"Bit of Heavy Weather Brewing There."

~Admiral Boom, Mary Poppins

Things have been a bit tense in Virginia today:

1) Work today was off the wall (as illustrated by definition #1: "So crazy that it is hard to understand"). Key word, "crazy". They (said Crazies) were out in force today. I think it was the wind. Around 60 Hearing Notices were delivered today to those who have neglected to bring their properties into compliance with the By-Laws. They've had since August 1st, but were calling today Freaking Out, that after May 2nd they will begin to be assessed $10/day everyday their property is not in compliance*. My phone rang at least 25 times in 4 hours. That is Not Ok.

2) Speaking of The Wind:

• It blew a handful of vent covers, gutter guards, attic fans, and shingles off my neighborhood roofs.
• It downed uncountable limbs and 1 Giant Pine tree, blocking the access to 2 front doors.
• It caused all of Fairfax County Schools to be released 3 hours early (apparently there was fear of mobile/temporary classrooms taking flight much like Auntie Em's House).
• It caused numerous accidents and delays on the already insane even on a beautiful day DC-Metro roads.
  
• It knocked Wiley to the ground at least once (which I laughed at - yes, I can be an insensitive bitch sometimes. In my defense, he was unhurt and laughing also.)
• The driving rain that accompanied it caused at least 3 roofs to leak.
  

3) And then, my friend, J**, who lives in the 'Hood, just sent me an email threatening life and limb and my inheritance of the Ruby Slippers (as his roof is leaking and his vent pipe cover just blew off) with this doctored photo attached:

4) The house needs to be Sale Ready by Tuesday night, as the possibility exists for my Virtual Tour video and MLS photos to be recorded/taken on Wednesday afternoon. So. I spent the evening working on Last Minute Touch-Ups (as we all know were unnecessary but my OCD can't stop tweaking.)

5) The Ex (formerly known as "T") is showing up tomorrow night to pick up his truck and head South (Rach, he'll be in your neck of the woods for about a month if you and Jas are interested), regardless of the fact that he hasn't informed me he's coming asofyet. (Though in his defense, he may have left me a message on my machine as I haven't listened to the messages on my home machine or my cellphone in approx. 3 weeks.) (You should know that if you call me, you shouldn't bother leaving a message because I never listen to them. My apologies.)

5) Virginia Tech.

*Yes, I love the word, "Compliance". Almost as much as I hate the word, "Inappropriate".

**This would be a better alias if his name weren't, in fact, "Jay***".

***Hi, Jay! I love you! Smooches!

~This post brought to you by Chardonnay and Glinda the Pretty Witch****.

****Yes, I know it's Glinda the Good Witch. Shut up. This is my story.

How Today Is Much Like A Rollercoaster

Some days you wake up, roll over, and decide that the whole day is warming up to be a huge, steaming slice of Crap Pizza. This is how I felt about this morning. So I wore my jeans, a t-shirt, a blazer (much like Ellen, nowthatIthinkaboutit), and my running shoes to work so as to be as comfy as possible (and in case I needed to make a quick get-away from The Crazies). As soon as I got there, my theory seemed to be proven right, as I got 2 Crazy Phone Calls right off the bat, was overwhelmed by all of my ToDo piles on my Disaster of a Desk, and only then realized I need to write upwards of 70 letters* by next Tuesday and have no time Monday or Tuesday to stay late. Before I could even dig my heels in, I got a call from ADT. My home alarm was going off. She asked if I wanted her to call the police. I told her no, I was 3 minutes from home, that I'd check it out. It wasn't until I was in the car that I realized how that may have been a little dumb. I did bring Wiley with me, though, and made him go in first. We investigated all the rooms. All was secure and we decided that Dog was the culprit when he set off the motion detector alarm (which I accidentally set). Oops. My bad.

*Why didn't I start these earlier, you ask? Duh. I did, but there is So Much To Do at work these days that they had to be shoved to the back burner as Other Things became priority. Unfortunately, now I'm up against a Legally Mandated Deadline so I may be there on Sunday writing them. Grrr.

