I am now moved into my new place.  It’s quiet, calm and peaceful.  MUCH better than the hotel.  Like, WAY better.    I was able to make a home cooked meal (Tense Teacher’s yummy taco soup) and eat it while sitting on this:

And watching this:

I love my new couch!  It’s so comfortable!  And, that TV stand?  I put it together all by myself.  I was very proud of myself for that. 

I’m dead exhausted and my foot is killing me.  I did too much up and around on it today I think, and it is complaining at me very loudly.  I took a couple Tylenol PM’s a bit ago and am going to be heading to bed very soon.  My only remaining quandary is whether I just crash on my uber comfortable couch or put my new sheets on the bed and crawl upstairs to crash in my new bed.  Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

Today, the 27th of November, my Monkey turns 13 years old.  THIRTEEN years old.  This is a big birthday for him.  And for me.  This is my baby.  He is a  teenager today.

And he is not here with me.  He is in Cancun with my parents.  Ugh.

My joy is him.  My joy is remembering 13 years ago when I held his squalling, angry newborn self in my arms.

My sadness is that he is not here with me to celebrate the anniversary of this momentous occasion. 

Happy birthday my wonderful Monkey Man.  13 years ago today the world was graced with your presence.  And you have already made a huge mark.

Today is the American Thanksgiving. I am thankful for a lot, but still…..being alone today kind of sucks. Ah well, I’m going to maybe go see a flick and run by my townhouse to drop off the TV I bought yesterday.

I will survive.

It’s an awesome anthem.  But it can mean so much more than just what the words say.

And it can mean exactly what the words say.

This is dedicated to my love, my friend, my partner in crime, Gypsy911.

It’s cliche. It’s the ultimate girl anthem. It doesn’t matter. IT FITS.

Welcome to the next chapter in your life without the biggest douchebag that has ever lived. ( and yes TJ, I know you have my blog address, and I know you are looking at it, and YES, this post is about what a fucking dickhead you are. )

So, I have been here in Huntsville, AL for almost a week now.  And have been at work for 4 full (well, almost full, because my new boss came in at 12:30 and DEMANDED I go home – heh) days.  What do I think?

I OMG fucking love it here.  Seriously.

I am suffering some separation anxiety of course.  My kids aren’t with me, and that sucks.  I’ve heard from the Terrorist several times.  She misses me.  Awwwww.  My Monkey is in Mexico with my parents celebrating his birthday (which is Friday), but I miss him just the same.

My saving grace?

Renee.

Seriously.  I knew Renee when we worked together in Houston.  We were casual friends, but not much more.  She was here in Huntsville, working on the same program as me, before I was.

I HAVE LATCHED ON TO HER.  Poor Renee.  Seriously.  LOL

It is really super nice to have people you already know when you move to a new place, and Renee has really taken care of me.  “Do you need anything?”  “Can I take you somewhere?”  “Can I show you around?”  “Let’s go to lunch!”  Awesome beyond measure.

So, on this eve of Thanksgiving, here is my list of things I am thankful for:

• My children.  They are healthy and happy (well, as happy as a 15 year old girl can be.  LOL)
• My health.  Despite my stupid broken foot, I am healthy.
• My friends that have supported me through all my whining on my search to get out of Hell.
• And finally Renee.  Seriously girl.  You are making this transition so much easier for me and I cannot thank you enough.  I <3 you!

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you all (or for my Canadian friends (even those sock wearing ones) happy Thursday).  Hug your loved ones extra tight for me, will  ya?

This post is necessary since I may or may not (totally did) start a whole sock brou-ha-ha on Twitter last night with one Canadian hottie named Bluepaintred.

I was born in southern California, to a barefoot beach queen.  I learned to walk BAREFOOT, not in clunky old shoes.  When I was a child, it was discovered that my feet are allergic to their own sweat.

Let me repeat that.  ALLERGIC – TO – MY – OWN – FOOT – SWEAT.

And unfortunately, my feet sweat.  A lot.  At age 5 the docs discovered that this was the reason my feet were cracked and bleeding all the time.  I was instructed to go barefoot whenever possible and specifically not to wear socks if I could avoid it (makes my feet sweat).  Magically, after a few weeks of allowing my 10 little piggies to be free and unencumbered by shoes or socks, my cracked and bleeding feet healed and everything was groovy.

So, because I spent a huge amount of my life being “forced” to be barefoot and sockless, I have harbored quite a distaste for having ANYTHING on my feet at all.  My feet have to be literally freezing blocks of ice before I will put a pair of socks on around the house.  The very first thing I do when I get home from work, before ANYTHING else is take off my shoes AND SOCKS.

