MFA Mama

nope

   So hey, wanna hear about some trouble that has nothing to do with my back or my marriage?

   Today at work I refused to wait on someone.

   Our GM had the GMs of several other local properties come into the restaurant as her guests, and requested me as their server. I filled a pitcher with water, came out the double doors leading from the kitchen, took one look at the table, was like NOPE, and made a U-turn. 

   One of the other GMs was the guy from The Hotel California who ultimately fired me for asking to receive at least the Federal Minimum Wage (they had stopped paying that to servers, and no, that's not legal, which is why they were pissed that I "open-doored" the issue and told Corporate what they were up to). Fortunately, I'd been honest during my interview for The Ritz and said that my leaving my last job was kind of a mutual thing as a result of said shoddy treatment, and when I told my boss that That Guy was in the restaurant and I couldn't wait on him he was cool about it, and made the other server take the table. It would not have been good service for me to wait on that table. If I was the douche-lord with the bad hairplugs who was a guest of the GM of The Ritz and got me as a server I would've spent the whole meal looking for the loogie on my plate. Hopefully our GM sees it that way, too (there's every reason to believe that she will, because she's awesome, but I wish today hadn't happened because The Ritz has been extra-awesome lately with the bullshit with The XY going on, and I hated to let them down in any little way).

   Seriously, 2013, you can kiss my fat white arse.

still sucking

*   My back is not any better. In fact, it may even be worse. Curling up like a shrimp no longer feels good. There is no comfortable position for sleeping. No amount of medication renders me comfortable anymore, only slightly less desperate. 

*   My marriage is not any better either. Hotter keeps wanting to talk, like just socialize and interact, and I am so  unhappy that it feels fucked up and surreal and dumb to be talking about the pets or the weather or what is going on at work. At the same time, life has not stopped happening and my closest offline friend is having a crisis pregnancy, and there have been workplace dramatics involving one of my favorite co-workers quitting abruptly, and crazy-making e-mail exchanges with the XY (who is being perfectly pleasant face-to-face and has even provided me with the childrens' insurance information but has nevertheless clearly lost all touch with reality based on some of his assertions of late). A guest at work said I made their evening (all I did was provide my usual excellent service and help them figure out their smartphone well enough to send a picture of a special event to their spouse) and was moved to both take a manager aside and sing my praises and write a kind note on their receipt, and I was recognized for going the extra mile. It feels weird that Hotter doesn't know much about any of these things. It feels weirder still to try and tell him. I don't feel like he and I are friends at the moment, and now that he has wounded me he seems to want to be friendly and loving toward me, and I am confused. I'll catch myself talking to him and then remember that this is someone who wants me to shut the fuck up with my unintelligent yammering if I have taken anything for my back, and generally if I am  off the clock I have. I suppose I could solve this by foregoing all non-OTC pain relief, except why would I want to accept any more physical agony into my life to placate someone who begrudges me pain relief because it makes me less of a sparkling conversationalist? I certainly don't want to choose OMGDRUGS over my spouse, but if the OMGDRUGS are warranted and my spouse has brain damage that makes them spacey and absentminded and occasionally hurtful ALL THE TIME and then has the balls to be pissed off because the OMGDRUGS make me SOMETIMES act kind of like they do ALL THE TIME then shouldn't I maybe just burn them in the bed (or couch, as the case may be) while they sleep and have it over with?

*   The XY is just off the chain. He has moved from "obnoxious, unreliable, rude, and domineering" to "just plain delusional and narcissistic to the point that he thinks his saying something makes it true even when presented with evidence someone else has amassed to indicate that he's lying." This scares the hell out of me. It's also a huge pain in the ass. I don't WANT to call and ask the court clerk's office where my damn summons is, or print out a recent-ish photo of the XY for the security team at work. I don't even want to THINK about that motherfucker. 

*   2013 can fuck right on off and die in a tire-fire. I thought maybe it was a good year because I got a great job, but it seems like that was a fluke. I'm ready to be done with the holidays and this entire year in general, except that I don't really foresee 2014 being any better at this point, just different in a "now you need regular mammograms because you're old" kind of way. Which: great. At least my tits'll see SOME action? 

