[06:16] <Man X> The only joy I get out of plate bikinis is the amount of pearls Man Y clutches when he sees me in game.
[06:16] <Man X> It’s so cute when he gets the vapors.
Author Archives: iasshole
Strudelday
What is important to know is that Strudel speaks very quickly and precisely. One time at her summer camp, one of the counselors asked Franny where her sister was from due to her “accent.”
“What is that story called, the children in the box-cart?” Strudel said.
“The Boxcar Children?” I said.
“No, that is not right, it is about children in a box-cart, what is that called?”
“THE BOXCAR CHILDREN.”
“I don’t think so.” She went back to playing in a non-greasy pizza box that she kidnapped from last night’s dinner. “OHH we are the pizza box children!”
**************
A Dream.
“I had a dream last night,” Strudel said.
“I know, you were crying a lot this morning,” I said. A wee bed invader shifted me out at 4:30 after I made the mistake of using the bathroom.
“Can I tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Can it be more than two sentences?” There is a rule in our house that dream recitations should be limited to two-sentence summaries so breakfast does not turn into the Buffy show.
Strudel took a deep breath.
“Last night I dreamt that you took me and my sister somewhere and it was BAD and then you stepped on a place where cannonballs go and you exploded yourself. You ended your life! And you said, ‘Come on girls, you too!”
“What happened then?”
“My sister and I decided not to explode ourselves so we went home and we called 9-1-1. That was the end!”
I laughed, which was a terrible mistake.
“Why are you laughing? It’s not FUNNY! You ended your life!”
“I just like the ending that you called 9-1-1. Very practical.”
“Okay. You are not going to end your life, are you, Mom?”
“Me? Nooo! I want to know you for my whole life.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
The Curious Incident of the Asshole in the Afternoon (Epic)
“But it’s Mine!” screamed the bird, when she heard the egg crack.
(the work was all done. Now she wanted it back.)
“It’s my egg!” she sputtered. “You stole it from me!
Get off of my nest and get out of my tree!”
Dear Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity Diary,
So what happened in court? I hope I am not boring you with my, um, life, but I have to get this all down so I don’t forget it. Yesterday I was the petitioner, so I got the opportunity via paperwork to make the initial arguments, he replied, and then we got one more chance to rebut statements via more arguments and exhibits. The action was a Motion to Modify the Parenting Plan.
As I mentioned in a previous post, what was at stake was:
1. Would we be allowed to modify the parenting plan? The problem with the parenting plan was that it was 50/50 time, which does not work out when a kid has over an hour commute to her father’s house. This is a tricky one and I’ll discuss it in more detail.
2. Would we be allowed to roll back to the “temporary” plan that we had followed since he moved in 2008? Last month the temporary judge had ruled that we would be moving back in time to 2005, meaning she would be commuting 3 hours on school days and one time on Sunday.
3. Could a guardian ad litem be appointed to examine the child’s life, speak to her, her family, look at her home, and so forth, in order to speak for her in court should the case go to trial?
His argument was that we should keep the 2005 parenting plan.
The trial date is set for October 2012. I guess this problem is solved since the world is going to end next year anyway! Just kidding, this situation is still going to keep stinking up a small corner of my life.
Short answer: the commissioner ruled in our favor. She said a LOT of things, some of which I will describe. First, she was about a half hour late returning. Court was supposed to start at 1:30 p.m.–we were the only case to be heard (the other two were no-shows) and we sat adjacent to each other, waiting, waiting. I felt like we were twisting, dangling over a cliff.
I snuck looks at SeaFed and it looked like he was working on his laptop and chatting with his lawyer occasionally. He was wearing the same terrible suit coat and tan pants and a blue tie. When he first came to the hall and walked by us in he was wearing a flat cap and snapping his gum. I had that feeling like I wanted to kick him under a table or something, which I have actually done before.
Seattle courts don’t look anything like the pristine courtrooms of stage and screen. There are boxes of printer paper laying around, the clerks have mini-fans and cacti, and there were coats piled up on what I think is a witness stand.
