...and that's why half my pay has been spent on Malibu rum (rev 1.1)

Oh boy, where do I start? It's been one helluva long time since I wrote anything. A lot can and has happened in that time, and it has. So bear with me while I try to figure out what's relevant to my current state of mind, and what's worth commiting to digital format.

Alright... So, mid March I got hired on with a company south of the city I should have never left and on the 26th I headed out alone to trek across the country. The road trip was fairly uneventful - boring, lonely, depressing, and frustrating through Ontario when I realized my 4 cylinder has the get-up-and-go of a chain smoking overweight sloth with a heart problem when faced with accellerating up hills. Made excellent time - did the trip in 2.75 days. Heck, made it to Thunder Bay in one day which is something the hubby was quite proud of. I arrived at a friends house at around 7:30 local time and that's where I stayed until the beginning of July.

I started my job 1 day after getting to the city I should have never left, and found myself in the employ of what originally came off as an amazing company. Here I was to be working as an IT professional/administrator for a construction company that works in the oil/gas/mining sectors. The place is quite laid back, and my dress pants and business formal sweater was horribly over doing the jeans and t-shirt wear of just about everyone else. The place sounded, from all angles, like a dream with big asperations and the belief that family comes first. People brought their dogs to work and let them wander around the building and people would take them out for walks or toss a ball down the hall for them. If you had a doctor's appointment, your pay didn't get docked for missing time. I was hired to enact policies and create efficency in the department. Within the first week I shocked everyone and it was sounding like this role was merely a place holder for something bigger.

It was a plus to have a decent job for a change, cause being away from my family and living in my friend's basement where until late May I had no choice but to sleep in a sleeping bag while wearing jogging pants, a hoodie and socks and spending time with people I didn't mind visiting when I lived in this city but certainly didn't much care for spending that much time with wasn't a plus at all. I spent much of my free time sitting in my truck listening to the radio and knitting or reading a book (couldn't smoke in the house, so I used my habit as an excuse for some "me" time). Friends took pity on me I guess. Between BDJ and others, I was full of Timmies, which later became booze, and kept relatively entertained and able to keep my mind off the fact that my youngest had waited until I left to say his first word and my oldest was finishing his first year of school and I wasn't there to take pictures or celebrate.

But as time progressed, things changed. The house sold (yay!) for less than what we paid for it (boo!) but at least covered the mortgage (yay, I guess). The hubby packed and cleaned and took care of the kids, which was a hard job, and I am forever grateful for it. But if he or anyone thought my time out here without them was easy, they were horribly mistaken. Aside from logistically - trying to set things up out here so they would be ready for when my family came without money or a timeline is difficult enough - it was lonely, even in the company of others. But as much as the idea of sleeping when I wanted to, or being able to go to the bathroom without company, or having a meal without having to share it with a snot-nosed toddler is nice, I longed for their company. To watch my kids wave at me over the webcam was wonderful and heartbreaking. To be unable to cuddle with my husband and talk was horrible. And the things I missed... A lot can happen in 4.5 months.

Like your wonderful job position being shown for what it really is - an underpaid and misguided frontman who doubles as the department scapegoat.

I am the company's help desk front line. My desk is in front of what everone calls the "burger window" - a roll shutter hole in the wall. While we don't want people walking up and "jumping the queue" for help as it were, we provide them a way to do so and we entertain it anyways. But let me introduce you to the cast of characters first, and explain a few things so you can get a full understanding of the reason I've drank more in the last 4 months than I have since turning 19.

The department initially started out as one individual, a bald headed redneck who works as a consultant under the lamest name for a computer company I've heard to date. He's creepy, in a pedifile-in-a-dark-alley kind of way. He's overly friendly and ALWAYS smiling this cheesy grin, no matter what the mood. Either he's on some pretty powerful meds, or someone screwed up a botox injection. And his way of doing things is bandaid and force fit. So, when the company was small, it was fine. But it got bigger. And so the company hired on a full time guy.

The full time guy... He's the son of some guy who worked in the upper eschalon of the company for a bit and has since retired, but because of that rank, this hunk of flesh that makes tits on fish look not only useful but necessary will never be fired. This example that the gods are for sure into practical, evil jokes is the first person I have ever wanted to set fire to - running him over, punching him out, blowing him up... all don't seem to do enough damage and provide enough joy. This guy I want to see burn. I want to see his flesh crisp and his innard liquify. Thanks to morality and laws, all that I'll be able to do is envision it and grin, until the thought police take me away. But it's this fucktard that, in cooperation with the bald headed redneck, that have made the IT department the festering black spot on a computer professional's career that it is today.

