Limoncello

How did I miss out on this after all these years????

While doing my grocery shopping at Trader Joe's this evening, I picked up a few goodies for my private New Year's bash. It's ultra exclusive, by the way, just me, baby, and netflix online - don't be jealous or hating on us.

Amongst my many goodies, including California Rolls that were just too good to be true, I decided to grab some limoncello, because none of the champagne options were appealing to me. Either too expensive, or too cheap to be good, so I settled for the cheaper, more reliable option.

And, after an evening of sipping away a quarter of the bottle ... mmmmmmmmmm ... love, love, love. It is a delicious treat.

One hour to go to 2009!

You Can't Escape Life

As I am growing older, going farther along in my life's journey, I am starting to experience things that seemed just so far away during my youth.

Births, marriages, deaths - we're running the full circle here.

Births have been big recently, with several of my very close friends giving birth in a similar time frame.

Deaths, as well. I guess I've been surrounded by mostly healthy people, because in my life I haven't really experienced THAT much of it. However, with the passing of near and dear ones, including one the day after Christmas, I find myself wondering about the meaning of life more than ever.

Sometimes I wonder ... what's the point? If I were in a situation, how would I handle it? I think about the most terrible scenario possible -- if something happened to the baby, would I want to live myself?

Morbid thoughts, but I feel that as the old year is ending in a few short hours, it's worth pondering these somber thoughts and then to put them away in exchange for the hope and possibility that will come along with the new year.

Last year, when I was still on maternity leave and the baby was very tiny, I received a phone call from my intuitive friend and found out that a former co-worker of ours had killed himself. It was a crushing, crushing, extremely unexpected blow.

I cannot put into words his magnificence, his aura, his unbelivable intuition. He was literally THERE for me when I had just received the news that my ex was not going to return from an overseas jaunt. Stunned, I walked out of the tea house and bumped right into him on his way to buy incense. I didn't say anything about the news, but he gave me a big, big, big bear hug which was exactly what I needed at that very much.

My intuitive friend says that before she heard the news, she felt his very large presence near herself, comforting her and giving her strength. Intuitive people need strength - when you know as much as you do, it can majorly wear on you if you don't have that backing you up.

When I saw her a bit later, I asked if she knew where he was. Right back here on earth, she said, continuing ... you can't escape life.

That is something I believe is true. We're here on this journey for better or worse. It's our lesson -- we're here for the street cred.

And, so, with a farewell to the sad times and memories of the past, I'm looking forward to another year of lessons, of living, of loving. It's a blank slate, a new beginning, and I think we're all ready for it.

Tomorrow we're going to party like it's 2009....

To all my friends and loved ones and blog readers, please accept my sincere and fond wishes for a very safe, very healthy, and very happy new year.

Geesh, how did NYE come upon us so fast? This year has come and gone with lightning speed and I can hardly believe that it's time for us to bid farewell to 2008.

I honestly thought I would be spending my NYE with my parent's on Thursday evening, but it turns out the change of the year actually happens tomorrow night. Talk about mushy mom brain, because I didn't even realize that until I talked to my mom on the phone tonight and told her I'm planning on driving down on Thursday morning to save myself from that evening drive. And, honestly, to avoid their cold, cold house for one night! Hah!

I'll most likely be bleary-eyed at the turn of the year, possibly watching film on netflix.com and I might just buy some cheap champagne to celebrate. Not that I'm a huge drinker, but I do enjoy the bubbly and I do have a lot to celebrate. 2008 was about surviving. I intend to make 2008 all about thriving.

So, to all my dear friends, I wish you nothing but the best for the days ahead. There seems to be a general feeling of great change in the air, and my intuitive side thinks we have lots of sunshine ahead of us. Don't forget to appreciate each and every single day we have -- life is a gift, you know?

The universe always seems to know what I'm thinking about

I just opened my daily email of encouragement from Tut.com, and it's freakishly right on target with what I've been thinking lately:

Anonmom, it's easy. Your thoughts become things. Don't fight it. Don't think there's anything else. Don't entertain the false premises of fate, luck, or a God who judges, withholds, or decides. You decide. You manifest. You rule. This is why you are here. This is what you came to discover. You were born to experience your absolute dominion over every flimsy, malleable illusion of time and space; to have, do, and be anything.Truthfully, it couldn't be any easier. All you have to do is think of what you want and refuse to deviate from that thought. This will, invariably, set you into motion, stir up the magic, and unleash the full force, power, and majesty of a Universe conspiring on your behalf. It's worth everything you've got, Anonmom. Be strong, be vigilant, take action, and the Kingdom of Heaven shall appear at your very feet. I've got your back, The Universe

It's nice to know someone has my back out there.

Oh, go suck on a rock

Just received a text from the ex, "You're a wonderful mommy."

It took you this long to realize it?

Beat it.

A Realization

Due to limited exposure to non-toddlers and a lot of time spent conversing online, for home and for work, I am losing my abilities to talk to adults.

This thought came to me this morning as I struggled to talk about my Christmas with a co-worker, and then got a phone call from someone who was lively and asked me questions about myself.

The phone call was refreshing, and I realized -- THAT'S what's missing from my life. Someone to talk to. Maybe I should call my friends more often. Maybe that will be my big 2009 resolution. As it is, I feel empty in this cubicle graveyard called my life. How depressing.

My dad is a big listener of financial programs - it's his hobby, big time - and last week he told me about something he heard about on Bob Brinker, his very favorite show. Apparently, there are a lot of federal jobs available, and most of them have the starting salary of $70k. Wow. That's a huge jump from where I am now.

I've always had the feeling that federal jobs are just a way for you to say "bye bye" to the thought of ever having any kind of exciting life. But, on the other hand, would I call my current ennui any type of exciting?

If I were to get a federal job with that starting salary, I would have good benefits, security, and I would be able to provide a much better life for my son, and that is something I worry and think about all the time.

Is it time to look into this? Oh, crystal ball, crystal baaaaaalllll .... I'm a lookin' for ya!

Tired

I.
Am.
So.
Bleeping.
Exhausted.

As much as I've appreciated and treasured the past 6 days off, constantly running after the baby, with little to no assistance, is wearing. Add in late nights, a baby who's decided to push his sleep time 2 hours later, early mornings, no 3 hour naps, middle of the night interruptions, and you've got me in my current state. Blitzed out of my mind with exhaustion.

I do hate to complain about being tired as much as I do. I really do have other things going for me, but I'm sure you do understand what it's all about.

On a message board I frequent, the subject of marriage came up today. What's so good about marriage, someone asked? My response, as a veteran of marriage and current divorcee is this -- when it's good, knowing that someone has your back.

That's all it boils down to. And, for single parents, that's the main conundrum of our lives -- not having that person who has our back.

Right now I feel like a terrible mom for a super silly reason. While the baby was running around at 9 pm with a bottle, I was taking off my nail polish and some of the nail polish remover may have possibly gotten on his bottle, and I was too lazy to change the nipple before I pulled him into bed for "teddy bear time", aka, my way of getting him to go to sleep, borrowed from his dad.

I also feel like a terrible mom because lately it is such a fight to get the baby to go to sleep in the first place! When he was a teensy tiny baby, I never had the heart to let him cry it out, and although sometimes it's easy to get him to go to bed, it's so often a struggle to get him to lie down in the first place. It's a process, he has a couple of bottles, has a binky, has his blankie, rolls around on my bed, jumps around on my bed, complains about the whole ordeal, while I sing and cuddle with him, and then finally, he gives in and goes to sleep.

Whew.

And now it's 10:45 pm, and instead of cleaning up the mounds of books and legos, or even possibly considering sweeping my horribly dirty floor, here I am typing away!

Ay. Yi. Yi.

Something about being around my ex irks me to no end, especially when he tries to engage me in his usual stupid conversations. One thing that he used to say about me, accusatorily and angrily, is that I am low brow - that I have low brow tastes in culture. I've talked about this before, but I wouldn't exactly call a daily diet of "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show" and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" decidedly high or even middle brow whatsoever!

Today at our customary lunch with the baby, his topic du jour was "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show", which should really be titled, "Blah Blah Blah, Blah Blah Blah" because of how inane and ridiculous it is. It is seriously entertainment for men as stupid and ignorant as my ex, because I really don't see the point. I could go into my annoyance with this for so much longer, but I think you get the point. And it's not something I exactly want the baby to be around, either.

On another single mom's blog I frequent (I need to be better about linking and tagging, really I mean to, but I'm extremely lazy), a very good topic came up. Ms Single Mama was thinking about her ex, and how in the beginning of their relationship she never considered what kind of a father her ex would turn out to be, and it's come that he's not the most interested or devoted father. Kind of like my ex.

She also wondered what her own son would turn out to be like - would he develop the same emotional characteristics as his father? Turn out to be as loser-ly as his father?

I wonder the same things. And all I can say is that I don't think so.

A friend of mine is married to a man who is divorced from the mother of his children. He doesn't have the best relationships with them, and one thing he said to me is that your children are largely influenced by the parent they spend the most time with, which I hope and do believe is true.

There is not enough time in my life to explain or even attempt to begin to understand why my ex acts the way he does - why he doesn't want to take responsibility for his family, why he insists on acting like a child even though he's going to be 36 in 2009, why he's still working in a low paying job even though he has an education that would qualify him for a high-paying job, even in this stinking economy.

