Category Archives: Strudel

If You See Me Walkin By, And the Tears are in my Eyes, VANDALAY! BABY VANDALAY!; Or, Apartment Heresy

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Last night I dreamt (here we go again, I know) that Horace yakked all over my chest while I was trying to sleep (barkake) and the cats were peeing everywhere. I reckon this is better than the home invasion dreams I was having. I saw Sorry, Wrong Number last week and SPOILER ALERT at the end the main character is killed when someone breaks in. To kill her. Whoops. I did enjoy the chemist in it who really reminded me of the Gale Boetticher character from Breaking Bad.

What is up? Pup is up, Brown is down. Franny turned 12, since it is October and all.

She finally got a friend to sleep over, which has been a real challenge in the past. There was giggling from her room until midnight. I think this neighborhood is going to be a lot more fun for since her friends mostly live close to their school. We ended up outside the school district in the last place, since our neighborhood school was closed for remodeling and the girls were sent to the next one, which we now live near. Strudel is taking the brunt of the overload of kids who were shipped to their current school, since she was the last kindergarten class before the other school reopened. There are 35 kids in her second grade class, and I think there are 4 second grades. The classes below her are a more reasonable size, I hear.

I’m enjoying the house, especially now that the heat is on (um literal heat, not crime type). I know that the inspector looked at the furnace, and pronounced it new and in good working condition, but I was nervous because of years of moving into rentals and rolling the dice on them. How cold and leaky would the house be, exactly? It turns out it is as snug as a bug in a rug, as they say. I am SO WARM. I always think about SeaFed’s grandmother, who was Seattle’s own Dowager Countess. She was responsible for such Mal Mots as “You would look so pretty if only you’d lose ten pounds” and “You’d look so pretty if only you’d take that metal crap out of your face” and many, many variations on the theme of “THE JAPS!” which she could not be corrected out of, gently or otherwise. However, there was one thing that she said to me once that was not racist, sexist, or insulting, an observation that she made when SeaFed was out of the room and she noticed he was kind of dragging his feet on getting his shit together and doing things like working. “It’s okay to be poor now,” she said. I was 24 and had a two-year-old Franny and was in school. “But not in your 30s. You’ll just be too tired.” I am glad to be in a comfortable house that I like now. I am tired. But more relaxed now that the automatic gun turrets are installed.

I’ve been fooling around with the house a lot as the painting is kind of winding down. I decided the dining room wasn’t blinged out enough and needed a stenciled medallion.

If it wasn’t hard enough painting on a ceiling, the paint started blobbing around under the stencil and I could tell it looked bad. I know enough to know when to quit, so I did!

Of course I tried to wipe it to minimize the damage, but it was already drying. My first fuck up! Kind of nice to have that Band-Aid ripped off I suppose. My last phone came out of the box scratched, much to the clerk’s horror. He tried to take it from me, but I wouldn’t let him. Pre-scratched means you don’t have to have that unique gadget sad when your new shiny gets its first fender-bender.

I decided to “fix” it with a real medallion. Sure, I could have just painted it white, but I decided to just try a different tack(y).

I got a white polystyrene one and painted it. I started with a base of black spraypaint, and followed up with Rustoleum “hammered” Rosemary, which is kind of a metallic green/grey. Rustoleum is theoretically for things like patio furniture, but I cannot tell you how many of the junk shop rescue objects in my house are covered in it. After that I gave it a tiny spritz of some Rustoleum Copper I had laying around from spraying the giant vampire head on my porch (umm, I need a pic of that up I suppose) and then, my favorite thing, Rub N Buff. I am worshiping at the altar of this woman who is the Rub N Buff Queen. So I pulled out the highlights in it using Gold Leaf.

I also realized that something was missing from the dining room.

Come to me, Banditoooo. I cleaned him up a little–my velvets are way dusty. I also oiled the frame with some almond oil, which I use on the dining table and the free standing butcher block counters as well. I’m getting to the point where I’m finally hanging stuff. This house is designed with such an economy of space that I don’t actually have enough walls. I’m going Victorian art gallery clusterfuck on my only large, non-wood paneled wall as soon as I am able to lay out my paintings and Tetris them together before hanging. I measured a space on my floor to arrange my mirror wall and that worked a treat.