Finally, we were called up. My lawyer was allowed to make arguments for more than the allotted five minutes, since the courtroom was empty, and his lawyer did the same. His lawyer led with a paraphrase from Sherlock Holmes, saying what was significant was that the dog didn’t bark. Either I am about to see some wind get inherited, or he has nothing, I thought to myself. His lawyer talked about the fact that the document we submitted about her crying in class was the first day of her commute, and nothing after that. I found this frustrating, because she had continued to talk to her counselor and some of her teachers, but indeed, there was no other written documentation about the fact that Franny was still upset throughout the month. Thus, “the dog didn’t bark.” THE DOG WAS BARKING, OK?
The commissioner gave her opinion then. “Does this meet the requirements for modification?” she asked. “I will go through them, all four points, and speak to them.” I could have died then. If I lost, I would have to hear her opinion on all the points. She had already spoken at length by then, and I felt like I was being roasted over a spit on some mezzanine of Hell listening to her opening remarks. The RCW is lengthy on this, but she hit four points.
1. Was what was happening considered to be permanent by the parents and child? Was the child integrated into my household? She spoke at length to this, but my summary is, yes. The commissioner said that she felt three years was long enough in a child’s life to constitute a permanent change. Not to be outdone by SeaFed’s lawyer quoting Sherlock, she paraphrased Shakespeare and commented that you can call our living situation a rose all day, but it was actually a daffodil.
She asked the opposing attorney if he could say that Franny could not be integrated into our home because she already WAS integrated into our home (which was his argument), due to the fact that we started at 50/50, would he take it to the extreme and claim that a child who was under a 50/50 plan but lived with one parent for 363 days a year and spent the other two with the other parent–would he not say that child was logically more a part of the majority household just because the plan in place said the parents were 50/50? She rejected the notion that a wibbly-wobbly 50-50 custody plan could not be changed just because the plan was supposed to be equal. Shit, bitches, this is when I am so happy to have a lawyer. Also, according to their side, I was trying to pull a “fast one” on him by sneakily taking care of our kid after he moved.
2. Was there a substantial deviation in the parenting plan? Yes. It was no longer 50/50. Franny’s life takes place in Seattle. Her father lives in another city. The commissioner talked about the importance of friends and social activities for a teenlet and how it’s important to respect that.
3. Was it by agreement, was there consent given to change the parenting plan? Yes.
By this point we had racked up three and I tell you I was shitting myself. You don’t want to stand there stupidly in your doofy clown clothes looking crazy, so I settled for wringing my hands instead of crawling under the table or wetting myself. I did start crying when I realized we were winning because I was so relieved.
The commissioner decided that because SeaFed had signed paperwork in our 2007 mediation that looked VERY like the schedule we were following from 2008 onward, and for the simple fact that he had allowed the schedule to continue, that his consent was given.
4. Would keeping the parenting plan in its current state harm the child? YES. YES. YES. That’s about all I can say about that.
So she rolled it back to the “temporary” parenting plan, which we have been doing for the past 3+ years. She ordered that we mediate in the next 60 days. I liked what she said about how many times we have found a way to agree on arrangements in the past, which is absolutely true. We also were ordered to appoint a guardian ad litem in the hallway in case mediation failed.
SeaFed bargain-basemented on the GAL, picking people solely on price. His attorney did not really know many of the GALs, which made sense to me, since my lawyer cannot remember opposing him in family court. (My lawyer mentioned that she trained to be a GAL but then was advised that she should park at peoples’ houses and other places with her car facing out for a quick getaway and then realized it was not a life for her.) This sounds right for him, really. Penny wise, pound foolish. I thought it was funny in a way, because I know he just bought himself and his stay-at-home wife and retired mother-in-law new iPhones. IN A WAY.
I picked Franny up after and broke the news to her.
“We won.”
She was SO HAPPY. We went out to our favorite teriyaki place and my appetite has shrunk to about half of my normal bento-hoovering abilities, but that will change soon enough. She is looking forward to VISITING his house this weekend and coming back home on Monday.
So, mediation again. I am a bit nervous that if he runs out of money he will hit up his Daddy Warbucks for it. As always, stay tuned, and thanks for reading and telling me I am not crazy. Court is hard. Court lines (don’t do it). On the other hand, if $LASTNAME vs $LASTNAME is someday precedent for getting someone out of a pickle when they are 50/50 and in an integration dispute, I would be happy, though I will never know.
