Aimlessly Wandering, Without Destination

And finally, the pepper spray story.

anastasia — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:28:23 +0000

So. Pepper spray. Where do I start?

First, I need to provide a little back-story. Otherwise, this is going to end up sounding like a story about two grown sons who are pissed at their dad for moving in a woman not even two years after their mom died. It might anyway. Here we go.

A few years ago, the Mister’s parents decided to sell their home and 6 acres with a pond and move to our humble little community with tiny postage stamp-sized lots. Citing the abundance of yard work and the Mister’s mom’s near round-the-clock need for care, it seemed like a fine idea. At the time. Turns out, maybe it wasn’t so much a good idea after all.

Mister’s mom, from now on known as “B-Ma”, had suffered from numerous strokes in the last few years of her life. Unfortunately, the one robbing her of her speech happened before I met her, so I never did get to have a proper conversation with the lady. Her boys absolutely adored her, though. She died in September of 2007, crushing both of them. R-Dad (Mister’s dad) was properly sad for a short time, and then started seeing a new lady. That only lasted a few months. In the summer of 2008, he met another new lady, whom the boys not-so-lovingly call “the Craisin”, due to the fact that her skin has seen too much sun and better days. R-dad met the Craisin through his new neighbors – the Craisin’s daughter and son-in-law. We all became friends with the new neighbors and their extended family, and had many great times during last summer celebrating what we now call “Lime Fest 2008″. That would be our introduction to Bud Lite Lime and the many summer evenings we spent drinking said Lime around various neighbor’s fires.

Apparently at some point during Lime Fest 2008, I somehow came under the wrath of Pepper Spray woman. She decided that I had made advances at her husband (not it) and proclaimed me the village whore. The rest of the village, however, was quickly able to determine that I had not made said advances, and also that maybe, Pepper Spray woman had a bit of the problem with the bottle. Her husband started calling her Twisted Sister, due to the large amounts of Twisted Tea she consumed. Lime Fest 2008 came to an end, winter started and I thought not too much about her. She did leave a couple drunken messages on my voice mail around Christmastime. Mister spoke to her husband, and asked him to tell her to please not call me anymore. The calls stopped, but R-dad was still dating the Craisin. It did make for a very uncomfortable holiday season, but with wine and the boys on my side, we made it through unscathed.

Fast forward to this summer – which we were hoping to call Lime Fest 2009. R-dad dropped the bomb that the Craisin was moving in. The boys were up in arms, and told R-dad that perhaps he was moving a bit fast, and perhaps he wanted to think hard about moving in a woman who lives on disability and has an alcoholic daughter living next door – one who accused his daughter-in-law of being unfaithful.

One day we were minding our own business at home, when we happened to look out our kitchen window. Did I mention that I could probably throw a rock out the window and hit R-dad’s house? He’s that close. So anyway, we notice all kinds of fun happening, including the evil Pepper Spray bitch herself, walking into R-dad’s house. Mister got pissed. He called his dad, and arguing ensued. Mister’s point was that he could not believe that R-dad would allow Pepper Spray in his house after all she’d said about me, and that he’d better think long and hard about this or he may end up having to choose between her and him. I was watching out the window and I saw the Craisin storm out up the street.

I said, “Uh, Mister? The Craisin is on her way over.”

Mister told his dad he’d better stop her right now, that she shouldn’t come to our house.

Also, did I mention that R-dad is non-confrontational, and, well, a bit of a coward?

So, he did not stop the Craisin and she rang our doorbell. I said “Now is not a good time. You don’t want to come in here.”

Apparently she heard “Hey! Come on in!” and opened the door and came up the steps. She then proceeded to lecture me, in my home, the home into which she was most certainly not invited, and even told me to “Stop. Yelling. Pepper Spray is my daughter. I am moving in with R-dad. There is nothing you can do to stop it.”

At this time, her drunken son showed up on our door step and opened the door. I said “K. You do NOT want to come in here, nor are you welcome.”

At the mention of his name, Mister started down the steps and out the door. Luckily, K’s wife was right behind him, attempting to drag him off of our property. The Craisin finally went down the steps and out the door, and the Mister and the Craisin and K and his wife all exchanged words. Many words. Many mean words. Our neighbors (postage-stamp sized lots, remember?) heard the commotion and were starting to come over to assist Mister.

At the notice of the neighborhood backup, the Craisin and her family retreated, yelling and scowling along the way. Shortly after, we saw Pepper Spray leave R-dad’s and thought, “well, that’s the end of that.”

Not so fast.