The paneled wall is coming along. I think it can hold at least four more heads.

IN OTHER NEWS (OLDS)

This is what 35 looks like. If you’re me anyway. Tired, yet optimistic. This is the age of being asked if you’re feeling tired. OF COURSE I AM. FUCK. WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE, HANDJOB BON-BON PARTY BUS?

Look! It’s a real camera! No Instagrams were harmed during the making of this blog. This is rich, coming from a blogger, I know, but I am feeling like I should be taking more pictures of myself lately. I will tell you I am interested to see what my face is going to do in the next ten years. I see pictures of myself when I first started blogging at 23 and I say WHO IS THAT BABY?

NAMASTE, FUCKERS.

What I Was Doing When No One Was Looking

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1. Stress

HELLOOOO RACE FANS! I am moving in one (1) week! HNNNGH! My house is all crates and ACK again just like it was two years ago. In my spare time I have been painting and playing phone tag with contractors. If you’re extraordinarily bored I just threw up (HARF) a bunch of house pics on le Flickair. Yes, the set is called “Asshole Dream House.” Yes, I am properly ashamed of myself.

2. Court boring also stress

As a bonus, I am going back to court on October 1. I met with the GAL for the first time on Thursday. Why so late, you ask, when we’ve had the better part of a year to get ourselves investigated and shit? Because first I had Seafed insisting that mediation had succeeded (it didn’t, we never scheduled the second appointment or finished), and then he told the GAL to go away because we didn’t need her. And then he said he did not have money for it, not now, not two years from now, not ever.

My lawyer, who is so awesome I am unfit to touch the hem of her garment, was all, “SOOOO like do you feel like paying for all of the retainer then?” And I was like “UM LIKE TOTALLY NO this guy just got back from a vacation that he flew his wife and four children to, and then there was some bonus vacation on an island. Priorities man etc.” And she was all, “Yo this is like deadlocked then dog.” And I was like “FINE.” That is pretty much verbatim. And then I paid it. DOUBLE HNGGGGH. Yes, my lawyer is Lady Jesse Pinkman.

So last night as a result I had a dream that I was up betimes as usual and bammo, Franny had let all these people into my house and they were kind of noodling around or napping places. I said, “FRANNY WTF!!?” And she said, “Oh, they were at a party next door and needed a place to sleep.” Hmm, Franny letting strange people into my house…this is sounding all very metaphorical. Except to be fair I am letting them in.

Am writing the GAL down and will unleash that later. ~cryptic~

3. Workity

Child Labor Rules. That is all.

4. Other

Here is a seventh grader and a second grader on the first day (the 5th).

Here is a Strudel in a tree outside the new kitchen. I regret very little, but I do have a twinge that I cannot throw fuds out the kitchen window at my chickens anymore. I will have to get a slop bucket like a civilized wench.

Also, my face…it turns out it was just dirty. HA HA. The tea tree oil is TOTALLY eliminating the pain I was having. Once a day, cut in half with some sweet almond oil (massage type, just plain). I use about a tablespoon and swab it on with a cotton and then let it sit for about ten. Bonus: the cotton goes in my toilet bowl after where it seems to be keeping it cleaner. I got a brain wave and decided to start using Jason brand tea tree oil shampoo and HOLY CATS my head does not itch anymore. Great comments from Team Asshole here as well about the magic properties of tea tree oil. THANKS. DIE BUGS! Or Bug poop! Or WHO CARES, my face doesn’t hurt. Non-bonus: now that the inflammation is quelled, you can see all my cool exploded capillaries. CRONE-ESQUE.

Coming soon: post-court new assbanner. Can you incorporate fall and courtgasm? Let’s find out.

Uphill Both Ways

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“Mom, what kind of American Girl Doll did you have when you were my age?”

Today Strudel gets a preview of the American Girl Doll at the mall that she could receive if she continues her good behavior until the beginning of September.

“They did not have them when I was a kid,” I said.

“WHAT,” Strudel sporfled. “What did you have then?!”

“We had dolls made out of dirt with sticks for arms.”

“What was their hair like?” she asked.

“Oh, some old yarn, like brown, because they did not have dyes then.”

“And the clothes?”

“Like a coal sack or something.”

“Man, that sounds ugly,” she said.

