hobo's are the new unicorn

shit on a biscuit of silver linings

It's total chaos here. Happy chaos, sad chaos, I'm eating Xanax like Skittles chaos.

This past month has been crazy, and it's all supposed to lead up to the big move, from our old place to another, but that was supposed to be days ago. It didn't happen, and the bizarre short and dramatic sounding version is because some guy got struck by lightning. He's ok. One must always add that after saying such a thing. But it appears that the bolt of lightning caused a ripple effect that then cascaded over our move and stopped it. I should note I would rather our move be stopped than his heart, so there's the silver lining.

Beyond that, it all gets rather tricky. My husband took the week off to move all of our stuff himself, and so far most of our week has consisted of living out of boxes, hassling the new place to try to nail down an exact move in date, and the rest of our time has been spent shopping for new furniture. That is the enjoyable part. Let us say that is also the silver lining.

That silver lining, however, comes with a burning exhaustion at the end of the day, a tightrope balancing act of three tweakers (myself, my son, and my husband) walking around endless stores, sitting on things, debating things, going back to stores, beautifully decorated stores, and then coming home to a house in utter shambles because nearly everything is in a freaking box.

And the new place... oh... once they manage to fix the bizarre-o set of circumstances that led to this debacle, the new place is going to be absolutely freaking glorious. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We'll be in a beautiful new place, with gorgeous new furniture, and although we'll still hear the jet noise, it will be nothing in comparison to the deafening roar we hear at our current home.

It should be downright serene. And really beautiful.

But... we should have been mostly moved in already. We should at least have been sleeping there already, and I don't change gears easily. Instead of the pack and rush at the beginning of the week like I thought, we're mostly enjoying the time together (we get so blessed little of it!) but it's overshadowed by the stress of confronting the management of our new place, raising hell to get them to fucking step on it already, and This Was Not The Plan. The plan was to get all our shit in, unpack the necessities, and then take the last few days of my husband's first ever "vacation" and just go do fun shit, just for the sheer hell of it. My workaholic husband actually took a week off. That sentence ought to make alligators worldwide to suddenly take up rollerskating. Like, for real, I can't even imagine what could be weirder or more surreal, and I suspect I could if I was getting any sleep. But I'm really not. I'm too stressed out.

I do ok when we're busy running errands, insurance company, the rental office, the endless stream of furniture stores. I did ok yesterday until we got home, and my son fell asleep. My mind seemed to think that was a damn fine time to let flood the floodgates of hysteria, which everyone knows washes in the tsunami of WHAT IF and then it all goes slow motion and....

It's not all about moving, you see. Moving, in and of itself, stresses me the fuck out, I won't lie to you. At least, not at this exhausted moment. You call me tomorrow and sound worried, I'm going to tell you I'm peachy fucking keen and not to get your panties in a wad, it's all under control. I won't be lying, because at the time, it does seem so. I am accomplishing things, and even though they aren't the things I want to be accomplishing, at least they are something. Once the day is done and I have time to unwind...

When the quiet comes, I think of my family. I think of my grandfather, who is in excruciating pain. He needs a surgery, but doctors don't know if he'll survive the surgery itself. They have a date set, but they may call it off right at the last second if they feel he won't make it through the surgery. I'm going to visit, whether or not the surgery happens or doesn't happen, of course. *pause* The thing is, if he can't get this surgery, his pain is going to get worse, and he can barely function as it is, on morphine patches and... a shell of the man I knew. He's still in there, my gramps: taking me to get ice cream and letting me play in the back room of his insurance office for hours, spending weeks teaching me and my brother how to ride roller skates...

I could go on. I don't want to.

This thing is, his surgery is coming up in less than two weeks, I have to get moved and unpack and then run halfway across the country, leaving my husband and son in a shamble of a house, spend time with my family who seem even more emotionally unstable than I am, but mostly spend time with my grandpa who may or may not be here for more than the next ten days, and I'm seven hundred miles away, not with him, and worrying about what color table goes with what couch. I like furniture, but in light of the big picture, it's all so trivial and it's not fun or a "vacation" by any means. My grandpa might die. I'm seven hundred miles away. Be in the moment? The moment is my family needs me and I'm not there. My family here needs me, too, especially my son who is anxious by nature and this whole thing is incredibly hard on him, too.

