caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- poor Charlie Brown Ok, what was that crap last night that was supposed to be the new Charlie Brown Christmas special? And who decided we needed a new Charlie Brown Christmas special, anyway? There we were, happily decorating the tree to the sounds of Linus reciting the Christmas story and the Peanuts kids doing �Hark the Herald Angels� and all of a sudden this junk comes on. We lasted through 10 minutes and then gave it up as a bad job. Grr, more trashing of childhood memories. Speaking of which, an Amazon box was delivered yesterday containing various gifts for Blue and the Kid, and it also contained my present to myself: the cd soundtrack from �Christmas Eve on Sesame Street.� That was my absolute favorite Christmas special when I was little, and when I found the video a few years ago I was so happy I was jumping up and down in the store. So anyway, I pop it into the cd player in the car this morning and am singing along happily to �I Hate Christmas� and �Keep Christmas With You� and discover they�ve completely ruined �True Blue Christmas� by giving Ernie�s solo to freaking Elmo. Aaaargh! Hate Elmo with the passion of a thousand fiery nuns. What is wrong with people, hmm? A belated thanks to Natahood, Swoop (Apparently I'm her creative consultant now. Eek! That's a lot of responsibility!), and Genipie for letting me grouch at them last night. Haven't chatted with you guys in ages and I really miss it. I'm trying to be better about keeping on top of stuff like that. Also, I talked to my sister Kitty briefly and Mom, Minnie and I have basically just decided that one of us is going to call her every day until they come back down after Christmas, and if ControlFreak doesn�t like it, too bad. And if it�s just as bad when they come down next, we�ll have to, as a family, say something. Because CF isn�t just treating Kitty badly, he�s treating all of us with disrespect and rudeness, and I think that makes it our business. 9:27 a.m. - December 03, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- worry We have an artificial tree this year. It was my idea, and I talked the boys into it. My feelings about this have ranged from yay! No pine needles to vacuum up to guilt at depriving my child of the tree-picking-out tradition to smugness about not killing a tree to the certainty that I am somehow scaring the Kid for life by not having a real tree. It was so easy, though � prop the thing up, connect the three sections, fluff out the branches, plug it in � voila! 7 � foot tree, complete with lights, straight and full and pretty, in under half an hour. No lights to untangle and string up and then untangle again after Christmas and try to put away. No cats climbing the tree and letting loose a shower of needles (I�m sure they�ll still climb it, but this year I don�t have to worry about it). No branches divesting themselves of heirloom ornaments in the middle of the night. Really, I like it, and so do the boys. There�s just this residual guilt and nostalgia� Anyway, I had a seriously horrid migraine yesterday. It started during the tree shopping on Sunday, which involved trips through Michaels and Joann�s and 75 bucks worth of unrelated items which will hopefully evolve into Christmas presents and cards. By the time I went to bed Sunday night I had that awful yellowy misty fog floating in front of my eyes, which is never a good sign. Woke up yesterday to discover that it had only gotten worse during the night, and was so happy that the Kid is now capable of getting himself ready for school in the morning with only minimal encouragement. Put a pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep; when Blue got home he called in to work for me as moving a fraction of an inch or trying to speak or open my eyes was unthinkable. I got up finally around 10 and was able to function minimally, and then my awesome mom came over and brought me pain medicine, since I had nothing stronger than Excedrin in the house and that just wasn�t doing the trick. She then took me to my doctor�s appointment and since the headache had finally abated, we hit Target to fill my prescription and do some shopping for the kids, and then went to dinner. It was a good thing, really, that I needed Mom yesterday; she needed to get out of the house and distract herself. She�s been brooding about Kitty and CF ever since they left Sunday morning, and with good reason; we�re starting to be seriously worried about Kitty and Squirt. CF is showing signs of increasingly irrational behavior, and I accidentally discovered on Saturday that he carries an unregistered gun around in his truck all the time, which is just a stupid and scary thing to do in general. And Saturday Mom, Kitty, and I went to the mall, as I mentioned previously; CF developed the mistaken impression that we were going to be home at 4 pm on the dot, like shopping at the mall Thanksgiving weekend with a baby in tow is something you can predict timewise. When we didn�t arrive back at my parents at precisely 4, CF grew increasingly frantic that something terrible had happened to us. Called all around town to various relatives and friends to see if they�d heard from us and wound up by calling Minnie at work � she works in the mall now � to see if she�d seen us. Yelled and screamed at Minnie until she was shaking by the time she hung up the phone. Minnie came and found us, trying on clothes in Lane Bryant, and Kitty proceeded to try and get in touch with CF via cell phone for the next hour, while we packed up and headed toward Minnie�s house, where we�d previously planned to spend the evening. For whatever reason she didn�t get hold of him until we were nearly to Minnie�s, whereupon she�d discovered that he was now driving around looking for us. When CF finally arrived at Minnie�s, he completely ignored the entire family (me, mom, Minnie, EngineerBoy, Minnie�s friend Steph, and later Blue) and went right to Squirt. He held Squirt most of the rest of the night and didn�t want to let anyone else near him, including Kitty. Argued with Kitty over whether or not we�d ever said anything about meeting at 4, argued about whether or not she�d actually tried to call him (going to far as to check her phone log!), etc. Really frighteningly paranoid behavior. Later he discovered that we�d taken Squirt to get his picture taken with Santa and got angry at Kitty about that, because �we haven�t discussed the Santa issue.� Followed Kitty around; came upstairs to check on us when Minnie, Kitty and I were hanging out in Minnie�s bedroom chatting and started the whole phone argument again. I feel the urge to shake Kitty until her teeth rattle to get her to stop making excuses for him. That�s not rational, loving behavior. That�s paranoid, control freak behavior, the kind you always hear about leading up to physical abuse. And whether or not he would actually physically hurt her, the way he talks to her and treats, in my opinion, constitutes emotional abuse. Kitty used to be the most stubborn, outspoken, happy-go-lucky person I knew, and her personality has done just a total 180. It�s scary. And sad. And I don�t know if there�s anything I can do. So anyway, this is all even harder on my parents than it is for me and Minnie, and my mom was in tears after they left on Sunday. Having Kitty so far away, with very few friends up there, is another scary aspect of the situation. So yesterday Mom and I putzed around and tried to figure out ways to painfully kill CF. Sigh. Well, that was a long digression and not what I'd intended to share, but I feel a little better for spilling, I guess. And if anyone has any helpful suggestions... 1:10 p.m. - December 02, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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