In Other News

I’m reading 11/22/63. Did I ever think I would read a Stephen King book ever again in my life? I did not. I read Thinner at nine and moved on to Christine and Cujo. I think the last thing I read by him was Gerald’s Game at 13. My mother was the horror fan–I just read everything and anything that was laying around this house. I could not resist the allure of JFK, however. I think this book was made for me, since I have every major player and event memorized. It’s like an old dance. This past winter I finally picked up Oswald’s Tale, which is awesome because it really focuses on his time in Russia, something that is often glossed over in the typical books in the Oswald/JFK canon. It is not awesome because it features the strong authorial voice of Norman Mailer, who spends a lot of time on the idea that Oswald is a closeted homosexual and implies that’s where his problems are rooted. Anyway, King. It smelled like riding the Mad Men zeitgeist, and when a girl in a Jantzen showed up it kind of cinched it. Sometimes you know you’re being manipulated but you buy a ticket to the show anyway.

“It says on your chart that you’re fucked up”

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I’m leaving tomorrow to drive to Wyoming with Halo. I’ve never seen Montana before! And I will be working from the University of Wyoming for a couple of days, which is funny. Corporate librarian squats on uni wifi. Film at 11. I will miss my dog. SNIF.

Franny left behind a bunch of chrysalises, pardon me, chrysalides (from the dead civilization that brought you lead birth control and “octopodes,” natch) when she went off with her father for two weeks of vacation.


I am setting them free as they hatch. They have such short lives anyway. Maybe there will be one or two left by the time Franny gets back.

Franny told me she was going to Colorado and the San Juans. I think it’s funny that her father lives on an island and vacations on a different one. I think it’s funny that he’s vacationing at all, Mr. “I should only have to pay $91 a month in child support because I am broke and because electrolytes.” COUGH.

Franny called me while she was on her first trip. “I’m in Chicago!” she announced. Um.

“You mean, Colorado?” I asked.

“Uhhh, yes.” Pretty similar, I see the confusion there.

There’s probably some message here between me about to leave for vacation and these butterflies being freed. Have some metaphor anvils or something.

I got my hair done today (“Oh so you can look nice for the trees,” sarcassed Halo.). It was supposed to be more of a floral lavender, says me, but the way it took is more like a Crayola lavender. My stylist does amazing blowouts, but I’m going to Yellowstone, so I asked her to pass on the effort. I’m to be all desert and sweaty and eh anyway, and will probably slap it into a ponytail. She let me walk out wet but insisted on putting in smoothing stuff and curl cream and from the back I now look like a spaghetti poodle. There is no pleasing some people.

After this picture was done I lightened my Novakian eyebrows since they were way harsh Tai with my new hair. It is fun to go around the house with giant bleach caterpillars on your face. So I don’t even look like this anymore! Transformation. You would not even recognize me.

P.S. I need a pink spaghetti poodle. You better believe we are going to be flea marketing on our way out west.

The sign over the door says “Give Up”

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In the dairy aisle, at that time in the a.m. when it is all nice little old ladies, con brio: “BLOODY HELL, MOTHER!” Tooo much Buffy and Spike. The blue heads swiveled. I wished I was dead. Franny wished she was dead. And we laughed.

At the Nordic Hertitage Museum

At sushi, with chopsticks and a miso spoon [nonchalantly]: “I’m unforkened!”

Soup!

At the antique store, confidently: “This typewriter’s broken.”

“How can you tell?”

“There’s no screen.”

Tryyy the motherfucking veeeeal people!

En Roy Dotrice Nouvelles

Franny is gone for one week each to Colorado and the San Juans with her father. She has a bad attitude about it in the way of eleven-year-olds who are not being allowed to sit around unbathed, reading comic books in their pajamas. He took her one day early and it was a FEDERAL CASE to even arrange that.

He emailed me the day before to tell me to remind Franny to loot a bunch of clothes and stuff from my house since she doesn’t have enough for a week’s vacation. Of course I paraphrase, but I tell you it was not an ask. Which, you know, I am still smarting a little over that whole being sued thing last fall. I don’t really think paying a small amount of child support makes this the Bank of Franny Clothes, especially since she tells stories about our clothes being absorbed into hand-me-down boxes for his other children. TAKE AN HOUR OUT OF YOUR FAPPERY-FILLED DAY AND GO TO GOODWILL FFS. Am I off base here?

