I have a lovely adhesive bandage1 going horizontally across my wrist, right about wear those who self-mutilate would cut. But while I’m ready to scream at the top of my effing lungs and rip my lovely turquoise2 hair out, I’m not interested in offing myself. No, this lovely injury comes from Minerva, the now eight week old kitten whose favorite pastimes3 include include climbing up the entire length of my floor-length curtains(!!!) and being a total ninja, pounce-happy kitty during the hours of 12:00am – 3:00am. Why no, dearest kitten, Dan and I don’t need to sleep. Please, continue pouncing all over us, swatting at our faces, and licking any exposed hands, feet or other limbs.
Speaking of the dearest kitten, she goes for spaying, vaccinations and microchipping on June 11th. I’m sure she would be thrilled, if she only knew. I’m thrilled at the cost – just $65, since I use a semi-local agency that does “express” alterations and vaccinations. I’m not thrilled at the distance — about an hour each way — but the drive/gas is still worth it. For the hell of it I called the vet I take the animals to when necessary. They quoted me $280. Seriously?! I’ll pass, thank you very much, and happily drive an hour each way to save over $200.
Dan’s week vacation starts today, and I have mixed feelings about it. When you read my two choices, you’ll understand why:
- Dan continues to work, leaving me to deal with the housework and not two but FOUR loud, rambunctious kids4 and my lazy mother all damn day and evening. If I was a bon-bon popping, soap-opera-watching housewife it wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m not. I work 40+ hours a week, and juggle the housework and two young children on top of that!
- Dan is home for the entire week, giving me plenty of opportunity to run off to the bedroom/Panera Bread for uninterrupted work time. Downside: we all tip-toe around his short fuse, and there’s loads of awkward silences and snide/abrupt remarks5.
Dan means well, and he acts the way he does mostly because he loves me and can’t stand to see me in this situation and wants to “defend” me, but a lot of the time he makes things worse, and I wind up being put in the middle of very awkward, very tense situations. And it sucks. Dan’s temper doesn’t help: he goes from zero to ten in terms of anger/yelling/raging. It happened today, and it was just awful. In a way my mom had it coming, but even she doesn’t deserve the way he just totally flipped his shit right off the bat. Escalation is one thing, but to just go batshit when a second ago you were using your “inside voice”? Not cool. And I know Alyssa and Ryan are picking up on it, and I hate, HATE HATE HATE, having them here and around to witness these situations and just feel the overall stress and frustration.
For those that have asked, the reason I have not yet thrown my mother and brothers out and washed my hands of them is because they literally have nowhere else to go. It’s here or a homeless shelter. But an idea popped into my head today: a motel. A lot of motels around here offer rentals by the week, and I found an ad for one online that quotes $150/week, which isn’t bad when you consider the cost of paying for a house and maintaining its utilities for a month (just our mortgage alone, for example, is over $500 a month). And there may be cheaper ones, especially if I check in the non-touristy areas. In any case, I told my mom that she must be out by June 10th, since that is the last day of school for all of the schools in this school district, and there is NO. FUCKING. WAY. I am living in a house with FOUR kids 24/7 with none of them in school. No way. My sanity won’t be able to stand it, let alone my ability to work through all of that chaos. I’m already miserably behind on at least two things at a time, and that’s with my brothers and Alyssa in school every single day, and Ryan in school twice a week.
My mom is currently waiting to hear back on two applications. One is at a low-income housing development nearby, which is actually pretty swanky6, and the other is at a regular townhouse development. Both are rentals, obviously, though the former is ideal because there is an income cap, so my mom wouldn’t have to worry about the rent going up. But both places require credit checks, which is my mom’s biggest downfall. Believe it or not, from the “vibes” we got from the property managers of both places, it’s the regular townhouse development that seems more promising (it’s also $250 more per month, ick). Well, we’ll find out either way on both places this week. Believe me, we are ALL crossing our fingers.
- My first impulse is to write bandaid, but that would be like asking for a kleenex when I simply want a tissue. Damn brand saturation! ↩
- though in natural sunlight it looks more aqua ↩
- doesn’t that word look weird? I thought it was pasttimes, or even past-times ↩
- even though my brothers are chronologically teenagers, they act like 8-10 year olds — something I remind them of when they want teenage-appropriate privileges and such ↩
- to say that Dan doesn’t like my mom and can’t stand this situation is putting it mildly ↩
- nice to see my tax dollars at work *eyeroll* ↩
When this is all said and done, and I am moved in, your mommy is gone, and you have some free time… we WILL.. mark my words… get together. Girl day, or lunch or Spa day or mani pedis, or anything!
I think that you should really focus on getting your mom out as your main goal, even if it is a motel. Something has to give before the apocalypse happens.
Hope you get some peace and quiet soon.
Kittens are just naughty, saying that my two years old boy cat still thinks he is a kitten and has been run up and down the doors all morning arugh!
If you want to cover up the wound without it looking like you attempted to slit your wrist, use an ace bandage over the adhesive bandage- that way it just looks like you hurt your wrist or something.