On the road again

Not really again. Just on the road. More like finally.

After a nerve wracking couple of sleepless nights, DH has gone to get the rental, CU-4 is fed and watered, and CU-3 is still charging her batteries.

The Tardy Contractor has guys climbing all over our house like little worker ants. When we get home, I expect there'll still be stuff on the defecenies list (there are dings that have to be fixed as of right now, sigh. My paint job! Sob)

I'm trying to tidy-up some last minute items, mostly personal (like showering the night grime away) and a few non-personal - like making the cucumber sandwiches for CU-1, and collecting DH's pride of coffee cups that have collected around his desk.

Once the transport is loaded, we'll probably sit around waiting for the noon cut over time that DXH has so generously provided to us (two whole hours extra - cross-over at noon rather then the usual 2:00 p.m time). He couldn't allow the children to come earlier so that we could caravan with the rest of the family because they're job shadowing today. (Neither CUs are teens yet.)

So, oh well.

So, for the rest of you. I've found my address book and will call or post cards to you from points further South. I heard we're to have rain for about 1/2 of the time there. Maybe it'll only come at night.

Catch you in August.

What goes around, comes around

That idiom has particular meanings as the clock ticks down.

Waiting at the karma bus stop.

Panic, and definitions of "prompt"

Panic is setting in.

We're a week to travel. The house isn't finished. Relations are hitting the city in FIVE (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) DAYS! DXH hasn't sent the travel documentation as of yet (unless, as DH has pointed out, he's couriering it.) This last thing has me nuts. NUTS I tell you.

I've sent the yahoo emails providing as many details regarding our trip as possible. The latest went out Wednesday night. Now DXH might complain that a detailed itinerary hasn't been issued for the trip, (um, he didn't provide one for his trip.), but that could be easily slapped down as being incorrect. But, by the time that's attended to, it will be too late, and the vacation would be borked.

DH and I have been having a verbal slap-fest over this one and the definition of the word prompt as used in the arbitrated agreement: "the parents shall provide each other promptly their written consent for any cross-border travel".

I want to prepare to escalate. It will, in the smallest possible way, help me feel like I'm doing something to move things forward, even if it's ever so slowly.

Part of me wishes ill will to befall upon DXH, even if it's in the most possibly childish manner (such as "I'll remember what you've done and give it back to you too when it's my turn!"

Like when I was eight and hurt myself badly, I'm going to hole up on couch. Wait, no. I can't do that (more because I can't find the couch! then because I'm an adult and have children to take care of). Maybe I can coax them to keep me company? ;-)

Cranky, what else is new?

Oh, the perpetual feelings anger and frustration.

After a roughish sleeping night, I was awakened by the sub-project manager coming through with a carpenter asking for clarification of the deficiencies list (that I had provided to the project manager that's actually running the show, over three weeks ago).

That's not even the bad part. I was in my painting t-shirt, not having found my pajamas for the last few days now, and being utterly exhausted from giving the master bed and bath their lick of paint, when the front door opens. DH jumps over the bed to greet the sub-project manager and the carpenter de jour. Though it was a gallant attempt, in giving me a minute to get up, DH looses points shortly there after.

***

So, there I am, in a thigh-skimming t-shirt, scurrying from my rumpled nest (which consists of a mattress and box spring on the floor in the front room) towards the kitchen where there's a mountain of clean laundry waiting to be processed. I figured there had to be some clean underwear and maybe a pair of shorts in one of the baskets that I could quickly swap out with.

In the kitchen, having no time to find, let alone swap out clothes, DH takes the project manager and carpenter on the tour to show the deficiencies that still exist on the project. First the kick-plate, next the missing molding, lastly the powder room. Where am I in all of this? Desperately trying to invoke my invisibility super power, inching closer and closer to the screen door so that while the carpentry crew can't check out my modesty, the neighbors can!

The tour continues upstairs from where DH has the gall to yell down to me to clarify something on the list!

If you get a laugh from this, good. I'll laugh. Eventually. Maybe.

It's Monday at the homestead

So that usually means no one from the construction company comes.

Surprise, surprise when the HVAC guy showed up to do a bit of work. No plasterer, no floor guys though. That's not a surprise.

I, on the other hand, have been dragging my wagon around, trying to get something done. Got a load of laundry in and on to the line, and a have a second coat of paint onto the study walls. I'm not a particularly good painter, and it shows. But, it'll hold until I can get the money together (if ever) to get the walls professionally painted. (Maybe if I win the hospital lottery draw today, this won't be an issue!!)

