Twist of Fate

So you know those tv shows where the guy just can't catch a break? The one where everything he does looks bleak, but in the end it all turns around in a surprisingly happy twist? Well I am beginning to think that character is my beloved husband. First he has this accident, then he is told that his recovery is going to be a bit different than they had anticipated. Now he gets laid off.
Yup...while he is home lying on the couch recuperating from a 23 foot fall, he is asked to come to the office for a meeting. Now this is not a shock to us, we have seen the writing on the walls for weeks. Since the genius HR person emailed him and said she was not sure they could afford his position any longer. Since he was getting daily phone calls from vendors saying that the company was going to be placed on credit hold for non-payment. So he gets to the office and the desk is cleared and here are 2 large empty boxes sitting on his desk. Hmmmm I wonder what could be going on here? DUUUUUH. The funniest part is that the HR bitch and his boss actually didn't think he knew what was going on. When he said to them that he knew it a few weeks ago they seemed surprised. Wow, what does it say for them when they think the people they hire cannot figure out what is going on when they (in writing in and email) say they are not sure they can afford his position. There IS a reason I call the owner of the company WalTARD.
Here is the thing...this is a bit of a delightful twist of fate for us. You see, had T not taken the flying leap that he did he would have been sitting at work doing his job and thinking that things were fine. He would not have had the financial backup of Workman's Comp paychecks coming in. He would have been working 60 hours a week only to find out that the company cannot make payroll. T got a severance and has the back up of Workman's Comp. They laid off other people who did not get the severance and do not have that back up. Again, the fates are looking out for us...in a weird way.
We do not regret our decision to move here. He does not regret working for the company that moved us 2000 miles from my family. You see, we know that at the end of this there will be the happy ending (not like in a massage parlor either). We count ourselves lucky that we got out of Colorado before the horrible job slump happened. There are no jobs there at all. Here Tim has opportunities and there are many exciting things going on within his industry. We are very positive about the outlook and know for sure that this will all end with a deep sigh of relief and with us being exactly where we need to be.
And we will be kicking it off with a party for all the laid off employees this weekend. And I will have a t-shirt made up for my husband. Drunk Unemployed Handicap...D.U.H. Hehehe.

Happy Anniversary!!!

This is my wedding cake, from my wedding EXACTLY 1 YEAR AGO today.

Yes, it is true...one year ago today I married the love of my life. My true soulmate. He is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I never could have imagined the fascinating journey we would begin that day.

And what a first year...people say that there are a few big stressors in a person's life. They are marriage (or divorce), moving, job change and accident or illness. These are the things that can cause the highest amount of stress on a person. And can cause the most damage to relationships. Well, in our first year of marriage we have done all of them. It has been a hell of a year!!!

My wedding ring has always been a source of great pride for me...it took a long time to get here and I am so happy that I am married to Tand wearing his ring. My ring symbolizes our committment to each other, to our family and to our marriage. But now it also is a badge of honor. It has taken a lot for us to travel down the road we have gone down that last year. We have battled and there were times that I was unsure. We have fought each other, we have fought with others, we have fought with others FOR each other, and we have fought to be where we are. And, like any battle worn vet, we are stronger from it.

I know without a doubt that all of the trials and tribulations of the past year have been a gift to us. They have given us the opportunity to show each other what we are made of. We have been given the gift of seeing ourselves through our spouse's eyes. We have given each other the gift of pure vulnerability and the reward of the strength of arms to hold us tight during those storms. It has been a gift to learn and to live and to laugh through all of the past year.

I loved my wedding cake. At the time I thought there was nothing sweeter than that piece of cake being fed to me by my new husband. I had no idea that the tiny morsel of cake was nothing in comparison to the delicious life that I would start on July 7th with my husband and family.

Luck of the 7's......I took a gamble and won the jackpot!!!

This man is my hero.

This is myhusband 5 days after the accident that changed our lives. His arms are bruised and cut.

This man is my hero. This the only picture I feel comfortable posting after his accident. It has been 5 weeks tomorrow since the accident. And this man is my hero....I do not know how he does what he does every day. I only know that I am thankful every day that he does it for and with me.

For you my Lobster, you are my inspiration......

