My Life has reached A New Low

Yesterday I went to the food bank.

I knew last week when I took her to get her ears pierced that I was using precious budget money....but I remembered I had an 'emergency food bag' voucher and I figured now was as good a time as any to suck it up and use it.
It was a crap day anyway, so I am not sure if all the tears after this errand were from stooping so low and feeling the pain and shame of this, or if they were more likely inspired by the accumulating feeling of frustration and dejection which has colored my summer.
Or maybe it was the way the guy who handed me the heavy bag of food said, "This is the last week for this program - the county has cut it - can I help you to your car with that?"

Or maybe it was because, when I got home, I realized that the black and white box of food storage bags the guy had also handed me was not, in fact, storage bags, but a box of government cheese food product.

Yeah, really.

Behold! Poor people food!

Tomorrow I have to decide to send my daughter on a field trip with her brownie troop without the requested $20 so she can dress her newly built bear and risk the wrath of her being the only one coming home with a naked bear.

I also have to figure out how to drive 80 miles roundtrip to work and then drive another 40 roundtrip to get them to visit their daddy: on 1/4 tank of gas.

I will be saying some prayers that the squealing belts on the car won't blow just yet...because I cannot afford to fix the car...again.

Meanwhile, my kitchenaid (professional, my ass) mixer died a horrible death and my traditional stress baking coping skills are severely compromised.

I am trying not to think too much about her upcoming birthday.

The (rescue foundation!) kitten she wants....$150 we don't have.

The requested night away at the beach....not going to happen.

Or how to afford the absolutely reasonably priced yoga classes recommended by her therapist.

Or the flash on my camera which is STILL broken (while he remains in possession of my favorite elph - MINE!!).

Or the burning smell my laptop emits when I turn it on and there is no fan sound...and the fact that I cannot afford the back up hard drive to save my files right now.

Or the fact that if he was paying any of the restitution order or any of the thousands of dollars he owes me, this would not be happening.

Or the fact that Xdude is actively trying to starve me out by not paying the ordered support and waiting for me to have to move....thus proving his point. Which is....well I am not sure what it is....but it's for the greater good of maintaining some control over my life which is no longer his to control. He's already assured the children that if I move, he will follow.

Not to support them of course, but to stalk me 'be close' to them.

Hurting your kids to get to your ex. So unique.

What a man.

Makes Me Pukey...When being a parent involves fending off the wolves...wait...are wolves narcissistic?

I am ill. Not legitimately, bonafide pukey ill, or migraine ill, or aching ill - all of these things tied up with a bow.

I've written about the confused SIL; the one was involved in the attack on me by her brother. Truthfully, I had underestimated her crazy. I thought we'd be able to speak like adults to one another by now. I refused the offer to put her on a restraining order because, at the time, although I felt betrayed and shocked beyond belief, it seemed to reason that she would come around and accept her part in the debacle. And that she would understand that violence was wrong. I had watched his personality degrade for months, but I had more hope for his sister. She had supported me over the many years we watched her brother's temper and temperament flair. She cringed when she watched him scream at our daughter. She apologized for both of her brothers and their inherent contempt and glaring disrespect for their wives. She sainted me one year, saying that I had 'stayed the longest'...and I think I told her then I couldn't take it anymore. But in their family, statements like that are to be ignored, and the one ignoring the statement is entitled to dismiss the one making the plea.

Last week, I went back east. My family lives 2.5 hours away from his family. Back east. His mother is ill. She deserves to see the children. My mother offered to drive me there to bring the children to see their paternal grandmother. I paid a bit extra and purchased tickets out of that city instead of Buffalo. There was one caveat and potential bump to this plan however...the aunt, 'Deedee' lives with the grandmother. I was convinced by a friend who adores my daughter and wanted to help bring some resolution and peace to her life, to offer the aunt another chance to apologize. I had said to her months ago that she would need to address and acknowledge the incident with me like an adult should before she would be considered safe around the children. She had made some poor choices, this was evident. But was she willing to work through that with me or just leave me wondering if she really believed her actions and lack of protective response were acceptable? Months before, I had asked her some obvious questions. Not easy ones, but obvious ones, such as, "Why didn't you pick up the phone and call 911 when I begged you to?"