*   How are all of YOU?

sucking

* My back has gone from bad to worse. It hurts all the time now. Even if I take Vicodin AND naproxen, and lie down. I don't know what to do with that.

* There has been great ugliness with The XY. I think he decided to go off his meds and go crazy for the holidays. I hate that for my kids, and also for myself, because I hate going to court, and there'll be at least one court date in the next few weeks (criminal, not civil) that I will have to attend.

* Hotter is, I think, feeling the strain of the above, because he is...not himself. I can only conclude, based on what he's said, that he is done with me (because some things you do not say to someone you want to continue to have dealings with). I was already so damn stressed out and upset that I can't even begin to process that, however, so I'm just hitting pause on Hotter and trying to spend all of my waking hours at work.

* As if all of THAT wasn't enough, I stupidly glutenated myself, and feel like I swallowed an angry badger whole.

* How are all of you?

Sent from The Precious

bummed

   Today I'm just...bleh. My back is still terrible, horrible, awful. The XY is refusing to provide me with his new health insurance information. I managed to eff up frozen pizza at dinnertime (THE HELL?). Hotter informed me that I am not myself lately and wanted to know what my problem was.* At one point I felt really defeated by it all and cried a little.

   Hopefully tomorrow is better.

 

*   My problem is nerve pain, lots of it, and fear that this will eff up my ability to keep doing the job that I enjoy so much and that has been so wonderful for our family. I try not to let this turn me into a raging bitch, and most of the time I think I do a pretty good job, but right before Hotter was moved to ask me this question he asked me why I was eating something, and I said "because I'm hungry," and he gave me A Look and said "no you're not." Then he wanted to know when I'll be off the prednisone, and the answer to that was "two days ago." I can be a fat bitch all by myself without any pharmaceutical help, apparently. I can also hate myself for it just fine without any help from him, though. I think in some fucked-up brain-damaged way he was trying to be helpful, but NO, BAD, WRONG.   

thankful

   I know the official Day Of Thanks has already passed, and maybe y'all are full up on the thankful, but I am Having A Moment over here.

   I could have said that today was a bad day, given that I woke up in such excruciating back pain as to make ADLs (activities of daily living, for those of you fortunate enough not to know what those are) challenging, and my lunch-date canceled on me due to sickness on her part (feel better, friend C!), but it's really not. I have a warm, safe home. Currently said home is filled with the delicious smell of food my husband and I cooked together for the three healthy, happy children doing homework around the kitchen table, and there are some entitled housepets at my feet, and for all that my back is fucking killing me I can't be mad at the universe right now.

   Today I am thankful for friends courteous enough not to expose my respiratorily-compromised arse to further illness, a husband who is willing to do the heavy lifting when my back is messed up, and a home with a fully-stocked pantry and plenty of love to go around. For all that it's occasionally tough as hell, this really is my favorite life :)

 

P.S. I am also thankful that the XY did, in fact, pay the child support that was due yesterday, and I have finished the holiday shopping. The MFA Children and Hotter will be very happy with their gifts, I think, and I scored myself a pair of those gloves that allow you to use a touchscreen that were deeply discounted for "Cyber Monday," so yay!

bullet salad

*   I just made turkey salad with some leftover Thanksgiving turkey, and OMG, it was SO GOOD! Big Child, Middly, and I had the turkey salad for lunch; it was the first time Middly has ever willingly eaten anything of the sort (nobody tell him about the emm-aye-why-oh). Yay! There's nothing left on that poor bird but the wings and enough scraps for soup, and I'm already fantasizing about eating the wings later (I'm the only person in the house who enjoys parts of the turkey other than the breast, and have been feasting as a result). Man, I love Thanksgiving turkey!

*   Know who else loves Thanksgiving leftovers? Skeeter. Hotter heated up slices of ham in some chicken broth for last night's dinner, and Skeeter found the pan and drank the broth. He then helped himself to both pumpkin and pecan pie all sneaky-like, and was shockingly bloated for the rest of the evening:

Figure One: I felt so bad for him! He was utterly unrepentant, and still tried to mug me for my bowl of Corn Chex shortly after this photo was taken.

