Driver's Ed

This morning was a typically quiet morning for me filled my the usual errands such as my almost daily trip to the post office (happy eBayer here!) and buying some 'important' item that one of my children requested before heading off to school.  Sounds easy enough, no?  It would have been had I not been a magnet for the world's most annoying drivers.  There must have been a contest that I was not aware of because the bad drivers were out in force today and everyone of them seemed to track me down on my little less than four mile jaunt into town.  There was the person who rode the brakes for a mile plus long stretch causing me to travel at the break neck speed of 5 mph in a 40 mph zone.  Then there was my friend the tailgater who clearly wanted to try out the dimensions of my trunk and, had I not been paying close attention, probably would have since he rode so close to my bumper.  I thought I might have have been finished with annoying drivers once I lost 'up my bumper' until I practically ran into my friend "Mrs. Stop at the Green Light."  I will admit that I have made mistakes while driving, accidents would be non-existent if people did not make mistakes after all, but at least I react to blaring car horns.  This woman had zero response to my horn--none--which causes me great concern.  Was she sick, merely did not realize the light was already green, was she stoned?  I don't mean to make light of this as this driver may have been having some sort of problem today but how scary to think that she was non-reactive to a car horn.  I am terrified to think of the accident she could have caused had I been too close to her or if the driver behind me had not been paying close attention to the road.

I now have a new driver in our family so I worry all the time, and not only about his driving, but I am concerned  about the types of drivers I met today and how my son will react to them being so new behind the wheel.  I was thinking that perhaps we could all benefit from a driving refresher course every few years or so that might remind drivers that signaling a turn is a good thing and that cutting someone off and then proceeding to drive well below the speed limit is not.  A little common courtesy when driving goes a long way and so does remembering that red means STOP and green means GO.

Oh, The Irony!

This morning my husband mentioned to me that he needed to leave for work earlier than usual.  Being so thrilled that he has a job to leave the house for I was not even going to ask why but he volunteered the information anyway.  I wish he had not.  Apparently, he was off to have a networking meeting with someone he had met along his journey to employment because this person wanted to know how...wait for it...he landed his current position with this particular company so quickly.  "Quickly?," I said or perhaps shouted.  This was quickly?  Let's review and you make the call.  Three years ago he started applying to this company and over the course of those years he applied for 20+ positions and asked quite a few of the company's employees whom he knew for assistance.  Apparently, it is next to impossible to get into this company without help from the inside.  Your resume needs to be accompanied by solid recommendations from current employees to move forward, for the most part, so if you don't know anyone who works there, your resume had better be freaking amazing or you need not waste your time.  After multiple interviews, we then waited a grueling few weeks for a response which to some may seem like a short period of time. However, for those who have waited countless weeks only to find out that you were the front runner who lost out to an internal candidate or that the scope of the job had changed and you were no longer being considered, these weeks were inescapably long and anxiety-filled.  So, I think 3 years of applications, putting yourself on the line with friends, multiple interviews and the killer wait to the decision do not 'quickly' make, do you?

My daughter always mocked the fact that her older MS brother consistently forgot to bring home his gym clothes and would always need to take a fresh pair from home.  She could not understand how something so seemingly simple could present such a problem for him...until she got to MS herself this year.  Apparently, she suffers from the same ill as her brother and cannot remember to go get those gym clothes.  When I asked her about this she told me that she had not realized how hard it could be to remember to go back to the gym before leaving school and that she had been wrong to laugh at her brother. It seemed like an easy thing until she had to do it herself. She also went on to tell me that she was only 11 years old and that she had plenty of time to remember the lesson about not judging a person without walking a mile in his shoes.  I hope she does.  Quickly, huh?  I think not.