She never responded.

So last week, on the BoS's generous and objective suggestion, Deedee was offered the opportunity to please apologize to the family (especially Supergirl, to whom she was so close and who feels confused and betrayed), or to choose to be gone during the visit. We were not going to allow or invite a spectacle or a conflict into what was intended to be a visit to grandmother.
Deedee chose to be gone.
Then she said she would be there, but that she and I should 'talk' or 'hash it out' at that time. I found that to be an appallingly inappropriate attempt at railroading the childrens visit and my pure intentions in facilitating that visit, and a revealing glimpse into her own instability. I mean seriously? Their father had to apologize for his behavior, why not the aunt who was part of the violent attack? I asked her to apologize so my children could move forward from this hell, and she refuses to apologize and wants to have a little talk with me instead? In front of the children???? Has anything at all sunk in for her?
The answer appears to be 'no'. She even told my friend that I had caused too much damage for her to have a relationship with me (even for the children). Yes, I had caused too much damage.
I would like to point out yet again- that both Deedee and Ex-man were horrified at what they had done, and begging for forgiveness....until I reported the incident to the police. I suppose that changed the violent act from a horribly poor choice into something I imminently deserved.

In the long run, she agreed to stay away, and I told Supergirl in a very gentle way and without judgment (because I actually DO have her best interests at heart) that her aunt simply was not yet ready. It was very sad and hard for her and she just wasn't ready to make the apology like Daddy yet but I was sure she would be someday soon. Supergirl understood but was able to emotionally prepare herself for the reality and not keep wondering if she would see her aunt. So when I received an 'okay fine you win I'll apologize to them whatever' email from her just hours before we were to leave, I had to decline. My kids aren't yo-yos, and Supergirl is no fool to be spoon fed an apology full of crap. She knows that when Deedee is really ready, it will happen.

So in yet another fabulous display of family solidarity and narcissism, Deedee (and her infinite historical bank of paralegal wisdom) pulled a lovely little maneuver and asked her brother to ask the supervised visit therapist to please allow her to apologize. I had to give a minimal explanation of what she had already refused to do. Interesting channel, though. Applause!!!

Which almost makes me want to publish every single word from the most recent phone message I received from the other SIL; the drunk one who reveals all of Deedee's plans.


But I won't. Because I am better than that.

Let me just say this:
The children had a lovely visit with their grandmother and so did I. I appreciated that the aunt kept her word and didn't show up. Because that would have been awkward for my gentle giant brother who had been instructed to swoop up kiddos and leave if she had.

Things recently uttered in court during which I had to maintain composure and not puke in my mouth:

"I'm not going to pay child support because she keeps threatening to take our kids and move out of this jurisdiction."
(Because that makes sense. And because our children can certainly afford to live here without any child support. And jurisdiction? Because there is no jurisdiction on me...I'm not the convicted one here. And because you told our daughter you could practically SEE OUR HOUSE from yours? And ....ummmm.....)

"I'll be paying almost as much in health care as in child support."
(Last I checked, the county health insurance cards they received because I am at the poverty level were not costing you anything. And if you are paying their health care, it would be the first time, and you should probably look for coverage for their play therapy. Not speech therapy, which is covered by the school district. Which you might have known had you ever attended an IEP.)

"I have a letter from the only witness present which will shed new light on the incident!!"
(#1. Not the only witness; our preschooler was present also. #2. From the witness your sister, who sent me an email admitting that she asked you to hold me down so I would 'stop yelling and listen'. #3.Nobody will stop yelling if you grab and hurt and choke them. #4. New light. On YOUR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CONVICTION. Not mine.)
(By the way, you are way more scary and intimidating now than when you were sorry and you thought what you did was wrong. Was that your intention? Because it seems like you only were sorry until I reported it.)

"It was a DEFENSIVE ACT. I was DEFENDING MYSELF."
(Because the statement you yourself gave to the police was a lie? They got it wrong? You didn't actually run into the house to attack me and grab me and put me in a full nelson...twice?) (Shut up about the defensiveness. You look ugly when you blame your victim.)


"My client can no longer afford to pay the child support ordered because he suddenly lost his job."
(Spoken by his attorney. Who is NOT pro-bono.)