ANYWAY, so I did get about one-third of the letters done (unfortunately, the easy ones), then talked Wiley into picking us up some lunch at "Chicken Out" (I had the Grilled Chicken Caesar Wrap - mmm) while I started copying the Management Report for next week's meeting and silently lamenting the life of a lowly Secretary/Phone Answering Goddess/Customer Service Punching Bag. Halfway through my Inner-Voice-Tirade, in walks my friend Joe-the-Roofer with a Fruit Basket from Edible Arrangements just for me (yay!) (and on his birthday, no less) from him and Howard-the-Roofer. For thanks (and probably a little bit because I'm a big-fat-whiney-butt, but I'm not going to tell you about that). And it's amazing how a Basket-o-Fruit (WITH chocolate-dipped strawberries) will perk a girl right up! I was SO stoked that I stayed at work until almost 4, a tornado of industry, then came home, did all that paint-touching-up that I've been grumbling about, and even got one coat of paint on the front door. Yay!

I did NOT clean the carpets yet. Why, you ask? (And aren't you allsortsof inquisitive today?) Because the dog threw up on the carpet twice this morning and while I cleaned up the big ick, the stains are still there and I figured if I steam clean the carpets now, Murphy's Law dictates that he will barf all over it while I'm at work tomorrow.

Oh! Tomorrow! Do you realize that Tomorrow is Friday??? Yay! Thank God. And just in the nick of time, too.

(Note to self: Go to ABC store. Buy Cachaca. You're out.)

(And also, the next time you head to the land of Jes & Rachelle, travel WITH the Cachaca as they've never heard of Brazilian liquor down in them there parts.)

(OHMYGOD!!! I just realized! I'm moving to Indiana in just over 2 months! Have they heard of Cachaca in the Midwest? Oh. I'm dizzy.)

In Which Paige Becomes Comatose

On Annie's suggestion from Monday's comments section (because she is The Voice of Reason and we should all listen to her whether we think we need to or not), I took a nap. Last night...

I made dinner for me and the kids (a Real dinner - not just carrot sticks and potato chips like normal), we cleaned it up, and around 6:30, they went to their rooms to do homework and I headed up to my bedroom to return month-old emails and watch some TV. But my bed was so comfy, and my head was so tired, that I laid down for just a few minutes. For I had Things to do; rooms to rearrange! At 9:00 I had "House" to watch!

I was instantly asleep.

For 4 hours. I woke up at 10:30, long after "House" had wrapped, the sun had set, and the kids had put themselves to bed. I checked to make sure the house was locked tight, the alarm set, and the heat turned down, then went back upstairs. I was awake for about an hour. Then fell easily back to sleep and slept until 6:30 this morning.

And I'm still a little tired today.

So I had a cookie.

Who Wants to Buy a House?

Ok. Here's the deal. I am dead tired. 3 of the last 4 weekends have either been spent with Jes and Rachelle at their homes, with my parents at my home, and/or preparing the house to put on the market (T-7 days...).

The house was actually perfect. But I CANNOT just let be and keep nit-picking at the house, trying to make it More Perfect and driving myself nutso. I'd love to say that I recognize this and will stop, but I won't. Even my sheets will be clean for the showings. (Hello, OCD! Why can't we just get along?)

Several rooms are finished (mostly, anyway - I need to buy a couple of plants, a curtain and rod for D's closet "door", and 2 lamps for my bedroom). The photos (so far) can be seen on my Flickr page.

There is still touch-up-painting, carpet-cleaning, pansy-planting, boxes-o-books-relocating (I think they're going to my office as it's hard to hide 6 boxes of books in a house that we're trying very hard not to let people notice is packed to the brim), dead-plant-removing (oops! it was a palm in T's "apartment," otherwise known as the basement and was ignored, literally, to death), and laundry-room-tidying to be done. Everything else is perfect.

See you on the Sold Side....

