This and That

Good and bad news this week.

In the good, I got a few extra hours of work in yesterday at my retail job. They called me in when someone else called out. Also, MonsterMustDie got approved for the raise that he had requested this week, which takes a bit of the pressure off. We are still trying to come up with ways to make an extra $500 a month so I can stay on health insurance.

In the bad, we found out MonsterMustDie's best friend's brain surgery last month was not entirely successful. Rather than being cleared completely of the tumor he had, his doctors have given him a five-year extension on his life, as they say the tumor was malignant and they could not possibly remove every last bit of it without killing him. He and his wife are selling their homes in Birmingham, AL and Asheville, NC to consolidate everything in a new place just 20-minutes outside of Asheville, where their son is in college. Just as MonsterMustDie is trying to reconnect with this couple, time is running out.

I am hoping I can get a lot more work in at my part-time job. I am still looking for full-time work or at least something with better pay and more regular hours. I am still trying to come up with something to do independently that would generate income as well. In a perfect world, I could have my own business.

In other news, here are a few photos from my trip to Florida to visit friends in Cape Coral last month.

Argh!

Just started to roll down my car window and a flyer someone stuck on it slipped entirely into the door,  never to be seen again.  I will be very unhappy if this causes the window to cease functioning in the future. 

Snow Day

It started snowing around 5:00PM yesterday before I left work at my retail job. I wasn't scheduled for that day but they called me in and, since I'm close by, I agreed to fill in for a while. When I worked on Thursday we hardly had any customers while  the grocery store next door was slammed with people cleaning out the produce and dairy shelves. In retrospect, I should have passed on working because I was so sick with the cold I caught at the movie theatre last week. 
We woke up this morning to about 6 inches on the ground of the fluffy white stuff and it has continued to fall all day. Now, the skies are clearing and it is stunning bright outside agains deep blue skies. Phillipe and Liz stopped by to visit and wax his snow board before playing down the street.  I am scheduled to work again early tomorrow morning but I really hope they decide to keep the store closed for a day. I plan to phone in to be certain I need to be there before making MonsterMustDie drive me to work while I am still sick and snotty. 

My visit to meet Jennifer and her family in Florida last week was good. All of my anxiety over the trip was gone afte the first day there. She has a very large family - I'm gonna need a chart to keep up with who's who. Looking forward to visiting again and getting to know everyone better. 

The past falls away.

Friends of my mother's have asked me why Maurice is saying horrible things about me online. I haven't seen any of this and I am sorry they are upset by it.

I've stopped talking to Maurice since my mother died. The first stupid thing out of his mouth when she died was a smart remark. Then, in a voicemail, he criticized my marriage (although it's not a perfect relationship, I know) with another reference to my mother and my family at large. That was when I decided he was too negative a force in my life at a time when I'm at my lowest point. I told him I just could not deal with him now. He hates not getting what he wants when he wants it. He is proving my decision to be the right one.

That said, I blocked him on Facebook so I did not have to subject myself to him - and then I blocked his son when he started posting things using Tyler's account - so I have no idea what he's been saying about me online. He is welcome to rant all he wants to.

To his credit, he would phone my mother when I asked him to cheer her up. He could talk to her without her being able to make him depressed and she would behave herself much better on the phone with him than she would with me.

In his defense, I know the smart remark, though unbelieveably insensitive and hurtful, was probably something he thought would be humorous and joking about everything is the only way he knows how to react to difficult situations. I just could not take it and I still get close to an anxiety attack just thinking of speaking to him. I believe he does not understand the concept that one of the reasons Mom and I were always at odds with each other is that we were too close to each other - and so he can not possibly understand my feelings now.

The cruel remarks in voicemail were probably his way of trying to push me to respond by calling back in retort and he was probably just trying to break the silence. Not the right way to do that. Very very bad decision on his part.

and so this is Christmas

And this year, Channukka began at sundown on Christmas Eve. Yesterday, I worked from 7AM to 11AM. Looks like I'm back on two 4-hour days a week at my only job now, a little retail gig. Last night, I went with MonsterMustDie to see Rogue One at our local cinema and ended up seated next to a woman who coughed uncontrollably the entire movie. Left my jacket on the back porch and showered as soon as I got home to to rinse the anxiety off of me. 

This morning, we had buttermilk pancakes for breakfast before opening gifts. Lunch was home made brussels sprouts and pickled ginger salad with what little we could pick from the remains of last week's roast duck before I finally threw away the carcass. Tonight, I've got tickets to see the Doctor Who Christmas Special at Geeksboro Coffee. 

