Heartbreak in Flushing Meadows

What does it feel like to be Andy Roddick right now? The word that comes to my mind is frustrated. He just lost in straight sets to Roger Federer in the quarterfinals. But if you look at the match on paper, it's hard to believe. Roddick's first serve percentage was 71%. Amazing. His winners to unforced errors differential was +18. He served 14 aces, just one shy of Federer, with his average first serve speed clocking in at 130 MPH, 11MPH faster than Federer's average.

There was nary a break of serve for either player in the first two sets; Federer won those in tiebreaks. And finally in the third set, Roger got the one and only break of Roddick's serve that sealed the deal.

Roddick is playing amazing tennis right now. But against Federer, it's still not good enough. He cut out of the stadium tonight before the commentator could get to him to do an interview, and I don't blame him. I wouldn't talk to anyone publicly either after getting wiped across the court like that. Even though he didn't really get wiped...did he?

I hope Andy's got good people in his corner that will encourage and motivate him to keep working to raise his game. I'm hoping to see these two players meet many, many more times, getting to the point where they can start trading sets in a match. The match tonight was thrilling, but the thought of it being closer and more down-to-the-wire excites me to no end.

So James Blake is out, Rafael Nadal is out, and now Andy Roddick is out. It looks like Federer will be cruising to his fourth U.S. Open trophy in a row. As far as I'm concerned, the best matches have now all been played. I'll watch the rest, but much less enthusiastically now.

A day of upsets

Wow, this has been a huge day in the sporting world. The University of Michigan got upset by Div. I-AA champions Appalachian State. At home. Ouch.

Maria Sharapova, the defending champion, was ousted from the U.S. Open in the 3rd round. Mega ouch.

As far as I'm concerned, that's enough upsets for one day. The Longhorns are in progress of spanking the Arkansas St. Indians...lemme check...14-3. And once this women's tennis match that I have turned on right now is done, James Blake is set to take the court.

Signing off from the sports desk (for now)...

Finally, I got to publish this post!

I really hate it when I let so, so many days go between blog entries. But this week, I just haven't felt much like doing anything. My living room floor is completely covered with the CD's the IB has pulled out of the shelves, as well as tons and tons of expired grocery flyers.

The boys went with their dad last evening. But it almost came crashing down. As you may or may not know, the IX & I had agreed to him having the kids every weekend for the summer once our divorce papers were signed. But for last weekend, he let me know that he was scheduled to work all weekend and wouldn't be able to take them. OK, fine. So earlier this week, he and I had an email conversation about his plans to take the kids this weekend. Everything was all set. He was even going to keep them an extra night for the holiday. The RK was really excited about that.

And then Thursday, via text messages, this (pay close attention to the time stamps as you go):

IX 10:57 AM: I seriously need to cancel this weekend. After two weeks of no days off, there are too many things I need to take care of on sat. Plus I need the r & r. On sun.

11:03 AM: planning on attending the [Indycar]race [in downtown Detroit]. I can speak to [the RK] about it as well. Please try to keep a good attitude. It will help the kids out. I will simply have them n [Character allotment for texts just ran out, and I didn't get the rest of the message. I'm guessing it said 'next weekend.']

Me 11:13 AM: It’s not my attitude that’s the problem. It’s a shame you want to be a dad when it’s convenient. I could use the r&r as well as time to take care of stuff too.

IX 11:23 AM: fine. I can take them. Sorry to bother you. Forget I said anything.

Me 11:24 AM: oh no, we’re so sorry to bother you!

IX 2:20 PM: will return them early Sunday morning then.

Me 2:22 PM : why can’t you just stick with our agreement? [The RK]’s really excited about the extra day with you.

IX 2:28 PM: want to spend time with them. Problem is I have tickets for the Detroit race. Can you watch them on Sunday? I’ll pick them back up afterwards. Work with me please.

Me 2:30 PM: did you forget about the race earlier this week [when we were emailing], or did you just now get the tix?

IX 2:32 PM: right. Just got them today.

Me 2:34 PM: so you basically are willing to dump on your kids when something better comes up.

IX 2:37 PM: no. I’ll just take them. Won’t go to the race. Thanks for your help.

3:38 PM: Boy, it sure does pay off being honest with you. Thanks for showing me your true colors.

