No Pantyhose Needed

It's official: too hot for pantyhose in Houston. However, I recently read that something like 30-40% of women don't wear hose to the office anymore, so I stopped doing so about 2 weeks ago and it's lovely! What a break. I shoulda thought of this years ago but I didn't want to resemble the secretaries we have around here, but now I just don't care anymore.

Yesterday I went on patrol and I only worked 6 hours b/c it started to rain and even the turds know better than to come out in the rain. So there was little to do, though the building search at the tanning salon was fun. I always enjoy pulling my weapon. So I skipped out early and went to eat free pizza at Cici's.

Today S and I had another therapy session. Our therapist is working with us on how to argue better and, ugh, he brought Freud into the picture, talking about the id, ego, and superego. Freud was a jerk, but some of it makes a little sense, I'll admit.

The next 3 days finds me well north of Houston at the academy, taking the Survival Spanish for cops class. I just hope it's not too boring since I'm not totally incompetent at the Spanish language. But one of my favorite instructors is teaching it, the one who gave Mudflap his name. I just hate having to be all the way up there at 8am! Brutal!

Slow Saturday Much Needed

Actually, sittin' at the ref desk today and surfing away at Job #1 is just what I needed. I also had lunch with S, we met at the "Wok." I like this new health food kick he is on b/c now my Twinkies are not disappearing too fast, also the Cheetos and Doritos that I keep for my lunch! Plus he only ate 1 of the fried crab rangoons today at lunch, leaving the other 3 for me!!! He is reading Lee Labrada's book and taking it to the gym with him. I just bought him a used copy on Amazon for Father's Day. He takes it to the gym and people strike up conversations with him. He is also drinking these "Muscle Milk" things. It makes me happy to see him eating healthier! And me, well, I am allowing him to push me into more activity. Last night at the gym he walked by my treadmill and pushed the speed level up so I was jogging. Even though my calves were still hurting from Sunday (I'm a slow healer) I kept it up as long as I could!

We had our therapy session yesterday. Amazingly, I am incredibly lucky and have some damn good insurance b/c we have unlimited sessions and my co-pay is only $20. (Of course, with my Flexible Spending Account I get reimbursed for that with pre-tax money, so it really costs me even less than that!) We are going again on Monday b/c I want to strike hot and get some good marriage techniques going b/c we most likely will not be able to make it back again for a couple of weeks since we have the baby the whole month of July and our babysitter Auntie J. will be out of town for a week or two. Last night after the gym we went back to The Mezz and sat in the private room again and watched wrestling, which was fun. I think we're going to try going there on a regular basis again, even if it's just 1 or 2 Mondays a month, and on Fridays when we don't have to pick up the baby.

I am happily planning lots of fun family activities for July. There's some really cool things going on, and of course, do I need to mention it, are free! We still don't know what we're doing for the 4th, though.

Tonight S is going on another ride along, this time with an agency that he isn't even in the hiring process with yet, but he may as well take advantage of any and all invites he gets. And I do need to go on patrol tomorrow, lest I get in trouble with my Lieutenant. I need to do as many hours as possible since this is the only day this month I'll be out. This means tonight my future is gun cleaning! Bleh.

Why Blog?

For starters, it's good for you!

Speaking of therapy, we didn't see our therapist yesterday b/c we showed up and he had made a scheduling error and accidentally double-booked himself. That p'd me off since we'd driven all the way to his location north of downtown so I promptly found another therapist, who we will be seeing this afternoon. This one is also much closer to the house.

S went on another ride-along last night with another agency he's trying to get hired on with. He was delighted b/c he got to see a crack addict get Tased. I told S I hope he gets the opportunity to be Tased one day--seriously!--b/c it's just one of those experiences that you will remember for the rest of your life. I mean, I even felt bad for Mudflap b/c he didn't get shot with the simunition bullet like the rest of us did when we did building search scenarios at the academy and I felt he missed out on a real experience there. I still have the scar on my arm and I wear it proud! And now I will NEVER forgot to shut the door after searching a room, ever!