*   Tomorrow I get to meet a friend and co-worker at Temp Agency #2, whose acquaintance I made through this humble blog. Since the whole Stalky debacle I've been leery of meeting any further innernet people (well, with the exception of Hotter I guess, HA!), but C is A Good Egg and I'm looking forward to visiting with her. Yay!

*   Because it can't ALL be good food, good friends, and funnies at the expense of the stupid gluttonous cat, I'm 90% certain the XY has lost his job. E-mails to his work address bounce, his work cell and landline are no longer his, and this would certainly explain his recent downward spiral in mental health and threats to stop paying the child support "because you are unreasonable about visitation" (meaning I've asked him to start returning the children on time and stop peeing in my yard). Oh, and the call I got from MFA Dentist's office asking if I knew why their claims for the boys' most recent cleanings and checkups had been rejected. Oyyy. The children were telling me their father spent $2,000 on electronics during visitation on Black Friday (they volunteered the information in the context of telling me what great deals he had told them he'd gotten--I do not ask them questions about their time with their father because that's not fair to them), so I'm guessing the insurance checks from his "Jewish lightning" housefire have come in?  Hopefully he saves a little something back to pay child support...that's due today and I'm really nervous. If he makes good on his threat to stop paying it'll be a grim holiday season here, and, well, a grim forseeable future. Because to even complain to a judge about lack of child support you have to hire a lawyer, and if I'm trying to feed everyone and make rent without child support I'm not going to be able to afford one. HO HO HO! MERRRRY FUCK-YOU!

*   On the bright side I didn't hear any negative feedback at work from my failed good deed of yesterday. So that's good at least.

*   How are all of YOU? 

 

fail

   So remember how there was a big innernet fuss over the summer about how a waitress comped someone's meal and wrote a nice note in support of a breastfeeding mother? Well, today a family of five came into the restaurant where I work. The kids were (I am guessing, except in the case of the baby, who I asked the dad about while mom was taking the older children to wash their hands) five years, three years, and just a few weeks of age, and incredibly cute and well-behaved. Dad was very hands-on, and especially tender with the baby. Mom looked tired and like she wasn't having the best day ever, and had just turned to her plate (after cutting up the older two children's food and getting them settled) when the littlest began to fuss and root around in Dad's arms. He apologetically passed the baby over for mom to nurse, and I thought "meh, maybe I can brighten her day a little." So I went and got a free breakfast voucher and wrote a note on a piece of register tape that said "Kids under five eat free here, and since you're doing all the work of feeding the littlest, this is for you. Good job getting baby off to a healthy start in life," and drew a little smiley face, and quietly set it on the table the next time I went over to clear some dishes.

   Reader, she read the note and then looked at me like I'd just kicked the family dog. I spent the rest of my shift worrying that someone from management would pull me aside and tell me I was in trouble (for...I don't know what, exactly, but people are weird and maybe she was embarrassed because I had noticed she was nursing the baby? She looked and sounded to be from the same demographic group as I am so I don't think it's anything cultural), and won't breathe easy until a few days have gone by without my hearing anything negative about what I thought was me doing something nice for a guest.

   Fail.

thanks

   I'm feeling a bit better, no longer wheezing, and no longer on enough prednisone to make Mr. Ed want to kick Wilbur's STUPIDFUCKINGFACE in, and despite life's assorted woes and worries (most notably my ex-husband's current stated intent to take me to custody court over my requests that he abide by the terms of our custody order, cease his verbal abuse of me, and also STOP PEEING IN MY YARD, all of which he finds unreasonable on my part*) I've even found it in my black little heart to be thankful. We're all together, we're all either healthy or on the mend, we had an amazing locally-sourced, organic, humanely-farmed and gluten-free feast, and Thanksgiving and Hannukah aren't likely to fall on the same day again during my lifetime (because adults in tryptophan comas and children wired on pie and gelt is...an interesting combination). We've got it pretty good, all things considered, and I decided to poll everyone about what they are thankful for this year.

MFA Mama: Is very thankful that she left the unhappiness of her first marriage behind and made a better life for herself and the MFA Children with a mostly-wonderful man who deserves to have a head at least 95% of the time :)

Hotter: Is thankful that he finally got his eye fixed, and that his wife still loves him, and that I found my current amazing job at The Ritz "to support my bum ass!"

