There's Angry Knitting in My Future

So.

I'm going to sound like a selfish little shit for writing this. Please bear with me.

My aunt, (the aunt who let us use her condo in Hawaii for our honeymoon) who owns nine hundredy million houses and has more money than all of us reading combined, somehow managed to obtain my grandmother's house when she died. (It's a long, complicated story where she fucked over the majority of the family. The end.)

This house has essentially sat empty since she took ownership. No one was allowed to visit, to use it, while she was away. (When my dad was first diagnosed with kidney failure, his dialysis clinic was literally 5 minutes from this house. Also, about 2+hours from HIS house. He asked his sister if he could stay there while he was waiting to be transferred to another, closer clinic, rather than commuting 5 hours a day 3 days a week and! She said NO.)

Anyway, I haven't had access or opportunity to go to this house more than twice in the 9 years since my grandmother passed away. I think about it often--it is a major part of my childhood memory, every holiday was spent there, every time I went to visit my grandmother, growing up, playing the piano, on and on and on. I recently was talking to T about how I wanted to talk to my aunt about our going over to see the house because it is such a huge part of my family's history.

Cut to this evening, when I spoke with my cousin. He asked me if he would see me at Christmas, and I said, I dunno, are you coming over here?

He then informed me that my aunt is SELLING my grandmother's house, and to "Celebrate", is having one last family holiday on site. When I said that I hadn't been invited to this, my cousin essentially hung up on me to call his mother.

My aunt promptly called me, invited me, told me how much she would love for me and T to come, blah blah blah.

I'm compelled to go. T can't go--he's working.

I cried. I am crying. It's so stupid, it's just a house. But I can't wrap my mind around my aunts thinking--she knows how important that house is to her kids! To her family--she doesn't care. She owns no less than 5 OTHER houses--this is the one she wants to sell.

So I'm going. And I'm going to do my damndest to be kind and happy and not scratch her eyes out. And T is staying here.

So much for our first Christmas as newlyweds.

Italian Man on a Wet Cold Roof

So T climbed into the attic yesterday (Something of an adventure to say the least) to look at the exhaust conduit for the fan in our bathroom and learned 2 things.

1)The exhaust pipe thing is chrome and full of condensation, since we live in the RAIN FOREST and it's venting a bathroom that is often used for showers and other moist activities. (This is the story of our house's life. Seriously. There's so much 'WTF' going on in the construction it's insane. (For instance: bathroom we painted? WE took the switch plate cover things off and none of the wires are grounded the way they're supposed to be for bathrooms and all the wires are corroded from being in a moist environment. We replaced them, obvs., but there's shit like that all over. Doesn't make for a comfortable 'safe' feeling.)

2)There is slight water damage to the wood above the bathroom (very slight, says T)which leads him to believe that this is a 2 fold moisture problem: The roof and the condensation. When we bought the house the roof had 5-10 years left, and that was 3 years ago....WE CAN'T AFFORD THIS SHIT.

The master bathroom is full of mold. FULL of mold. The wall around the shower, down by the baseboard, is moldy moldy moldy. I spray it with bleach all the time, we bought some of that Kilz shit for the other bathroom and I think I'm going to slather the bathroom in it today. The whole room needs to be gutted to the studs to get the mold out. (Yet another home owner surprise: They didn't use green board in the bathrooms. SURPRISE!)

The bakery drama continues.

J has a new lady friend, which is nice because he tries to impress her by showing how clean, neat and helpful he is. Granted, I'm a horrible bitch and rather than just taking the help and smiling, I take the help and make comments about what a nice change this is, how unused to his assistance I am, etc.

Well, I have laundry to do and mold to clean and clothes to put away....

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was fun.

I exhausted myself, but it was fun. And I didn't hear any complaints from the guests, so that makes it a success in my mind.

I'm still exhausted. All I want to do is sleep, lay around, enjoy the comfort that is my couch.

We painted the main bathroom. By 'we' I mean T's brother C. (I sorta helped. Painted corners, edges, and one wall.) It looks so much better--seriously.

However, I woke up this morning, went into the master bathroom, (also known as the tiniest room in the house, right off of our bedroom) and looked up at the fan.

The paint is blistered around it, it's wet, water is dripping out of the fan. It smells moldy.

Which means.....

We get to tear out the bathroom. Which is a project that we can't afford. Hooray! But it's better than being sick.

Counting down

I need to run my vacuum cleaner. I need to clean J's bathroom. I need to put away the laundry. Go to the grocery store.

I would rather do what I've been doing, you know, laying on the couch in my bathrobe refusing to bathe or eat.

Instead, I will do what I do best: Pretend.

Ok, there's more

I'm alone a lot lately. I mean, whatever. I'm the unemployed slob in a house filled with working people. J is a party boy and only comes home to sleep and do laundry a few times a week. T works 48 hours a week, shift work, either gone all day or gone all night. I went from living, breathing, existing only to bake for those horrible people, busting my ass, going straight from work to see my coworkers and commiserate, straight from commiseration to home where I would see T either home from work and feed him and fall exhausted into bed, or see him off to work and then feed myself and fall exhausted into bed. Now....Nothing. Stasis.