Me 3:46 PM: What colors are they, exactly? Wanting my kids to have at least a halfway decent relationship with their father?

IX 3:52 PM: All I was asking for a little help [sic] on my situation. One more weekend or not even that just a day at minimum. You make it seem like I won’t see them again.

3:55PM: enjoy your weekend. It’s going to be a nice one.

Me 4:00 PM: all I see is you willing to disappoint your kids for your own selfish reasons. We had agreed that you were going to take them, so that means you don’t get to…

4:00 PM: go to the race. End of story…grow up.

IX 4:16PM: Have the utmost confidence in that lessons have learned [sic]. And won’t be repeated. Definitely count on that fact.

Me 4:18 PM: whatever

Oh, this whole thing Thursday sent me into such a tailspin! I was so angry, I was absolutely shaking. It just pisses me off so much to realize how messed up his priorities are.

I can tell by the messages he was sending me that I really pissed him off as well. I mean, I thought the whole thing was settled with my message sent at 11:24. But then three hours later, he starts it all back up again. And then after our next session, once again I thought it was all settled with the 2:37 message. So I can just see him in those in-between times stewing over it.

It's so interesting to think about how our relationship is changing through all this. During our marriage, he never showed anger towards me, rarely disagreed with me, at least over big things, and just kept everything all bottled up inside, leaving me twisting in the wind wondering what the hell was going on inside his head. I so desperately wanted him to get mad at me sometimes. To let me know that I affected him, even if it was in a bad way. Because in my case, even a bad way was better than my having no effect on him at all, which was my reality.

So I'm finally getting what I wanted from him, now that we're divorced. I guess it's better than nothing. I feel that during our marriage, I constantly put his feelings before my own, conceding in so many disagreements, doing what I could to make him happy. Now that he's no longer my husband, his feelings and his happiness no longer matter to me. My children's do. They are numero uno on my list of priorities, so hell yeah I tore into the IX and had absolutely no desire to work with him or facilitate his getting to that race.

Ya know, come to think of it, I guess this goes both ways. I'm telling him what I really think, instead of taking his feelings into consideration like I did while we were married. So now he's letting me see his reactions. Interesting.

So anyway, thinking back on this whole episode, which makes me a little nauseous, to be honest with you, I think about how the whole thing could've been avoided if the IX would've just acted like the 35-year-old parent he is, and when the race tickets became available, had said, "I'd really love to go, but I have my kids this weekend. Maybe next year."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been trying to get this post published since yesterday afternoon, and I finally got the chance to work on it some more! I went through and edited the 'yesterdays' to 'Thursdays,' etc. And now I think it's up-to-date.

The reason I never got to publish was that not too long after the boys had taken off with their dad, I get a phone call from single mom friend #2. This past Sunday, I had tried to call her to let her know that I was still ready to honor our agreement made earlier in the summer about letting her son come spend the days of the last week of summer vacation with us like he did the first week of vacation. I didn't get an answer and left a voice message. And I never heard anything back. So all this week I've had the worrisome suspicion that she's done with me, I'm just too flighty & flaky for her.

So last night, my phone rings, and it's her, profusely apologizing for not calling me back, that when I had actually called, she was at the ER after hurting her ribs. She hadn't even found the message until right before she called. So we start gabbing on the phone, including my profusely apologizing to her as well, and after 45 minutes, she finally says, "What are you doing right now?"

I say, "Nothing." Although I was once again trying to work on my blog post. But really....priorities....

She says, "You just wanna come hang out and have a beer with me in my garage?"

So I dart out the door.

And we have tentatively made plans to go out tonight, if she can find a babysitter for her son. We sincerely need to try to finagle our weekends with our kids so they coincide.

This morning when I woke up, though, I feel like I don't know if I actually want to go out tonight. I have SO MANY things to get done around the house this weekend, and James Blake to watch tonight at the U.S. Open.

• My house is such a complete disaster (thanks to my formidable force of destruction, aka the IB), I must get it cleaned up.
• I must clean the bathrooms. They're funky. It's been entirely too long since I've cleaned them.
• I need to mow. It's been three weeks.
• I still need to clean out the garage and evict or murder about 5749305589 spiders living in it.
• I need to take my plastics & cardboard to the recycle bins.

I really, really, really hate letting my list get this long (yes, that's long for me), but I just don't know where to start. It overwhelms me. I really need to get over that.

