(no subject)
I originally wrote this on the 2nd of November, but then shit happened and I didn't get back to it for a while.
It's been an extremely stressful crappy week or so, with the hacking shit, then Krazy went on another Krazy spree on Hallowe'en night because, you know, why not? It must make her think of her life or something. I don't know.
I'd already spent most of the day stressed out because I was behind on my sewing, even though I'd been working on the kids costumes for two continuous days. I'm a terrible seamstress, and I don't have a proper sewing corner set up to work in. I can't sit down at my machine comfortably so I have to stand and bend over it. That sounds uncomfortable, and it is, but the problem is that no matter how I approach this task I'll end up in pain… so in the end I just figure I have to shut up and take it.
I took a dose and a half of my breakthrough meds in anticipation of the pain I'd be in and went to work as fast as I could without screwing up. I managed to finish everything at 6:30pm, just in time for the kids to go out trick or treating. I'm amazingly happy with how they came out, and really am proud of myself, but holy shit did my body ever hate me for all that work.
At least they look cute though.
Five minutes out the door we ran into another set of Mario and Luigi and Xan excitedly pointed to them and announces, "Hey look! It's a-me! Mario!".
The entire time out I was in absolute agony. I was desperate to lay down, but I couldn't stand the idea of not being there to watch them having fun in the costumes I slaved over. On top of all that, it's Hallowe'en night, which means it's the First soon, and I'd already been having panic attacks all day about everything I could possibly have panic attacks over. The costumes, dishes, chores that hadn't been done, running out of pain medication, what I'd do on the First, about money and bills and pretty much anything else that passed briefly through my brain - because that's how horrible panic attacks work. I haven't had panic problems like this in many years, and then all of a sudden it's come back for no reason.
I talked it through with Curtis while the kids were running ahead, and he finally got me calmed down enough to really start to enjoy myself… and then, as if on queue, the phone started ringing with the Krazy shit. Uggghhh. It's like she has some sort of internal alarm set to make sure we never get too comfortable with anything, or dare to forget about her just long enough to stop worrying that she'll ruin something. This time she was going on about how I wasn't passing on her messages to Marika, because this was clearly the only explanation for Marika's silence. If only I'd passed on her messages, Marika would know her mother really and truly loved her and then she'd be all up in that shit. Because that's the real problem here. My inability to take phone messages.
I just can't with this woman. This kind of self-delusion is only seen in the most ridiculous of internet trolling, it should not exist in real life. I don't understand how she even comes to these conclusions.
I gently, but firmly, assured her that Marika knows she calls, and emails, and writes letters, and Facebook messages her… it'd be hard not to. Seeing as she does it all the goddamn time, in spite of Marika's repeated requests for her not to. She made a bunch of sarcastic comments that I don't even remember, implied it was very convenient that I was out trick or treating, and then hung up on me. That's kind of amazing because she hasn't ever done that before. At least not in years. I was very impressed. Usually she tries to keep me on the phone for as many insults as possible until I get sick of her.
THEN SHE CALLED CURTIS' PHONE. Seriously, how does she even HAVE his number?! Why is it that all these crazy people have Curtis' phone number? He never uses his cell for anything but me, and work, and that's it. No one has his number except close friends and family. What is wrong with this woman?
Anyway, she gets him on the phone and greets him with, "Are YOU out trick or treating too? Hmm?" like it's some sort of clever lie we made up to avoid speaking with her. You know, on Hallowee'n night. At 7:30pm. When we have small children. It's completely implausible that we'd be out with them.
See what I mean when I say she sounds like an internet troll? These things just cannot be real.
Curtis has much less patience for her insanity than I do, and happily answered, "Yes I am. I'm out spending some quality time with my children and being a loving parent. You should try it sometime", and then hung up. I wanted to do a happy dance in the middle of the street, but I settled for a daps.
After we were done with her, Curtis took my phone and turned it off. He turned his off as well. We kept them off through the entire next day just in case she decided to try something on the First as well.
I told Curtis that the positive part about all of this mess was that the adrenaline rush from the anxiety has made my pain seem much more manageable!