This Picture Is Not Ironic; I am Truman
F-Bomb, F-Bomb F-Bomb
Dear MF Diary,
The best thing happened today. Franny POCKET DIALED me while at school. I answered, assuming she was ill or needed something.
“Hello?” Silence. I could hear her laughing. I tried a couple more times. “Helloooo Franny?”
Then I heard her talking.
“Yeah, she’s got WAY better style than Kylie.” More laughter. More gossiping. Everything sounded normal. A boy walked up and greeted them. “Oh HEEEY Michael…” Then: more conversation, punctuated with about 27 f-bombs. More people laughing at something she was saying.
She sounded a lot like she does at home. It was nice to hear her with her friends around her. I took the stance a while ago that I am not going to be a drawer rifler or a diary reader. I was raised like that, and I did not feel like my room was my own. Which, I get it. Technically it’s not, but it’s nice to feel you have your own space.
I am planning to take Franny to the mall tonight alone as a reward for making up the homework she missed on her father’s solid week with her.
Strudel is bummed, since she loves the mall too, but I promised her some special mom alone time on Sunday. She had some good news of her own yesterday–the school has finished examining half of the advanced placement test she took in October, and they saw her in the office and blurted to her that she did very well. She was a smug and beaming Strudel after school yesterday.
My good news is that I am taking the last two weeks of December off work, which will make school break MUCH easier. I think we will all need some cozy nesting.
I have had high highs and low lows in the past couple of days. Seeing my mother’s testimony as evidence on his side saddened me, but did not really surprise me. I felt pretty happy last night, which may not have been conveyed well by what I wrote yesterday. I just feel determined, but there’s not hopelessness. I wish I could show you the court paperwork. It’s very dull but there’s also an elegance that shines through there. I admire economical, persuasive writing.
Me and Franny at Stanley Park, B.C., 2003
Yawny at the Apepyscalypse
UP BETIMES and writing legal responses.
So, can I tell you, I have the most sexiest legal answer to everything that’s happening in court. There are memorandums, exhibits, and statements of fact. Again, as I have mentioned on twittergraph, I am really into my lawyers. It looks really good. I feel really fortunate I picked someone who can distill my hysterical bleatings into something coherent.
My side sounds like this: MY KID IS UPSET AND IT IS CAUSING ME BONAFIDE PHYSICAL PAIN PLEASE MAKE IT STOP FOR HER. This gets translated into precedents and true facts. It’s for the best.
We are marching into court on Thursday–here is what’s at stake: we are asking to change the parenting plan back to what we’ve been doing for the last three years, asking to appoint a guardian ad litem, and asking to change the parenting plan. Seattle Federline is asking to roll back to 50-50 time a la 2005, which is currently causing her nightmares. Last night she dreamt that she was hiding under a bed and he was trying to kidnap her. In the past couple of weeks she has dreamed that he has burned our house down.
SeaFed came into court he was wearing some cream-colored confection. Seriously, it looked like he was about to attend the cotillion. I thought he was going to go home and make himself a nice etouffee. This has nothing to do with anything, except to say that he has become an absolute echo of his aged father, except I am sure his father would have worn a nicer suit.
What is happening now is that I am providing really intense emotional support for my first born. This has never happened before. I played the procreation lottery and I did not get a child who had any developmental difficulties. Strudel was difficult in a toddler freakout way, but I don’t deal with any neurological differences or anything physical.
Parenting is hard, ya ya, and you get used to it. It’s been pretty smooth sailing. For the first time she is a heavy lead weight on me that I have to keep lifting and when I am alone I have to keep smoking like a fucking chimney. Can I tell you I have never been anyone’s emotional support like this before? How lucky I am. I married a self-watering sociopath and then I got with Strudel’s dad, who was more all, well.
Now I am dealing with someone who cries and looks at me to fix her shit. What can you do? You cannot turn away. You would like to make deals. “Hey, how about I cut off my foot and you stop feeling emotional pain and crying at dinnertime. Deal? … No? That’s not how it works? SHIT.”
I thought about tossing her back even. I asked her if she wanted to go, if I could fix it that way, I would. No, baby, I will not Solomon you. You want to go with him? No? No.
I am home. I am so proud to be home. It makes my heart swell fucking twenty-seven times its size that she calls me home. She is a good person. She is going to be okay. She is not broken. Ninety-five percent of parenting is just showing up, I think.
