Pillow Talk

I've just been kicked out of our bed by our cats.
Both of them have been showing signs of stress and missing HIM, particularly HIS cat, but this is getting ridiculous. Since it happened both of them have taken occasional turns curling up on the pillows above my head. Like a furry night cap of yore.
(Never mind that there’s a half a queen size bed and two other pillows completely unoccupied. )
It’s sweet in a way but also annoying to have them step on my hair while they get settled, purr loudly in my ear, or start licking it. Tonight both of them decided to share the pillows, but not with me.
I’ve never understood people who let medium to large sized dogs sleep in they’re beds. I have a friend who has complained to me many times about how badly she sleep having to share the bed with her spouse and two golden retrievers….the answer seems pretty simple to me.
Having the cats on the bed was never a problem before but I think I need to gently but firmly reclaim my bed before I’m the one relegated to curling up in the laundry basket.

Gotta go, both of them have joined me downstairs, it's time to stake out my territory!
(wish me luck)

Collateral Damage

So I’ve managed to trash 2 rooms in our house, actually, 3, and the others don’t look much better.

Add re-organizing to the list of things I’m doing all wrong.

A smarter widow would have gone one room at a time. Not me!

My dinning room (that we only ever used for actual dinning when my parents visited) is a mess of boxes, some full of books, others waiting to be filled.

Our bedroom looks good but I still don’t have the guts to go through our closet nor the boxes under out bed. I know there are some wedding and other mementos under there.

I’ve mentioned the Basement of Doom; the other big scary room is our spare room. I keep my sewing supplies/fabric there, our leatherworking supplies and HE used it for making and fletching arrows…. and also for storing 4 garbage bags (so far) of random crap.

HE was very good at hiding the random crap. So good in fact that when we reorganized that room last winter and I purge a lot of stuff I didn’t notice that HE did not. So it’s a mess with piles of stuff, despite the fact that the crap is already outside in garbage bags. HE does have useful stuff there, at some point I will need nails and screws, (and god knows what size/type so I might as well keep them all), glues of different types, I do need fletching gear for my own arrows, I found more leatherworking tools he had tucked away and there’s other stuff that I’m worried that if I do throw it away I’ll need it a week later.

(Which is exactly what HE was probably thinking 4 garbage bags ago).

 Between the horses and our various tool-heavy hobbies HE used to joke that it would be much easier if we both just got into origami. No shit.

The guest bedroom has become collateral damage due to the cleaning out of other rooms and needing to put stuff out of the way while I reorganize.

Basically, other than the bathroom, upstairs is a disaster.

Downstairs the dinning room is as mentioned, the living rooms not too bad but all the half empty bookcases are depressing, as is his recliner. The kitchen’s ok, but I’ve always hated our kitchen, not enough counter space and who the fuck stuccos kitchen walls?!?!?!

Frankly there’s a pretty good correlation between what state our house is in and what state my mind is in.

I’m purging a lot of my own stuff too, I’m hanging on to things that mean something, either to me or us, or are useful but the rest is just clutter and no longer hold any value to me.  

There’s other stuff I need to be dealing with too. I need to send the insurance company the keys to our old vehicle, write thank you notes, post adds on kijiji for various stuff, phone HIS family more often, start organizing HIS things that I’m giving to friends and family, catalogue HIS blacksmithing tools that I’ll be selling, the list just goes on and on.

Never mind normal life things, going to work, getting back on track at the gym, dishes, laundry, house cleaning...snort…oh yeah, that’s what got me into this mess in the first place…Ugh!

I used to love the saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, until Kelly Clarkson sang a song about it that gets played endlessly. I can’t stand the song but I know how true it is.

Learning Curve Please!

I’ve had a good couple of days. I bought a used (fingers crossed) washer and dryer so I don’t have to brave the laundry mat alone, rode both our horses, signed up for online banking and paid some bills. I’ve also decided to switch furniture in the bedrooms so my bedroom will be in the former guest bedroom and vice versa. Part of the reason is heating this place in the winter is hell and if I have the guest bedroom I can close off two rooms through the winter. The other reason is I’m still having issues falling alseep, waking up isn’t much fun either. I’m hoping a change of scenery will help.

So I figured out how to arrange my new room and the easiest way to transfer furniture back and forth. I might even get some new dressers for myself.

That’s how I spent my night.

This morning I woke up on the wrong side of our bed. A couple of good days and suddenly I feel like I’m back to square one. It took me awhile to figure out why I was a basket case and my friend K summed it up for me after I did a lot of babble-typing.

I’m planning my future, my life, without HIM. It’s starting to sink in that I will never see HIM again; he’s gone, not “absent”, gone, dead, muerto.

Humans have been evolving for thousands of years, and dying for just as long. How is it that during this long evolution process we haven’t learned to deal with death better? Ain’t none of us getting out of here alive, no one ever has. How is it, as a species, we haven’t developed better coping skills?

It just seems impossible that we could go from apes learning to use stick to fish ants out of anthills to our present state of digital overload and not have a better handle on dealing with death?!

We missed something in the evolutionary process I’m god damn pissed off about it.

Symmetry of Suck

Depending on how you approach both there’s a weird symmetry to marrying the man you love and then having a funeral for him.

Both require you find a “venue” for the event, and meet with someone to make arrangements. “Catering” after the event may be required.