I'm sure I'll be blogging all day tomorrow since I have to work here at Job #1. But I don't mind working Saturdays so much. They are really laid back here and I get to do a shitload of Internet surfing, blog reading, and web bullshit. I always bring a book with me too and I never get to read it b/c I'm so busy surfing away!

Trying to Get Out of Running

S thinks he is going to shame me into running tonight. But I am in so much pain! He says you're supposed to be in this much pain. I slept 9 1/2 hours last night b/c I was just plain exhausted. I saw the Dr. yesterday for an annual physical--everything seems to be ok but I have to have routine blood work done. I'll get around to it someday. Mostly I'm just stressed out and uptight. I know, who isn't? If you're not broke due to a long-running custody battle and trying to find your husband a job while you work 4 jobs, you're bogged down with work and school and rescue dogs and trying to sell your house or planning weddings in India and Houston and trying to find a job and sell your house or living with your 92-year old father and evil sister who needs a bullet in the brain or... Running helps but the 4 days of pain and lactic acid buildup afterwards does not help. I'd rather read my many books and watch Season 3 of Weeds which has been patiently waiting for me for over a week now. When I am at home reading and relaxing, I forgot about the whole entire world. Reading's better than any pill. That and going to see live music, which I need to do sometime here pretty soon!

We had fun the other night watching wrestling at our old hangout. We enjoyed our old private room which now has 3 plasma screens, and I ate a big ol' cheeseburger and had a big ol' beer! We may have to do wrestling there once a month just for the fun of it.

Where Did The Weekend Go?

I can't believe it's already Monday afternoon. What a nutty life this is. I feel like I've been on the road again, most likely because I have! And I sort of had a mini-panic attack when I looked at the calendar and realized next week is already 4th of July weekend. My office looks like someone ransacked it. I have those crazy raspberry ants crawling all around my computer table. I still have not unpacked fully from outreaches done back in May! And now I'll be gone out of the office from July 1-3 for my "Spanish for Law Enforcement Officers" class up at the sheriff's academy and on July 4 for the holiday. My office is never going to get straightened up.

This past Saturday found me downtown at the Houston Juneteenth Health Festival. I was in a tent outside in the new downtown park from 9:30am-6pm. I'm sure I don't need to mention how hot it was out there. I drank about 8-9 glasses of iced tea and lemonade and only went to the restroom once, which just shows how much fluid I was sweating out! I had lunch with an old friend that I had only met once before, about 3 years ago at another health fair. His booth was a couple over from mine. At the end of the day I donated blood and I went faster than I've ever gone before, thanks to all the fluids I'd been drinking all day! That shit gushed out, I swear! The other good news is that my cholesterol level continues to hang steady well below the danger 200 zone and this past Saturday registered at a nice 170. And my blood pressure was just fine, too! I have all these points at the Blood Center store and I'm trying to decide what to get for myself. I'm tempted by the MP3 player, but I don't know how they work...

We had the baby with us and on Sunday we had family time since I was pretty much gone all day Saturday. We were heathens and skipped church and went swimming instead. Then we went to see Get Smart which, although is getting mixed reviews, made me and S laugh and laugh. Then last night, after we got home from dropping the baby off, S shamed me into going running and I ran 1 whole mile, which I have not done in months and months. God, I hate running, but I love what it does! It's like Leonard Bernstein and his view towards Mahler: "I hate you Mahler, but I hate you on my knees."

This morning I had to head a county over to teach a class and tonight I suggested to S that we go to our old hangout, the Mezz, to watch wrestling for old times' sake and I'll spring for it out of my money from Job #2. We are going to see a marriage counselor on Thursday and I suspect that one of the things he's going to tell us is to focus on each other more, so I guess I'm getting a head start on the professional advice. I think the counseling will be a great thing for us. We need help communicating better since I'm the left-brainer and S is the right-brainer. Sometimes it seems like we're speaking 2 different languages. Mudflap and his girlfriend had attended a couples' workshop a couple of years ago and highly recommended the experience, but those workshops are hella expensive. Fortunately my insurance will cover this therapy!