Apparently Pepper Spray returned to her house (which I could also hit with a rock) and informed her husband (you know, the one I was having the supposed affair with) that – insert whatever crazy story she made up – Mister was calling the cops on him. WTF? So he came out of his house and started yelling “C’mon Fuckboy! You wanna start a fight? You wanna call the cops? C’mon!”

Teh child and I heard it, and I said “did he just say what I think he said?” and she said “Yes, he did”. Her eyes were as big as saucers. I informed Mister of what just transpired and he decided to go straighten things out. So he walked over to the neighbor’s house, knocked on the door, and saw H (the husband) sitting on the couch. He said “Hey, H. Can I talk to you? I think someone’s telling lies.”

Well, H flew up offa that couch like a bat out of hell. Mister backed up on the porch, and said “Wait a minute, just let me talk.” So he told H all that had transpired (H was fishing during all of the earlier events) H told him what Pepper Spray said, and H apologized for calling him out, they hugged and all was well. Chatting ensued. I was standing in their driveway, having followed Mister in the event that something ugly happened, and, I don’t know, someone needed an ambulance or something? Suddenly I realized Pepper Spray was standing in the doorway. She said ugly things to me and told me to get off her property. I said ugly things back (not very mature, I know), told her she didn’t own the house (they rent) and retreated to the street. She slammed the door and went back inside.

Again, that’s the end of that, right?

Well, no. As Mister and H traded tales, and I stood back in the street, Pepper Spray flung the door back open to earn her name. One hand holding a phone to her ear, and one hand armed with the evil spray, she screamed “the cops are on their way! You’re all going to jail” and proceeded to spray Mister and me.

If you’ve never been sprayed, I can assure you, that shit stings. Luckily, I had my glasses on, and I turned in time for the spray to miss my face. She got my arms and legs though. I scampered home with my tail between my legs and washed the shit off. Mister followed shortly after, and after some discussion, he decided “two can play at this game” and made a counter-call to the police.

Next thing we know, we’re filling out police reports with good cop and bad cop – good cop clearly believing us and bad cop saying I was trespassing.

Turns out it isn’t trespassing when your husband is talking to the husband of the house, and he never asked us to leave. Oh, and you can’t spray people just for talking to your husband. Especially if they are standing in the street.

Take that Pepper Spray. I hope you enjoy your community service.

Oh, and your divorce. Hope you enjoy that too….

My Crazy Neighbor (2)

anastasia — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:31:34 +0000

She goes to court on Monday. Two counts of assault. I’ll try to fill in details this weekend, I’m such a bad blogger.

In keeping with the running…

anastasia — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:43:06 +0000

For loser mom of the year….

The evil wench borrowed $40 from teh child yesterday for groceries. Can you believe it?

Do you think Mister should say anything to the wench? Let it go? She claims she’s paying her back on Thursday, but my God. Borrowing money from your 14 year old? Where does that rank? Like just a little above abandoning them at birth?

My crazy neighbor

anastasia — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:21:16 +0000

She pepper sprayed us last night. I can’t even believe it. It is all so very insane, and I am so angry I can’t go into detail right now. Maybe later.

Pepper spray!!!! Honestly. WTF?

Here’s hoping…

anastasia — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:18:55 +0000

The Mister gets the call from work that they are going back.

Not sure how much longer we can last…

July 2012

anastasia — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:22:21 +0000

Is it wrong that I want to fast forward? To completely skip through teh child’s teenage years until she is 18 and out of high school? I realize she won’t magically move out on her birthday, but I need to set a goal date to look toward. The episode with her getting in trouble for her little “hey guys my parents aren’t home party” has really scarred me. I feel evil. I don’t want to deal with her, I don’t want to deal with the arguments with her father about her. I just want to run away.

I won’t, of course. That wouldn’t be very adult of me. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t having any regrets about her moving in. I miss my “me time”. I miss being able to walk out of the bathroom after a shower and casually strolling to the bedroom to get my clothes. I miss the smaller grocery bills (but not the higher child support, so I think that cancels the other out). I miss being noisy with the Mister, if you catch my drift.

I liked not listening to trivial teenage issues, but for every other weekend and sometimes on Wednesdays. I liked not being responsible for any other human but myself. I liked having beer after work on a Tuesday just because I felt like it and not worrying about what impressions it made on someone else. I liked talking about whatever, whenever, and not having to screen my conversations.

I want to be able to go where I want, when I want, like I used to, without having someone accompany me. Unless of course, that someone is the Mister, in which case we are probably heading out for dinner and some drinks, maybe on the bike. You know, like a date. With no curfew. Because we don’t have to be home for anyone.

I’m going through a tough time with this. I’m not sure how to move past it. I’ll deal with it, I know. And I will get past it, I know this too. But I just wish I still had a life. A life that was mine. Not theirs. Not one that is waiting for fun. Not one that only wakes up, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, watches TV, sleeps, rinse and repeat.