Now you will feel no rain
For each of you will be the shelter to the other
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be the warmth for the other.
Now there is no more loneliness for you,
Because now you are two bodies
Yet there is only one life set before you.
Now enter into the days of your togetherness

That your days may be good and beautiful upon this earth

Where is Ashton?

It started as any other day would...alarm, shower, dash off to work. But that is where it ends. The rest of my day was an episode of Punk'd. I am certain I will be showing upon MTV any day now!

I drink 20 ounces of Pepsi, so I have to pee. The bathroom at the office is a community bathroom shared by all of the businesses in the building. There are 2 stalls in a 15 x 15 room. It started innocently enough, I go in and 1 stall is in use so I go to the other. Just as I am sitting the stall door, another woman came in to wait for the next available stall. I am just sitting down on the porcelain goddess when the giant air bubble that had been fermenting in my stomach for the last 3 days decided to burst. Just as my bubble started to burst, the door opened again. At the volume of a jet engine, PPPPPFFFFFLLLLLRRRRTTTT!!!! Well, the asshole explosion that I just had was also accompanied by the smell of a dead, fermented rabbit. What do I do? I cannot possibly sit there in my own methane anal leakage....so I finish my pee and walk out the door. Giggling and being sure to not make eye contact I say excuse me (for soooo many things at that moment) and wash my hands and leave.

Oh it does not end there, I go back to my office and I-M one of my friends about my latest faux pas (or more appropriately, fart pas). She instantly sends me the link to You tube. I click on it, not realizing that my computer speakers are at rock concert level and hear instantly PPPPPPFFFFFLLLLLRRRRRTTTTT!!!!! I panic and laugh hysterically while clicking on the X to completely close out the internet connection. Ok, where is the camera?

Oh but does it stop there???? NOOOOOO, not for me. I had even had a conversation with a friend about how my day would continue to be a practical joke. I had to take the husband to the hospital for a check up...we joked about how I would trip someone, or trip myself.

At the hospital with my husband, I hand him a water bottle without looking and I hit him in the face. I was sure that would be it....haha...that is the end of my day. Ummmm, no.

We go back to get the check and my husband is having sutures removed. He and I are joking around in order to keep his mind off of the painful cleaning procedure that is going on. One of the doctors walks in to talk to the doctor working on my husband and mutters a few things and then says my name. Now, it is very obvious that I am there with my husband. I have a purpose. The doctor turns to me and says, "Are you here for the research project?" WHAT???? Why does this woman feel ok to randomly look at a person and ask if they are part of a research project? IS it because I have developed a pronounced eye twitch due to the recent stress, or because of the planet sized zit growing just under my nose, or the slightly green color I have achieved from watching the doctor remove layers of skin and scab from my husband's wounds? Or is it the combination of all of the above? But really...do you just blurt that kind of thing out????

I finally stop snorting with laughter and we are almost ready to leave the hospital. We go to make the follow up appointment for an MRI. The woman making the appointment sucks away at her Tootsie Pop and clicks away at the keys on her computer. She finally acknowledges us and begins the checklist of questions for MRI procedures..."do you have a pace maker? do you work with metal? do you have any brain implants?" Ok stop right there..What? Do you have any brain implants??? No, but we'd like to add one. I literally had to leave the room I was laughing and snorting at that one. C'mon where is the camera???

Ok it must be done. We go home. I turn on the tv to watch our favorite show, Cash Cab, and make dinner. I listen intently to the question ready to beat my husband to the answer. Question: What it the simple explosive device insurgents are using against Americans in Iraq? My husband blurts out the answer IUD's!!!!! Yes, lover the Iraqi women are hiking up their burkahs and flexing their vaginal floor muscles and shooting the soldiers with their Intrauterine Birth Control Devices!!!!
Ok let me summarize my Candid Camera Award winning day.....It was very much like the end of the new drug ads....
"Research projects have shown the side effects include anal methane gas leakage, intense embarrassment, stomach cramps due to laughter, brain implant malfunction and uncontrollable intrauterine device discharge. "

