reunion

Hens & Chicks, planted in the front yard

Years ago, while Bill was fighting Tina for custody of Emily, he experienced another loss. His ex-wife Susan was struggling with Tina's erratic behaviour. Susan had married Bill a few years earlier, when Bill's plans included a career with the RCMP, and together they'd had a daughter named Betheny. The death of Susan's father, her mother's quick rebound within weeks of his death, and Bill's resignation from the force broke apart the marriage.

Three years later Bill found himself in a custody battle for Em, and Tina began calling Susan. Most of the calls involved accusations against Bill and made the other family very, very uncomfortable.

"She won't leave us alone," Susan explained. "My fiance is in the RCMP and he's a good man. He wants to raise Betheny as his own. She doesn't have to grow up around that, Bill."

When Betheny was four, Bill signed away his parental rights.

Just a few weeks ago, they made contact. Susan has agreed to bring Betheny, 17, to a coffee house to see Bill.

Thirteen years! Bill is so happy and excited to see how she's grown up. We knew this day would come...and we hope things go well when he meets her this month.

the kids

Yay! My old JS friend helped me figure out how to post using IE9. Here's a pic of my oldest daughter Jamie (L) another friend, and Emily, on the right, at a wedding a few weeks ago.

update on Em

Emily's Para-Troopers: On a Mission to Overtake the Kitty House

Em has been doing very well since Tina's death last year. We passed the one year mark in March and while she often thinks about her mom, she knows that Tina is at peace now. For several years prior, Em had heard us speak of Dale and how we were working on forgiveness and living in peace - each day we strive for it and now Em does too.

When she moved here in 2006, she was eight years old and had trouble fitting in with the group of kids at her school. Today she is fourteen and still has the same class of kids. In the last year she has drifted apart from them; many of them are experimenting with sex (oral or digital) relationships (Em's BFF is on her fourth boyfriend, Em isn't permitted to have a boyfriend) smoking or drugs.

Jamie approached us in October to plead Em's case for a transfer from the Catholic School Division to the Public School Division. There's an International Baccalaureate program as well as all kinds of options for music and languages. We met with the school last month and it looks like a go-ahead. All her classmates are jealous, lol.

Today we're headed out to Cathy's farm, first to visit a greenhouse and later for supper. Tomorrow we're doing the big clean out at my parents' farm. Jamie, Bill and Cathy will be joining us; Em is glad to have school :)

payment in full

image by Troy Kajala

March brings the one year anniversary of Tina's death.

Tina is Emily's mom. She was twenty-five and Bill was thirty when she born, and for the first few years it seemed as though everything would be okay. Not that there weren't huge red flags in regard to Tina'a mental illness (she was bi-polar with personality disorders and munchausen's) but then, it would be at least four years before it all fell apart and a bitter custody battle ensued.

By the time I met Bill and Em, they were living 5,000 km from Tina, and like the rest of Tina's family and friends, trying to avoid contact. By then she'd pretty much gone off the deep end, God love her. She'd become addicted to oxycontin, oxycodiene, zopiclone...I don't know what else. I do know about addictive behaviour and she was living the life. Almost a year after her suicide, there are only five pictures of her tagged on Facebook and a slew of private messages and emails did not turn up any more. It was like that with Dale too - we have precious few of him in the last two years.

Anyway, we've thought a lot of her in the last ten months. It's true that she was hard to deal with, and we often ignored her because even though she said she was calling for Em, she would ask mostly about Bill and what he looked like now, or what did I look like, or what were we doing.

We have some guilt around that, but mostly we have peace.

I'll never know if Tina knew she'd be giving us peace, but I know that Dale knew and he was okay with dying if that meant we'd all be free. Dale wanted Jamie and I to have a chance to start over. Tina had lived with the depression and mental illness since she was a child and had very little in the way of support.

Sunday Feb 6/11

Yesterday we had cable, internet and a landline installed again, after a period of (maybe?) three years! At any rate, I had to go to work afterward and wasn't able to finish my post.

I've been thinking a lot about Tina, though not steady. Sometimes weeks will go by and it won't dawn on me that Em was born to someone else! Then she'll laugh or run, or get mad and make that face where she purses her lips - and I will see Tina's teenaged heart shining through. I can see her before she became too jaded, before the illness seized and destroyed her. Before she realized that she wasn't strong enough to navigate this world...it's so sad.

Then I start thinking about how alike Tina and Dale were, how lucky it was that we all ended up together. I have my two girls, Bill has the fmily he was wishing for, Em has a mother she can count on, and Jamie has a father that she can trust.

I have so much I can't even name it all here.

Because of that, both Dale and Tina are in a good place. By that I mean, we think of them often and wish them peace, we mourn the loss of what might have been in the future and we wonder if they come to visit us as often as it seems. We hope they know that whatever mistakes they made here on earth have been forgiven. They owe no debt to any of us. As each of them faced their moment of death, the slate was wiped clean.

ice land

photo taken by Arnel, in Calgary, AB, this morning.