Part of it is his parents, and I can say that will no qualms. For the first few years of his life, they were constantly fighting, constantly pitting their kids against them, and as a result, his mom and dad have spent the rest of their lives trying to fix their guilt.

As much as I love her, does my exMIL still need to go grocery shopping for my ex, fix his meals, buy his clothes? In the same respect, does his dad need to still funnel him money? Do his friends, even, need to keep buying his talk and making him feel like the stud he isn't? Did the mechanic really need to give him a car when his broke down? Literally, he gave him a new (used) car in exchange for his old car. What the hell is going on here??

Looking at my ex, observing his life and what he is and isn't, I see ways I can raise my son and avoid him becoming a carbon copy of his dad. I don't know exactly HOW I'm going to do it, but I have time to figure out how I'll raise him to have a sense of responsibility and a basic respect for family. That's all I care about because that's what his father is fundamentally missing.

There are so many questions and thoughts I have about all of this. I'm wondering where to go, who to talk to for the answers to my questions. In the meanwhile, I'm going to finally finish up the last episode on disc 1 of the 4th season of Entourage and veg on the couch with the diet ice cream my ex bought for me, and then get to work making Frijoles Negros (black beans) from a recipe I printed out a while ago. I made the beans this morning via a pressure cooker, and talk about adventures in cooking. Next time, I'm buying them canned!

On a sidenote - since he seems to have all kinds of disposable income these days, I'm wondering how I can find out if my ex IS making more money and if I can increase my child support payments. It's my next challenge.

I saw the sign (literally)

After enduring an hours worth of bad jokes, bad stories, and barely shoveling down my food while making sure a certain 16 month old didn't swan dive to the ground from his high chair, I handed the baby over for his bi-weekly visitation hours and went on my way to get some errands done.

I have about 1/2 an hour longer to pick up the baby, and I'm aiming to write a little bit, take off my horribly chipped finger nail polish and replace it, tidy up the legos, and ponder life over a few of the World's Largest Olives, or so Trader Joe's claims.

In the past few hours, I've gotten a lot done ... taken my cans to the recycling center for $12 (woo hoo!), went to the gym for a workout that was desperately needed (the numbers on the scale had to be off - I can't have eaten THAT much lately), got a pedicure (I love getting pampered), ate Pinkberry, got the World's Biggest Olives, and called to inquire about a one-bedroom back house for rent in my neighborhood.

Wow, that is a lot of stuff! I love accomplishing much-needed tasks. Now for the juice -- the one-bedroom is a back house on the same street as one of my co-workers. The rent is the same as my current rent with a $950 deposit. That's $950 plus moving expenses I don't exactly have at the moment. But, that is a very, very, very good sign.

Last night, while struggling to stay awake at 11:3o pm (I must have really been tired, because usually that's my prime get stuff done time), I asked the higher power for a sign ... something to point me in the right direction. And I think I just got it.

I wonder what it would be like to have a lot of disposable income? To have a couple thousand in savings for when you really need it? It sounds good - I think I might try that on for size in 2009. What do you think?

To move, or not to move

Yesterday, the Friday after Christmas, I was roaming around the mall in my parent's city - the mall that services the real housewives of Orange County - and thinking, it must be nice to be rich.

As I was returning the too small, too ugly pants my ex had bought me for Christmas amongst the nouveau riche behind the Orange County, it was easy to feel jealous and envious of a) the couples shopping together with their kids, pushing expensive strollers, because that in itself is a nice thought, b) people with much more disposable income/credit than me, c) people with nicer homes than me.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm thinking about moving from my current apartment to something bigger someplace safer. I do want to do this, but there are so many blocks in my way and I'm starting to feel confused about things.

One of my co-workers lives 5 minutes from me and she and her husband are renting a house for $1200/month. Right now, I am paying $950 for a 1-bedroom apartment. Sure, they're having to do work on the house and they do split that rent, but I could totally do $1200 a month and the thought of living in a bigger place is so extremely tempting.

On the other hand, there are so many cons to the thought, that it really doesn't seem worth it. I mean, I don't even sleep at my apartment the 3 days a week I'm at my mom's. And, how do I know I'm going to stay at my job? Things are so uncertain right now that I don't think it's worth taking the gamble.

Sigh. What to do, what to do.

The drug-dealing neighbors were having some kind of altercation outside right now. Plus, something was going on at the trailer park behind me. You'd think my decision would be simple, but then there's the thought of a) how would I pay for relocation, and b) how would I make the physical moving possible on my own???

I need a crystal ball. Where do you think I could find one of those?

He misses having someone to kick around

My ex has been excessively friendly and nostalgic lately, which I'm finding highly suspicious. He's marketing himself to sound like a renaissance man -- he cooks for his roomates, he goes to church with his grandma, he buys his ex-wife clothes and is pressing me to go to Express with him tomorrow (his visitation day), so I can pick out some more clothes with a coupon he received.

As nice as that all sounds, I'M NOT BUYING IT!

I swear it, he's in the "good" cycle of his moon phase. All it takes is an upcoming full moon and his fangs and claws will come out, as usual.

A younger, more naive me (read, the me of 2 years ago) would have jumped at the opportunity to go shopping. Being as cash deprived as I've been for as many years as I have been, the thought of someone else picking up the shopping tab is EXTREMELY tempting. EXTREMELY. I admit that the new, improved, smarter, more cynical me of today briefly considered taking him up on his offer, but I realized that I would rather be without overpriced-clothes-made-in-China than to be any kind of beholden to him.

It's not worth it, plus, I can buy my own clothes if I want to.

As soon as he finds his "in", he gets comfortable, and as soon as he gets comfortable, he becomes his usual asshole self.

Not worth it.

The downside of time off

The downside of this Christmas vacation time is that I'm forced to spend more time with my family, who annoy me in a way that no one else possibly can. And right now they're doing a fantastic job of driving me over the deep end. I'm remembering a lot of the reasons I resented them in my youth.

You see, I spent 2 years not talking to them, or having any contact with my family at all. It was extreme, yes, but it was the healing we all needed. I've always been the black sheep, per se, not as willing to follow the flock as my younger siblings seem to be, and that's why I needed to strike out on my own.

These days, I depend on my mom to watch the baby 2 days a week, and while I understand and appreciate that my mom takes care of a household and my dad and my siblings, but she is such a forgetful flake that it drives me over the edge. Maybe I'm just a stickler for rules, born under a different sun sign, and not to compare, really, because it's like apples and oranges, but when it comes to attentiveness and the baby, my equally as busy exMIL wins by a landslide.

My mom does take good care of the baby, and maybe the stuff I see happening only happens when I'm around, but she'll say she needs to do this and that for the baby, then disappears to who knows where for ages and never does what she originally intented to. Or, like now, when she said she'd help me put the baby down to sleep and she's been spying on relatives online for the last 2 hours, doing free people searches to dig up information she can use to gossip about them with. I mean, really.

My exMIL, on the other hand, is all about the baby. She dotes on him and manages to run her house and husband and still know what's going on with the baby at all times. I really don't have to worry when she's around and she makes my life a lot easier, especially times when we go out to eat, because she makes sure the baby gets food and I get to eat.

In contrast, today, for example, I met my parents and siblings for dinner on the way to a shopping location, and I spent the entire time running after the baby and barely ate my dinner and barely got the baby to eat his dinner.

When the subject of the baby and school comes up, my mom says that I'll have to make a decision as to where I'll live - I'll have to move near a relative who can pick the baby up from school on a regular basis. Even though my exMIL is still working and will be for the next few years, my decision is a no brainer. I have to stay near her, regardless.

As much as I do value my family now and depend on them for many things, I often feel like they're my cross to bear. An obligation. In many ways, they're mellowed since my youth, but in other ways, they just know how and when to press my buttons.

The fact that my exMIL IS so great is part of my life's great dilemma. Eventually, probably sooner than later, my ex will move on with his romantic life, and there will be another daughter-in-law.

Oh, life, you are so cruel sometimes.

It was a great day ...

Baby's second, my first as a single mom, and a close to perfect Christmas day all around.

This year I am thankful for so much - my sanity, for one, and amongst other things

- Very thoughtful gifts given to me this year. I tend to keep expectations low, due to prior experiences, and don't really "care" much, really. But, when I do get great gifts, it just blows me away. Such was this year. Except for what my ex got me, which is an outfit from express. What bothers me about it is a) he paid full price for everything ($150/month child support ... ) and it wasn't that cheap, b) the sweater was acutally nice, but not really my taste, and c) the pants were SO not my style (me? leggings? hah! I left those back in 1992 where they belong, and p.s. I have too much junk in the trunkage for that - come on!) and he insisted that he asked a store employee with my figure what size she wore. How rude. But, it's the thought that counts and he was nice to pick out stuff for me (...ahem, $150/month child support ... cough, cough, cough).

- Baby got some amazing gifts, including the play laptop from my mom. Now he has something besides MY laptop to bang around on!

- My presents to all - homemade cookies, wrapped with that Martha Stewart-wannabe touch, were very well received by all, much to my relief. I really should have done a test run, because the first couple batches didn't turn out all that great, but everyone seemed to love them and that makes me feel good.

- The celebrations with both sides of the families, my ex-inlaws and my family - were filled with laughter. We all just laughed and laughed and laughed, courtesty of baby's funny antics. Babies add such life to families, and for that I am so grateful for my little guy. He truly is the "son"shine we all needed in our lives.

- I got to my parent's in one piece. Getting all my crap together, putting it in the car, and keeping baby happy was a CHALLENGE, but it all worked out, and, best of all ...

