I’ve got Georgia on my mind.

I think I mentioned in my post about being sick, that I hoped I was well enough come Wednesday of last week to attend a concert I had tickets for.I worked 3/4’s of a day on Wednesday as I was allowed to leave at 2pm. I zipped across the street to Enterprise and picked up my rental car. Originally I had reserved an economy car, but they didn’t have anything available so they upgraded me. I ended up with a 2007 Chevy HHR:

Now, I must say that is not the most comfortable car I have ever driven, nor was it the simplest to figure out. I spent about 10 minutes in the parking lot of the rental agency making sure I knew where everything was. My biggest problem was that my every day car is a manual transmission, while the HHR was an automatic. I couldn’t keep my left foot from stomping on the invisible clutch for anything! It was especially bad when I would have to stop suddenly. I began my 3 hour tour south out of Knoxville heading to Duluth GA to see Maroon5.

I arrived at the junction of I-75 & I-285 without incident. It is after I merged on to I-285 that the problems began. You see, it was a very long drive and I was getting kind of lonely so I called a friend of mine to chat. I didn’t for one second think that perhaps I needed to concentrate on my directions, I figured it was a no-brainer and I would be fine. The minutes ticked by as I sped along I-285 an I was growing ever further from the elusive exit 33. I was desperately trying to keep up my end of the conversation while searching for some sign that I was still headed in the right direction. I finally had to call uncle and admit defeat. I was lost. I hung up with my girlfriend and reasoned that at some point I-285 would intersect I-85 and I would be able to get back on track. Thankfully I saw signs stating that the junction for 85 was 2 miles ahead. North or South, I mused to myself. Which would I need? Thankfully the sign said 85N Chattanooga & Greenville. Well Greenville was listed on my mapquest directions, so North it was!

To my dismay, I merged onto I-85N only to find that I had travelled 30 miles in the wrong direction. CRAP! I believe it was around 6:30 and the concert didn’t start for an hour, so I reasoned that I had plenty of time. Wrong! Welcome to Atlanta, Webmiss. The point of taking I-285 was to bypass downtown Atlanta. Unfortunately, I had ended up at the wrong end and needed to travel back through downtown Atlanta to get back on track. Traffic was horrific. I had never seen anything like it in my life. Much, much larger than Knoxville. There were cars everywhere. People merging without signalling. But worst of all, we were just barely crawling along.

I did take a moment to enjoy the scenery, as I had never been to Atlanta before. I travelled past the stadium where the Atlanta Braves play. I whizzed along next to the TBS broadcasting building. I saw a sign for Zoo Atlanta and Underground Atlanta. Honestly, getting lost wasn’t as bad as it seemed because I got to see a lot of neat things, and really I would like to go back to Atlanta for a weekend and explore. Eventually, as the minutes ticked down to 7:30 I managed to find my way to the exit I needed for the Gwinett arena in Duluth. I parked my car, and walked down to the building in the cool night air. I was surprised that they did not have a security area set up where they were checking peoples purses and jackets for weapons and other prohibited goods. I flashed my ticket and was escorted to my seat. Because I’m lame and was attending the concert alone, I needed to only purchase one ticket. That fact enabled me to score floor seats, baby! I was so excited, I was shaking.

I was quite squished between two couples but the view was awesome. Promptly at 7:30 this interesting band came on. The lead singer had this great mop of afro’d hair, and they were singing some kind of rap/hip-hop music that had such a hard bass beat, the words he was singing were unintelligible. They played for about 15-20 minutes and then cleared the stage. At that point, I thought Maroon5 would be coming on, but no! We were in for a surprise appearance from The Hives an interesting little rock band from Sweden. Finally just before 9PM the curtain rose and Maroon5 stormed on the stage.

The concert was fantastic. Adam Levine really isn’t much to look at, but get the boy singing and gyrating around on stage and he’s pretty darned sexy. There were hundreds of screaming teenage girls, and everyone was on their feet from the word go. Unfortunately there was a very tall man in the row in front of me, and I was having trouble seeing. I decided that it was time to get something to drink and purchased a very over priced soda. I wandered back to the arena floor and stood on the side lines trying to decide if I wanted to wade my way through the sea of people to go back to my seat when an member of the event staff told me I couldn’t block the exit like that. I asked her if there was somewhere I could stand and she directed me to the area in the middle of the floor in front of the cameras there were filming the concert. It was awesome! Everyone was dancing around, screaming, and having a great time. I was a little more sedate than that, but spent some time grooving to the music.