And then we have the fugly, scrawny bayman who regularly contradicts himself in one breath, which is quite a feat given that he will spend 30 minutes talking at a shot when you ask him a yes or no question. This embarassment to professional certification holders around the world was hired to replace the bald headed redneck, yet nearly a year after the guy was hired, the redneck is still here and it doesn't look like we're getting rid of him and his freakish smile any time soon. This twerp has never been a manager before (and it's more obvious than a 4 foot tumor on someone's forehead), yet reads books on managment like they're going out of style and every other week comes out with a new set of buzzwords and a new management style to use on his only subordinant - me. Cause the asshat I want to see burn took a hissy fit and reports to the scrawny bayman's boss - a dude who's got a gap between his teeth that makes the grand canyon look like a scratch, and a personality to match.

The first week should have been an eye opener for how this whole gong show was going to progress. For instance, this company has no concept of efficency, especially when it comes to computer hardware and software, or financial responsibility. How do I know this? Well, nearly every individual in the company who has a computer has a laptop that costs between $1800 and $2200. And maybe %20 (and I'm being very generous) of them will ever remove their computers from their desk and work from home or another location. Desktops cost what, $500 nowadays? And if that isn't an indicator of stupid overspending, how about how all of these laptop users having between a 17 and 22" secondary monitor, a $115 wireless keyboard and mouse combo and the grand majority having a $200 local laser printer on top of it (despite the fact we have 14 large network printers for an employee base of 125 people in the head office alone)? Then there's the software aspect of things, where I'm sure if we ever got audited, I'd be forced to recind any future career in computers thanks to the stain it would leave. All the software until I came on was individual retail licenses! Our pittiful storage room (I've seen powder rooms bigger than this thing) is crammed with boxes of software cause without the license and key, those things are illegal. And each and every one of them are registered TO THE MACHINE THEY'RE INSTALLED ON! So my first month, I delivered a laptop computer that was "redone" (read: asshat created a new profile and killed the old one) to someone in finance that had the $6000 AutoCAD package the guy in Project Services who originally had the laptop used! AND! That $6000 AutoCAD package was then installed onto the guy from Project Services' new laptop!

Plus, on top of these over priced laptops being used by people who really don't need laptops, there's over 600 Blackberry phones being used in the company. And these are my responsibility. It was supposed to be asshat's job until I ramped up, yet not 2 days after I started, he dumped it on my plate with a flourish in an attempt to make it sound like he was doing me a favor. So, not too long into my job, I decided to do an audit of the phones. Our phone plan is divided by division in the company and project. So on the head office alone, I fiddled with a few of the plans, removed some premium messages, and in the end saved the company $10,000 a month! Just on one of 8 divisions of the bill! And there was a lot more I could do, but still, for a first level change, a savings of $10K is pretty good. You'd think at the very least I would have got a "Wow!" right? Well, would you believe I GOT IN SHIT????? Why? Cause I didn't ask permission to make those changes.

*I* am the only one in the company authorized to make changes on the account.

*I* am the only person who is supposed to add or remove devices or phone numbers on the account.

Who the fuck should I have asked???!!???

And since then, cause I'm sure this made asshat look bad somehow, I've been treated somewhere between an imbicile and a dog by the fucker, the level of which has increased daily. The bayman, who said for me to worry about getting the base of the job down and didn't expect me to have it in 3 months (which is service calls, handling their piece of shit ticketing system, ordering/shipping stuff, and the phones, which were supposed to become my job a month, not 2 days, after I started, all of which was never documented or explained to me by anyone and I had to figure it all out on the fly) is pissed off that I haven't written training material on top of my job and has increased my "probation", and then tells me I'm not to provide training when I'm told that I have to teach classes, that it's a "walkthrough" when I fight back over the fact that if I'm teaching high level Outlook tricks that it would be stupid for these people who all have laptops not to bring them with them for training... Like calling it a "walkthrough" makes it any less relevant for them to not have computers with them!

More than once a day over the last 2 months have I wanted to just turn around when one of them treats me like a scapegoat and barks commands (cause although I'm supposed to answer to the bayman, the redneck and asshat both treat me like a lowly private and heaven forbid I don't jump when they say to) and just say "And that's it. I'm done. Bye." Cause although I've increased the effiency of the departmet... Although I've improved service levels greatly... Although I'm the only one in the 4 of us that can honestly say they've done anything properly (we're so not going to go into the fiasco of the third party hosted email system which currently will not allow any new activations, web access, or Blackberry services to units that have been registered a week ago or sooner, and that's just ONE of at least 12 tales I can think of off the top of my head), I'm the one walking a tightrope. The redneck who was supposed to be replaced by the bayman remains, the bayman who's network and server certified out the ass apparently doesn't seem to think it's a priority to fix any of the bullshit issues with our storage system (like, oh, I don't know, provide personal storage!!! WTF is the point of having everyone on the domain if the only thing it's saving is mapping a goddamned drive that folder access can be modified by nearly anyone?), and the asshat who sits in the back lab playing on either the computers or the xbox back there unless someone of an impressive paycheck asks for help and I'm left sitting in the front by the "burger window" explaining that the dipshit is STILL working on their computer, although the fix would have taken any compitent person ONE FUCKING HOUR to fix and we're on day 3?????