This is all just so SIGH. Picture me, waiting outside of the girls’ school last September, on a sunny fall day waiting for Strudel, and knowing that he is about to pick up Franny. I expected him to be in his car, but up he strolls, knowing that we have been exchanging nasty emails all summer, with his threats getting cranked up up up post-child support all the time until I knew he was about to sue me. Like, as I was standing there I was expecting summons that week.

“How’s it going?” he said, GLIBLY, as he walked up. UM I’M ABOUT TO GET SUED BITCH is how it’s going. P.S., by you. I don’t feel like chitty chatting.

I get tired of this push push pull, you know? But I cannot stand that car dealer mentality (I know, insulting to car dealers) where I am being pecked for everything on the off chance I might say yes, or maybe he thinks it’s legit? I cannot tell anymore.

Do you get locked into eternal combat with something or someone and then imagine yourself letting go? I let go of a lot of things–with other people, with work, with my girls. It’s better to give when you can. What do you do when you cannot give that one person anything, because you know you will never get anything in return and it won’t benefit your kid to boot and you are just empty? I cannot imagine what letting go looks like. I feel that this is a major personal flaw right now. I have sensible talks with myself about being mature and flexible and then I just imagine myself bending over and taking it up the butt with a bowling pin the size of the Eiffel Tower (try to sleep tonight now, I defy you).

I’d like to think that when the ink is dry on the parenting plan, which is coming, SOON, like it or not, I can let a lot of this go. I sure it’s been a long year reading all this blibber blubber about court, but I think I’m in the home stretch now. Then it’s the fun part–I’ve saved every bill and I’m going to add it up. ALL OF IT. It’s going to hoit. How’s that for an x-ray into Changing a Parenting Plan for Dummies, and We Do Mean That You Are a Dummy. And probably like a recap about what I did right and wrong.

The bummer part is that every situation is different and walking into a court room is a coin flip, but I tell you I would do it all again. There’s also some stuff I have to keep under my hat til the paperwork’s signed, and then…oh yes.

And then I am on to other things!

Commander Pineapple/Colonel Mustard Slash

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“Then you have given up hope?”

“Hope of what, Sir?” she asked mildly.

Simon felt foolish, as if he had committed a breach of etiquette. “Well–hope of being set free.”

“Now why would they want to do that, Sir?” she said. “A murderess is not an everyday thing. As for my hopes, I save that for smaller matters. I live in hopes of having a better breakfast tomorrow morning than I had today.” She smiled a little. “They said at the time that they were making an example of me. That’s why it was the death sentence, and then the life sentence.”

But what does an example do, afterwards? thought Simon. Her story is over. The main story, that is; the thing that defined her. How is she supposed to fill the rest of the time?

–Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

It’s beyond the point, but I like to picture the main character as Gina Torres, though she’s a white Irish lady. It’s ok.

PNW Strawberries rather than store California ones

I have a little news so I will make a little post. ETA: Whoops, I am incapable of being terse.

THING THE FIRST: I have been a victim of FRAUD, FRAUD I TELLS YOU. I knew it was coming, due to my predilection to shop on dodgy sites at 2 a.m. and buy things like Drain Snake What Someone Has Glued Google Eye Onto (J/K, I always use the most trustworthy sites ever and this is not an ADMISSION OF ANYTHING, Giant Corporate Bank). I was looking over my account and there it was…Two pay-as-you-go phones, Match.com recurring monthly debit and then a cancellation (did you know that OKStraightPeople is $36 a month!!!???), and a pizza place in California.

It did not really bother me too much, since these things are so impersonal. I called, cancelled the card, etc. It did make me think of an old friend of mine who had her bank card number lifted right as she was traveling in to the U.S. and then went bonkers about how evil Americans crimed her, when it turned out that all the fraud was frauded in her own country. I still laugh when I think of that–not at the misfortune of being robbed, but how certain situations can bring out our deep and not-so-secret prejudices.

Heirloom is my favorite, though purple roses struggle here.

THING THE SECOND: I don’t know if this deserves its own Legal Beat update, but this is just to say that star of stolidness and screeds, Seattle Federline, is being VERY amusing as of late. Seriously. As you may recall a guardian at litem was appointed (by court order) to our case in December in the event that we did not just immediately settle.

