Happy Birthday Christina

I realized this morning that today is my baby sister's 10th birthday.

I haven't seen her since she was two.

This is the last picture I have with her.

I think we'd all agree that I don't casually toss around the word 'hate.'  Like most hateful words, I think it's a little stronger than is generally appropriate.  But today Christina kept drifting into my mind, and every time I had to make a conscious effort to not hate her mother.

This isn't the first time I've asked for strength to stop hating her.  See most of March 2006, or this extra-special entry from April of the same year for past examples. 

But unlike my fiery-hot rage of five years ago, this is different.  This is the quiet defeat of someone who has quite literally lost her family.  It's heart-break.  It's knowing that, in being the bigger person and not complaining to my dad about her back-stabbing and manipulation when I had the chance, I let her win.

This afternoon, I read a painfully beautiful account of how one of my favorite bloggers said goodbye to her dying father.  I cried for her, and then I found myself crying for me.  Honestly (and it's my own blog, so screw anyone who calls me selfish for this) I was jealous of her.  I was jealous that she had that kind of relationship with her dad.  And I was jealous that she was able to say goodbye.  I'm pretty sure that if my dad died tomorrow, I wouldn't be on the list of people who'd be notified.  Whenever I run into him, I find myself overwhelmingly grateful just to know that he's ok.  It's a pretty crappy way to go through life.

I don't know what Christina looks like now, how tall she is or whether her hair is still curly.  The last time I asked about her, Dad said she was on the honor roll.  Maybe she still is. I hope that she's happy, and that she turns out ok, despite living in Mother Gothel's alternate universe.

Happy birthday, baby sister.

Who Invests in their PAST?

I spent $72 at wal mart today, the bulk of which was spent on 6 storage tubs. I looked at Scott when the cashier read the total and said, "who invests that much in their PAST?"

Anyway, I was amazingly productive today. I took the whole giant pile of boxes and turned it into this:

(a slightly less giant pile of plastic boxes)

Actually, the big one on the right is less than half-full (but I'll fill it up with other random crap that's laying around). And the one on the left is totally filled with stuffed animals from a cardboard box in the bedroom. I threw out a lot of the "treasures" when Mom came to visit. There was a lot of, "do you want this?" "no" "me neither." And into the trash it went. I also pared down my collection of high school newspapers to one of each issue... with the exception of the one I won the ASPA investigative journalism award for and the 'Class of 96' Senior edition.

Now would also be a great time to mention that I fan I am of the Space Bag phenomenon. In the bag below, there are 4 formal dresses, 3 middle/high school jackets, 4 baby dresses, 2 blankets, and my dance recital costume (on the top because the sequins make me smile). I also bought a slightly smaller bag to put my wedding dress in. I figure it's time to put it into somewhat permanent storage.

And of course, now that the majority of the boxes have been emptied of their contents (I still have that box of naked Cabbage Patch Kids that I think is going to the Good Will), I have a huge trash pile. Notice that the old TV still hasn't made it downstairs? That's on the agenda for tomorrow. I wish I had lightened the picture a little so that you could better see that the bottom box on the left is actually full of flattened boxes.


And so tomorrow we grocery shop. And take out the trash. And vacuum. And, depending on the time I have left and the condition of my back (which is currently angry with me over today's exploits), I may tackle the other pile of cardboard boxes in the corner of the bedroom.

...and perhaps 7 days from today, when I once again have a day off, I'll get to relax a little. Because that certainly wasn't on the agenda for this week!

Postcards from the Edge

I've been kicking around ideas to send to PostSecret for a while now. I actually bought a Florida postcard with an alligator on it, and was going to write "I wish all the tourists would get eaten," but I never got around to actually putting it together.

And then my life took a series of interesting turns, and I no longer felt compelled to complain about the tourons (although dealing with them over Spring Break is causing me to reconsider the alligator card!). Now I can complain about my family. Well, step-family. Here's some of the cards I've considered. Let me know what you think:

(each phrase below represents a different idea, and would be accompanied by a picture of Lady Tremaine - Cinderella's wicked stepmother)

* Cinderella was always my favorite fairy tale. I would have picked another if I knew I would end up with my own wicked stepmother.

* This woman has NOTHING on my stepmother

* Are there any nice stepmothers?