For now, I am just existing, not even content. Just tolerating life until it can be fun and happy and mine again. Feeling guilt because of it.

The total number of days between Friday, June 5th, 2009 and Sunday, July 15th, 2012 is 1,136 days.

This is equal to exactly 3 years, 1 month, and 10 days.

That is a lot of time to put my life on hold.

This is why I chose not to have children.

This, I clearly did not think through, because I did not have all of the information I have now.

This, makes me feel trapped.

As the shit hits the fan. Or, a look at the life of a second-wife.

anastasia — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:23:43 +0000

Two weekends ago, the Mister and I went to his brother’s house to assist in repairing his brick and concrete steps and walkway, and also to set up his new laptop, modem and wireless router. The first was more the Mister assisting, and the latter was all me. Teh child decided that would be boring, and was staying home. Teh child has a rule that nobody – except family – is to enter the house when we are not home. This is because teh child has some unsavory associates in the neighborhood, and I rather like my jewelry and electronics where they are, thank you very much.

Teh child is a straight-A student, has already taken the ACT, and scored high enough that she will be taking a full college course load her junior year in high school. She’ll have an Associates degree by the time she graduates by following this path. She is only a freshman now.

Unfortunately, she has some of her mother in her. From her mother, she received “The Stupid”.

The Stupid is a tough thing to cure. It is hard to undo years of Stupid training and example. Especially when you can’t say to teh child, “Look. Your mother is an idiot. She is a complete moron who, at 40 years of age, still cannot take care of herself. And she passed that stupid on to you, and we are trying to fix it with something called ‘Common Sense’.” You can’t tell her that because she is a child of divorce, and she loves her mom, and you shouldn’t tell children not to love their mothers just because they are really, really stupid. Even if the mother says really bad things about the father and step-mother. Oh, and tells lies. That, too.

So, teh child has The Stupid, and that caused her to break the rules. Rules were broken, several rules. And then, The Stupid also caused her to leave mountains of evidence that rules were broken. Which caused her to get caught.

And boy, did she get caught.

I’m leaving out the details, but lets just say there were boys and girls in our house, when we weren’t home, and much teenage debauchery. Most of which could land a few, if not all of those kids in detention, or at least to a day in court. Not to mention if one of those kids got hurt, what could have happened if a parent of one of those kids decided to sue us or press charges.

Needless to say, teh child is now grounded. There was no phone for a week (OMG the WORST thing you can do to a teenager EVER SHE ALMOST DIED), there is still no Internet, there are no friends coming to our house, she isn’t going anywhere (unless it’s with her stupid mother, or her sister – who also acquired The Stupid from living with her mother – which we wish we could stop) and she isn’t staying home alone for a long while.

At least until we feel we can trust her. Who knows how long that will take?

Her mother, of course, is no help in this situation, having lectured the Mister about teh child’s right to privacy. This was because the Mister basically turned the child’s room UPSIDE DOWN after speaking to the grandmother of one of the girls that was in our house and learning there may be some things in teh child’s possession which, legally, teh child is not allowed to possess. Did I mention she is only 14? Yeah. 14. There is no right to privacy when you break the rules like this.

These things have been stressing me out. I’ve run the gamut on emotions. Anger. Sadness. Fear. Crying my eyeballs out. Thoughts of ‘what in the hell did I get myself into, marrying a guy with kids that have an idiot mother?’

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s all their mom’s fault, but, it sure would help if she would act like a parent, not a BFF. Oh, and if she wouldn’t trash the father and me to her kids. That would help too.

But this has been tough for me. I haven’t been sleeping well, and that has caught up with me. My glands started feeling swollen yesterday, I don’t know what that’s all about. It’s moved from the right side to the left, which is the normal progression of a sore throat for me, so I’m thinking tomorrow I might feel better. Last night I fell asleep on the couch while the Mister and I were watching TV. I snored so loudly I scared myself, and the Mister told me I should probably just go to bed. I did. It was maybe 8 o’clock? 8:30? I slept until this morning – didn’t even get up to pee – and then I turned off my alarm and ended up being 4 minutes late for work. I still feel a little out of it, but generally better. The tension between my shoulder blades isn’t quite as bad.

And tonight, I have Thirsty Thursday with a coworker. We will drink a couple (few?) fermented beverages, eat something that came from a deep fryer and complain about boys and exes and pretty much anything else that is bothering us. Maybe we should start calling it Thirsty Thursday Therapy. I should make up T-shirts.

~anstasia can’t wait.

