my bike fed me to a box truck

I took my car home today. I despise having my car when it's a b-e-a-utiful day and I should be cruising on my bike. I guess my bike decided I need to repent for driving my car yesterday; it tried to feed me to a box truck. Specifically what happened was this: I wanted to ride my bike the approx ten miles to my brother's house. Five blocks away from my house, the side walk is tore up. It's a bridge over an old rail road track, right next to a nice lil pub tucked into the hill side. There's a sign at the beginning of the bridge that has a picture of a bicycle & says, "share the road" so I aptly pedal off the sidewalk and down on the road to cross the bridge seeing as how the side walk is tore the fuck up with big chunks of concrete everywhere.

I make it across the bridge and am now set to cruise d...o...w...n the hill. Some of those massive chunks of concrete where strewn alongside the edge of the road where I was attempting to travel. I'm keeping an eye on traffic & on the horrendous chunks of killer concrete when the sewer drain that I'm biking by grabs my front tire. So two seconds into my cruise down the hill, my bike pitches me INTO traffic, which to my fucking fortune is a damn BOX TRUCK.

Let me repeat this: MY BIKE THREW ME ONTO THE ROAD WHERE A BOX TRUCK WAS SET TO RUN ME OVER, sans 1000 pound armor that I would've enjoyed at the moment. I have asphalt stuck under my fingers nails; it was like s-l--o---w motion. The bike pitching me sideways, the box truck brakes screeching, my nails digging into pavement to keep my fat ass from sliding/rolling under a miniature semi.

My efforts prevailed as I was able to stop sliding in time to roll the other direction, narrowly missing the tires of previous mentioned BOX TRUCK. My bike twitches as the truck runs over the rear tire. I grabbed the bike, THREW it to the sidewalk and did this awful hands/knees scuffle in the same direction that I tossed my bike.

Long story short (yeah right!), my right leg is scuffed up, bruised, I have pavement embedded into my thigh, and welts down my calf muscle. My bike suffered a few nicks to the paint, a tear in the seat, and the handle bars were turn about 30 degrees. The rear wheel has a funky wobble to it.

But fuck all that 'cuz I'M STILL IN ONE PIECE! Do you count that?? ONE piece. Not multiple. Not broken. Just bumped and bruised and shaken to hell. Every muscle in my body feels like I just received ten hours of electroshock therapy but at least I can FEEL my body!


The first person I called while sitting alongside the sidewalk willing my heart to stop pounding and fighting back tears just from extreme shock, was Jeremiah. He was immediately angry at the truck driver for not "sharing the road". But hon, he did share the road, he just didn't expect me to be flung into the middle of it. As soon as the conversation got to the point where he was satisfied that I wasn't maimed, he gave a stiff "fine" and then *click* ~ we were back to our old fighting selves.


Knowing me, I'm a firm believer of "if you fall off the horse, get your ass back on" philosophy. I'm stubborn and pigheaded. So when I'm scraped up, five blocks away from home & on my way to my brother's house almost 10 miles away, I get on my bike & continue in the direction of my goal.

My bike chirped at me for several miles. The front tire rubbed because the brake was smooshed against it from "the incident" and the back tire was ever so slightly bent due to the sheer weight of a BOX TRUCK running over it (I could only hope that such would have been my fate if I had been actually run over by the truck).


I am sore as crap and it's only been a few hours. I can only imagine what i'm going to feel like in the morning!!

starting over new

Ok, it's been awhile. traumatic things have been happening. Ehhh, what's new? Every time I sit down to write, the numerous comments roll through my head about "how negative & cranky" I've been. In an attempt to not sound grouchy, I just didn't write. I've come to the conclusion that this is my life. Cranky, grouchy, tired, absolutely insane: it's MINE. So I'm going to write about it, mostly 'cuz it makes me feel better to get my thoughts out.

My oldest two kids have been in KY with their Aunt Candi since June 14th. While I don't see eye to eye with Candi on almost anything anymore, the kids have a great time with her & she takes good care of them.

Thursday morning I get a phone call from the owner of the bar that I was working at, to tell me that I was no longer "needed". It's summer and there are young, hot college girls wanting to make some easy money before going back to school for the fall. Therefore, my nine months of hard work, being the only waitress that stuck it out for the winter, working open to close six days a week, counts for abso-fucking-lutely NADA. I'm discarded for my age and over weight status. N.I.C.E.