- I am commute free tomorrow!!!!! woooooooooooooohoooooooooooooo! Yaaaaaaaay! That may be the greatest gift of all.

One day down, one to go

Well, xmas eve is over and I survived. Phew. A good thing.

First was great-grandma's house - there was story repeating, lots of it, but we kept it short and sweet and then headed over to my exMIL's house, where there was lot of happiness, lots of laughter, lots of oohing and aahing over the baby and his 2 year old cousin, and my ex was on his best behavior.

Ah, I am so fat right now I can't take it, but at least it came from good times. Tonight is a good night because it's usually the night I go to my mom's, but I get to go tomorrow morning, on Christmas day, and there will be no traffic! Yipee!

I have one more batch of cookies to make, but I'm not going to clean up right now, that can wait for tomorrow!

Merry Xmas, y'all! Eat, drink, be merry, and forget the word "diet" for the day!

Up Late

Just about 1 am ... and I still have one batch of cookies left to make. Since coming home with the baby around 10:30 pm, I've been running around, put baby to bed, took shower, and now catching up with my google blog feed. Love my google blog feed. Love blogs. Love writing. Love the fact that the internet exists.



Oh, yes, I'm a little cookoo for cocoa puffs at the moment. Exhaustion will do that to you. Toodles.

Holidays = torture device

As a full-fledged card carrying adult, I've come to realize that the holiday season is really just a way for God to torture us. Really, can you think of anyone who does not have one single thing to complain about during the month of December? Whether it's traffic, the weather, the crowds, or your family, there is always something, as it goes.

Last year was no exception ... it was possibly the worst possible holiday season ever, due to my ex's antics. First, there was thanksgiving at my parent's, which ended abruptly and I didn't even get to enjoy the persian Martha Stewart's (aka mom's) perfectly herbed turkey. Asshat.

Then, there was Christmas, which ended up in us temporarily breaking up with each other, great-grandmother's crying, and me taking the baby on a long, cold, lonely walk during which I cried a literal bucket of tears. Wah, wah, wah.

This year is no exception either ... and, as a mom to a baby with a lot of relatives, it's going to be this way for the next 17 years, at least. As much as I've been avoiding my ex's relatives, I have to bite the bullet and make the rounds.

Their family celebrates Xmas eve, so tomorrow I'm taking him to visit his great-grandma and great-grandpa -- my ex's dad's parents - ex's dad is living/working in Iraq as a contractor, so he's pretty much out of the picture, which is a relief, because he's worse than my ex in terms of his weirdness, if you can believe it.

Great-grandma and great-grandpa are similar to my parents in that they mean well, but are all kinds of annoying to the point where you want to tear your nose hair out with tweezers by the end of the visit, because it would be less painful. There will be lots of story repeating, lots of shuffling, lots of hacking coughs, lots of intimate questions being asked .... I'm going to need to drink heavily after I get home.

But, I have to do it ... they've been kind to me, have given me cash unconditionally, have always offered to help when I needed it. They're also not getting any older, and like my mom reminded me, when I took the baby to visit my exMIL's mom, it was the best day she'd had in a long, long time. They deserve to see their great-grandchild and my ex isn't going to take him anytime soon, so I'll just put up with the annoyance for a bit and keep the visit as brief as possible.

In the evening, I'll go to my exMIL's house for the gift exchange with her husband's family and I really hope they don't get me anything, because I really don't have anything to give them. And I feel ALL kinds of bad about it. ALL kinds of bad, even though they're not related to me, but are very generous to the baby with gifts.

What I'm doing this year is making cookies for everyone and wrapping them up in a nice tin with a bow and tag. The materials for all of this acutally cost quite a pretty penny, so I'm hoping that's appreciated by all!

Today my ex and I took the baby for his second haircut, and at the end of it, I felt like the worst mother in the world and understood why mom's let their sons have long hair. The baby hated everything about the haircut and the both of us had to hold him down for a good 15 minutes. At the end I wanted to cry because that was a LOT of hair that was cut off and I missed his curls. He looks like a little boy now, or a shorn sheep. Boo, hoo hoo.

It's kind of late -- 9 pm. The baby and I woke up at a record-breaking 10 am and now my schedule is way, way off. He's at my exMIL's now and I'm just finishing up baking one type of cookie, with two more types to make when I bring the baby home. I'm missing him, missing my little lamb.

My ex was unbelievably annoying today with his puns, bad jokes, and insistence on being right all of the time. He even wanted to drive my car, and I put my foot down big time. Nuh uh. That's MY car and even thought that doesn't mean he can't drive it, we're not married anymore! He's not the one who put the $1000 down that he didn't have and is making payments that are way out of their league. He doesn't deserve to have the honor of driving my car, and it's a stretch for me to let him even get a ride in it. I don't want his presence mucking up my new car joojoo!

Am I a brat about that? Maybe, but I won't make any excuses about it. I suffered for this car. I AM suffering for this car. He kept promising and promising he would buy me a new car, but do I see him doing it even now? No!

He is all kinds of generous with the gift-giving, he always has been. He goes to the Dollar Tree, buys all kinds of crap for people and thinks it the funniest thing in the world. Uh, it's crap no one wants. But, he's at it again, and his room at my exMIL's house is a virtual Santa's workshop.

Today he mentioned that he was going to buy me sunglasses before he settled on another gift, and when I told him he doesn't know my taste (he doesn't), he said, well, you wouldn't have argued when you saw the ones I was looking at - $400 ones.

Sigh. He doesn't get it. He just doesn't. He is so unbelivably clueless and it kills me, even though I am so relieved all the time that I don't have to live with it anymore. $150 a month in child support. That's all I have to say about that.

A Different Type of Single Mom

I think it's funny to tell people that I went to a Catholic high school for the first half of my ninth grade year. Funny, because who would have ever thought a middle eastern girl from an islamic family would ever wind up saying the lord's prayer on a daily basis?

My parents sent me to said Catholic high school because they thought keeping me in the same kind of private school environment as my grade/middle school would be best for me and I'd generally be better off that way. It was the same high school Sophia Coppola and Nicholas Cage attended, and had lots of good pr coming out about it.

Well, they were WRONG! (as usual) My parents have money, but they aren't ostentatious about it at all. Sure, they've always lived in large houses, but they're not the type to ACT like the typical "we have money, let's flaunt it" crowd, and to boot, they are major homebodies. They never go out, they never let me go out, and as a result, going to a high school that was the complete anathema to what I was used to ended up with me going through major culture shock and an enormous rebellion.

Those Catholic school kids were BAD!!!! It was so different than anything that I had ever seen or heard of before. I mean, to take a kid (me) who used to spend her time writing poems about boys and daydreaming and put her in the midst of kids with too much time and money on their hands was just a recipe for disaster. Sure, I never made out with boys in the locker room, or did drugs in the locker room either (those were some dangerous locker rooms, I tell you), or come to school drunk, but I started talking back, getting bad grades, stealing my mom's Revlon powder and Costco lipstick, using the F-word (and I've never gone back), and generally scared the bejeezus out of my parents.

They shipped me off to the nearby public school all my middle school classmates went to and all went back to semi-normal. My bff since 4th grade went there, too, and on my first day she gave me the grand tour of sites and boys. She made sure to point out the big man on campus, who she had a mad, mad crush on. And he was pretty handsome - complete with the just-as-good-looking, year-younger girlfriend. We looked up to them - they were just way too cool and so way out of our league, but we aspired, you know?

The big man on campus graduated after that year, but his younger brother started 9th grade when we were in 10th grade. I remember being excited to see what he looked like - he wasn't as good looking as his brother, but I do remember one big thing about him, which was his huge, authentic smile. You could tell he was just a happy and well-adjusted guy.

Skip forward to present times. The thing about Facebook is that it's a little more accessible than Myspace. It's easier to connect with people from your past, and that's how I found myself adding and being requested by pretty much my entire senior class. Not everyone is on there, because I graduated at the very cusp of the internet age, right before everyone had an email address upon being born. Some of us are still old fogeys.

It still kind of shocks me that certain people remember me -- I wasn't all that popular and had my own little group that I hung out with and stayed in contact with. One guy who added me was one of the more popular guys and although I don't really remember even ever talking to me, apparently he has some memory of me somewhere. His brother is actually the front of a local band that made it big, big time. I mean BIG time. Pretty cool for my little hamlet in the North Bay.

One day I saw on his Facebook status update that he was sending prayers to the family of the Big Man on Campus's little brother. I remembered reading a while back that the brother was becoming a police officer, and even back then I though, wow, what a risk that is (creepy foreshadowing as you'll find out).

It turns out that the brother did become a police officer, had an illustrious career, was extremely well-regarded, had a wife and 2 daughters, and after a collision on a rainy day chase, died of massive brain injuries.

His was a bright, bright life cut extremely short. The web article I read had a link to his memorial page and it was filled with so many people sending condolences, expressing their sorrow over this tremendous loss.

It's been a few months since his passing, and I don't know why I thought to check on his page today, but I did. People are still leaving messages for him, missing him, and especially his widow, who is using the space to blog, leave him notes, and grieve for him.

She's a single mom now, too, albeit in a completely different way than us divorced moms.

Her posts are absolutely heartbreaking. You can feel her pain and her loss and it's something I cannot understand, but appreciate. She has the same concerns as us - how is she going to raise her kids, how is she going to explain where daddy has gone, how is she going to make it on her own?