Just prior to that event, we found out that Curtis lost out on a promotion we were pretty convinced he was getting. It was down from 44 applications to just him and this one other guy, and they deliberated on it every day for two weeks, calling meetings and talking and being all tense. In the end the only reason why he lost out on it was because he was so valuable in his current position that they can't bring themselves to lose him yet. As disappointing as it is, I should consider it amazing because Curtis has only been in an upper level position for barely two years and the other guy had ten years of management experience. For Curtis to even be considered on the same level is pretty spectacular.
He's supposed to have another meeting next week where the owner will discuss with him, "How to motivate you to stay and continue moving up". In other words, please don't leave because this other guy got the promotion, please? When he took a three day weekend a few weeks back they told him that the whole place fell apart without him there. So there's that.
Still though, it hurts and it's disappointing. We sat and cried it out for a while. There were good parts and bad parts, and I'm surprised at how extremely disappointed I am that he didn't get it given how terrified I was that he would. The hours would change dramatically, and become much more intense, and I was really kind of terrified that it would mean we'd never see him again and he'd get all of 1.5 hours a day with his kids and no weekends. I should be relieved, but instead I'm just deeply disappointed. I don't know. It all seems kind of stupid in retrospect, and yet here I am.
I'm traveling in a few short days, and every time I think about it I panic a little. I'm not a good traveler, for any reason, and flights are really not my forte. I made it to and from Ontario earlier this year for work without any issue, so I have that to comfort myself with. I'm going to Syracuse, New York for my friend's wedding. I'm a bridesmaid maid of honour and I'm ridiculously excited for her, but not about the flight. Because flying.
And it's New York! Isn't this the scariest most dangerous place to be in the United States? I don't know, I'm not that good with my USAian stuff. I just hear a lot about being mugged in broad daylight by very well dressed young men. I think I'm just making up shit to be nervous about at this point.
We had the final case meeting with the social workers over Marika's case thing (her mother's false claim, et al). And her social worker went fucking berserk in the meeting. The other workers were telling her to shut up and calm down the entire time. Marika had actually tied to set up a meeting with this woman a week or two earlier to address some very serious concerns she had over her conduct, and her response to every question was the same: "That's not important, we'll talk about it at the case meeting", then she yelled at Marika for having some sort of secret relationship with the baby's father while this was going on… for which she had no proof, or even the slightest inkling of a reason. She accused Marika of lying about everything, but wasn't clear on the details, and then left. So that was fucking useful.
Anyway, back to this meeting: she suddenly has all these 'concerns' that came out of nowhere, were never mentioned previously, and are completely irrelevant to the issues at hand but she decided that meeting was the best place to dump them out. Her biggest one? That my house is an inappropriate place for Marika to live, because it's "so busy" that Marika is likely to abuse Taliah.
I'm 100% serious.
Dead silence fell over the room. There are multiple workers present, and all of us sort of exchanged confused glances before I finally spoke: "… What?"
Everyone's heads turned back to the worker. She repeated her concern: our house is busy, so she's "very seriously concerned" that Marika's "serious anger problems" will lead to her beating her baby. Because the house is busy.
So... firstly: Marika's so-called "anger problems" were never brought up before this, she has no incidents, reports or sources that she can name for this concern (when pressed for where this came from, she quietly said, "I have a source" and would not elaborate) so that came completely out of nowhere. By pure coincidence, I'm sure, that bullshit has been one of Krazy's major meltdowns of the last few years: the delusion that Marika is an abusive monster with a horrible anger problem. Krazy also has no evidence to support this other than her own word against Marika's, and once having dad witness Marika freaking the hell out (screaming, throwing things, pretty typical "Crazy" level teenager freak out) when she was something like 13 or 14 after her mother pushed her to a breaking point after hours and hours of berating her.
At this point, I told the room that in the years Marika lived with us we never, ever had a problem with her "anger". I mean yes, we had disagreements and she sure got angry with me sometimes but nothing I would even remotely consider excessive. Not even shit I would consider normal for teenagers. If anything she was too cautious with her anger because she was so terrified of becoming the person her mother accused her of being. Marika agreed with this, as did the other workers. This worker got snarky with me and turns around and says, "Well, Heather, I'm really concerned about your ideas of a timeline. Marika has moved all over the place and been totally out of control and never really spent any time stable anywhere, so I don't know where you're getting this idea that she lived with you from. She lived a bit with you, with her father, with her boyfriend, and with friends."
