tried to make peace w/d last night by picking up dinner and handling it myself; no luck and he still slept on the couch.

this morning i picked him up some smokes so he wouldn't have to... also told him i loved him which he said was not the issue. sigh.

breakfast: 1 can slim fast 190 cal.
drink: .5L water bottle with lemonade flavoring 0 cal. (instead of tea)
lunch: .5L water and frozen meal 290 cal.

election day, i voted obama first thing. short polling line for my district.

worked 9:30-17:30. picked up frozen southwestern chicken filling (rice, beans, chicken, corn, peppers) for soft tacos + chips and salsa/queso, and some soda.

breakfast: 1 slimfast can 190 cal.
drink: 1 cup of caramel rooibos tea with 6 sugars and some whole milk
lunch: 2 cutlets chicken francese, 1 20 oz. DP 250 cal., 1 small container fresh watermelon
snacks: none
dinner: 1 12 oz. glass decaf Pepsi, 1 flour tortilla with 4 tbsp. filling (no sour cream, no hot sauce, no cheese), four or five tostitos with queso

watched election results, obama landslide. 2nd night d slept on couch because he's unhappy with me. faked sleep at 11 p.m. to avoid carly due to hot water dispute but actually fell asleep. woke up at 2 a.m. with horrific nightmare involving anna being kidnapped. tried to get d to bed but he refused and stayed on couch. nightmare came back and involved me being raped and beaten this time. very uncomfortable to sleep either on my back or left side due to head pain still from concussion after fainting spell 11OCT. only right side is comfortable to sleep on.

fell asleep praying for obama and his family as well as for america, and also for my marriage which seems to be in big big trouble....

i read the blogs of three of my friends and realize that i never see them anymore and that i also barely talk to them. there are things going on in their lives that i can relate to, but i feel relegated to casual observer. we are all just so fucking busy. how they all have time to blog anymore is completely beyond me...

i have come to realize that part of the reason i hesitate to blog is because the keyboard i use has a sticky space bar. it is also really, REALLY loud. not in the comforting clackety way that i am fond of, but in the loud, sticky, you must hit space bar twice to get a space and hey, everyone who is sleeping, please wake up and notice that i am blogging! way. MUST get new kb (santa?)...

this past week has literally been from hell. i have had two vacation plans canceled and thusly stayed home (!!!) during my week and a half break from work, which i could not use later in the year and can't carry over till next. to top it off, everyone in the house has been sick at least twice in the past two weeks, and myself of three different ailments, gory descriptions of which i will tactfully omit (apologies to friends and family who already heard it in person).

additionally i did something colossally stupid for which i have flogged myself for three days in a row. i have owned up to it and taken responsibility for a heinous lapse in judgement which cost me dearly; however 98% of the population at large seems determined to help me learn my lesson by repeatedly pointing out how stupid it was. let the record show that this figure includes d. (only briefly; he saw the error of his ways eventually and is now fully supportive of my corrective actions) as well as my MIL and NYPD among others. i will also say that my new bank is on the verge of doing a ridiculous favor for me which will ensure my patronage for life.

my favorite distraction from all of these things and the pile of laundry which is now twice the size it was at the beginning of the week (and therefore cripplingly unapproachable) is the cowboys-giants game coming up on sunday. there are, in our house, 4 of 6 people willing and able to display team loyalty. the 7 y.o. wants everyone to be happy and so cannot pick just one; the 3 y.o. is, well, three. 10 y.o. is a daddy's girl, yes, on this too, and is half of the resident giants fan club, while the 13 y.o. squats on the cowboys side of the fence with me.

disclaimer: yes, the houston oilers used to be my team. yes, half of my family would freak about me switching camps. but i maintain that when the owner and the mayor get in a stupid fight about taxpayer-funded stadiums (go mayor!) which results in the team's sale to tennessee (!!!) out of pure spite, switching cities is perfectly acceptable. the old one contains bad juju and angry spirits of teams past and people i abandoned. after the mandated mourning period of five years, of course, during which no team is endorsed and only the superbowl is viewed.

