The Quick Tour of San Diego

I don’t think there’s ever been a faster vacation on record.  It wasn’t really a vacation to begin with.  I went with a co-worker to San Diego to one of HAP’s EMDR trainings.  HAP is the Humanitarian Assistance Program and can be found here.

They have low (ER) cost training for people who work at non-profit agencies.  It’s really nice to not have to pay thousands for a weekend of training for my low paying job with the sliding fee scale $1 clients who really need help from someone who doesn’t charge them a fortune.

So we flew out of cold Billings, Montana on Thursday morning.  Arrived in San Diego late afternoon.  Even though I’d been told otherwise, I still pictured San Diego as a flat desert town.  It was much more of a desert oasis with hills and well manicured landscaping.  Just gorgeous.

For the next three days we went to 10 hour trainings and then worked out a plan, down to the minute, of who to see, where to visit, what to shop for, what to eat that wouldn’t hurt, and places to take pictures of.  Run, run, run.  Fit it all in.  There’s the ocean!  Ooops, gotta get back to class.  Here’s the mall!  I’m too tired to shop more than a few minutes.  Look, homeless teenage bums asking for money to stay drunk!  Look, here’s where the homeless people live!  Look, there’s the downtown, the harbor, the best park, the Charger’s stadium, In and Out burger.

Add onto this that the trainings were intense and practice time hurt my otherwise overloaded brain.  By the third night of training we went to some Mexican restaurant and were feeling so brain dead that we couldn’t form complete sentences and just ended up laughing about

GO WITH IT.

Which is our new therapeutic approach.  I know my last homegrown theory of STOP IT is a little different.

I would never live in San Diego because it costs so much, the intersecting highways are ridiculous, and the women all try so hard to be beautiful.  Nice to visit.  Not my thing.

The last evening was the most interesting.  We went to a church service at the church she used to attend when she lived there, The Rock Church.

This is one of the largest churches in the Nation with over 18,000 members, 2-3000 at a service, and my friend told me they commit to doing 1 million hours of community service a year for the city of San Diego.

She had wanted to hear him speak but instead a most bizarre thing happened.

This guy showed up.

Nick Vijicic

He may have no arms and no legs, but he’s got WAY too many i’s in his name.

It wasn’t until we were sitting outside the San Diego airport Monday morning, waiting for boarding that we realized that this was the first time we had SAT STILL.  The sun was warm.  The air smelled good.  Ahhhhhhhh.

Much better than the smell of vomit in the airplane as we lurched our way over Denver.  I swear I was green.  The turbulence made me glad to not have to fly again for a little while.  Dropping like that over and over for minutes on end.  I’m surprised I didn’t vomit in the aisle too.  Only it would have been on myself, cause I had a window seat next to an old man who looked at me to see if I was afraid and then I felt I had to appear unafraid for his sake when I really just wanted to grip my arm rests and scream.

All of this makes me happy to live in a small town like Cody.  Live a simple life.  Eat. Sleep. Use the bathroom.

I forgot pictures!

Downtown San Diego from some island.

“The Cliffs” looked alot like Maine to me.

Southern California is COLD and WINDY.

Our hotel

Outside the building the first day.  Look at that green grass!

Really awesome tree that I am going back to smuggle home in my suitcase.

Outside at breaktime

Not trying to be artsy.  We really were fenced in.

Crazy SOFT tree

Victoria asking me to stop taking pictures of her.

It’s called carskiiing in Vermont

I did that on purpose because I miss doing it.

That’s what I told my coworkers when I arrived at work early Friday morning for a staff meeting and they were laughing at me.

We saw you, they said.  We were watching your car slide by and said Wait, is that Kristi?  Isn’t she from Vermont?

Well, yes.  And in Vermont we all go just a little too fast on the highway when there’s an inch of slick snow on the unplowed, unsanded road.  We like to try to stop and then realize there’s no stopping at all for at least another 25 feet when we get to the next business and turn around to come back and try again.  In Vermont that’s our winter pasttime.  It’s like skiiing only in a car, which adds elements of danger and skill.  We especially like to do that with flatlanders in the car.  Since I was alone, I thought I would just put on a show for everyone.  It was my personal version of Olympic Carskiing.  I’m pushing to have that included in the next winter Olympics.

It concerns me that they all laughed again.

Way to be multicultural, people.

If it can happen to Sandra Bullock it can happen to anyone.

Remember that time I sent her a package? 

Now I realize that most likely wasn’t the REAL Sandra Bullock.  Not to say that the woman I sent that package to isn’t real.  I’m sure she’s very real in her own nice little world.  But she’s not the Sandra Bullock we all know and love.  The squeeky clean Sandra who stars in movies and then comes to Vermont to serve muffins at her sister’s bakery.

I forget what exactly I mailed to her.  It was a psychology textbook of some kind.  Maybe it was Abnormal Behaviors of Celebrity Men with Tattoos.  Maybe it was Sex Therapy:  Quickies with Other Women.  I do know that whatever it was didn’t help or she would have seen the signs. 

