I'm grateful for: someone to tell my grody flashbacks to; S2 being happier (less miserable?) in the army; leftover birthday cake and homemade nachos.

Somehow today was a very long day, even though I didn't accomplish much. I was woken up by the phone (who is surprized) after about six hours' sleep. Maybe. But I couldn't get back to sleep, so after a good breakfast I set to trying to get through some of the many, many things that have piled up around me waiting for me to get to them. Many things I just can't do - like sorting through photos - until I have either a new computer, or figure out how to get enough space out of my laptop + two external hard drives (which can really only be plugged in one at a time and still function).

So that left recording receipts, and email, and stuff like that there. It looked like i had a shot of getting through pretty much everything before the phone rang. I think I need to have specified times during the day that I turn my phone off. But, then they call on the house phone. If the house phone doesn't get through, then they call on one of the kids' cell phones. This may require more thinking...

Still, I got most of the financial stuff done. I need to write a deposit for my bank in the states - it is amazing that I manage to end up with dollars here that need to be deposited there. I'm not entirely sure how/why that happens. I mean, I know the specifics of any particular thing (the $20 bill in my wallet, which someone sent to one of the kids for a birthday, and I exchanged for money that could be spent here), it just sort of boggles my mind that it happens, and so frequently. Anyway, there are a couple of other things I didn't manage to wade through, and there is someone I really desperately want to write a letter to - he is snail mail only - that I simply haven't had the brain or the time to make that happen yet.

I got a bath and hair washed, much needed. TH took D3 to the orthodontist, who says that her lower teeth are just about the way we want them, and didn't tighten her braces at all. For some reason she wasn't thrilled... ;-)

We made phone calls, all of us, to make sure we beat every single bush to find a home for Peppito. No luck so far, but we'll give it a few days to see if someone may respond after thinking it over? TH also phoned the ISPCA, who would automatically kill him ('put him to sleep') if we brought him in due to his being blind. Which I could live with, but they will charge us for it, so we might as well bring him to our own vet, if that is the way of it.

TH and I agreed that if we do have Peppito killed, we won't tell the kids. It's enough to tell them we are bringing him to the vet, who will get him to his next place. The older ones may figure it out, but S3 won't. He's going to feel badly enough without that.

Not much else, except, I actually managed to get a little bit of knitting done. There is this gift blanket I started something like four years ago for a baby who is now, obviously, about four. I've finished the blanket, this is just the edging, so the end is possible. I don't know, I'll have to see how it goes, because I am so good at imagining the blanket finished just because I managed a few rows tonight, but still - I managed a few rows tonight! It has been so very long.

I wonder if once I finish this blanket will I be able to start knitting other, less endless projects. Mind you, I made the same identical blanket for D3 while I was pregnant with her and the whole thing took me a few months. The problem isn't the blanket so much as for some reason I just haven't been able to knit. Still, I doubt I will ever make this particular blanket again. I mean...

The edging is nothing, to. On a base of eight stitches. How hard can it be? It does depend a bit on the animals (can't knit with Kitten helping), and also the heat. Even on a narrow bit of edging, I may not be up to dealing with mohair in the summer's heat.

TH and I watched a couple of Dr. Who episodes tonight while I knit, which was fun. I'm almost finished downloading the series - I'm replacing my videotapes with dvd's this way, rather than trying to copy the videotape using my pinnacle device. Again, I'd need more computing power than I can muster today to do that, and it would take for bloody ever, and all I am doing is downloading the same thing only someone else did the transfer for me. I'm not justifying (I know it sounds like it) just sort of thinking-out-loud and once again rerunning the situation. I really can't justify buying another computer the way things are. But... but... but... !

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention the biggest things today, which was two all new grody flashbacks. Short in the telling but really hard, draining mentally and emotionally, hard on the body, too. It's been a while, and the most lingering after-effect is once again missing my uncle. Also, for some reason, I've been fantasizing about telling someone - anyone - I don't know who - all these horrible things that my mother has said to me over the years. I don't know why, but

Well, I found myself dreaming/fantasizing being at her funeral and telling people these things she said, and it sort of morphed from there. I don't know if it will help, so I figure it can't hurt to try writing them here. Feel free to skip this, toxic waste ahead:

1. - earliest in terms of my life, although not the first remembered: "You aren't good for anything except sex, and you aren't even any good at that!"

2. "He doesn't love you! He NEVER loved you! NO ONE loves you!" - I'm not sure who the 'he' was, Lloyd or my uncle most likely. My best guess I was seven or nine.

3. Any time between early childhood and my teen years, it was "What kind of a Monster... ?!" as in "What kind of a monster would go into her mother's purse and steal money?" RS remembers that one being thrown at her, too.

4. From my teen years for about a decade "You're just like your father!" - meaning Lloyd, and thrown at my head whenever I did ANYTHING as her sort of ultimate insult.

5. "Oh, no, you can't be 'B' negative. Your father (that would be Lloyd) is 'O' positive and I'm 'A' positive."

6. "I must have done something really horrible to you, in terms of 'stick it to you' for you to make up something like this" - The 'this' was when I confronted her about the sexual abuse in my life.

7. "If I can't take them (my children) into my bedroom any time I want and do whatever I want with them, then I can't have any relationship with them at all." Okay mom.

8. "You're not worth it, honey!"

9. When I told her I couldn't take being called 'stupid' again she responded "I don't ever use that word, I don't remember saying the word."

***

Well that was ugly, and doesn't seem to have made me all better. But I'll let it stand. Maybe add to it if I remember anything else that resonates still inside my head. I suppose it's good to have them all written down in one place... or something?

***

Two from Lloyd - the first one, I was maybe four or five, and I'd left some toys in the long hallway over night, when he came in late, and drunk, and didn't turn the light on he banged his big toe up pretty badly. The following morning I saw the bloody toe and said 'I'm sorry' and he responded "A lot of good that does me."

Second was when I asked him about his blood type, he wrote "If you choose to think of yourself as the chance issue of one of your mother's many peccadillo's that's fine with me." Then he said he'd been there for the first six years and that that 'felt like father to him.' Yeah, walking out on your 6yo and not even making contact (we didn't know if he was even alive) for eight years - that's what fathers do.

Okay, some do. I'm impressed Daddy - excuse me, Lloyd. I'm happy to consider you not my biological father. What DID you say your blood type was? Oh, yes, you claimed you didn't know it (after being in the navy, yeah, right.)

Enough of this fun, I really need to put my head down and try and sleep. I wonder if I will ever manage a 'normal' sleep schedule? Well, not today, that's for sure...

Be well, all, and good night

I'm listening to The Cars: Bye Bye Love

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06