That is WORD FOR FUCKING WORD from her mother. Word for goddamn word. We both immediately knew where this fucked up shit was coming from. I was stunned.
"No, actually she lived with us for well over two years continuously. She stayed with dad for all of one month when she was 13, and only moved in with Tom less than 18 months ago. The rest of those years she spent with us. Only us."
The worker loudly harumphed and refused to respond to that.
As the morning wore on I expressed my deep concerns that Marika's mother seemed to not only have intimate knowledge of the goings on (keep in mind that whatever I may write here on this blog, it's only a tiny portion of the full story, and I keep the updates delayed and abridged for a reason), but she also seemed to have some level of control over what was happening. As soon as I tried to explain how disturbing this was, I started tearing up. It was humiliating. Naturally, the Shit!Worker sat next to me rolling her eyes and drumming her fingers while I tried to stop myself.
Fortunately the meeting ended shortly thereafter, and Shit!Worker exited quickly. Once she was gone and I was only in a room with people that were nice, I apologized for the emotional outburst, and then promptly started crying again. I felt really stupid, because this is Marika's meeting, and her stress, and every time I so much as mention Krazy's fuckedupness I get emotional and weird. The director was really nice and remembered something I'd said weeks earlier just in passing, "I know you have a history with her, and she abused you as well. It's okay, at least it's in here, you know?".
Marika and I both brought forward how disturbing, unethical and wrong it is that Shit!Worker was not only in contact with Krazy, but was accepting gifts from her and appeared to be giving her information on the goings-on (Krazy has been writing Marika letters that mention things that she should not know). The director and assistant exchanged a glance and said very carefully, "We're not allowed to intervene or do anything. We're a different part of the government. But you should really consider contacting her supervisor and setting up a meeting."
We thanked her and left. Marika was on the phone for days trying to get ahold of the right people. I admire her perseverance during this; I do not have that same strength under stress, and it amazes me that she can remain this strong and focused during so much shit.
In the wake of all of this, her grandmother (who had up to this point remained impartial) wrote Marika a manipulative and nasty letter warning her that "Karma" would get her for her horrible behaviour toward her mother. Because that was totally necessary. What is it with that fucking family?!
On a happier note, we had Xan's spooky birthday party just before Hallowe'en and it was a massive success. We had like 20 people piled into the house. Curtis, Marika and I were up until 3-4am the night before, then up at 8am the next morning working non-stop on decor and food. I intended to get photos of everything, but didn't because as soon as the house filled up I had a massive panic attack and felt completely trapped. I have no idea why; all the people present were friends and people I knew, save for one or two kids from Xan's school. I just lost my shit and didn't get it back until the next day. Regardless of my issues, Xan had an amazing time as did all the kids there. It's the first time we've managed to get people together for his birthday. I've been dying to give him a proper party for years and shit just keeps happening that prevents it. I know he doesn't remember any of the failed attempts, but it matters to me. And after all the bullying and the shit experience at his last school, I really wanted to give him something special with his new friends. It was really, really nice to finally be able to do that.
Curtis made a ton of stuff out of the Martha Stewart Hallowe'en magazine, which took him almost two days worth of cooking to complete, but it was totally worth it. I didn't get any images of them, but he got a few with his phone so I can post those.
Tortillias cut into spooky shapes, then baked into chips, and home-made guacamole.
Meringue bones.
Rotten eggs.
Hot dog mummies… did not turn out AT ALL.
Witch fingers. These were a huge hit and tasted awesome.
We probably spent $250 on supplies in the days leading up to it, but it was totally worth it.
And a few other photos I found and had forgot to edit.
Zephyra and Taliah are best buddies. Z still calls her D'Argo (or DarDoh) but she's desperate to cuddle her as much as she possibly can, and when she finally gets the chance to she just lights up.
Taliah, almost two months old now. OHMYGAH how does this growing thing happen so fast? :(
And one of kitten cuddling with Z during her nap. This happens every day.
