Sunday, June 24, 2007

The difficulties of being separated

One of the primary problems with the current situation with Mr.3 is that I cannot contact him. Sure I can leave messages on the cell phone or by email...or I could try to leave a message for him at a hospital...that will not confirm or deny his existence....in any case, getting ahold of him is troublesome.

This evening his mother contacted me with some bad news. Mr.3's grandmother has passed away. Also I find out that his Uncle passed away a month ago! I can't tell if I should be upset at this at all. Granted I don't contact his mother that often, but I call her more than she calls me... still...she could have let me know.

When she called and asked if he was still in the hospital I knew that something was terribly wrong. And I wept for these two individuals who I have not met....which apparently touched his mom as she called me "such a caring girl". These two relatives were very close to my husband, especially his grandmother. Now, I have the unhappy duty of trying to reach my husband to tell him the news. I have left messages for him...and while I doubt that he will read this before contacting me...I sure hope that he doesn't. I would like to tell him face to face....but failing that....I need to at least tell him over the phone.

The odd thing in all of this was that I really wanted him to meet my grandfather, and Mr.3 wasn't able to. I know that Mr.3 wanted me to meet his grandmother, and I -obviously- will not be able to. Kind of an odd karmic thing isn't it?

I now get to figure out funeral flowers. My mom and I were looking through things online and we kept debating whether it was more important to have a set of flowers that looked really good at the funeral or a great-looking set of flowers that also get taken home by the family. When it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter. We (Mr.3 and I) cannot be there for the funeral....so we should make a good showing with the flowers. Even if they released Mr.3 tomorrow morning..he cannot fly because he doesn't have ID, so that would mean that I would have to fit a 3 day drive into two. In theory I could drive 15 hours a day...but it would suck, and I would be dead tired. And do I want the first meeting between me and his family to be under these circumstances? Also....when I do send the flowers I have the added problem of which name do I include on the card? His first name or the one he goes by now? I am hoping that he will check his email early in the morning and call me first thing...then I can get it sent out. If he doesn't, I will have to make an executive decision on the name thing....and I am not sure if I should send something to his Aunt or not...or something to his mother....or to his other Aunt. Oh! So many questions.

How to move (or not to) a piano

The first leg of the moving of my family is finished....mainly just my brother's stuff...but that in itself is big.

Friday morning I had scheduled movers to be at the house in Price at 9am to move the piano from downstairs and some of my brother's boxes onto the Uhaul that I had rented. (Upon reflection of driving the Uhaul, I think that I could be a truck driver...I was kinda sad to see it go.) Wait....let me back up a bit...I picked up the Uhaul Thursday afternoon and in the evening we had a couple of friends of Jimmy's help move the last of the belongings of my departed Uncle Don out of my parents storage shed. Teenage moving help is very cheap....we paid them in pizza. Granted, I hate the physical labor of moving...but this time my driving knee had decided to hate me and was giving out. And in the moving department, I was fairly useless beyond my order-barking skills. Anyway, at the end of the evening I realized that we didn't have any rope to tie down anything that we put in the truck. So Friday morning I was up at 6:30, showered dressed, hobbled to the grocery store for breakfast treats, then hobbled to Walmart to buy rope to tie the furniture down....when I went downstairs at 8:20 and my brother wasn't packing I had to wake him up and impress upon him the importance of getting to work.... otherwise known as I told him that he needed to get his butt into gear and not to argue with me because I couldn't take any more Aleve without dropping dead and my knee still hurt.

So by 9am, I was ready to take on the world.

And at 9am. There were no movers.
9:15 am- No Movers
9:20 am- No Movers and I am coming up with inventive slurs against the absent movers.
9:28 am- My mom offers to call the movers...a pre-emptive measure for their benefit really. The older gentlemen...who I think owns the company....tells my mom that "the old codger" -meaning himself- had written the reservation down wrong and the moving crew was in a neighboring town. He tells my mom that they are on their way and then he hangs up. From my conversation with him before hanging up before the conversation finishes is a standard operating procedure for this guy.

So I call back....busy...and I procede to redial, redial, and redial until it was not busy anymore. Using the fact that my mom and I sound the same on the phone I told him that we had been disconnected. His response "that seems to be happening more and more lately". Translation: I don't know how to work my own telephone. He then tells me that he should probably take our information down ----this being AFTER my mom has given her address and phone number twice in the last phone conversation.

Me: "Ok, we live at 2-6-5 North..."
Old Man: "2....."
Big sigh "2- 6-5 North..."
"5 Northhh...."
" 1-4-0-0 West"
"1..... ?"
"1.......4........0..........0............W...........E..........S.........T"
It went on like this for several minutes when all the while I really wanted to be spelling out to him: F......u........c........k.........Y........o.........u.........

The movers finally arrived at 10am, frazzled, and definitely not wanting to be there. I am glad that my brother was there because he ended up having to help them move the piano up the stairs as the three of them were not enough. And as for being "experienced" with moving pianos...they weren't.

My mom told me not to look...but I did. Instead of dead-lifting it level up the stairs like you are supposed to do, they had it on its sides on a dolly that they were slamming up stair by stair by stair. I am still not sure where the paint that is now on the piano came from...and the carpet on the stairs is ruined. I guess that it is good that they new buyers of the house are going to be replacing it.

