Love Is Grand

But divorce is 100 grand.  Jessica left that message on my Dale's myspace page last week, and he thought it was hilarious.

You might remember an entry I wrote a few months ago about my son and daughter-in-law (Dale and Jessica) breaking up.  He moved back home and she went to live with her parents.  The baby was back and forth between the two homes.  There was much wailing and cursing and gnashing of teeth and a zillion ugly telephone calls on both parts.  The son was being reminded of what it's like to be single again during the separation - and liking it - and the daughter-in-law was just plain angry.  I don't believe either of them stopped screaming at each other long enough to think that all the pressures and responsibilities of a new marriage and new baby (nt to mention lack of sleep and post partum depression) are enough to drive any couple apart - IF you didn't pause and take stock of the situation and realize that you have to work at ANY relationship if you want it to survive.

After nearly 3 months of all of that, I gave up on them.  I figured it was over, but made it clear to Dale that Jessica is the mother of my grandson, and I would not turn my back on her anymore than I would turn from him.  And then I stopped putting in my 2 cents (moms have to say something, sometime and I probably said more than I should have since they have been separated).  Well, as soon as I shut my mouth...

He invited her over for Thanksgiving.  She was ecstatic.  He invited her over the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  She came, he had to work, the baby got sick with a terrible virus which quickly spread to the rest of us. Jess was sick Saturday and Sunday night so we kept the baby for her to rest.

On Monday, Dale got sick with it and just knew he was dying.  He sure sounded like he was.  That very day, the rest of us in the house were sick - all of us at once.  That night, he kept text messaging someone.  When I woke around 1 a.m. and made my way to the ginger ale bottle, I noticed that..the Soup Fairy had been.  Not only were there cans of chicken noodle littering my counter, there were gallons of Gator Ade and boxes of crackers.  Now I knew Dale, being at death's door, couldn't have driven to Walmart.  So when I asked him the next morning just who the Soup Fairy was, he muttered "Jessica."

She drove 30 miles to bring him what she thought might help him.

And as I type, she and the baby and Dale are in the living room, being a family. 

You know what...there certainly is a lot to be thankful for.

:-)

 

:-)

Happy Thanksgiving!  You are a blessing.

a day late and a dollar short, usually

Today was the Great American Smoke Out, and I almost made it.  SO close.  For the past few weeks, I have been taking Chantix, trying to wean myself from nicotine.  The good news is, I'm down from a pack of cigarettes to maybe 5 a day, give or take one.  I wanted to make a statement with the Smoke Out, and did not have one all day long - until 5:30, and since then, I've had 2 cigarettes.  Damn. I couldn't do it.  But there's tomorrow, and I will try again.

The Chantix has helped a immensely.  The side effects haven't been too bad - there have been vivid dreams, but they weren't the nightmares of which the accompanying literature warned.  As a matter of fact, they've been pretty darned good.  One night, Tom Selleck invited me to our own private coffee house for lattes.  Another night, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself back in medium custody, greeting my friends.  I woke with that warm feeling you get with good dreams so real you can feel every hug and recall every expression. 

Wish me luck.

 

putting it in park

Ok, I've stopped driving long enough to come back and write a journal entry.

I remember my first car - it was a bright yellow Ford Pinto station wagon.  You could see it barreling down the road from a mile away.  My dad picked it out, even though I had worked for it (summers, evenings and weekends at the restaurant) because he wanted me to have something reliable and hard to kill.

He did a great job. I tried my best to kill that ugly car, but it would not die, and 4 years later, I traded it in for another Pinto - a sportier, less conspicuous model that eventually did die.

Somewhere down the line, I fell in love with a red Thunderbird, so I got it.  By that time, I was known as the County Breakdown Queen and God looked after me by allowing my cars to die in front of garages.  Anyway, I picked the Thunderbird because I knew I would look great sitting beside the road in it should the break down occur outside of city limits.  To be fair, I did get my money's worth out of that car - it lasted me for years until one night, on my way home, it broke down in the middle of an intersection.  I figured that was it. for me and it was time to get something that would respond to automobile CPR.

And so THEN I got an ugly Chevrolet - a big boat of a car that I named Edgar.  It was incredibly undented when I got knocked for six while sitting at another intersection waiting to make a left-hand turn.

I suppose I could go on and on, but the point is, the uglier the car, the longer it seems to last.  As of late, I had been driving a Chevy S10 - a great little truck that got me where I was going and would let nothing stop it - especially not the coyote that threw itself in front of us on the way to work one morning.  Poor coyote.

But I wanted a CAR.  And so, while visiting my brother at work, I spied it from across the parking lot.  It said SHARP in big red letters, calling me, and when I walked over to it, it winked at me.  My brother, ever the salesman, said, Girlie, you'd look mighty SHARP driving that down the road.  I had to agree.  And then he unlocked the door and said..sit in it!  And then he gave me the key and said...drive it!  And I did, and it was sharp and it was smooth and it flirted with the road and when I stepped on the brake, it was very obedient (that won BIG points with me), and  less than a week later, my silver Dodge Stratus sedan brought me home.

It's sporty.  It's reliable.  It's SHARP, and now it's mine and I have enjoyed every second of driving it EVERYwhere, and plan to drive some more.  So, if I'm conspicuously absent from J-Land and you happen to see a SHARP silver streak zoom past, it might be me and my baby.  Or it might be a comet, ya never know..

By the way, I haven't named it yet.  Any ideas?