It's been an extremely stressful crappy week or so, with the hacking shit, then Krazy went on another Krazy spree on Hallowe'en night because, you know, why not? It must make her think of her life or something. I don't know.
I'd already spent most of the day stressed out because I was behind on my sewing, even though I'd been working on the kids costumes for two continuous days. I'm a terrible seamstress, and I don't have a proper sewing corner set up to work in. I can't sit down at my machine comfortably so I have to stand and bend over it. That sounds uncomfortable, and it is, but the problem is that no matter how I approach this task I'll end up in pain… so in the end I just figure I have to shut up and take it.
I took a dose and a half of my breakthrough meds in anticipation of the pain I'd be in and went to work as fast as I could without screwing up. I managed to finish everything at 6:30pm, just in time for the kids to go out trick or treating. I'm amazingly happy with how they came out, and really am proud of myself, but holy shit did my body ever hate me for all that work.
At least they look cute though.
Five minutes out the door we ran into another set of Mario and Luigi and Xan excitedly pointed to them and announces, "Hey look! It's a-me! Mario!".
The entire time out I was in absolute agony. I was desperate to lay down, but I couldn't stand the idea of not being there to watch them having fun in the costumes I slaved over. On top of all that, it's Hallowe'en night, which means it's the First soon, and I'd already been having panic attacks all day about everything I could possibly have panic attacks over. The costumes, dishes, chores that hadn't been done, running out of pain medication, what I'd do on the First, about money and bills and pretty much anything else that passed briefly through my brain - because that's how horrible panic attacks work. I haven't had panic problems like this in many years, and then all of a sudden it's come back for no reason.
I talked it through with Curtis while the kids were running ahead, and he finally got me calmed down enough to really start to enjoy myself… and then, as if on queue, the phone started ringing with the Krazy shit. Uggghhh. It's like she has some sort of internal alarm set to make sure we never get too comfortable with anything, or dare to forget about her just long enough to stop worrying that she'll ruin something. This time she was going on about how I wasn't passing on her messages to Marika, because this was clearly the only explanation for Marika's silence. If only I'd passed on her messages, Marika would know her mother really and truly loved her and then she'd be all up in that shit. Because that's the real problem here. My inability to take phone messages.
I just can't with this woman. This kind of self-delusion is only seen in the most ridiculous of internet trolling, it should not exist in real life. I don't understand how she even comes to these conclusions.
I gently, but firmly, assured her that Marika knows she calls, and emails, and writes letters, and Facebook messages her… it'd be hard not to. Seeing as she does it all the goddamn time, in spite of Marika's repeated requests for her not to. She made a bunch of sarcastic comments that I don't even remember, implied it was very convenient that I was out trick or treating, and then hung up on me. That's kind of amazing because she hasn't ever done that before. At least not in years. I was very impressed. Usually she tries to keep me on the phone for as many insults as possible until I get sick of her.
THEN SHE CALLED CURTIS' PHONE. Seriously, how does she even HAVE his number?! Why is it that all these crazy people have Curtis' phone number? He never uses his cell for anything but me, and work, and that's it. No one has his number except close friends and family. What is wrong with this woman?
Anyway, she gets him on the phone and greets him with, "Are YOU out trick or treating too? Hmm?" like it's some sort of clever lie we made up to avoid speaking with her. You know, on Hallowee'n night. At 7:30pm. When we have small children. It's completely implausible that we'd be out with them.
See what I mean when I say she sounds like an internet troll? These things just cannot be real.
Curtis has much less patience for her insanity than I do, and happily answered, "Yes I am. I'm out spending some quality time with my children and being a loving parent. You should try it sometime", and then hung up. I wanted to do a happy dance in the middle of the street, but I settled for a daps.
After we were done with her, Curtis took my phone and turned it off. He turned his off as well. We kept them off through the entire next day just in case she decided to try something on the First as well.
I told Curtis that the positive part about all of this mess was that the adrenaline rush from the anxiety has made my pain seem much more manageable!