My living arrangement with the kid's father was only tolerable because I was gone at night, when he was home, and he was gone during the day, while I was home. Granted, I love this man, against every common sense fiber in my body, I always will. But he has the innate ability to make me want to become the worst of people. The things I contemplate doing to myself when I'm forced to tolerate his almighty-pity-me-because-I-am-trying-so-hard-but-life-is-overwhelmingly-complicated whining and attitude, well, I can't even explain here without having every friend I've ever met come scoop me up and deposit me in the Parkview Behavioral Health Department ASAP.

I've spent Thursday, Friday, & Saturday with this man at work during the day and only home with me for a short time in the evening before I manage to scoot out of the house for a small bit of time lest I pull my hair out in raging fits. Sunday we both slept until noon. He left the house right after he awoke to run some errands and arrived back home a lil after 1:30. We had planned a bike ride together for some fresh air and exercise. Within ten minutes of him arriving home, I was reading to strangle, it didn't matter if it was going to be him or I, one of us had to shut the hell up. I gave in, shut the bedroom door and laid on the bed for 30 minutes. Finally I emerged and sat on the couch while he played video games.

Within an hour he decided it was time to start the petty lil arguments and see just how far he could push me. I tolerated it for as long as possible, rotating between blatantly ignoring him & snapping back comments when I couldn't resist. That last all of two nano seconds before I packed an overnight bag and headed out leaving him with strict instructions to LEAVE ME ALONE.

I haven't driven my car in weeks. Not only does it save me money, I'm trying to get this fat ass into shape by walking & biking everywhere I go. Today it's raining, so I head for the car.

My tags are expired by twenty-something days. I gave Jere $90 last month to get tags on his truck, which he has yet to repay. I realized, as I'm mulling the situation over in my head, that the bureau is closed on Mondays. And, I'll need my insurance card to take along which I casually noticed a CANCELLATION notice for our policy in Jere's papers last week. It was his month to pay, I should've KNOWN better than to rely on him.

:(

As usual, I have to dip into my savings to cover the insurance & tags. If he would've held up his end of our deal I would have my $90 to get my own car plates and I would have insurance!! And he wonders why I'd rather chew my own leg off than sit in a shoe box house for an evening with him.

I haven't put gas in my car since June 4th, the day I drove home from our KY visit. Of course now that it's raining & I want to get across town to my brother's house for the night, my car gas tank registers E.M.P.T.Y.

Inside the gas station where I have to prepay, there are two lines, both with two customers. I randomly choose the line on the right. I was sooooo wrong. As soon as I solidify my decision, the cashier politely says, "I'll be right back" and leaves her post. Great-O. The woman in front of me is scratching lottery tickets in line. Weird.

The first guy in the left lane apparently cannot speak a normal sentence; he is so fricken jolly that he sings everything. And he doesn't shut up. I want to stab him with a spoon. The guy behind him is looking pretty hot. But he's gay. Rats. Finally my cashier comes back - I'm ready to go postal. The lottery ticket shithead in line in front of me ... she is the type that spends her entire paycheck on lottery tickets by buying $50 worth, going directly to the end of the line & scratching tickets as she works her way back up to the cashier to cash in winning tickets for more tickets. She will NOT get out of the way as she's mentally counting how many tickets she's had from each variety and which one's she wants to get next. I feel my breathe getting shallow & it's increasingly harder to control the urge to start screaming all the insane antics that were rolling through my already overwhelmed & emotional head.

I finally get my turn & ask for $20 on pump #3. The clerk cheerfully asks for my Speedy card. I have no card. I've been in this Speedway eleven thousand trillion times & always answer that I have no Speedy card. It is at this exact moment that she feels she needs to offer me a Speedy card ~ like she doesn't see the lasers getting ready to shoot from my eyes or the whisps of smoke that are puffing up from my hair as I attempt to keep from spontanious combustion.

Me: No thanks. (forced smile)

Clerk: But it...

Me (cutting her off): I don't care, I'm in a hurry (wildly flashy my eyes like I might whip out my great kung fu skills and forever maime everyone around me).

