Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi you`re my only hope!

Found another new Star Wars Mash-Up today, with the Dukes of Hazzard! Gotta love these!

Star Wars A-Team

Star Wars Dukes of Hazzard

Han Solo P.I.

Star Wars MacGyver

Star Wars Dallas

Airwolf Rebels       

AirWolf Imperial

So often on this site I joke that only Obi-Wan Kenobi can help me. This time, I don’t think even his special brand of the force will be able to see me through this unexpected throw of the dice. But, for safeties sake in case it actually does work when I ask him…Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi…my life is in deep shit.

So sorry I haven’t been on in a little while, my life took a most unexpected turn, one of those curve balls that comes out of nowhere and makes you wonder why you can’t just have a normal simple life. As you may know from some of the dark side posts I have made, I have recently gone through some rather bad years of my marriage that ended when my husband walked out and disappeared. He had many problems, most of which stemmed from drug use and a dysfunctional childhood and depression over whom he was and where he had ended up in life. Needless to say, it has been an entire year since we have seen or heard from him, and by we I mean me, my daughter and my son, ages 20 and 14 respectively.

So I was quite taken by surprise and that is the understatement of the year by the way, when my co-worker turned to me at the beginning of this week and said, “Kevin is on the phone.” After I got over my initial shock, and amusement as my boss who heard what my co-worker had said flung herself out of her chair so fast to run into the center of the office with her mouth gaping open that the chair fell over and into the desk behind her, I walked into the conference room and picked up the phone. I have to say I was even shocked at myself when I picked it up and instead of hurling a fuck you and the horse you finally ran in on and slamming the receiver down, said instead, “hello”, to which he replied, “Hi it’s me”, as if I wouldn’t recognize his voice after 17 years and two children together.

Later on as I told my co-workers, best friends, parents, children and taken an ad out in the NY Times (or at least that is how it felt) most questioned me on my quiet put together attitude and questioned why I was so calm and nice to him. First off, no one, no matter how close they are to me knows everything that was between us, and knows everything that I feel about my husband and the situation surrounding him.

Second of all what was yelling and getting angry going to get me? I tried that route throughout the drug and lying, con-man years, begging him to get help, find himself and try to fix what he was destroying before it was too late so we could salvage our family. Now he had been gone for a year, my kids and I had moved on without him whether we had wanted to or not, he didn’t exactly leave us a choice, so why start yelling now. For better or for worse, we are better off than we had been the last five years he had lived with us and made us live through a hell I can’t even describe to you. We watched as the man we slowly knew as husband and daddy turned into a monster we didn’t know and didn’t want to know, and were powerless to stop it.

Whether I begged or pleaded or whether I screamed and yelled or talked calmly and logically nothing got through, and as much as he was killing us and hurting the family I did not have the strength to kick him out, always holding out hope that the good man I married, the one I loved was still buried in there somewhere and if I just waited it out and took his shit, he would find his way back to himself and to us. That isn’t the way it went down, and maybe it is better this way I don’t know. Although if given the choice, I would have liked to decide for myself where my life and marriage were going, instead of having it all decided for me.

Anyway, so I picked up the phone and for the first time in a year spoke to the husband I had honestly never thought I would hear from again. I told many people later I think it would have been easier if the prick, the monster he had become had been on the other end of that phone, but it wasn’t, instead I heard for the first time in almost five years the man I once loved, maybe still love, the man I thought had been dead and buried years ago.

We spoke for nearly three hours the totality of which I couldn’t even begin to tell you, it all felt surreal, as many times inside my head I stopped and asked myself if I was actually talking to who I thought I was talking to. For the first hour, I felt like I was in a bad rehab movie, where the wronged family member gets the phone call from the 12 stepper who is now contrite and humble and apologizes and tries to explain their actions, and admits their wrongs. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to hear it, but these were things I would have rather heard before he destroyed everything we had and taken away every memory of my life from the last 17 years as if they had been his alone to take away.

As he mentioned that he is trying to fix himself and do the right thing, sign divorce papers, giving me anything I asked for including full custody (of which I obviously already have), of our son, no visitation (because my son refuses to have anything to do with him) and no claim on marital assets which he knows he has no claim to anyway because everything was mine and paid for by me or my family, I listened quietly, wondering what planet I had woken up on, how I got there and when could I get off.

This contrite, calm man was one I honestly never thought I would hear from again, the one I loved and married, the one I had children with and raised a family with and had a life with. The one I buried, knowing full well once he disappeared that he had been lost forever. Now here he was on the phone with me, and for the first time in a year, I was given the chance to say a few things that were robbed of me when he walked away and disappeared. I admit it was a release and a draining one at that, even though it wasn’t one third of what I needed to say, and needed to hear, but it was something, finally, so I guess I should be grateful for that. But, as he tried to explain he wanted to sign the papers and get it over with asap so me and the kids could move on and get on with our lives with some closure, I told him we had already done that.

We had moved on, we are happy, peaceful, and more financially stable than we had been in years. We had gotten beyond the hole he created, patched up what ruins he left behind for me to take care of on my own and had moved on to a nice life that all three of us are happy in. A piece of paper matters not to me, and certainly won’t give me closure. Closure would be an all out mentally and physically draining conversation about everything, answers to it all, maybe even some thank you`s for picking up the pieces he so cruelly left behind and I fixed for the kids, taking care of them and making sure they didn’t follow in his dysfunctional footsteps. Maybe some acceptance of what he did to all of us, what he left me alone to take care of without a look back, and what he left me with ahead of me that is changed and scarred forever.