It's a good thing, you know? I know this. I know it's good to take time off to recover from the shit box bakery and the terrorism therein.

But being alone? Makes me think. Makes me think a lot. About stuff I don't want to think about, things I don't ever think about, things that I don't like, that I fear, that I'd just as soon leave in their little boxes on their cataloged shelves in my brain and let them collect dust into infinity.

I understand that you have to think about things, process things, to get past them, to move on, whatever. But I really would just rather not.

I don't want to think about my stepdad, so I don't. Just, you know, don't. Unless it's a funny story about him being silly or doing something funny. I don't think about how he died, I don't think about what that meant, what I had to do because of it. How it changed me. Whatever. We've been over this before.

I don't think about my dad. Same as above. We've been over it before.

I don't think about my mom. I only talk to her in the morning when she's sober, and even then, I don't let her in. I keep her at arms length. I don't deal with her, with the past, whatever. I went down that road while we were planning the wedding and it resulted in T nearly taking me to the hospital.

But there's one thing that's been really waltzing to the front of my mind lately. Over, and over again. Because it really, truly shaped me in ways I don't like. It's changed every relationship I've had since then, and probably every relationship I will have forever.

I trust 2 people. Two. I know that doesn't sound so bad, and it really doesn't, you know? I have my husband and one friend. That's better than a lot of people. I'm lucky to have them, lucky to be able to know in my heart of hearts that they will always be there, without judgement, without reservation, loving me for who I am, never selling me out, throwing me under the bus, playing me. They don't have ulterior motives, aren't cataloging my words to use against me later.

Fuck, it was like, 6 years ago? We've been over this. Over the day I woke up and all my friends and lovers weren't. They hated me, stole my stuff, took my money, tried to turn people against me, put my cat to sleep and sent me the bill after I was gone, tried to trash my credit. Used my words against me and made me the scapegoat. Part of me can see why they would be mad, why they would want me out of their lives. But. I also know things that make me realize that I didn't deserve that, no one does.

But it's made me suspicious. Of everyone. Just because you're my friend today doesn't mean that you won't be tomorrow and for reasons I don't understand. Kindness means nothing. There is no such thing as loyalty when it comes to me. I know that I am being genuine, that I'm being kind a loyal and caring because I want to be, but I don't think anyone else is.

And so when I hear things being said about me, cruel things, untrue things, things that were taken out of context, things that could easily be resolved were people willing to just talk to me about it--it brings it all back. It reminds me that anyone is capable of anything. Just because you've been kind to me in the past doesn't mean you give a fucking shit about me or ever did. Doesn't mean that you wouldn't turn your back on me in a moment.

It stresses me out. I'm really trying to work on it. I need to quiet my mind and not over analyze things. Good fucking luck.

So I don't understand. I don't understand why people do what they do. I don't really care. It basically boils down to the idea that I pretty much believe that just about everyone in my life would be willing to sell me down the river without so much as a second thought.

So, you know? It's not a great way to live, with these walls, these razor wire fences up, but it has been shown to be time and time again that if you open that fence, pull a brick out of the wall--the tanks roll in, the barrels of the guns are thrust in your face.

I'm tired. Exhausted, even. Just, you know? Exhausted, but I can't sleep. Haven't slept. Won't.

Diet Pepsi and Yarn

I have a lot of yarn. Like, a lot a lot. (That's a term of measurement that T and I use often.)

I have a huge rubbermaid container FILLED. 3 cloth shopping bags FILLED. A huge bowl on the coffee table FILLED. And yet...I need more. Duh!

T took me (he had just started to get sick and I was very nearly on the cusp of it) down to the resort where I used to work because a very big deal yarn company and the Yarn Harlot were there. And, you know, I need yarn. And like Canadians.

So while T and I milled around and said hi to my old coworkers (the ones we don't hate, anyway) there was much yarn dyeing and knitting class teaching going on around me.

And as we left the commercial kitchen, I ran into the Harlot. She was supposed to be teaching a class but was on her way to....take a break. So I did get to see the knitting celebrity. That's something. I even managed to refrain from yelling "Thank you for teaching me to knit socks!" at her. Being a stranger and all.

So we went and got yarn and I was happy.

And then we both got horribly sick. Fever. Aches. Chills. Snot. T says that we made SnotTron together.

I haven't exercised for a week. Ugh. That whole not being able to breathe thing, combined with the fact that for a few days walking to the bathroom was not something I could really do alone, and once I was on the mend the exertion of putting sheets in the washing machine was too much for me and I had to go lie down.

Sigh.

So. Thanksgiving. It's on its merry little way. There's a lot of cooking and baking in my future.

Phone bloggers 'r' us

Blogging from my phone again. I have lots to say, really, but I don't know that I'm going to be able to muster the thumb strength to get it all out.

I don't know. I mean, really. I'm really trying to work on some parts of myself that I don't agree with. Like, sometimes it's better to just keep your mouth shut when you're pissed off. Say nothing, move on. So long as you're as to move on and not brood. (that's the hangup. The brooding.) seriously tho? I wish people were nicer and thought more before making rash judgements.

I lost 12 pounds.

They closed the bakery and fired everyone with no notice. Yesterday.

I had awesome knitting time this weekend before the horrible illness fell on me and T.