In other news, we are going to try and get S signed up with my organization, the Sheriff's Reserves. I was talking to one of my friends recently who used to be a full-time cop with a local agency and he said it could take S 6 months to find a job! Gulp. So maybe I can pull some strings and get him signed up with our outfit and he can start getting experience as well as make some damn good $ working at the jail downtown. Who knows, maybe we can even patrol together sometime!

Revelation Time

I have changed my mind. It was only a couple of weeks ago where I told someone that the child custody battle is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I even said so on my personal finance blog. But then... I was reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad the other night and it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I am serious, it was out of the blue. I think God reached down and smacked me on the head. I was sitting on the couch when it happened and I even spoke up and said this to S: I now believe the child custody battle could very well turn out to be one of the best things--if not THE best thing, though I'm not willing to go there yet--that's ever happened to me.

No, this is not one of those "whatever doesn't kill me" posts or "if life gives you lemons" posts. Although I DO believe that if life gives you lemons you should at least try to make lemonade, or in my case, if life gives you gators you should make Gatorade! (I kill myself.) There is actually a not-all-that-noble-on-the-surface-anyway moral to this story.

Though this post sounds like it should go on the personal finance blog, this is really a life altering post. And it's kind of simple, but this is going to change the outcome of the rest of my life, and S's life, and our children's lives, and hopefully my mother and brother's lives too. I have become obsessed with economics and personal finance. Budgeting, investing, and everything else! I have read, literally in the past year or so, I would guess around 30 books on the subject. I read personal finance blogs every single day. I read Forbes and Money. I have opened numerous savings accounts and there's actually money in all of them. I have more in retirement than the majority of people I know. The bottom line is, I have become scarily intelligent about money, and I still have even more to learn. I am way ahead of the game and can see the finish line, and most people haven't even gotten out of the starting gate, metaphorically speaking. This I know for a fact b/c I see with my own eyes everyday how people live their lives and I read their stories in these books and I hear them on Dave Ramsey begging for guidance and I see them on Suze Orman crying in fear.

So it hit me: because of all that I've learned--and the proof is that S and I have not crashed and burned and declared bankruptcy due to our $30,000 custody battle--S and I are not only going to be JUST FINE in the near future, we're going to excel and prosper. It doesn't matter how much money you make, it only matters how much money you keep. Poor and middle class people acquire liabilities. The rich acquire assets. THINK about it...and learn.

Sick

I really had to call in sick to work today. I got this thing again that I got once last fall where my stomach literally hurts. Like it feels sore. And I have no appetite, with a side order of on-and-off chills. Still, I did have to go teach a skin care class this afternoon (b/c if I don't show up I don't get paid) and now I'm here at Job #2 (ditto). I taught the class mostly sitting down which I never do, but I had to get through it. And as far as Job #2 goes I'm reducing my hours from around 9-10 hrs/week to more like 7-8/week. The last time this stomach thing happened I was sick from Friday afternoon-Sunday afternoon. I hope I can go to work tomorrow though; I don't feel as bad now as I did when I first had this.

The Week in Review

I always liked that scene in the Cyrano de Bergerac with Gerard Depardieu where he's dying at the end but he still goes to visit Roxanne for a weekly oral gazette where he tells her the news of the week. I wish someone would come to my house on Fridays and give me a weekly gazette while I watercolored outside under a tree!

Until then that's what blog is for. Highlights of the week:

Monday: Ate a great lunch at the local fancy restaurant where we take candidates to show off during their interview process. Oh! It was so yummy. Later that night I enjoyed yet another nice meal at a local Mexican restaurant with my coworkers and my ex-coworker, Bob.