Yeah, my "extended probation" is up Monday. We'll see how things go... I don't have a good feeling about it. They fucking need me, but I don't need a perscription of antipsychotics.

And so the tally increases...

My step-mother-in-law passed away this past Friday. She held on for over a week against everything that logic states would kill someone. Not too sure what was harder, to see her go so young or to see her still cling on when there was nothing left.

I know my employer is going to take a shit fit over my absences regarding it. I took Friday off before she passed away. I just had a feeling that the huby and I should stop in and visit that day rather than wait. His dad was also going a tad loopy (who can blame him, you can only say goodbye to the one you love so many times), so the visit had two purposes. And so we went out, spent a few hours with them while my Mom watched the boys, and then came home. She passed away a few hours later.

I took today off, even though the funeral isn't until this coming Saturday, in order to ensure that her family can make it out. I can't say that I'm as distraught as I have been in the past - I'm kind of getting jaded to all of this death and shit. But still, I'm just not... I don't know. If left to sit and think, I sit and think... And work isn't enough to keep my brain active at the moment, and so I tend to dwell on it all, and like I need to have the whole load of facts hit me all of a sudden at work. I don't know if it's true to me yet. I don't know if it'll come to me at the funeral, or sooner, or after, or if it has. One whole generation of my family has been wiped off the map and even that isn't quite real to me yet, and the last one to go was this past December.

And I don't know, but I don't want my sorrow at her loss to be more than other people's. The hubby's dad is taking this much better than I had figured, but then again, he's a "man" and heaven forbid he show a weakness, right?

They say bad things come in threes. Well, given that if I only count the family that has been relatively close to me, this makes 9 people in 8 years, I think someone hit the multiplier. 11 if you count a little further out. Personally, I'm sick of it. The only positive spin I can put on it is "makes it cheaper come xmas". The whole "well, god needed them" bullshit is just that - bullshit. If he needed them back, why make a good portion of them suffer till he was ready to accept them? Out of all of them, none of them went quick and painless. If god needed them back, then I hope like hell each and every one of them kicks him square in his omnipotient nutsack for being such an asshole about it.

All this has shown me is that I'm most likely going to die of cancer. Or rather, because of it, cause in the event I become diagnosed with the disease, I'll off myself first.

*Sigh*

Well, thanks to life in general, I haven't had the opportunity to write much or keep up on anything.  My work schedule has pretty much negated my ability to do much during the week.  1:00 to 10:00.  Like I'm going to be able to go out and do anything.  I'd have to pack and haul the kids with me, so that tacks at least an hour onto any endeavor.  

So, my mother-in-law (or step-mother-in-law if you want to be technical, but I don't) is in the hospital with no real chance in hell of seeing the other side of the walls she's behind again.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after we moved out to the city we should have never left in the first place, and after a whole load of treatments and removal of some stuff, she was given a clean bill of health and allowed to return to work.  Her road afterward wasn't that smooth.  She ended up having her galbladder removed, she had her fair share of nasty colds, and her back has bothered her a lot more than it used to.  Honestly, the way the medical profession attacks cancer, it's surprising that people don't die from the "cure".  So I didn't expect her to be full of life and doing summersaults.  Don't think anyone did.  The gallbladder?  That was a freak thing though.

The second summer we were in the city we should have never left in the first place, my husband's brother and his twit were getting married (more on that later, just so you know), so that's when the two of us and the oldest drove across Canada.  My poor car had more kilometers put on her in 2 weeks than I put on her in the year that followed.  But after the rehearsal (which is another story altogether), we all went to the twit's parents place for diner.  And I was standing in the front yard having a cigarette, my MIL was talking to me about various things, and she told me that during her last set of tests before they gave her the all clear, her doctor stated that he may have spotted cancerous cells in the other side's lymph chain.  She said she wasn't going to tell my FIL until they knew for sure, but wouldn't it figure, they work on one side and the other's unchecked.  We talked about it for a few minutes, and then she moved the topic onto the outfit she got for the wedding, and the conversation was forgotten.  When no one mentioned any findings in the weeks and months that followed, I chalked it up to a false alarm.  I still don't know if it was or wasn't a false alarm.