I am not asking for him to get on his hands and knees and beg for my forgiveness or take all the blame for everything in the world on his own shoulders. But a little sample, maybe a little more than he gave me on the phone the other day, of the things he knows he did and always denied, the things he caused between us, the fact that all he ever had to do for one second during that time was realize I loved him and would have done anything for him if he had just reached out and asked for it. I obviously would have done anything for him I stayed while he treated me like shit, made every day at the end a living hell you could not wake up from. Perhaps maybe as I just read that sentence, perhaps what I need to hear is that he knows what his behavior did to me, to us and that if he could take it back he would, that this isn’t what he wanted either, that it hurts him to know what we had was destroyed that where we now have ended up pains him as much as it pains me.

I wonder if he knows what that feels like. He may tell me he is hurting too, but I wonder if for one second he ever tried to put himself in our shoes and realize the absolute pain and helplessness you feel when you watch someone you love destroy themselves before your eyes. It is a pain I cannot even begin to describe to you, and one you do not get over…ever.

That maybe just maybe he wishes he could have been different, things could have gone a different way that he weeps for what was as much as I do. Even if he said these things how could I believe him, after all even he admitted on the phone he was a con-man, conned me and everyone around him on a moments whim. That he rebelled against me like I was his mother not his wife and that he doesn’t know why. How am I now supposed to know what is sincere and what is self-pity and thinly veiled lies once again? And do I even want to know what is the truth and a lie, maybe at this point just hearing it and not asking the big is it true questions is enough, humor myself.

Maybe that would give me closure, who knows, maybe in situations like this there is no closure. I think that is why in the beginning I said it would have been easier if I heard from the monster and not the man I still love but thought was dead. What was, was and now we are stuck in a place no one ever wanted to be in, doesn’t feel good, and truly has no chance of ever giving either of us what we truly wanted from our lives. There is no closure, closure is just acceptance of what you have to live with in life in order to get up each day and live.

The first thing my father said to me was don’t you dare think about getting back together with him. As if I was. I wasn’t, and I am not, and even if I wanted to how could I? Who would let me? He handled things so poorly, did so many things many think are unforgivable, that I would be hunted down and shot by my friends, co-workers, parents and children if I even gave the smallest notion that I wanted to be with him again. So once again, my decisions are being made for me, and I have no control or choice. Just as he left me no choice when he left, he has once again left me no choice in how I feel now that he is back, thanks to him once again I am powerless in my own life, and that I think is the one thing out of everything I could never forgive him for.

Pets. Let me let you in on a little secret that you may not know about, if you have children, eventually you will have pets, whether you wanted to have pets or not. They kind of come as a package, and most likely you will not just have one type of pet; you usually go through a long menagerie of animals throughout your children’s first years where you begin to curse Noah for saving all those animals on the ark.

 We started with goldfish. Harmless enough goldfish; cheap, easy to take care of, no walking, or cleaning litters, or worrying about leaving them alone. However, the sentence above is so not true. Well, ok you don’t have to clean their litters or take them for walks, but the rest of that sentence is untrue. First of all, they are not easy to clean, their tanks get dirty almost before your eyes, and of course cleaning the tank involves having another tank to put the fish in while you clean the dirty one (more money right there to own two tanks). No matter what filter you buy, it either breaks, or doesn’t clean the tank well enough to avoid you having to clean the tank, more than the young kid at the store (who probably knew as much about fish as he did about the Kennedy Assassination) told you, you would have to.

Of course fish are also boring, there is only so long you can stare at a bunch of things swimming in water, before you get bored and move on, and for children that time is about three to four minutes. And of course the worst part about fish…they die. We had some fish that died before we got them home into our tank. Of course, most of those were the good old reliable church bazaar fish, but none-the-less, fish still die very quickly. Half of our fish died when you changed their tank to clean them. If you were off by one percentage of a point of the right temperature they were used to, they croaked right then and there. Cleaning their tanks and transferring them is kind of like raising the Titanic. If you were to bring her up now, she would most likely fall apart as soon as she hit the air, because the atmosphere would be too much of a change for her, same thing with fish.

So, fish ended up being smelly, expensive by the time you buy sixty two fish, eight filters, filter pads, and of course the ever present ick medicine, they die easily, and the kids get bored with them about twelve seconds after they asked for them in the first place. So we moved on to Hamsters. No water, so that was good we avoided all that icky goopy crap that sticks to the walls of the tank.

Hamsters however, presented their own problems. The first of which is that they can have babies faster than you and I can snap our fingers. By babies I mean, lots of babies, and usually more than the mother can handle. So what happens, they eat the babies that they cannot support, leaving little bits of heads and tails lying all around the cage. Beautiful huh? Made me wish I had the fish back. The kids do enjoy hamsters, you can let them out of their cage and hold them (where they will normally by the way preceded to pee on you), and they can roll around the house in their little plastic balls. Of course then what the pet store didn’t tell you, is that they can crash those balls into furniture enough times that it opens, and they get out. The next thing you know, you have small rodents running around your house, evading capture. So much for Hamsters.

From there we moved on to the old stand bys cats and dogs. Now just a tip before I get into the fun of cats and dogs; if your children have talked you into this by promising you they will feed, walk and take care of the cat or dog, think again. This actually never happens, and never will, and come to think of it, if your spouse (and by that I mean husband) has also said he will walk the dog, teach it to sit, clean its poop etc. keep dreaming. These are empty promises made by people who know that once they talk you into getting said pet, you will end up doing all the work, and keep the pet in the process, so just don’t bother aggravating yourself, and prepare to do it all from the get go. It helps avoid all the bad feelings and fights that will get you nowhere, especially since you and I both know you will never get rid of the pet once it is home, the husband on the other hand could be expendable J

Cats, in case you didn’t know it are very, well, how do I put this, egotistical and moody. Cats run their own show. If you want to pet them and their not in the mood, you wont be petting them, don’t even try. If they are in the mood and you are in the middle of throwing a dinner party for fifty guests including your boss whom you are trying to impress, guess what, you’re petting the cat!! Cats are also picky. I have one that if the litter isn’t the right brand, the right consistency, evened out and poured under a full moon on a Thursday he wont go in the litter box, he will go right outside the litter box. As you can imagine he is one of my favorites. Cats also think the world is their scratching post. Now of course you could have them declawed, but if you have dogs and cats in the same house, declawing the cats isn’t really fair, you have to leave them something to defend themselves with against the dog playing with them as if they are just another 150 puppy. So, you let them have their claws, but you lose your furniture. Makes me wish, I let the dog eat them after all.