Tuesday: Ate another great lunch at same local fancy restaurant with candidate #2. These are candidates that could replace our wonderful ex-boss, only a year and 7 months after she left!!! We all voted for candidate #1. I am praying she accepts! She was well-qualified and we all really liked her a lot!

Wednesday: Why do my posts revolve around food? Because it's pure happiness! Wednesday was wild and crazy. I taught 2 skin care classes at 2 difference libraries at 2 and at 4 and saw my mom and grandfather in between. They were good classes with good participants. Then the High-spanic Health coalition board meeting was interesting. I think this is the 1st time I've experienced such angst and tension with this group. Several of them got their blood up and there was some interrupting and heated discussion. I am not too emotionally invested in the issues of the Board b/c I literally have no capacity to be so at this juncture in my life, so I just sat back, watched, and submitted my vote when it was time. I guess all Boards have tense conflicts at times. I'm sure we'll survive and get through this, at least I hope we do, with no casualties.

Thursday: I taught a skin care class at a small library with mostly a group of unruly teenage boys. Although I was hesitant and skeptical at first, they turned out to be a lot of fun! They turned out to be really hilarious and had me and the other librarian in stitches. It was good to laugh and I had a lot of fun, as did the boys. Since they were all Hispanic like me they were funny but respectful. (I would not have had such a positive experience with black teenage boys--believe me, I know from experience at the libraries in the black neighborhoods.)

Here I am at Job#2 while S goes to pick up the baby, and I did call the whore today at her fabulous place of work, WAL-MART, to remind her that this is our court-ordered weekend. I also called the daycare owner and reminded her and also told her what had happened last weekend. I also spoke to our lawyer today who says she is filing a contempt of court enforcement on the whore, but this should be resolved at mediation. Unfortunately we most likely will not see the whore thrown in jail where she belongs but she will have to pay some of our attorney's fees again. The more $ we can take from her lower-middle-class cheap fake leather pocketbook bought with her 10% Wal-Mart discount to punish her, the better.

Tomorrow S is going to be testing at another local police agency so the baby will come with me to a health fair I have to exhibit at. It should be pretty fun. We'll get lunch on the Library's dime and we'll only work 'til 3, plus the place is literally right down the street from the house. Sunday is Father's Day and we'll go to TCBY since all dad's get a free cone or cup that day! We also want to see Kung Fu Panda. S wants to take the baby to see The Hulk too but I do not want to sit through that. I also told S that after we drop the baby off on Sunday I'll take him to see the new M. Night Shmylan, The Happening.

Trying Not to Look Down

I've been around and I've seen some things, People moving faster than the speed of sound
Faster than the speeding bullet, People living like Superman
All day and all night, And I won't say if it's wrong or I won't say if it's right
I'm pretty fast myself...

Jesus H. Mental Breakdown, I'm trying to keep it together these days. I have been sooooo busy I want to scream. I told S yesterday I want to cut back on my hours at Job #2. And I know there's plenty of working poor in this country that work all day long at one job from 8-3 then at another one from 4-close but dammit... I thought I got a education so I wouldn't have to live my life like that.

Last night was ok. Since I worked on Saturday I get to take some comp time so I left work early at 4, ran one errand for Job #2 (and I'm counting that as 1 hour's work for them!), got home at a decent hour and lay out by the pool and read Texas Monthly. It was blissful. Then I went inside and had a glass of Reisling. I need more. Of. Those. Kinds. Of. Evenings!

S got the windows tinted on the Bluesmobile yesterday and today he is going to attempt to have Charlie Murphy towed b/c it did not happen on Sunday. I TOLD S several times during the week to call our mechanic and let him know we would be towing it, but did S do that? Hell no!!! He said our mechanic didn't need to know that. So naturally I was the only one not surprised when we showed up on Sunday to tow the car and it was nowhere in sight! And this is b/c, um, our mechanic locked the car up in his garage just like I thought he might do!!!!!!!!!!!

Just once before I die I'd like to see the man that would listen to his wife's sensible advice. I have yet to see this anywhere, or I have yet to see this unless it followed a big, nasty fight! But I'm sure S is typical of most men who think that if they follow their wife's sensible and well-thought out advice then they are nothing more than castrated pussy men.