"This information is all one-sided!! It's all HER side of the story!!"
(Because the police report which includes both of our statements was provided to the childrens' therapist as impartial evidence so it did not become a 'he-said-she-said' situation? Because the 15 hours of observation, during which you couldn't even pretend to be sorry, led her to write her recommendation that you need therapy and the children need honesty?)

"I put her in a full nelson. Because a half nelson wasn't effective."*
(.......speechless.......)


*Legally speaking, this last one was not 'uttered' but it was 'admitted' into court as his direct quote.

Family Court Gives Me Ennui

The family court system is broken. Shocker.

'Don't say anything negative about the other parent to a mediator' I have been told. Why would I say anything negative? The interview is about the children, right? All I want is for him to get some counseling like the rest of the family. I told her that I supported the recommendations of the therapist, but if he would agree to ongoing counseling, perhaps there was less immediate need for a psych evaluation? I want to know that he is helping himself so the kids can see him again regularly. I told her I have no desire or intention of keeping them apart unnecessarily. I want to know that he understands that depression doesn't just go away on it's own, and that nobody can deal with the death of a child on his own. He broke. It was serious. I have compassion for these issues. Compassion is positive; I want to move forward, not back!
A psych evaluation will show us, however, the real potential in that desire becoming a reality.

The interviewer never asked more than two questions about our children to me. Instead, she sat in front of me, sighed, and said, "I am required by law to give you this domestic violence questionnaire." And then she proceeded to do so. She asked about the incident in April and any threats made in our history. Then she finally asked where our children go to school and how they are doing emotionally. That last part took about five minutes. For five minutes she heard me talk about our children, then cut me off.
Seems to me that it would be very difficult to say nothing at all negative about a person when being questioned about how he hurt you (a document she could have looked up - his own police statement) and what he was yelling at you while he did.
I told her, "He can be a good father - there was a time he was a good father! He loves his children."

Do you think she told him that?

She wrote that he denies the incident happened the way I describe, and that he believes I planned the assault, in order to gain control of the children. (Again, I defer to the police report.)

Does it sometimes seem that there are more problems caused to all parties when someone erroneously suggests that the family should then spend another few thousand dollars to further incite and inflame this situation? Let us review a portion of the California Family Code, section 3044:

"(e) When a court makes a finding that a party has perpetrated
domestic violence, the court may not base its findings solely on
conclusions reached by a child custody evaluator or on the
recommendation of the Family Court Services staff, but shall consider
any relevant, admissible evidence submitted by the parties."

That makes sense. I would love to see it come to a reality.
I don't see here, in our specific situation, where our children are being addressed. How does bleeding the parents dry serve to consider our children first and foremost?

Just sayin.

In Honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month

To the abuser;
If you want to apologize to your victim, I mean really apologize (as in, 'you have genuine feelings of remorse'), here is my advice to you.

1. Do not ever follow up your apology with a 'but...', thus rendering it no longer valid.
   
2. Do not go on to say - yet again - that your actions were defensive. Unless someone was hurting you physically, threatening you with a weapon, or physically hurting another person, your actions were not defensive. 2.a) Chasing someone into a house to violently grab them, shake them, keep them from leaving a room, bruise, batter and choke (twice) does not meet this criteria of 'defensive behavior'.
   
3. #2 actually takes what you may have convinced yourself was intended to be an apology, and turns it into just a really complicated and pathetic defense for your violence.
4. Do not confuse the word 'battery' with 'restraint'. (See 2.a)) I know that's a tough one, but it's not restraint when you chase someone who is trying to get away from you. In any reality.
   
5. Do not confuse the term 'battery' with 'grabbing and/or holding' someone.
   
6. Do not confuse claiming 'remorse' for actions with 'regret' for having a consequence. They are not one in the same.
7. Do not continue to emotionally abuse your victim via following up the apology defense with a novel's worth of manipulative lies.

Do You Have A Parenting Mantra?

Supergirl's birthday is tomorrow. She will be eight years old.
My job is to make her birthday awesomeness even if her world has been turned upside down. Even if she wishes every night so hard that she, my little lithe fragile faerie child, could change the events that happened three months ago.
My little girl has the world on her shoulders.



She wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday. She wrote a letter to her Daddy asking him a number of questions, including, "Why did you hurt Mommy?" and, "Can I please get my ears pierced?"
She later told me she regretted asking one of the questions because she didn't want to make him angry. Which one? "Why did you hurt Mommy?"
My heart broke in a million pieces to watch her try to navigate this mine field into which she landed through no fault of her own.

His probation officer refused to give him the letter; she didn't want to 'get in the middle' of delivering communication. I was livid. There has to be some way to allow the children to send him a letter, I protested!
No. She said that if I wanted, she could ask for a probation review to be moved up on the calendar so we could amend the order to allow some form of communication. I said, "Yes please. This is interfering with our daughter's ability to even process this!"
I tried to explain this to Supergirl. She said, "But the judge is trying to punish Daddy and he is punishing all of us!"

Domestic Violence is very difficult to explain to children. I hope you never have to.




"Why can't we just get my ears pierced?"
"Because we agreed on ten years old before, and because Daddy gets to have an opinion about it too!"
"But Daddy's not here! Why can't I just get them pierced?"
"Because Mommy's taking the high road here he is still your Daddy and gets to help decide things like ear piercing!"


Am I having a hard time taking the high road? Not so much, because I want the children to have a healthy relationship with their father which should not be connected to our togetherness or lack thereof.
But at times...when the bills come in and I freak out because it's hard to stay on top of bills when I have paid three thousand dollars of his debt just to move forward and live here....when I think of how he has not paid one cent to assist his children through this or support them or supply one morsel of food....I need the mantras.



My parenting mantras as the questions come hard and fast:

There is a direct correlation between hearing negative things about a parent and child's self-loathing.

It is better for her to be angry with me than angry with herself.

The best help through any crisis is to be held through it.



These little mantras gets me through everything right now.

Be Careful What You Don't Tell People

I feel so overwhelmingly sad right now.

I can hardly find the 'poetic' and 'cryptic' words right now (which apparently describe my writing so well) to even write about this, as my style of writing and the mere fact that I do write, were attempted to be used against me today in court.
I don't want to feel censored, but if I remain a public blog, then I am and I will be. If something I say with heartfelt meaning can be used against me in a handy little twist, then yes. I will. You would too.


But for now, I cannot allow him to take away or hurt this one thing I have left.
Our children are ours. They will always be ours.
But this blog, these words?
They are mine.
This poetic license to be cryptic and have a quirky sense of humor?
All mine.

This is my blog. This is where I can tell my truth, where I can record the awesomeness that is my children, and even record my parenting triumphs and fails.
This is where I have been able to share the 'unspeakable'; the coping with parenting loss...this blog has been what even helped to keep me sane those years of cyclical arguing.
Sometimes people even pay me astonishingly low amounts of money to write things.
I write only the truth (which, perhaps upon reflection, is why the amounts are so astonishingly low).


Today I was told by a judge, that although it is obvious that there was a battery committed against me, he (the batterer) was offered a plea bargain which allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of 'disturbing the peace' instead of going to trial with the original two charges of 'battery' and 'child endangerment'.
So although he admitted to battery, and admitted to child endangerment, the charge was lowered.
He still gets DV (domestic violence) terms, which means there will be some court mandated counseling and a stay-away order, a small fine.
No trial.

I guess this is standard practice for a first time offender.
I have to tell you something. If it ever happens to you? Even just a 'tiny bit'? Even if someone 'just' shakes you or threatens you and doesn't do what you consider 'physical damage'?
Report it.
Do not hesitate to report it.
That was my biggest mistake. I didn't report the first time, or the second time. There were no bruises. Just fear.

File This Under Clusterfreak

The envelope was quite thin; it indicated a problem.
It wasn't addressed to me, but it came to my house, and it is my electricity now.
I opened it.
My power will be shut off in 48 hours, because the bills he told me he had been paying, he had not. There are over $800 in past due utilities.

I called my friend, sobbing, "I was just feeling like I had it all balanced! (sniff)"

"You'll do it - you will balance it all out - you will figure it out and you will be fine!"

"I meant just for today." (sniff sniff)




UPDATE: Thanks for the comments but no, the electric company considers themselves a little special and they actually CAN demand that HIS bill be paid off BEFORE they will put it in my name. Go figure.