A certain amount of “handling” has to be done with the in-laws. (“No, we will not be having a Catholic wedding ceremony”…..”No, we will not be having an open casket, or even a casket.”…)

Wedding or Funeral, either require decisions about what you both will wear.

Your Mother will nix at least one clothing decision. (No cowboy boots at the wedding, no red boots at the funeral).

Flowers, yep, I needed them for both events.

People have to be invited or informed; ‘tho you’re more likely to get funeral crashers from my experience.

You’ll want to try to act graceful and gracious. (fail)

Someone will do something “déclassé” at either event. (My Dad’s word, but he’s the one that insisted on an open bar at our wedding so BB getting trashed was on him).

People will cry.

You’ll be given cards, some will contain money…And I’m not too proud to admit that I really appreciate the money I’ve received; it will help see me through for a bit.

Both are a major change in your life, even if you lived together before getting hitched it’s still an adjustment. Life with HIM gone is the Symphony of Suck.

After both you should send thank you cards to certain individuals, the ones who sent money, flowers or who went above and beyond. Miss Manners insist on it, plus you feel you should.

Planning our wedding took a year and was over in a few hours. Planning HIS funeral took a few hours; god knows how long the Symphony plans to play for.

Weekend Warrior

A quieter weekend for me, as far as I know.

I’d booked it off from work to do the Warrior Dash with a bunch of friends +spouses from the gym, and was really looking forward to it. We both were, ‘tho HE would be cheering from the sidelines with 3 other husbands.

Part of me still wants to go, despite not having jogged since it happened, it’d be fun, muddy, hot and sweaty, but fun. But I just can’t do it.

Last year I did a small 3k run, my first one ever, just me with HIM cheering me on. He was there at the finish line and so happy and proud for me, and I just can’t bare the thought of hitting the end and him not being there.

It’s like I said before, things we had planned to do I will do alone or not at all.

So instead I’m going to buy some things for Oliver, the promised floor mats etc. Also maybe a replacement daisy for the one in my planter that has yet to grow any flowers…or maybe something different…daisies are my favorite and HE sometimes used to stop by the roadside on his way home from work and pick wild ones for me.

Frankly, some of my flowers are depressing the shit out of me and I want to replace them. He was impatiently waiting for the morning glories that he asked me to plant to bloom. They’re blooming now. And a few nights before it happened he came back from checking out the front garden saying that the roses would be blooming soon, they bloomed the weekend after it happened.

I want to get rid of both plants but I know if I do I’ll feel guilty, like I’m erasing things he was interested in, and it’s not going to change me being a fucked up mess.

It’s weird, I packed up all his novels, also things he cared about, without any guilt and only a little sadness, but I’m in tears over 2 fucking plants.

…You guys would tell me if I seem to be going bat shit crazy right?

So we’re doing some errands this morning, me and Oliver. Tonight I’m house and kid-sitting for C, her kid-sitter bailed on her and since she’s got 2 awesome girls I’m going to go hang out with them tonight.

HE and I never had kids, never really wanted them. It was the right decision for us and I’m so glad we never had any, I can’t imagine going through this and having to do it with kids. I'm fighting my way through this, and sometimes I lose and sometimes I'm just too tired. I can’t imagine how strong you’d have to be to cope with the additional stress of helping your kids through this. Those that have are my new heroes.

Introducing……Oliver!

I have a new (used) car.

He’s a 2003 Jeep Liberty with 123 900 km under his belt. He’s wise to the ways of the road but not so old that he’s bored with it.

I’ve agreed to treat him well and not subject him to second hand smoke. I will buy him floor mats, an IPod dock and a long handled brush for the winter.

In exchange Oliver will merrily take me wherever I wish to go and always look like a cheerful bulldog….I think a cheerful bulldog’s a good thing in my life right now, and probably more useful than a unicorn.

Pure Anger = Happy Endorphins?!

In my mind there’s a little girl with pigtails skipping happily down the street, swinging a stick and singing “Somebody’s going to get it” ...I like to think it’s Scout from “To Kill A Mockingbird”.

I’m really angry at someone right now, really angry. But it’s just anger, not the anger followed by guilt that I’ve been feeling about HIM. (As in “I’m so mad at him for leaving me, but god I shouldn’t be angry at him because he’s dead”).

This is an anger untainted by any other emotion, and it feels good, really good, to the point that I was happy at work tonight, like things were back to normal, BHD normal.

Now that I’m home the happy feeling has dulled down, because things aren’t back to normal, but I’m going to let that little girl keep skipping, swinging and singing “Somebody’s going to get it”.

It feels good.

Old Habits Die Hard

We were married for 17 years, we dated for 2 and we knew each other through mutual friends for another 2. That’s 21 years…that’s half my life.

I keep forgetting to clean the cat litter because it’s something HE would do in the mornings before work.

When HE would leave on a trip for work etc I’d wallow in our bed, sleep in the middle and hog all the pillows and sheets. Now I stick to my side of the bed because he’s not on a trip.

A few times I’ve walked home from working the dinner shift and wondered why the car isn’t in our driveway and why HE isn’t home yet.

I’ll hear some kind of interesting news and think to myself “I need to remember to tell HIM about that”.

A week ago I was telling a friend’s son about a horse sport HE was involved in and said “but he’s retired now”…well, clearly. What I meant is that he had retired a couple of years ago.