On a happy note....

Do you know what today is?

IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!!!!

YEEHAW!!!!!

The Longhorns are playing Arkansas St. tonight, which should be a handy rout. I have the possibility of watching it on PPV, but after the last time I tried to watch a Longhorn game on DishNetwork PPV, I vowed never again.

You see, it was a game in the middle of the day, and the PPV PTB allotted exactly three hours for the game. When that three hours was up, the coverage abruptly switched to another game, with most of the 4th quarter in the Longhorn game still left to play.

Now tell me...when was the last time you watched a football game that took three hours or less? I don't think I've ever seen that.

So I get on the phone with the DN people, ranting and raving about how ridiculous it is that we, their customers, would shell out $29.95 for a football game if we couldn't see the end of it. She said that if I look back through my contract, I'll find that there's no guarantee of viewing the entire sporting event purchased.

I'm sorry, but I think that is the absolute WORST policy. Why in the world would we spend that kind of money to watch a football game if we weren't guaranteed to see the end? That has to be the most asinine thing I've ever witnessed in my life!

So anyway, the UT game is tonight at 7:00 PM EDT, with no game scheduled after it. I noticed on the program guide that they allotted 4 1/2 hours for the game, so I think if I decided to drop that big ol' chunk of change to see the game, I'd more than likely get to see the end.

But I ain't gonna. For one thing, it's Arkansas St. For another, I really don't need to be spending money on something as trivial and unessential as this. And thirdly, it's the principle of the thing...despite that little incident last year with DishNetwork, I love my service from them. But if that's their policy regarding PPV sporting events, I ain't gonna give them any more money than I have to! Take that, DishNetwork!

OK...I guess this post is long enough. I've been working on this at the coney island again, and I've been sitting here so long, my computer battery is down to 26%. Today I've been observing a bunch of people decked out in their Maize & Blue, grabbing a big ol' breakfast before going to the the U of Michigan game. I'm so geeked that football season is here again!

Tennis, anyone?

Oh boy, I'm coming down right now from the excitement that is the U.S. Open. I've talked in the past about how much I love this particular tournament, and tonight was another ultimate example of why it is so great.

Although he's technically not the best American player out there right now, James Blake is my guy. And tonight, he won a big one. And I mean A BIG ONE. Huge. Ginormous. Monumental.

In the last few years, since his comeback from a variety of health issues as well as losing his dad, he has been one to generate some of the most incredible tennis on earth. In his career, he has had matches go to a fifth set nine times. And he has lost every single one. The most recent one that comes to mind was against Andre Agassi at the U.S. Open last year. I remember being torn about who to cheer for, knowing it was Agassi's last Open, but also wanting the opportunity to watch Blake play more matches in the tournament.

So tonight Blake played his second round match against a 34-year-old Frenchman named Fabrice Santoro. And in tennis years, that's like getting birthday wishes from Willard Scott. And this poor guy was hurting. He was cramping, or had a hip stinger, or something that had him hobbling on the court between points and getting treatment from the trainer during changeovers. But due to an insane number of unforced errors on Blake's part, the match stayed close, going to that ominous, daunting, monkey-on-his-back fifth set.

The stadium was electric. The crowd was un-shush-able. The tension and excitement suffocatingly thick.

And Blake finally pulled it off. The monkey is gone. Poor Santoro's gonna be hurting in the worst way in the morning, but major praise goes to him for hanging in there to see the match to its conclusion. Especially after having resigned matches in 2 out of his last 4 tournaments for health issues.

And true to everything wonderful about this tennis tournament, and the sport in general, the New York crowd were sure to give him his props, and their heartfelt gratitude for an extremely entertaining evening. And when the two players met at the net to shake hands, they had a rather lengthy friendly exhange before shaking hands with the chair umpire. It almost seemed to me that Blake could've been offering to help Santoro get off the court and into the locker room for some medical attention.

But Blake was definitely the man of the hour, and now I eagerly await his next match on Saturday against an Austrian named Stefan Koubek.

In fact, the hairbrained idea to hop in my Honda and head east to Queens, NY for the weekend has been planted in my head. Oh, how I crave to be a part of that late-night crowd, yelling myself hoarse, sharing my rush of adrenaline with the thousands of other fans, and even the players. I've been known to do wild and crazy things like that before, but that would be a bit much.