I'm actually nodding off writing this, with my dinner still in front of me and no spell check to correct my silly ass. Psssht. I have to stop writing.

Anyway, that's what's going on.

The fibro shit, for those of you asking, I won't know more about for a few more weeks I think. Got a doctors appointment for the same day as my grandpa's surgery, so I'm rescheduling it because there's no way I'm missing being with him. And also, I'm going to get my son "mapped". I'm about 99% positive he's fibro-positive, too. But again, just still to get such a formality from a doctor. I've been treating him as if he does, and the difference is huge.

Yo. Jill out. My head almost hit the damn keyboard. Seeing double.....

ps) I almost forgot! It was 102 degrees yesterday! Talk about a silver freaking lining, good flaming gracious... At least when we do move it will be at least fifteen degrees cooler.

Note: I was so exhausted when I wrote this that I couldn't even figure out how to post it. I saved it as an e-mail and am posting it in the morning, dating it as the time I wrote it last night, though. In retrospect, I'm glad I couldn't post it. The sheer amount of spelling mistakes made me look like a massive crackhead, although it did clearly illustrate how exhausted I was. Still am. Barely slept. But at least I can figure out how to post and spell check this morning.... dude.

We love Bob Barker

It started innocently enough: my son and I were stuck in the dentist's waiting room, and The Price Is Right came on the TV in the corner. Having seen the show plenty of times when I was a kid, I proceeded to fill my son in on the various games and how the show works, but I caught myself getting all choked up and emotional about it.

I'm the first to admit I'm a big crybaby about stuff. It doesn't have to be sad, if anything, I'm far more likely to burst into tears over happy things. It was something about the undeniable, almighty cuteness of Bob Barker, the happy squealing of contests who were called on to "COME ON DOWN!", the endless women kissing the cheek of dear Bob... I sat there like a nincompoop, trying not to let anyone notice I was nearly in tears while watching the Price Is Right, waiting to get a crown put on my root canal. I mean, really.

Since then, my son noticed the TV schedule one day, and mentioned the time and channel the show comes on. I was inspired to record it, and we watched it together. My son does not have the same reaction to the show that I have. Instead of getting weepy and laughing, he turns splotchy and smiles and yells and cheers people on. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, it seems.

Today we were watching a show taped earlier and I noticed the backdrop said, "The Price Is Right" and under that "35 Years". My jaw dropped. I paused the show and pointed it out to my son, saying, "That show is older than I am," which of course any child knows must mean something about fending off dinosaurs and whatnot. I looked at my son and said in quiet amazement, "That man must have the most kissed cheek in the history of the world..."

I know what we're actually watching is the taped episodes from this last season, it being the last season ever with Bob Barker, who retired in June at the ripe young age of 83.

We watched the show, we cheered, and I tried to not cry at all, even when the one girl came hurtling down the aisle while simultaneously jumping up and down and high-fiving every person she could. I don't know how one human can perform so many things at once, but she was doing it with a million dollar smile, and when she won and got up on stage, she was screaming so loud we could barely hear Bob talking anymore. We cheered uproariously at the little old lady who won her trip to wherever it was, and as my son pointed out, "She won the Tempupedic bed! I bet she's going to love that! She's old, she needs a comfy bed." I thought it was insanely sweet of him to say so. She was so cute, wandering off and having the smiling models gently lead her by the elbow back to where she was supposed to be.

What's not to love about the show?

And then, I googled Bob. As if I didn't already love him, as if I didn't buy the movie Happy Gilmore years ago just because Bob Barker said to Adam Sandler, "You want a piece of me?" As if I couldn't love Bob Barker any more, I found out that yes, yes I could.

Give in, go ahead and read it, and join me in my utter love and devotion to the almighty cuteness that is Bob Barker.

Chuck Norris approves. What more do you need?