Fast forward to just after "international present day" (xmas) this year.  My oldest's birthday is on the 20th, and my MIL was feeling a little sore then.  She had slipped and fell in the parking lot at work, and her back was achy.  At xmas, she was still only a tad sore.  Could get up and move around, but otherwise felt much better sitting or lying down.  Towards the new year though, her mobility was getting more and more restricted.  In early January before I started this shit job, the two of them stopped by between medical tests my MIL was scheduled for.  By this point she could only make it across the house with help and a 5 minute window.  Aside from a few stairs from the front entrance, I live in a bungelow, so getting to and from the bathroom, albeit a long trek for her, was much easier than it was at her place where bathrooms were located on the top floor or in the basement.  So they were out for about an hour and we talked while I did my best to keep the kids from bumping into her or the couch, or trying to sit on her lap.  She still seemed alright though, when stationary.  Lively, tired perhaps, and pained when she had to move, but alright otherwise.  Her doctor perscribed pain meds that didn't do much of anything, and given that his inital thought (pulled muscle) was wrong, and his second one (herniated disc) was too, they were sending her in for xrays and an MRI.  They left and I asked that they let me know what they say.

And so then the day my truck got busted into.  Little did I know that while I was swearing a blue streak and wrapping my legs in one of those shiny safety blankets while waiting for the cops to show up, my MIL was being rushed to the hospital.  Her mobility had degraded further since the last time I saw her, and they had diagnosed something we didn't expect - more cancer.  This time in her bones and liver.  What we found out the next morning when my husband's father called was the extent of things.  The chemo they did to try to slow things down was useless.  The pain in her back was caused by one of the vertibret shattering in the fall, most likely weakened by the cancer, and it would be a matter of days before she would be rendered paralized from the waist down as the shards worked their way into her spinal cavity (which is why she was getting less and less mobile to start with).  And then there was all the bullshit of because she had cancer before, she couldn't get this benefit, and so there goes worker's comp and other clauses of various levels of stupidity, like if you scratched your arse with your left hand on a Tuesday in June, you were not eligible for benefits.  So, despite my anger towards the dipshits who should find themselves a better hobby than breaking into vehicles in the south end of town, I felt like a total heel.  Sure, I didn't know that my MIL was being rushed to the hospital, but I could always replace my truck.  

And so, it's a matter of time.  I can be optimistic when necessary, and I'd like to believe that miracles can happen.  But I'm horribly realistic.  And so, we wait.

But this is not why I write, despite the fact that I wish the gods would stop taking the people I love away from me.  Yes, I love my MIL.  Took me years to get to that point - we clashed a lot in the beginning, but yes, I do love my MIL.  But something that was told to me just recently has got me a tad pissed off.

Let it be known that I love my husband, but I am not fond of the circumstances surrounding our marriage.  Cancer, again.  My Dad was terminally ill and so we pulled the whole thing off in a week from planning to the I do's.  But was I proposed to?  No.  Was there an engagement ring?  Nope.  Was it timely?  I had been with the man for 8 years at that point, what do you think?  Am I bitter?  A bit, yeah.  Although I am glad we're married and whatnot, I can't help but wish it was sooner so I could have had a proper wedding (instead of a BYOB, and chair, and potluck type thing in my parent's back yard, although I would have had the ceremony there regardless).

And it would have been nice to have been proposed to, to have proof that he wanted to marry me above and beyond him showing up for the ceremony, and that it was a plan of his, not something thrown together in order to ensure my Dad could be present.  And there's nothing that will fix that.

So when I heard about the bother-in-law (no, it's not a typo) and his bitch getting engaged, I was a tad surprised, until I heard how it went.  SHE asked HIM, and then he paid for the ring she picked out.  Yeah, far from traditional, but it just went to show that apparently this inability to propose is perhaps genetic.  And then I heard about what may be happening tomorrow.

My MIL was talking to a friend, and the FIL overheard that one thing she regrets she never did was get married to the FIL.  Honestly, I thought they were.  They had been together since my husband was still in his single digit years.  His mother and his step-asshole (I don't like the man) got married.  He even took her last name!  But my husband's dad and step mom never got hitched.  And so in an attempt to make up for things, my FIL was telling my husband how he was going to try to arrange for an in-room ceremony with the hospital chaplin on Valentine's Day. 

And when I hear that, I couldn't hide my anger.  So it was genetic.

I got married out of respect for my Father.  The bother in law got married out of pressure from his girlfriend.  And my FIL will be getting married to give a dying woman her wish.  What a fucked up family I'm a part of.

Unmedicated for your displeasure

Let me start by saying that I'm not a big fan of pharmaceuticals. I'm not a nature buff, but something about feeding my body full of synthetic chemicals instead of natural substances doesn't sit with me well for most things. Yes, I know that some chemicals are beneficial, and mine might be a flawed logic, but "better living through chemicals" only works as a motto for Dow, not as a way of life.

However, when one's "chemically imballanced" as some like to call certain ailments, then it would stand to reason that chemical enhancements would be a great help.

Yeah, tell that to the dickwad I have as a doctor.

