Friday, August 11, 2006

life is moving along...

Soon I have to go and pack up the car. We are off to Rutland, VT for an art show this weekend. Funny, it feels like we haven't done a show in a long time. We put so much energy in preparing for the wholesale show that we did in Philly last month that I feel it's been ages since we've set up shop.
It should be a fun weekend. I'm picking up girl #2 from her a stay with Granny. We will meet 1/2 way in NH at LLBean and do some shopping. A friend of ours is also in the show and we'll have dinner with her and her boyfriend on Sat. night. Girl #2 and the boyfriend are thick as thieves and always spend our dinners together drawing all over the table and making up jokes together. They particularly like to create sculpture with their food.
Yesterday my brother-in-law got a call from our lawyer. It seems that horrid sister wants to know who her brother's are hiring to come to mom's house and pick up their inheritance. WHAT??? Yeah, we think we'll hire each other. This is a woman who has moved a lot and every time has hired a service to do it for her. We do not hire people to move us, we do it ourselves. (ah, the lives of the poor and infamous) It does put us on edge, though. It makes us wonder what's she up to? Our lawyer thought it was a very strange thing to ask and is going back to the other lawyer to find out what's going on.
Girl #1 got a job out on Lopez. She's working the morning shift doing daycare at the Family Resource Center. I'm proud and sad. She is probably staying.
The weather has finally cooled off. We have turned off the air conditioners and have all the windows open. It's nice!!
Oh, the rodent in our ceiling.....it is a wasp nest. Hard to believe but true. They sounded just like a rodent scratching...weird!!
Roger, who I told that I was glad I hadn't seen him in so long, put some poison at the hole under the roof and they are dead. No more scratching, no more wasps, I am sleeping better and life is moving along.....

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

THINGS THAT I THOUGHT WERE A GOOD IDEA

Yesterday I thought it was a good idea to:

*mope
*put off calling the mortgage company because I got a letter from them saying that it just came to their attention that we have not paid our property taxes and if we don't than our mortgage will become delinguent.
*put off calling city hall and finding out how much we owe on our property and school tax which we have not paid because we needed the money and we are selling the house and that we would pay them off when we sell the house.
*put extra chocolate chips in the cookies i made.
*sit on the couch and watch a movie.
*check email every 1/2 hour to see if we have heard from horrid sister about the next step.
*talk to our lawyer, who has just returned from her vacation, about horrid sister and the next step.
*to sit on the couch, cry, eat cookies, and watch "eureka" on the sci fi chanel.
*to call roger, the exertiminator, because we have a rodent in our ceiling who is driving me CRAZY scratching at the sheet rock. (i just know that whatever it is is going to fall through on top of me)
*to make sezchuan spicy shrimp for dinner.
*to decide that the asshole, who we hired to paint and do some repairs on our house and we finally had to take to small claims court because he never finshed and we won the claim because he never showed up to court to the tune of $4800.00 and this asshole has telephoned us screaming and then showed up at our house screaming fuckin' profanity at us all the while saying "I'm here to finish the work", is not allowed on our property anymore and we'll just take the money and be done with it. he, by the way, never cleaned up after his first time here in the fall and left our collection of antique porcelain sinks that we had been collecting to take back to Lopez in front of our fence and they were stollen. we were off to a show and he promised me that he was coming over that day to put them back behind the fence where they belonged.
*go to bed and pull the covers over my head

These are just a few of the things that I thought were a good idea.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

SHE'S NOT LEAVING ON THAT JET PLANE

Sorry for the lame title but I was at my Mom's house this weekend and she played John Denver. And yes, we all swayed and say along.

I called girl #1 last week to talk to her about flying back to NY in September. I'm thinking that we will be lucky if we can leave by the the beginning of October and it's time for her to come back and be with us. Guess what her answer is?.... "NO".
Shit. Now what does a good, thoughtful, caring parent do? It was all I good do to hold my super-mom hands from reaching through the phone lines and wopping her upside the head.
So, we made an agreement. Alright so I made the agreement. I gave her a week to figure it out. I told her that if she gave me a seriously compelling senario of a job, a place to live, and a homeschool agenda (it's her senior year) then I would seriously consider letting her stay. Really, I would. I mean, who can blame her...I don't like it here either. What makes me think that she likes it here and wants to come back to the awfullnes that we are dealing with?
So, last night I call her (the week is up).
"Hey, we need to talk about you flying home to us. What have you figured out?", I say with a bright and chipper sticatto.
"I'm working on it. I've been busy. I told you I am not leaving. You are not home. I am home and I don't like NY. I am not leaving.", she replied.
(I wanted to loose my cool. Scream at her that I own her and she better get her ass on a plane when I tell her to with no questions asked. Why didn't I raise a doormat?)
"Sweetie, honey, I gave you a week to figure it out and you haven't done that. We need to figure this out because the longer I wait the more expensive a ticket is going to be. I need this figured tonight", I calmly say back.
"I told you I've been busy Mom. (Oh, yeah, swimming with friends and overnights at the beach) Go ahead a buy me a ticket but I am not leaving", she says almost tersely.
Then it ensues into the Mom arguement of she's only 17 and she may not like it but she does not have the leisure to say "NO" about this until she's 18. (lame huh?)
She counters my "you need to come back (can't say the word home, she already told me NY is not home) and homeschool" ploy with the arguement that we don't homeschool and she's getting more done on her own than she ever did with me. (ouch!)
We came really close to "yes you are!" and "no I"m not!" but we didn't.
I finally said, "You have to come up with a date and if you don't have your plans to stay figured out by that date than you need to agree to come back to your family."
Dead silence.
"I'll call you tomorrow, Mom"
"OK talk to you tomorrow (you brave, powerful, not a doormat, frustrating, kick ass daughter of mine) honey."

She's not leaving on that jet plane.