Divorce in Pictures

Question: What do you cook for the last dinner before you are divorced?
Answer: Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas...

...And if you marry me, and then we procceed to argue for most of the next 16 years, I will probably ask you for a divorce, but I will send you off with Oatmeal Raisin Cookies for the airplane:

Making fun of Me (otherwise known as "bonding" around here):

Last minute warning that someday I'm going to teach her about masturbation. ...Really? This is Last Minute Info?:

The making of the cookies:

Baking wouldn't be nearly as fun without a little "Rent":

Even the kitchen can't contain her when singing Broadway show tunes:

Full Belly:

Lunch for D tomorrow at school. I wrote on these containers and then was so tickled with myself that I went to get my camera and while I was focusing on the food, he snuck up behind me and busted me So Bad. We laughed ourselves silly while considering him pulling these out in the cafeteria later:

For Annie. Proof I am ok - The first thing I cleaned was the pantry (Hello, OCD - Welcome Back!):

The Lowdown

Things are be-boppin' along here (how do you spell be-boppin'?).

We have Good Days and Bad, mostly Good lately. Truthfully, I think we're all Bad Dayed out and simply exhausted. Getting divorced will make you skinny and wear your ass out; it will make you lose sleep and make that nervous-shortness-of-breath-issue you had last fall reappear. Ironically though, I haven't had a migraine in almost 6 weeks. My walk-in closet is twice as big, and now I have full-custody of the Big Dresser (for the past 16 years, I've gotten the Small Dresser on the grounds that my clothes are smaller - and perhaps the fact that I had less...).

Last weekend, I escaped the house alone (I KNOW! without Mac - who woulda thunk?) and spent it with Scientist-Lisa and Dr. Tim, talking, eating, drinking margaritas and martinis, playing Whack-a-Mole and Pokemon with Emma, marveling at the young lady that Kirsten has become, and petting Steve the Cat. It was an amazing retreat and I am so grateful for having such special friends. But I didn't take a single photo. You'll have to deal.

Speaking of photos, here are the updated photos of Dillon's face:


Marshmallow Fluff mask.


Scabby.


...and he's fine.


And... I cleaned out this bookcase in preparation for putting the house on the market. You didn't see it before, but it was double booked and stuffed tight. (Ha - get it? 'Double-booked.') Five boxes of books came out of here:


After T is gone later this week, the house will undergo a cleaning/organizing like you've never seen before. I'm a little excited about that. His clutter was in no small part a major factor in our insurmountable issues.

*Also, please notice the new email for Cartwheels At Midnight. Cartwheels@mac.com is now defunct as we had to separate out our .Mac account this week. (There's a lot of separating shared crap involved in divorce. I'm so glad my lazy ass didn't realize this earlier...)

The Times, They Are A'Changin'

Well.

It seems that the time has come for me to let you all know what's been going on. There are some things that you can't decide if they should be published on the internet for all to see, or if you should just let word-of-mouth take over. But then I realized that if I was counting on word-of-mouth, then Brenda in Portland and Sarah in England probably wouldn't hear, and Emily would wonder why I never showed up in Southern California. And then it occured to me that some of my future posts wouldn't make much sense if I didn't include this post as a new chapter in Cartwheels At Midnight:

So.

Tater and I are divorcing and and going our separate ways, him to San Diego and the kids and I to Indiana. I'll stay here in the house until Dillon graduates in June and Mac finishes her 6th grade year, then we'll move in with my parents (AGAIN), who are undeniably the Best and Most Patient Parents Ever, until I can get a job and get back on my feet. D will start college there with the intention to transfer to an art school the following year, and Mac will head to Middle School and be my #1 Roomie.

I don't really have anything else to say about this - it is what it is, and is for the best.

*****
(7:39pm - I just re-read this and it looks a little sad (I was going for straight-forward). I want you to know that it is mutual and amicable - we are actually getting along better than we have in years. There is no fighting and there are no lawyers. We are using an arbitrator and have reached a settlement. Please don't worry about me - this is a road we've been traveling down for many years and it's the right thing to do.)

On The Mend

He's better today - the burns aren't quite so weepy and his skin cells aren't dying at an alarming rate anymore. We can't remember the name of the cream they gave him in the ER (silver-something), so we're calling it Magic Cream around here. He smears it all over his face until it looks like he lost to a jar of marshmallow fluff, and it works like.... yup, you guessed it - MAGIC!

He's still in a lot of pain, but will go to school tomorrow anyway, after taking the maximum dose of Tylenol. Yay!

Thanks for all the well-wishes, positivity and prayers. Hugs all around!

Sad, Sad Boy

He feels not so great. At the hospital they had to debride the burns, which made me just a little queasy to watch. Besides cleaning the wounds, there wasn't much they could do, but gave him some Tylenol-3 and cream to keep on the burns. My task is to 'keep an eye' on him. They wanted to see him back in 2-3 days and then made an appointment for next Tuesday morning (I don't know either.). Until it starts to heal, they won't know if it will scar, and keeping the burns clean so they don't get infected is key. So if you're the prayin' kind, send an anti-bacterial prayer our way...

The Boys Are At the ER

Update 11am Wednesday- These photos don't do it justice. His arm is blistered now - his neck just looks sunburnt. His hair, eyelashes and eyebrows are all singed - thank God for his glasses. We have an appointment at 1:30 this afternoon at the hospital. I'll let you know how it went after. Thanks for the prayers and well-wishes.

Dillon came home from work an hour ago with a flash-burn on his face. He was standing over an engine when a cleaning chemical ignited and burned his face with 2nd degree burns. The on-call physician sent us to the ER.

Any positivity you can offer right now would be welcome.

Hiatus

Hi Everyone.

I've missed Dillon's 18th birthday (Dec 30) but have the post written, I'll scan & add the photos soon - but I have some stuff going down here. I'll be back as soon as I can to fill you all in.

Thank you for still being here.

xoxoxoxoP

Reading List 2007

• True Betrayals ~Nora Roberts
• While I Was Gone ~Sue Miller
• Children of the Flames: Dr. Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz ~Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel
• Sarah's Window ~Janice Graham
• The Stones of Mourning Creek ~Diane Les Becquets
• Back When We Were Grown Ups ~Anne Tyler
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius ~Dave Eggers
  
• Gods and Generals ~Jeff Shaara
  
• Corelli's Mandolin ~Louis de Bernieres
• Water for Elephants ~Sara Gruen
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ~J. K. Rowling
• Cranberry Queen ~Kathleen DeMarco
• The Dive From Clausen's Pier ~Ann Packer

(And a few others that are hopelessly lost in a year I'd like to forget...)