Although there still is a huge stigma attached to mental illness, I have no problem admitting to the fact that I suffer from depression. And I don't say "suffer from depression" because that's how most like to call it, but rather because I do suffer needlessly. If my last post didn't paint that picture well enough, I've got a lot of baggage. A goddamned transport truck following me full of it. I have had MUCH MORE than my fair share of horrible experiences and deaths in my past in the last decade. Not even. Make that 8 years. Deaths? There was my Dad, then Morrigan, then my 20 year old cousin, then my Grandmother, my Mother-In-Law, my Grandfather, and just recently, my other Grandmother. My marriage nearly ended a few years back, the health care I recieved during my pregnancy for Morrigan was a major contributing factor to her tragic life (all cause I wasn't living in the city, I've been explained), we were lied to and moved back out here hoping to shut the family up and actually make a life for ourselves out here, my husband's step-mother's cancer's come back in parts seriously far away from where it originally was found (and although no one's told us straight out, it doesn't look good or long), his Grandfather's unable to remember his wife's face and when we last saw him before moving back he was the one who had to remind her what our son's name was (they have 11 kids of their own, and our kids are their great grandchildren, so it's understandable they'd have a hard time keeping track)... And now we're looking to move back with the economy going to hell in a handbasket and the prospect of not being able to sell our house for what we paid for it, as well as the idea of not being able to afford a house when we get there.

And my doctor has fucked with my meds since my first visit.

I've been on Prozac since after Morrigan's passing. Well, not as soon after as I should have, I will admit. I am a product of my time - understanding, but filled with that "not me" attitude. I thought I would be able to shake it off. *Snort* What a load of bullshit that was. And I understand that more now than I did when I finally filled the perscription the first time.

In two weeks I felt "normal" again. No more busting into tears and hysterics when I heard a baby cry or hell, just for something to do. No more feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of ending it all. Yes. Yes I thought about sucide. And what really convinced me to fill that perscription was my Grandmother. A horrible way to think of things... You see, mental illness runs in my family. Both sides. In some form or another. And my Grandmother refused to take her medication for a multitude of reasons, but the real reason was that she was a product of her time - no way in hell was she going to admit to having a mental illness. And her life ended way too early and by her own hands. I knew that if I refused to admit I needed help that one day those thoughts of mine would seem like the best damned idea I've ever had and I'd follow through.

Right now, I'm doing my best to fight those thoughts. My doctor's an absolute idiot, and has been screwing with the actual medication and dosage from the get go. And believe me, you don't want to fuck with that stuff. I've gone from being moderately alright (the effectiveness deminished greatly after my youngest was born, something that would have been fixed with upping the dosage most likely) to paranoid to an insomniac to the psycho bitch from hell, all in a matter of months when he decides to hand me a script, saying "Hey, let's try this". One of the big reasons I want to return to the city I should have never left in the first place is so my family doctor there (who's already said no matter what, he'll take all of us back) can fix things. And so I'm not adding to my depression by a lack of work, a lack of intelligent individuals to talk to and visit, and family who drive me nuts.

Please send any good luck my way that will help me get a job (like yesterday) and that will sell my house.

The only part of it I can put into words, the rest is pure emotion and memory

So, I've been made an aunt again, this time by an inlaw and his wife who should have never been allowed to procreate in the first place.  They can barely make it day to day raising themselves, and now they're tasked to raise offspring?  Heaven (or God, Allah, Calgary, whatever you believe in) help us.  But that's a long going verbal rant that I'm sure to have on a regular basis, and a good chuckle when they realize it's not as easy as playing video games.

But that's really isn't the point of this post.  

In the past year, I've been made an aunt twice.  My sister had her little girl on February 1st, and now the inlaw and his bitch had their girl on the 14th this month.  And while I don't begrudge them their children (although when it comes to the inlaws, I'd really prefer not to think that they could spread their idiocy onto future generations), there's one thing that really stings.

Why couldn't I keep my little girl?

It's been over 3 years since my Morrigan passed away.  And it really doesn't matter to me that she was born way too early.  It's still hurts that by my own morals I couldn't justify having her "live" just so I wouldn't have to lose her, even though her body had failed her and she would have existed as a vegetable as far as all her doctors were concerned.  Unless I look at the few pictures I managed to take in the two weeks she was alive (and I just couldn't make myself take pictures after I learned that the only choice I could make was to take her off life support, even though she remained on it for a few days while I built the courage to do so), the only image I can make myself pull is her face mere seconds haver the tubes were disconnected.  I'm not going to describe it.  Please, don't make me.  