Dogs, however, aren’t as picky, and don’t have the ego problem that cats do. They also allow your children to ride on them, as cats tend to scratch any child who comes within a mile radius of them. Dogs go outside a definite plus, and enjoy playing with the kids, of course they also bark at night for no reason at all, making you get out of bed thinking that they are foiling a robbery, just to find out, that they were barking at the wind, or better yet a squirrel who dares walk on your front lawn. Dogs also think that they are people and should eat what you eat, when you eat it, and if you don’t give it them they stare at you while you eat, or if you have young kids they tend to sit by them, knowing how messy kids eat, something is bound to fall their way. Dogs, also like to mark their territory, especially if you also own cats. Dogs like to remind the cats, that although the cat thinks they are in charge they are not. How do they do this you ask? Simple, take my dog Mulder who the other day was upset that one of my cats was on my chair in my bedroom, the bedroom is his domain. So he very nonchalantly walked up to the cat, lifted his leg, and peed on it, the cat not the chair. Of course the cat ran off, disgusted and plotting its revenge against the dog, but none-the-less that round went to the dog. Interesting way to get your point across makes you wish you could do that the next time a co-worker tries to take credit for your idea!

In between the cats and dogs we also tried the unusual route. We hatched butterflies from larve, that was an interesting experiment. The butterflies did live, for awhile anyway and they were cleaner than most pets, and ate apple slices, which was a nice change from fish and hamsters. But they only last about 15 days, before they start dropping like flies, well like butterflies in any case, and you start holding daily funeral services in your bathroom. We also tried toads. Again cleaner than most, but the harvesting of flies for their food wasnt exactly fun, it was like feeding that large toad creature in front of Jabba the Hutt`s domicile in Return of the Jedi, and they also didnt live very long either. Leading of course to the inevitable “Can we get bunny rabbits now?”

In all, pets are probably worse than raising children. At least children you can reason with …to a degree, at least kids understand what you are saying…when they are listening, and at least kids at some point learn to go to the bathroom on their own, and without making a mess, although I do know some men who still need help in that area, but that`s a story for another time. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, save me from children who want pets! 

So is it a sign of the technological times, or am I obsessive compulsive about my computers, social networking etc. or I am just mental? Sometimes I cannot remember the last two words I said, or can’t remember why I entered a room, or better yet have an idea pop in my head, not write it down and within minutes I am searching the recesses of my brain for what the hell it was.

But ask me my passwords and I could recite them to you backwards and forwards, and I have a lot of passwords. I have too many passwords in my head, mine, my kids, and my work. If I am ever interrogated this is all they will find, jumbled numbers and letters, sometimes from my favorite movies all stored up there and nothing else. I can’t remember what day it is and forget half my sentence as I am saying it, call my kids by the wrong name, but passwords that I can do.

I have several from star wars, varying from the number of the cell Princess Leia was in, (AA23) to the number of the garbage masher that almost crushed the trio to death (3263827). I have used the docking bay that the Millennium Falcon was in on Tatooine (94), to the type of freighter the Falcon is (YT-1300) to of course the ever favorite of Star Wars fans THX 1138 and variations thereof. I also have used ones from another obsession of mine, Titanic, the ship not the movie, although I do love the movie as well. I have used everything from the coordinates of where the ship went down to the hull number and the date of the sinking, as well as an ever present favorite of mine the distress call tags from the Marconi radio calls for help, CQDMGY.

People laugh at me for my penchant of using these for passwords, but think about it, they are numbers that are stuck in my head anyway from being an obsessive fan, and they are not easily guessed by hackers, because they are not my birthday, my kid’s birthdays, my address etc. Of course I am giving them away here, but since you don’t know my email address and what accounts I am referring to I feel relatively safe writing about it.

Like my pet’s names and children’s name for that matter anytime something needs to be named or password protected I seem to pull it from my favorite movies.  As I write this I just thought of another one, the address of the house in Poltergeist, and the name of the house complex they live in Cuesta Verde (which by the way if you really want to see how obsessed I am, means it costs green in Spanish, I googled it years ago.

So what is my point, the moral of my story? Well I guess the point is that I cannot remember what I start to write about half the time, but if it is something from Star Wars or other movies I am obsessed with I can recall it like it is a matter of life or death. My friends think it’s funny that I know who Sy Snoodles is, or better yet Salacious Crumb, but I do and because of it I can bet my account won’t get hacked before theirs does. So I guess the moral today kids is love Star Wars, it can protect your online accounts Ha! Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi..I need a Star Wars support group.

 As if living with two teenagers isn’t enough to age me on a daily basis (I found my first grey hair the other day, and I still haven’t stopped mourning) they seem to like to find new ways to test their mother’s patience and sanity.

On the note of that single grey hair, if I may digress for just one moment, it has been taunting me all week, silently whispering things in my ear like, “Any day now I will have new friends to keep me company. Remember the other day when the kids were arguing over who should make the Iced Tea, that was worth two new grey friends for me, and then the day right after that when they had a wrestling match in the living room over your son burping in the vicinity of your daughter and blowing it towards her, that was worth at least eight new hairs, or better yet, how about the other night when the ceiling almost caved in because they were upstairs going at each other because your son had once again not cleaned his room, which we all now affectionately call “Jabba’s Palace”, and your daughter said it smelled like boy, that one alone was worth ten or twenty”.