Big Child: Is thankful that he has a house, and a family that is able and willing to provide him with food, shelter, and video games (heh).

Middle Child: Is thankful to have his family's love (awwww TODAY HE IS MY FAVORITE).

Little Child: Is thankful for his laptop (oy).

Isis: Is thankful we only got ONE kitten, and for turkey necks.

Bumpus: Is thankful for Big Child, and that we moved his tether away from Bravo Hive (whoops).

Skeeter: Is not thankful for a goddamn thing, WILL KILL YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP (at least he's cute).

MFA Birdie: Is thankful for honey seed sticks, and also that we only got ONE kitten.

Clementine: Is thankful for heat lamps and crickets, and maybe also for carrots and berries.

The MFA Flock: Are thankful I hate butchering chickens enough that they still have heads despite a less-than-stellar laying performance of late (although they did pick back up again).

The MFA Rabbits: Are thankful not to be headed to "freezer camp" at the moment.

The MFA Honeybees: Are thankful it's too cold for hive incursions.

   How about you and yours? What are you thankful for this year?

 

 

*   God, yes, really. I just...I can't even laugh at it anymore because it's just sad that he's clearly not doing so great lately in the mental health department. I've offered to arrange and pay for third-party mediation in hopes that hearing a human being who is not me say that court orders are non-negotiable and functional adults don't PEE IN PEOPLE'S YARDS might help him see that he's going down a bad road with this, restricted our contact to e-mail by blocking him from calling or texting me or Hotter, and eaten my feelings on the matter, and that is all I can really do.

Imma shut my hole for a bit

   I...am not my most amazing self at the moment. I'm still coughing up a lung, my back still hurts, and I'm still freaking out about not having a safety net and OMG THE FUCKING HOLIDAYS and whatnot. Plus there's the prednisone, which does not improve matters. I basically want to eat ALL THE THINGS while crying and wielding a meat cleaver against the deserving, and then when my cleaving arm wears out, start a million innernet flamewars. The other night we thought the possum had returned, and I grabbed my trusty hand-hoe and charged out to Squatter Workshop ready to dispatch the motherfucker*, but there was no possum after all and I was...a little disappointed, actually. Because apparently part of me was looking forward to doing battle? Instead I had to content myself with going OFF on the XY via text message (he did deserve it, at least, but usually I refrain...still, I needed to feed SOMEone to my lions and thought the ex-husband was a better candidate than the current one).

   So...yeah. Imma sit down and shut up until I've, uh, processed my current feelings (and stepped down on the steroids).

 

*   If any of y'all want to hate on me for this, keep in mind that a) possums kill chickens and bunnies and b) you're not going to change my mind. I fucking hate possums whether I'm on steroids or not. It's true. There is just NO EXCUSE FOR THEM. Did you know they have more teeth than any other land animal? THEY EVEN HAVE TEETH UNDER THEIR TONGUES. And this is not your cue to bombard me with photos of their babies, either, because THEY STILL HAVE THAT FUCKING TAIL AND THAT ASININE POINTY FACE and THEY GROW UP TO BE BIG POSSUMS. If you have pet-possum stories to share, then you are a sick person. Possums are not pet material. A possum tried to eat my pregnant dog when I was eleven and I had to bludgeon it to death with the stock of a jammed BB gun to get it to turn loose. NOT OKAY! The dog ended up being fine, and so did the possum, apparently, as when I went back outside to dispose of the body there was none. FURTHER EVIDENCE THAT POSSUMS ARE FUCKING EVIL. Down with possums!

oh there's that other shoe

   So the MFA Beater has also been rather unwell, but I was trying to whip it along until payday. 

   No such luck.

   It's fixed now (although MFA Mechanic hinted that it is A Very Old Car and I think we may be facing some end-of-life issues with it soonish), but there went our entire safety net, and after spending six hours on a folding chair in the mechanic's waiting room my back is wrecked and I feel like crap. I'm very worried that something will happen to the Beater before I can accumulate a new-Beater fund, or that either my back or my lungs will get in the way of my keeping my wonderful job and all that it has to offer my family.

   Happy fucking Thanksgiving, indeed!

   Also, if I'm this depressed now I don't look forward to coming down off the steroids.

   A lot of this is pain and Prednisone talking, right?