While I totally appreciate the love that Miss BPR has for her socks, I cannot be part of #TeamSocks.  I just can’t.  I have lots of socks.  I have lots of very cute socks.  And they all sit in the drawer and drown in lonliness because I just can’t be bothered to wear them.  But I can’t part with them either.

So, there is my rebuttal to Sock Love.  While I can appreciate your love of the little feet jails, I hope you can appreciate my distaste for them and we can put this past us and move on.  Can’t we all just get along?? 

Okay, well, it sucks ALL  the time.  Although the one I am in at least has a full sized fridge and a small kitchenette so I can cook a few things (scrambled eggs and sausage this morning – yumm).  I got up at about 9am this morning, after being rudely woken up at 6am by a neighboring hotel guest.

You have to fully understand something about my dog before I go further.  She is a total crackhead.  She barks at every single noise because she’s only ever lived in a house before, so every time someone walks by the room she barks.  So, keep in mind, I’m a tad sleep deprived because people are coming and going at all hours here.

At 6am, she heard footsteps outside and barked and ran to the door.  Great.  I got up and grabbed her, trying to hush her up because I didn’t want to wake everyone in the hotel (she has a LOUD bark).  We got back in bed and I could hear a man talking.

“Baby, baby, you know I don’t hear my phone in the middle of the night.”

“Baby, you know I love you.”

“Of course I’m here alone.’

“YOU started this fucking fight, not me!”

Lather, rinse repeat.  He had this conversation with “baby” for 45 minutes.  Now, why was he having this conversation outside his room (and ultimately, outside MINE)?  My only guess is that it was because he was NOT alone.  He was pacing in front of my room wearing what sounds like cowboy boots that were making a god awful noise on the walk way.  I was highly irritated, but also interested.  I keeping shushing Emma to keep her quiet so I could hear.  Ha!  Busted ass hole.  Mary told me I should have poked my head out the door and said loudly, “Get off the phone with your wife and go back to bed with your girlfriend!”  LOL LOL

Once he satisfied her that he wasn’t with anyone, he went back to his room and I dozed back off.  That is when the strange, strange, dream happened.  I was headed to a concert with people (that I didn’t recognize) when we had a small fender bender.  The person that hit us was a friend of mine.  One that is very married.  We ended up going back to his house for drinks before the show (he was going to the same show and was going to drive us) and I was there with his wife (who I’ve never met before or even seen a picture of) who informed me that they were getting divorced next week.

That’s when it got WEIRD.  My mom walked in, with a 20 something year old hispanic man (who was gorgeous) that was hanging all over her.  I pulled mom aside and asked her WTF?  She just laughed and said she was done with my dad (they’ve been disgustingly happily married for 40 years now, mind you) and his bullshit and that they were getting divorced.  Please meet your new stepdad Jose.  I stormed out of the house and was caught by this friend of mine who informed me that he and his wife were getting divorced next week and that he wanted to date me.

Then I woke up.  It was truly bizarre.  The friend is someone that I’ve known since I was a kid, and am still in contact with now.  I kind of wish he would leave his wife, but then I truly don’t wish that on anyone.  And my mom?  No clue why she popped up on my dream.  The young Jose with her?  HAS to be because I saw New Moon yesterday and spent a good chunk of that movie drooling over Taylor Lautner.

So, I’m tired.  It’s rainy and cold here today, but I need to go out to Wal-Mart and pick up some stuff like shampoo and hairspray (hotel shampoo sucks and I ran out of hairspray) and a few other necessities.  But for right now, I’m going to sit here and watch one of my favorite shows, Snapped, on Oxygen. 

Well, not as strange as, say, the Greatful Dead have been on. Actually not strange at all . I just like that title. So there. pfffft

AND YES, I KNOW, MY COMMENTS ARE BROKEN. I DON’T HATE ANY ONE (or, I hate everyone, depends on how you look at it) AND I’M TRYING TO FIX IT. Until then? Please send all your love and admiration to dreimer{at}gmail{dot}com.

So, the movers, Bubba and Jefe (I am not making that up – I couldn’t) came on Wednesday and packed the stuff of mine that I wanted to take to Huntsville. I made one last dinner for my kid (taco soup, SO DAMN GOOD) then proceeded to get shitty drunk and order DUMB STUFF from iTunes. YAY!

So, consequently, my 5am start to Huntsville was more like 8:30, but whatevs. Don’t judge me. LOL

I figured as soon as we got on the road Satan would calm down and relax. Oh no. For 350 miles of my 400 mile trip, she paced, and whined, and panted. And paced some more. Literally about 50 miles away, after I crossed into Alabama, she finally wore out and fell asleep on the seat next to me. I thought about waking her up to be mean….but that’s just not right. She slept for about 20 minutes like that, then was back up to pacing, panting and whining.

