Personal Post

Yesterday the husband and I went up to Bellingham early. The purpose was to visit my mom’s grave, as it was her birthday a short time ago, we had just gotten the solar Christmas lights they would want, and then to continue my photography project where I photograph all of the old places I lived.

The first place in Bellingham we stopped at was Fred Meyer’s for flowers and a super rich, chocolate frosted, chocolate cupcake with a chocolate straw and sprinkles on it. My mom loved chocolate cake with chocolate icing and would always sneak it in even with her diabetes.

We visited their grave and noted that our solar candle and wind chimes are still there. That was a surprise to both of us as we figured when we put them up in May, we would have to replace them every few months either due to teenagers, or just the weather.

We pulled out the solar Christmas lights and realized we didn’t have any ties to run it up the shepherds crook. We will be going up the weekend after Thanksgiving to put a Christmas wreath on it so we will just put the lights up then. We would wait closer to Christmas to spread out the going up now and then, but with the hubby’s surgery the following Tuesday Nov. 28th, we won’t be able to come up until after Christmas.

I felt a bit guilty since I hadn’t been up there in almost five months and due to work/injuries and stress I put off doing it. My goal is to come up four times a year to visit, both of their birthdays, wedding anniversary and Christmas. I realize over time this will probably lessen, but I guess there hasn’t been enough time yet.

While we were up there, we went to visit my brother who had just gotten out of rehab and is temporarily staying at his ex’s place with his kids. We dropped off a HD video camera we bought about five years ago since our phones and my camera match it to them. The kids evidently have youtube channels and wanted a better camera to film. I am glad to see my brother, sister (in-law unofficially) and younger grouping of nephew and niece.

We then went around to the remaining places I lived in Bellingham and photographed them as they look now. All I have left after this is the Everett, Lake Stevens, and Seattle areas, but the Whatcom County areas for living are done. I was incredibly pleased when they hubby said I could photograph his old places he lived in before being with me. We will do that the weekend we come up to put the wreath and lights up. I also told him I considered doing the same of a project of all the places I worked (dozens and dozens of places, literally), because it is a larger scale then the living, we will see if that goes that way.

We then left town and on our way back stopped by Flyer’s Restaurant and Brewery (their Burlington location). I will probably do a full Yelp review, but suffice to say the burger was really good, the staff was nice, but it was not quite the atmosphere we were looking for.

We were wanting to check it out as a possible entry in our 2019 book we are trying to get started that is a guide to greasy spoons and American diners in Western Washington. Way to upscale a place. Its on the Skagit Regional Airport and people literally can fly their small planes in and park next to the restaurant. Not what we were looking for, but still pretty good meals.

We then got home and before I could pull of my walking cast and rest, the drain pipe of our garbage disposal cracked and spilled everywhere. Hubby was great, he jumped in, cleaned up the water as I watched helplessly unable to help with my cast. We then called maintenance and they put a plug on the drain and supposedly this week they will repair it (replace is probably more likely).

Well that was my day today, went pretty well overall. All that matters is I got to spend it with my best friend and husband (yes they are the same person).

Throwback Thursday: I want to say this was 1977 with my little sister Jackie.
#tbt #childhood

TBT – The three siblings, Jackie, myself, and little brother Derek. August 11, 2007. Damn 7 years already?

This is an abbreviated version, with how annoyed I am, I am sure I will post more on each detail in the future. I am going to break it up into readable parts though.

Background: First, as a bit of background I have grown up to the tunes of Meat Loaf. Yes, I like him, yes he does cause anxiety when I hear his music on occasion. He is a favorite singer my parents listened to, especially when they were on a full drunk binge. So while I like his music (a lot), it does give me a bit of hesitation to consider going to see him. However, I really do like his music.
Prologue: About a month ago my brother asked me to go see Meat Loaf. I explained I wasn’t too sure due to money and the fact it was the weekend before Dying Light (combined with J and T’s wedding and them coming up the weekend before that and the DL before that I wont have a full weekend off in a month). So I declined. I then get a call a week later from my parents. They were on a binge (its a lot rarer these days but it does still happen, at least my dad doesn’t go beat the crap out of cops anymore).  I got a full night of calls from them pleading with me to go with my Brother and my Sister to see Meat Loaf, to do it “for them” since they aren’t able to go due to health reasons. I eventually said fine. Now, I am fine with seeing Meat Loaf, but I knew then this wouldn’t end pretty and due to family guilt I was trapped. However, hubby avoided the situation and said no, however poor finnegwyn decided to come as moral support for me.

Event 1: About two weeks ago we discover its more than the siblings and one friend/significant other. Another friend of my brother decides to come. We all hesitate, but fine, my brother’s friend has been around my family for 15 years and we know him so its good. Then about a week ago my brother’s friend’s girlfriend decides to come. Even more uncomfortable but fine. Then 4 days ago we find out that my brother’s GF has decided to ship all six of them from Bellingham (the concert is in Snoqualmie, 120 miles from Bellingham, 50 miles from Everett). The plan is to meet at my house, go to IHOP then head out.