Sunday Link Love

The good:
I have long had a fascination with anything Hawaiian, and although Hansen's Disease is most certainly not of Hawaiian origin, what happened on Molokai is both mind-bendingly horrifying and intriguing.
My favorite books are a combination of books; for me the read was nearly a life-changing event.
'Molokai'; fictional characters and story in a historically accurate setting, beautifully written by Allan Brennert. After reading Molokai, I then read, 'The Colony', written by John Tayman; a non-fiction piece spanning a century of historical documentation and following the stories of the residents of Kalaupapa.

I am very happy to report that Father Damien de Veuster will be canonized by the Catholic Church on October 11, 2009, becoming Saint Damien.

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The Bad:
Speaking of large families with public notoriety (and no I am not talking about Octomom), I clicked on this video yesterday. You know - it says 'gift of song' and I am a music teacher, if not full of cynicism I can appreciate a good gift of song along with the best of them.
But this clip just made me squirmingly uncomfortable.
The small dark children are obviously being forced to sit there, feign cheerfulness (fail), and endure the impromptu Sunday school concert by the shining white faces.
And it makes me wonder about the producers....what were they thinking? The kids just do whatever the glory of their dad tells them to do, but the producers had a choice here to air it or cut it.
Wow.

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The Ugly:
I don't write too much about political issues on this blog; not because I don't have very strong opinions, but because there are far more eloquent bloggers on these topics and I do not wish to embarrass myself with the repetition of my favorite superlatives and the use of inappropriate language which I resort to far too often when the subject arises.

But I think it's safe to say that you understand what I am talking about when I express my extreme frustration about the misuse of funds in a corporate world - a very special fantasy world in which bankers and CEOs are rewarded for there mere existence with very special money which has been reserved for very special them - as the economy crumbles around us and most of the humans serfs are scraping by and trying to eek out an existence in a bleak future.
Our president is sick of it as well.
At least one third of my friends are out of work.
Which is why I cannot stomach the deluded news that Morgan Stanley and Citigroup will be paying out THREE BILLION dollars to their brokers, just to stay on. Oh hey - your salary isn't enough to stay here and work? No problem, we will give you money just to pledge your faith in us - because we wouldn't want to stir up an investor scare, now would we?
You know, the motivation behind this just brings to mind what Michele Bachman complained about last week, and perhaps what we should all really be focusing on here, the real problem: "we're running out of rich people in this country."

Anthropologetic

Well, it's a sad thing for me to announce, but this recession depression has gotten the best of us, and we have to move back to Grammie's farm.

It's tragic, because we can't fit too much in the truck, and we'll have to get rid of most of our belongings. We did buy a lot of crap absolutely necessary indulgences while caught up in the California housing and credit boom re-mortgaging out our home, and most of it will have to go. But we will make do, and somehow make our new digs look like home again.

I mean sure, we'll have to sleep in the slaughter house dairy barn, but since the dust storms, the milk done all dried up and the cows is all gone to live with Grampie Up There.



We sure do like our privacy, so the kids have their own bedroom out on Grammie's front porch. It's been months since any drop of rain has fallen, so we'll hang that tarp when we come to it.



If y'all want to come visit, we've set up a lovely guest room in the ol' chicken coop (only $250/night for friends and family!)(we gotta buy our crack grits, you know).



We didn't have any room for the tricycles or learnin' books, but I couldn't bear to get rid of my $5000 couch, so we did manage to squeeze it into our quilt-filled pick-up truck when we left the state.

(Whaddya mean there aren't any toys? See those papier mache birds? If those kids so much as drool on them they are dead meat. Toys!)









(Disclaimer of reality: Every photo here is lifted from the most recent Anthropol*gie catalog. Their art director is apparently giving us a vision of things to come...)

What's Not Fair Today?

When, almost every time I try and cook anything with a certain audience witness spy companion(or have already cooked something) (or even if the something that I cooked has already been eaten), the use of dishes and tools which I find necessary to use while attempting said cooking (aka: Feeding The Family), is referred to by this certain audience witness spy companion as 'in there making another mess'.

That is not fair.

Today or ever.