“I think there is something wrong with my dad,” she said, one Wednesday night on the couch, completely out of nowhere.
I know love for lovers and I know love for children. I will run and run until my legs break to keep holding Franny up. All the shit that happened to me as a kid, that is over now. I feel like all that matters is her now, and getting out intact. She deserves the chance that I did not have to be completely wrapped in love.
I am going to lay out everything that happened post-Thursday-a walk-through. I will tell you all about what court is like, win or lose. You are there with me, I know it.
“Hilarity” “Ensues”
My mother has submitted a statement in support of SeaFed to the court. Which is kind of funny, because she submitted a statement in support of me during the divorce. Yo-ho.
More when I can think. Court Thursday. I am worried this will all be done before Franny can even have her opinion heard.
Penultimate Poultry
I am thinking about past Thanksgivings. I’m not going to get all Christopher Kimball on you; you cannot out-crazy that level of crazy. To put it another way, if you find yourself on the street corner smearing poo on your hair and lighting yourself on fire just to compete then you have probably taken a wrong turn somewhere. I am just remembering.
The first time I cooked Thanksgiving dinner I was living in Phoenix, away from family and home and anything that seemed familiar, like snow and Polish people in giant coats. November in Phoenix is when things just start to cool off a little. The air smells like orange blossoms and it is possible to open your windows without candles melting in their holders. The air-conditioning bill finally drops below $100.
I made wee Cornish game hens. I had been cooking steadily for about a year-and-a-half at that point. I think I wanted to do something different, and I think the other half of me was too chicken (nyuk) to make a whole turkey. My mother was there; she complained about the lack of turkey. The meal was good, I think. I don’t really remember any other detail of it, other than the terrible counter space in the 1950s kitchen of that rambler, and my mother complaining.
The last time I suffered through my mother’s Thanksgiving dinner was probably 2004. The turkey was dry, as usual, and the stuffing was Stove Top. The gravy was her usual miasma of grease, hard-boiled eggs, and too-large giblet chunks. I didn’t get gravies and sauces until I discovered fine dining–reductions, demi-glaces, jus, and thick pan gravies that I learned how to make myself. She was as happy as a clam, which is an apt comparison, since clams are unsophisticated creatures with no taste buds.
The following year I made Thanksgiving at my apartment, my first year brining. Strudel was 6 months old and we passed her around all night while I poured wine and mashed and chopped and stirred. I made a gorgeous turkey with a mahogany skin, since I accidentally had a red wine on hand to baste it with instead of a white. It looked like a work of art, like it had dragged itself off a cover of a food magazine and beached itself on my counter. It tasted wonderful.
“This is okay,” my mother said. “It all needs more giblets, though.”
The lesson I took from this, beyond how to be tactless to one’s host, was that she likes it her way, and I like it my way. That’s all.
My house has vomiting right now, and assorted other unpleasantness. There is a turkey breast brining in the refrigerator…will anyone want to eat it? It is a mystery! Stay tuned. Happy Fangsgiving.
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
(Lewis Carroll)
I think I need to wave some sage around for a minute. I am NOT dissolving into a pile of goo. Life is still happening. Today we played Whoonu and Clue and cleaned the house. Last Thursday I went to the doctor for my rosacea. I was actually delighted to be going to this dermatologist, because she has received some reviews on Yelp so horrendous that I assumed she was going to march right out of a Larry David comedy, but she was fine.
I don’t care that I am pink so much. I had a terrible friend who was always pleading with me to get some of that green makeup and cover it all up, but I kind of like being pink, actually. It’s just who I am. I hate it when people try to change things in you that you are okay with and are not hurting anyone. I was getting tired of the pain that came with my cheeks flushing. It turns out that the cream she gave me cannot prevent that. Oh well.
And of course we had Halloween. I took so many pictures that I was dreading sorting through them, ho ho.
We carved pumpkins:
A lot of my pictures turn out blurry with this new camera. Basically, I wanted to get the newer version of my old Canon Elph which I loved. I feel like this one is less point-and-shooty. I need dumber technology. I just do not have the energy for anything complicated in my down time, you know?
P. Pumpkin
Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889
I VAN WENT around like this all day. GET IT??? HA HA HA HA.