I really wanted to leave her a note, but I felt weird about doing it. But I want to tell her the same thing I was told, the same thing I tell other new single moms -- that everything is going to be ok. Really, it will. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other and your children will give you immeasurable strength.

I believe it.

You know it's time to put down the crack pipe, when ...

You leave your ex-wife an urgent message, using the cell phone of your roomate's girlfriend, asking her if she has a maroon and grey sweater from Express because you like those colors and please call him back as soon as you possibly can.

Okay. And that made sense, because ....

Oh, dear lord. I just never know what to expect from that man, and there are just 5 million things wrong with that phone message, and life is too short and I have too many envelopes to open here at work. Suffice it to say, someone needs to stop smoking the pipe. He's getting too old for it now!

Perfect Sunday

Today was the perfect Sunday ... the baby and I woke up at 9 am, which has never happened before, ever! Color me shocked, but appreciative. :) After he played and I read to him, I made him french toast that he gobbled up which is a good thing since he's been super pickey lately. We took a long walk to Starbucks, the 99 cent store, and the railroad museum, during which he fell asleep and took a 3 hour nap. I also got a nap in, which I'm grateful for.

After playing, reading, watching tv, we headed out to a local beach town for cheap and decent cupcakes and I survived a walk up and down a hill with a rowdy toddler trying to get out of his stroller, then managed to Macgyver wet wipes with iced tea and starbucks napkins - which I am SO proud of - then took him to the park for some swinging right before it turned dark.

We headed home and I managed to get dressed up and put makeup on even with said toddler putting all my makeup brushes in his mouth. Nice. We then took a 5 minute drive to a coworker's house for a holiday party, which we both enjoyed. The baby found a little friend and together they amused theirself with a bucket of ice and beers. Beyond, beyond, beyond cute.

It was funny to be in an extremely non-child-friendly house. By the simple fact that they were serving food on coffee tables, it is obvious no kids are anywhere near them! Ha ha!

Well, you can't say I didn't go to a party this holiday season. :) It was nice to get out, see some old friends, and have a chat with an ex-coworker who was at one point a single mom of 2 young boys, a full-time student, and full-time worker. She also happens to be the most thoughtful person I've ever met. Really. When the baby was outside, she brought him his jacket before I even realized he needed one, and really, how many people would do that without a second thought?

Before I was a single mom, before I was a mom at all, she was my cubicle mate (where my nasty cubicle mate sits now, ugh) and she filled me in on her story. How she came to the US for school, how she met her first husband, how she got divorced, raised her sons, and then met her current husband when she was walking through her school and saw a salsa band playing and then started dancing with a friend of hers, which was the impetus for one of the band members to start talking to her ... and eventually become her current husband.

You see, what I've learned from life is that things happen in the blink of an eye, really and truly when they are extremely unexpected, and that's the beauty of it all.

This post is rambling, but the greater point of it is that I'm making an effort to step out of my box, to seek activities by myself and with the baby that are out of the normal. You never know who you'll meet, what treasures you come across, and no one ever learned what fire engines sounded like and what ducks really look like by staying at home.

It was a record-breaking hectic, but fun, day.

Just say no to shopping mall santas

My parents, as crazy as they have and continue to drive me through my life, did a pretty good job melting into to the wild and nutty thing known as America's melting pots. They're a nice Velvetta, or maybe even a little generic cheddar, that's how well they melted in.

Maybe even a little too well, because, in general, I don't really care much about our original culture, sad to say. There are traditions and holidays that are celebrated in our culture that I never knew about until I met my ex who was obsessed with the culture and dragged me along to various meetings/clubs about it at his university.

Sad, but true.

I don't really know why they made that choice - it's generally agreed by everyone that exposing young children to different languages and cultures is VERY good for them, but for some reason or another they decided to talk to me in English and not expose me to many of their traditions, just the basic ones, like the new year which occurs on the first day of spring.

It never really bothered me at all, it was just the way I lived, until I met my ex, who used to make me feel all kinds of bad for not being a "real" person of my culture, for not having any friends of my culture, for not speaking in my parent's native tongue, even for not having a name that sounded ethnic enough.

I can't help who I am, though, and I really can't time travel back to the late 70's/early 80's and make my parents start speaking to me in their language. Can't!

I never really had much of an interest in any of the traditions until now, as a mom, and I want to go full force on the new year celebrations, complete with a traditional meal and decorations.

Unlike other members of our culture who didn't celebrate Christmas because it conflicted with their religion, my parents had no problems setting up a plastic tree with decorations and presents every year. Sure, our celebration was different that most American families, but it was a fun opporunity and I think my parent's saw it as an American thing, and why shouldn't they indulge. For the longest time, I honestly had no idea that people went to church on Christmas. Isn't it all about Santa and presents?

That rambling diatribe takes me to this point - I will never take my son to have his photos taken with a shopping mall santa, unless he specifically asks me to take him.

That may make me sound like the biggst party pooper in the world, but ever since I was little and my own mom was forcing me to stand in line for a couple minutes on the lap of a disgruntled and older man, I was not impressed.

It's even a little bit skeevy to me, and I don't really have the need to have a photo of the bay with someone who may or may not be a perv.

But that's just me.

I miss my work bff

She's in an island country until the new year, visiting her family, and I miss her terribly, because I have no one to gossip with!

At least when she was on maternity leave, I could text message her with the goods, but until Tuesday I have to keep the office snark to myself. She' s the only one who appreciates it!

Love/Schmove

Even before my breakup, my views toward love were heavily on the negative side. I was not in love with my ex, nor had I been for a very long time. In fact, I didn't really believe in love.

Call me the Love Grinch, complete with padlock around my coal black heart. Due to my previous circumstances, while I enjoy the *idea* of love, I don't really get it and in fact make fun of all those eager brides-to-be on the wedding sites I frequent as they profess their passion and death-defying love for their husbands-to-be. They really think it's going to last forever?1? HAH!

That's just me.

But, maybe things are changing. Yesterday, while freezing my bum and other body parts off at Disneyland, I saw couples making out under the influence of the pixie dust and instead of thinking, "ew, gross", though "aw, how adorable. Good for them."

Who the hell am I??? Who slipped a key through the padlock around my coal black heart? It's not ready to be opened again? Close the door til further notice, please!

El Paso/Juarez

This is where my ex was desperate for us to move to and live. A hot spot in Mexico's war on drugs. The place where he called my refusal to live the reason why we were breaking up. For good reason.

Everything I refused to go along with was, "the reason we were breaking up." Well, you mofo, I'm GLAD we're broken up. So f*** you.

Another bullet averted.

Grumpledy grumples, part 2

Oy vey.

That's exactly how I want to start this post. Oy vey and a half, to boot. No, I'm not Jewish, but that is the perfect expression of how grumpy and out of sorts and full of bah humbugness I have within myself this morning.

It's a combination of being irked, bone cold, tired, and just plain DONE.

You know, I believe the sages who say we choose our parents as part of our life plan. What I don't understand is why the hell I chose the particular pair that are mine during this lifetime, because they drive me darned crazy most of the time. Absolutely bozonkers. Maybe it's a lesson in patience. Whatever.

Last night my mom wanted to go to Disneyland, since we have annual passes and they're due to expire soon. It took me 3 hours to get there from work, which included one much-needed bathroom break on the way there. I was ready to spit nails by the time I finally got there and managed to find parking, because I cannot, cannot, CANNOT take that much traffic anymore. That was 5 1/2 hours of driving time yesterday, thank you very much.

Then, I get there to find my 2 teenaged sisters acting like assholes. Sorry, but they were. They wanted to leave as soon as I got there, and I was like, uh ... NO! So, I wheeled the sleeping baby around while they went on a ride, got an over priced pickle instead of the popcorn I wanted but didn't have the cash to buy (Disney, please change your popcorn cash only policy!), froze my ass off waiting for them at the designated time and place until I wised up and snuck into a store, drove to my parent's house, waited around for my mom/sisters/baby to show up, took a shower, finally slept at 1 am, woke up at 3 am with the baby who was raring to play and didn't go back to sleep until 5 am, woke up at 5:45, tried to make coffee but I guess my mom had emptied out my pre-prepared coffee by mistake, yelled at my mom who said "welcome to my life!" and not-too-politely reminded her that she never had to drive four plus hours a day, got coffee at McDonald's after waiting in the drive-through for 15 minutes, and tried to make it to work without nodding off at the wheel.

The good thing about all of this is that my shitty attitude has translated into snarkiness. I can't be grumpy ... just can't ... my mind is programed to smile around people so everyone thinks I'm being silly with a side of snark, and it's just enough to get the people who want to linger and tell me about their days to leave me alone.

Is it time to go home yet?

EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Ok, geek moment ahead.

I found a pro photographer to take photos of me and the baby, with photoshop work included, at rock bottom prices. Rock. Bottom. I am so excited! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!

Good times ....

One of the baby's favorite activities lately is to pull out all the drawers he can reach on the chest of drawers in our bedroom and pull out everything he can possibly get to. It's hilarious to see him do it, and also to see how big his eyes get when I catch him in the act and call him by all three of his names! It really is the cutest thing. He's so adorably naughty.

Toddlers!

Last week he pulled out a fuschia faux-mina I've had for years and years and managed to forget about until just now. I brought it to work today and on the way to work [btw, I overslept BIG TIME but got to work at my usual time thanks to holiday traffic lite] I recalled it's illustrious history.