Bagged

Seems that I'm making up for the lack of progress in recent weeks. Painting, tile installation, moving, clearing, and more installing, and that's just the inside job. Phew.

Tomorrow the plasterer comes to look at his job. I'm going to have him focus on two of the four areas he worked on as I've already started to paint and don't want to have to do it again. Supposedly the flooring guy is supposed to be in tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath. The contractor's been saying that for two weeks now.

Some where in the detritus of my kitchen (where everything from the study, which is being painted, has been shifted to) is my agenda. I certainly hope that I don't have anything planned for early this week 'cause I don't know about it!

Primed

Well, the walls have been plastered and sanded. Now it's time for me to kick into high gear. The problem with that is that my gears feel stripped. After putting in a full day amusing to and attending to every one of CU-4s needs, followed by an intense four-to-six hour shift with CU-3, I then get the privilege to put in another four to five hours painting?

This is where I wish I had an extra five grand in my pocket to go "Krunk this" and hire help to paint every freaking wall in my house ...

Seeing that that isn't going to happen in my life time, I'd better get back at er.

And saints be praised

The amazing plasterer is here to work his magic. Hallelujah.

Does it really have to get worse before it get's better?

There really must be some turning point to that statement. I was contemplating the adage as I was taking new construction/house pictures for show-and-tell.

The front room is a big improvement, though I am vehemently against televisions in the bedroom (for reasons still unknown to me). (My bed is current in front of the TV, when it's on the floor, that is. So, it's not a good thing.)

Got a wake up call this morning. It wasn't DH giving me his travel status, but the contractor/company owner himself. Calls out to his number two man wasn't getting any attention, so I upped the anti yesterday afternoon by inviting him for a walk-through through this site. Got his attention, though as far as I can tell, he's not taking me up on my invite. And I'd bake a cake too.

No, no. Instead, he asked me for a copy of the deficiencies list (which the project manager already has) and kept on about "If you're not happy, I'm not happy." I told him there was very little more he could do to make me happy except to finish up and get out of my house. Really.

Oh there was so much back-peddling, the guy could have been in the circus. He tried to tell me the length of the project was Y, and I had to remind him it was X and that we'd not seen a projected project plan since the one that identified we'd be done six weeks prior. (BTW telling me the project could have lasted four and a half months, and here we're sitting at the seven month mark doesn't really make that much of a difference does it?)

So here we are now. The guy asking for two more weeks to be done. Sure. Go right ahead. I'm not going anywhere, nor is the house. What else am I to do? I still don't think you're going to have the trades lined up to deal with the issues I presented to your minion several weeks ago addressed (like the ding in the NEW bathtub. And hey, how about some handles for the door? Oh, yes, and then there's the trim work that's still not done, the speed holes in the bathroom because the HVAC guy moved the fan and didn't hook it back up, blah blah blah.)

I really just want you all out so that I can bork my house on my own.

Inconsiderate stuff

Well, what suckage this morning to get up (late), get out the door running, only to do the shoulder check to see vandalism done to our yard. It wasn't much - the dicky little fence and lighting around the corner, but it was enough to pause and slow our progress as I heaved the fence out of the middle of the road back into a temporary place.

Drunks. It's drunks on a rip, going through the hood. Our neighbor got the same treatment last year. Nothing else was touched. Not the ceramic pig, the plastic turkey vulture, the polar bear cut out. Not the plastic pumpkin statue or the lady bug. My Russian Sage got a bit chewed up though. Minor stuff for living in this 'hood.

Oh, and for those of you who keep track, no plasterer today. This means no sanding, which means no painting, which means no room shifting, which, ultimately means, no progress.

Waiting for September. We might be done by then.

Plastered

That seems to be the latest joke around here. I'm getting plastered. Well, my house is. I'm not. Maybe I should do that. Might help lift my spirits.

I've been getting the feeling of late that I'm just not getting a lot done. I feel that when DH is home, I get a bit more motivated to do things.

Could be the result of the natural chemical cycle, that I've hit the 1/2 way point of my home stay with CU-4, heat, lack of sleep or the zillion year old mattress.

Lately I've been disasterizing everything. I'm hoping it's just fatigue talking.

I need a nap.

Life, laziness and everything

So construction is grinding along - it seems that I can actually get things done faster then they can these days.

Was it just the other day that I asked the sub-Project Manager if we were going to be done before the end of July? I guess it was.

Grandma C had some sage advice which I now paraphrase regularly put your expectations that it will be done by September so you wont be so disappointed, and you could have a thrill if they're actually done by August!

Summer time and the lawlessness abounds

At this end of the country I'm having several WTF moments.