Like don’t marry a bank robber, train robber, and murderer who is old enough to be your great great grandpa.

Whoa, the relationship expert on the morning news just totally blamed Sandra because of her Oscar Speech and how she said he was the first one she could trust to watch her back.  So she has trust issues.  And that caused this to happen.  I’m SURE her trust issues caused him to chase after a tattoo model.  Oh, and the expert also says that her higher celebrity status caused this.  (Not to be sexist, she said.)  Yes, that is sexist.  Very very sexist.  Oh, and also that not all relationships have to end because of infidelity.  They had a very good relationship, the expert says.  How the HELL does she know that?  Yes, a great relationship that included 2 months of screwing a heavily tattooed woman.   So if Sandra got therapy for her trust issues and took a job as a cleaning woman at a Motel 8 she could get him back and he would never stray again.

What was I saying before that “relationship expert” made an idiot of herself and all women?

Oh yes, Sandra, since you are a friend of mine because I mailed that book to someone with your name, I want to tell you that you deserve a NICE man.  A man not named for an outlaw.  A man who doesn’t have his own television show and hoards of skanky groupies.  And no matter what the experts say on bad morning television this has nothing to do with your trust issues and everything to do with picking the wrong guy.

44 Uses For Giant Salt Crystals

When I whine about the salt they throw on my doorstep every morning I am not just whining about nothing (check the Vermont Winters tab).  I took a picture of three of the enormous salt crystals to prove to you that sometimes whining is appropriate. 

But as I can appreciate that my whining could be annoying I am going to turn this into a positive experience by creating a list of 44 possible uses for the giant salt crystals that I’ve been collecting in my vacuum cleaner bag:

1. As a weapon to deter the salt guy from leaving more
2. Crushed to make 20 salted margaritas from one crystal
3. Dissolved in water to use for gargling
4. On dry chicken
5. As a doorstop
6. To hold down the rug near the down that always gets moved around
7. In christmas cookie frosting
8. On popcorn
9. In my bath
10. For grit in my toothpaste
11. As a salt lick for days when I PSM
12. Under the tires of my car in case I get stuck
13. As a substitute for a diamond in that huge ring I never wanted
14. Buried in the playground so kids find it in the summer and get all excited.
15. Something I can throw at Haley (What’s she going to do?  Tell everyone I threw salt at her?)
16. Flavoring my homemade chicken soup.
17. To stop my car from rolling.
18. To save Haley in a horror movie.
19. To hold up to the light to see how pretty it is.
20. To hold papers on the table from flying away.
21. As weight in the back of my car.
22. As a weight while I’m doing the Wii Fit.
23. To trip up would-be robbers.
24. To tape a sticker on it saying “Bush Sucks” to throw at Grandma.
25. To prop up a chair leg.
26. To sit on.
27. To pound in tent stakes.
28. As Mountain Lion Repellant.
29. To scare off Haley’s boyfriends.
30. Jesus needs a friend.
31. To kill spiders.
32. On eggs.
33. Or giant pretzels.
34. To end winter.
35. As a gift for friends I don’t really like.
36. To give to Grandpa so he’ll have something to talk about other than his glass eye and three hole outhouses.
37. To sell as a souvenir to stupid tourists.
38. To make little boys smell better.
39. To soak up the ocean.
40. To can meat.  Ewwww.
41. To make waterlike appearances on paintings.
42. As a gift for the friendly aliens.
43. In a time capsule after global warming.
44. As a life boat.

Child Support and Social Security: I’m getting both until someone fixes it and that someone is NOT me because I already tried.

I changed my mind.  I LIKE posting while I’m sick and on sinus medicine because I don’t really know what I’m writing and it’ll entertain me when I’m well again and I can look back and say WHAT? 

It’s a beautiful day when the kids get a check from Social Security and they also garnish child support from his Social Security check and all because he wouldn’t work with the basic terms of an agreement that I suggested and instead threatened to take me to court with money he never got, cause it was given to me.  Together this amounts to what I should have been getting every month from him anyway, based on what he was making when we were married and not after he decided to move from state to state to state and work under the table and for tips.  So many people told me to just give it up, and stop catching him at it, stop wasting my time and energy giving the Office of Child Support information they couldn’t find themselves.  Nah.  It all comes back around.

All I want are the kids as deductions on my taxes.  When they’re in college and I’m paying the bill and he has nothing to do with anything, he shouldn’t be able to use them as deductions.  I think there should be a line on my divorce order saying that if you don’t get to pick up their used kleenexes you don’t get to use them on your taxes.  If you don’t find red stuff all over your arm after doing the dishes that came from someone’s bronzer which is now mysteriously all over the house then you don’t get to use them on your taxes.  If they aren’t sneaking money out of your bag everytime you use the bathroom for more than 30 seconds, then you don’t get to use them on your taxes.