I bought it about 8 or so years ago, when I was working my first big job out of college at a small radio station. This is back when pashmina's were the big thing and they cost hundreds of dollars. Hundreds! Which is why I find it hilarious that you can find the real deal for under $20 these days!

For Christmas, I found some really nice knockoffs, a.k.a. faux-minas, at JC Penney's and I bought a pair for me and my mom. Her's was black, mine a fabulous fuschia. This was before my all-black wearing days.

What I've learned in life is to not underestimate the power of Penney's -- I've gotten so many great things from them through the years, from clothes that last longer than a month and don't disintegrate in the wash, to bedding, to my gorgeous square-shaped porcelain dinnerware that I got for a song!

Back to the story, the fabulous fuschia faux-mina proved to be my friend during my public transportation/subway commutes to SF in so many ways. It was chic, warm, and it took me back to the times when I would jump off the subway in the morning and make my way over to the Hyatt on Market Street, where I would use the bathroom every day. Talk about a great way to start the day!

I look back on those days with fondness and nostalgia and am glad for those happy memories. Those really were good times in my life.

My faux-mina was my savior one embarrasing day and the fact that I kept it after what happened just shows how great it is. At my job I had a couple of great friends that I had such a good time with - we were always laughing, sharing jokes, just enjoying each other's company. I was walking down the street with one of them and the membership director at the local chi-chi gym (long, long story there) after lunch and having one of our notoriously hilarious conversations.

The membership director was a true crack-up - he was one of the funniest people I've ever met and I wish I had more people like him in my life right now. That hilarity was a coverup for his alcohol and sex compulsion issues, so maybe it's a GOOD thing I dont' have people like him in my life right now.

Anyway, he was telling us about his daughter who was dating a man who was going through a sex change operation. When I asked him what the daughter's significant other looked like, he looked me straight in the eyes with a poker face and said, "Like a bulldog walking backward with a shaved ass."

So, so, so wrong, but it was enough to send me into peals of laughter. Peals. And at the worst possible time. We had just returned from lunch at a Chinese restaurant where I had consumed too many cups of water to wash down the msg-laden food.

Can you guess what happened next? Can you?

Picture it - San Francisco, early 2000's, on a street right off the Embarcadero, pee all over the sidewalk ... from me.

Yes, I peed myself. And thankfully I had had my faux-mina with me, because it served as a cover-up for my shame for the rest of the day.

It washed out beautifully, and now here it lies, under my desk at work, with nary a trace of it's history.

Ah, good times.

It's time

A few months ago, I was talking to my exMIL about my apartment, about the size concerns, about the annoying neighbors, and basically whining about how everyone else in the world has a better apartment/house than me.

You'll know when it's time to move, she wisely advised. I agreed. I haven't quite felt like it was time and I do feel like there is a bit more time for me left there.

The biggest and most horrible problem has to do with the "new" neighbors who moved in 6 months ago. It was only supposed to be them but has ended up being their entire extended family and more who lives in their one bedroom apartment.

They are immigrants and I understand that in their culture this is not an uncommon practice. I also know that in their culture, their approach to early child care is to let their kids cry all the live long day. That's just how it is.

I also know that in their culture it is not all that uncommon for them to engage in illicit behaviors -- illegal things. Drugs.

They have a houseguest/roomate who takes the liberty of parking where he is not supposed to at all hours of the day. This is despite repeated warnings from the landlords who take mine and the other tenants frustrated calls on a regular basis.

Last night as I was pulling into my driving space and barely did it without scratching my car, I called the landlady in utter anger and her response -- "they pay rent."

Yeah, and so do I. And, even though it's difficult, I can choose to pay rent elsewhere.

On top of everything - the trailer park neighbors, the not-so-great-neighborhood, the awful neighbors, I had a conversation with a neighbor and friend and we both stated the obvious. The new neighbors HAVE to be dealing in drugs - how else to explain the strangers coming in and out all day, the expensive cars even though they work in menial labor, the strange actions?

This wasn't the apartment building I moved into. Not at all.

And so, as my son is toddling all about, running here and there, do I want him around all of this? The answer is an emphatic NO.

He deserves better than this. I deserve better than this. My rent will most certainly go up a couple hundred dollars, leaving my disposable income to virutally nil, but it's worth it.

It's time to move.

My "aha!" moment of the day

One of the biggest perks to working in publishing is that I have full and free access to all types of magazines geared toward women. Glamour, O, Elle, Bazaar, Cosmo, Allure, InStyle ... you name it, we get it.

It's great for me, who in my spendy days, would drop about $20 or so a week on magazines that I would read while sipping a quad espresso over ice mixed with half and half and many packets of equal or splenda.

Don't judge - that coffee tasted like HEAVEN to me. Yes, I have issues.

Today a bunch came in (they all come from the same printer and are mailed on the same day to save money on postage - little known fact) and amongst the stories about hooking up in coat closets with random people and getting caught in Cosmo (ew, embarrasing - Cosmo makes me scared about the dating world, but that's another post) and the expensive clothes I can lust over but never, ever own in Bazaar, I found a wealth of gems in O, The Oprah Magazine.

Say what you will about Oprah (her dubious motives, personal behavior - I've heard a few unknown "gems" about her), but I really love the direction her magazine takes. Her team does a spectacular job and it's always current, always moving forward, never preachy, and I always take home a few tidbits from it every month.

It is similar to the new age church I attended for a while, where the mission statement ended with this: "Simply put, we are here for GOOD!", except for the magazine they are clearly out for ad dollars, but that's a whole other story.

Back to the point, this month is all about taking stock of where we are and coming to terms with our issues and moving through them. There was a short article by Eckhart Tolle, a new age author of "The Power of Now" (which I've never been able to finish - guilty confession. It IS a hard read, by other people's opinions as well). In the article, a little paragraph with a simple thought that drastically changed my way of thinking for the day and maybe forever.

Remove yourself from the situation, he says. Remove your ego, change your thoughts -- because you might be all in a twist about what's going on, but the objective reality is never what you think it is. "The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it."

That was much less succinct than how he put it, but whoa, baby. That's exactly what I needed to hear. Because, the way my mind has been working lately, I feel so stressed out about work and how my boss thinks about me and I'm always making mistakes, etc.

But you know what -- that's not the reality. So, I stepped out of myself for a moment and realized that things aren't as bad as I'm making them out to be.

The reality is that my boss is wrapped up in whole other projects and is far to busy to really know what's going on - which is what leads to the confusion. The reality is that I am pretty much the boss of me in this job and I should start approaching it as such. The reality is that I am doing a pretty great job under the circumstances, and I'm just not going to trip on it anymore. Done!

What I know after being an employee for many, many years is that you have to keep your underlings happy in order to be successful. That is obviously not happening in my job now or for the past couple years. In the beginning, things were different, but it must have been the honeymoon effect. It may not ever happen because I truly think it's a case of small company with bad management.

But that's not my problem. I do feel very lucky that I have a job in the first place and in light of the reality, I'm going to take charge of things in my own way. I can't control how my boss thinks or what she does, because that's her problem. The problem is this - she's in her own world, she's not aware of reality, and you just gotta roll with the punches in order to deal with this.

A few weeks ago she was going on and on about how she was getting herself entrenched in the grunt work of a particular project so she could really understand what was going on. At the time, all I could think was ... yeah, right!

From all my working experience and experience with just living, I've seen that there is a point in many people's lives when they lose touch with reality. With reality, I mean that they lose their childlike innocence.

It's hard to explain what I'm talking about, but if you're a parent you'll understand that children possess an understanding about the world that is very simple, and yet extremely sophisticated. They are very intuitive and can read people and situations very well.

Kind of like that movie Hook, where Peter Pan grew up and forgot where he came from and forgot his magical powers, I've seen so many people get wrapped up in their worlds to the point where they lose their own magic powers, their abilities to perceive things under the visible layer.

That's what has happened to my boss ... and it's ok. It's not my problem.

I just hope it never happens to me. Or my son.

Rain Days

Today was the first full-fledged rain day I've had to manage a word day commute with my wild and wiggly toddler.

Thankfully for last year's semi-drought, I've been purely lucky that I haven't had to figure out how the heck I was going to get my stuff, my trash, my lunch, myself, and my child from our apartment door to our car, which is quite a ways a way.

But, the good news is, I did it, with relatively little water damage to boot, and that is a great way to start a Monday morning! My secret -- 1. put everything in plastic grocery store bags, 2. wear a hoodie that obscures my freshly mascaraed eyelashes from the water, 3. turn on sesame street and occupy toddler while I run to the car and dumpster and put all my stuff away first, and then think it's adorable when he's standing at the screen door looking confused as to whats coming out of the sky, 4. Put hoodie on toddler and make a run for the car and successfully avoid him taking my hoodie off.

Phew! It was one of those mornings where I felt like it would be good to have someone else besides me around to help me get through the rain, but I did it all on my own, and I feel very accomplished for it!

Yesterday was the baby's visitiation day with his dad and I got all sorts of stuff done, which left me feeling extremely accomplished. It was great, actually - the stores weren't too crowded and I didn't leave the stores too broke. Mission accomplished!