But oh....the temptation...

The long hot summer

I hate it when this much time gets away from me between posts. I've been coming up with all kinds of things to talk about on here for the last three days, and now I feel like I'd be up all night long typing it all in here. What I can remember of it, anyway. Argh.

One thing I wanted to mention on Sunday afternoon was that amazing, amazing men's final at Wimbledon. Classic! Legendary! I've already mentioned how tennis fans all over the world right now are so blessed to have such a great rivalry for this particular era. And y'all know who I'm talking about: Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal. For the first time, Federer didn't wipe the court with Nadal in a steady, textbook, boring three sets. Nope, it took five. And two of those went into tiebreaks.

I found myself rooting for Federer. And afterwards, in reflection, I realized why. I'm not ready for Nadal to reach that goal yet. This rivalry is still a bit new, and I want the excitement and anticipation to build a little bit more. Let's keep Nadal winning on clay, and Federer winning on grass. It just seems that once one of them gets the upset, the denouement begins, and it just won't be as exciting as before.

This seems to be one of those healthy, friendly, rewarding rivalries. They're each other's toughest competition, always motivating and driving each other to improve their game. Thus, improving the entertainment value for us, the fans. It's so rare that these rivalries are born, and us sorry shmucks who get their jollies from watching the pros play rather than playing ourselves, benefit exorbitantly.

And as for the players themselves, twenty or thirty years from now, they're going to appreciate having had each other to keep driving and pushing the other ever closer to perfection. And they're going to look back on their extraordinary careers, and be thankful. And content.

OK...that's the end of my tennis soapbox soliloquy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We've been suffering in 90+ degree weather for the last couple of days, and my poor A/C has been coming on starting before noon. My poor flowers and burning bushes are in sad shape. I gave them a good dose of water and plant food tonight, so hopefully they'll perk back up. And I have no idea where they're coming from, but my house is overrun with flies. They are so nasty. As for me, I'm actually enjoying this heat. It reminds me of home. This would be considered a cold spell this time of year.

We haven't been going to the pool any, though, because the poor RK came home from his weekend with his dad with a horrible sunburn on his back. So he's not exactly in pool mood while his skin is in such pain. Thank God the IB obviously got slathered up with sunscreen. But I'm really quite miffed that the IH wasn't more on top of it with his elder child. And not only that, the IH broke one of the wheels on the IB's stroller. He called me yesterday to let me know that he's ordered a new wheel, and it'll get here in 7-10 days. Thankfully, I knew that SH recently got her two-year-old a new stroller, so she's letting me borrow the old one until the new wheel comes in.

The IH is taking the kids again this weekend, and then we're going to start our alternate weekends routine. I requested this from him because this will coordinate my weekend parenting schedule with that of another neighbor of mine, who has also recently gone through divorce. Her older son has the same name as the RK, and they've become quite good buddies. So this way, they'll be with their moms on the same weekends, and then their moms will both be free on the same weekends to accompany each other to various nightlife establishments. Which I'm so looking forward to. I love to see and be seen, and this past weekend just sitting at home really sucked. I almost decided to go out for a bit by myself, but decided I wasn't exactly in the mood to look quite that vulnerable.

All right, it's approaching 12:30, and I'm gonna cut this off here and go to bed. Nighty-night!

The seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the century

So do you y'all like my new look? I love blue. All shades of blue. It soothes and relaxes me.

I'm sitting here at my local coney island restaurant. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, let me explain. Coney island-style restaurants are usually owned by people of Middle Eastern descent (and around here, there's plenty of 'em), but there are also a couple of very successful chains. They have very, very large menus, with just about anything you could possibly want on them. And there's also a bit of a Middle-Eastern flair on there, as well. Like gyros & Greek salads (which I've fallen in love with since moving to Michigan). And breakfast that you can order all day. It's a bit of a diner feel.

I love this particular coney island. I guess you could say it's a chain, because there is another one listed on the menu in another little town not too far from here. They offer free wi-fi. And the best veggie omelette I think I've ever had (extra onions, please). And I just noticed they now serve 'Ice Cold BEER' as well...bonus! When I'm not in the mood for breakfast, I usually get their gyro/Greek salad combo. Or if I'm really feeling nasty, a coney dog with cheese & onions. I love this place.