I got a few minutes of video, the sound is practically worthless that I’ll try and get posted on YouTube. The concert ended and I booked it out of there as fast as I could. I did manage to find the strange car in the parking lot, and began creeping my way home. I think by the time I made it back to the interstate and on my way to Tennessee it was just after 11pm. I had planned to drive straight through all the way home, but promised everyone that if I got too tired I would pull over and find a safe place to rest. I managed not to get lost on my way home but sadly there was a casualty. A raccoon decided to play chicken with my car. I regret to report that the score is HHR-1 Raccoon-0. I had exited the freeway and was driving along a quiet backroad heading home. I saw plenty of deer just hanging out on the double yellow, and I was terrified that one of them would run in front of the car. I was very glad that I had rented a car, for those ‘just-in-case’ moments.

I arrived back at home safe and sound around 2am Thursday morning. That is the latest I have been awake in years. Seriously, I am not a night owl.

I had a fantastic time, enjoyed laying around on Thursday (I had taken the day off from work) and have great memories of my trip to Atlanta.

I would love for someone else to post their memories of their favorite concert!

Santa Claus is coming to town

I am finally feeling better, thank you to everyone who posted to me with well wishes. It took about a week but I can finally talk again. I still feel like I could take a nap everyday, but I am back to my old cheerful self again. I have been browsing around on the web checking out blogs, but I have not felt much like posting lately.

Sleepyjane posted the other day about Christmas. Less than two months until it’s the holidays again. Where has this year gone? I am not nearly excited about Christmas as I used to be. I believe I commented in Sleepyjane’s post that Christmas was ruined for me the year my mother faked Christmas dinner. I’m sure that is part of it, as I was appalled that she would do such a thing. The other fact is, two years ago, after what I was told was the perfect Christmas, Mike walked out the door and a week later informed me that we were getting divorced.

But I digress, let me explain the details behind the Great Fake Christmas of 2006. I love to cook. What I enjoy even more is cooking for other people. So for Thanksgiving that year I invited the family over to my house and went all out. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, carrots, green beans, and a homemade pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. It was a beautiful thing and took me the better part of two days (as I started the Wednesday before Thanksgiving) to create and probably only 30 minutes for the family to destroy. Either way, I loved every minute of it. At the end of the meal we were talking about what to do for Christmas dinner and my mom said that she would host and cook so I didn’t have to do it again. We were going to have a brown sugar, spiral cut ham. Oh my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

 Fast forward to Christmas that year. My mom’s house looked spectacular, she’d sewed a new table runner, made a flower arrangement and had made us these neat cranberry spritzers as before dinner drinks. Everything was in the oven and I was helping her set the table. We all sat down to eat, and it was pretty good. Not great, as my mom hasn’t ever been a fantastic cook, but she did the best she could. I learned to cook from my grandma Margaret, which I am thankful for every day. We sat around the table talking a little bit and letting all our food settle down before cleaning up. My brother, Steve and my step-father retired to the livingroom to watch TV while mom and I cleaned up the kitchen. I was impressed as she did quite a bit of cleaning as she made dinner so there wasn’t much to do.

I went into the laundry room to scrape some scraps into the trash when I saw a white box. “What’s this?” I called out to my mother in the kitchen as I picked up the box. “Oh it’s nothing,” she said “I got something in the mail the other day.”

I turned the box over and that’s when I saw the little scan tag. It said “1 complete spiral ham dinner.”

“Mooooooooooom” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Did you buy a complete Christmas dinner?

“Of course dear, I bought all the ingredients.”

“No, I mean did you buy a whole, precooked dinner, the type that would come in this type of box?” I waved it accusingly under her nose.

“Umm…ahh” she didn’t know what to say.