Thursday's +0° temps created havoc all over Alberta! Snow that had been mashed into the highways all winter was melted by late afternoon and the next day when it began to freeze, it was bad. Add to that ten cm. of blowing snow and highways were closed by noon yesterday.

That put a damper on the Saturday I had planned with Jamie, which was lunch, shopping and haircuts in a town about half an hour north of here, but we made do. After cancelling and rebooking my appointment, I got on the phone with a few places here in town to find something for Jamie.

The whole time, Jamie was sending me texts.

Cancelling?! Noooooo Mum! I NEED this haircut! *sob*

She comes by the drama naturally, lol.

Anyway, we got her into Magicuts, even though I wouldn't normally book a cut there. Not that I have anything against chains, it's just that I don't trust your average stylist with the kind of hair that I have (and passed onto Jamie.) When we arrived, there were two stylists already working on others and Jamie was passed to this middle aged man who took one look at her hair and said something like "oh, it's so thick I'd better do it dry," and went to work. Jamie thought he'd do a shampoo and style and hadn't washed her hair so when he said he was finished we were a little surprised. Rather than cause a scene we paid the $20 and went to the mall to book a shampoo and blow out, which cost me another $26.

I don't know why I am always surprised when we get terrible service, but we let it go and killed time in between by shopping the lingerie and houseware departments. I even bought a black cross-body bag, which is something new for me - but the fibro is doing a number on my forearms this winter.

Today we're working in the warehouse, but have to clear snow from the sidewalks, back yard and deck. After that, I think Bill is picking Jamie up so that the kids can go sliding.

Happy Sunday!

jamie grows up, em isn't far behind

Emily and friend, Oct 2010

Merry Christmas!

The countdown is on now that there's only a few days left until Jamie's birthday. She'll be twenty-two!! For those of you from journalspace, you may remember that she was sixteen when I first started blogging. Now, she's living on her own in a rental house over by the college; she's working part time at an accessories store and taking several classes, which should be finished by now. She recenty got word that her student loan was approved and that will really make a huge difference! Last semester she and I paid for all her classes with cash so she had to be careful how much she was spending and when her classes were taking place so that they wouldn't interfere with work. Now, she'll be scheduling her work around her classes.

Bill and I are particularly proud of the way that Jamie bounces back from problems in her life, without the use of drugs, alcohol or sex. Not all of her friends and colleagues can say that, unfortunately. Even Bill and I can't say that!

Last winter, directly after the holidays, she broke up with her BF of a year because he just didn't care enough. She wanted someone who wanted to see her every day; wanted to come over for dinner or to just to hang out. She wanted a man who didn't have mommy issues and who wanted to help lift the burdens of every day life and he wasn't it. In the past I may have worried that she'd have low self-esteem and hook up with an abusive guy but I shouldn't have. She won't lower herself for anyone and I love that.

Bill and I are doing well at work, but we have a new area manager and he's been a challenge. He's some kind of wonderboy sent to us from Dubai (through our head offices in Paris) and appointed by the President of the company himself. The first day I met him he questioned my company vehicle (my status does not indicate the need for a vehicle as nice as this) and warned me that the January 15th end date of my contract was "looming."

"Looming?"

"Yes," he replied in a posh, french-and-something-else-accent. "You will have to prove yourself to me."

Yikes!!

Still, things have been improving and I hope that Wonderboy offers me a permanent contract in January. If he doesn't, both Bill and I will be looking for work elsewhere.

Speaking of work, Em is doing an eight hour shift around the house today. On Friday I gave her $80 to do some Christmas shopping and she lost it at the mall (this is the third time out of five Christmasses she's been here) and she's working from 11-7 so that she understands what an eight hour shift is like. She'll get a half hour break at 3 pm, but otherwise she's working right through as though she was actually at a real job. Obviously, we feel she doesn't appreciate what a full work day is like and we want her to experience that. After the first hour, she started watching the clock, lol.

Happy Sunday!

okay, that's a start.

Well, at a little before 4:30 today, my co-worker, Marianne, had our boss on speakerphone and came right out and asked whether I would still have a job tomorrow.

"Oh yes! Please have her show up tomorrow! I've been meaning to let you know that I put in a request to extend her contract; I can't do much else because there is a new area manager and he'll have to make a call on permanent full time."

Okay then ... I'm just so happy to continue getting these paycheques. I got a pink slip in my water bill last week (that is our city's way of saying last chance before disconnection) and I was able to pay it today. Yay!

I wish I didn't have to work so many hours, but there isn't much I can do, for now. When I get the chance, I'd like to start looking into the competition. I heard from a respiratory therapist today who might be interested in hiring me to help him start a company from the ground up and that would be exciting! A therapist from my company passed on my phone number in case this company wasn't going to keep me on. The offer wouldn't be on the table until 2011, but the networking has started already and I'm a huge believer in networking.