I think the IRS should let me rewrite that huge 1040 book they sent me this year, that I used like 3 pages out of, after reading through so many worksheets and ending up with no answer.  I could simplify things.  It would be like 20 yes/no questions and then it would generate an amount at the end to refund or tax.  Do you have more money than you need to survive?  How many pairs of shoes do you own?  Do you pick up your children’s used kleenexes?  BING!  You owe $7,300. 

Okay, I’m going to drink coffee now for the first time in DAYS because I can’t wait to see me on sinus medicine AND caffeine.

The Post No One Wants to Read

You can just skip this one if you want and come back in a couple of days because no one really wants to know that the most exciting thing in my life lately is that a giant glob of snot finally came out of my head after days of dry and painful sinus pain.  Yes, I did high-five my daughter who was for some reason watching me blow my nose.

It was that exciting.  If you had been here I would have high-fived you too.  Except that I have germs so you probably wouldn’t, and then I would be left looking like an idiot high-fiving the air over a giant glob of snot, instead of like it was, which was very exciting and entirely understandable.  I apologize for any sense of nonsense in this post.  Too much medicine, too much snot.

I’ll be back soon!  And then I’ll delete this.  Maybe.

Vermont Winters are all about Salt

I stepped out my front door to walk to my car this morning and tripped over a crystal of salt someone had thrown on the sidewalk.  It was that big.  And surrounded by hundreds of other pieces of salt, none of them smaller than a golf ball.  The margarita salt I keep in the cupboard for those moments when I feel like making a pitcher of margaritas and drinking the whole thing on a hot summer day is smaller than what I find on my doorstep every time it snows more than two flakes.  Where do they get this stuff?  The bottom of the giant salt bag in the sky?  Are they so cheap that they use salt rejected all over the rest of the world for causing shoes to turn white, pants legs to become dry and crusty, and old people to trip and break their hips?

I am in no way suggesting that I’m one of those old broken tripping people.  But when my vacuum coughs and sputters and refuses to suck up the salt chunk, then it’s just too big.  When I have to lift my vacuum up to get it on top of the salt or when I try sweeping it and one of the children mistakes it for a snowball and accuses me of attacking them then I think perhaps it’s just time to move or something.

Just When I though the syncing was done!

I seem to have now synced my ass to this kitchen chair in an attempt to connect with the world.  Sadly, I am still alone.  Sitting in the gloomy corner of yet another overcast Vermont day. 

But I made up for my immobility by playing on the Wii fit this morning!  Some of the games are really cool, and some involve throwing objects at my face that I’m supposed to catch.  The obviously don’t know me well–I duck every time.  Just ask the guy at the Habachi Grill.

Slushy Vermont Days

Yes, that was me in my red Christmas Pajamas and non-matching blue winter coat, headed to the dumpster this morning with a leaking bag of trash. Why are there so many people up so early scraping their cars off? At least no one dares to look directly at me. No one says “Good Morning.” No one makes eye contact.
That’s the way I like it in the ghettos.
I might have also been whistling tunelessless and pulling my pajama pants up cause they kept slipping down. And I didn’t want the bottoms to get wet so I’d have to sit around all morning wishing I’d kept them out of the slush.
I think they’re slipping down cause my boobs are shrinking.
Yes, we’re back to the boobs.
I went off the pill 5 days ago!!! Woo hooo! 5 Hormone Free Days. I’m like an organic cow. I feel okay, a little loopy. That may be normal though for being so close to Christmas, licking Christmas frosting to make sure there was just enough salt in it, and missing Nick. My boobs definitely do hurt though. Everything shrinks back to normal noncomplacent size. Hopefully this will happen with the pudge as well. It would be WRONG to have small boobs and a huge pudge. Maybe I could convince people that my boobs just SANK and joined together.
Anyway, I drove Haley to school in my pajamas and stopped to ask the other girls why the school bus hadn’t come yet. I rolled down my window and the sheet of ice that was stuck to it fell in my lap. I am an idiot. So my pant legs are dry but I still need to change.
Obviously I’m much better than yesterday and I think Ellen might be the Queen afterall.

But MOM, I need to bother you every two minutes

to make sure I’m still breathing? To keep me from taking more than two deep breaths? Why do these children keep calling me when it’s OBVIOUS that I’ve shut myself in my room? I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m laying on my bed in the dark enjoying a silent night moment after Christmas shopping, playing free taxi service, and cutting out 72 Gingerbread Men.

Here’s a list of the things they found were so important that they had to run up the stairs and come in to turn on the light and tell me, or yell “MOM” twenty times from downstairs until I couldn’t take it anymore:

MOM, where’s the milk? Oh, it’s in the fridge of course.

MOM, Haley gave me an evil look!

MOM, can I have a cookie?

MOM, can I sit on the couch and read a book?

MOM, I need a ride–in an hour.

Mom, I forgot how to butter bread. Can you show me?

Mom, I found this used popsicle stick that WAS MINE in Haley’s room. She’s stealing my trash.

Where’s the Christmas Spirit people? All I want is FIVE WHOLE MINUTES to myself. The funny (but not really) part is that I feel so ALONE all the time since he left. But I am alone–in my head.