That grey hair taunting me all day is starting to get to me, it’s like that movie with Griffin Dunne (can’t think of the name of it right now) where his penis starts talking to him at the most inopportune moments (not that a can think of a good time for your penis to talk to you) but you know what I mean. Now every time the kids start going at each other over everything from who used the last bathroom cup to why someone’s underwear was sitting on the staircase, I can literally feel my brown hairs turn white. Thank God for hair dye!

Anyway, this was not the point, although I guess it could be since the following scenario which we now all lovingly refer to as “The Cheez-It Incident” should have turned all of my hair grey and then some. One of my children is a boy, a growing teenage boy who will eat anything you put in front of him even if you tell him its elephants testicles. He would have been a great contestant on Fear Factor if that show was still around. Anyway, he tends to eat a lot, twenty four hours a day seven days a week, that kid has something in his mouth or is about to put something into his mouth every time you see him.

I can relate. I was married to his father who was a champion eater when I met him back when he was 19 years old. I remember one night after first dating him; he picked me up from work and took me to Roy Rogers to get some dinner before we went back to his house. He asked me what I wanted when we got to the window and I said a burger, fries and a diet coke. He then proceeded to finish the order with the following and no I am sad to say that I am not making this up, ” 3 double R burgers, a 3 piece chicken with 2 biscuits, two large fries, a baked potato and some kind of dessert” I figured he was ordering some food for his parents or sister who I knew would be at his house when we got there.

I was wrong; I sat eating my burger as he chowed down the rest of that foo din front of me. I was in awe and amazed that he not only ate it all but was able to still walk and talk after such a feast. I was convinced he would have a stroke. Needless to say I spent most of the next 17 years watching him eat like that, although once he hit his thirties he wasn’t able to do it as much without consequences. So, when my son hit 13, and 6 foot 1, all in the same day I wasn’t really worried about the eating me out of house and home, I had seen it before and from experience at that point, knew it was a common occurrence in teenage boys, or at least in the boys in his father`s family. .

My daughter on the other hand can’t stand it. She seems to think that I should put a door on the kitchen with a lock on it that will only let my son in at certain times for minutes at a time, giving him strict access to the kitchen and therefore the food. Her reasoning for this is that it isn’t fair that he eats all the food and then when she wants something that she saw me buy three weeks earlier and it isn’t there anymore waiting for her to finally be in the mood to eat it, she freaks out. And by freaks out I mean the following:

This time I was in my room probably reading or on the computer as that is really all I ever do (I know I have no life, we have established this already, you try having your own life living with these two). I was having what I am sure is a nice quiet evening when the silence was pierced with the sounds of my daughters screams. I tried to ignore it, listening of course to make sure no one was hurt, but ignoring it none-the-less. Now, ignoring my daughter screaming is not easy. At least three times a month neighbors call the cops thinking my daughter is being butchered to death or worse yet she is butchering us, because she has a scream that could probably register a 7.5 on the Richter scale, and goes through you like a knife.

But somehow I managed to ignore her until she truly was screaming so loud that only dogs could hear her. So I reluctantly got up and headed towards the kitchen just in time to watch my daughter throw a box of Cheez-Its at my sons head (who ducked with Jedi reflexes I might add) and watched as the box hit the ceiling fan, then the wall, throwing little orange bits of Cheez-Its all over my kitchen (and we all know who ended up having to clean that up). Apparently she had wanted some of the Cheez-Its which I had bought at least a week before, and was only now in the mood for. When she got to them there were only a few left, thanks of course to my son whose idea of a bowl of cereal is to take one of my mixing bowls I use to bake a cake and filling it up with half the box and a half gallon of milk.

She was livid; you would have thought someone had shot her dog or something. She was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling steadily with every breath and she glared at him with death daggers. My son for his part at least, was smart enough to know when to get out before blood is spilled and as he saw me enter the kitchen ran towards and behind me for cover. Coward.

Needless to say I solved this problem by….laughing. I know, not the reaction you expected but when you walk into your kitchen into the sight I saw, believe me you would have thought it funny as well. I promised my daughter that for now on I will buy her, her own box of Cheez-its that she can keep in her room, which still didn’t satisfy her. She wanted me to have my sons jaw wired shut and let him get his nourishment through a straw until he was at least as she said, “36″

Obviously I did not give in to her request and she stomped off telling me I should do something about “my son”. Since that time she was taken to labeling food with her name and threats that read something like, “Touch this and I will make sure mom never has grandchildren” and nice things like that. For his part, my son is good and never touches the threat labeled food. When I told my parents this story I was given no sympathy as my father so kindly reminded me that when my then husband and I lived with them for a short period of time waiting for the closing on our house years ago, he had to take a second mortgage out on the house just so he could pay for my husband’s food.

So the moral of the story, well, I told my daughter that living with her brother will be good practice for her for when she is married, as overall men in general do have a tendency to eat a lot more than us. But she balked at this telling me that if her future husband dared do the things she has to put up with from her brother he won’t be her husband for long; my sympathies to my future son-in-law. When that didn’t work I did point out to her that compared to the times I find my son sitting on top of her on the floor farting on her head in retaliation for something she said or did to him, the food thing was way down on the list.

She responded with something that sounded an awful lot like,” you should have stopped having sex after you had me.” Ah…the joys of raising children. Hmmm…I think that distant sound I hear is my father laughing and thanking God that when it comes to raising children and then becoming a parent yourself, what comes around goes around. Damn, I feel another one of those urges coming on to call my parents and apologize profusely for ever being a teenager. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi…you`re my only hope.

As many of you know, or surmised by now, I am a huge Star Wars chick, geek, fan whatever you want to call me. I went as far as naming my son Luke Skywalker! So every once in awhile during my travels on the Internet I find great Star Wars finds and news I must pass along. This is one of those times. Enjoy!

Star Wars Plush dolls. George sure knows how to break me, I cannot resist Star wars and cute.