So I'm sitting here tippy-tapping away on my sweet little laptop to you fine people! Sipping a cup of coffee, ruminating a bit from that omelette I left no trace of on my plate. This actually feels quite good. I wonder how my babies are doing, though.

There's actually a quite attractive guy sitting by himself in the booth right next to me.

I think after this I'm gonna head home and load the back of my car with all the cans and bottles I've collected for the past couple of months to go recycle them. You see, in Michigan, whenever you buy Cokes or beer in cans, bottles, or 2-liters (sorry...no beer in those), you pay a 10¢ deposit for every single one. So if you buy a six-pack, there's an extra 60¢. A twelve-pack, $1.20. You get the idea. So I have a big ol' garbage can out in my garage where I toss all my cans and bottles. When it gets full (it's overflowing right now), I haul them up to the grocery store where they have these machines that I feed each and every can & bottle into, one at a time. It counts them, and when I'm done, I press the little green button and it spits out a receipt. When I make it to the cashier, I hand these receipts to him/her and s/he scans them, and I either get the total taken off my grocery bill, or I walk out with a little extra cash in my wallet. A pain in the ass, but I feel good making sure I get that bit of recycling done. The RK loves helping me with it. Although he's getting big enough now that it's not such a big deal anymore.

I hope to find the motivation to clean some today, too. This would be such a good chance to get caught up on the laundry. The forecast today is...hang on, let me check the WeatherBug...92°. Tomorrow 97°. I think I might have to get some serious pool time in there as well.

Child-free. At the pool? I can't even imagine it.

Let's see...oh yes! Wimbledon! I'm so psyched for tomorrow's men's final. Yet another thrilling meeting between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. This has become such a great rivalry. They dominate each other on different surfaces. Nadal on the red clay of Roland Garros, Federer on the grass of Wimbledon. And the thrill of this match-up is to see if finally one of them can beat the other on that player's 'foreign' surface. Oh, their skill, oh their power, oh, the excitement! Given the five-hour time delay from London to here, I'll definitely have to set my alarm to wake up in time to watch it. And after that match is over, I'll start waiting for the end of August to roll around when the U.S. Open starts. Tennis under the lights...

The waitress just stopped by my table and filled my cup of coffee for what seems like the 10th time. I think it's time for me to go! This has been so cool, though. I think I'll have to start doing this on a regular basis. Quite enjoyable.

I hope y'all are having a wonderful weekend and a 7-7-07! May good luck grace you all!

Caution: Nuclear meltdown imminent

Boy, I'm really wishing right now I had nothing else to do but loll around the house and watch tennis. England's best hope for a Wimbledon title (and really, he's not anymore, but the fans still love him), Tim Henman, is battling back from losing his first two sets in tiebreaks. He's won the third set, and is way ahead in the fourth. I love tennis. This one's heading to a fifth set, and I can't sit and watch it! DAMMIT!

I hate having the weight of the world on my shoulders. Summer's supposed to be for no worries, lazy days, the only priority being what time to head to the pool. Instead, I'm freaking out about my divorce, my kids' wellbeing in the mess of it, and worrying about what's going to happen in the future.

Curse that man.

I did get a big piece of good news this morning when the guy from the property management company called me, and when I asked him if I could get into the clubhouse tonight to start decorating and setting up, he said sure, after the sales office closes. Yippee!!! That's huge for me...frees up a lot of my day tomorrow before the party.

I so shouldn't be sitting here. I've got so many other things to do before this conference. Like shower. I stink. Or as I would say to the IB, "I'm tinky!" And I need to go get the IB's diaper bag stocked and ready to go.

Off I go...

My version of Tuesday

One little bit of more depressing divorce shit, and then I'll move on. I'm still tied up in knots about this whole parenting time thing. For my kids' sakes, I hope the IH is right, and I'm wrong. I'm dreading this settlement hearing on Thursday, and I have a feeling I'll be sitting out in front of the courthouse puffing away on my little cancer sticks as long as I possibly can before having to go in.

I absolutely hate that man for what he's done to this family.

OK, that's all. At least for this post.

