So, it's Christmas

Ho to the third and all that rot.

I'm not a big fan of Christmas. I used to be. I loved it. The kids were little and Christmas morning was loads of fun. My family used to get together and cook an enormous meal. It was fantastic. These days I sit alone in front of the TV all day. Big whoop.

People complain about the cooking but I love roasting a turkey and making dressing from the recipe that has been handed down from so far back I don't know from whence it came. The stuff rocks. Putting the 'BIG' meal together has always been so much fun for me. I can never express how much I miss it. Worse yet, I'm the only person who knows how to make the dressing. When I die, it's gone. Believe me, I've tried to get someone else to learn how to make it but these days nobody seems to care. It hurts my heart that things have turned out this way.

My children live on the other side of the country. They called me on Thanksgiving. They were at their father's house, also in California. When I hung the phone up I cried. Not only did Greg have our children there but he also had the spouses at his house. I cried because I will never have that gathering happen to me. I cried because I miss them so much and I cried because I was so goddamn jealous of Greg.

To top off this joyous holiday, my neighbor died. He couldn't have been 40 yet. I'm sure the heart attack was somehow related to the drugs he enjoyed on a daily basis. I used to worry his small children would wander into the meth lab he had set up in the out building and blow us all up. He was a nice enough guy to chat with and I do feel sorry for his children (all 6 or 7 of them with I don't know how many women) because Christmas just isn't going to be the same for them. To top that off, instead of the screeching from next door I've become accustomed to (our houses are not close, the fights were LOUD and usually followed up in nine months with another kid) I am now forced to listen to three harpies fighting over where to bury the guy. Seriously, an ex-wife wants him buried in the plot next to hers. He's been married to the current wife for nearly 10 years and yet his ex-wife wants him buried next to her? Welcome to Screwtown. (shaking my head because I've been here all my life and this shit still flips me out) His mother has spaces all ready to go for herself and all her sons. I suppose she figured they all wanted to form a circle around Mom in the afterlife. Kinda weird if you ask me. But even all that isn't as weird as the widow planning to bury him - wait for it - next to the other dead husband. Yep, this is the second husband to die on her. Maybe she plans to plant herself between the two of them. Either way... c.r.e.e.p.y.

Another fine how do you do happened yesterday. Hubby has been laid off again. Oh boy. Starting off another year on unemployment. I had hoped to use the tax returns to build a porch because the steps to the trailer are caving in and my old ass is going to take a header very soon if it isn't repaired. Instead I will be taking the steer and the hog to slaughter so the freezers will be full of food. I suppose when the steps cave in I'll hang a rope so I can pull myself up and into the door.

I have always been poor and I've always been white, but I was never poor white trash until I got tangled up with this bunch. In my next life I plan to pay more attention to the choices I make.

Well, the clock just turned over and it's officially Christmas. I will still get up way before daylight and trudge out to start chores just as soon as I can see what I'm doing. I haven't had a holiday in years. Nobody ever says 'Hey, sleep late and I'll do the chores'. Not on Christmas or Mother's Day or my birthday... never. Maybe I'll go grocery shopping tomorrow. I've put it off as long as I can because I didn't want to fight my way through all the crazy people.

This place has taken all the celebration out of me. Time for a beer.

Sweet Tooth

Have you heard of Amish Friendship Bread? It's been going around here for years and the stuff is fucking delicious. I have no idea whatsoever why the Amish are in any way connected to the making of this bread but that's what it says on the mass printed recipe I have so by gods it's Amish. Deal with it.


The day you bake this bread -which by the way makes two loaves so you had better be hungry - you will have enough starter left over to give to two friends and keep one for yourself. If you have plenty of friends then finding two every ten days to give starter to will be no problem. I have very few friends and none of them live close to me so it presents a problem. The two starters I'm supposed to give to friends is unceremoniously dumped into the slop bucket and fed to my hog. The starter I keep is put into a jar and wrapped with a dishcloth. I don't know why I wrap it. I wrap my kefir so why not wrap the bread starter? Besides, it looks much better to have jars wrapped with decorative dishcloths than to have them sitting around filled with fermenting god knows what. Don't you think?

After the jar with the starter is set back out of the way, the rest of the ingredients are added to the bowl and mixed to utmost perfection. Of course it's perfect. We are talking about me after all. Then it's poured perfectly evenly into loaf pans and baked for exactly one hour. OMG! Talk about making the house smell like heaven! Nothing like cinnamon to make life worth living.


