Seriously! (clearly – too much Grays Anatomy for me. Seriously.)
Alright – so, ready to cackle?
See, I have a TV/DVD/VCR combo, right? Love it. Cept it’s a single tuner, which means in order to video tape something you’re not actively watching, you have to have another VCR. Heh. So I’ve been bemoaning this fact, and wishing I had DVR (since up here? no tivo!) and stuff. Then! I found out our cable company? Has DVR now! Color me happy! I rearranged some stuff, and found the extra couple of bucks it’d cost to have that instead of the digital box I already had, and gleefully went to exchange it.
Can you imagine! Watching something, while RECORDING SOMETHING ELSE! I was estatic! I was BOUNCY! I was….
….denied! See, we DO have DVRs available here now, however? They are not dual tuners either! Which means, to record something, I have to be WATCHING IT. (Or, of course, asleep. this does have an easier ‘timed record’ function for times I’m sleeping and gone and shit, so there’s a bonus there.) Man. shit like this only happens to me, you know? *L*
I do have it on good authority, however, that the dual tuners are coming soonish, and all I’ll have to do then is switch out the box, because my account is already set up for it. Cool! And also? Local phone service! That means compitition for the monolith that is our phone service now and maybe, just maybe, lower prices! hurray! As it is my cell phone, the kids cell, Long Distance, cable tv and cable modem are all with the same company. Switching over the phone too would be nice -specially as I get Airline miles on all of’em. Heh.
So, playing with the new DVR is fun. Testing to see if I can record a PPV movie and watch it agian later without having to pay again, now. Heh.
~~
In other news: Family Drama. (no, Nana and Ladybug, not ya’ll. the OTHER family.) And I have just told them that I’m done. I do not have the emotional stability in myself right now to take on a whole buncha drama whore bullshit. While it breaks my heart that I probably won’t see the little guy again for a good long while, I cannot condone going back into a relationship where there’s even the suspicion of his hurting that baby. If I had a single leg to stand on…
And the fact she decided to drag Kevin’s name into it and through the mud caused me no end of fury and grief and irritation and resentment. So. She’s on her own. I’m done. D.O.N.E. done. Fuck’em all. It’s time she grew the fuck up anyway.
(And any posts here by her, or about her, will be deleted. This is my goddamn space. I reserve the right to block anyone I deem fit.)
So. 3am this morning, I woke up The Boy who’d crashed on the couch at about 1am. We made one last check of his bags, his things, made sure he had his money, his ID, his Choir uniform, and the Girl Next Door’s scarf that she’d forgotten and asked for him to bring up on the bus for her.
I’d given him the lectures (Don’t put anything in the pocket of the seat ahead of you. Keep your money and id in your neck case around your neck. Keep a hand on your fanny back – and wear it in front. Don’t break my camera or I’ll beat you. Keep track of your Chaperones, so they have an easy time keeping track of you. Remember the 3 to Pee rule, Don’t…) and gotten a roll of the eyes and a “MOOO-OOOOOOM! I have flown before! GAWD.” To which I smirked. “Yeah. With me, and with your NANA. Now, make sure you…”
I’m sure ya’ll heard the eye-rolling from there. But dammit, I’m MOM and I’m ALLOWED TO BE ALL LECTURINGLY PANIC-Y! So there.
So, anyway. Got him up, and his stuff together, and we were 45 minutes early to catch the bus. (He was a little anxious. Heh.) We brought the puppy with us, wrapped up in a blanket, for a little last minute cuddling. Then the bus pulled up, and it was time to load his luggage, grab his orange boppy pillow, and pick a seat.
Yes, Hendy even chartered the Oilers bus for them, so that they could ride in style and comfort! So, he hugged the dog, told me it was cold (It was -12F) and that he was getting into the bus. I made him give ME a hug too – because hello! hugging the dog and not his MOTHER? So, after a tight hug, I went back to the car, where I watched everyone else load up, then the bus pull away – I followed to the highway, and when I turned home – there was nothing but the tailights to be seen. SIIIIIIGH.
So. There you have it. The Boy is off on his Trip of a Lifetime. I’ve not received any phone calls, so can only assume they made it to Anchorage and the Airport on time, and are right now *checks time* just about to land in Seattle (3:10pm Seattle Time) where they’ll hang out for 3 hours before hopping the nonstop flight to London, where at 2:20 tomorrow, they’ll hop onto another flight to Madrid, where they’ll hopefully get dinner and a good nights sleep before all the festivities really begin Tuesday Morning @ 9am. All told, their travel time will be about 29 hours.
I’m doing my best not to be all panic-y mom, but HELLO! my BABY! and he’s GONE! and he’s ALL ALONE (with 134 other kids/chaperones) and I can’t PROTECT him when he’s HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD!
Yeah. Clearly I’m not all panic-y worried mom at all. Heh.
(And the other kids/furbabies are under orders not to be cute for the next 2 weeks since I sent my camera with the boy. Harumph. I’m reduced to the old camera, and my cell phone. Sorry in advance. Hahah!)
So people all over the net today are doing the traditional yearly wrapup – what they did, didn’t do, what they wanted, got, didn’t want, got anyway, so on and so forth. I’d thought about trying to do that too, but it just wasn’t working.
