It is Monday. Suck-o-rama! I am dog-tired.
As usual, my weekend was great. Friday I left work early, suspecting I either had a stomach bug or early stages of strep.
Didn�t do much. Took Mickey McPoop out for a walk, where, thankfully he did his business.
Saturday, got up at 8:00 because Salsalita and I had plans to take the kids out to breakfast. Remembered that my phone had rang at 7:30, but I didn�t check my messages.
At 9:30 or so, apartment manager (we�ll call her Tawny) came down and told me neighbor Billy had called her really upset. Seems Billy�s wife, Mylie, had taken off in the middle of the night and he had to work that morning and Tawny could only keep Mylie�s baby until 11:00 a.m.
I�m not going to get into it, but it was a big old mess. Apartment manager ended up running to K-Mart to buy baby food and some clothes. We got the baby dressed and took her with us.
We went out to �breakfast� at 11:30 a.m. She, the baby was wonderful, cooing and saying �Dada�.
Lisa was a natural with the baby. I felt like I was all thumbs but Lisa has babies down cold. She was really attentive to the baby, who we will henceforth call, Hayden.
Billy called me on his Nextel walkie-talkie and told us he�d be come at 1:00 p.m., so we headed back to my house after breakfast.
Lisa changed Hayden�s diaper and fed her some bananas.
After Billy got home, Lisa and I took off with the kids to go to Grant�s Farm. Well, we got there and the sign said it was closed until April 13th. Um, the weather starts getting nice at the end of March. I was mad.
But we saved the day and took our kids to get sno-cones. That made the little turds happy. Jackie�s favorite flavor is the Brown Cow (chocolate and vanilla flavoring) and Jacob�s is Strawberry. Lisa got something too. I took a couple hits off that.
We decided to go to Jefferson Barracks Park. There�s a real neat little coliseum area with stone bridges and a brook, it�s pretty. Lisa and I roasted in the sun while the kids played.
After that we were pretty beat. We decided to head home.
Ah, but my day was not over yet. I still had to do laundry. After Lisa and Jake left, Jackie and I headed out to this place on Mackenzie. As soon as I came in, this chic started talking to me. I knew her whole life story in 30 minutes. She seemed a little out there.
It was very strange.
Jackie and I came home and watched America�s Most Wanted.
We went to bed around 11:00.
I got up early Sunday morning, about 7:30 a.m. I took the dog out, he went poo. I smoked.
Time flew. Rene�, (Mr. Sweatpants) called me at 9:20 a.m. and asked me what time we were supposed to leave to go to the Rally. I had only told him this 3 times last week.
�10:00.� I told him. �Remember, because of the marathons, we don�t know which streets will be blocked off. I felt that if we left at a decent time, we could navigate the streets, even if we got lost we�d still be on time.
�10:00??!!!!� He exclaimed, like this was the very first time he had heard it.
I sighed heavily. This happens EVERY SINGLE TIME we have to be somewhere at a given time. EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN TIME!
I finally relented and told him �No later than 10:15.� We hung up.
Lisa got to my house around 9:45 or so. She knows how to be early. I don�t know what the HELL his problem is with being on time.
Rene� got there at 10:18. To say I was mad was an understatement. I kept it to myself.
He took a lot of back roads to get there. I steamed inwardly.
Well, to make a long story short, there were some MAJOR street closings. We had to stop and ask for directions. Too bad the people who gave us directions didn�t know about the road construction.
It was a huge cluster..fridge.
At around 11:00, we found a parking spot. I thought that the rally must be close. I was wrong. Along the way, there were some beautiful sights.
We walked almost a mile and a half to the rally. The look on my face means, �Are you f-ing kidding me?�
I was wearing dress shoes. I alternated between hobbling along and walking with no shoes on at all. There came a point where I was tempted to turn around and go back. I mean, I am a big woman, and a mile and a half, uphill, when you�re already late, in a shirt that keeps flying up and exposing your stomach, in the hot sun..this was not an easy walk.
I think we were all tired and frustrated.
When we got to the home stretch, which was the soccer field, I looked up and saw we had a long way to go still. Worse, there was nowhere to sit down and rest. My back was cramping so bad I thought I was going to pass out.
I started walking barefoot in the grass. Bees be damned.
Before I knew it, I was at this little garden area. I wanted to cry, because I was so happy.
My name was called about 3 minutes after I sat down.
I did cry during my speech. I had hoped I wouldn�t.
But I was surrounded by people that KNOW what it is like for me. The feeling is unmatched by anything in my memory. The closest I can come to that feeling is when I email my diaryland friend fight4fair.
And the fact that three of the most important people in my life, Lisa, Rene� and Jackie were there to support me..well, I just felt very lucky.
I was presented with a plaque. Here it is:
I felt special.
Paul Swankmann approached me from Channel 2 news. He just got a few details from me, and he was on this other survivor like white on rice. I felt so bad for her. Her son was killed by a juvenile who was speeding down the wrong side of the road, without his lights on, at over a 100 miles per hour.
I wanted to talk to her too, but I ended up doing an interview with this girl from either KMOX. That interview lasted about 45 minutes. We were the last ones to leave the park.
Funny story: She told me she'd never been the victim of a violent crime. I told her that crime touches all of us in some way. Then she told me that she'd been robbed and she was fighting with the mugger over her Louis Vuitton purse. I was cracking up, because she seemed like the sort of girl who'd attack someone like that with her purse. We had a good snicker over that. Then I looked down and noticed she had on Gucci shoes. She's definitely a designer sort of girl, not the kind of female that would part with a $800.00 purse for just any old reason.
I don't know. I guess that sort of tickled me in a way.
Sometimes, victims do fight back. And in her case, I�m pretty sure it got ugly.
After the rally, we hobbled out to the car. Rene� had went and picked up the car and moved it to the parking garage adjacent to this area. I could feel multiple blisters popping up on the soles of my feet.
Rene� treated us to the Macaroni Grill. By this time we were all exhausted from sweating our butts off and being out in the sun. We were ravenous!
As usual, the food was awesome.
Around 5:01 p.m., I was surfing through the channels. I stopped at Channel 2. I was ECSTATIC to see that Channel 2 had used me and an excerpt from my speech. It was the part where I said, �I was 7 years old when I almost died.� I could not believe that.
They also used the speech of that poor lady who lost her son in that car accident.
I wanted to call somebody!! But nobody was home.
The day ended nicely. I sat out front with Tawny, looking at old photo albums and spraying the carpenter bees who flew to close to us. Who needs entertainment when I can get it sitting on my front porch?
Thanks so much to my lovie, Lisa, who took these pictures. They are beautiful. She is an awesome photographer, no?
10:05 am - April 11, 2005
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
%%older_entries%%
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