Big Fat Liar

 Remember when I mentioned just a few blogs back--go ahead, I will give you a few minutes to either read it for the first time or refresh your memory by re-reading the blog in question...ready?--about taking the book of our life from the past three years and putting it high up on a shelf so that we never have to read it again?  Well, this morning it 'fell' off the shelf and hit me square in the head. I told you that I was going to move forward, but I lied as I am still mired in the past.  You see today is an emotion-filled day for two reasons.  First, my son was born fourteen years ago today.  He was born a week past his due date which foreshadowed his personality though I was not aware of that at the time. He is wildly passionate about everything, both negative and positive, which makes for an interesting if stressful life with him. He believes that all thinking must be 'outside the box' which adds not only to his incredible personality but also ramps up the stress level as I could not be anymore linear in my thinking if I tried.  Stress aside, he never fails to make me laugh with his incomparable voices, imitations, facial expressions and dance moves.  I love him to pieces.

On a different note, one year ago today we waved good-bye to my husband as he began his drive to Boston to start his new job.  I had everything that I wanted at that moment; we were going home.  Five weeks later, we crashed and burned and something inside me snapped. I am definitely not the same person I was a year ago and despite trying to move forward and not dwell in the past, dwell in the past is all that I seem capable of doing these days.  Talk about a life-altering event.  Losing that job changed everything from my attitude to my son's college choices.  It has made me leery of feeling that happy as I now spend my time waiting for the other shoe to drop and even if it does not, just like Pavlov's dogs, I am conditioned to be wary.  The worst part is it seems that the shoe does drop thereby further reinforcing my concerns and worries time and time again.  A vicious cycle that I have been unable to break as yet.

The new job is good but it is 'here' and not 'there' and while I always thought where we lived would not matter, I am finding as I grow older that it really does matter to me.  My post-Boston debacle self has also come to realize that for the 'new me' good enough is not really good enough at all.

(author's note:  for those concerned that I am going to be a real party pooper for my son tonight, fear not, I am a master at leaving my feelings on paper where my children are concerned.  Pancakes (his birthday dinner of choice) and cake (what's a birthday without cake?) and presents this evening...with a double shot of Rolaids to follow.  Party on!)

Bid On This

Want to know a dirty little secret?  I have become an eBay reseller.  Interestingly, if you query 'what is eBay' as I just did you get quite a euphemism ('an American multi-national internet consumer-to-consumer corporation.' Thank you, Wikipedia) for its real-life function which is a online garage sale on steroids.  My son had been after me for the longest time to sell on eBay but I always dismissed the idea as ridiculous because of how time consuming posting an item seemed to be.  First, you had to take pictures, then download the pictures, then upload the pictures to the site, then price the item, write a description and the worst step of all...figuring out the postage.  Of course, the bottom line was always was too much effort for far too little return.  Then I got an iPad and I got the eBay app and a whole new perspective took hold.  What had been complicated was now akin to 'one stop shopping' and my new 'job' took shape.

I cannot believe the incredibly weird things that people sell on the site from Bentleys to used Victoria's Secret bras.  Now I don't know about you but I am unsettled at the thought of other people even trying on clothes before I buy them even though I wash the items before I wear them. But a used bra?  No way! The amazing this is that they are hot sellers with bids in the double digits for each one. I also love the stories, either factual or an effort in creative writing, that sellers put in their copy especially in the engagement ring section.  One of my favorites was written by a man who said that he had gone out of his way to upgrade his wife's engagement ring but that she wanted a Louis Vuitton bag instead and she 'made' him put the ring on eBay so that she could get the bag.  I love it, fact or fiction, it makes a great read.

While I don't know how long I will continue to enjoy this vehicle for spring cleaning and making room for new things, with all the hours of research I have been doing and all the crazy items I have seen up for sale, 'caveat emptor' should be emblazoned under the masthead of eBay site.  Happy bidding!

Where Did He Go?

Okay, I have looked everywhere.  I checked downstairs, upstairs and outside but there is no sign of my husband anywhere.  I am staring to get really worried because his car is missing, too.  He is always here after I drop the children off at school so I just cannot imagine why his car would not be in the driveway or why he is not sitting at the computer when I walked in.  Oh, wait a minute...he got a job!  He is not here because he is at work. Strange.  I suppose this is yet another 'new normal' for us.  It is going to take a while to get used to, you know?  Three years is a long time to be out of work and from my perspective to have another person hanging out with you daily when you are used to riding solo was no walk in the park.  We have always had very clearly defined areas of responsibility with my husband's being work and mine being the children, the house, the errands and, of course, Phoebe.  With him home for so long, he started encroaching on my territory which was definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he took over all the after school driving which was fabulous.  I thought a lot about how I wanted to handle the 'flip-side' explanation so that I would not sound like a wench nor would I hurt my husband's feelings. Suffice it to say, then, that I am a very controlling person who enjoys being solely in charge of her domain--having to include my husband in the daily decision-making process really cramped my style (was that PC enough?).

