Done & I'm on to the next one!
Now Playing: I wish it would rain by Phil Collins
Topic: General Diatribes

Annother day, annother 'week' at work begins tommorow, the cell phone saga continues, the phone I bought Lois a few weeks ago which she's paying me back for out of her babysitting pay is not compatible with the system we use so I have to box it up & send it back. Lois is furious, adding to her already morose attitude now that her 10 days with the boyfriend from Kentucky has ended, I did like the boyfriend pretty well at least, good thing too since supposedly they're engaged (!) & he's going to come here to live & they'll be married when she gets out of highschool. I haven't agreed to much of anything, I insist she finish high school of course & I'd prefer they go through college before any actual marriage takes place, personaly I'm anti marriage at all, living together seems like more than enough, unless you're actualy having children. I know I wish I hadn't ever gotten married, it would have made it a lot easier to walk away a thousand times before he actualy walked away on me.
I am trying to be more upbeat & cheerful in my posts, I am noticing how grumpy & down Lois seems all the time & that Val is beginning to act similarly & I'm trying to do less of that in the hopes that Val & Cam at least will not follow my family's way like Lois & be all morose & gloomy all the time, I did enough of that 13 through 20 & have striven to not be that way since my brother & then my father's deaths. I admit to a little 'magical thinking' as if I can teach my kids to not be depressive little toads who might eventually want to kill themselve. That they won't kill themselves. Of course I never killed myself, I thought about it a lot though, I just firmly belived that if I did kill myself I'd wind up in exactly the same sort of life I'd killed myself to escape. The idea of suffering through what ever I had to to get to the next thing has definitley stayed with me over the years, also the attitude that the word 'suffering' originaly meant to 'undergo', not neccesarily in a painful way.
All of this is lost on Lois, I get the one eyed glare from behind that mane of hair she has & then, worse, she rolls the eye, as if to say 'mom, you're so simple, you have no idea how complicated my life is- you just don't get it' - see I know what she's saying without her actualy speaking the words because back when she actualy talked to me, like at 14 she'd tell me things like that & I'd press her for details & then regret that I'd done so because either she'd share things I didn't want to hear or she'd shut down completely. (it's a toss up which was worse)

As for me, I'm just going to take it easy until the next thing comes along, now that we're through with the boyfriend visit & the first summer birthday(Valerie on 6/11, party yesterday) It's time to gear up for the Vacation! we're scheduled to leave July 10th after I get out of work & drive all night. Then we'll come home July 26 so I can go back to work on the 27th. Planned stops include Anns house, My Grandmothers & Mothers apartments, Mansfield country store, The school I used to attend in western Mass, Salem Witch museum (someone said it wasn't very good but she's high maintenance & easily bored so I'm not taking her dislike of it to heart) There's been some talk by the kids of going to Whittiers Birthplace for a visit, I'm hoping to distract them from that idea, I loved living there for all those years (1988-1997) off & on. But now that we're done there & there's no going back (everything's changed in how they get curators etc & I wouldn't want the job anyway) I'd just as soon stay far away, too many memories, both good & bad. Funny, going to Rockland where I grew up doesn't bother me & being in Haverhill doesn't bother me but the idea of being at Whittiers is disturbing. Then there's Val & Lois' ideas that they can ask the curator/caretaker if we can see the rest of the house, to me that is just TOO RUDE & never mind that they lived there- it's someone else's house now too & we have no right, the girls just sit & stare at me like I'm nuts when I say this. I'll stick to the beach & the graveyard thank you. This is the first year I've had a credit card with more than $50. available on it for our trip. I hope to not max it out. I only have so much room to bring things back home in after all... I'd like to concentrate more on having a good time & relaxing rather than accumulating things to bring home. (I have a co-worker who's already requested I bring her a seashell & maybe a bottle of ocean water) The Boston trip is often an accumulation trip but really, where else can we get Boston Bruins stuff? not in Roanoke that's for sure! & they do have some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever seen at Quincy Market after all! The most I've ever taken this trip with was almost a thousand dollars in 2004, the last year we went, gas prices were still under 2 bucks then & it did not feel like enough still, this year gas is $2.67 here & I shudder to think what it's costing up there, I haven't called my mother or grandmother in weeks, they're busy, I'm busy, time flies. That's really the purpose of the vacation though, to slow time down for a couple of weeks. Let the kids get to know their family up in Mass, just because we live here & they live there is no reason they can't know & care for their extended family. The most likely reason I might spend too much on vacation because I have it available to spend is that the visiting can get a little intense, we stay with family & friends & the older the kids get the less pleasant that becomes, first we've got Lois sulking & moaning about everything from a zit on the tip of her nose to roaming on the cell phone to the lack of internet at my grandmothers. Then there's Valerie generally bossing everyone around & Cameron getting into everything, I was here at the computer the other day & he came by with a wrench, 'what's that for?' I asked, knowing better than to just let it go, 'oh, the faucet's dripping, I'm going to take it apart & see why' Oh no you're not! (turns out if we turn the faucet all the way off it stops dripping very quickly!) That sort of thing in elderly housing could be a real disaster!
So the #1 thing I'm likely to spend more than I plan on will be a motel room, I've never been able to do so before but I have wanted to... oh, I have wanted to with all my heart. to just get a place lie down & let them run free, you want a shower tonight, then again tommorow before we leave? sure go ahead - just leave enough hot water for me to do the same. The bathroom floor is all wet because you filled the tub too full & splashed it out? & you left the heat lamp on half the night? oh well. (not my well, not my electric bill & not my floor.)
yes, a motel room for a night or 2 in the middle of the family fun would be a welcome relief from the family & the crazyness that being 800+ miles from home gives you! & it might be worth it, after all, I'm still hearing vacation planning is off, that gas prices & problems like the Katrina mess are really screwing up the number of vacationers this year. Then of course there's the concern that the rain of last week etc. could continue & New England might not be a good place to be this summer. It will be for us though, beaches & mountains & sight seeing be damned, we've got family & friends after all!