Helpful Hints From Brandi

Before you decide to ask your gainfully employed husband with a LOT more discretionary income than yourself for a divorce, you should to run to Vicki's and stock up on bras. Because what will happen is that immediately following this discussion with your soon-to-be ex, you will start to lose weight. And your pants that were a bit too snug will start to feel roomy and almost-too-big, but not yet too big to wear (thank God), and slowly, slowly, so that you don't notice it's even happening, your boobs will also shrink, leaving your bras WAY too roomy and you, in your new-found budget-consciousness, will feel that $50 bras from the mall will be considered an extravagance, though you can't quite bring yourself to buy one from Target so you will continue to wear the slightly too-big-bras that will continue to fall off your shoulders because there's nothing to hold the straps in place, and you will be slightly uncomfortable but Free all the same.

And it will be worth it.

Brunette to Blonde

Thank you, Mom, for the free Hair Care!

So Tired I Forgot a Title...

Hi Guys.

I'm not being elusive on purpose. I'm just busy as hell: Work late, come home and organize/separate/clean something then fall into bed exhausted.

And my parents come tomorrow so it may be a few more days.

But I don't want to disappear again without saying thank you to everyone for all their kind words this week. It is hard to continue writing when I don't know who is reading or what their motives are, but I do tend to think that my Friends WAY outweigh my Foes (Ex's... In-laws...whatever).

I will be back soon, but until then, I'll leave you with this:

You know how I sometimes get music stuck in my head for days?

This week it's been Molly Shannon saying "Goodbye, my lesbian lover!" (from the movie, "Serendipity")

All. Week. Long.

I blame Wannabe Hippie.

500 Down...

Hehehe.

Nothing like writing a post about S. E. X. and then disappearing for a week and a half...

Well.

This is my 500th post. I thought, for this event, I was going to write something witty and incredibly insightful, perhaps on the Art of Writing, perhaps on the Psychology of Why we do it, perhaps on how my life has changed so drastically since I started this nearly three-and-a-half years ago.

I even thought, before I remembered that this was my 500th, about quitting altogether. I don't write Political Pieces. I don't keep a commentary on Pop Culture. I don't write a Mommy Blog that other Mommys can relate to. I write Me. What I think. What I feel. What I do day-to-day and why a certain instance cracked me up enough to share it with you or how some Crazy from my job enraged me enough to want to rant about it. (On the Internet. With reckless abandon.) I started this blog back in 2003, while stationed overseas so my family and friends had an easy and quick (and free) way to keep track of what we were up to and how the kids were growing and enjoying Japan. But as we transitioned back into a more mundane life in the States, the tenor of my writing changed. It became less of a running commentary on the thing that is Life In Japan, and more of an escape for me.

And now, unfortunately, much of what is happening in my day-to-day life is not only not funny, it's painfully private. And that makes much of what I have to say off-limits. I know that there are a few old acquaintances reading, I can only assume to see the spectacle that is Paige and Tater's Divorce. (Sorry to disappoint you. You will see none of that here.) I suspect that my In-Laws read and as I'm divorcing their Golden Boy, I prefer not to give them any more ammo to hate me with. I fear that T himself is reading and, frankly, I hate feeling that he knows things about me that I don't know about him any longer. (On the other hand, it gives him a regular-ish update of what the kids are doing - you know - who is earning blue ribbons swimming, who is catching himself on fire, who is the girlfriend/boyfriend of the week...)

The bottom line is that I'm unsure if I should continue or even if I can continue while preserving a huge chunk of myself. I'm not used to that. The Paige you've seen for the past 3 years is mostly unedited and honest. I've felt more and more, the need to censor myself and if you know me in person, you know that I'm by nature open and frank; self-censorship is not my strong suit.

I don't know. I'm still pondering. Perhaps this is just one of these pesky speed bumps that all of us writers feel from time to time and in the end, I won't be able to stop.

What I do know is that this is what I am feeling today, this very moment.

But tomorrow is another day.

Sex and the Single Girl

I was horrified, recently, to realize that I can tear up my "List of Five".