Now, don't get me wrong.  Even though they drive me absolutly batshit on a regular basis, I love my boys.  I love them more than life itself.  But I love her still that much, even though she was only here for 2 weeks.  And I think what burns me the most is how she's been forgotten by many.  Perhaps it's because she meant so much to me that it hurts, and perhaps I'm just being unreasonable here, but I still believe she should be counted.  She had a name, she breathed, she counts.  And yet my Dad's side of the family has pretty much written her off as a two week hardship to get past.  My Mom still acknowledges her (hell, I flew her out so my Mom could meet her granddaughter before she was gone...  I just had to have someone who I knew would love her see her and know her, I don't know how else to justify it).  My sister tiptoes around the subject at best.  But my Dad's side of the family outright ignores the fact that there should be a little girl with the name of a triple goddess of war running around my home.  And they're the type to dwell on death a lot.  My Dad will have been gone for 8 years this May, and they can't get over it.  And yet, I get the "Oh yeah, I forgot" when I mention Morrigan.

I don't expect them to love her.  Hell, I doubt they extend that much care in my direction, much less my children.  Just don't expect them to forget her (given that they're all in Alberta and all had met her).  Her name, sure.  I can't remember all the spawn in the family's names either.  Just don't forget she was here.

And here I am, auntie to two girls, and why them?  Why do they get to keep their little girls and I couldn't?  Why should they be so lucky?  I'm happy I have my boys.  I didn't ever think I'd have a girl.  I was absolutely shocked when they told me I had a girl.  I had been calling the belly by the boy's name we had picked, that's how sure we were.  Do I want to trade my boys in?  Do I wish they weren't boys?  No.  I'm quite fine with the idea of being a Mother to boys.  It's just that...  I really don't know how to put it.  It was like she was a new challenge, and a new joy.  I could have the best of both worlds.  How I was ever going to teach her how to put on makeup, I don't know (guess she could learn from my sister, the girlie girl).  The moment the words "a girl" sunk in, my mind ran through a million different possibilities, good and bad, for the future.  Pigtails and pretty dresses, menustration and those talks about why you need to use birth control and why it would be best to wait, dolls and easy bake ovens, arguments over skimpy clothing and talking on the phone all night...  I wanted it all, just as I want all that will come with my boys (which I'm sure dresses and menustration won't be a part of, but you never know nowadays).  

Maybe it's greed.  That thought has crossed my mind.  I'm greedy cause I still want her, and I'm sore cause others have that chance with their girls where I lost my chance.  I figure it's warrented, given that I was blessed with the most beautiful girl in the world and was given no choice but to let her go.  

And no, I can't bring her back.  And I wish people would stop suggesting that.  Reincarnation, if one believe in such and I do, requires a body.  And I can't try again.  With my youngest, it was the scariest 8 months in my life, and they couldn't even keep him in for the full 9.  To this day, he's the same size as his cousin, who's 6 months younger than him.  And I can't go through that fear again, even if I could afford to raise 3 kids. 

I'm not even sure how to end this.  I'm just rambling now, and I've forgotten the inital purpose of this post.  I just wish she was still here.  I'd give just about anything to have a 3 year old healthy little girl running around here.  To know what she'd look like, sound like, her favorite things...  And my sister and someone who I'd be pleased to avoid for the remainder of my life have that opportunity with their own daughters.  I don't wish to traide either of theirs for mine.  I just want Morrigan too.

This is why I hate people and why I fear for my kids future...

I had intentions of waiting till tomorrow (read: later than 2 am today, really) to write something, and the topic was going to be a little more in depth than my previous rants.  But I'm so fucking pissed off right now I'm spitting bullets.  Too bad that the perpitrator(s) aren't near by, so I could repay them 10 fold.

Now, like I've mentioned before, I'm working at another goddamned call center.  And like your usual 3rd party call center, it's located in a mall that's not doing that much retail sales.  This one happens to be located in the south end of town.  Now, a plus that this call center has going for it is that the parking's free, unlike the better known one in this hell hole where the parking can be astronimical for the shit pay you get.  But the parking that's right in front of the site is normally full, and far from adequate for the number of people that work there.  So what happens is that I have to park up around the back, and the nearest parking spot is this clearing on top of a hill that transport trucks use to line up their trailers to unload their gear for Zellers.  The next nearest parking spot is further around the back, and given the absolutely frigid temps lately, I'm not going to freeze my tits off just to make it to work.  So I park there and normally move my truck during lunch.

Yes, I said truck.  Cause it's less syllables to say than SUV.  Or fake SUV, really.  Thank you Chevrolet, because due to your shitty customer service and outright lie to me regarding the service performed on my car, I now own a 2009 Kia Sportage.  Why I say it's a fake SUV though is because it's a 4-stroke front wheel drive jobbie.  But still, she's my new "truck" (cause she's taller than a car), seats all of us much more comfortablly than the car, and at least Kia doesn't try to make you believe that they don't sell Korean made vehicles, unlike Chevy when I asked about the origins of my Optra.  Fucking Daewoo with a bowtie.  But that's another story.