We mediated in late January or early February and I don’t think I wrote about it because man was it a big bag of suck. That was when I was kind of running out of gas and jollytimes and working at shitty contract and this was just one more thing on the shit pile. It was shuttle mediation, where you sit in one room and the other party sits in the other room, at his insistence, which is unfortunate because I really wanted a chance to wear my new snake wig out somewheres.

The mediator was all Hard Bargain Harriet and I think she was trying basic bitch mind tricks or something, because I had canceled mediation the previous summer and I quote myself here (you’re welcome future biographer*):

For my mediation appointment with SeaFed we were required by the mediator to submit a statement saying why we wanted to mediate. I’m grateful to her for this since it clarified everything for me like bang. I would not allow myself to reply “I don’t want to mediate” so I made myself put “to appear cooperative,” which is a pretty shitty reason to do anything you’ll spend a lot of money on and get nothing out of (forced parenting class during my divorce comes to mind as well). He replied, well past the courtesy deadline the mediator asked for, naturally: “My purpose in mediating is to nullify the temporary living arrangement we’ve been adhering to and return to the original parenting plan.”

Well, that tore it. What a colossal waste of time this expensive discussion would be. I was also lulzing at the fact that when SeaFed is put into some kind of grown-up communication situation, he never uses one word when three officious ones would do, much like I imagine a twelfth-grade honors English essay reads. With a great sense of relief, I cancelled the appointment, saying that I didn’t think it was the right venue in which to make a change like this…because…it’s NOT.

COUGH anyway once I got in front of her she said, “I thought YOU were the difficult one since you canceled mediation. I never would have advised a client to say that they merely wanted to ‘appear cooperative.” Okay, a. not my most brilliant move ever and b. way to play hardball, lady. I am shaking in my negged boots over here. She also told me that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance of getting what I wanted, in spite of the fact that what I wanted was what we’ve been doing, because she has Seen Things in Many a Courtroom.

This struck a false note with me, and I was done. We drew up something tentative, which SeaFed refused to sign, having been wanged by signing the Memorandum of Understanding in mediation in 2007. I took this as a clue that he was not buying her bullpucky either. I could not ask him, of course, since he was elsewhere. As I was leaving she said, “The next time we meet we push forward. We are not changing anything written down on this paper.”

“Mmmhmmm,” I replied, which is SJ for “I am done with you but have learned not to command people to fuck off and die willy-nilly.”

So nothing happened, and nothing happened, and we did not discuss mediation, and then in May(?) SeaFed sent a proposed parenting plan that looked very like the weirdy stuff from mediation. I made notes on it to the point where it became a different plan and sent it to my lawyer, asking her advice. Recently we had to furnish a witness list to court and get the ball rolling on the guardian ad litem and that is where SeaFed has decided to throw the brakes on. The GAL intake form was 107 questions (and there was a bonus “short” form about a quarter of that size). The retainer is $1450. I can’t imagine this had anything to do with the series of panicked emails he sent after the GAL contacted him recently. I reminded him we were on deadlines and that mediation had failed, due to the fact that we didn’t agree on anything and did not have a signed parenting plan.

“Mediation was successful!” he declared to me, the GAL, and my lawyer via email. “Expressions of complete and total surprise!” he narded on. I was ready to have my first appointment with the GAL and she called an canceled on me morning of. “Mr. SeaFed seems surprised and confused by all of this, so I will wait to hear back from him again…I know this is a court order but we should wait a bit if we can save you both some money.”

“Okay,” I said.

Later SeaFed sent out an email politely declining the GAL’s services. I had the exquisite joy of watching my exhusband politely decline a court order. Schadenlulz turned to schadenweeing my pants. I emailed my lawyer: “Can he politely decline a court order?” Her: “Um, no.”

I think the time is finally right to send on my proposed parenting plan–it’s ready now.

Nightmere

THING THE THIRD: Did you know that Modern Clue (aka Cluedo) has taken away the honoraries of the guests? I was thinking about how the men always had Professor or Colonel, but the ladies were all Miss or Mrs. This is very freeing, actually, since I remember the old names, but now Mrs. White is Dr. White when we play. Take that, patriarchy. And now Miss Scarlet is bringing Fierce Drag Queen realness.