I turned and bolted for the door. I wanted to go from laser eyeballs to a sobbing lump of baby watching the gas pump. $20 and I don't even get 5 gallons. LESS THAN FIVE GALLONS!! This is why I ride my bike daily.

I know at my brother's house they are always trying to stuff me with food, but I find it insanely rude to expect a meal when I get there so I stop for a light snack at wonderful world of McD's. As I pull from the order stand to the payment window, my brain starts ticking... the price just didn't seem quite right. I know that the tax rate has risen from the 5% that I remember just a few years back, but I don't know exactly what it's up to now. I get out my handy dandy phone, use the calculator on it, and WHAM-O ~~ a whopping EIGHT percent!! I'm fervently hopping that the McD's employees are just idiots. 8%???? *sobbing*

I have a ghetto-white-trash car. The radio is hard wired to the battery. Lucky me. I turn it on to drown out the chaos that is my current state of mind. I hear Drew Cage talking about Bear on the Square. He mistakenly says, "Wednesdays from 11:30 to 1:00 AM. I'm a dork and yes, I catch these things. In my twisted head I think it would be funny to call in and correct him, just to have a lil fun at someone else's expense. It's harmless. Pathetic? Maybe. But at this moment anything is entertaining to me, so fuck you.

Busy signal. Busy signal. Busy signal. A dozen times, I got a busy signal. My husband can call a dozen times a day to win monsterous prizes off of every radio station known to man when a gorzillion other listeners are calling in. If someone says be the 15th caller, he will be caller #1, #4, #8, #11 & #15. I can't even get through during a non-busy calling time just to make fun of the show host.

Grumpy or not, I'm writing about whatever. Everything possible. If you happen to read something in here that is nameless, but you know it's about you, shut up. At least I didn't call you out on your stupid ass shit by name :)~

Much love to all!

family trees (or flow charts)

Answering questions about my family can be complicated at times. I may introduce someone as my cousin & get "oh, I can see the family resemblance!" Well, you're wrong. There really is no family connection. But that's not any of your business & I don't want to explain it. Not at that moment anyway. My cousin might actually be my brother & sister's cousin, and not technically mine. Personally I'm not a big fan of technicalities.

Families are complicated. Not like how they used to be.

Technically, I am the only off spring from the exact combination of my biological mother & father. But to say that I have no full brothers or sisters, as the politically correct term, is just bull shit. Family is what you make of it. If you go around calling everyone one your half, step, in-law, former, or whatever correct term may be, that's all your going to end up with. A bunch of half, almost, kind-of-sort-of crap.

All of my brothers & sisters have other brothers & sisters that I'm not biologically related to. Some of whom I grew up with as brothers/sisters, and some I have only met in recent years as adults.

The family I grew up with as a child is not the same family that I have now. My mother & adopted father divorced when I was 13 & I have not spoken to the adopted side of the family until this year - almost 15 years later. We'll call this side family A. I met my biological dad & older brother when I was 13, the same year I was emancipated. We'll call this family B. I consider everyone in both family groups to be my family. Well, mostly. I guess I could make a few exceptions :)

Then there's the complication of me being in the middle. Solo. My mom had five children. Two by her first husband. Me (never married my dad). And then two more by her last husband. There are 10 & 11 years between me & my oldest siblings and 5 & 6 years between me & the youngest siblings. That's a whopping 17 years between the two sets. And me in the middle.

The oldest set have younger brothers & sisters through their dad's side of the family. And it's the same with the youngest set. The older set & the younger set don't really communicate much. I do a lot of running back and forth, relaying information about how each "side" is. But really I just want everyone to be one big unit. Is that too much to ask??

Now, my children are going through the same exact issues. They have brothers & sisters everywhere. In several different states. Some older. Some younger. Some in pairs. Some solo. Some that know & some that don't.

I speak from experience: Reproduction should be limited :)~

As I struggle to keep my wits about me with family A, family B, older set & younger set, I can see that it will be the same for my own children as they now have extended, split, complicated family trees.

I hope that it doesn't take them long to figure out that family is family & love is love - regardless of the ties and stigmas that may come along. Enjoy what you have, every sweet moment, and every hard trial. Family is not only what you allow it to be, but also what you encourage it to be.