When I’m talking I still use words like “we” and “ours” in the present tense, I’m aware I’ve done it on this blog too.

After one of the above happens the crazy cat lady in me (she can be very sweet) will mentally pat my hand and say “there, there, dear, you know HE’s dead”, and toddle off to make me a hot chocolate that never arrives.

I wonder if HE was still alive, would I have realized this year that I’d know him for half my life?

I Bet You Think This Post is About You, Don’t You, Don’t You.

D and I had a good talk the other day. Apparently the death of a spouse has similarities to having your spouse want to divorce you, as is the case with D. I guess it makes sense, having someone you love walk away is a death of sorts, but they’re still around to complicate your life….mind you HE has obviously left my life a complicated mess too.

Anyhow we have a few of the same issues dealing with spouses that, one way or another, have left. He’s pretty much in the same boat as I am in the cooking/eating department. Cooking for one, an actual meal, is too much work and depressing to boot. He does have 2 kids to look after but chicken strips and vegetables isn’t exactly the kind of cooking he misses doing. I’m not even to the point of missing cooking, I just don’t care.

He’s also had sleep issues, he’s stressed out over money issues, and we both drink more coffee than we used to.

As much as both of our situations suck it’s nice to have common issues we can talk about, and maybe solve. We don’t talk about HIM ‘tho, if we do it’s only in passing. HE’s the big white elephant in the room we can’t discuss yet.

So I’ve got all these amazing friends that have rallied around me. Some have been a constant in my life for years, (or longer) some were in my life a few years ago (or longer) and have re-emerged. Some are people I’ve only met a handful of times but they’ve had good advice to share or just been plain nice.

Then I have a handful of others that I just don’t understand.

Disclaimer: I’ve got a pretty accurate idea of who’s reading this blog currently, if you think I’m talking about you below, I’m not.

(And get over your self, there are people out there who are way more irritating than you!)



Of course CH is a total overachiever and did
find me a unicorn...'tho not really in the
form I was expecting.

 A few people made offers and plans to phone me in a few weeks so we can get together, do something fun, but I haven’t heard from them since.

Or they’ve asked if there was anything they could do, and when I actually told them, I never heard back. (This doesn’t include the people that I told I needed a unicorn, I understand it might take them awhile to source a unicorn.)

I do get people have lives, busy lives, but why make an offer that you’re not prepared to back up? I also get that I make some people uncomfortable; they just don’t know what to say to me and might say something they don’t mean. A simple “I’m so sorry, I’ll be thinking of you” will do just fine in the future. (Not that I’m planning on doing this ever again!!)

Then there’s 2 people who’ve swung in totally the other direction. We haven’t been that close before, HE died, and suddenly they want to be my BFF and won’t leave me alone.
It’s just weird.
And I do have to mention Flurish of Trumpets The Queen of Inappropriate Flurish of Trumpets. She held herself a pretty big pity party on FB when she heard HE died, despite not having any meaningful contact with either of us in over a year. (And I do understand that it doesn’t erase the friendship they had previous to the last year but still…) Too busy on FB she didn’t bother to call or contact me.

At the funeral she said 5 words to me “Call if you need anything”, the irony is she knows I don’t have her new cell number and she unfriended me from FB months ago.

Too busy socializing at the funeral, she didn’t speak to my parents (who she knows), nor HIS family.

I’ve also had about half a dozen people tell me that she asked them if they thought I would mind if she dropped by to see me, and that she ”was worried about me”. I told them all to please tell her I’d like to see her. I haven’t heard SFA from her since the funeral.

Apparently she wants sympathy for being upset at HIS death and the appearance of concern for me, without doing any of the actual work.
She and I used to be pretty tight, it’s disappointing.

Clearly I have much bigger problems but why do people have to add to the weirdness?!?!?

Snow Globe

The Basement of Doom is no longer the basement of Doom, now it’s just the creepy basement. C and J <3 provided a trailer which is now full, and what’s left down there is either stuff to be sold at an eventual garage sale or stuff that I do need to keep.

It went quicker and was easier than I thought.

Mom keep a pretty good eye on Dad ‘tho, he was scoping a few things out for himself.

And I do feel better now that it’s done, another thing to cross of the list



Makes me want to try and get one through
just for the hell of it.



C came up with the perfect analogy for my life right now, it’s a snow globe. A very, very shaken snow globe.

All the bits swirling around are the crap I’m dealing with. The practical (cleaning out the basement, doing paperwork), the emotional (aka “fucked up mess”, the 5 stages of grieving got chucked out for being stupid and unreliable), the financial (HE may be dead but the bills still need to be paid), and the future (which is a big, scary, blank sheet of paper right now).

C assures me that eventually the bits will settle, and I do actually believe her, because they have to eventually.

I’m not saying I see light at the end of this tunnel, but I do believe in the existence of that light. Between that, my parents and my friends I think that’s what’s keeping me from going bat shit crazy. Because part of me really just wants to go bat shit crazy.



We’re back to that “well meaning” thing.

I know my parents love me and I know they want to make this all better for me. But that’s not going to happen immediately and it needs to happen on my terms.

Last night we were sitting on the deck and a fairly normal conversation turned into thoughts about me going back to school and what career opportunities I should be looking at. I’m well aware that I need to bring in more money and my plan for is to look for either another part time job or a full time one that’ll bring in more money for this fall. They’re talking in terms of me going back to school for a whole new career. Even if things were “normal” I wouldn’t be able to make such a big decision in a month and a half, never mind the head space I’m in now.