I am almost always Colonel Mustard, since I have always identified with and admired pompous asses. His flavor text is still pompous: “Did I ever tell you about my glorious football years?” I approve. When I was a kid and I would stare at all the pieces in the Clue board that my mother and her siblings abandoned along with the rest of her childhood at my grandmother’s trailer, I liked to imagine the Colonel had elephant-foot umbrella stands and oryx heads on his walls.

Strudel cheats. “No, I have never seen a Mrs. Peacock card in my hand in my life.” Later: “Whoops!” You know if she is marking clues down mid-game and it is not her turn, then good fucking luck at the pool house. Usually everyone dies. I declare it Cluethulu.

* Working title: Cuntligula and the Art of Mastodon Maintenance

The dark covers me and I cannot run now

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Let’s get this out of the way immediately: this morning I woke up to GRISLY CHICKEN DEATH. Zsa Zsa, JWOWW, and So-and-So the Easter Egger got the axe. I locked them up at dusk last night and it was quiet outside and they were burbling in their house and everything seemed well. There was a lot of noise at 5 a.m. but I didn’t think much of it. Sometimes they get noisy when the sun comes up. I came out at 6:30 to let them out (I surrender, I am a morning person now, yes I hate myself appropriately) and the first thing I saw was feathers under the coop. Too many feathers. There were three broken and gutted little bodies around the backyard. One of the raccoons had eaten the eggs out of Zsa Zsa’s body, which just made me furious, really.

I walked to the corner of the yard and old lady Veronica was hiding behind the shed, standing upright and eying me warily. A feather was stuck to her head and at first I was afraid that her eye had been poked or something, but she was just sticky. I let her be since I figured she’d get it off herself, and also because after what she witnessed she is probably now Chicken Dexter Morgan and I didn’t want to get too close.

Watching her stand there made me feel really sad. I surveyed the little piles where the raccoons had left the girls laying around the yard half eaten and all I could think of was how scared they must have been in the dark and how terrible I was to have shut the door too early and locked them out. It’s like a horror movie when the door closes too soon and you watch your friend get torn apart by zombies/tentacles/LaRouchies through the porthole. I cried–I couldn’t help it.

The thing about chicken deaths is that I don’t really bond with them the way I do with my cats and now the dog, but they are trusting and defenseless and just kind of generally good animals, I believe. I know chickens peck each other and sometimes they eat eggs and they are stupid, but after ten years I feel that most problems can be prevented with proper conditions and control. You can steer them like a waterway and they do good work for you. And I had let them down.

Once the bodies were cleaned up I opened their door to check on the remaining hens. No one came forward, and normally they burst out like they have been shot from an extremely short range cannon.

“Girls?” I stuck my head in. There was an egg open on the coop floor and Silver Belle’s beak was wet. That was weird. They rarely break their own eggs. I walked around back and the back egg hatch was open. Strudel had done her egg duty yesterday and had left it open.

I was still crying when I came into the house and I sat on the couch. Frannie came upstairs and it’s extremely rare but I feel bad when the first thing the girls see in the morning is me bawling like a big soppy muffin. I told Frannie what went down and she hugged me while I sniffled and felt terrible. After a couple of minutes on the couch, we heard Strudel’s door open and Frannie went down to fill her in on the news.

When Strudel came upstairs she looked stunned. Strudel always has strong notions about justice and responsibility, and spent a few months asking me hard questions about things like police justice and morality. I have NO IDEA what she is going to turn into when she grows up. For a long time the people who were most responsible for breaking and taking things in my house were Not Me and Must’ve Have Been My Sister, but lately she has been coming forward more and talking about how she could handle things better the next time. What a fucking relief.

“I’m sad about the chickens,” she said.

“Yeah. Thanks. Me too,” I said. I waited for her wheels to turn to where I knew they would go next.

“Did someone leave the door open?” she asked, gently.

“Yes,” I said. “The egg door was left open on the back of the house.”

I watched her face flicker through several changes before the needle got stuck on, “Oh shit, this is my fault.”

“Sorry, Mom,” she said, almost inaudibly.

“Thanks for saying that.”

I got a note on a sugar packet.