She had 903 km on her when I parked on top of the hill this afternoon, along side a number of other people who are in class with me.  And at lunch, I gave into my stomach rather than my desire to have a closer parking spot.

Given that the area isn't very well lit, I waited until one of the women who is in the class with me was ready to go to her car, parked near mine, as to have someone walking with me.  I didn't feel like joining the other girls walking up there - a little too young and immature for my tastes, and I wouldn't have anything to talk about for the 2 minutes it would take to get up there...  So I stand outside and have a cigarette, and wait.  The other girls go up first.

Just as we crest the hill, I can hear the three girls all swearing.  Curioscity gets the better of me and I ask what's going on.  Turns out the one girl's car (a 2004 red mitsubishi something or other) was broken into.  Whoever did it used a cinderblock to bust open her pasenger side front door window and left the damned cinderblock there.  They stole her deck's face plate unit, and various other stuff from within the car, and popped her hood (didn't appear that anything was taken from in there or fucked with).  So me and the woman I walked up with check our vehicles.

I could see from not too far away that the woman's passenger side front door window was smashed in too.  And her hood was jimmied as well.  To add insult to injury though, for whatever reason that these asshats thought that this was a good thing to do, they flung a fucking turd against her driver's side front window.  Damned thing was stuck there and about the side of a Joe Louis (forgive the reference, my husband now says he'll never look at those snack cakes the same way).  Then I checked out mine.

From the angle at which it was parked, I couldn't see anything.  I opened the front passenger door and there is tinted glass EVERYWHERE!!!  From my dash all the way to the back cargo compartment.  They busted out the driver's side rear door window (which is privacy glass tinted, so like I'm going to be able to match it with going to an autoglass shop, I'm going to have to go to the dealership).  The itsy-bitsy little shards are scattered throughout my truck, and are about the same fucking color as all the seats and carpeting in there, so like I can see it in the dark.  And for shits and giggles, they bust my passenger side tail light.  Nothing was stolen out of my or the other woman's car (I had absolutly nothing in my car save for a mounting bracket for a GPS unit and a road side safety kit, and she had breath mints and an ice scraper).  I'm fucking LIVID!  Like I said, not even 1000 km on the thing.  Engine isn't even broken in.  I've only owned the thing for 16 days.  The insurance company hasn't even issued me the updated policy slips!  And now I've got to bring it in for repairs???  What the fuck is wrong with this place???

Let's put this into perspective, shall we?  In the city I should have never left in the first place, I lived just south of an area known for car thefts and other various crimes.  On many occasions, I would leave equipment in my car (raning about $1.5 - $5K), as would my husband (and his ranged from $1.5 to $10K).  Now I know I have forgotten to lock my car some nights.  And yet, every morning when I got up, the vehicles were there and so were all the contents.  Sure, some jackass backed into my car and never fessed up to leaving a sizable dent in the driver's side back panel, but never once did I come to find shattered glass, missing contents, or even a missing vehicle.

The husband's truck was stolen 2 days before I went into labour for my oldest.  The fucktards who stole that one destroyed the passenger side door handle, used his tire iron to bust off the steering collumn housing, and his screw driver to bust the ignition and rammed it through his stock tape deck for the helluvit.  

In January when we first lived in this house, we forgot to lock the car one night.  And the next morning I get in to find every CD, paper, and my satelite radio (minus the antenna and charging unit, the dumbasses) stolen.  Yeah, my fault for not locking the thing, but whatever happened to morals?

And now this.  Let me remind you, that I moved into this place in December of 07.  So yeah, about a year has passed, if that.  

So I'm fucking frozen cause I spent 2.5 hours standing outside in -20 C weather on the top of a hill waiting for the fucking cops to get there and finish their report.  And now I'm just waiting to get up tomorrow morning and find my fucking truck missing cause now with an open back window, what's going to stop the asshats who ransacked my car from thinking that this one's already been violated, let's take it for a joy ride?  Yeah, I don't care if it has a fuel pump lock - apparently it's not that hard to bipass if you know what you're doing.  And I wouldn't put it past some of the youth out here to know that shit (well, except for the ones who tried to do whatever it was they were trying to do with the other girl's cars, my hood didn't look fucked with).  

I am so beyond sick of this place.  My kids have no other kids to play with, I live between two elderly widows who's families never visit them (so no grand kids for my boys to play with), and the both of them are right fucking annoying.  The job market sucks crusty donkey nads, there is absolutly nothing to do here (one decent mall, one over priced theater, and a few McDonald's with playlands, nothing else unless you want to pay a ransom for a membership at the Y), and the people here by and large are horribly ignorant and unintelligent.  I want this house gone, and if it wasn't for the fact that I already have a battle on my hands with my insurance company coming up, I'd be fine with it burning to the ground when all of us were out.  I just want out of this city so fucking bad.  It was the biggest damned mistake to ever return.  Love my family - get airmiles and a long distance package on your phone.  I'll visit, but once I'm gone, I'm NEVER coming back here!  I'm even considering having my remains burried somewhere else, that's how much this region's pissing me off.  My kids don't need to be raised around people who think this kind of recreational activity is a good way to spend a Friday night, and it appears the percentage of youth that parkate in this shit is much higher in this area than it was out there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to hop into the shower and try to defrost myself...  I'm still shivering like mad and I've been in my house and wrapped up in a blanket for 30 minutes.