More madness today. Leaving Job #1 at noon, rushing by Job #2 for a quick minute, then to Job #4 at one library at 2 and another one at 4. Then an evening board meeting of the High-spanic Health Coalition at 6. At least I'm earning some big bucks with Job #4. Too bad I don't get to have any fun with it! Well, a bottle of Riesling here and there...

PO'd!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When S went to pick up the baby at her daycare yesterday he was told the whore had already done so. And we had texted that fucking filthy whore twice, on Thursday night and Friday morning to remind her that it is our weekend again and not to forget!!! As the court order states clearly, we have 1st, 3rd and 5th weekends beginning on Friday. May had 5 weekends in it and the whore has fucked up in the past after months that have 5 weekends in it b/c she's a fucking retarded animal. Apparently the daycare worker told S that the whore said we have "every other weekend" and the whore knows full and well that is not accurate. She is just up to her evil whore ways, yet again. Since I was at Job #2 at the time I immediately fired off a po'd email to our atty and the amicus, not that the amicus will do anything even though the baby is his client and he's "supposed" to be looking out for her best interests. However he doesn't do SHIT for the baby, we've slowly come to realize over the past 2 years! If he truly cared about her he'd force the whore to take care of the baby's teeth and he would've spoken up at the temporary orders hearing in March but he DIDN'T. So I sent another email to our atty saying we want contempt of court proceedings brought against the whore again. And this time she needs to go to jail where she will hopefully contract hepatitis or AIDS like she deserves. Filthy fucking piece of shit.

We are supposed to have the baby again next weekend as court ordered for Father's Day (and I know this is where this is coming from, b/c we had the baby her b-day weekend and then again this weekend and then again the next 2 weekends--the whore just didn't want us to have the baby 4 weekends in a row. I guarantee you this is what's going on) and I told S that since the courts and amicus and no one seems to give a shit about the visitation orders then we should just keep the baby for the whole week after that since we are now owed 2 makeup weekends, so we should just enforce them ourselves! And the whore will show up on Sunday to pick up the baby and we won't show up to drop her off and she won't see the baby for a week and a half. See how she likes it!!!!!

So I went ahead and volunteered to work today at Job #1 since I definitely could use the comp time. I am taking off so much time for my summer Job #4 that my vacation bank is drying up fast. In fact, if we do actually go to trial like we're supposed to in July it looks like I will actually run out of vacation time during the week-long trial so I'm going to have to figure out something fancy to do about that. It doesn't help that I'm also scheduled to take a 3-day class at the sheriff's academy in early July, but I don't really want to reschedule since there's no more of these classes offered for the rest of this year and it's a class I need for my intermediate Peace Officer certificate. But of course, I may end up sacrificing it as I have to sacrifice so much else for what we're going through.

At least S now has time today to take care of The Bluesmobile. It needs floor mats, visor mirrors, a state inspection, an air freshener, a K&N air filter, spare keys, and possibly a new battery and a nicer center console. Also we're going to spring for window tint. And Charlie Murphy will be towed to S's mother's house for storage tomorrow.

Plain White Wrapper

Well, we picked up this plain white wrapper last night. S had been leaning towards a Toyota Supra or a Honda Prelude, but good ones are hard to find, especially in our budget. So I did a search for police cars--as in white, Ford Crown Vic's that used to be police cars--and we found a very economical one with the mileage neighborhood we were shooting for and we test drove it and liked it and paid cash for it and even got the seller to come down a couple hundred bucks!

My dad used to drive one. Mudflap has one. My old academy classmate Love got a really nice one. And now me and S have one! Perfect. Truth be told, I've always kind of wanted one. From one of my favorite movies of all time, The Blues Brothers:

JAKE
Car's got a lot of pick up.