In the Blink of an Eye

It started as just an ordinary phone call...a ring, a look at the caller ID and then I said, "Hi Babe." And then the next words changed so very, very much for my family.
"Honey, I need you."
Not I need you to pick up milk. Not I need you to hold my hand. I need you to meet me at the hospital.
My husband fell 2 stories from a tower crane he was inspecting for work. Is that the same amount of time that my heart sank to my stomach? The same amount of time for a million things to go through my mind?
He says, "It is not a big deal, don't worry." So at first, I didn't. I laughed a little and called him clumsy. He didn't tell me his fall was 2 stories from a tower crane he was inspecting. Just a fall, and a possible broken leg. I thought it was no big deal. I sang Happy Birthday to co-workers, I passed around a picture of my new puppy. And then I got in my car. And then I got the call from the paramedic.
It was serious. He had bones jutting out, and he would need surgery....that night. What the hell happened?? I drove for what felt like hours to get the 10 miles away thinking a million things. Isn't it amazing how rapidly the worst case scenarios can go through your mind?
I cannot describe the feeling when I walked into the emergency room and rounded the curtain and saw my husband bleeding, horribly bruised and cut and strapped to a backboard. My god, please god, no god!!! He did not break his leg. He, in fact, broke his heel bone....in half. And one of those halves came out his ankle and out the side of his leg. I held my husbands hand while he lay there in excruciating pain.
I held the hand of the man who has been my pillar of strength for so much and felt completely helpless.
Then they wheeled him away and told me to stay where I was. I did as I was told. I watched the hustle and bustle of an emergency room. I saw another person's life end through a pink and green curtain. I saw another person's life saved through that same curtain.
And I waited.
They took xrays and found what he had done to his heel. The prognosis? Surgeries, several surgeries possibly. Pain, arthritic pain for the rest of his life. And short term, he is off his feet for 4 months. Initially it seemed like not so bad..off his feet. And then the reality sank in. He is not just off his feet. He is out of commission. His pain killers have made him too sick to eat.
He has lost blood and weight and appetite.
So he is very weak. It saps him to get to the bathroom, so he had been using a urinal in bed. The things that we all take for granted that we can do, he can't. For the first few days he was unable to bathe himself. Can you imagine what that does to a person's psyche and self esteem?
And then we think, thank you god. We are so very lucky. He could have been the person whose life I watched expire behind that curtain. He could have been paralyzed. He could have been brain dead.
He is not. He is alive, he is there for me to look at. I can still feel his breath when I kiss him. I can still have his skin to touch. I can still hear his voice. I still have him.
In the blink of any eye it all changed. It may be a blessing in disguise. It is certainly a wake up call about the fragility of life.
Blink, yep he is still here.

Ahhh sweet family fun

I took a trip home to Colorado last week. It was at just the right time too. I so needed the refreshment of the sweet Colorado sunshine. But more than anything I needed my family. I so needed the reaffirmation of how truly lucky I am to have them. (Life) long story short, we all hated each other as kids. However, over the years we have grown very close.
I spent most of the first day with my sister. I so love spending time with her. She is the person I trust the most to be completely honest with me. We shopped and laughed and gossiped. My sister and I often try on clothes either over or under our clothes (depends on whether we are wearing a skirt or not). At one point my sister pulls a pair of pant on under her skirt, she does the shifting to look from all angles and decides that she wants it. As she is pulling down her newest clothing acquisition, in the middle of the store floor, her underwear go right along with it!! (had to have been the high point to the man near us that had quite obviously been dragged to the mall by his wife) Bare naked necessities for all the world to see! But as my sister always is, she didn't think anything of it pulled up her panties and waved at the shocked onlooker!!

The next day was full on family day. It was the sister and her husband, the mom, the brother, the kids, the niece the pure unadulterated joy!!!! Oh so many things about this day will live in T- family infamy! We ate, we drank and we played re-damndiculously stupid and funny games.