Today is the last day of first and sixth grades. She was a very quiet cricket on Wednesday.

Horace vs. Mere and Goethe

He is SO LUCKY they humor him.

Tart, melon, and guac.

Cherry Cheese Tart for Father's Day

Oh god please may I have some please

Noooo you may not.

“If it isn’t Captain Clip-On.”

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ONE THE GIVING OF THE FANGS

Recently I asked Strudel what her favorite part of Christmas is. I almost Pocahonta’d my pants when she said “FEAST.” Franny did the same, asked me what I was making before she went off to her dad’s for her first leg of the Xmas Cycle. (I get her back on the 26th.) I was thinking of not cooking at all since it’s been such a disaster lately.

I don’t think I even wrote about Thanksgiving and how it went–I wrote about it right before things went all LEGAL DOCUMENT and OMG A CAMEO STARRING MY MOTHER etc.

I was thinking about bunking on cooking because I was the first one with the stomach bug that was going around, and I was still kind of weak on Thanksgiving. The girls INSISTED I cook, and I already had the ingredients, plus I invited my sister, so I figured I should go for it. Sadly, I had to cancel on her last minute because P. was vomiting ON Thanksgiving Day, and I did not want to bring her into to a den of germs.

So we rallied and started cooking while P. was laid up moaning.

The girls helped, which was awesome.

Just as we were sitting down to dinner, Franny left and started barfing. Later on Strudel pretended to be barfing. “Yes mother, I made it to the toilet, vomited neatly, then flushed,” which had much the same effect in that I ended up coddling her and made a little bed for her on my floor. About a week later Strudel caught the bug for real.

2011 can bite a nutsack really. I am stabbing this year in its back on the way out.

I decided to just do a breast this year, which is still a sizable chunk of turkey. Of course I brined it and it came out very well. I took a picture and was going to post it, but it was a little…hmmm.

Uhhhhhhh

Ah yes, that’s what legless turkey makes me think of.

There was also some sweeee potato casserole, something I have come to very late in life. Dunno why.

And I made a pumpkin cream pie, which was mostly eaten by the person who was well enough to eat it, me.

I redid Thanksgiving a few days later using leftover stuffing and turkey and fresh cranberries and potatoes and there was much rejoicing.

Back to Christmas, which I started with waaay up there. Now through all my ambulations you can maybe understand why I am hesitant to cook a “FEAST” for Christmas. But if I do, it will be duck.

TWO A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DEADBEAT DAD

A few days ago Strudel asked me about Christmas Steve. I had been telling the girls that I thought they were well-behaved enough this year that he might not even show up.

“I think YOU are Christmas Steve,” Strudel said.

“Mmmm,” I said noncommittally from the cheese log where I was perched.

“I think YOU do all the things.”

“Do you really think I would eat part of your gingerbread house and give your sister a trophy that says #1 SUCKY on it in Sharpie?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“I see.”

“Are you Christmas Steve?”

“Yes, I am,” I said. She cried a little then, but now she thinks it is very funny.

“It was YOU ALL ALONG,” she says.

THREE RANDOMATA

Franny asked for guinea pigs for her birthday, and has been asking for them for months. I felt bad because as her birthday approached in October, her dad was serving me with paperwork to get back to 50/50. I did not want to be a dick about it, but I also did not want to be solely caring for her pets half of the time. I have lovely cats and chickens and other things that deserve my attention. My attitude is, guinea pigs are not my thing, but I will help and supervise to make sure they are getting proper care and nutrition.

So, after things had been settled court-wise, we took the plunge for Christmas.

This is Cloud and Misty. I am relieved a hundred times over that she did not name them Hammy and Porky as she originally threatened to. Misty, interestingly enough, is the name of one of my lawyers. Franny heard it and loved it. And now we have Legal Pigs. They are darling. I really wish I would have kept them as a child instead of hamsters, but they would not have done well with my mother’s laissez-faire attitude toward pets.

Speaking of fuzzballs.

Gertie hogs my cheez log. The girls have been with me for about a year now and they are doing really well. The kittens turned a year old in September but they still have a little of that adolescent thing hanging on. One thing that I did not really expect is how separate they all are. There will be no more than two cats on my bed at any given time. Gertie is like Nietzsche in that she will follow us around and see what we are up to. Matilda will sleep on my shoulder at night. Mere is still kind of her flaky temperamental self, but does well as long as I don’t pet her below the shoulders. She’s got that cat-sensitivity thing.