That said, I am going to miss the morning coffee he always bought for me and the lunch companion with whom I shared all my thoughts, anxieties and dreams.  All I know is Phoebe had better watch out because I am going to talk her little fluffy ears off.  So the way I see it, it is a total 'win' for me as my husband is working and my new companion only looks at me affectionately but offers no opinions.  It is nice to start to feel normal again.

It.Is.Over.

Three years and 18 days.  A terribly long time to be out of work but as of today, we get to change that status to employed.  I must admit that as thrilled as we are to finally have a job, the victory is surprisingly hollow.  After having fought a very long and very difficult battle, and battle it was, our victory brings with it a whole new set of problems as the salary is far from what we are used to and the job is located here...and we all know how much I fantasized about leaving here, now don't we?  My mom, an incorrigible optimist (did I mention I take after my dad?), wants me to look at this as a stepping stone and to continue to work toward my dream of moving back east. I must admit that I do get frustrated by our new found need to 'make do' with what we have and I long to return to my old life, not my life of three years ago, but the one before that when I was genuinely happy.

 I have learned a lot about people and relationships over the past three years and I have certainly learned a lot about myself.  I may have joked a lot about going over the edge, but interestingly,  I never really did go over.  In addition, I learned that it is going to take a long time before I feel safe with this new position if I ever really do at all.  I had everything that I wanted before we crashed and burned in Boston all in a mere 5 weeks.  We were completely blindsided. To be honest, I am still trying to move past that.  I remember standing on the beach there in March not believing that I could ever be that happy and then...well, let's not go there right now.

So, if life is like a book, let us close the cover on this horror story and shelve it way up high, out of reach, so that I never have to see it again. Then let's try something new, a different genre. Let's crack the spine on a new story written with humor and a happy ending because although we may not have been earning a paycheck these past three years, we have definitely earned our chance at a happy ending.

The Arrest Warrant

There I was this morning, going about my day not even thinking about the anxiety-producing trials that I had been subjected to last year when, out of the blue, I received an email from the victim's advocate. Trust me, after the ordeal I went through over the course of two plus years with this nonsense, just receiving the email was enough to throw me over the edge, but then I did a foolish thing.  I read it.  Apparently, the defendant did not show up for her sentencing yesterday morning.  It begs the question why not, no?  Well, she decided to steal something in another city and was caught on video doing so.  I was now being informed that yet another arrest warrant had been issued for her but, the frustrating fact is that she is out and about, back to her old tricks--don't think she ever stopped, right?  I suppose the fear of going away for seven years was not enough to coerce her to stay on the straight and narrow nor is the post-trial process stringent enough to keep her in one place and get her to show up for her own sentencing.

In addition, I was assured that her probation officer was to have seen her last week but it seems she was a no-show there as well.  In and of itself that was not encouraging and perhaps should have been a tip off that she was not going to be bothered with showing up at the sentencing and then heading to jail.  I mean, seriously, she has more 'work' to do.  To say I am annoyed would be a gross understatement of how I am feeling at the moment.  Back when this whole trial event started, I was told that I had to show up because I had been subpoenaed and that there was no 'out' for me despite my fear in having to face the defendants.  I was also told that had I moved (ha) back east, I would need to return for the trials regardless of the fact that I do not fly and that it would have taken days by train to get here for a ten minute testimony.  I did my 'time' dealing with this farce and now I really do feel that the defendant has 7 years of jail time that I want to see her deal with.  After what she put me through, it is the least she could do.

The email also stated that I need to wait until she is apprehended again.  Ah, justice, sometimes the wheels grind slowly but this time, they are turning in reverse!