Now when I say we played games it is not like normal people play games. My brother is the most competitive person on the planet. Seriously, he made my sister cry once when playing Cranium!!! So my 22 year old niece is showing us this game she and her friends play called "Chicken Goggles". It is a game of pure strategy and athleticism for drunks. There are 4 moves in the game which follow the starting chant of "put your fingers in the middle, put your fingers on your diddle put your chicken goggles on (which is using your fingers to simulate glasses), woop". The 4 moves are right (woop), left (woop), reverse (woooooooooop) and skip (woopwoop). The game was getting tense, it was down to my sister, my niece and I. Woop, crap I am out. It is my sister and her daughter. My sister is intimidated and starting to show signs of fatigue. She begins to think, "what are the moves again?" So she does the reverse (wooooop). My competitive brother begins to heckle form the sidelines ," Who are you reversing to it is just the 2 of you?" Sister sees the error of her ways and decides to woopwoop. UGH brother begins to harangue and yell, "Still just the 2 of you genius!" Sisters eyes get bigger than the chicken goggles and she begins to panic. Brother yells, sister gets nervous woopwoop. My brother is screaming like a paint faced fan at the Super Bowl. My sister is beginning to look like some sort of looney bin escapee. woopwoop, woooooooop, woooooop, woopwoop!! Such fun.
Finally the chicken game ends and somehow a singalong ensues. We go through song after song. We separate parts for Paradise by the Dashboard, we debate the words of many songs. And our big finality was "You're the One that I Want". My sister is singing and pouring the wine. Ohhh big mistake!!! She puts her head down on the table. My brother then coaches her on how to properly be drunk...."ok," he says,"start breathing heavy and try not to let the mouth water." It goes on with brother leading my sister in drunk prayer to the porcelain god. Truly hysterical.
If I had a video camera I would be so rich.
God I love my family!!! I cannot describe how wonderful it is to be around this group of people that are loud and silly and sometimes rude. Because each and every minute that we are all of those other things, we are also a family that would do anything for the other!!!

Graduation

My son graduated today.
When he was 9 his father and I divorced. My ex had been cheating on me for months and left me for another woman, while I was pregnant with my youngest son. I never told my oldest son why we were getting divorced, I did not think that a 9 year old needed those details. Maybe I should have. Maybe he would be able to understand his life better. Both of the kids lived with me for the first year or so after the divorce. The oldest was never happy, not just regular unhappy...sitting on top of me punching me while I slept unhappy. One night while I was tucking him in to bed he asked if he could go live with his dad. Not angry, not mean...just matter of factly. We talked about it and he did just that. He left for the summer visit to his dad's and never returned. Never.
Oh he came back physically, but was never really there. The visits were stressful, as he became a teenager attributed his sullen moods to him being a normal teenager. As he got into high school the visits became fewer and fewer. I would call and call and call and never get a call back. I would talk to his father and tell him to have my son call me, he rarely did. He took up cross country and track, he would not share the schedule ith me. I was a few hours away and would have done anything to see my son run. I still called at least 3 times a week, leaving message after message. I sent letters and cards. I finally bought him a cell phone with certain rules, one of which was that he needed to answer when I called.
Things were great for awhile. We would have long great phone conversations that consisted of more than grunts on his end. They were about hopes and dreams and memories and thoughts and everything and nothing. I got remarried and he and his brother gave me away and it was beautiful. He was sweet and loving, reminding me of my little boy that I had lost so many years ago.
And then it all fell apart. I don't even know what happened. He stopped talking to me, he stopped writing, he stopped everything.
Once a month or so I would get a grunting call again or an email. But I kept on. I would email and call and leave messages and send letters. Nothing.
He grunted the date of his graduation to me. So I bought a plane ticket and made all kinds of plans to be there for his graduation. I sent him an email to tell him my itinerary and then asked what his schedule was so I could see him. He frankly told me that he would be far too busy to see me. They were not really going to have a party and his class was only 12 people so it was no big deal. I persisted and said it was a big deal, I was proud of him. He again said there was not point for me to come. It was no big deal, I didn't need to be there. I gave in, I changed my plans.
I used my plane ticket and went to see my family. And while visiting them I saw my son's graduation announcement and invitation proudly displayed on his aunts bulletin board, his grandfather's fridge and grandmother's counter. His uncle told me that he too got an invitation to the graduation AND to the party following it. I, however, did not.
My son graduated today.
And I was not invited.
I was the one who taught him to read, I was the one who taught him his multiplication tables, I was the one who took him to his first day of school. I was the one that he did not want there on his last.
My heart is broken in so many ways, from today's hurt and from all of the yesterdays too. I love my son so much. I loved him enough to let him go when he was so unhappy. I loved him enough to let him go down a path I would not have chosen for him. I love him enough to take the blame for all that he thinks I did to cause a divorce nearly a decade ago. If only he could see how much I do love him. I guess on the day of his graduation I am the one still trying to learn.
My son graduated today.
And I was not invited.