when the cowboys met the giants at home earlier this season, it was a sad day for me and for r. and we spent several days after lamenting the public humiliation of veteran drew bledsoe, for whom i have great respect. we were reluctant to endorse the nkotb for a feeling of loyalty to drew and respect for his accomplishments. parcells baffled us, not in removing drew, but in doing it suddenly and publicly. i still feel bad for him, particularly after this same scenario played out when he was with the pats (under parcell).

we were also still upset about the t.o. debacle (which one? all of them!) we were both intensely annoyed at his drops, trips, and tantrums, and at parcells' seemingly counterintuitive decisions.

apparently we were wrong on the tony romo point, though we are not yet ready to admit defeat where owens is concerned. and certainly the release of vanderjagt this week has us flummoxed yet again. fortunately for us, the giants are walking wounded and continue to do themselves in day after day as sunday draws closer. while i warned r. to pray because in top form they are a force to be reckoned with (and i pray regularly myself for a win), in my secret heart i am hopeful.

i mean honestly, something has to save this week for me!!

omg. i must surely die.

i am soooooooooooooooooo behind on blogging, not that anyone would notice because i sure don't. i am stupidly busy at work thanks to my big mouth in these teambuilding things we have where i get brilliant ideas and then my boss goes "make it so". so i am compiling a database of writing samples and tracking fax logs and scanning invoices and and and. all this and claims too, what more can a girl ask for, i want to know?

how about a son and daughter who team up to forge my signature? on two different notes home from the teacher? sigh. i did all the christmas shopping for them yesterday and i was high as a kite about the cool shit i got them, then they go and pull a stunt like this. i let them have it good tonight (like usual). brought the girl to tears, but with the boy everything i say winds up in /dev/null...

while scouring his room for the notes in question (which did disappear utterly), i found a test score of 77% and one of 40%(!!!!!) both of which he did not study for. i find it fucking ridiculous that i have to be UP THE ASS of a 12 year old kid about his homework!!!!! should i not be able to just glance over his assignment pad and check that he has the right number of papers done???

i am so frustrated with him that i don't know what to do anymore. i love him so much yet i know exactly where he is going and how to get there because i used to fucking live there when i was a teenager. it's a place called everyone-owes-me-and-i-am-selfishly-lazy, and it is really hard to leave once you are there. everyone keeps inviting you to have one more round of be-an-asshole-to-your-parents and you think, what the hell, make it a double. i have no place to be anyway...

he got invited to sit for an entrance exam to this gifted/talented school in the city based on his standardized test scores from last year. i almost fell over and then i was so proud. however. they will most definitely not tolerate this bullshit from him. nor will i send on a bus into the big bad city which gives ME panic attacks a flip little bugger who can't be trusted to walk the dog up and down the street alone. FUCK.

also i miss people. i have really no time to talk to anyone except d. and i am sure he gets bored of me. at least we have the NFL to guarantee us quality time together screaming at the TV (his team lost in OT yesterday and he is hilarious while watching football).

pretty much here is what i did today:
got up after 3 snooze alarms
got kids dressed for school
showered
took girls to school, gave boy lunch money
(all this without waking d. and baby)
worked 9 hour day with no lunch (and didn't even ask for OT)
bought smokes
talked to my mother for about 30 min. about christmas crap
changed clothes
lecture/discipline for boy and girl (this took a long time)
changed atomic diaper and bathed baby accordingly
did homework with one of the girls
got kids ready for bed
paid bills
tucked kids in
sorted medical bills
cleaned kitchen
2 loads of laundry
blogged about what i did today

that is what went on from 6:30 a.m. to 1:09 a.m.

and now i am for bed, and bed is for me.

PS: i did not much like the new potter movie but felt obligated to take the kids anyway. new dumbledore is good but not of the caliber he used to be as a character. can't remember if that was a rowling thing in the book or creative license with the movie... too bored with series to go read it again and find out.

ta.

so less than one week before our scheduled vegas departure, my partner in crime at work, ali, turns up pregnant (more yay!) and can't go to a meeting in germany because her allergist and her ob have not yet coordinated and she just had a massive er-visit allergy attack and they do not want her out of the country in case it happens again. which is understandable. which meant i got one week notice that i would have to leave for germany the day after i got back to nyc from vegas. ali felt so totally guilty but whatever - it's not like she hasn't picked up my slack for the last five years, you know?