The plan for today was to see if the car I’m looking at is going to work out, then go to work. That’s my plan and lately that’s about all I can handle in one day.

I came down from my shower and my parents are already fussing with the basement. That was the plan for tomorrow, but they’re both down there now.

This is despite the fact that I told them I couldn’t handle more than the car and work today. Just hearing them move around down there is stressing me out.

I know they just want to help, and having never been in this situation they don’t really know how, and getting stuff done would seem to be the most rational thing to do.

But things aren’t rational right now and neither am I.

Holy Mother of God,  some idiot (who knows that HE died recently) hit on me at work today?!?!?
Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?!?!?

Admin Note

When I decided to start this blog I Google searched for “popular blog hosting sites”, “Blogger” was highly rated for being idiot proof and therefore my best bet.

It’s pretty basic as far as tools and toys go but it does have a neat feature that I can see what counties people are reading it from. Most are a no brainers, Canada, the USA, some countries in Europe. I’ve told a few friends about the blog and have a pretty good idea who’s reading it. There are other sites that this blog is being listed on and I might have the occasional reader from those. What trips me out is that I have a reader from Russia! How cool is that?!?!? Ok, I think it’s very cool and if you don’t then, well, I’m telling you its very cool!

Also, I was playing around with the settings and changed the “comments” one, you can now comment without having a Google account....I think?

Something Parental This Way Comes

So my parents are showing up again in a few days to help me with a few things. I’m grateful but also still feeling overwhelmed and needing more downtime. ‘Tho it’s pretty obvious I’m the problem here. When I have a few hours I’m not trying to relax, I’m trying to keeping myself busy.

One thing I haven’t been keeping busy with is house cleaning…the place hasn’t been vacuumed since before it happened, I’m wondering if this’ll be an issue when Mom gets here? (More accurately I’m wondering if Mom will make it an issue?)

And I did talk to my manager at work and she re-arranged my schedule so I do have more time over this weekend to myself….to be stressed…or maybe actually vacuum....yeah, I know, who am I trying to fool.

The two main things me and my parents are going to tackle is the basement of doom…shudder… and I know they want to talk about my finances…cringe….

HE was the main wage earner, so they have every right to be concerned. I’m concerned.

I did run some numbers last night; big surprise the news isn’t good. I knew from the get-go that I’d have to find a second job or find another one that paid more/offered me more hours but I think it’s still going to be uncomfortably tight for the long term. I do have a few assets I need to fill in the blanks for, I’ve applied for HIS CPP benefits and I’m entitled to a widow’s allowance as well, but I’m not sure how much those will bring in.

The biggest quandary is the apt we live in. It’s big, high ceilings, 2 floors, 2 bedrooms plus a spare room, and the rent is cheap. (Mainly because the house is old and has issues).

I was looking at apartment ads yesterday and I pay less than most of the 1 bedroom’s advertisted. But those have utilities included, ours does not. And the biggest expense is the heating bill in the winter. Old home, high ceilings, old windows, even when we’ve sealed them up our gas bill is high in the winter. That’s the biggest negative about this place, that and it’s large, a lot to clean, or not clean as the case is now. The pluses are that it’s centrally located in town, less than 4 blocks from work, 6 to the grocery store, and the gym’s in between there.

I don’t want to move, I might eventually, but right now, as hard as the memories are I’m comfortable and feel safe here. If I can hang in for a year I think I’ll be in a better mind set to make a decision.

The other big financial issue I’m afraid my parents will bring up is the horses. They don’t really get the “horse thing”, ‘tho they do understand how much enjoyment and how involved we are with them. (Which is a huge understatement to how we feel about them).

Selling the horses would be like dealing with 2 more deaths. I can’t even think about it without going to tears.  I just don’t see how I could do it. HE loved his horse, there’s no way of expressing how much, and I feel I owe it to HIM and his horse to keep care of him. I’d rather sell my own horse than HIS, but the idea of that’s equally heartbreaking, he was very attached to her, never mind my own feelings.

I did screw up my nerve and have a short conversation with D (HIS BF who also owns the farm we board at) and thankfully D has come up with a few ways to reduce the costs without screwing up his own finances. It might be ok, but I’m not even sure how I’ll handle my parents broaching the topic. I think my best bet is to bring it up before they do, but it’s still going to be hard.

…everything’s “hard”, I’m tired of using that word to sum things up, and I’m sure you’re tired of reading that word. But it’s like trying to describe the size of the universe, “huge” is an underestimate, but it is accurate and shorter than any other way of describing it.

In other news, I went back to the guy last Monday for the first time since it happened, did my full legs workout, then went back on Tues for my HIIT workout…then was so sore Wed, Thurs and Fri I couldn’t go back in. I was basically crippled on Wed and the soreness didn’t totally disappear until today.

Head to desk…head to desk….

I know better, almost 3 weeks off and I hit it hard, instead of easing back into it, clearly not thinking. On the other hand it was good to be back and another piece of my BHD (before HE died) life settling back into place. Even the soreness was a little bit welcome, HE may be dead but I’m so alive I can make my muscles hurt! (If that makes any sense?)

