every day.

So, maybe it's okay for me to be a little cranky too. As long as I keep remembering to find something to laugh about too.