Someone stole the ladder, so we decorated the pear tree this year. Tres Charlie Brown, no?

What is happening in legal doings? I will tell you. Last time we spoke, I had just emerged from a courtroom, where I felt like I had been put on that life-draining rack Wesley ended up on in The Princess Bride. Since our next orders were to mediate, I thought things would be kind of calm since then. NOPE.

SeaFed’s lawyer sent an email saying that he had been “forced to withdraw” from SeaFed’s case. There is some speculation that it is less money-related, and more personality-related. I did not blog about this, but as we were standing in the hallway post court hammering out details of the parenting plan, his lawyer said to mine, “Your client is being VERY cooperative in this.” SeaFed would not move on anything.

At first I read this as a condescending head-pat, but now I wonder. Of course I said nothing and kind of forgot about it, since there were bigger fish to fry, and we were busy frying them.

I also discovered that SeaFed had been spraying my lawyer with emails, which she was ignoring, since he has counsel who should be contacting us for anything crucial. Then the withdrawing-attorney thing came out. Then last Wednesday SeaFed started hammering my lawyer and cc’ing me. He was threatening legal action over some confusing language in the temporary plan. He is absolutely a cornered animal right now.

I know I shouldn’t be at this point, but I was pretty shocked how nasty his tone was and how pointless and inappropriate his questions were. My lawyer advised me that this is a common tack to run up the other party’s bill. I implored her to shut him down and begin ignoring him. I think he is going to be a nightmare on a pro se basis as this continues.

And there was one other thing I did not tell you, because I did not realize it until a day after court when I got all my paperwork and read it. SeaFed was suing me for attorney’s fees in the motion to modify the parenting plan. As if I was just opening that frivolously!!

So, I have a couple of theories…behold the crinkling of my tin foil hat. SeaFed retained his lawyer to fight child support, and his lawyer suggested the best way to smash child support was to make a motion go back to 50/50 time. At the same time, of course, I was moving to modify the parenting plan, so I assume his lawyer hung on for that. Perhaps SeaFed did not see that as my next logical step. Attorney withdrew because of lack of funds, because SeaFed gambled everything on me losing the motion to modify. Or, he withdrew because of jackassery. It will remain a mystery.

This is the worst cat-and-mouse game ever. I am invisible and the cat has bells glued all over it.

The next move is to mediate. Our deadline is by the end of January, and the mediator is not even available until after the end of this month. She has requested that we mediate separately, and she is a guardian ad litem with training in child psychology so she wants to speak with Franny separately as well. This seems hopeful.

I have a bad feeling SeaFed will dig his heels in and not move on anything here, which will push us to trial next year. What’s he got to lose if he is going pro se? Or perhaps they will mortgage his house or he will beg his father for money.

The next thing also is I have a trial date on January 13 that I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT in all this–child support hearing. I was sent the paperwork alerting me that the trial is approaching and the prosecuting attorney’s office wanted me to sign all the motions and child support worksheets. If we both sign, it’s just settled.

Since he has not submitted one jot of requested financial information, I assume he is not going to sign the paperwork either. They have all his financial information from their research. I submitted up-to-date paystubs and bank statements and signed it all and sent it back. I reckon what will happen is that I will be made to show up on January 13th and it will go through automatically, really. The prosecuting attorney’s office had already decided there was justification to modify the child support order from $0, and now they have appended the recent court actions granting the right to change the parenting plan. I am hoping this will be the most in and out, non-teary court experience I have had.

The potential amount I am being awarded monthly is $340. I want to tell you I think all of this is over $340 a month. I cannot help but wonder what his wife thinks in all this. How would you feel if your spouse/partner had a child who someone else took care of most of the time and took care of 90% of the financial stuff, and not due to an agreed arrangement?

Anyway, that amount should cover her food, really, which will be a great boon. No complaints. It gets bumped again next year when she turns 12, and that should be it until she’s 19. We should “break even” on court costs and legal fees about two years into child support, but the knowledge that there will be official paperwork in place keeping everything straight is priceless.

Strudelday

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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.”