I stormed into the livingroom with the evidence in my hand. “Look!” I demanded. All heads turned in my direction and the attention was on me. “Mom faked Christmas dinner. She reheated food that had already been made at Kroger and tried to pass it off as her own!”

My step-father gave me a patronizing smile. “We wanted to have a nice Christmas dinner without all the trouble and effort.”

I think Steve just shrugged. Food was food in his mind. I’m sure he was so full he’d cut the blood circulation off to his brain anyway.

 I’m pretty sure at this point I was hyperventilating, but thankfully had not started to cry. I was rather dramatic when I said “You have ruined Christmas dinner for me!” I stomped into the kitchen, put the box back where I found it, and sulked in the livingroom. “You weren’t meant to find the box, dear.” my mother kindly reminded me of her deception “If you weren’t snooping around you would never have known and would have enjoyed a perfectly lovely Christmas dinner.” I think I responded to that by sticking out my tongue and blowing her a raspberry.

So that’s the story. Christmas has never been the same since, and every year I remind my mother of it. I think my problem with the whole charade was that there was no effort put in. Isn’t that the point, in between the togetherness and the spirit of giving, that you put effort into your dinner because it’s a way of showing your loved ones that you care about them? Who knows, maybe I’m just upset because of the effort it took me to make Thanksgiving dinner, I felt short changed for Christmas dinner. Or maybe, deep down I’m just jealous that I didn’t think of it first!

This blog is under quarrantine.

I’m sick!!! I hate to be sick. It could be worse though, and I know that. I seem to only have a sore throat and scratchy voice. I’m coughing, but it’s not a “water in the lungs” kind of thing.

I hope that I feel well enough on Wednesday to travel down to the concert I am supposed to attend!

*cough cough- hack hack*

The gift of a grandparent

Sleepyjane posted a recipe today that her grandmother used to make. In her lead up to the actual posting of the recipe she described her grandmother a little and mentioned that whenever she tries to replicate the recipe “it just never tastes the same you know?”. Oh, I know that feeling well, Sleepyjane.

When my brother and I were little, my mother, being a single mother (funny how history repeats itself) relied a lot of her parents to help raise Steve and me. Every morning we would walk down the block to Grandma & Grandpa’s house for breakfast. Mom would take off for work, and Steve and I would get ready for school. Before her arthritis crippled her, my grandmother would walk us to school. In the winter months she would drop us off and pick us up. I remember running out the door from school and glancing toward the street. My grandma would be sitting in her big brown Chrysler, reading a book and waiting for us. We would go back to her house, she would make us a snack and help us with homework. My mom would come back to their house, we’d all eat dinner together and then walk back home.

When a birthday rolled around, Grandma would make the cake and would ask the birthday child to decide on the menu for that evening. Inevitably, Steve and I would ask for grandma to make hamburgers for our birthday dinner. I don’t know what she did to make them taste so wonderful, but I cannot repeat it to this day, no matter how hard I try. When we stayed home sick from school, she would make us chicken soup and melted cheese. Melted cheese consisted of slices of bread laid on a cookie sheet, block cheese sliced and placed on top, then popped in the oven till the bread was toasted a beautiful golden color and oozed cheese off the edges. Oh my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

My grandmother was a large woman (it runs in the family) and I recall curling up next to her on the couch and reading quietly side by side. Grandma is the reason I have a love affair with romance novels. I believe she kept Harlequin Romance in business back in the late 90’s. She would have a bag stuffed with books she had finished reading in the pantry closet off the kitchen. I would go in there, especially during summer and borrow one of her cast off books and loose myself in whatever plot line the book served up. Raunchy Renaissance Pirate anyone?

In 1997 my grandmother got very sick and began loosing weight very rapidly. I have vague memories of her hardly eating, but when she did nibble on something she was unable to keep it down. At the end of October that year, she was hospitalized and we were told she had cancer. The prognosis wasn’t very good as the cancer had spread rapidly from her liver to her pancreas. The doctors estimated 6 months at the most. Mom, Steve, and I visited every day while Grandma was in the hospital. She tried her very best to be alert and cheerful when we arrived, and she would let us tend to her. I would brush her dentures and comb her hair. Steve would change her socks and rub her feet.