You'd think this would be good news, as I am now free to rendezvous with whomever I choose, but really, it just adds a whole new stress to the already sickening business of divorce. (Not that I think Matthew McConnaghey has been waiting in the wings for me to become unattached!) But here's the thing: The thought of consequence-free hooking up with a super-sexy celebrity while married, is fun. It's a slightly naughty, impossible fantasy - one you know will never happen and, quite frankly, would have sent me screaming in the opposite direction at the opportunity, as the thought of actually being intimate with someone new, famous or not, makes my stomach turn backflips.

While long-time married couples lament the tedium of sex with the same person forever and ever, the reality of someday starting a sexual relationship with someone new scares the bejeezuz out of me. While still married, I could kid myself that even though I'm almost 40, and 15 lbs heavier, and softer, and all birth-marked-up, he could look past all that and see only the 24-year-old girl he first met. At the very least, he could remember that I was once super-fit, toned, and scar-free.

We had 16 years to perfect the moves that garnered results. We didn't have to wonder any longer, "does he like this?", "will this hurt her?"... we made it past the shyness of new love and graduated to matter-of-fact sharing of information that made each of us more comfortable and confident in the bedroom. The thought of starting over, in a new relationship, is just horrifying enough to keep me holed up in my house, living the single life vicariously through "Sex and the City", unattached friends, and Chick Flicks. (Pass the popcorn, please.) I do suppose that someday, when I meet someone new, the natural progression of a relationship will lead me to intimacy without fear. But until then, lovemaking with a new partner is not so much a Fantasy as it is Scary as Hell.

I suppose the moral of this story is that an adequate sex life is not enough to save an otherwise dysfunctional relationship and the freedom to meet someone new is a double-edged sword.

File this in the TMI File.

Then feel free to forward it to Hugh Jackman.

For Alison:

Do you like this one better...? xoxo

Weekend At Brandi's

It was a pretty quiet weekend around here, and Dillon was working all weekend, so Mackenzie and I had to amuse ourselves with the camera. But not before we (meaning, I) commenced with Happy Hour:



See how happy I am on Friday Night?:



Mackenzie and I made a pizza and started clicking away with the camera, taking scads of photos that we choose not to share. Some of them were less than flattering, though fun to take. This one was borderline:



We crack ourselves up:



Saturday was the first beautiful day of Spring. Mac went to the school to play soccer with her friends, and I took a nice long walk. Then for lunch I had an apple:



There was some homework being done, and as Mac is terrible about picking up after herself, these pencils were left out on the table. I liked the colors enough to immortalize them:



Saturday consisted of more Household Separating/Home-Selling Preparation so by Saturday night we were exhausted and needed to chill out and watch Bridget Jones's Diary. Taiko seemed to enjoy it:



Sunday morning started a little slow around here:



I joined a Flickr Group - 52 Weeks - one shot a week for a year. Here's the first. Sunday morning, wet hair from the shower, no makeup:



And, it was warm enough today to go sockless for the first time in F O R E V E R:



I tried to change the time on Lucy, but I couldn't figure it out. So Dillon and I broke out the Instruction Manual. It told us to push the "Clock Button". I don't have one of those. Seriously. No button. And we pushed all the others Just In Case... no luck. I think it has something to do with the Navigation System displacing some of the buttons. Maybe they just forgot to put mine back. I wonder how many other calls the Acura dealership is going to get tomorrow...

(Edit for the Googlers today: Welcome! The clock can be changed by pushing the AC/Info button then push the touchscreen button in the top right corner, "More", which will take you to the next screen and you can change it there. And I figured it out all by myself. Dillon just didn't know there were more screens... :) )

Dillon's girlfriend stayed for dinner (pasta with scallops, sundried tomatoes, and mushrooms in a butter/white wine sauce and salad), and with Daylight Savings Time instituted, the weekend was over.

Un-Social Drinking

So. I've been thinking:

Back in the day when I was married (remember that?), I used to drink alone all the time. I mean, when your husband is deployed for 6 months (or more) at a time, drinking alone becomes a necessity; you can't plan a dinner party every time you want to have a glass of wine, simply to stave-off any presumptions of "issues". And I think this is pretty normal for Navy wives. I can't speak for other branches, but I know my girlfriends indulge in the same healthy manner as myself. (I don't know about civilian wives either. I suppose I will learn.) Though he was gone, the fact that he was coming home made it seem ok. It made it seem as though I wasn't actually drinking Alone. I was just drinking in a different Time Zone.

