You know what? I’m tired of crying. My eyes have been leaky since last Friday night and then this week I get a new round of fresh, bad, worse news.

Got a call on Tuesday from the lady that I still call Granny. Even though I got divorced 10 years ago, I kept the inlaws. Telling me that my former mother-in-law was in the hospital with cancer and it didn’t look good. I guess she’d felt pretty bad for awhile and thought she’d get better so she didn’t go to the doctor. She went into the hospital Sunday night and they found out that she was literally ate up with cancer.

This morning I’m at work and see there’s a message on my cell phone from a Texas number. It’s my exhusband, telling me that she just passed away. I called him back and talked to him for a few minutes. She was always good to me and every year when I’d go to Texas, I’d go see her. Except for this year. This year, my trip was wonky and I didn’t find time to slide by her house. I told myself I’d go next year.

So I’ve spent all day at work crying. Awesome. I’m trying to not freak out too much around Sweety because I know he must find it odd that I still think so much of the family I married into before him.

The funeral is on Saturday but it would be damn near impossible to get up there for it. I feel especially bad for her grandkids (my niece and nephew). They lost their Mama a few years ago and now this.

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My fantastical niece is being bullied at school.

I guess for awhile some girls had been excluding her from things but it went to a whole new level.

She got some new shoes last week that she loved and wore them to school. She did NOT know (and why would it matter anyway?) that one of the “popular” girls (to be known as BadSeed) in the class had the same shoes. BadSeed and a few of her friends shoved her to the ground on the playground and stomped on her feet until her shoes were dirty while they called her a copycat.

The next day, the teacher gave the class a speech about how everyone should be nice to each other and blah, blah, blah. Sylvie said that kids were nice to her on the playground that one day but now nobody plays with her. As she said, “Aunt Anna, I just don’t have any friends.”

When her parents asked Sylvie why she didn’t fight back, she said it was because she was afraid of being suspended. They told her if she got suspended from school for defending herself that she wouldn’t be in trouble at home. I guess BadSeed was physically picking on Sylvie a few days later so Sylvie said she “slammed BadSeed into the table a few times”. Sylvie has heard the story about how I took a rock to school in my bookbag and used it to whack a kid upside the head – I told her to NOT do anything like that.

Sylvie and her mom were talking and the subject of college came up. Sylvie got a weird look on her face and said, “Mom…what if there’s a grownup version of BadSeed at college?!” Gah. I am so pissed off that I want to drive to Oklahoma and beat up a bunch of little fifth grade bitches.

My sister has started picking Sylvie up from school during lunch and bringing her home so she doesn’t have to wander the playground alone or risk getting ganged up on by a bunch of girls.

She’s kind of a tomboy and prefers to wear sweatpants and converse sneakers to school even though she has lots of nice “girly” clothes and would rather slap a headband on than fix her hair. My sister suggested that maybe if she dressed up a bit and ironed her hair that she would be more approachable to people. Sylvie said if people didn’t want to be her friend because of the pants she had on that she didn’t need them to be her friend any other time. Smart kid.

It still makes me sad. Next year she’ll be going to a new school and I’m hoping that by being around some new kids that she’ll make some friends.

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It’s nice that I don’t have to deal with the coaew on any sort of personal level. I know some stepmothers have to actually speak to their husband’s exs and I am so glad that I do not. It’s nice that Sweety has always handled everything with her. I’ve never dialed her phone number and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have mine. I had to speak to the heifer (See how I called her “heifer” instead of “flaming twatwad” as was my first instinct? I’m trying to be kinder.) for about 30 seconds this weekend in passing (she butted into a conversation I was having with LB) and my head almost exploded. There’s no way I could have a productive conversation with her without needing to take a nap afterwards. And luckily – I don’t have to.

My job makes me want to poke bamboo shoots under my fingernails but at least I have a job. I get plenty of paid time off and health insurance. The insurance is the main thing that keeps me there. If Sweety were to carry the boys and I on his insurance plan, it would cost 3 or 4 times as much as what we pay now under my plan. I work inside. I can surf the internet at work to read the news and whatnot. I know what the fuck I’m doing so I’m left mostly alone. That is a good thing.

Living in Florida. Well, I hate the weather but we are close to all sorts of fun things. It’s been neat to take the kids to theme parks and different places. When my sister and her family were down last week, I let LB miss a day of school and we went to Kennedy Space Center. He’d never been before and he’s pulling all As in school so I didn’t think it would kill him to miss a day. BB is not doing as well with this grades so he didn’t get to go. (And he’d been to the place before on a school field trip.) He was bummed about it but he understood why he didn’t get to miss school.

Now that I have a GPS, I can always find my way home if I get turned around in this stinking town. That is nice. I do not like being lost. Um, sometimes though? I forget that I have a GPS and drive around aimlessly, looking for something familiar. I think my brain cells are dying quicker than they should.

This concludes my personal pep talk.

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I am blahed out. Go read Jeni’s post and then come back.

That’s me.

Sweety has asked me what do I like anymore. What am I excited about? There isn’t anything. I just want to be left alone in the dark.

I feel like I don’t have any right to grouch about anything because so many people have it worse. Despite how much I loooooooathe my job at least I have it.

The contest at work? My team won. We were in the lead up until the second to last day. All month long, I did not boast about it or give the other team captain a hard time. But ohmyfuckingword, the one day that her team was in the lead? Crow, fucking crow. I really didn’t give a damn if my team won or not. She was so sure that her team had won and when it was announced that they did not the whining started. (I decided to give my team all a gift certificate to the cafe at work for their prize. I think I’m going to crank out the prize that Sweety suggested of wings and beer for this month’s prize. Because it was decided we’d have the same fucking contest again this month. Yee-haw.) Her team had to take more phone calls…surely the numbers hadn’t been calculated properly….blahblahblah.

She’d made little comments about how I “bribed” my team with candy and a prize. So. The. Fuck. What? Everytime one of her people sold a doohickey she’d do this squealing congratulations. Not me. I told my people to just please sell and I’d do something nice for them if we won. But that I wasn’t going to pat their backs all the time because I can’t multitask like that. I have to pay attention to the customer on my phone when I’m working.

We were in a meeting yesterday and she was taking it upon herself to try and volunteer me to our supervisor for various things. It took all I had to not tell her to shut the fuck up. That would probably get me canned. Her voice makes me want to stab my eardrums out. I want to punch her in the head. Sweety said that he will pay once to bail me out of jail as long as it isn’t a felony charge because those cost too much. I’m thinking about it.

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