Working backwards:

WTF #1:
Canada Post has issued me a delivery notice to pick up my parcel tomorrow at their local drop-off site. Funny that. I was home, sitting at my kitchen table as I watched the delivery truck roll down the street. Did it matter that we've installed a door bell that plays the theme song to the Magnificent Seven? (my DH's choice), or that the door was wide open? or that the driver also left another parcel for CU-2? I guess not. Calling Customer Service didn't help much.


WTF #2:
Just coming back from picking up a few groceries, I see a black van with special *twinkly* lights. I recognized the van, and the burly guys all dressed in black emptying out of it as I'd witnessed something similar in one of my old 'hoods while taking a much younger version of Cu-1 and 2 to the park. These special cops, along with the regularly uniformed ones, plus the special canine unit were walking around the block where my home is located. The regular copy said I'd nothing to worry about and that nothing was going on. While taking down the laundry a few minutes later, the canine unit had asked if I'd seen some one scurrying across the back yard, possibly a la Ferris Buller. Nope. Only a squirrel with extremely large nads.

WTF #3:
Was out at a piece of outdoor culture yesterday, enjoying myself at the community park, when in came a couple with a large dog. When they were told it was a no dog park, they moved approximately 1 metre to the North of where the whole family was sitting. Upon giving my husband the dirty look, he handed me his cell phone so that I could call by-law. The couple had sited that they just moved to the neighborhood and didn't realize it was a no-dog park. Um. There are signs at all entrances ... Their leaving the park didn't give me cause to disconnect the call as there was another dog, (white lab?) tied to the tree. No water, no attention given to it. No indication who the owner was. After 40 minutes, the by-law officers showed up. The owners and their CUs disengaged themselves from the free entertainment we were enjoying, to confront the officers. Perhaps they learned, the hard way, that it is a no dog park with a $120 fine.

WTF #4:
Not ten minues after the family and their pooch left the park that a lady and her two Westies came in. She preceded to tell me that she didn't know this was a no dog park (even though I warned her about the fine that I just witnessed) and that she regularly brings her dogs there in the evening, particularly in winter, when no one was there. When I pushed to say that the fine is $120, and that they're doing construction all around the park so that there will be more eyes on the park, she said she'd be willing to chance the fine. Ok. So noted.

WTF #5:
Mexican stand-off with another chick-maiden about her dogs. She's shown the "screw you" attititude as she's been coming back to the park the same time every day now for several days. I'll just keep calling by-law until this matter is resolved, unless I happen to be able to identify her abodal address, then they can take the complaint, and the fine to her directly. (Doesn't help her case much that I've got pictures of the first infraction of her dog taking a crap in the park, and that the last time her dog came up and sniffed and licked me. No one does that uninvited.)

Lawlessness and dog shit

It really bites my bunions to watch this lady saunter through the park shared by my kid's school, the day care and the community center.

She had her dog off leash and the dog shit twice. She sauntered out of the park, into her neighborhood, dog off the leash. Where is freaking by-law to uphold the city's rules?

(Of note, by-law will happily give a parking ticket for some one who's been parking for 35 minutes, in an one hour parking zone, but can't get themselves in gear to patrol the parks?)

The house of pain

I wish, I so wish I could just sort things out with the DXH.

After a faux pas yesterday with the day care, I pick-up an email from him this morning identifying a different site that he's taken the children too. 20 + minute bus ride plus a 20 + walk to get them on the other side of town.

I called up the coordinator of the program to make sure they weren't going to be on an outing (CU-3 is out until 4 o'clock) and was told to talk to DXH to confirm that my name has been added to the list of people to be able to pick-up the children . . . Um? WTF?

Well, I'm hoping that he hasn't over looked this and I've asked the camp coordinator to talk to him about that as it shouldn't be my business to have to pursue.

DH suggests I bring a copy of the arbitration agreement along, just in case the cops have to be called in to get the kids released. I'm thinking that would be a bad move on DXH's part as well as mine. I'm hoping it all goes off seamlessly. We'll see tomorrow.

Apparently it's working

CU-2 told me yesterday morning:

CU-2: Remember the conversation we had last night?

Me: Yah

CU-2: We're not done yet.

:D

Control freaks

There's a song that goes La da da da di, la da da da do. That's how I'm feeling right now if I was to give an honest response to my day/life.

I'm waiting for a report from my brother who had had tickets to see my bio father before the caustic email event. That will eventuallly click through. I'm more back-page gossip about it then anything.