As usual, the three of us (me, dad, baby) had lunch together and I've decided that I feel sorry for my ex. No hate, because it's just clear to me that he is just not all there in so many ways. He goes through these moon phases, where he feels sentimental, and yesterday was one of those days. He kept sending me text messages that the baby loves both of us, the baby looks just like me, suggesting he come over every night to eat leftover chicken, bragging about his cooking with his new roomates [he forgets how he was the frozen dinner king during our marriage?] etc, etc. Maybe he's horny or something, but he doesn't remember the events of just 10 months ago leading to our divorce or separation?

The good news is that I see what he's all about and it's nothing I'm interested in. Really. And so, when he listened to a children's song in the car and started going off on a tangent about midieval history, I felt GLAD that I am no longer compelled to shake my head or say "mmm hmm" every now and then at the appropriate pause. I just thanked the sweet baby Jesus in my head and smiled to myself, knowing that I survived the storm. Literally.

Life is Beautiful

This is the best thing I've seen all day.

Yes, it's a product of my wedding blog stalking habit.

Weird and wonderful ...

A couple of weird, and yet wonderful, things happened today, a Saturday, one of those crazy days in my schedule when I leave my mom's house for the week and drive home, an hour away ...

1. The baby let me sleep in until 8:30 am -- which is a landmark in his life. It's only happened a handful of times and every time I end up feeling like a million bucks. Makes the fact that he only took an hour nap on the way home and is still up at 9 pm totally worth it.

2. I had a thought to check my bank account, and what do you know -- my paycheck is in there early!!! Whoop, whoop! It was such a great feeling - like winning the lottery minus those millions. It means I could go grocery shopping, take the baby out for dinner today (because I hate coming up with food at home on those crazy traveling Saturdays), and get some more errands done tomorrow, instead of staying home and taking my aluminum cans to the recycling center for a couple of extra bucks that I would then go and spend at the 99 cent store.

3. My checkout total at Trader Joe's was $66.66 ... eerie, and going along with my life theme these days, where I'm seeing symmetrical numbers all over the place. Like right now, I just glanced over at the time and it's 9:o9 pm!!! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??!!

4. I bumped into my ex-inlaws coming out of Trader Joe's. Cute coincindence.

5. Got a $50 Xmas check in the mail from the baby's great-grandparent's on his dad's side, which was really unexepected, but very nice and needed!

Not that I'm flush with money at all, but I do have a leeeetle tiny bit extra, and while I don't want to go all kinds of wild, it is just nice to know that there is a little bit of fluff room. Gas doesn't cost that much at all anymore and that is a HUGE relief to me. HUGE.

I wanted to donate some cash to the Salvation Army bucket outside of TJs, but really didn't have a single dime on me ... maybe a penny, and I told the man I was sorry. It's the thought that counts, he said. Is it??

There is an old co-worker of mine from my radio days who has been on my mind for a while. I don't know why, but I really want to know how she is doing these days, about six years after I left that company.

She was the original single mom in my life - a mom of five who was really quite incredible. She left an abusive man in Louisiana, moved to San Francisco, worked full-time, went to school full-time, and was involved in martial arts on the weekends. She was incredible.

There were times I would see her in the restrooms early in the morning, warming her hands under the rushing hot water in the sink, smiling through her uncomfort. It had been one of those nights that she had stayed at work all night to get school work done, entrusting her younger children to her older children. Being that this was radio, and radio stations never sleep, it wasn't unusual for her to stay there until all hours.

When me and my most-faithful-blog-reader (we used to work with her) would complain about work with each other and ask her how she put up with her bully-of-a-boss, she would smile and say, "You gotta fake it until you make it!"

And I believe that and quote that often to this day.

How I hope she's made it. I really do, and I've been asking around to see if anyone has heard about it, befriended people on Facebook for this purpose. No one knows ... when I left that job, her oldest son was starting to get into trouble. How has he turned out? How about her? Did she end up with her karate instructor that she had feelings for?

If I am anything, I am a voyeur, and I love reading about updates in people's lives. I can't help it - it's part of the nosy gene I inherited from my mom.

Geesh, it's 9:20 and baby still isnt' tired at all??? We should all have this kind of energy!!!

Weekend, weekend, woot, woot, woot!

This post is purposely short. Just a way for me to celebrate 2 days off and 2 days of purely being a mom. And Monday is PAYDAY!!!! Yipee!!!

But first, this cute little tidbit --The baby is babysat by my mom on Thursdays and Fridays while I'm at work. Apparently, what he's started doing is going to the garage door when he notices it's dark, because I come in the house through the garage door, starts trying to open the door, says "mamamamamamamama!!!!" and cries oa lot.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So cute, so heartbreaking, so heartwarming, so many things.

HAPPY WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Pro Per

When I bought my new little car a few months ago, I sold my old, not-so-little car to my parents.

Being a novice at this kind of stuff, I did it entirely the wrong way and kingdom came forcing me to search through my entire stack of paperwork that I've been blissfully ignoring for the car's title.

I never found the title, but I came upon a few gems from a few years ago - my marriage license and my ex's first divorce decree, which I needed to show to get our own license.

Back when we were in our glorified elopement throes, I didn't give the divorce decree much thought - just saw his ex-wife's name, which freaked me out because it meant that she actually existed besides the couple of photos he still had lying around.

Now, in my divorced and enlightened phase of life, I noticed something very interesting -- the papers were filed In Pro Per, meaning that his ex-wife represented herself in the divorce, just as I had.

It didn't say anything about his lawyer, but he told me that her parents had hired a lawyer for her, which was apparently a huge lie. Just like so many other things he said to me through the years. Like these tall tales he would spin about fictional people, trying to make it sound like they were actual people and having so many people fall for them. I called him "Big Fish" because of it, but actually, if you think about it, it makes him a pathological liar.

MsSingleMama, one of my favorite single mom bloggers, had a post about relationship dealbreakers and mentioned that as single moms, we are so much more critical than single, childless women. She asked her audience what their dealbreakers were and one poster wrote the following, and believe it or not, what was wrong with her ex-husband is exactly what was wrong with mine - a liar, who values friends over family, lives in the past, plays video games all day, etc.

It's somewhat alarming to me that so many women have had the same marital issues as me. Alarming because what is causing all these supposedly smart women to fall for bad men? In my case, I was dickmatized, and that's really the only explanation I can come up with, because there really is no other good explanation for my stupidity!

In another blog posting today, over at the wedding blog where a group of brides-to-be post about their wedding preparations (you know I love that stuff - can't get over it! Love every single second of it!), one to-be-bride wrote about the difference between her first marriage and her upcoming marriage.

She talked about how she would have handled her first marriage differently, thinking back, and the answer was that divorce wouldn't be an option, just as in her upcoming marriage divorce won't be an option. In other words, instead of taking the easy way out, working through your problems, which are inevitable in any long-term relationship.

That's the thing about my marriage -- divorce was something my ex bandied about all the time. How he was going to leave me, how he was going to ditch me and the baby forever and start another family, because he would never have a problem doing so. Never mind that he is chronically underemployed and so on and so forth. And in the end, he did the same thing as in his first marriage -- left when I reached my breaking point and said the big, old D-word. He was waiting for me to make the break so he wouldn't look like the bad guy. Jerk. But that's his problem.

This past Sunday, I spent the day in my old stomping grounds in Santa Monica, visiting with one of my friends that I haven't seen in a while. She hasn't heard all the dirty details of the split, but she is a psychologist, and what she said right away is what I knew in my heart forever -- that my ex isn't ready to be a father, to be a man.

Sad, but true. And the relationship he's developing with our son is one of a playmate, instead of a father, but I guess it's the best that way. That way, our son sees only love, not frustration, not hate, not anger, not bad words, deeds, and thoughts. And that's the name of my game.

Goals

Well, 2009 is around the corner and in the spirit of resolutions, I've come up with my goals for the new year.

Instead of writing out random goals, I'm going to do it by categories - I think it will be better for me and I'll be able to write more focused and detailed goals that I can stick to and refer back to when needed.

I didn't really do goals last year - it was a murky time with my crumbling marriage, post-partum depression, and getting back into gear at work. I intended to, but it just wasn't a high priority at the time.

Before I look forward, here's a look back at what I accomplished in 2008:

- Defended my thesis proposal. I have a long way to go, but this was a huge step, 5 years in the making! (can you say Procrastinators R Us???)
- Divorce! I did it, and I'm free and clear. It was hard, hard, hard to make the break, but it was done in Feb. 08 and I haven't had a day of regret since.
- Home improvement -- taking a cue from the quote that goes something like, only surround yourself with stuff you find beautiful or useful, I got rid of furniture/memories my ex brought into the house and invested in pieces that were not expensive but match my personal style. And now I love my home!
- Bought a new car! It was about 2 years overdue, but I did it, and in the process found out that my formerly bad credit is much better!
- Lived on cash only/personal family loans. No credit was involved.
- Started paying my grad school loans. I don't have the degree, but I've been putting off payment for years. Literally, years.
- Found my voice. I started this blog intending to find myself again, the self I'd lost through the almost 4 years of my entire relationship with my ex. And I have ... and I love me again.