Just prior to that event, we found out that Curtis lost out on a promotion we were pretty convinced he was getting. It was down from 44 applications to just him and this one other guy, and they deliberated on it every day for two weeks, calling meetings and talking and being all tense. In the end the only reason why he lost out on it was because he was so valuable in his current position that they can't bring themselves to lose him yet. As disappointing as it is, I should consider it amazing because Curtis has only been in an upper level position for barely two years and the other guy had ten years of management experience. For Curtis to even be considered on the same level is pretty spectacular.
He's supposed to have another meeting next week where the owner will discuss with him, "How to motivate you to stay and continue moving up". In other words, please don't leave because this other guy got the promotion, please? When he took a three day weekend a few weeks back they told him that the whole place fell apart without him there. So there's that.
Still though, it hurts and it's disappointing. We sat and cried it out for a while. There were good parts and bad parts, and I'm surprised at how extremely disappointed I am that he didn't get it given how terrified I was that he would. The hours would change dramatically, and become much more intense, and I was really kind of terrified that it would mean we'd never see him again and he'd get all of 1.5 hours a day with his kids and no weekends. I should be relieved, but instead I'm just deeply disappointed. I don't know. It all seems kind of stupid in retrospect, and yet here I am.
I'm traveling in a few short days, and every time I think about it I panic a little. I'm not a good traveler, for any reason, and flights are really not my forte. I made it to and from Ontario earlier this year for work without any issue, so I have that to comfort myself with. I'm going to Syracuse, New York for my friend's wedding. I'm a bridesmaid maid of honour and I'm ridiculously excited for her, but not about the flight. Because flying.
And it's New York! Isn't this the scariest most dangerous place to be in the United States? I don't know, I'm not that good with my USAian stuff. I just hear a lot about being mugged in broad daylight by very well dressed young men. I think I'm just making up shit to be nervous about at this point.
We had the final case meeting with the social workers over Marika's case thing (her mother's false claim, et al). And her social worker went fucking berserk in the meeting. The other workers were telling her to shut up and calm down the entire time. Marika had actually tied to set up a meeting with this woman a week or two earlier to address some very serious concerns she had over her conduct, and her response to every question was the same: "That's not important, we'll talk about it at the case meeting", then she yelled at Marika for having some sort of secret relationship with the baby's father while this was going on… for which she had no proof, or even the slightest inkling of a reason. She accused Marika of lying about everything, but wasn't clear on the details, and then left. So that was fucking useful.
Anyway, back to this meeting: she suddenly has all these 'concerns' that came out of nowhere, were never mentioned previously, and are completely irrelevant to the issues at hand but she decided that meeting was the best place to dump them out. Her biggest one? That my house is an inappropriate place for Marika to live, because it's "so busy" that Marika is likely to abuse Taliah.
I'm 100% serious.
Dead silence fell over the room. There are multiple workers present, and all of us sort of exchanged confused glances before I finally spoke: "… What?"
Everyone's heads turned back to the worker. She repeated her concern: our house is busy, so she's "very seriously concerned" that Marika's "serious anger problems" will lead to her beating her baby. Because the house is busy.
So... firstly: Marika's so-called "anger problems" were never brought up before this, she has no incidents, reports or sources that she can name for this concern (when pressed for where this came from, she quietly said, "I have a source" and would not elaborate) so that came completely out of nowhere. By pure coincidence, I'm sure, that bullshit has been one of Krazy's major meltdowns of the last few years: the delusion that Marika is an abusive monster with a horrible anger problem. Krazy also has no evidence to support this other than her own word against Marika's, and once having dad witness Marika freaking the hell out (screaming, throwing things, pretty typical "Crazy" level teenager freak out) when she was something like 13 or 14 after her mother pushed her to a breaking point after hours and hours of berating her.
At this point, I told the room that in the years Marika lived with us we never, ever had a problem with her "anger". I mean yes, we had disagreements and she sure got angry with me sometimes but nothing I would even remotely consider excessive. Not even shit I would consider normal for teenagers. If anything she was too cautious with her anger because she was so terrified of becoming the person her mother accused her of being. Marika agreed with this, as did the other workers. This worker got snarky with me and turns around and says, "Well, Heather, I'm really concerned about your ideas of a timeline. Marika has moved all over the place and been totally out of control and never really spent any time stable anywhere, so I don't know where you're getting this idea that she lived with you from. She lived a bit with you, with her father, with her boyfriend, and with friends."