I can’t force my life to being back to normal (believe me I’ve tried), but I can grab onto it here and there for a little while. It helps.

I can’t rant about my car insurance company, so a used car salesmen will have to do!

My insurance company is almost driving me nuts because they’re still being reasonable and nice. Two day extension on the rental (for no apparent reason), help filling out forms for death benefits, a replacement value higher than what we paid for our vehicle in the first place. Cheques arriving to me days before I expected them?!

Today I contacted my insurance broker to get a quote on a vehicle I’m seriously considering buying. I was expecting my insurance would probably go up because of 2 wrecked vehicles in less than 6 months. And I was going to fight it based on the fact that the 2 claims shouldn’t reflect on me since I wasn’t the driver and the driver during both would no longer be driving. So I rolled up my mental tough cookie sleeves and made the call…turns out my insurance costs will drop.

Apparently this is another widow SUPEREPOWER, insurance companies have to be nice, reasonable and kind.

P and I test drove the vehicle yesterday. I like it a lot. But I pretty much loath the salesmen I’ve been dealing with.

They had just gotten the car in, the salesmen, we’ll call him Asshat, said they hadn’t really checked it out yet but he did know the air conditioning wasn’t working right.

So off P and I went. The air wasn’t great, there was a small alignment problem when I accelerated and braked, and there was a lot of road noise. Other than that it was a great ride! I took it to a school parking lot and zipped around doing tight turns, then on the highway to see how it handled braking and highway speeds…or faster.

So we had a fun test drive, I dropped P off at home on my way to returning the car and to talk pricing with Asshat.

Asshat knows it’s a good car, and also was slightly condescending as only used car salesmen can be to women. He didn’t call me “little lady” but you get the picture.

Then he started the pressure sales tactics, when I called him on it he denied it but did mention twice that once they put it out on the lot it would sell very quickly. I was getting upset at this point, I’m under enough stress right now, and I don’t need this. Which I pretty much told him, then he mentioned for a third time that the car would sell quickly….I took a deep breath and told him exactly why I didn’t need the stress. Asshat told me he knew about HIS death and that he knew what I was going through?!?!?

BULLSHIT.

Our meeting ended very shortly after that with him saying he’d call after the mechanics had gone over the car to assess what needed to be done and come up with a firmer price on the car.

I was furious when I drove home; he knew what I was going through?!?!? He hadn’t lost a spouse so how the fuck could he?!?!?

Plus, I was now feeling that a car I really liked was tainted by the Asshat.

P, R and a beer only made me feel slightly better.

So Asshat phoned today to give me the skinny on what work they’d be doing on the car, the first thing on the list, replace the tires which were badly worn and in some places cracking on the sides underneath the car. (At this point P, who reads this blog, is having kittens). Asshat let us take a car out for a test drive that hadn’t even been looked at by a mechanic, never mind safetied?!?!?! Sure, they spent a few hours detailing the hell out of it before I test drove, but a basic safety check, not so much. Un-fucking-believable.

Asshat would usually be a funny story to tell friends but I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed lately, very stressed, at times almost panicked.

P and R visited for 3 days, (we got a lot done about HIS finances, not all good news but its done), starting today I have a very heavy work schedule over the weekend, and then my parents show up.

On one hand there’s just so much to do and I don’t feel like I can stop until it’s all done, on the other I just want to have a few days of downtime to myself.

I think this is my brain waging war with my emotions. My emotions want downtime to grieve (apparently it wants more attention than nights alone in our bed, and random crying jags during the day); my brain wants to keep us busy so we can’t do this.

And I’m stuck in the middle, emotional and frantic.

I think they need to add another “stage” to the official list of grieving, “fucked up mess” would pretty much cover it.

Friends

No, I haven’t been having a complete mental breakdown in the last 2 days, much as I would like to.

P and her accountant husband, R, are down for a few days to help me sort out HIS finances. Being the “artistic type” HE wasn’t that organized and I need all the help I can get.

It’s actually been a pretty good 2 days, busy days.

We also spent some time test driving vehicles, I think finding the right one might be difficult. I need something that’s in my price range, decent on gas, and would prefer a small SUV or truck. Also between our wreck in December and this last one, me feeling safe in a vehicle has become very important. Problem is, the ones I feel safe in are like the Jeep, pigs when it comes to gas.




2011 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500
a mere $55 439.00

I keep telling myself that I’m a good driver (because I am), and that just because I feel safe in a vehicle doesn’t mean it’s any safer than another…but it’s not really working.



Tomorrow we’ll go out and look at more… P and I were talking about test driving a Charger or Mustang, just because we can (not because it’s in my price range) but my heart’s not really into it….plus they probably want your first born as collateral when you take it out, I don’t think they take cats.

Last night wrapped up with an old friend of our stopping by to visit. We’ve been friends with him for well over 12 years and now located in the states he couldn’t come to the funeral. He feels bad about that but sitting with him on our deck for a few hours was way better.

Despite the Symphony of Suck, or actually because of the SoS,  I do realize I’m very lucky to have such great friends and such great support. I always knew I could count on people in my life, but the lengths some of them have gone for me in the last while has really been overwhelming and humbling. Even the e-mails or phone calls I recieve from people checking in means so much. I had an epiphany the other day that maybe the women who do go absolutely sideways when their spouse dies are the ones who are missing this in they’re life.