Paul James finally has his own site!

anastasia — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:03:31 +0000

He is only my most favorite gardener, and the host of my favorite gardening show!

http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2009/05/with-gardenerguycom-paul-james-hits-the-webwill-now-take-his-own-messages.html

http://www.gardenerguy.com/

Frankly, my dear, I just don’t give a damn

anastasia — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:00:41 +0000

I am composing a list of things that seem to be all the rage lately. Things I just don’t care about. All I know is that I am kind of tired of hearing about them on the news or seeing in my Google Reader.

1. This Ashton Kutcher /CNN /Larry King crap. I refuse to follow.
2. BitTorrent. Don’t understand it, don’t use it, don’t know what it is, must not need it.
3. MySpace vs. Facebook. OMG. Facebook almost has as many users and MySpace! What will MySpace do? Oh Noes! One, I use to track teh child. One, I use to be nosy see what old friends are up to. That’s it.
4. How bad Obama is doing. Seriously? Look what he was given. Look what the last guy did. This isn’t his fault. Give him a chance.
5. The Tea Parties of yesterday. What good do they think those did? Other than stating the obvoius?
6. Digg. Yeah, it’s cool, lot’s of information. TMI. I don’t have time to sift through all that.
7. American Idol. Please, Fox8. Shut up.

~anastasia. PMS-ing.

Is it nice out yet?

anastasia — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:34:45 +0000

I’m feeling quite restless lately. I guess this is what they call ‘Spring Fever’? We were spoiled with a few nice days of sun and 70 degree weather. On Tuesday, that bitch Mother Nature decided to dump a few inches of snow on us. I threw a sheet over my poor, overly sensitive dwarf lilac. This is the kind of weather that killed half of it the first year I planted it. That’s what Ohio likes to do. It gives you a taste of spring, luring you in, making you think you’ve finally made it. You go outside, work in the yard, cut down your dead perennials you didn’t get cut down in the fall, mix up the soil in your raised beds and start planning this year’s garden and flower beds.

Then, slam. Snow. HA HA. You fell for it again. Stupid Ohioan. When will you learn?

Teh child is proving to be more of a handful. Perhaps it is Mister’s reluctance to let her start spreading her wings and making her own mistakes. Perhaps it is because she is testing the limits. Perhaps it is both. She is, for the most part, a normal teenager. As normal as one can be when coming from divorced parents. Her choice in friends leaves much to be desired, but she continues to score good grades at school, and we have yet to catch her sneaking out of the house at four in the morning, so there isn’t much we can do. Other than know the dishonest friends will end up hurting her feelings, haven’t we all been there? I know I was.

Just last night Mister decided enough was enough, after being called to pick her up at the other side of the lake at the last minute, because she knew she wouldn’t be home by her curfew. (We live near a small lake, there are two small villages on said lake, ours and the one we call “the other side”) This was not the first time. Also it was not the first time we were not informed she was trekking to the other side, instead she just announces she is “going for a walk”.

At her mother’s (I hate calling her that, that makes it seem as if she made an attempt at parenting) she was given free reign. No bedtime, no curfew, no rules. Fend for yourself. Not so at our house. Of course, we also supply her with regular meals, an allowance, lunch money, and some structure. So I guess she gets the good with the bad: the bad being ‘rules’. Anyway, he said that wasn’t going to happen again, if she goes to the other side, she must be back to our side by dark, and she best not call him again at the last second to come retrieve her and her trouble-making friend. She was agreeable, but then the whopper.

“Also, I am tired of hearing you on the phone in the middle of the night. No phone after 11.”

“But DAD. What if I get bored?”

“Read a book. Watch a movie. There is no need for you to be on the phone after 11.”

“Fine, I’ll just text.”

“No, you won’t.”

That, she did not like, and stomped down the hallway and shut her door. At least she didn’t slam it, like I used to do.

I tossed the idea in my head for a few minutes, and thought, well, what is the harm in texting? That does not keep us awake, and if she is tired the next day, that is her problem. So Mister relented on the texting.

I think that makes me good cop.

So now, we shall be monitoring phone records. I hope she follows the rules. Otherwise the phone will reside in our room at night, while charging, and not hers.

I remember when I was her age, there was no phone after 10 on school nights, 11 on weekends. (She is on spring break this week). And if I talked to long? Dad made me get off the phone. There were no 2 hour marathon phone session with a boy because the “minutes were free”. There was “You don’t need to be on the phone for 2 hours. You can see your friend at school and talk to him at lunch.” So I don’t get what the big deal is, aside from the fact that kids these days live in with the expectations of everything being instant, and they just gotta have it now. She should consider herself lucky.

Kids these days.

~anastasia. wishing for the good old days.