This is fantastic. The only time I ever heard of a groom`s cake was in my daughter`s favorite movie, “Steel Magnolias” in that movie it is an ugly gray armadillo. This one blows that away. I almost feel like getting married again, just to have this cake…almost.  

Star Wars Soundboards. This I intend on using on anything and everything I have at home that talks. Cell phones, iPods, you name it. Now I can have Han Solo talk to me anytime, any day, anywhere.

For all my friends who are Star Trek fans, take this with the lighthearted ribbing it was intended. I did enjoy the new Star Trek movie, although it did not come close to Star Wars. J

So my daughter reminded me of this story the other day so I thought I would post it. When my son was born back in 1994 he was about 1 week old when we noticed he snored. Now we weren’t surprised by this, my second husband could snore the paint of the wall..the seismograph people in California used to send him Christmas cards every year!

But, we mentioned the snoring to the pediatrician at our next visit and she told us it was just breathing, there was no way a baby that young could snore; they haven’t developed the muscles to do something like that yet, but we insisted, so she asked us to tape it for her, which of course we did.  She was not a happy camper when she heard the tape and realized by beautiful little baby boy did in fact snore. We tried to tell her it was a family trait; everyone in my second husband’s family snored, and snored loudly, it was sort of their rite of passage. If God Forbid both my husband and his father were sleeping in the same house they could set car alarms off within a ten mile radius. I remember when we lived with my parents temporarily while waiting for the closing on our house, my mother used to hear my husband in her bedroom which was one flight up! Meaning she was in her bedroom and could hear my husband in our bedroom through the floor, I was not implying my husband was in the bedroom with my mother; that would make this an entirely different story.

So we took my son to the ear nose and throat specialist that my doctor recommended and had him checked out. The doctor said my sons adenoids were already enlarged as were his tonsils. My son, who was a baby at the time, did not like the exam and kept squirming away, so the doctor put my son on my husband’s lap and pretended to examine my husband so my son would see it was all in fun. Unfortunately for my husband, as the doctor examined him, he found my husband’s adenoids, tonsils and uvula were severely enlarged and suspected he had sleep apnea. So what started out as a visit for my son, ended up as a visit to the surgeon for my husband. 

My husband ended up having severe obstructive sleep apnea, and we were told my son would most likely have it as well, but was too young for surgery. So he would be monitored and as he got older, would most likely have the same procedure my husband would soon have. Meanwhile they gave my husband a CPAP machine, which stood for Continuous Pulmonary Air Pressure, which was basically a mask he wore at night which pushed air into his mouth to keep his throat from closing in the middle of the night. If you have never had the pleasure of sleeping with someone that has this machine, let me enlighten you on what you are missing.

It was like sleeping next to Darth Vader on a good night. Which for us was ironic since we are Star Wars fans, and named our son Luke, so suddenly my husband was fitting the role of Luke`s father perfectly. Worse yet, the mask would make him sweat, so in the middle of the night in his sleep he would take the mask off his face and always ended up placing it right by my ear on my pillow. Every night I would wake up to what amounted to an obscene phone call from my pillow. It was an interesting few months.

Eventually my husband had the surgery, which back then was long, and not done with a laser. He had a hard time because his tonsils were wrapped up in the skin of his throat and he had a longer than anticipated recovery time because of that. At the time he was a mechanic, and the surgery had affected his voice to the point that when he would start to tell people what was wrong with their car, they would face him and talk slowly, assuming he was deaf by the way he sounded.

Another wonderful side effect was that smoking was hard for him. Now, I know what most of you are thinking, good, great time for him to quit, but this was my husband who once was asked by a friend if he was stranded on a desert island and could only take one thing with him would it be a beautiful naked playboy model, an endless supply of steak or cigarettes…he answered cigarettes. Now he did hesitate for the slightest moment before answering, but that was because he was debating over the steaks, the naked woman never even entered into his equation. He was teased about that for quite some time.

Anyway, back to the dilemma, my husband was an avid smoker and enjoyed menthol only at that. I also was a smoker and smoked the same brand he did. So we began a routine that after a while people asked us to perform at parties, like it was the odd free entertainment for the evening. I would light up a cigarette and take my drag, then on my next drag I would put my mouth up against my husbands, almost as if we were about to kiss and then he would circle his lips around mine and I would blow the smoke into his mouth. I know, even writing it now makes me wonder what sick mental illnesses we both had at the time, but when you got to smoke you got to smoke, and since it was too rough on his recovering skin to take a drag full force, this was the remedy he has come up with.

I realize now that I have digressed completely from what my original purpose of this story was, but as I wrote this and began to reminisce about that time, I realized the whole smoke story was too good not to pass on. Come on, admit it, you are now sitting there thinking about what that must have looked like every time I had to that, in the car at red lights, sitting in a bar, outside at lunch when I would visit him at the shop he worked at; it was a site to say the least. I do believe once, while driving we were given more than one dirty look from people who thought we were getting amorous while driving down the highway. At least I didn’t have to do it forever, six months later his throat was as good as new, and I no longer had to look like I was giving him mouth to mouth everywhere we went.

Anyway, my son grew up and just as predicted began to show signs of sleep apnea. He even had night terrors as my husband had always had, due to the fact that he was not sleeping properly from the apnea. During these times my son could appear completely awake, but in reality be totally asleep. We began to know the signs of when this was happening, especially since I had had experience watching my husband going through it. Remind me to write you a blog on the time my husband was sleeping while I was on the phone with my friend Kinky and discussing reincarnation. It is a great story, as he somehow brought in what we were saying into his dream and ended up having an interesting night terror involving reincarnating dogs, vampires and a creepy old house.

Sorry, I digressed again, however I have warned you in the past that I tend to do that, so I’m covered. So prior to his surgery, which I am glad to say was successful and a funny story in its own right, but I will save that one for another time as well, my son was prone to getting up in the middle of the night and not knowing he was awake, walking around in his dreams.