Franny as a witchy poof:
Strudel went as an Owl:
But P. did the BEST thing, assuming you have ever seen the show Community.
Get ready…
Get set…
Go!
I drew the lines and then shaved him down with a small electric razor I have.
It’s Star-burns!
At the end of the night, there was LOOOOOOT!!!
There’s a few more new unique ones on Flickr, if you’re so inclined.
You have a good day/it’s not your fault
I’m scattered right now, kind of depressed and prone to crying. I really wouldn’t want you to see the state of my kitchen. There’s still food in it and it’s not a superfund site, but you know. I’m keeping local take out and delivery places in business, because fuck cooking sideways with a wrench. I’m kind of out of it. I know I’m not the one who really matters in this, because I’m the adult. I’m okay with this. My job is to answer the phone when she calls; send supportive texts so she doesn’t feel like she’s all JANE EYRE’D out in the hinterlands. To keep answering my lawyers’ questions and to keep showing up to court.
I tend to not to want to write when I’m feeling terrible, in part because for many years the idea was to look tough and to keep things from affecting me. I used to just kind of collapse inward or go on autopilot. I’m kind of happy/sad to say I don’t really need those kind of walls anymore, because, simply put, my life is a lot better than it used to be. It’s hard to write or think about anything else right now. It used to be when I was feeling like this I was good for two or three cracking good stories about the time I shoplifted a home enema kit and then turned it into a Schnapps bong or SOMETHING involving the wrong hole and a rodeo clown.
Anyway, I really am aware that what has happened this week is only the tiniest little microcosm of misery–a mere drop in the bucket of what other people experience on a daily basis, but this is one of the hardest battles for me to fight, when one side is for love and the other is for money.
She looked so tired all week. When she called me, she sounded tired. I would see her after school when I picked up Strudel, in strange clothes and with sad eyes. I felt like we were both holding our breaths like the dog with the cookie on the end of its nose, desperately waiting to hear the “okay.” She would cling to me and I had nothing to say. I got emails from her teachers expressing concern and telling me that she was crying in class. I get sad texts about how she misses us at home and loves us and is thinking of us. This feels wrong to almost everyone.
I keep thinking about something that happened before the divorce was final, years ago, right after Strudel was born. One of his arguments in court was how bonded she was to him and how she was a “daddy’s girl.” She was four and at that stage where kids often become enamored with their opposite-sex parent, which I knew, and anyone who has ever paid any attention to parenting literature or has raised kids knows. This argument was frustrating and empty, like many of his arguments in court.
I remember him dropping her off for some time with me at my house with his future wife in tow, before she had her three kids with him. Frannie climbed out of the car and immediately burst into tears. He kind of hesitated, watching us from his car. We walked around the corner towards the door of the apartment building and she continued to weep. I knew he was unemployed that summer and I thought about what his schedule might be like.
I knelt down next to her, holding her, while her little body shook with sobs. It always slays me when she cries like that, when she is truly at the end of her rope. She sounded like that last week when I told her about the temporary custody change as well.
“You really like being with your dad right now, huh?” I said, and she nodded. “Do you want to spend this weekend with him too? Do you want a couple more days with him?” She nodded again, sniffling. I called him and he looped back, and she went off with him again. As much as I wanted to see her, I knew she was happy this way, for that weekend. She was much calmer when she came back and was ready to settle in and see me.
I will tell you I have thought about letting her go like that this time. What if he gets 50/50? Where do we go from there? If he “wins” and we return to the 2005 parenting plan, that’s a crappy life for a kid. She could have a life way far away at his house and be a visitor in my home, I know. I think about how all that “daddy’s girl” goodwill has expired. I thought about her hanging up after he called her last week and finding me. “He said X, and I knew it was a lie,” she said, rolling her eyes. I just listen. I think it would be a double betrayal now if he won and I let her go.
Strudel and I were in the car earlier this week. “You know, mom, this is not a fair thing with Franny.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, because even though the time is even, it is still not fair to her. OR US.”
“I think so too, honey.”
“I miss my sister,” she said.
I can’t fix everything for her forever, nor should I. I know the point is for her to grow up, develop her own set of coping skills. But I do feel like I let her down in this, because she expects me to help her, and I’ve failed somehow.