I miss my beautiful lawn of last year. Brand new sod looks so good, and now that it's a year old, I'm having the worst time getting it nice and green and lush. One thing I am glad about is that we had a second water meter installed last year, so we're not paying for sewage for the water we use outside of the house. But getting out to water is often very time-consuming. Getting those little sprinklers placed and aimed right can be a pain in the ass. I watered some last night, and I'm gonna try to go douse the yard again tonight. The lawnmower needs to be fired up again as well.

Yeehaw! Wimbledon has started! Or to really embrace the culture, "Jolly good!" So for the next two weeks, my TV will have nothing but glorious grass court tennis on it. Much to the RK's dismay. Eh...he's got the TV in the loft. Tennis just doesn't seem to be as exciting now that Andre Agassi's gone. Heck, I'm still missing Pete Sampras. I'll still watch though, and keep hoping the US will have a couple of their up-and-coming players fill these men's ginormous tennis shoes.

Wow, the IB's taking a good nap today! It's almost 4:00 right now, and he's been down since around 1:00. Well, I guess our little foray to the pool this morning can explain that. Man, that water felt so good. We're heading out again in a little while to get more stuff for the birthday party. (I say "again" because we went out yesterday and hit the dollar store and the party supply store to get a jump on the supplies.) Gotta hit Sam's, 'cuz the IB is almost out of formula. Then might go scope out the GFS to get an idea of what kind of munchies to have at the party. I've never been in there, and I hear it's wonderful.

Speaking of the IB...he has a new trick! He waves. Just his four little fingers, on both hands. I'll tell him to wave, and he waves both hands! SO PRECIOUS! And he finally started crawling, and is into everything. I can't keep my CD's stacked in the shelf anymore...he loves pulling them out. And suppertime is always fun...I have to use two spoons. One for me and one for him. Sometimes two for him and none for me. Food very often winds up in his hair and other interesting places. He is such a happy kid, though. He adds so much joy to this house, and I'm so glad he's here.

Uh oh...sounds like he's awake! I can hear him kicking the rails of his crib through the ceiling. Sweet thing...

Happy Memorial Day!

Is it just me, or did the French Open start a day earlier than usual? I've never known a Grand Slam tennis tournament to start on a Sunday. And I can't find anything explaining it online, which makes me think it's just me. If there's anyone out there reading this that has an explanation or knows of a place where I can read about it, please shoot me a comment...it's really driving me crazy.


I'm really geeked that the Grand Slam tennis season is here once again. Tennis is such a great distraction for me until football season rolls around. I love watching tennis. I've grown up watching tennis. ("Mommy, they're playing deuce!") Over the years, I've learned all the rules, the scoring, the strategies, the strengths and weaknesses of one particular surface over another. For instance: Americans suck on clay, while anyone from a Spanish/Portuguese-speaking country rules the school. Grass seems to be the universal surface with no major drawbacks, and hardcourt is where Americans shine. I would make such a great chair umpire. I'm not any good at playing the game, but I could definitely referee it.


The French Open is my least favorite tourney. Well, the Australian Open doesn't thrill me much, because it's always airing in the middle of the night, and besides, they play it in January or February, don't they? And I can't decide if I like Wimbledon or the U.S. Open the most. I love the U.S. Open because the tennis facility is equipped with lights. That means sometimes we get to stay up late, late, late to watch thrilling, incredible, exciting tennis into the wee hours of the morning. I don't know what it is, but for some reason, that's when the best tennis always happens.


Oh....come on football season....


The RK just came in the house from spending the night at a friend's house here in the neighborhood. It was a last minute thing...he had been playing over there for the better part of the afternoon into the evening, and when he's 45 minutes late from getting home at 6:00 like I asked him to, I get a phone call.

"Mommy, I know I'm already 45 minutes late, but can I stay longer? We're having so much fun."

"Sure, sweetie. I'll see you in a little while."


So then I get another call around 8:30:

"Mommy, can I please please please please PLEASE spend the night???"


I agree, and ask to speak to his friend's mom. She says she just doesn't want to break up the fun they've been having, that it's pefectly all right if he stays, that they have PJ's and a sleeping bag he can borrow. I express my overwhelmingly heartfelt gratitude, get back on the phone with the RK to give the obligatory spiel about being a nice boy, listening to his friend's mom, and being polite, saying please and thank you and all that good stuff. Then I wish him a good night, and say I'll see him in the morning.