Ok, here's what I want in my life for 2009:
- School: Masters Degree in hand.
- Home: I want to buy a couple more pieces of furniture, like a tv stand and accessories, to complete my vision of what I really want my home to be like. I also want to start looking for a new apartment.
- Self: Want to get back to my low-carb self, since right now I am on break for the holidays. Big time break! I want to loose the 20 or so lingering pregnancy pounds and get back to a size 12. I won't even ask for the size 10 I was before pregnancy. Just a size 12 and I'll be very, very happy.
I'd also like to go out more on the weekends, take more little trips around southern california. Keep working on mental self-improvement, and give in to my weird block on yoga. I think it would really help me deal with the pressures of single mom-dom! And, keep writing!
- Work: Keep myself focused and look to expand my horizons. I feel like I can't be too ambitious with my outside goals, given the state of our economy, but I will have an eye out at all times.
- Money: Save, save, save. The past 4 months have been HORRIBLE for me, with the big hit I took from buying the car and having my student loans due at the same time, but things WILL stabilize again starting with my Jan 1. paycheck, and I will be able to start saving again and paying things off. I also fully intend to pay off my last consumer credit card, my visa, sooner rather than later!

Imagine ...

You go to work one day, say goodbye to your mom, wife, and two young kids ... the usual ....

Until, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, with no warning whatsoever ... a F-18 fighter jet crashes into your house, destroying it and killing your entire family.

It happened yesterday in a quiet San Diego, Calif. neighborhood.

I'm thankful for what I have.

fake it till you make it

I gotta do it, I gotta do it, I gotta do it.

Three generations of single moms

My son is surrounded by 3 generations of single mom's -- me, his grandma (my exMIL), and her mom, his great-grandma.

His great-grandma became a single mom when her children were 7 and 9 years old. Her husband, who was her childhood playmate, died from a drawn-out stomach ailment received when he fought in World War II. She moved her parents in with her and they moved closer to relatives, who helped raise her kids while she worked at USC in their events department. She never remarried and still wears her wedding ring to this day.

My exMIL was married to the original dumbass. He was her brother's best friend and he knocked her up at age 18. Not the best reason to get married, but that's what people did back then and so they stayed together and fought together and split a couple of times before finally divorcing when my exhusband was 7 years old. She dated around, found a good job in the garment district of Los Angeles, and eventually remarried to someone who is a very good husband for her.

And then there's me -- never expecting to ever divorce, and yet, recognizing that it was the ONLY option for me and my child. I did it early and quick, the way you're supposed to tear off a band-aid, and so far so good. I'm working on my self right now, learning who I am, what I want, and what I need in this world.

So far, so good.

I believe single mom's could rule the world. This past weekend I was catching up with a friend over cupcakes and telling her how my sisters always tell me they don't know how I do it by myself. How DO you do it, my friend asked?

You know, I told her, there's a certain amount of strength you gain when you give birth. It just comes with the package and you suprise yourself. You really do.

By the magic of Facebook, I reconnected with a high school friend who was a single mom early on, at age 21. She dated a high school classmate, got pregnant, and then they broke up. I had forgotten all about that until now. I'd heard from another classmate that she'd gotten married and had 2 stepkids.

I remember back when I heard about her impending motherhood, I was just kind of shocked. I couldn't imagine having a child and raising it on your own, doing it so relatively young. And now, how the tables have turned -- I'm the single mom chasing after the baby on my own.

One thing I've found about single moms that I've mentioned again and will sing out forever is that single moms could rule the world. We speak the same language, know the same worried, feel the same pains. And yet, there is hope, there is a future past the current woes, a beautiful light up ahead.

Scary, scary times

It seems like everytime I turn around, I hear another story about someone I know being laid off. It sucks, and I'm worried for them and for everything that's happening. It also makes me appreciate my job a lot more and gird my loins against the baloney because it's a good thing that I have a job in the first place.

One thing to be grateful for is that my job skills are fairly flexible, and if I HAD to, I think I would be able to find a replacement job alright - God forbid I should have to.

One thing I know for sure is that there is no way in hell I would ever move back to my parent's house and I would do whatever I had to in order to prevent this. They drive me absolutely bonkers!

My mom made some Archie Bunker offhand comments this morning that set me off big time -- she wants to show pictures of my cousins - her nieces (who just lost their mother to cancer) to my dad because she thinks they both had nose jobs.

"Don't you have anything better to do?", I asked her, because, really, come on! She gossips about these two girls (the oldest is one of my best friends) endlessley and talks bad about their dead mom, which is not a good thing to do and I hate it. It all goes back to the fight she and my aunt are having with their brothers over their inheritance and it is all, in the grand scheme of things, very ridiculous.

This comment and a few more gossipy things about people we know (complaining that someone's finacee is too tall for her - even though the bride is ecstatically happy) set me off this morning and I was just ranting and raving in my head about how ridiculous this all is, and then I finally realized something that's taken me years to realize -- my mom doesn't have any friends.

She really doesn't - there were some in Northern California, who she still calls and keeps up with - but no one who comes over for lunch, no one to have outings with - it's just her, my dad, and my sisters who complain just as much and drive me just as crazy.

Part of it is by design - my dad has issues and it's best to keep him away from irritants, i.e. friends, people in general - but part of it is a wall she's put up to protect herself from the hurts of the world.

I was talking to my work bff about the wall her mom has put up around herself about her grandson - she is living in the Dominican Republic and instead of admitting that she wishes she could be close, she makes it seem like she doesn't WANT to be near by and kids don't like their grandparents anyway.

Just a wall ...

Today I did something good for myself

Well, it's finally Friday, and I am soooooooo glad it is the weekend. Sooooo glad. It's been a rough week all around and I'm in need of some r & r! To boot, today I am severely under the weather and it's just been hard to get myself going. After a week of cabinet door slams from my cubicle mate and hearing various male coworkers make foghorn sounds in the bathroom across from my desk, I am just DONE!

So, I decided to do something radical, something to change up my routine -- I went home for lunch, to my own little apartment, and it was the best thing I've done this week. Really!

It take 20 minutes, plus or minus, to get there and even though I had about 20 minutes there, it was well worth every single second. I flopped on the couch, caught some All My Children (Babe died???), some Tyra, made a quickie lunch, had some cookies that were in the freezer, put some sparkly bronzer on my cheeks, put on some lipliner and gloss, and then headed back to work.

And the relaxation I feel for all of that and being about 5 minutes late to work (perils of being on the clock) -- worth it! Totally worth it!

A year, officially

Today marked the one year anniversary of my weekly 2-day-a-week 4-hour-a-day commute -- I can't believe I made it. That's a lot of driving!

I've had longer commutes, for longer amounts of time, but now, as a parent, it's not something I look forward to - I just do it because I HAVE to, and because it benefits my child.

When I had car troubles over the summer, I got one commute-free week and was it ever *blissful* ... it was just so nice to sleep in my own bed and be in my own home. Not saying my parent's home is terrible - not at all - but the break was a welcome repreive from the endless stop-and-go traffic that I face those few days every week.

Who knows how much further this will go on (yes, I DID steal that from Billy Joel), but it can't be indefinite and THAT is what keeps me going. There are times I am so frustrated by traffic that I want to tear my car door open and throw a tantrum, but what's the good of that? At some point in the next 2 years, I'll move, maybe get a new job, put the baby in school ... who knows ... but it can't be more than 2 years ... and I can handle that.

I've made a decision

I'm not going to feel bad about the unease at work anymore. Because you know what? It's not me ... and this time I really understand it.

I come in to work, I have a smile on my face, I wave to my boss, and she turns her head and walk the opposite direction.

I am so motivated to have a wonderful and productive day right now. (obviously, I'm being sarcastic)

Last night I was talking to my exMIL about it and she said, you know, it is hard when your boss doesn't like you. I mentioned this to my work bff today and she said, I don't think it's that, I think she's just weird.

I'm going to go with the latter.

I've also decided that the next time she tells me we don't communicate, I'm going to say very plainly and directly, "It takes two to tango."

Dr's Appointment

Today I took the baby for his 15 month old checkup and it went so, so, so, so well, much to my utter DELIGHT!

You see, the last couple times I've taken the baby to the doctor, he's been a TERROR! He must remember it, because he was just a screaming, tantrum throwing little monster and all my muscles had their work cut in for them.

This time around, I finally got some sense into me and packed a play bag, filled with a few books, toys, and snacks. It took me all this time to figure that out, but I came to my senses and it was the best idea I've come up with in a while!

I also strapped him into a cheapie umbrella stroller. How I'd LOVE to have a Maclaren, the BMW of umbrella strollers, but unfortunately all I can afford is the Pinto my mama gave me for free. I'm a little too tall for it, but it works and it's a heck of a lot easier than hauling out his huge old Graco.

His regular doctor is on maternity leave, and while the substitute is nice and all, you can tell she does not have kids and really isn't all that warm. She told me that it's really time to cut out the bottles, and I said, that's not going to go over well.

He does take a lot of bottles, but I've been realizing that I have to start giving him an evening snack. I asked her how I was supposed to do it, and she said to tell him he's a big boy and no more bottles.

Hah!

Ha ha ha ha!

Hah!

That's beautiful and everything, but... HAH!

Oh boy ... do my muscles have their work cut out for them.

The elephant in the room...

... ok, forewarning, this is a silly and vain post.

As many of you know, I am obsessed with photography. Obsessed is putting it lightly, actually. On a regular basis (sometimes more than once a day), I visit a list of wedding photographers and just recently plugged them all into my google reader. It's a big passion of mine, lets just put it that way.

When my ex and I got back together after our first separation, I contacted one professional photog who did my friend's wedding to take some shots of me and my ex, since we had never hired a wedding photographer, and being newly pregnant, I wanted our child to have a set of good pictures of us.

She did a great job and even though they're not on my wall anymore, I'm still going to save them for the baby when he's older.

