StormyWrites

Dude Ranch Hola!

I am writing this from the Denver airport. We went on a cattle drive; the cows were wholly uncooperative. We were supposed to be there playing rancher cowboy for 3 hours and we were out there for 5 1/2 hours because cows don’t like corners and we couldn’t quit early because we had no idea the way back. There was one path. One. And they would not make the turn. Kept backing up, scooting away. And we paid for this. I can promise you : there are no cattle drive vegetarians. When we were finally back at the home base ranch barns, we went out for lunch and everyone ordered burgers. Kind of the low ultimate revenge: you make me sit in a saddle with chafed thighs for extra time, I will literally eat you.

6 week countdown til you are d.u.n. done! Last Christmas they took away your funbags. This Christmas you’ll be restored. That’s progress. And amazing how much happens in a year. I’m getting your hubby a “save motorboating” t-shirt when that restorative procedure takes place. So glad you are feeling better. You sound so good! You look so good! You’ve got hair and you’re all svelte – all things positive!

So great to see you and your girls last week before we all headed out on vaca.

Mayberry Melieu to You!

Ha, I wish, but there is one super fun household update: we got a puppy! She is beautiful and we love her and everyone has been pitching in to help take care of her just like she said they would.

Ha, I wish THAT last part was true. Hugo was so easy. Having an old dog is pure love: you tell ’em it’s too early and they plunk back down. They eat their kibble and don’t require much exercise and are just sweet. Hugo didn’t even bother to get up when we had a breakin: he just laid there and let the fear of his mass speak for itself. Puppies are amazing but they also do shit like eat table legs and shoes and they get up every few hours. It’s like a furry toddler. I did not heed the whine fast enough the other night, full out surfer style wipe out head over heels slipped on wet pile of dung and realized there was a reason I keep Stanley Steemer on speed dial. It was three a.m. and I was in the laundry room stripping down poo clothing. That company must LOVE puppies. Their marketing should be in cahoots with breeders and rescues: like ambulance chasers that pin their business cards on folks being wheeled into the ER, they could include a coupon with every adoption.

We said we would try to keep the furniture fur to a minimum. The dog now sleeps on the pillow with her body wrapped around Pete’s head. Which is concerning because I see what happens in the crate if we (I) don’t move fast enough, but she’s so dang cute. That’s what gets you.

We tried to get a rescue and kept getting denied as the organizations said our home was “unfit”. That’s the word they all used. Unfit. Because we back up to a busy road and we aren’t allowed to have real above ground fences. I kept a lab alive for 14 years; we are trying to rescue a dog found cornered in a chicken coop in Oklahoma and you’re telling me my 3000 square foot home in a midwest golf course community is unfit? So we went back to the breeder where we got Hugo and we got a call that there was one puppy left and we are now in love again.

Defund the police?

High school party gone wrong.

So we put our name on the puppy list from the breeder where we got Hugo; which led Chase to apply to be a foster dog for a local charity which is great in theory. Except that he got the dog (who is super cute because he is a puppy), got the kids all jacked about it, and – here’s the peace de resistance – renamed it after his beloved former boss that was like a mentor father to him. That’s why they – regardless of whether it’s a person, a creature, or even a particularly friendly looking rock, – always say don’t name it;. and why I don’t foster dogs because I would have to buy serious acreage somewhere as I would want to keep them all.

Sideline parent scouting report: this is what I provide to Chase. I don’t know if he listens to me less (probably) or more than other parents, but I am able to keep him captive when we are watching Cookie. The latest is the uniforms. He’s been mixing and matching home and away uniforms. Boys were winning when they weren’t mixed. And baseball parents can be surly baseline superstitious pirates, so it’s best to address. Chase said he wished he could attribute the losses to the uniforms; but he also hasn’t mixed them since and the boys have been playing some serious baller baseball: best games of the season. Who’da thunk that between the dog and getting Julian on a good team that we’ve made our way back to some sort of common ground? Hope springs eternal. We have never been pining to get back together. A good friend of mine made a card for his mom when his parents got divorced. On the front was a picture of Fat Albert and inside it said “Happy Divorce. I hey-hey-hate you!” Kevin was seven and that show was pretty popular with the after school tv sect. That was Chase and me: no longing for lost times. For a while I was so bedraggled that I could not even fathom that we ever had any good times. But that is about the lack of us. Despite that, we have always been team kids even if it meant sitting through crap like santa brunches trying to eat and avoid eye contact while not saying anything to take away from the kid moment. He still thinks he’s paying my mortgage and I still think he’s a manslut boob, but the contentious snarl from each of us seems to have abated.

I shoulda done like you. The starter marriage is seriously underrated. Get that crap out of your system. Turns out a lot of us might be the bride for the wedding for the bride for the marriage types. There’s the pressure. At one point my mother lost her shit with me, practically screaming when yet another friend’s child gave birth saying “black, white, christian, jewish, I don’t care! Just give me a goddam grandchild!” This was while I was home over winter break during my second year of law school.

The starter marriage lets you check that box, recalibrate and, most importantly, break ties in a see you later never way. You just gotta do it before you have kids or one of you makes a boat ton of money more than the other. Once you have kids, which is the big win of the relationship, you are in it for the long haul until they reach the age of legal majority or your obligation to provide healthcare benefits and life insurance finally runs your divorce decree settlement course.