I can’t imagine what that would be like, and thankfully I don’t have to.

The Horses

We had a barn meeting tonight so I saw the horses.

Both of them are huge reminders of everything we’ve done with them, and everything we will never do. It’s going to take a lot of work on my part to get past that and be able to see them without breaking down.

And I wish I could explain to them what’s going on. I want to be able to tell HIS horse why he won’t be around anymore and that he didn’t just abandon him. HE loved that horse more than anything and it breaks my heart to think his horse will be missing HIM and wondering why he’s not around anymore.

I still don’t quite believe I’ll never see HIM again, so what chance does the poor horse have?

PG-13 for the rest of my life?

Holy Mother of God does HE every have a lot of stuff! I mean I knew HE was kind of a pack rat but geez….I guess I just got used to the clutter, or was in a deep state of denial about it.

I’ve started putting small things aside that I think HIS family and friends would like, but they’re scatted upstairs and downstairs. The easiest thing to do would be to use gift bags, tag one for each person and drop stuff in as I go. But gift bags seem a little too festive for this, plus most of the ones we have are from Christmas, or Victoria’s Secret…seems kinda inappropriate.

I’ll have to see what the local dollar store has in plain, non-festive gift bags, if such a thing exists.

Oh, and add “new local Thai restaurant” to the list of places I can’t go without being mauled. Apparently my manger’s sister is the manger there.

Last night I rented a few movies, figured I’d have some green curry, watch some flicks and sort through paperwork. “We Bought a Zoo”, about a guy with 2 kids who buys a zoo…6 months after his wife dies. Ok, never mind that one, (why don’t they mention these details on the movie boxes?!) Next up, “Nine”, watched 15 minutes of it and lost interest. I settled for a Katherine Heigle movie, junk food for the brain. Perfect.

It did occur to me at the movie place that I’m screwed when it comes to scary movies. (Scary, not gory). We live in a house that possibly pre-dates indoor plumbing, it makes noises on its own. Add a scary movie to the mix and no one here to protect me from my imagination, and, well, you can see what a bad idea that is.

There’s no getting around the fact that just about every facet of my life has changed because of this.

I resent it.

If I chose this (like getting a divorce) then it would be on me to suck it up and deal with the consequences. But I didn’t choose this, and I’m tired of unexpected consequences, the ones I expect are bad enough.

As C would say fuckity, fuck, fuck!

Well Meaning People Suck

Well last night at work was no fun. Another (well meaning) regular decided to invade my personal space and break up my work routine by giving me a clingy hug. You know the kind, where they don’t let go when you try and move away. And this time the restaurant was packed. Nothing like being a big ‘ole mess of tears in front of a lot of people. Again, bolting for the back door seemed to be my best option.

My (well meaning) co-worker told me I have to take it as a compliment that people care and I “have to be more open to people”…..Oh…so I’m the problem here?????

I am open to people, people who are my friends, or even people who are acquaintances. I’ve never been the “sobbing on a shoulder type” (unless it was HIS shoulder), so why would I start with someone who might not even know my name?! I would have been fine if she had just said she was sorry to hear about my husband, but no, she had to go in for the hug….yeeesh…

My (well meaning) manager said it was just something I’d unfortunately have to get used to. Frankly I think that’s better advice, more realistic anyhow.  

Today’s lunch shift was much better. It was just my regular Saturday lunch shift, exactly the same as the ones I did before it happened. Go in, work.

The Symphony of Suck was quiet for 5 hours.

So I’ve been gearing myself up to deal with the insurance company. This is actually the second time we’ve written off a truck in less than 6 months. The first accident we hit black ice, careened across a major freeway and broadsided a concrete median doing about 80Km/h. Then got screwed on the replacement value of our truck. I was figuring this would be the same deal but I was going to fight them over it this time figuring it’d be a good way to release some tension.

I’m slightly disappointed to report that the insurance company’s been reasonable… …actually, they’re being beyond reasonable and have entered into the territory of being nice?! It has me a little freaked out.

They deemed the replacement value on our latest wreck to be more than we paid for it and they’ve extended my use of the Jeep for 2 days beyond what my policy states…

WTF?!?!?

How am I supposed to rant and rave about the evil insurance corporations when they’re not being evil at all?????

Back to the Salt Mines

My first day back to work was today. A lot of people told me it was going to be tough, and it was sort of tough, but not as bad as I thought.

The routine of work and keeping busy helped, which is what I had hoped. Also I’m a waitress,  and I’m used to be being polite under trying circumstances. (“Yes, it’s adorable that little Billy’s finger painting on the table with his dinner.” Knowing full well the parents aren’t going to do sweet fuck all about cleaning it up.) So it’s ingrained in me to plant a smile on my face and act like everything’s ok.

Until 2 of our regulars came in and handed me a card…my eyes welled up,  I croaked out a “thank you” and bolted for the back door. After I regained my composure I went back, apologized and thanked them again in a more graceful fashion.

Problem is, they’re regular customers, not friends. They know my first name, not my last, (which is different from HIS), and they certainly don’t know HIS name. So I don’t think they found out via media.

I think my manager told them, and that’s a problem.

I like my manger, she’s a really nice women; kind and funny, well meaning. The best case scenario is that they asked why I hadn’t been working lately and she told them why. Or they came in the day she found out, she was upset and they asked her why.