Once the bread is out of the oven and placed on a rack to cool, the only thing left to do is sit quietly for an hour - 30 minutes - 20 minutes- 10 minutes - oh fucking go ahead and eat it already! Big pats of melty butter all over it! Absolutely to die for! If you want the recipe and some starter let me know. It's sinfully delicious.

By the way, that's my Potbelly Tess in the picture. When I'm sick of eating this stuff she happily finishes it off for me.

Winter's a-Coming Dammit

I used to love winter. Wait a minute, back up. Maybe I didn't so much 'love' winter as simply tolerate it better than I do now. Well, even that isn't the truest of statements. Let's say I liked winter more than brussel sprouts but less than double chocolate chip ice cream. Whew, now that that's established we can move on. Happy about that aren't you?



Way back in the day I worked for NCDOT and loved it. If a person could have a relationship with a dump truck then I had one with mine. Her name was Sapphire. She was a five speed, automatic PTO, sunshine yellow hunka hunka burning love. Nothing made me happier than cruising along in my dump truck hauling dirt and debris away from a worksite or loads of gravel to roads being repaired. Color me in heaven. The only thing better was when it snowed. I would tremble in ecstasy. My boss would shake his head and call me politically incorrect names. I didn't care. Bring on the snow. From 8:00 pm to 8:am I drove my route spreading salt and sand and pushing snow with glee. I loved watching it arc gracefully off the plow, sending inadequately mounted mailboxes sailing into the air. That was an extra special treat. Sometimes I would stop in the middle of the road and have a cigarette.



There was an all-night store near the interstate where I would stop for a cup of coffee every time I passed by. I used to joke that I didn't know if it was the caffeine that kept me awake or having to pee all the time. One winter there was a nice young man who would give my coffee to me every time I stopped. I always thanked him because I truly appreciated it. I could put away a lot of coffee on those nights. Like me that young man worked a second job (I delivered pizza on the weekends) and I saw him at another stop-and-shop during the summer months. It took me a while to recognize him because, well, I'd never seen him while I was totally conscious. Once I realized who he was I told him how grateful I was for all the coffee he had given me during the course of that particular winter when I had often worked weeks at a time without a day/night off. He smiled and told me he had been afraid to do otherwise. Gee, thanks dude.



Last year we had snowfall that broke all kinds of records. I would look out at all that snow with a heavy heart. I miss my snowplow. I miss cruising along in the middle of the night, just me and my truck and the late night disc jockeys. Yep, those were the days. Snow isn't nearly as much fun as it used to be.

Great Accomplishments

With all the little children running around lately it seems I am in the midst of potty training more than I care to be. Lily pretty much trained herself while her younger sister Laney is a bit more challenged by the whole thing. Still, she's trying and that's all anyone can ask of a two year old.

I've just started keeping my nephew Dewey a few days a week so we're finding our common ground with the potty training thing. He's coming along quite nicely. If only I could figure out how to explain 'hold your penis and watch where you're aiming'. It ain't like I can teach by example.

To make things more interesting and to hopefully encourage Laney to go potty by herself (instead of having me take her for mandatory pee breaks every hour) I have invented the "Clean pants happy dance". You can sing-song 'clean pants happy dance' anyway you want to. Around here it varies from Buddy Holly tunes to Klingon opera. The dance should suitably match the tune. (Have you ever tried to dance to Klingon opera? Go ahead. I dare you.) The happy dance has become so popular than anytime someone in this house takes a pee it's a potty training production of "Annie". Yep, making peepee in the potty is a really big deal around here.

A couple of days ago the girls were here and we were messing about like we always do. You know, disco dancing in fairy outfits and shit like that. I try to sneak off to the bathroom to do my thing because like all young children, the girls are fascinated with the bodily fluids of everyone they know and most everyone else too. Sometimes I try to remember what it was like to go to the bathroom by myself. I sat down on the toilet and just as I started to pee Laney came in. Her little face lit up like sunshine. She ran to me and wrapped her little arms around my neck so tightly I thought she would choke me. In between the kisses she was smothering my face with she said brightly "You made tinkles in the potty!!!" I've never had anyone be so proud of me for anything but suddenly, the most important accomplishment of my life was taking a piss.