The van was finally loaded at 11, which was when I wanted to leave....but by the time we were able to secure everything and get Jimmy's visitors to leave it was 11:45 by the time I hit the road. Mom and Jimmy were supposed to be leaving a half hour behind me, but I was in Salt Lake (a two hour drive) and they still hadn't left. When they weren't calling me I knew that something was up, so I called them. It was like two kids being caught being naughty by mom....neither of them wanted to call me to tell me that they hadn't left yet...and neither of them wanted to face my wrath.

The piano movers on the Salt Lake end were scheduled to arrive between 2-4. I had told them 3 but the insisted on giving me a window. They were on time (3 o'clock!) and completely professional. They didn't complain, they did their job wonderfully, and they every gave the piano a quick check-over to let me know that it was still fairly well in tune and that everything was working correctly. That was the best, stress-free, $105 I have ever spent. These guys dead lifted the piano like it was nothing! It was amazing!

This left me with having to move my Great-Grandmother's Hutch into the house with my bum knee and well....me. Luckily Libby and Joe were able to get off of work early to come and help me. After that was finished we met my mom and Jimmy at the storage unit to unload the rest of the stuff.

As a quick aside...our storage unit, happily located in the land of storage units aka West Valley City, is run by a strange woman. She kept reminding me in a monotone voice "not to run a meth-lab out of your unit, you cannot live in your storage unit, you cannot operate any kind of business out of your unit...." When I asked her how often that happened she simply stated that there was a reason it was all in the contract and proceeded to remind me that two of her tenants were cops....as if I would be running the next meth lab. She had some problems with perception there....but then again, she asked if Jimmy was my son..which presents oh so many problems with how old I must look.

Overall I am very happy that this first part is over. Now I am at the parent's house for the last time. The movers come to pack up tomorrow and then load up the van on Tuesday. It seems a little surreal to think that everything in the room I am in now will be placed in a box and gone. As it is my mom is crying at the drop of a hat...I can only hope that I don't join her.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

stop the world I want to get off

To describe how busy I have been at the moment would be unimaginable at the moment. Today a friend of ours came into the office with his lovely wife...he had been in Iraq on a job and was back in town on vacation. Mr.3 and I have known them since they have been here and almost since Mr.3 and I have been a couple....we married then they did. I have been pretty good as of late when people ask about Mr.3...but today when Jason and Hamida asked I started to cry.

Maybe it is because I know that they understand. They love Mr.3 as much as I do. We used to be the couples that would hang out together....and I know that everyone thought that if Mr.3 and I could make it, then they could too.

Maybe it is because I am getting stretched thin again. I try not to let him being gone bother me that much but there are times when it does, and I don't know how long I can continue with anything.

I haven't been this depressed in a long time.

And of course, I choose this opportunity to blog after a long hiatus. Sorry about that, but I am currently waiting to hear from Mr.3 online and this seemed like the only logical thing to do.

Tomorrow we are suppose to pick up the uhaul to move Jimmy's stuff down, and the piano. This is after we had to get a storage unit and I have to clean out the laundry room this evening....most likely on my own as Jimmy will be out. So the next two days will be alot of moving....and then next week we are finally moving my parents.

Oh and I got a call back on a job that I applied for, but I am not sure about the position that they are offering because it involves alot of driving.

Ugh! Can I just give up today?

Thursday, June 14, 2007

My Scrapblog and a Shameless Plea to Help Me Win a Contest


So I really want to go to the BlogHer conference....but I am a skinflint and poor to boot.....visit my scrapblog (be warned, it is lame)...the more visits I get, the more entries I get into the contest.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Positively Horrible!

Apparently there is a new scam going on where someone pretending to be the Red Cross calls the wife of a deployed service member in Iraq. They notify the wife that the husband has been hurt and has been sent to Germany for treatment, but that he cannot receive treatment until the paperwork is correct. They then ask to verify the service-member's name and social security number....and boom! Their identity is stolen.

Hopefully, no one has fallen for this yet.....the notification system is not according to regulation, nor is the procedure for getting treatment. But the fact that someone is out there trying this, is sick.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Busy Week

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or had a nervous breakdown (not yet anyway), it has just been a very busy family week.

This memorial day weekend Jimmy and I went down to my parents house to help pack. It was the first time that we had seen my Dad in almost 3 months, and we were so excited to see each other that we really didn't get any packing done.

Memorial Day Weekend traffic wasn't too bad.....and I only took pictures of it when I got really REALLY bored in the stop and go.



Apparently the yard work was supposed to be handled by someone at the Realtor's office while my parents were gone. This is a mowed and watered lawn....
And this is a yard that has been completely weeded....



It is really sad when I, who hates yardwork of any kind, could do a better job.

And then this week was Jimmy's graduation from high school!!! I am so proud of him, and I burst into tears several times....before we even got to the ceremony.

Here is a photo of him trying to fix his hair in the car.



Isn't he just precious?

But perhaps this is the best picture of us....


And the coolest picture of my mom ever....



Oh! And it was our friend Kelly's birthday this weekend...this is what someone looks like after two crazy Dilley's decide to toilet paper her.....



To top off the end of the week, it was the Pride festival this weekend. My mom and I went out to support Jimmy, who walked in the parade. I won't post photos of that up in this post, but check the Flickr account....I have a load of new stuff on it from Jimmy's Graduation, to Kelly's Birthday, to even more stuff from Project 337.