Or perhaps a collage of various wicked stepmothers from film - Lady Tremaine, the Wicked Queen from Snow White, Baroness Rodmilla De Ghent from Ever After - and a picture of my own W.S.M. with a bar over her eyes. No words necessary.

Well, I guess the good news is that traditionally stepfathers are not wicked. Except in Lifetime movies. But that's another entry for another day.

Happy Easter!

A Night of Daydreaming

Tonight wasn't really as bad as we were anticipating. Seems like the luggage guys were actually prepared for the onslaught. It was actually pleasant, and we had some fun in our down-time.

Twelve of us went in on a lottery pool tonight ($42 million... which, after taxes and taking half off for the lump sum ends up at about $875,000 each) and we had fun spending our imaginary money. First, of course, was the limo ride to Tallahassee with an open bar. We were going to invite two of our favorite reporters from WFTV to chronicle our journey: Berndt Peterson (whose parents named him after the first note of porno music) and Gustavo Almodovar (just to hear him say his name over and over again).

After the requisite buying of cars (and the fiery demolition of my current car), we talked about quitting our jobs by calling the call-in voicemail and saying "I'm calling in F.U." or "I'm calling in filthy rich," or "this is John, Jamie, Jim, Mary, etc. and we're calling in FOREVER."

Then John reminded me that that much money can buy a lot of revenge. And a plan for my money was born. I'm going to buy the two houses on either side of a certain person's house and Scott and I will live in one, and we'll move my mom into the other. We'll constantly be visiting eachother, and having family barbecues every night possible. Perhaps we'll paint our houses crazy colors. I also plan to install some sort of projection system out in front of one of the houses that will show giant family pictures from my childhood on the wall of the house. Maybe we'll employ Mom as a social worker and turn one house into a halfway house for wayward prostitutes. Oh, what a gift we will be to the community!

Granted, if I'm going to buy two houses, I'm going to have to keep my job. But somehow it all seems worth it! But enough about my plans for imaginary money. What do you think of my plans for imaginary money?

What's the Punchline?

Rather than filling this entry with curse words, I'm using the Wacky Mad Libs technique for this entry. every time you see a ____, just fill in whatever adjective you choose. or if you'd like to read it in my own words, substitute the blank spaces with "f-ing."

Today has not been my greatest day. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to remember more than 3 or 4 days in my entire life that were worse than today.

Today started with Scott and I getting up and mobile to run some errands. We had gotten a slip in our mailbox saying that there were nine (yes, nine) packages for me at the post office. So we went to the post office, waited in line for 20 minutes, and got our nine packages. We threw them into the trunk of the car and headed for the Penzoil oil change place.

The oil change was going really well. They didn't try to sell me an air filter or anything like that. Then the guy infomed us that there were "big time leaks" in the ___ transmission. The car hasn't been running perfectly, but I assumed it was because it needed the oil change, or maybe new spark plugs. It turns out the car has been running like crap because I've been driving around with practically no _____ transmission fluid!

So it looks like Monday morning, Scott and I are going to take my poor blessed car back to the _____ guys at Remanufactured Transmission so that they can find and fix the _____ leaks in my _____ transmission without charging me one _____ cent! And hopefully it'll be fixed by Tuesday morning so that Scott won't have to be dropped off at work 2 hours early so that I can go to my _____ gyno appointment in his car.

Back to today. We returned home with the nine _____ boxes from my wicked _____ stepmother and started to open them. In retrospect, I should have just left them closed. Five of the parcels were the contents of the other five drawers I started receiving before. One was more old clothes, including a dress from the 8th grade and my 4th grade dance recital outfit (complete with sequined beret that I wore for the next hour). And one contained possibly the biggest insult to date:

I received two certificates - one was my Presidential Academic Fitness Award from elementary school, and one was the journalism award I won in high school from the American Scholastic Press Association. Both were framed and hung proudly on my wall at some point in the past. Both were returned to me sans frames, sandwiched between other awards from school.

She kept my frames. That _____ bitch isn't returning my property to me, she's only returning what she can't use herself. Not only is that insulting, it's mean and spiteful and absolutely horrid.

This is by far the most hateful thing anyone has ever done to me. So anyone out there who believes in prayer, please pray that I stop hating her. It's not ok to hate, but I'm out of other emotions. To date, I've turned the other cheek 17 times every time I got another box, and at this point, I feel like maybe she deserves to be hated.