Problem is, my manger tends to over-share. A lot. She sees our regulars as friends’ not just regulars at the restaurant. My worry is that she’s told many of these “friends” about HIM without any reason other than her (well meaning) need to let people know what’s going on with me… And my big worry is how many fucking people she’s told?!

I hate the idea that over the next few weeks I’ll have to deal with people coming into work and throwing me thru a loop when I just want to keep my mind on my job.  

I should have the right to grieve in private, my own way, without a bunch of people I haven’t told knowing about it. I shouldn’t have to deal with it at work, (or the video store, or the bank, or the corner store, or the grocery store, or the drug store, or, or, or).

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with needing/wanting to escape from the Symphony of Suck for a little while. And as well meaning as people are, they just really fuck with that.

Five Stages…more like a 5 ringed circus.

So I looked up the 5 stages of grieving that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler developed in 1969, they are, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

(Yes, you will be tested on this later)

‘Course that wasn’t good enough for some people and they added Shock and Guilt, which I think is pretty much the same as Denial and Depression but whatever. Someone obviously had a thesis to write.

Some of the websites I checked out mention that people will not go through these stages in the order listed, which is good and means I’m not totally off track. Problem is I seem to be cycling through those stages daily, and revisit some of them very often throughout the day.

I thought it would happen in stages (as the name suggests) or be more like a horrible road trip. You start in your home town of Denial/Shock, enter into the province of Anger, take a side trip to Bargaining, and continue on to Depression/Denial, (where you break down and have to wait for repairs to be done). Then finally make it to Acceptance where it’s an infinity pool with swim-up bar, hot bartender and a view of the cannels in Bruges. (Insert your own idea of a perfect destination here).

But no, I’m bouncing all over the place, daily, and without much control over it. It’s the Cirque de Sorrow with 5 rings and aerial displays over head. Emotionaly I don't know what's going to happen next or where to look.

Things keep hitting me from out of nowhere. I was doing dishes yesterday and had my iTunes playing on the computer and Nikki Minaj’s “Starships” started playing. (Don’t judge, it’s a good song for working out).  HE did a hysterical lip-synch routine to that song, (‘course I’m not sure how HE knew the lyrics?!), so there I am bawling into my dishwater over a completely stupid pop song. Five minutes later I’m laughing about how many ‘freakin coffee cups he’s collected and making decisions on which I’ll keep.

And I don’t get the whole “Bargaining” thing. HIS ashes are right over there, what the fuck is there to bargain for?

In other news, falling asleep is still an issue. But I am eating, when I feel like or when someone puts food in front of me. I do have a rule that I must eat breakfast; I’ve actually come up with a few rules to try and keep myself from going sideways too badly.

-         Set alarm for a reasonable hour and get out of bed within 20 min of it going off.

-         No slopping around the house in pjs all day. Put on a bra, and get dressed. (K’s command the morning of still rings in my ears).

-         Breakfast, daily, before 10am.

-         Basic hygiene is mandatory, makeup is not.

-         Check garden daily, weed and water as needed. (I planted so damn many peppers and cucumber plants because they’re vegetables HE would also eat. I’m hoping my neighbors like them as well)

-         Shave legs every 3 days.

I’ll be going back to work tomorrow and back to the gym as soon as this stupid throat infection clears up. (The summer cold went postal on me). And I’m hoping a regular schedule of work and working out will help my sleeping issue….or it won’t and I’ll resort to Chamomile tea (I hate tea) and herbal stuff that friends have suggested…. Or maybe I’ll just be a sleep-deprived bitch for the rest of my life.

On The Road

Feeling the need to get out of here, (the house, the town), I use a thinly disguised excuse to drive to the big city. On the way home I drove to the scene of the accident. They did a good job cleaning up the debris but its pretty obvious where it happened and where the vehicle came to rest.

Why would I go there?  Because, due to the nature of HIS injuries, I didn’t get a chance to see HIM afterwards. And I was advised by the “Technical Traffic Collision Investigator” that seeing the vehicle would most probably do me a lot more harm than good.  (Up until talking to him there was a 50/50 chance that I was going to go clean out the vehicle myself). Since the above weren’t options the scene of the accident was the last place he was alive, and I was hoping to feel something there.

That’s my biggest problem, (emotionally anyhow) I know HE IS DEAD. His ashes are in the next room, but he doesn’t feel dead to me. Nor do I feel “he’s with me” in that spiritual sense. He just feels…. absent.

I was hoping I’d feel him at the site, or feel a severing inside or something, anything. But I didn’t.



It was hard being there, probably the hardest time I’ve had so far, but again, I thought I’d feel something more than that, something more permanent or final about HIM.

I just can’t imagine having this “he’s dead, but not dead” feeling go on and on…for god knows how long?

It’s like a Teflon coating on my skin, and I’m honestly worried that it’s stopping me from coming to grips with HIM being gone. Like the feelings that I think should come with that just slide off and can’t penetrate through. Obviously there are times when it does penetrate through, but…..geez I sound crazy.

Time to get off that crazy train and think about something else for awhile.



Speaking of HIS ashes…. I don’t know what the hell to do with them.



And no, I won't be putting up a
tacky/disturbing road side memorial at the site.
But if I was going to go that route I think
this one's actually pretty good.