I still feel like I’m floating through space, that time has no meaning, that there’s no difference between one day and the next. The darkness of last year still clings to my senses, to the edges of my thoughts. It’s almost comforting, in a frightening kind of way. Every day is the same – no sleep, too much sleep, no thought, too much thought, nothing different everything different. Contradiction seems to be my middle name.
The kids keep me afloat, but now more then ever I want to shy away from talks of Kevin and want to cover my eyes and ears and thoughts and dive deep into myself where none of it matters or happened – anything at all. I paste a smile on my face, I make the motions, I move through the day with spurts of laughter and brief glimpses of sunlight that are all too soon tinged in darkness again.
My kids are the light of my life – they are the ones keeping my head above water, bringing laughter just when I think I have forgotten how to smile. Even so, i worry so much for them, how they are dealing, how they really feel. They seem so strong, so tough, so connected to his memory – he is their hero. I want to keep that alive, to foster that feeling of connection, even though every moment of memory and laughter is another bladed stab to my heart and soul. I focus so much on helping them, I lose me.
But then again, this floating feeling is comfortable, familiar. I’ve always had it, though never to this degree. Day by day, same same same. Its a slippery slope, I know that, and sometimes I feel my hand holds are smaller then normal, the niche I’ve shoved my feet in are swallowing the precarious grip. But still I cling, and perhaps even gain an inch or two with the aid of a friend or family’s shoulder here, a gentle nudge there, a not so gentle nudge elsewhere.
So what to do? I’ll keep on clinging to that slope, for now, inching my way up and likely sliding back down a time or two. I’ll use the shoulders and hand-ups as they are needed. And I’ll try to achieve something other then floating in the coming year.
(PS – and yes, I’m ok. just a little introspective.)
Aka – another post that’s all about randomosity!
– We have had our first (and second) casualty from the Tree. Sneaky little shits waited until I went to bed yesterday morning, then batted happily away until they broke one of my cheapo decorations. No great loss – but must step up the Kitten Training. Heh. Place your bets now…
– I find myself humming this morning. And randomly singing “It’s beginning to look a lot like CHRIStmas…” I’m finding it vaguely annoying. I blame lack of sleep – 2 hours or so – where the alarm rudely snapped me out of a lovely vague dream of some man dressed only in a red bow. Dammit.
– Why was I up so late? Whew. Seaaaarching and shoooooopping and comparing and beating my head against a wall, etc. You know, when the kids get bigger, the toys get smaller. You’d think this’d be good, but oh no! For some reason these smaller gifts are DIPPED IN SOLID GOLD. That’s the only reason to explain the prices!
However, through determination (sheer stubbornness, to be honest!) I managed to score something I think the boy and I can both live with (NO, it is NOT a cell phone. Nor is it the coveted Ipod.)
And also, Ebay is my friend. I can find *It* on Ebay. Whatever *It* is. Which is where I was able to snatch up something for the pup at much cheaper then store prices – NIB. Awesome. Now I just need to locate some MoonSand for her. As it’s the “ONE! THING! MAMA!” that she wants most of all.
The girl, she is another thing altogether. She isn’t sure WHAT she wants – other then a crockpot. So, it’s guessing time for her, but she’s such a good kid and a girlygirl, I’m sure some of my bargain finds will make her happy too. Man am I glad she loves to cook! mmmmmmmmyummy!
So, come 3am or so, I’d finished the online portion of my shopping to my satisfaction. Now come Dec. 20th when I get paid and do local shopping, I shall be much less frantic! Yay! Cuz then it’s all stocking stuffers and little things, and whew. This is probably why I’m humming.
– Course, I also find myself retreating into a solitude and hiding in general – a social recluse. There is a lot of talk of Kevin by the kids and understandably so, and I encourage that. Unfortunately it’s like stabbing myself all over again each time, too. So I put on a brave face, and we laugh, and sometimes cry, and remember what each empty millimeter of my heart was once filled with.
– I also wonder how it is that all of his friends have disappeared. Once swearing they’d be here, they wouldn’t forget, they’d make sure to check in on us and see if we needed anything…. there is no contact, no returning of phone calls, and no checking in. I quit trying, because I won’t force myself on anyone, but even the kids notice it. I just tell them everyone works through things in their own way – they miss Daddy too, and they just can’t handle it. Sometimes, though, I envy their ability to use the out of sight, out of mind method of coping – because while Kevin’s certainly out of sight, he’s by no means ever out of mind. It’d be easier if it were that way – but no one said love and loss was easy, hm? Let alone fair.
– Though, that said, I do wish the guy who donated the Ham to us last year would show up again with another one. That was some damn good eatin! YUM!
– This conflicting of emotions is leaving me humming with tears burning behind my eyes, as well as sleepless. So I will go to bed here soon as the pup is off to school, having finally worked myself into such exhaustion that not even Diet Crack Coke can permeate it.. I can fell it pressing against me, suffocating my will to sit here and find something, anything else to do rather then face my bed again.
– Unless, of course, that nameless hunk in the red ribbon shows up in again. Rawr. Then? Then! I shall go willingly to dreamland.
– Wouldn’t you?