In early November, things started to go down hill. I had gone down to the hospital cafeteria to get something for dinner when I heard my name being paged. I ran back to grandma’s room to find that she’d had a heart attack and was in a coma. Steve and I were pulled out of school and we stayed at her bedside as long as visiting hours allowed. One morning, I was tired of being surrounded by a halo of grief and sorrow so I called a friend and asked if she would pick me up from the hospital. I went back to her house and tried to keep my mind occupied. My mother called a few hours later to tell me that grandma had passed away. She’d never once awoke from her coma. I was devastated, and carried a lot of guilt about not being there for her last moments. It took me a very long time to get over the hole was was left in my heart. Mom & I ended up going to counselling for a few months to deal with our grief. I sometimes wonder what my grandmother would have to say about how my life has turned out. Would she be proud of me? Would she have approved of my marriage to Mike? Would she be proud of my daughter and how I was raising her? Often at night when I have finished praying, I talk to my grandma. I feel as though that helps me keep her memory alive and keeps her close to my heart. She was an amazing lady and it’s hard to believe she’s been gone 10 years now.

Occasionally I wonder if grandma would have survived her cancer, had it held off for a few years. Cancer research has pioneered many new and innovative treatment methods, perhaps one of those options could have saved her. My grandmother’s battle with cancer is the reason that Hailey and I are doing the “Buddy’s Race Against Cancer” on November 11th. This will be the 2nd year we have participated, and both of us are looking forward to it. We have been prowling the neighborhood soliciting donations. 100% of the money we raise goes to the Thompson Cancer Survival Center. They provide free or low cost, life saving cancer treatments to thousands of people. So far, the generous people in my apartment complex have donated over $100 and counting.

I love you Grandma, and I miss you every day.

How can you mend a broken heart?

Mike came by this weekend to spend some time with Hailey. He was evicted from his apartment about a month ago and is staying with friends. I don’t want Hailey over at his temporary residence so I told him he could come here to visit with our daughter. Mike’s only mode of transportation is his motorcycle, so he asked if I would drop the two of them off at the zoo on Saturday morning and pick them back up when they were done. I agreed so off we taxied to the zoo, I dropped them off, and came back home to do laundry. Not 45 minutes after I dropped them off I get a phone call from Hailey. She was crying that she wanted me to come and pick her up. I got Mike on the phone and asked him if I needed to come get them or if he had the situation under control. He said he wanted me to come and pick them up as soon as I could get there.

By the time I drove down to the zoo, Hailey had calmed down but it was obvious from looking at her that she was upset about something. As I headed back to the apartment I asked Mike what had happened. Mike and Hailey had stopped for lunch at one of the little restaurants at the zoo, when he decided to break some news to her. Mike isn’t particularly tactful so he basically just blurted it out. Hailey I’m moving to Minnesota.

Hailey, naturally was confused at first. She’s 4 years old, she doesn’t know where Minnesota is. When she didn’t really give him any sort of response to that, he decided to go into a little more detail. He explained that he was going to live in a new home in a state that wasn’t near ours. That he wouldn’t be able to see her every other weekend like he did now. That he wouldn’t be able to see her as much as he wanted to, but he would try to come back whenever he can. At that point Hailey had hung her little head and started to cry. The more Mike explained, the worse it got until Hailey asked if she could call me. I had a running commentary going through my mind the whole time that Mike was telling me what happened, questions I wanted to ask and things I wanted to say, but I had to wait until Hailey was not near us.

We arrived at my apartment and I settled Hailey down with her “Movie du jour” and asked Mike to step out on the patio with me. Now perhaps it wasn’t any of my business, but I felt that he owed me an explanation. He told me that he had met some woman online and chatted with her for a little while, drove to Minnesota one of the weekend he didn’t have Hailey to visit, decided he liked it and would be moving in with this woman. I was dumbfounded and it certainly must have showed on my face because he asked me what my problem was. I told him I couldn’t believe that he would put some strange woman before his own child, and asked him to leave my apartment. He asked if he could come the next morning (Sunday) before we left for church as he was heading out that day for his Minnesota adventure.