They say you get what you give. I hope I've made Laney feel half as good as she makes me feel because getting that much love is AWESOME!

When Life Sucks

I'm out of pain meds. It sucks when the arthritis targets everything from my earlobes to the joints in my toes.

10:30 go to bed

11:00 get up and put heating pad that Marvelous Maggie made for me into the nuker.

11:02 go back to bed and wrap heating pad around whatever it reaches that hurts.

11:30 get up and turn TV on.

11:33 put heating pad back in nuker.

11:35 tune into Letterman and wrap heating pad around me.

11:37 revel in the fact that Robert Downey Jr. is on Letterman

12:00 finally made it through Letterman's obligatory shit to RD Jr. He's wonderful.

12:15 tuned to CSI:NY on USA

It is now 1:52 a.m. and I'm finished with the bottle of wine. I hate being drunk on a normal day but I especially hate being drunk when it doesn't accomplish the target goal of getting rid of the pain.

Maybe later I will go into how much it hurt when my sister gave up on me today when we met for lunch. I won't do that again.

I want to apologize to my mom who complained of pain and who for years I wrote off as being a giant wuss... It has all come back to me with a vengeance.

For some reason my PA cut my pain meds and here I am in the middle of the night desperately wishing I could go to sleep. Lily and Laney will be here in 3 hours. I will be totally crazy in pain when they get here and will not be able to deal with them with any sort of patience. I'm sorry babies. I love you. Honestly I do.

They think I don't love them. I wish I was dead. For a thousand reasons, I wish I was dead. When you're dead the pain stops, right? Please tell me the pain stops. I don't know how much longer I can take it.

Ah, the Good 'Ol Days

It feels like forever but it's only been 18 months since Hubby lost his job. Hubby builds bridges and he's damn good at it. You would never know it from the shit he slaps together around here. Every single building/shed that acts as a feed room/stall/barn is collapsing in on itself. This place is a health hazard. Fences are falling down and if I can't figure out some way to stop the steer from flipping the water trough I'm going to shoot his ass and bury him. OK, maybe not because I like steaks and it won't be long before Beefcake will be headed for slaughter. Hell, even the supports underneath this dump of a trailer I live in are collapsing. I'm rather curious as to how this is all going to end. Good to know I have a sturdy, warm sleeping bag.

Hubby got a new job about five months ago. It pays 1/3 less than what he was making but it is more than unemployment so hallelujah on that one. He wakes me up on the four mornings a week he goes to work (Believe me it's on purpose. Gods forbid I should sleep while he is awake even though on weekends/holidays he sleeps until 11 while I'm up at 5) and comes home every evening at whatever the time the job allows. Sure, he gets up 30 minutes before me during the week and he comes home late every once in a while but when he has time off I still get up before daylight and do the same thing I do every other day of the week/month/year/decade/millenium. I am grateful I have a husband who works because around these parts that isn't a given. This county is Big #1 in meth production and has been for several years. I could be living w.i.t.h a meth junkie instead of living between them. My big bitch is I gave up my life for something that was promised but never happened. That has resulted in some bitterness. As it is, I do what I'm supposed to do every day, 24-7-365. I never get a day off. It's the same. All the time. It will make you fucking crazy. I gave up a job I loved with all my heart to make this marriage work. I kept up my end of the bargain. I'm still waiting on the other end.

Hubby worked out of town for six or seven years and it was wonderful. It is probably the reason we haven't killed each other before now. He came home on Friday night and left on Sunday night. It was a dream come true in more ways than one. You see, I have learned to like being alone. I like sitting quietly in front of the TV and crocheting my hard little heart out while a glass of wine or a cold beer sits on the table beside me. When Hubby is here he talks incessantly about everything in the universe I care absolutely nothing about. Would you want to hear all about how Hubby is the be all-end all of construction and how so and so working his first job in construction made a stupid mistake? I don't like making fun of people or using them to make me feel better about myself (unless it's the women on People of WalMart whose asses hang out of their too short shorts but that's only while I'm here by myself and never something I talk about.) I have never met the people Hubby works with and I don't want to so why would I give a shit about what they say all day? That coupled with Hubby's commentary on why he is always right and everyone else is always wrong (as well as the fact that nearly every word out of his mouth is a lie) pushes me to press the volume button on the remote and hope he gets the hint. He never does.