But now, when I have a drink in the evening (not every evening), I feel a tad guilty about it. As if I'm doing something wrong. Something potentially harmful and somewhat improper. Pouring myself a glass of wine in the evening has an air of pathetic-ness to it that didn't exist before. Before, having a glass of wine while making dinner for my family seemed regular. It was just what I did. Now, having a glass of wine with the grilled cheese sandwich or the salad we threw together feels a little wicked. It makes me feel as though I have to keep peeking over my shoulder to ensure that no one gets the wrong impression of me now.

And I don't like it because I'm the same Me as I was Before.

Do you guys drink alone? What do you think about it?

Midnight Edit - So I was just thinking about it, and I think what makes me feel like it's not ok now, is that in the event of an emergency, I'm the only parent the kids have to come to their aid and even one glass puts me close to the limit - I'm still a "One and you're done" kind of thinker. Even when T was still living here, if I was the only parent home while Dillon was out, I didn't drink at all lest I get the Dreaded Phonecall. Now I'm always the only parent available. On the other hand, I am certain that while completely abstaining from the drink "in case of emergency," will make me prepared for any crisis at every possible second, it will also make me cranky.

(I actually wrote about this here last year.)

Looking For Nice Things to Say

You know how your mom used to say, "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all"?

This is where I've been all week. I was damn busy with meetings and working late and knitting 2 scarves, and when I wasn't doing that, I was just avoiding the computer in general because it felt too much like work (which, of course, brought me back up to 81 emails in my inbox...). I just couldn't find the humor in anything, and everything seemed So Hard, making me So Tired. Yet, I wasn't sleeping. S-T-U-P-I-D.

But I'm feeling better today:

• I finally paid my bills (which should have sent be back into a depression - now I understand that 'turnip-thing' people are always saying about money)
• I FINALLY solved the Great Roofing Mystery at work
  
• Tomorrow's Friday (and I have limes)
• I talked to an old friend on the phone today (who always makes me feel sunshiney)
• ...and to my sister (who always makes me laugh So Hard)
  
• I started a book last night (only read 15 pages, but hey, it's a start)
• I have my inbox back down to 26 emails (some of which I should just phone-call return)
• I have 2 dates scheduled for April* (and I'm working on another)
• and the temperatures are going back up (Yay, Spring!)

*NO, not Real Dates (like with a boy). Dinner dates (like with friends). Duh.

The Brandi-Parents are coming to visit for Spring Break and I'm really looking forward to that. I love my family and they always cheer me up. It's because they're a little bit Crazy. For reals.

I'm getting my hair highlighted*. That's exciting. It always makes me feel so SoCal and that makes me happy. (Until my roots start to show and then I curse the idea of haircolor manipulation. But then I remember that I'll be living at home with my own Personal Hairdresser at my beck and call and I get over it.)

(*Hey Mom, will you highlight my hair when you come? Mac's too? Thanks!)

All that's bugging me now is that I keep smelling men's cologne. The closest thing to a man in my life right now is the dog, lying in Tater's old spot on my bed. :) And he's nothing like a man. He's not even anything like a male dog...

Trainwreck'd

Headache.

Tired.

Busy.

Overwhelmed.

Spent.

Emotionally void.

Maybe one more day....

Then and Now. Now Kind of Sucks.

It's 9:15 Friday night.

I just got up from a 90-minute nap.

Twenty years ago, I would have been upstairs in my closet picking out some Club Wear (probably to include a mini-skirt of some sort), then off to the bathroom to apply frosty blue eyeshadow before the coup-de-gras: Aqua-Net on my Big Bangs, completing the Classic 80's Look.

Tonight, I'm having a sensible snack and counting the minutes until I can really go to bed, with no regret for missing the Friday Night Bar Scene.

So sad.