Part of me wanted to scream ASSHOLE at the top of my lungs and scratch his eyes out, but the other part of me over ruled (thankfully) and I agreed that he could come back on Sunday to say good-bye. I spent the rest of the evening trying to explain to Hailey how things would be changing, that she would still get to talk to Daddy on the phone, or could send him emails but it was going to be just her and Mommy from now on. She cried a little more, and then asked to sleep with me that night. I couldn’t refuse her so we cuddled up in my bed, and fell asleep holding hands.

Sunday morning rolled around and my beautiful daughter was dressed to the nines to attend the 10AM Mass. Mike rolled up on his motorcycle at about 9 to spend some time cuddling Hailey before he rode off into the sunset. I settled Hailey into her carseat and she called out “See you when we get home from Church, Daddy.” I reminded her that this would be the last time she would see Mike for awhile, that he was moving to a new home. She poked out that lower lip, which quivered a little bit, but she didn’t cry. I shut her door and looked Mike in the eye.

**warning, profanity ahead**

“You make me sick.” I stated.
“Me? Why?” he questioned.
“Because you’re choosing some whore over your own daughter.” I spat out at him.
“Don’t talk to me like that.” He said.
“I’ll talk to you any way I damn well please. This is MY daughter you’re hurting. How many times have you made her cry this weekend, Mike?” I asked.
“Only twice.”
“Well that’s two times too many! She shouldn’t be sad because her daddy is leaving her, she should be happy and secure knowing that in two weeks she’ll be seeing you again.”
*silence*
“Nothing to say to that?” I asked.
“I can’t believe the lengths you would go to just to get a piece of pussy.” I said.
“Fuck you.” he responded and put on his helmet.
“You already did, and look where it got me.” I retorted. “I hope she respects you more than I do right now.”

At that point I got in the car and rolled down the rear window so Hailey could say good-bye one more time. She waved and blew him kisses as we drove away. “Mommy, I’m sad.” she told me. I said the only thing I could think to say. “I know baby, but it’s OK to be sad. You can call Daddy later if you want to.” and we headed off to church.

Now I’ve had plenty of time to think about it since that encounter. I’m not sorry that I said what was on my mind and in my heart. I will admit that I do regret that I allowed such and ugly side of myself to rear it’s head. I am disappointed in myself for lashing out at an innocent woman and calling her derogatory names, just because of what my ex-husband has decided to do. I’m almost 100% certain that she doesn’t know the whole story. Either way Mike has made his choice. He will ultimately have to live with the consequences of his actions. I just hate that Hailey is being hurt by his selfishness.

I think I need counselling to help me deal with all of this. There is a whole lot of anger inside me right now that he would be able just to walk away from our beautiful little girl, to pursue a relationship with someone. I cannot comprehend it. There’s also a lot of anger that I am now completely responsible for Hailey. At least when he was still living here in Tennessee I had a break from being 24/7 Mommy every other weekend.

But most of all, I’m afraid that I do not know what to say or do to help my baby through this.

As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Dear Hailey,

Congratulations on being named student of the week, sweetheart. You have made me so incredibly proud of you. I am so proud of everything that you have accomplished since beginning preschool. Everyday I find out that you’ve learned something new. You can spell your name, recite your phone number, and count from 1 to 30. You’ve also learned to draw, and can even write some of the letters of the alphabet. I even love each and every piece of artwork you bring home to post on the fridge. You have come so far in such a short amount of time. I am amazed every day at your capacity for learning and growing.

I love you more than I could ever tell you, baby. Each day I look at you and know that you are all the best parts of me rolled into one wonderful little person. I hold your little hand and know that everything is right with the world. It feel as though I can hardly imagine a time when you were not a part of my life. It’s almost as though my life truly began the day that you were born. You absolutely were God’s gift to me, and I know that you have brought joy and happiness to every single member of our family for the last 4 years.

I want you to never stop reaching for your goals, Hailey. You are intelligent enough to become whatever your soul can imagine. I will do my very best to be there for you every step of the way. Mommy is not a perfect person, I make mistakes too, but we love each other enough to forgive and forget. I will hug you when you are sad, wipe away your tears when you are hurt, and laugh with you when you are happy. You are my special little girl and I will love you forever and always.

Hugs & Kisses,

Mommy

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