I was fooling myself when I said the urn didn’t scream “DEAD GUY IN HERE” because it does. I mean it’s an urn, no pretending it’s a pretty vase with a lid or a decorative do-dad, because it doesn’t match anything else in the house as far as decorative do-dads go. 

Anyhow, I’m not putting HIM on the mantel; it just feels weird to “display” him. But I don’t want to hide him off in a closet somewhere either, that seems rude. I’m not sure our bedroom’s a good idea, and the guest bedroom would just be awkward for guest. (“I put clean towels out for you to use, they’re right beside the urn” is not something guests should ever hear.)

So if you have any ideas on where HE should be placed until I scatter his ashes please let me know.

BTW The Jeep is a pig on gas, the interior feels cramped (but actually isn’t) and it feels cumbersome when you drive it, if that makes any sense.

So if you want a gas guzzler that’s no fun to drive the 2012 4x4 Jeep Liberty is the car for you…that or a Hummer.

 











The Symphony of Suck II

I’m going through HIS cloths today. It’s hard, really hard.

Some of it’s going in the garbage (work cloths) or will be donated but I’ve come across random pieces of clothing that I can’t part with. Funny thing is most of those are absolutely beat to crap, his fav cargo shorts that are pretty much shredded up the legs, a grubby tank top from a trip we took, that kind of thing. And I’m keeping a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs I splurged on for him a few weeks before it happened, still in their box he didn’t have a chance to wear them.

I’m going to be spending a lot of time going through his stuff in the next while, mainly because he had interests that needed various tools/equipment/stuff…that and he was a bit of a pack rat.

I’ve also got to make a list of things his friends might want and contact his family about the same.

….then there’s the basement. I hate going down there because it’s like something out of the final scenes of “The Blair Witch Project”, tres creepy and filled with all kinds off stuff we clearly don’t need if it’s down there. It was on our “to do” list to clean it out this summer.

Way to dodge that bullet honey.

As hard as going through his cloths is there are a few things that are going to be a lot worse.

I still haven’t gone to the barn to see our horses.

HE loved his horse above everything else, and I don’t know how to handle it. I mean, I know how I’m going to handle it (a lot worse then the cloths) but I just don’t want to deal with it right now.

The bitch is that anytime I’ve been upset or pissed off I’d go for a ride and feel better, it’ll be awhile before I can feel that again.

And the irony is that his horse is older than most horses of his type usually get to, and I was very worried how HE would deal with the horse’s eventual death…But apparently the horse has outlived him.

Way to dodge that bullet honey.

So I’ve got stuff to do, really hard stuff. The Symphony of suck continues.

It’s always sad when the circus leaves town.

So my parents have cleared out, P left a few days ago.

I’m alone.

Something you need to know about me is I do alone very well. I’m an only child and very good at amusing myself, due to HIS job I was used to seeing him only a few hours at night through the week. Alone has never been a bad thing to me.

But this is a different kind of alone. This alone is I will never see him again, we will never sit in the living room cracking dumb jokes about the movie we’re watching, I will come home late from work and he will not be here, I will never expect him home from work and then get annoyed that he was running late and didn’t call.

Any plans we had I will do alone, or not at all.

This kind of alone is making me hate him a little bit right now.

I didn’t sign up for this.

A friend from high school that I reconnected with via FB has been through this and she’s offered some good advice over the last few days…actually she’s offered advice that other people have but I actually believe her.

The big one was not making any big changes in my life in the next year. I had to ask her to clarify because I can’t imagine any changes bigger than losing HIM.

-         No big changes of address, like moving to Saudi Arabia

-         No big tattoos or body piercings

-         Don’t be afraid to get counseling/therapy

-         No men for at least a year.

The last one‘s actually hysterical. We didn’t have a perfect marriage, we didn’t have a porn star sex life, but I can’t imagine there’s anyone out there who could come close to filling HIS void.

I mean, I’ve seen what walks by my house, I’ve seen what walks into the restaurant, and it doesn’t inspire confidence in the local dating scene IF I’m ever ready. Not one bit...shudder...
On the upside, I drove by a farm yesterday with a FREE KITTENS sign out front, and I drove right by, yeah for me! P will be so proud.

Details of Death, sign here, here, here, and here. Also, here, here and here.

Heaven forbid that be the funeral be the end of it and I get on with the grieving process.

The funeral home provided a basic list of things that needed to be done, paperwork wise. Closing bank accounts, filling for death benefits (which the funeral director actually did for me) etc. Our financial life was “uncomplicated” so it cut down on some of it but there’s still a lot of paperwork.

Public Service Announcement: Go out and get life insurance. HE and I had, had 3 separate fights about that in the last year. I was right and I can’t even tell the asshole “Told you so!”

Not much of the paperwork had to be done immediately but I wanted to get it over with, also I wanted my Dad to trouble shoot and ask the questions I wouldn’t think of. 

Gonna drive it like I stole it



We contacted our car insurance company, and I’m sure in the near future I will have a rant about them. They did remind me our insurance covers the cost of a rental for about a week so I picked it up. And here’s the first kick in the ass about car insurance, right now I’m driving a 2012 Jeep 4X4 Liberty Sport (a pretty swish ride) thanks to Economical Insurance. Who will then screw me over on the replacement value of our vehicle and force me to buy something along the lines of a 2001 Dodge Neon.

Bait and switch.

….But until then I’m going to drive the snot outta the Jeep.