When baby was 11 months old, I hired her again to take some pictures of the baby and to get a couple of pictures of the two of us, because I'm the official family photographer and there are really just a handful of photos of me and the baby together.

So, I'm dressed up in my finest, makeup is banging, have a cute sundress on, my exMIL comes with to help with the baby. The photos of the baby - fabulous. He looks like a mini-Zoolander in the shots and I just adore how his pictures turned out.

The photos of me, my exMIL, and the baby? Fabulous, even though the baby has a poker face in every single shot.

The photos of me and the baby? Horrible. Horrid. Terrible. Atrocious. I look like a beached whale with an afro and multiple chins. And I don't have multiple chins in real life. The beached whale part, well, that's debatable, but still ..... To boot, the baby isn't smiling in a single one.

For months since we've taken them, about 4 months, I've thought that I'm the only one who thinks this way ... that everyone else is just blowing smoke up my ass about it and telling me how great we look. Last night I was talking to my exMIL about it and she finally agreed with me -- she said, you know, you never take a bad photos, but those were BAD!

THANK YOU!

Even though I enlarged one of them and put it on my wall, I just wasn't happy with it.

Until Thanksgiving, when I strong-armed my 2 sisters into taking some holiday photos of me and the baby with my DSLR -- that's when the tides turned in my favor, per se.

There are certain angles from which I am terribly photogenic, when you can't see any other chins other than my own, when my hair looks good, and you can't tell I'm still working on losing the baby weight. Maybe it's because I was directing my sisters on where and how to shoot the photos, but the SOOC pictures are unbelievabley great. Even though the baby was distracted and upset that day, we look like the fabulous versions of ourselves, a feat that is hard to acheive.

I don't have photoshop, but my camera has some editing functions and so does the basic photo application in my computer. I futzed around the the lighting levels on one photo, and the result -- stunning. I love the pic so much more than anything else I've ever had done.

And, best of all, it was free!

Don't get me wrong, I am still planning on plunking down my hard-earned ching ching once a year for professional photos, but I think I'm going to look elsewhere this time.

On a sidenote, having your photos taken by a photojournalistic photog is horribly expensive! But, to each their own. I don't gamble, I don't spend terrible amounts of money on anything else, but having nice photos is what really matters to me.

I'm a believer

... in the supernatural. I believe there are more dimensions in the universe than we are aware of, that coincidences really AREN'T, and that we are surrounded by signs we often ignore.



I believe there is a reason I am seeing 11:11, 12:12, 4:04, 3:03, 9:09, 7:07, 8:08, 1:11, 10:10, 3:33, 6:39, and so on all over the place. Literally, everywhere I turn, every time I glance at a clock, there is symmetry.



Still, I don't know WHY I'm seeing these signs ... it's been going on for a while and I wish I knew, wish I knew.

Saying goodbye

It's been 10 months since my ex left, and I still have odds and ends of his lying around the house, either stuffed in cabinets, hidden under the bed, or lying around in an odd drawer.

I don't know why I keep them around, they're not important to me and I don't need them. In a couple of cases, the only emotion they stir up for me is humiliation. There are a couple of gifts my ex gave me that purely humiliated me and they shouldn't be around anymore whatsoever.

It was about 3 am on Saturday night, right after the baby FINALLY went to sleep again, and somehow I gained a second wind. I was digging around for something else when I came across a shirt of his that says "Gentlemen Prefer Burkas" ... a xmas gift from one of his friends that he donned frequently. In a fit of anger when he left, I took it and hid it from him. Even though he wore it all the time, he hasn't asked for it, so maybe it didn't mean that much to him anyway.

Well, it's gone now. Gone with a couple of mugs, cds of the music HE liked and made for me so I would play them in my car (because I wasn't allowed to have my own taste in music), and the gifts that, although pretty, were used to embarrass me. Going, going, gone. I think there is a book under the bed that I gave to him as a gift ... gots to go, as well.

But, there is a bright side ...

... to my gluttony and to having a son who is Spiderman, which is that he is now the greatest dance partner I could ever hope for.

He has a little activity table that plays the alphabet song and a couple of other cute litte ditties. He's learned that if he turns the wheel a couple of times his favorite song will come up. His favorite song is the one that I clap, jump, dance, and otherwise clown around to.

I think tonight I'll fire up a couple of Sesame Street videos on the laptop [sidenote: sesamestreet.org is a GODSEND ... all of your favorite memories and amusing clips on demand!] and have a little dance-a-thon with the baby. The benefits are multi-fold: a) amuse him and get him giggling (my favorite sound in the world); b) get him moving and run off some of his endless energy so he'll sleep earlier than midnight tonight; c) get my butt moving and burn off some of the pizza!

Everyone's a winner when mommy gets goofy!

This was not a good day to start a diet...

Even though I ate my heart out this weekend and didn't gain any weight (thanks to my super slow weight workout - it's true), I decided that Monday I would end all my crazy eating ways and go back to being low-carb and being good. That is, until Christmas.

Well, what I've found out since is that the Monday after a major holiday, when you are a sleep-deprived mommy, is NOT a good day to make any such promises.

I just ate a slice of pizza.

Me, the former low carb queen ... and a slice of pizza. Topped off by a Costco mocha freeze.

Which would explain why I'm wearing a heavy sweater jacket all day.

Goodness and discipline will resume tomorrow.

Oh, my goodness

It's monday morning, back at work after the four day holiday weekend, and I am freaking exhausted. I am beyond exhausted. I really don't know how I'm going to make it through the day.

UGGHHHHH ....

Knowing that today would be hard, I decided to plan my lunch in advance yesterday, to give me something to look forward to. Monday is usually my gym day, but since I went on Saturday when the baby was visiting with his day, I'm going to go to the post office to pick up holiday stamps, and then to Target to pick up a couple of sundry items. Gum, most importantly.

This morning, when I was driving to work in my early morning haze, I came to realize something major -- I can pay off my Visa this year!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo! The credit card with the nagging balance is almost on the way out, if I make higher payments for the next 9-12 months.

To be honest, I HAVE paid it off before, when I was flush with grad student loan money and it felt good at the time. The first time I had the high balance was the result of opening up a checking account by myself when I was a college undergrad and then foolishly opting for the overdraft protection. This is before I was out of my financial coma, even though (ironically) I was majoring in Economics. Foolish!

One thing led to another, and when you give seemingly endless credit to a girl who's been sheltered in every way her entire life and denied opportunities to explore money on her own, BAD THINGS HAPPEN! Note to self: must teach son financial awareness early on.

After I paid the balance off, I didn't change my spendy ways and one thing just kept leading to another. It's how I paid for my entire "wedding"/glorified elopment. That's right, I even paid for that bullshit myself (mostly).

Depression, denial, delinquincy ... the three major sins ... and all of a sudden I am way past my limits, have not made a payment in a few months, and I am in TROUBLE. So, about 2 years ago and change, I called the bank, arranged for a repayment program, and have been extremely successful on it.

Even though I really SHOULD have an emergency credit card, I've been credit card free since, and that's the secret to my success in not racking up more consumer debt.

When I started paying things off, my debt seemed astronomical, but I just have a couple thousand left, and that is so managable! I talked to my exMIL about the laundry machines, and she talked me out of it, because the reality is I don't know how much longer I'll be in my apartment and it's unknown if I'll be anywhere else with laundry machine hookups. Wise thoughts.

So, when I do get my tax refund for 2008, I'll put a big chunk toward this credit card bill, payoff the final hospital bill, and then put the rest in my savings, where they will stay until whatever comes up comes up.

This year, for 2009, I am DETERMINED to keep a savings, and I will try so hard to forgo spending on my little wants, which always add up and end up not being so little. That is my big goal for 2009, and I am going to hope and pray and wish that it happens!!!!

Too bad, so sad...

... oh, I'm tired. The baby is in a phase that can only be described as Spider Man-wannabe. He is so active and I know it's only going to get more intense and not only that, he's been keeping weird hours that have left me pizz-ooped! (that's Snoop Dog talk, FYI)

So, two nights this week he's conked out at 7pm (once in the high chair) and ends up waking up at midnight and staying up to 3 am, running around all over the place the whole time, climbing on chairs (it's just a matter of time until he's on top of the fridge, I swear), while I'm dragging my tired ass around trying to keep up. Just brutal. Mommies don't get daytime naps like you do, silly baby!

Today I accompanied my exMIL to her mom's house about an hour north of us for a long overdue visit which was under the guise that we were celebrating my birthday. My exMIL's cousin happened to be there, too. It was actually the first time I've ever met anyone in my exMIL's extended family.

I've never met her before, but she immediately greeted me with a hug and, "Anonmom! You're just as beautiful as in the pictures!"

She was just an amazing person - so cheerful, so youthful with a boisterous spirit that defied her middle age, and she was so great with her elderly aunt, my exMIL's 80-something year old mom. I am so glad I got to meet her because she is truly a special person and I needed to come across a person with the message she was spreading.

Her mom, also in her mid-80's, is dying from advanced cancer and is currently bedridden, awaiting the end. It's tragic, such a sad end for such a formerly active woman ... but her attitude through all of this is, seeing her mom suffer, is a celebration of the journey of her life and how truly wonderful it HAS been and how lucky she is to be surrounded by loved ones who genuinely care about her.

What a great attitude -- something I never get enough of. We all need more of that in our lives -- celebrating the journey, appreciating the day, loving our loved ones and being authentic to our selves.

Amen and hallelujah to that.