Got checked into the hotel, called my friend Renee and told her where I was and she came and fetched me for dinner. Mexican food. I don’t think the waitress was even done greeting us before we both demanded ordered a margarita on the rocks, no salt.  We chatted and caught up, then she ran me by a Publix for a few things for the hotel (omgomgomgomg they sell Yuengling beer here – I officially LOVE Alabama now) then dropped me back at the hotel.

Where I found Satan greeting me at the door.  Which was odd because when I left she was in her crate.  She managed to unhinge the door and get free.  Today?  In the bathroom with the door shut.  Dumbass.

I cracked open a beer and sat down and nearly cried from the exhaustion.  I got about half that beer down and that was it.  I flat passed out cold.  So tired.  Of course Satan barked at every noise she heard all night.  I wanted to KILL HER.

After work today (which has been low key because its my first day and all yo) I am headed over to go look at a town house for rent, then picking up dinner and heading back to the hotel.  Plan to just chill with the dog and my beers and my internet.  Because I miss this SO MUCH:

I had the Monkey with me all weekend since it is the last weekend before I move to Alabama. It was a great weekend with him, spent giggling, playing and doing the things that we have fun doing. All with the under current that we both didn’t want to say out loud – it was the last time we were going to see each other for a while. While the Terrorist and I LOOK just a like, I think the Monkey and I are more a like in our temperaments, sense of humor, etc.

Friday night we grabbed some take out and came home to watch all the shows that had piled up on my TiVO this week. It was a nice, quiet, lovely evening together.

Saturday I had to work all day (haet!) but then we got dressed and headed out to dinner with the BDITU, his fiance and their friend at Dave & Buster’s for dinner. That was 6 hours of pure, unadulterated fun and stupid belly laughs. OMG, I had such a good time with him. We had a blast. I didn’t want it to end.

Today, I got him up and after breakfast, we headed to Best Buy to let him shop for his birthday present. He picked a Star Wars game for the Wii and a cool controller add on that turns the Wii-mote in to a light saber (which is very cool). We picked up his birthday cake, came home, picked up the Terrorist and headed to my mom and dads house. We ate dinner (omg spaghetti – yum) and had cake, then it was time to leave.

It broke my heart. I hugged on him several times, kissed all over him and said good bye 100 times. I held it together though until I left the folks house. Once in the car, I sobbed on the Terrorists shoulder. And she let me. She was actually a good kid today, fun to be around, no attitude. I was so grateful to her for that. And I told her so. Her response? “I know Mom, you are going to miss him. I will too.” That just made me sob harder. Ugh.

So, the sad is obvious. The good is that the Terrorist was not a twit today. And now? I’m going to go watch the show Firefly on DVD since I bought it today while I was at Best Buy.

I *almost* forgot I have a blog. Bah, I’ve not been in the mood for blogging. It’s not that I haven’t had stuff to write about. Maybe its because I have had TOO MUCH stuff to write about. I can’t keep things straight. I hate to just ramble on here, and I truly don’t have a compulsive need to post something every single day. So, because of that, it’s been a while. *sigh*

Things are moving along on the moving front. Not as quickly as I’d like, but they are moving. My first day in Huntsville is a week from today. SEVEN DAYS!! And I still haven’t found a place to live, the Terrorist is still convinced I am ruining her life and is not coming with me right away, I have no idea when my last day in Hell actually is, I have to pack and meet the movers to take my stuff, AND make that 7 hour car drive with Satan next Thursday. Jesus. I’m tired just WRITING that sentence.

I am still waiting to hear on the most perfect house EVAR. The owners are taking forever to decide if I can rent it or not. Just make a damn decision already. This is not rocket science for fucks sake. Either I’m in or not. And if not? That’s fine (well, not FINE, but I can certainly live with it), just let me know so I can make other arrangements. When I found this house, I quit looking. At this point I’ll end up in an apartment if I have to go elsewhere – which I hate the thought of, but whatever. It’s a LOT cheaper, that’s for sure!!!

I told the Terrorist this morning that I don’t appreciate her treating my house like a hotel that she just comes to for showers and sleep. Oh, and an ATM. She asked me for money this morning – the gall. She has done NOTHING around the house in the way of her chores this week and really thought I was just gonna fork money over to her. She got all pissy with me about it when I said no. I told her to mooch off her friends for a while. I was tired of her mooching off me. That got one of her AWESOME eyeroll-hip cock-attitude-hand movements. I yelled at her, she dissolved into tears and asked me “Why are you so mean???”.

This is why some animals eat their young. Because if they don’t, they turn into 15 year old demons.

So, there is my super rushed, probably forgetting more than half of what I want to say, update. Please gather your belongings and move along to the next blog in your feed reader.