Tomorrow, it's back to work for a few hours in the afternoon, followed by grocery shopping and house cleaning. 

Goodbye. Goodbye.

Last night, I severed ties to Murray, a.k.a. Baby Maurice. I had been avoiding speaking to him since my mother's death, because I knew there was nothing good he would say to me and any conversation with him would send me down a negative path. This started when the first words out of his mouth over the phone, while I was grieving with my family the night after she died, was a smart remark. A really nasty remark that he did not think twice about saying.

After all these years, it finally got into my thick head that he is never going to be good for me to be around and has always prevented me from moving on with my life. There were some good times when we were both in our early twenties, but that period was too brief to hold onto. He was always the person who wanted me only when I found someone else and dumped me as soon as I was back around or available. I always wished we could have been friends as well as everything else that we were or were not but he was never a friend. He held onto me and kept me at a distance at the same time. That is neither love nor friendship. It's just possession - and maybe a lot of ego.

I finally hit the OFF switch on everything from him when he started texting nasty things about my mother's death last night just to vent his own anger at my silence. I should have done this on that night in February immediately after that phone call.

In Atlanta this week

I am enjoying a visit to my old neighborhood this week while I have 5 days without work.  When I saw the gap in my schedule,  I decided to make the most of the time. Hopefully,  they will keep me around at job number 2 and give me plenty of holiday hours.  This might be my last  chance before the new year to visit the places & people I love.

I will try to be more enthusiastic

I just need some Adderall and Prozac.

Friday's Rant

Immediately after taking on day off work for my wedding in October, Job #1 had me come into work the next morning at 8:00 a.m. Then, later that week, they let me go because they did not like the scheduling conflicts that always arose from my dance between them and my other very part-time Job #2. So I am trying to concentrate on job 2 as much as possible while still looking for full-time work or at least temp work at better pay and dependable hours. Today, Job 2 called me in for a meeting with my supervisors. They are concerned that I am not working fast enough and want me to be more enthusiastic and energized with customers (i.e. perky, but "we're not asking you to change your personality..."). Also, I need to sell more store credit cards, which are a VERY big deal for any retailer. I plan to work on my assertiveness and be more aggressive on trying to sell the credit cards. I don't know how I'm going to be more perky but I will try to be happy. I wish there was a drug I could take that would make me all of the above.

Meanwhile, I think we are legally married but I have no idea if the papers were filed in time and if that matters or if there are extra legal fees yet to pay or if this whole thing should be annulled. My luck seems worse for getting married. I am feeling frustrated with everyone and everything. And I keep thinking about how MonsterMustDie's close friend was telling everyone, including me, that he was the one to thank for us getting married because MonsterMustDie always thought I was too old for him, saying he told him to settle for someone closer to his own age. Yes, my creepy old Dutchman now seems a lot creepier to me now.

It makes me even sadder when I look at my niece's bridesmaid gift that I never had the opportunity to give her. There was no time. My family came to town for only one day and they stayed in Charlotte, over an hour away, until it was time for the wedding and they left soon after while I was still at the reception. My brother and sister-in-law alone were able to come the night before to attend the rehearsal dinner but they almost missed the rehearsal itself. I feel somehow disowned by my family. The great irony is that it was my family who kept on me to get married. One of the main reasons we made ourselves legally tied was their urging to do so.

I feel I was born to stay orphaned. Yes, I know everyone had to make time in their schedules to make the trip but I would have liked to have seen more or my family while they were here.

Happy Halloween

It's Halloween night and I worked tonight and yesterday so there was no attempt this year to host a pumpkin carving party and I ended up giving all my candy away to a pal who would be home to enjoy trick-or-treaters tonight.  Living in High Point, North Carolina still absolutely sucks but I also still have hopes for a better year in 2017. I wish all of my friends and family a very happy, fun, and safe Halloween. It's my favorite holiday and I hope everyone had a blast.

xox,
Weremonkey

The Wedding

The band is back together again.

With the women at the hotel.

Hair done

Just got home from getting a fresh cut & Color for the wedding.

Today is fired.

Woke  up with a UTI. Then was blocked in by MonsterMustDie's car when I needed to get out to go to work while he was in the shower.  Tried to get around him and accidentally backed into his car. Once I got to work, I started feeling worse and drinking a lot of water and taking Cystex was not helping. Left job#1 for the day to go to the Urgent Care clinic.  Now, I am in a 40-minute wait for my antibiotics at the pharmacy. 
Today is so fired.