I like mail order...

Believe it or not, I can be girly.  Not pink and frilly, makeup wearing, butterfly chasing girly kind of girly.  But I like crafts, I've read myself a few romance novels, I know what to do with those funky eyelash curling clampie things...  You know...  Sorta girly kind of girly.  But I might want to turn in my gender cause if there's one thing I hate, it's shopping.

And it doesn't even matter what kind of shopping it is.  Clothes shopping is the worst, cause I really think that designers the world over have never seen a woman in their lives.  Either they believe we have no tits, or if we do, they must be up around our collar bone or down by our navel.  And I'd love to meet the woman with the 4 foot stretch between her waist and her crotch, cause I keep finding pants made for her.  But no, clothes shopping isn't just the only thing.  To keep it within the girly section for a moment longer, shoes are a pain to shop for.  Clothing stores don't believe there are pudgy girls out there, and women's shoe stores don't understand that there are females with wide feet.  The bane of my adolescense was my wide feet.  The only dressy shoes made for wide feet are hideous and nothing short of a hacksaw will get my feet into anything else.  

So perhaps that's why I'm not that girly.  The dressiest shoes I will wear that fit are Doc Martins and the utalitarian look always accounted for tits that were somewhere between the collar bone and navel...

However, it's not just the apparel shopping that pisses me off.  Even grocery shopping drives me bonkers.  And with two young kids, and a husband who believes that avoidance is better than handling the situation, I have been forced to do groceries solo on many occasions.  I'll leave in a neutral mood (happy to get out of the house, not that happy to be going alone), and come back mad as a hatter.  And there is a good reason.

It's not because of the selection.  I've come to accept that in order to get everything I need or want to get grocery wise I will have to go to multiple stores (and in this city, I might as well mail order, cause no one carries a lot of stuff I miss).  It's not the prices.  Those suck no matter where you go.  Rather, it's the other patrons of the store.

Maybe I'm too idealistic here, but is there not an unspoken set of rules regarding grocery shopping?  Like for instance, most isles have enough room for two carts to travel beside one another.  Should they not be treated like a road?  You stay on your side, I stay on mine, and no fucking parking in the middle, taking up both lanes, while you contemplate the sodium content in the stack of canned peas you're standing in front of?!?  Oooh, and how about if you're at the end of the lane and you see a friend of yours doing their groceries, you MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY when you decide to stop to talk to them and not block the end with your fat ass so others can get out?!!?  And let's not forget, keep 6 inches away from the person in front of you when you're in line to pay, or perhaps I should shove your $400 worth of groceries, cart and all, up your fat ass for trying to take out my Achilles tendon?  Oh, another!  If you have $400 worth of groceries, DON'T GO THROUGH THE SELF-CHECKOUT LINE!!!  Damnit, they're slow enough as is, cause it requires about 5 more IQ points than is required to breathe and wipe your ass, and most people don't have that.  Multiply that times 100 items, and I'm going to toss my now melted ice cream at you if you're waiving that can of sardines over the scanner 10 times before you figure it out you have it upside down.

Today in Costco I finally broke.  I was stuck at the end of an isle with a cart loaded full of heavy shit my Mother was going to buy (plus the milk and broccoli I was buying, a mere 10 pounds rounded up on the 150 pounds I'm trying to shove around in a cart), while 3 women chatted it up.  And Costco's isles are even wider than you average grocery store's, but they're taking up the whole fucking thing with how they're standing there with their carts.  And so I stand there.  And then I start tapping my foot and clearing my throat...  You know, the "excuse me, look over here, realize your error and move" tactic, but the polite way.  Had to try to be polite, my Mom was there after all.  She's trying to convince me to go the other way, but the cart I'm pushing barely makes the 90 degree corners necessary.  I'm not hauling it into a 3 point turn to back track through the crowded store; what I needed to get was 30 feet past them.  And so I say excuse me.  Nothing.  Say it again.  Nothing.  One of them looks at me, and then goes back to talking.  And didn't move...

And so that's when I said "Would one of you inconsiderate asshats move out of the way so people can get past?"

...they moved.  My Mom wasn't in earshot, so at least I didn't have to put up with her being embarrassed.

I've been contemplating manufacturing and marketing v-plows for shopping carts...  Might be able to use the welding and fabrication education I got to do it too.  Watch for the infomercials.