Find yourself two months into marriage and your spouse call you – from the bar at work – saying they are going to Florida with their pal, booked the flight with your credit card and you can’t go because their is not enough money? Throw their crap on the front yard and change the locks because all you got to walk away from is a … starter marriage!

Try to spend an extra day with your sister on a trip that coincided with work travel and catch hell for not coming home? Starter marriage!

Find out that your spouse gave away your bonus to pay for the taxes on his parent’s second home that’s far nicer than your first and only? Start-er-Mar-riage!

You can walk away from that shit. And it won’t cost you nearly as much financially or emotionally. You can move on. And you’ll be the better spouse because settling is no longer in the cards. Sure, you’ll catch hell from your mom who now realizes having that grandkid likely just got waylaid a few more years, but she doesn’t have to live your life. And if she forgave you for running the car into the boat, for blaming the dog for ruining the heirloom antique table and for the gazillion other parent shame moment you were too arrogant to even acknowledge, she’ll get over this. Offer to comp her one trip to do something fun: a few nights in Charleston or a kick ass spa day, and you’ll be back in the good graces.

Not me. All that stuff happened and I stayed. And I did my list of crummy things too, no doubt. Pride kept me from seeing the signs. And so by staying on that sinking ship, thinking that just because I could hear the bank still playing that all would be fine, I am stuck in Upscale Mayberry. Seven more winters til Julian graduates and we are outta here.

It’s crazy how divorce works. You start out a sludge laden submarine in the bottom of a canal and you end up a speedboat careening over warm island waters. You get married and it all goes south. So south that you cannot stay. Not because you want to. You want more than anything in that moment for things to work out. You try everything. And when all hope is lost; and you can no longer protect what you must, you leave. Walking out of the courthouse on the day your divorce is finalized should feel liberating. Which it is. But it’s also scary AF. Because for the first time in a long time and at a totally different stage of your life, you are legally alone. If you lose your job; it’s on you and there’s no financial safety net (which Chase had already spent but still). If you get sick, there’s no one to take care of you. If someone breaks into your house, it’s you alone with the baseball bat waiting to swing if they come close to the steps to your children’s rooms. Even though you know this is best and what you wanted and needed because you contributed but you sure AF did not cause the mayhem that led to this, you still have this well to climb out of; fingers slipping on slimy moss limestone walls with a lot of darkness on those nights when it’s too cold to walk the dog and you’ve had to leave your kids with your then enemy no. 1. You don’t sleep well when they’re not under your roof. And you find yourself lying down on your son’s bed to inhale the sweet smell of his pillow. You are a submarine: sludging through the bottom an at times pitch black canal. Then you start to climb out of the well, you start to see the light. The debt you incurred starts to evaporate. Your credit goes from okay to great. And you start to build a cadre of new memories, new ways of doing things. You figure out how to cook more meals. Your friends show up. Again and again and again and again. Your confidence grows. You are okay with yourself. It’s okay if in the end for the rest of time it’s just you. And then, if you’re even luckier, you come across someone new to love. And that loves you in a way and time in your life that makes it all feel different in the best way. That you love and let into your life and elevates you out of want, not need. And everything feels better again. You feel in the driver’s seat; and you realize you’ve gone from sludgy submarine to speedboat darting across aquamarine waters warm and clear enough to dive into when the windswept air calms to a stir.

Wicked Witch of the Western Suburbs writing to you live!

Sydney wants to go into the city for an environmental save the earth protest, but the woman running the organization had a call the other nite touting what to do when you get arrested for protesting (wtf?! these are middle schoolers! The lesson is how NOT to get arrested. She also mentioned that she went “to Columbia” at least four times on the call; so I checked and she went to Columbia State College in South Carolina, NOT the one she purposely faux-tended in New York). And the city has given way to hoodlums. You can’t even go by the Bean anymore without high chance of there being a riot on any given nice night weather evening. And they have a new mayor who is lockstep with Kim Foxx, for whom I’m convinced there is a special place in hell next to cell block Clinton specially reserved for all the lives she’s cost for political gain, that victimizes the perpetrators of heinous crimes because they did not come from affluence. It all started with the last mayor failing to dust off the brass ovaries whose epic fail in letting BLM take over the city; even though ransacking Louis Vuitton and Gucci has nothing to do with that cause. And it’s been downhill ever since.

So, no, Sydney. You cannot take the train in to go to an environmental protest slated to occur in the loop in time for the evening news. I love her love of the environment, dedication to learning about responsible urban planning and how that ties to the health and well being of people and the earth everywhere, but holding hands with someone as they jump off the brooklyn bridge for a cause that’s not really yours is worse than folly. It’s dangerous.

We are past the “I hate you.” “I wish I lived with dad.” and other kid shaming moves mastered by the unfortunate kids of divorce. She can call me every name in the book. I’m still not letting her catapult into danger. Her brain won’t be fully developed for another decade.

It takes a village to raise a child but it only takes you and one moron to make it.

I’d wish you the best, but you’ve already had it.

Hey now! Who doesn’t love a pinot noir drinking otter in a Windsor chair? I find cards like this and can’t help but think that clearly, the rest of the world is doing way better drugs than me. Then again, all I’m taking is a daily vitamin, so I’m not trying very hard.

How you feeling? Healthy and bored from the last time we spoke is good. Psyched about our city day planned with the kids next month. Ironic how palliative urban concrete and culture can be.