If I could only go into why I don't pack my few clothes, hit the road and never look back you might understand. I used to hear/read stories about women who took shit from their husbands but never left. I used to boldly announce that they must like it because they stayed with the bastards. I am not suffering physical beatings but the mental and emotional abuse can be just as painful. Hubby follows me through the house yapping like a little dog. It can make you crazy. I do what I do to keep things smoothed over and avoid being picked on or pushed around. I have no place to go and no way to get there. Even if those two problems were solved I have no way to support myself. I'm stuck here until one of us dies. At this point, I don't care which one of us goes first.

Tonight it is rainy and warm but it's the best evening I've had in months. Hubby has gone to Raleigh and won't be back until tomorrow evening. I didn't have to cook supper and I wasn't cleaning the kitchen at 10 pm. It's the best vacation I've had in 18 months (not counting San Francisco of course). I knew having Hubby around was a lot of extra work but you know how much time I had to myself tonight simply because he wasn't here??? Three hours!! Three hours to myself just by not having him around to wait on. I have so missed having time to myself.

He will be back tomorrow night and I will be washing dishes in the middle of the night because I have to work around his schedule. Believe it or not, he works a full time job and still gets three or four hours more sleep per day than I do. The best part is he gets his all in one chunk. I am lucky if I get six hours sleep in two hour sessions. After all I just chase toddlers, take care of and clean up after eleventy hundred animals, take care of the house and once all that's done, cook for and clean up after Hubby who thinks the world was put here to wait on him. Some day I might be able to go into the details of why I am here and have no choice in the matter. Until then, I am loving this one day to myself and praying that I get another one soon.

My philosophy... If there was a god, I would be dead. If there was a merciful god, he would be dead.

For now, it's quiet and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Security is a Full Fridge

As I was cooking supper tonight I started thinking about a time when my kids were young and money was super tight. I know... money is always tight but at this particular moment in time we had been abandoned in Kansas by my ex-husband. I was attending a community college as well as working as a tutor and a chemistry assistant and doing third shift at a convenience store. I dropped the third shift job the day after I fell asleep and ran into a ditch on the way home to change clothes so I could get back to my 8:00 class. I didn't think dying would help much.

Hubby passes the fancy grocery store in Mars Hill that caters to the professors from the college on his way home from work. They have much better food at that store than here in this podunk town we live in. Every now and again he picks something up and that's how we treat ourselves. I cook better than any local restaurant so our night out is something special cooked in. I searched my favorite recipe site and decided to fix sea scallops with burgundy wine sauce. Making your mouth water, eh? It should. The stuff was delicious. Anyway... I was standing at the stove reducing the wine and cream when I started thinking about the time one of my friends made me (and I do mean MADE me) go to social services for food stamps. I had never had food stamps and it really bothered me to have to ask for them. I don't harbor harsh feelings toward anyone who gets them. It's just that I had never had to get them and it made me feel like a total loser. I'm sort of independent and I've always believed I should take care of myself and my children. To have to get food stamps meant I was a failure as a mother, as a provider, as a role model... the list goes on. I was face down in the mud and worthless.

I was given just a bit over $200 worth of stamps for a month. That was a small fortune in grocery money to me. I went to the 24 hour grocery so I could shop at 2:00 in the morning and hopefully not be seen by anyone I knew. It had been over a year since I had been able to really shop for food. We lived on the bare necessities. I purchased a whole chicken and the next day all I could think about was that chicken. When I got home from the day's classes I rubbed the chicken with butter and salt and put it in the oven. After a while the aroma began to permeate the house. My children and I migrated toward the oven and stood there with our mouths watering waiting for that damn chicken to brown. Nobody said a word. We just stood there inhaling. Eventually we started laughing about it but in my heart it didn't feel funny at all. That's when I realized just how fucking hungry we all were. The chicken never did get properly browned because we couldn't wait any longer. It was the first proper meal we had eaten in months. Veggies and everything. I remember that meal like I ate it yesterday.

I look back at the times when I was doing the best I could but it was hard on us. I think about all the times I feel like I failed my kids no matter how hard I tried not to. I also think back on the times when I wasn't doing my best and needed a kick in the ass. Not much I can do about any of it now. My children have grown into wonderful people and I love them. I adore them. I explain their goodness by saying they grew up good not because of me but in spite of me. They are loving, caring, hard working people who make me proud. And they love me. I don't know why but they do. Someday I would like to do one thing to deserve it.