sick day

Last night I sort of went on a date. With a nice kid. It was more like just a hockey game with a friend who happens to be a guy. Of course Bill Gothard would call that a date. He would also call my wednesdays at work a date, since I work all day alone with Steve. We had a good time. The Smokies lost, but we still had a good time. There were some great fights. And only a little bit of guilt for being at a hockey game without my kids. And a little bit of guilt for leaving them with their paternal grandmother who apparently can't handle them after the age of 8. I called to let her know the game was going long... she said Kizzie had taken off and probably walked home. To my house. In the Dark. Across the highway. But she didn't know, and since she had all the little kids (cousins included), she couldn't be bothered to go and find out. So all the way home, I was preoccupied with whether MacKenzie had been run over, picked up, or how she would survive me KILLING her for leaving like that, in the morning. Turns out, the whole time, she was in Donna's basement sulking. So, no more grandma babysitting. That one backfired.

The good news is that I won my bet with Curt that we wouldn't get searched coming back down across the border. Since he has a couple of minor "indiscretions" on his record, he hasn't been through the border crossing without a full and extensive search. Remind me never to assault an officer, even if he is an undercover cop beating the snot out of a poor innocent drunk. Anyway, forgetting Curt's felonious past, I bet him a growler of Steve's beer that we wouldn't get searched. I will admit, I was pretty nervous when I pulled up and it was a CDP officer I didn't know, and Curt had bought a case of his favorite beer, which was rattling guiltily in the back of the 'hoe. Of course, it's perfectly legal for each person to bring 6 bottles of beer back over, so we were fine, and told the officer about the beer. We had previously agreed that if they took a cursory glance in the back at the beer it would not count as a search. In some amazingly awesome twist of fate, the didn't look at the beer. They didn't search anything, even though I gave them my wrong (old) ID, because I like the picture better. I mean, we basically gave them every excuse to search us, but since we weren't in Curt's meth-head truck, they waved us through. And I was victorious. The gloating was only perforated with momentary panic attacks about Kizzie's whereabouts and how mad Donna would be at me...  Or I at her if anything had really happened to Kiz.

The renegade was lounging on the couch at my house when I got home at 10:15,  Donna had had enough and dropped them all off to put themselves to bed. Kizzie smiled bashfully at me when I told her what I had thought happened, and I gave her crap about not getting along with her cousins. I was relieved. And a little pissed at grandma. Not that I will ever say anything. I'll probably make Kizzie apologize to her for something. Because I am all about a life of rolling over and playing dead, taking responsibility for things that are not mine to own, and basically just eating shit.

I called in sick to house cleaning today. It wasn't so much that I was sick, although I feel pretty crappy, but I couldn't face the toilets today. They mock me. They laugh at me and my desperate reliance on them. And honestly, the few dollars I get from them, can't help me where I am at. (Yes, prepositional end. bite me.)

Yesterday I decided that I want to try to take the kids to Quincy California for the High Sierra Music Festival. It's right after out family beach trip and we could just keep heading south. TAB will be there, and it's the closest they will be this summer, and I promised the girls we'd have a chance to wear our Team Avett shirts this year. When I told the girls what I was hoping, they went nuts. Natalee has talked about nothing else since. Wondering if we can take truck, and if there is dancing, and how many tents we will camp in. It would be so, so, so much fun. 4 days of bluegrass music, camping, and just doing fun stuff. We could go see Lake Tahoe, one of my favorite places on earth. Drive through Lassen Volcanic National Park - amazing. I could show them where my fire was. Where I hit a deer, got a flat tire, got another flat tire, and where I got to see flogging molly. I know I am fantasizing about a road trip that would probably be predominantly hell, but maybe, maybe if we did something fun together, for maybe the first time ever... but the cost. We've been talking about having a car wash to raise money. hehehe. I feel like it would be worth moving out of the house next month and saving the rent money for the trip. Of course then the girls would have to live with Donna and that won't work, obviously. And I am not sure we will have the rent money to save anyway, so the move may be inevitable. Ahhh the glory that is my life.

Today eBay has half price auction listings. As if that makes any difference in the scheme of things. For heavens sake. A drop in the bucket. And if every nickel and dime really helped, I should be cleaning toilets right now. Screw them. Screw the toilets. Screw the whole houses. Today I am sick. sick of cleaning houses for a pittance. Sick of caring. Sick of trying. So I will lounge around on eBay and keep applying for the jobs that might save my life. The 12 or 13 I applied for yesterday have to help up my statistics, right? Something's gotta pan out... right? Then again, this is my life we're talking about....