THE DAY OF:

Event 2: I am waiting with hubby for my family to arrive. Of course my wife isn’t going, but we are hanging. talkswithwind shows up to start working on boffer weapons (YAY!!). Finally finnegwyn shows up. I find out my family is running late and so I am a bit anxious. I get a call at 2pm (the time they are supposed to be here) from my sister. Evidently my brother’s girlfriend had rear-ended a suburban. No one was hurt, but the Taurus wasn’t drivable. I go and ferry all six people to my house (it happened at exit 198, about 8 miles from my house) in two loads. 

I should have stopped the whole situation here. There are nine people going, and only my car. I shouldn’t have even allowed discussion on options. If I have learned something vital from this situation, its to not keep quiet. For the next two hours there is a weird on again/off again discussion of if we are going to drive them back to Bellingham or try to keep going to the concert. This included the idea that my brother’s friend’s girlfriend would go up to Bellingham, get her car, drive down and help haul everyone to the concert. When the concert was over we would both transport everyone to my house and then she would make two trips to Bellingham to drop everyone off. Something sounded off about this and more talk continued. 

I do set up my brother and his girlfriend with my Triple AAA so they can tow the car back. The plan (after considering rentals, even of renting an U-Haul passenger van) was that two people would ride back with the Tow Truck driver, 1 would ride back with talkswithwind and the rest with me.This seems to be the decision and from what I can see probably the best decision. Maybe we would go see “The Expendables” when we got up there. 

Yet…. as can be seen by the title, that was not the final bit (will continue on another post, so I don’t kill you with too much text).

Well this wasn’t the update I wanted to post, but its funny how things happen so close together.

First let me say I know my family loves me, I love them, but they are by far one of the most dysfunctional groups I have ever known. Lets give you a brief recap of my family before I vent.

Parents: Father is a Vietnam Vet with a long prison/police record for violence(but for the record never sexual/physicall abused us, and the name calling only happend when he was drunk). In my early life he worked constantly and did well, my last 20 years or so he became unfortunately a raging alcoholic who after getting put away for a DUI has been sober (from alcohol) for over 2 years. My mother is a sweetheart, never did anything bad except a constant habit of asking for stuff from me, but thats easily satisfied, she has been a good mother albeit now she has diabetes and had a heart attack last summer (but the doctors were surprised no damage and they dont think she will have any more problems, and this was a serious only 20% live heart attack she had). Unfortunatley my parents have done/sold/excessed every drug known to man.

Sister: Loves me, I know it, has two kids (one feral one not, the not one I am sure will be gay when he is 16). Followed my parents footsteps, is an alcoholic, cant keep a job and really only calls me for help.

Brother: Same as sister except he sometimes shows remarkable clarity and wants to clean his life up, biggest problem is he is a lazy ass who doesn’t like to work.

By the way, in the 17 years I have worked on my own, I have never ever once asked my siblings for a dime, a ride or anything. NOT EVER. (and actually I have loaned my parents money 20 times more then I have ever gotten from them and same with rides/etc). Thats why this is so frustrating.

There is more about the family, but I realized that would take up way too much space.

So this morning I get up super early, my mom asked me to give her a ride over to the Salvation Army so they can pick up a chair, no problems, I don’t mind doing that at all. So I get up super early, call them at the time I am supposed to be there because I have this sinking feeling that they are on a “run” (non alcoholic, but on other things, not meth though). My dad answered the phone and immediately I know they are jagged and not going. He kinda rambles on about not needing me today and I quickly get off the phone because I hate talking to him when he is ramped up. My mom is asleep and she called later, everything is cool. So I got up early for nothing (albeit I have been working on MU’s backend and its going to fucking rock).

Ten minutes later I get a call from my sister. I was surprised and hopeful she just wanted to say hi. I should have known, her first words were, “Can I borrow $20 until tommorrow”. I normally would probably do it, she is good at paying back usually but I am broke. I told her so and she accepted it gracefully but I could tell she didn’t believe I was broke, so this frustrated me even more.

Five minutes after that I get a call from my brother. His first words are “What you doing today?” I explained that I am going to work (and I have a feeling he is going to ask for something). His next words are he needs me to come over and fix his computer. I tell him I would be happy to do that but it might be Saturday before I can come over (tonight when I get home from work I have to spend with wifey since she is off) and I am not sure if I will be able to make it over there later (he constantly nags me to give him things, fix his computer, etc and I just wasn’t sure when I wanted to commit to going over there since thats all he usually wants from me). He has a fit and asks why cant I come over there after work tonight, I try to explain but he is still having a cow. I ask him “are you paying me to do this?” because now I am feeling taken advantage of, and he starts throwing a bigger hissy fit. Now after the previous two phone calls and his fit throwing I lose my temper and say “fix it yourself” and hang up. Of course he calls back, wondering if we are going to work things out I answer and he says “fine I will” and hangs up.

So, all three of my blood-family groups have been fucktards today (although my parents less so – they didn’t say anything or do anything bad, they just didn’t follow through). Why is it the only family around me that doesn’t piss me off is my non-blood family whom I am feeling closer to then my blood.