One particular night, my daughter and I were sitting in the living room watching TV late at night, and down comes my son. We knew he was asleep, by then we could tell his sleep walking state from his normal state. He walked into the bathroom, turned on the light, dropped his drawers, left the door open and began to pee. My daughter, who from her angle could see him, burst out laughing, fell off her chair and started to cry from the laughter.

As I asked what was going on, and looked, there was my son, his pants around his ankles as he peed in the toilet, except since he was dreaming he hadn’t noticed our cat had been napping on the toilet as he so often did much to my chagrin, so my son was actually peeing on the cat. 

The cat ran off, looking quite perturbed I might add, and my son never woke up. He pulled up his pants, walked back upstairs and got right back into bed. We continued to laugh for what was probably a good hour. It wasn’t a totally bad thing though; at least it stopped my cat from sleeping on my toilet!

My son still gets a kick out the story, although when I tell it at parties or to his friends he tends to get embarrassed. But hey, that is what moms are for. Meanwhile, since my cat was now afraid to sleep on the toilet he had to find another even more annoying spot to sleep, because after all that is what cats do. So now the damn cat sleeps in the bathtub. Do you have any idea how scary it is to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and suddenly hear movement in your shower and see the curtain start to sway as if Obi-Wan Kenobi is behind it practicing his mind tricks…let me tell you it’s a good thing you’re on the toilet when this happens because it scares the shit out of you.

Now for those men that read the last blog I did on the grass being greener on other husbands and the list who will inevitably ask me what I would offer to this illusive third husband, let me give you yet another list. Fair is fair after all and I am nothing if not honest about my own shortcomings and annoying habits.

We will start with the things you will have to live with. The things I know are weird idiosyncrasies; the flaws that make me, me. Like I said, I can point the finger at me as much as I can point it at the men I have been with and/or married in my life. So here it goes.

I am slightly obsessive-compulsive about making sure the windows and doors are closed at night, so much so I may check them at least three times, and may ask you to do so as well. After asking you, I may even get up and check anyway because unfortunately for you the last few men I lived with had a tendency to lie to me about it, so my trust isn’t exactly there.

I cannot sleep in a bed that has an open bottom. By that I mean if it isn’t a captain’s bed I tend to shove lots of stuff under the bed. The reason for this may seem silly but since I am nothing if not self-deprecating here it goes. Friday the 13^th, the original scared the hell out of me. Well actually only one scene did. The one where Kevin Bacon has just finished having sex with his girlfriend (which of course is mistake number on in those movies) and is lying in bed waiting for her to come back from the bathroom. The next thing you know Jason spears him through the neck from under his bed and kills him. Scared the bejesus out of me and I never got over it, so I always make sure no one can hide under my bed and kill me, by making sure lots of things are under there so they cant fit. By the way on a side note, is bejesus a word? Because Microsoft word says it isn’t, just curious, after all I have been using that phrase for years, so it would be nice to know.

Continuing on, strange bed thing number two. I must sleep farthest from the door. I don’t have a side per se, just as long as it is the side farthest from the door that is all I care about. Why you ask? Well, that one is easy, if a burglar or murderer comes in the house he will most likely attack the first body in the bed before the one farthest from him, which of course would be you in this scenario if you were sleeping with me. So while he is attacking you I can escape, grab the kids and survive. Now don’t worry I would call the police immediately to try and save you, but if you end of sacrificing yourself for me because you slept closest to the bedroom door, well thanks…and I’m sorry.

Ok moving on here is a list of a few other things I come with as package. I am addicted to nose spray, have been all my life, and I cannot live without it. I have bottles of it everywhere from my car, to my office, my nightstand etc. I smoke, and at the moment have no intentions to quit, and I tend to male bash in public. Now this one some men I have been with hated, but others have put up with it, because in private I was different. As long as I trusted you and felt loved and secure, my personal feelings for you would be separate from the man bashing joking I do in public. First off, I have a lot of material, as my father has stated many times in the year since my last separation I suck at picking men, so I am ripe with man bashing material. Second, its all in jest, I am funny, and I tend to be sarcastic; it is my way. As long as you know personally I love and respect you, then you shouldn’t feel upset or threatened and if you do, we don’t belong together anyway.

I hate to lose. One of my many male traits I will be the first to acknowledge I have. I play video games to win and will gladly kick your ass and dance around the room to celebrate it when I do. In the outside world I tend to be a control freak, love being in charge and voicing my opinion and getting my way. Inside however, in a relationship I tend to like the man to be in charge, it’s a nice change actually and I have a thing for being submissive in that aspect. So as long as you can handle the tough controlling attitude in public, you will reap the rewards in the bedroom. Of course most of them men I have been with loved this aspect of my personality until we were married and then suddenly expected it to end. I never understood why, but then again I gave up trying to figure men out a long time ago.

Back to those male traits of mine; I drive like Mario Andretti (does that reference date me by the way), I weave in and out of lanes, curse and gesture wildly, speed like a demon and will cut off a truckload of nuns if they are in my way. I can be loud, tend to get drunk if I am drinking, like to embarrass people I know in public for laughs from time to time, can be sexually aggressive, and can be extremely stubborn. But, once again, behind closed doors I tend to different. I have always told people I had several different personalities living inside of me all of which fight for control at different times, and I think this proves it. Behind closed doors, for a very select few people who have seen it, I am shy, quiet and like to be led. I like to be seduced and treated like a girl who knows nothing about sex. I have found very few men in my life that can deal with this duplicity in the long term. Obviously since I have been married twice and dated extensively in between, lets not go into numbers here, but its definitely double digits.

