Monday, June 13, 2005

MIA

Well, a lot has gone down over the past two weeks, but to sum it all up in a week would be maddening for me and boring for everyone else. So I'll go into summary mode.

Best Week Ever

Worked 5am-1:30pm for 7 days straight. Wife had back spasm, had to lie horizontally and not use her back, so I was on baby duty after early shifts. Sucked big time. Found out that I'm severly allergic to bar soap, have itchy and rashy ears (long story.) Came up extremely short on rent, had to juggle accounts and do some bouncing to make it work.

Big Decisions

My wife and I are 90% on the decision to move in with my Mom come August, in order to save some money on rent and utilities. Many would cringe at the idea of moving in with their mothers, but my perspective on it is so obvious (move in, because if you don't, you'd be in debt forever and struggle every paycheck) it wasn't really an option. It came after we had to return some groceries because we had overspent, and would've been overdrawn on the account if we didn't put money back in. My wife accidently had the store credit the account, which took longer to process, but it turned up fine anyway. But our grocery expenditure wasn't big, just around 130 bucks for 5 people, and I just got really upset thinking about how restricted we were. So it took a while to win my wife over, and JL is just reluctant to go because she's got her first boyfriend and her father's laying on the guilt and playing good cop. More on that later. So right now, we're sorta waiting for a while, but by next week we should be in full swing, getting things together and organized.

Training Day

Why is it that when I got trained as aforementioned, and I'm only working 1 day a week in the next position, being the backup backup, and not making their wages? In some companies, it seriously doesn't pay to know more. Playing dumb isn't such a bad way to go.

My Wife and Kids

Is now cancelled. Damon Wayans has to find a new job.

Anyway.

The Wife is doing better with her back, though the pain comes and goes. She further injured herself when we were in the middle of a water fight tonight. I was viciously attacked so I slapped a wet towel on my wife after the kids' bath, and she drenched me back, which sent Alex into a laughing fit. Then I ran upstairs to get some water, and then I heard a "Kerplunk", which is the universal sound of a wife falling on her ass. I came back down, slightly saddened that my cup of water would not fulfill its destiny, to find my wife on her ass, and Alex bawling his head off. Wife hurt her ankle, and spent the rest of her night using a computer chair as a crutch. We also talked about how Alex looked, standing there completely naked (it was after his bath), hands by his sides, just bawling with his mouth wide open like a puppet. I guess it frightened him or something.

As for the kids, Zoe has taken the evolution leap and is standing up by herself now! She hasn't really taken steps, but will actually stand herself up and look for smiles and approvals, and go into claps herself. She's turning out to be a bit of a drama queen too, when I ground some coffee and startled her this morning, she just looked at me with her mouth agape and a look of shock, for like 10 seconds, before she let out a shriek, as if to say, "How Dare You, Imbecile!" And her smiles, boy, they're to die for. They're just the cutest things and she even does the little winks that come with it. And she likes to dance with her daddy. Hee hee. I enjoy doing it too, since I don't have to worry about stepping on her toes.

The boy is advancing in his mimicry, surprising me many a times. He knows more than he often lets on, and he seems to have an unusual attraction to round things, since he knows "Ball", "Apple", and "Bubble" at sight. He seems to know his people quite well, and he's just hilarious when he tries to copy what I do, which isn't necessarily the best idea. He's also picking on poor Zoe more, doing a bit of shoving and kicking, and responding with a rubbing on Zoe's head when we say, "Be nice to Zoe." He's still got a long ways to go when it comes to listening, always able to read his eyes as he toes the proverbial line. That boy.

"In Good Company"

We just watched it tonight and it's quite a good, refreshing movie. I appreciate movies like that because they strive to be themselves, instead of what Hollywood thinks people want to see. Basically, this movie doesn't pander, and it conveys to audiences that no, it's not what you expected in life, but you make it work, and you learn to accept and love the change because you have to. And I think that's important for everyone because we're just so used to feeling one way or another. We're either succeeding and happy, or we're failing and miserable. Movies never explore the middle whereby you've not found the answers, and you're not getting what you want.

I liked it because I hoped that JL got a lot out of the movie, because of a few themes running through the movie. First of all, the father in the movie behaves as a father should, not like her father. Currently, the father has been bringing up the topic of money with JL a lot, seemingly, about how he's broke and how he can't afford this and that -- if he didn't have to pay child support. What sick and unethical fuck says that to his kid? Then again, this is the same piece of work that brought his older daughter to the divorce hearing, so that she could try to sway the savvy judge. I guess it wouldn't be the first time he's used his daughters as pawns to get back at his ex-wife.

I never brought up money in relation to JL's existance. I bring up money woes like any other person, but not to her, and never because of her. I have been supporting her month after month when he doesn't pay his child support for months at end, and I never bring it up. Because it is my fucking duty to put a roof over her head, see that there's food in the fridge, and I don't whine like a pansy ass about my life and place all this burden on a 16 year old kid. He claims to care about her, but this is a man who writes a note to her first and current boyfriend only months after they've gone steady, saying that it would be nice if he married her. He never feeds her dinner when she returns home at 8pm, and even thought that her walking home Alabama St, a fairly questionable stretch of road, "shouldn't be a big deal because she's old enough." This man does not watch out for her daughter.

Not to overuse a comparison to a fictional character in a movie, but HEY. Dennis Quaid's character puts his daughter into NYU, and takes a second mortage out on the home and doesn't tell her. Because it shouldn't be about money. He is concerned about who his daughter dates, and will stand up for his daughters. He doesn't pawn her off to the first guy to shows interest in her. I really fucking hate his guy not because he's just a bad father, but he's a bad father who's passing off as a good one. It further grates me when what he's doing is inadvertedly setting an unhealthy precedence for his daughters, and their expectations about what a man should be like. It's already evident in his older daughter, and it's coming to fruition to JL. I've talked and talked to her, and all I get is a "I know." That's why I've stopped talking, because it feels like rejection to me. I'm not the one saying what she wants to hear, but what she needs to hear. And it's frustrating as hell to see a selfish father and a horny boyfriend who, with best intentions, is merely trying to make this girl fit his ideals for a girlfriend, use JL, manipulate JL, and ultimately, in time, hurt her.

This is why I was so petrified when I found out we were having Zoe, not knowing if I'd be able to protect her from all that. But I'm gonna try my damnest best.