Then there's my own, more up-close-and-personal soap opera. Got my own, personally directed caustic email from my DXH. The usual blather, this time taking on a new direction about the inapppriateness of my pressuing our jointly guarded CUs into making a living arrangement decision. Huh?

Let's see, I've been having talks with CU-2 about what's going on around her - our neighbor's who's "son" chose to live with his mother since that happened a couple of years ago. It's just going through the cycle again.

Got an earful from DH about it who raised concerns about my methodolgy. He's pulling up his own observations and experiences. I was/am disappointed that he would consider me taking a position of adversary and shit disturber and forcing my children into something. (Which is what my DXH is accusing me of doing.) I told DH that that wasn't the case. That when something comes up, CU has the option of talking to me about it. She had a question about why/how her grandparents divorced, so I told her a lite version that would make sense. Part of that story is my story about my choices. That I also told her she could make that choice. Meh.

He claims language barrier. I say nope. It's outside your circle of interest. You just don't care about "girlie stuff", emotionally charged stuff, seeking higher ground when it comes around knocking.

Any who, when this kind of thing does come up, I usually follow it up with something ridiculous like a statement that she can make that choice when she's 18 and wants to get away from us. Or when she's 35 and getting married, she'll have to decide if you want to live with his parents or us. Or that she'll have to buy a house with three wings, one for use, one for her father and his partner, and one for her. That usually lightens the subject and then we move on.

In this case, after I finished with the email, I wanted to find out what she said to her father to get a better bead on the situation. She had, indeed talked to her father about it. Regretably, she'd had a nightmare proceeding the discussion and in her nightmare, she wasn't allowed/wasn't going to see me any more. That upset her a lot. Thus, probably a one sided discussion with her father getting angrier and not being open minded about what she was saying. To add to this creme de merd, during that week, CU-1 had exited DXH's car to say hello to DH and CU-4 at school and didn't look for on-coming traffic. Both CU-1 and 2 were banned from exiting the car prematurely for the rest of the week.

The long and the long of it, CU-2 and I had what I considered a good chin wag. She did most of the wagging, I interjected, where I deamed appropriate "how do you feel about that". We covered a lot of ground. Everything from bad car smells, to what attributes make a friend, to crushes, to wet farts. Like I said, it was a lot of ground to cover.

I'm working very very very hard to be the kind of Mom the children feel comfortable coming to talk to, even when it's not something I really want to talk about.

Oh, and happy father's day

Oh grow up

Shit storm at this end of things. Construction isn't going particularly well. Major work slow down. Regretably this contractor sold us a great idea. Reality check pleaze!

On top of all this, it's Father's Day weekend. Happy day to you know who. On the other hand, the base of my gene pool, perhaps you could spend some time picking the lint out of your naval while you're so stuck looking there.

The short version of the story is that there's a sort-of family reunion this summer based on activities my Dad organized, oh, about 18 years ago. So, he started it.

Mr. Gene Pool sends off a blasting email to all the sibs whinging why isn't he and his squeeze invited. He closes his email (which to be sure we all get the message, he's sending via post) with the old evil eye "I hope your children ..." statement.

Good freaking luck with your pout-fest man. Some one's sold you a bill of goods on who and what this is all about. (This all kind of reminds me of the time my DXH stated that he would allow me to have access to our children for a family visit if HE could attend. At that time (it was during a mediation session), I asked him if it was his intent to pull up to the kitchen table and join the hen party, or would he sit in his car like a stalker and offer to watch everything going on?!!)

So, here's to the end of the discussions. I'm throwing my own hissy fit by deleting his email address from my listings (I already haven't written his post address in my address book). As soon as I can get the money scraped together, I'll send you everything you lent me. (REMEMBER - I took the money as a loan. I didn't want to be owing to you.)

I don't need this kind of juvi crap in my life coming from two sides.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a tantrum schedule that's long overdue.

A whole big pile of sour grapes

Wish we could get some good wine out of all the sour grapes around here.

****

It's been a week since the contractor's been through. I sent a two pager to him and have a meeting set up for next week. So much for this group being different from all other contractors. Bah.

****

During an email round up, thankfully I got nothing from the DXH today! This weekend, the house will be quieter as CU-1 and 2 aren't home and will only be home for a short week next week. Thems the breaks.

****

More from the email round up. Got an email (paper copy to follow through the post I'm told) from my bio Father. Apparently some one has confirmed summer plans for an immediate family reunion. He is peeved that he and his dame aren't invited (even though he points out that the family extension goes in a specific direction - with my Mom's side of the family). He's got his nose out of joint big time. So much for that inheritance. Guess I should start playing the lottery again.