I like to look like the tough no nonsense hard ass that I like to be to everyone I meet. But I also like to be coddled and protected, taken care of, made to feel secure and safe and loved and wanted. I must stop here for a moment to dwell on the fact that I just admitted that, I don’t tell many people, I’m not really comfortable doing so, and will probably deny that I did later on. As a matter of fact, I think I will deny it now. 

Ok, since I am on a roll lets see what else I can tell you to scare you away. Well, I am stuck in the eighties as far as music is concerned, I tend to wear all my shirts low enough to show off my boobs, I have a healthy or unhealthy depending on your point of view obsession with Star Wars and you will have to deal with the fact that Harrison Ford is a god no matter how old he gets. I have at least one book in each room of my house so I can read one of them at any time. I also tend to use the back pages of said books to write down notes and telephone numbers since they are always handy. So I need to rip these out or copy the notes and scratch them off the books before I loan them to someone. I know, it would be easier to get a pad, but old habits die-hard and I have been doing this one for years.

I can be completely unreasonable when it comes to things I would like my man to do in a relationship such as, not hang his dirty underwear on my bedroom doorknob, take out the trash, mow the lawn occasionally, help keep the house looking relatively clean, and by this I mean if you see dog vomit on the carpet, don’t step over it, or better yet, put a piece of paper towel on it and then wait for me to find it and clean it up. Here’s an unreasonable pet peeve for you, please don’t clip your toenails in the living room and then put the clipped nails in the ashtray. Do you have any idea how disgusting it is to go to take a drag out of your cigarette and find your husband’s toe nail hanging from it? That one definitely ranks up there as something I rather not have to see again in my lifetime.

I like it when you actually remember my birthday once every five years or so would be fine, I don’t expect big gifts or vacations, but a card or a happy birthday would be nice. For that matter, other holidays would be nice too, Christmas, perhaps a valentines day, a mothers day, you don’t even have to do them all, one or two would be fine with me, and a nice difference from the last husband I had who boycotted all holidays, and couldn’t remember a date to save his life. I even married him on New Years Eve so he could remember the date and instead for years when someone asked him our anniversary date he would say either the 30^th or the 1^st, so much for that idea.

I like to have time to myself. This doesn’t mean I hate you, or am having an affair, it means I like to have time to myself. Whether it be to read, or surf the Internet, I like to have my me time. Of course instead of hiding away and leaving me alone forever because you are a big baby and don’t like that I like and can find things to do on my own, you could come in after a little while and see if you can peak my interest in another activity. Wow I just re-read that sentence and it is dripping with sarcasm and unchecked anger, guess I still have some issues over the last time around, then again if you knew it all I doubt you would blame me. Read the dark side blogs for some real insight into the hell that has been my life the last few years, after that you will wonder how I have managed to stay as sane and normal as I have.

Well there is my list. I know I ended up once again sarcastically bitching about men, but old habits die hard what can I say. Oh, by the way I found bejesus in the urban dictionary so I am feeling better that it is actually a word. Just wanted to let you know.

Even though I honestly don’t think I would ever get married again, I have decided to make a list of the things I would want or accept in a potential spouse, if for instance I hit my head, gain amnesia and suddenly decide to take the plunge again. So when starting a list for this new potential suitor I am in no way interested in having, it is best I think to start with things from my first two husbands and work from there. So here it goes…Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi.

My first husband wouldn’t have known what a tool was, let alone how to use it if you paid him. My second husband was a jack-of-all-trades who could fiddle or fix anything, that is if you could get him off his ass and off the couch to do it. So for the third time around (again this is hypothetical as I am pretty sure I have not been declared insane…yet) I would like a man that falls right in between; he knows how to fix things and use tools, but will actually fix them when you ask him too.

My second husband’s idea of ending an argument was walking away and refusing to ever speak of it again..and he wondered why nothing ever got resolved. My first husband’s idea of ending an argument was to just tell me I was right whether he believed it or not, thereby ending the argument but leaving me with the feeling that I was married to myself; after all if all you are going to do is agree with me, what do I need you for. So if the urge to jump into the third time is a charm marriage ever strikes me I will be sure to find a man who can actually articulate what is on his mind whether he thinks I will agree with it or not.

My first husband was not what you would call a fighter. Besides his short stature, he just wasn’t one to get in a fight, or start one for that matter, let alone be able to win one. My second husband had a temper as Irish as the day is long and could not only start and win a fight, but thrived on releasing his temper whenever the mood struck him. So, this time, I wouldn’t mind a man, who could win a fistfight if need be, but doesn’t always feel the need to be in one just for the hell of it. In other words, let me clarify this; all the men in my second husband`s family tended to fight first and ask questions later, and that was never more apparent than at his grandmother`s funeral. Before I re-tell this story please believe me it is 100% true, I was there, I saw it all, and no this time no embellishment is necessary, the real story is good enough on its own. 

His father who was close to his mother, had stopped speaking and cut off ties with his sister, brother and father years, decades earlier over the fact that their father had one day just walked out without the mothers knowledge, took all the money and items from the house and was never seen again. He did this so he could move in with his much, much younger girlfriend and move into a nudist colony with her in Florida, right after he got his penile implant. Now, yes for those that are wondering, I did know this story before I married into this family, like I said before, I may even be beyond Obi-Wan`s help.

Anyway, the point of this lovely story was that years later at the mother’s funeral the above mentioned sister and brother showed up at their mother’s funeral. My husband`s father decided that he would not allow them to see her, after all they had stayed in communication with the father, whom my father-in-law felt was the devil. So to prevent them from seeing her, he slammed the top of the casket down on his mother, and started a fight that eventually led to the funeral home staff calling the police. I know, sounds like an episode of the Jerry Springer show, it was, welcome to my entire married life. Anyway, my point was, anything in between slamming caskets down and having cops at a funeral and dropping to the ground and sacrificing yourself without even some resistance is what I would be looking for.