So around 9:00 this morning, he comes riding back on his bicycle and is getting ready to flop down on the couch for a nap (I guess he didn't get a whole lot of sleep while he was over there) when I make him go upstairs to take a shower and brush his teeth. It had already been way too many days since his last shower, and after spending the night without any clean clothes to wear or a toothbrush, I knew he'd feel a lot better if he got this one task over with. So now he's clean, in clean clothes, minty-fresh breath, asleep on the couch. Sweet baby boy...


That wasn't even the start of RK's holiday weekend festivities. Yesterday morning around 10:00, I get a call from the mom of another one of Justin's friends in the neighborhood, inviting him to go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie at 10:30. The RK is still asleep, so I go and get him waked up, dressed, teeth & hair brushed, and he gets to go have a great time at the movies with a good friend.


It does my heart so good to see that we're really making a life for ourselves here and making new, dear friends that live so close. I love this house.


Saturday night we BBQ'ed over at SH's house, and I contributed some beautiful mouth-watering country-style spare ribs. They ended up being totally yummy. So we sat out in their garage until around midnight talking, drinking and eating, while it rained.


I hate it when it rains on Memorial Day weekend. This is supposed to be the weekend to celebrate the beginning of summer! No rain, please! Today's forecast is beautiful, though...sunny and mid-70's. So hopefully we'll be able to enjoy it to its full potential.

Yesterday was also consumed with me avoiding anything having to do with the Indy 500 like the plague. I couldn't help but catch the scroll at the bottom of the screen on ESPN2 during tennis coverage, though, and learned that they had to stop the race for rain. I'm thinking, 'Great. If they get to restart the race, I'll have that much longer today to try to avoid it.' Last evening, though, I couldn't help but read some of the recaps. So I know who won.

While I didn't really let it slow me down too much, the fact that my husband was at the race without us, by choice, was constantly in the back of my mind. I tried to distract myself as much as possible without letting it get me down. But I am just so sad. And then SH expressed her thought that the least he could've done was to take the RK with him for a weekend of father-son bonding.

But this raises another question in my mind: did she go? I mean, he's made it perfectly clear that I've been replaced. He took her to the company Christmas party after I'd been to the previous eight. He's expressed to me on more than one occasion that if he had things his way, I'd just disappear from the picture and he'd have our kids, her, and her kids. In this house. Whatever. I mean, really...how can he have such non-feelings for me anymore? How did it get to where I mean so little to him when he means so much to me?

And I'm really wondering what's up with him not really making much of an effort to see his kids. We've had this thing worked out where he would come over here on Saturdays and Sunday and spend most of those days over here with the boys. But he hasn't done that in quite a while. I mean, he has been working his ass off during the month, but still...he seems to be perfectly content not seeing them. He took the RK to a movie last Sunday, but spent very little time with the IB. And he just dropped off the RK without coming in with him for a little while. He hasn't made any sort of effort to see them at any other time...evenings, or whatever. He really has said that his kids are the #1 priority, yet he demonstrates that they're not, every single day he leaves work and goes home to his homewrecking whore and her kids. It truly just makes me sick.

I've been having the feeling in the back of my mind, though, that his head is starting to build up pressure from the situation he's put himself in. His way of dealing with anythig negative in the past has been to just skirt around it and ignore it as long as possible. I believe that's exactly what he's done by walking out on us. He wasn't willing to dig down deep and face his issues and his demons head-on to fix this situation. I think it scares the shit out of him, and he's terrified of having to stare down his multitude of dysfunctions. So his solution is to just trade one set of problems for another. And he'll wind up in the same position with her that we were in when he first became an adulterer.

But I'm feeling like his life is getting to the point where his demons are getting so big that he's not going to be able to keep pushing them under the rug for much longer. I think that's why he hasn't been making too much of an effort to see his kids. I think the reality of what he's done is starting to catch up to him, and the guilt is making it to where it's starting to hurt to see his kids.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. The other side of me thinks he doesn't have one lick of a conscience, and that his growing absence in the lives of his children is due to him just not caring. I truly have no idea what could possibly going through his heart or his mind....I realize now that all these years we've been together, he's keep them securely locked away from even me.

OK...enough of this. Whoever's out there, thanks for reading. It does me good to get this stuff out of my head and into print. I hope y'all enjoy your Memorial Day today, and don't forget to take a moment or two to reflect on what this day is really supposed to be all about.