so basically it went like this:
sunday - mom and dad arrive from texas
monday - three oldest kids leave with mom and dad to texas
wednesday - me and d. leave for vegas
saturday - me and d. come back to nyc from vegas
sunday - i go to germany
tuesday - i come back from germany (after an 8-hour meeting)

wow. i was wrecked just from changing time zones so much.

vegas was amazing. we will definitely go back over and over. i know this because we bought a time share there (shhhh! don't tell our families, they would yell at us! and the kids don't know either because, well, they would tell our families, and they would yell at us!) i called j. and l., our new friend-couple, to tell them we should go there together next year. they love vegas and sounded like they thought it would be great. i have always longed to go on a real vacation, adults only, with friend-couples. that seems so mature and like real grown-ups do it. sometimes i want to be a real grown-up. mgm grand was gorgeous and nicely priced and huge with a river pool (which rapidly became fratboy city in the afternoon, ugh). it also had emeril's and we ate there and we were both very impressed, even d. who doesn't do impressed about anything. the hotel was too far on one end of the strip though - i would rather have had something more central (bellagio, venetian, etc.). possibly this is why those cost more...

the hotel in germany was like five feet from the airport (but somehow a 30 minute shuttle ride??) and there was, no shit, an airplane on top of it every three minutes. i live fifteen minutes from both jfk and laguardia and am totally used to the planes overhead, but these were so close i nearly shat myself. between the planes (fearful me conjured up scenes of the concorde crashing into that paris hotel) and the dogs (big loud scary junkyard dog types, whole packs of them) which were always set off by the planes, i got no freaking sleep at all. at two a.m. (german time, i think?) i got bored with trying. i turned on bbc world news (one of two english channels, all katrina all the time) and read the second sisterhood of traveling pants book. i am getting bored with it only two books in... so that was last week.

i have caught the baby bug again and am freaking out a little. binkey just had her second beautiful baby boy a few weeks ago. ali is expecting a st. patrick's day baby. my sister-in-law just had a gorgeous baby girl early yesterday morning.

i am stupidly excited for ali. she showed me the sonogram the other day and i literally burst into tears right at my desk. i am a dork supreme! i begged her to let me be her doula (i am dying to support someone in childbirth for some reason!) and she said yes!! but she has her wonderful boyfriend so she probably was kidding.

my SIL called me friday night at like half past midnight (i was still up). she called me after calling her sister, who also has four kids and knows a little(!) about birthing. she said she'd been having contractions for three hours and that for the past 30 minutes they had been every 5 minutes. i asked if she was dilated, she said 2-3 cm at the previous day's exam (with my ob/gyn, to whom i referred her with glowing reviews, and who told her when she called him to have a glass of wine and go to bed!! the horror!!) she said the contractions were painful and that she felt them in her bottom. i told her ignore dr. lush and go to the hospital like NOW. turns out i was right - she delivered my niece about four hours later. i was hoping she wouldn't get there in time for an epidural so she could share my exuberance about natural childbirth which i had to find by accident, but she did get one. and so i am still the freak who doesn't like pain meds...

at the hospital today her husband's family showed up while d. and i were there. and it sort of boggled me that i was uncomfortable sharing her with them. i noticed that while it was just me and d. she was all splayed on the bed totally comfortably and didn't bother to cover her legs with the sheet or fix her hair, and i thought it was odd. then when her in-laws arrived, i noticed she covered up, fiddled with her bun, cleared off the bed and her table to look nicer, etc. and when talking with them she seemed very very polite and possibly uncomfortable. they are nice people, don't get me wrong. but the fact that she has come to consider me part of the family in that a) she asked me for a referral to my ob, b) she called to get my opinion on her labor situation, and c) she seemed more comfortable with me and d. around than with her in-laws, all makes me feel very good. we have come a nice long way since i charged into the family ten years ago.