That is WORD FOR FUCKING WORD from her mother. Word for goddamn word. We both immediately knew where this fucked up shit was coming from. I was stunned.
"No, actually she lived with us for well over two years continuously. She stayed with dad for all of one month when she was 13, and only moved in with Tom less than 18 months ago. The rest of those years she spent with us. Only us."
The worker loudly harumphed and refused to respond to that.
As the morning wore on I expressed my deep concerns that Marika's mother seemed to not only have intimate knowledge of the goings on (keep in mind that whatever I may write here on this blog, it's only a tiny portion of the full story, and I keep the updates delayed and abridged for a reason), but she also seemed to have some level of control over what was happening. As soon as I tried to explain how disturbing this was, I started tearing up. It was humiliating. Naturally, the Shit!Worker sat next to me rolling her eyes and drumming her fingers while I tried to stop myself.
Fortunately the meeting ended shortly thereafter, and Shit!Worker exited quickly. Once she was gone and I was only in a room with people that were nice, I apologized for the emotional outburst, and then promptly started crying again. I felt really stupid, because this is Marika's meeting, and her stress, and every time I so much as mention Krazy's fuckedupness I get emotional and weird. The director was really nice and remembered something I'd said weeks earlier just in passing, "I know you have a history with her, and she abused you as well. It's okay, at least it's in here, you know?".
Marika and I both brought forward how disturbing, unethical and wrong it is that Shit!Worker was not only in contact with Krazy, but was accepting gifts from her and appeared to be giving her information on the goings-on (Krazy has been writing Marika letters that mention things that she should not know). The director and assistant exchanged a glance and said very carefully, "We're not allowed to intervene or do anything. We're a different part of the government. But you should really consider contacting her supervisor and setting up a meeting."
We thanked her and left. Marika was on the phone for days trying to get ahold of the right people. I admire her perseverance during this; I do not have that same strength under stress, and it amazes me that she can remain this strong and focused during so much shit.
In the wake of all of this, her grandmother (who had up to this point remained impartial) wrote Marika a manipulative and nasty letter warning her that "Karma" would get her for her horrible behaviour toward her mother. Because that was totally necessary. What is it with that fucking family?!
On a happier note, we had Xan's spooky birthday party just before Hallowe'en and it was a massive success. We had like 20 people piled into the house. Curtis, Marika and I were up until 3-4am the night before, then up at 8am the next morning working non-stop on decor and food. I intended to get photos of everything, but didn't because as soon as the house filled up I had a massive panic attack and felt completely trapped. I have no idea why; all the people present were friends and people I knew, save for one or two kids from Xan's school. I just lost my shit and didn't get it back until the next day. Regardless of my issues, Xan had an amazing time as did all the kids there. It's the first time we've managed to get people together for his birthday. I've been dying to give him a proper party for years and shit just keeps happening that prevents it. I know he doesn't remember any of the failed attempts, but it matters to me. And after all the bullying and the shit experience at his last school, I really wanted to give him something special with his new friends. It was really, really nice to finally be able to do that.
Curtis made a ton of stuff out of the Martha Stewart Hallowe'en magazine, which took him almost two days worth of cooking to complete, but it was totally worth it. I didn't get any images of them, but he got a few with his phone so I can post those.
Tortillias cut into spooky shapes, then baked into chips, and home-made guacamole.
Meringue bones.
Rotten eggs.
Hot dog mummies… did not turn out AT ALL.
Witch fingers. These were a huge hit and tasted awesome.
We probably spent $250 on supplies in the days leading up to it, but it was totally worth it.
And a few other photos I found and had forgot to edit.
Zephyra and Taliah are best buddies. Z still calls her D'Argo (or DarDoh) but she's desperate to cuddle her as much as she possibly can, and when she finally gets the chance to she just lights up.
Taliah, almost two months old now. OHMYGAH how does this growing thing happen so fast? :(
And one of kitten cuddling with Z during her nap. This happens every day.