ELWOOD
It's got a cop motor, a four hundred and forty-cubic-inch plant. Cop springs. Cop shocks. Cop suspension. Cop tires. It was a model made before catalytic converters, so it runs good on regular gas. What do you say? Is it the new Bluesmobile or what?

JAKE
Fix the cigarette lighter.

It even has the spotlight on it! You can't roll down the windows in back if you're sitting back there--the driver has to do it. S drove it last night when he went on his ride-along with one of the police agencies he's interviewing with. Today I'm driving it and I just wish I could relax and enjoy it but I can't b/c we still need to figure out what the hell to do with Charlie Murphy, who is still resting in limbo at the mechanic's. We got the plain white wrapper for so much under our original budget that S is considering still fixing Charlie--but I'm thinking that'll be so much more trouble than it's worth. For starters, we've got nowhere to keep him since we only have 2 assigned parking spots at our townhome. Well, we've got to decide soon, like this weekend.

I Can't Believe We Have to Do This Again

And by "this" I mean shop for another car. We just bought that 3000GT 2 years ago. But our trusted mechanic says it will be $2,000 to repair Charlie Murphy and it will take a week. We paid $2500 for it and have put at least another $3-4K into repairs, tires, maintenance and bullshit for it already. Not to mention you "have" to use Premium Fucking Gasoline in it.

I have had it with that car.

So we're looking b/c I believe we can get a decent used car for around $4,000. This will just be to get me to Job #1, Job #2, and home. It will just tide us over until S gets a job. S says he can somehow figure out a way to tow Charlie Murphy up to his mom's house to store it until he can get a new engine for it someday. So now we're also fighting about what kind of car to get. And I'm still wondering if we should just pay our mechanic the $2K and try to clunk along in Charlie Murphy a little while longer. But a $4K car would be a little more dependable, in my opinion. Charlie just keeps aggravating me and needs a major repair every quarter, it seems. Still, $2K is a much more manageable figure than $4K, for the time being. $4K would definitely make an impact on our budget.

In the meantime, I have to rent a car for tomorrow b/c S is going to be at the all-day testing for a local police agency, and I begin Job #4, my summer skin care classes at the public libraries (Job #3 I consider to be my sheriff's duties). And yes, I'm getting the el-cheapo economy and using a 10% coupon besides! We return the car Thursday morning since there's no point in paying for a day we don't need, then pick it up again on Friday morning since we'll again be commuting separately for S's job search appointments and my Job #1 and Job #2 commitments. Then the rental goes back again Saturday morning since we don't need it for the weekend. And hopefully we won't need it anymore after that.

Are you there, God? It's me, Adela! Please cut me a break!

Wild Wet Weekend, or, the Baby is 6!

And another nutty weekend comes to a close, so another, nuttier week can begin. But we had a really good weekend, including baby birthday festivities out by the pool on Saturday, then seeing the new Indiana Jones movie (2 1/2 stars) on Sunday as well as checking out the new downtown public library!

Also, the Sex and the City movie viewing party on Friday was ok. I got to ride in a limo, which was pretty cool, and enjoy a glass of wine which helped being surrounded by shallow yuppie women! Plus, it was a madhouse of bitches at the theater b/c our 8:30pm movie did not actually start until 10pm. The theater did NOT have it together and since 95% of the audience was catty bitches and gay men, it almost got ugly there! But I found the whole thing kind of amusing although my feet were killing me, and everyone's feet were killing them since we were all wearing fabulous shoes.
When I saw the white limo I wanted to say, "What are we, fuckin' coke dealers?!?!"

I wish Tito J had been with us.And Saturday found us by the pool All Day Long, from about 11am-7pm. My cousin did indeed bring her kids and they, along with the baby, like, never left the pool. Even though the baby is 6 now she will always be our baby! Since we are now down to only 1 car (S's Charlie Murphy exploded last Thursday night--it's the timing belt which is Bad. Very Bad. Unspeakably Bad.) S took the baby back last night but the digital camera was left in the car, so I'll have baby b-day pic's later.