also. since the gas prices went so high (nearly $4/gallon here now!) d. thought we should buy a little economy car since i do most of the driving and usually alone or with only a couple of kids. this way he could have the minivan during the day if he needed it too. and the money we spend on gas will be much much less. we looked at a 2000 kia sephia today, it was a really cute car and a nice ride, only 60k miles. d. doesn't want it though, i think we both kind of have our hearts set on a saturn or a volkswagen. we are looking to buy privately now, having been burned by the last two dealerships we bought from. i've been looking at the ads for the past three days online, and so far 2 out of 3 that i responded to were wire transfer scams (there is a whole page on craigslist devoted to this stuff, but not on Yahoo! Autos which is where they were listed). craigslist seems pretty clean and is where i found the kia. the guy selling it was totally cool and nice and knew how to write and spell and stuff. i hate that i have to call him and tell him we're passing on it.

the volkswagens and the saturns are going to be hard to find in our price range i think. i want ideally a 2000 or newer, but will settle for a 98 or 99 at the right mileage (60k or less). and i only want to spend $2-3k, with $4k being absolute max. so i think we will probably never find it. but if we spend months looking, and in the process i find a great celica or civic or something like that i will settle.

i also found out that my cousin's apartment nearly got demolished by katrina in biloxi. he and his pregnant wife had to evacuate and take shelter at the army base with no electricity for five days. while they were there the men had to fend off armed would-be intruders (my cousin is military also) and when they got back home the complex was almost completely leveled. his building was standing but nothing past it all the way to the beach. and there was a six foot high pile of debris in front of his door that they moved and found a lady buried in. she was alive when they found her but sadly passed away later that day.

so it is weird, because even living in new york, september 11 fortunately did not personally touch me in any way except that i live in new york. it didn't happen to anyone i know, etc. but katrina kicked the ass of someone i used to babysit when i was in junior high and threatened his family.

life is so weird.

the good news is i got the a/c fixed in my car. i also picked up some cds i have wanted for a while: sting's fields of gold, dsotm AND the wall, steve miller's greatest hits, and evanescence's fallen.

the great news is that binkey had her baby early last week and i get to see him this weekend. yay!

the awesome news is that d. and i are going to vegas in exactly two weeks. super yay!!

most of the time i think that i am glad to be away from my own family's high drama and scandals and stuff. like weird baby names and teen pregnancy and the trailer as target practice for the drive-by crew. most of the time i am glad to be far away so that i don't have to restrain myself when i hear that kind of stuff about people i love. i think, wow, my in-laws are so normal.

they really aren't. they are just as utterly dysfunctional as all of us; there are just elements that i did not grow up with, and so it took some time to learn them. there are various and sundry things about each member of my husband's family that i genuinely like (okay, there are a couple of exceptions); by the same token, there are things about each of them that positively infuriate me on a semi-regular basis. this all generally boils down to The One Big Thing: the planning gene.

this is a part of my husband's dna that i believe he never had. it should be considered a birth defect because it annoys the hell out of normal planning people like me. i am not a crazy anal planner a la jack byrnes; i just like to know what the hell is going on most of the time. do i have to set my alarm tonight, and if so, for what time? does anybody need the car besides me? that sort of thing.

people in his family do things like deciding to take the kids all to the beach saturday. which is fine, only they decide saturday morning, and they call us one hour before they want to go, when we are all still sleeping, and when one of the kids already has a prior commitment. they do not invite, they do not ask - they call and tell us what our kids are doing in an hour. they instruct their twelve year-old daughters to call us and inform us of the plans, and she never gets it right, because she is twelve. my favorite thing ever is when my nine year-old daughter and my twelve year-old niece get together and try to make plans. the only thing better than that is having my brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.

they did it to us again today.

d. used to get annoyed that i was annoyed with them for stuff like this, in the beginning. nothing bothered him at all, except me being bothered. over the years i have pleaded, cajoled, debated, shrieked, etc. in an effort to get him to at least acknowledge that my point is a valid one. that took about five years. now that we have four kids he concedes that my point is valid. but old habits die hard, and i scream at him about it anyway, then i apologize and try not to cry. so he is still annoyed that i am annoyed, because it bothers him too and i am essentially preaching to the choir.

someday i really must post about the two spectacular fights d. and i have had with his brother... someday when i can not be infuriated by writing about it? so probably never?

yeah, apparently i can't stay away from this stupid blog thing. i feel a little inadequate and have half a mind to import all of my old posts from my old blog. but that will be the swirling vortex that will wash me up on the shores of insomnia once more. which is sort of why i quit in the first place?

so yeah.