Now as for the ever-important sex; well both of my husbands were very similar in that aspect, which is odd since in all other aspects they were complete opposites, even physically. But sex wise, both of my husbands were less experienced than me, neither were very aggressive let alone creative. So for that illusive third time, that believe me I will not be experiencing, he would have to be assertive, passionate, creative and at ease being in charge. A little rough and tumble play, maybe some handcuffs, a little food from the fridge, perhaps dress up like Indiana Jones whip and all wouldn’t be too bad either. Han Solo, Darth Vader any of these would be fine….to give my second husband his due, he was good at the Darth vader impression, in an dout of bed, but that`s a story for another time. 

Well there is the list, at least for now. I am sure if I put my mind to it I could think of some more requirements, like being human which I am pretty sure the first one was, but the second one; well that is still up for debate, I’ll have to get back to you on that. So, if you happen to know him, the man described above, let me know, if I happen to have just gotten out of a coma and am desperately drunk and completely high I may marry him.

So in homage to Gilbert and Sullivan and the Mikado and because I was bored and thought I would do this for the fun of it, Here is my version of the song The List, of what I do not want, nor will put up with anymore.  

There’s the man who cannot put the toilet seat down, nor change a roll of toilet paper he always makes me frown, the man who insists he knows it all, but cannot “man up” and say he’s sorry, I’ve got them on my list, I’ve got them on my list. There’s the man who seems to know where his penis needs to go, but cannot take care of the children that come from his seed flow, the man who cannot tell the truth unless he is in pain, the man who changes personalities more than the insane, I’ve got them on my list, they are all on my list.

The man who wouldn’t know a tool if it bit him in the ass, the man who feels the need to yell to prove he has no class. The man who expects everything be given to him when he refuses to give something in return, I’ve got them on my list, I’ve put them on my list. The man who doesn’t understand remembering my birthday would be nice, the man who throws his life away on drugs not once but twice, the man who wants all the fun but no responsibility, the man who couldn’t clean a thing without a drag out fight ensuing, I’ve got him on my list, I’ve got them on my list.

And finally the man who doesn’t know how to take charge, or the man who feels the need to berate to make himself feel large, I’ve got them on my list, I’ve got them all on my list. Ok so it didn’t all rhyme but you try it, that song is not easy to do! Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you`re my only hope. 

My Birth. Well, really what can I say about my birth? Who out there can actually remember being born, or for that matter being a baby? I don’t think I have any real memories of my own before the age of about three, maybe four. But then again who does? However, my parents of course, as most parents do, have told me lots about my birth. Starting with how I wasn’t an easy pregnancy, causing my Mom all sorts of problems from day one; from bloated ankles to vomiting morning, noon and night that should have been their first clue right there. If only they had had Obi-Wan to help them.

I`ve heard hundreds of stories about my mom`s water breaking with me, exaggerated over the years by my father. The neighbors down the block called because they heard it, the fire department being called to help get my parents out of the room because it was overflowing the bedroom, and how people were using it to fill their pools because there was so much of it. They told me how I held my head up from the moment I was born, of course that story although true, has also been greatly exaggerated over the years by my father and his sarcastic sense of humor. I think the last time he told it, I was holding my head up, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette while wearing a leather biker jacket, trying to talk the other babies into escaping and causing some kind of revolt against the baby formula we were all being forced to eat.

My mother remembers waking up after I was born; she was lucky enough to be pregnant during those days when they knocked you out during the birth, and being told by the nurse that she had had a baby girl, a big baby girl. I was over 9 pounds, which back then was slightly unheard of, again that should have been their second clue that they were in for some fun with me.

I didn’t like to sleep, I loved to get into trouble, and I was not nice to my older and weaker sister. She never knew what had hit her when I cam along; but at least she had three relatively good years before I did. My father can mark certain blocks of time in his life; by what bad thing I did or got myself into. He always remembered one particular incident in which I was supposed to be down for a nap, and instead climbed out of my crib, a sport I excelled in by the way, and proceeded to occupy my time by spreading diaper cream and baby powder all over everything in my room. By the time my mom came in to check on me it had caked on to the walls, causing my father to have to re-wallpaper the entire room.

Apparently and this is a good piece of information for those young parents out there, diaperene and baby powder makes a glue like substance once it hardens, so when someone attempts to take it off, it takes the wallpaper off with it. My father said after that day he stopped making a habit out of calling my mom in the middle of the day to see how things were going at home. He decided he might as well wait until he got home to hear the latest, why let it ruin his entire day! I believe that was also the day he decided he was quite happy to be at work and not at home with the kids all day like my mother was.

So my poor mother got the brunt of me and my antics, and I am still making that up to her now. If anyone should have placed that old Bill Cosby curse on her kids, it should have been my mom. You know the one where as the mom you wish your kids have kids just like themselves one day. Of course, as my father points out, he did put that curse on me, it just didn’t take. It irks him to no end that I got two wonderfully behaved kids. But I remind him, he wouldn’t have his fantastic grandchildren without having me first. That and of course I remind him often, I didn’t ask to be born, he is the one who decided to have sex.

As you may have surmised by now, I have no younger siblings, I was the last and if you ask my parents they will tell you with good reason. My sister owes me big, because if I had been first, she would have never been born. My sister was a goody-too-shoes baby, so my parents had no warning, no idea what they could be in for when I came along. They never even got a break in the early years. Besides my diaperene story, there were the thousands of others, like how I would take my sisters Barbie dolls and bite their toes, fingers and breasts off so she couldn’t play with them. I know the breast thing is weird, if I was into therapy (which I am not) it would certainly be an interesting story to dive into, would probably tell a lot about my psyche.

I have been told stories like these all my life, as if my parents want to be sure I know what a pain in the ass I was, and how I owe them for not killing me before I reached the age of 5. I do thank them, and I feel bad for them. I wouldn’t wish me on anybody.