Jamie's still doing great at her college classes but she's mad at me right now and I haven't spoken to her since Saturday night. To be honest, I know why she's mad but there are some things I can do and some things I can't do and I can't sweat the little things. In this case, she thinks we had a "fight" but we didn't - she hung up on me and I'm over it. Hopefully she calls me back tomorrow because today was payday and I usually get her coffee money, books or cash for some of her classes and this tantrum is putting the kibosh on that, lol.

Em's on restriction because she was less than forthcoming about the number of missing assignments she has to date (four as of parent-teacher interviews) and we also discovered that Em has been disrupting math & science classes by talking and has been moved a few times already. The next step is to move her to a table alone, we're hoping she'll be able to control herself and show more respect for her teacher and her classmates before that happens. Seems like she's already improving, thank goodness.

I'm off to clean off my desk before leaving the office for the day. Have a nice evening!

Halloween weekend

In past years, our house has been covered with Halloween decorations. Pumpkins, on the verge of rotting, sat on the front steps; gravestones and cemetary signs covered the front lawn. Inside, the living room looked like backstage at a community theatre. Costumes and weapons covered the coffee table, end table and chaise.

This year with Jamie gone, the house is eerily quiet. Em is having a sleepover a few houses down, and it looks like she took her giant pumpkin with her. That thing weighed at least 25 lbs, lol.

Yesterday she went to school in her Mad Hatter Girl costume and it was a hit! At first she wanted to buy a costume but I talked her into getting a hat and building a costume around that and a Victorian jacket we cut down. After moving the buttons and slitting it down the back, I used a long black shoelace to put corset lacing in. She wore a blue satin bubble skirt, multi-coloured leggings and boots, and the other kids loved it.

We don't have any decorations up, but we do have a snow globe that has a skeleton couple dancing to Ding Dong the Witch is Dead and two crows that look down on you from the top of the desk in the kitchen. That's the extent of Halloween for us, this year, along with handing out candy.

Have a safe and happy weekend!

long darn week

tokyo loved the moniter and the warm modem, which used to sit atop the old desk.

What a rough week.

On Wednesday while I was out in the van, Bill called to see if I had enough cylinders on board to deliver to a man on the south side. Since I knew one of my favourite ladies on the west side hadn't been feeling well and thus hadn't used her oxygen cylinders up, that left one delivery in that area.

I pulled over and called. In the last month, Mrs. Miller had hurt her foot and lay down more, Mr. Miller often forgot to put the empties out and always appreciated a call anyway. Two weeks prior, I had taken her a kit filled with soap and bath puffs from Jamie's store and as I was leaving, Mr. Miller shouted after me, "Make sure you say thanks to your daughter, too!"

The phone rang several times.

"Hi Mr. Miller! It's Kathy calling. How many cylinders will Mrs. Miller need this week?"

"She won't be needing any. She died an hour ago."

Heart sinking

Completely unexpected! His voice was filled with shock, confusion and despair and after saying how sorry I was and making some cursory plans to pick up equipment, I hung up and cried for the next few minutes. I can tell already that I am going to have to keep tissues in my work van! After sniffling for a moment I called Bill to let him know and he was heartbroken as well.

Thursday dawned with the excitement of my second full time paycheque, but after checking online I realized that I'd only been paid for one week, the mortgage had already come out and I was left with enough to pay for haircuts (myself, Jamie and Em cost about $135, tips included) and maybe a few groceries.

Later in the day I was called to Mr. Avery's senior's residence to replace his regulator (the mechanism that brings oxygen from the cylinder into the tubing) and was looking forward to seeing him again. I'd met him the week before, changed out his cylinders and found him to be very friendly. He reminded me of what Tim Robbins might be like, if he were 90 and very frail.

When I arrived at 3:30, he was with a palliative care community nurse who must have mistaken me for a respiratory therapist, because she started asking me about his sats and pulsox and charts and information she'd been promised but which never arrived in time for this appointment. It was meant to arrive through the Hospital Respiratory department, not our company, but I was able to get a house therapist on my cell and get all the numbers she needed. I could feel a lot of tension and confusion in the room and that made me feel as though I would take the brunt of it and I was right. Apparently a recent diagnosis had forced his consumption of oxygen up and he's received a call from WCB asking why he was doubling up on cylinders. (What bastards by the way! Mr Avery suffers from the effects of inhaling asbestos in his working days) He must have been flustered by the call, by the nurses visit, and by the way he was going through oxygen.

"I need a new nose piece!" he'd bark out. "And some tubing. No! Not that long. Pull your hair back! Don't drop it! What do you mean?! Did you do that or not?"

Throughout, I continued with "Yes, absolutely! No problem. Okay, Mr Avery." I gave him two large cylinders free of charge.

As I was saying good-bye, he apologised and I smiled and said I'd see him Wednesday, then went outside and cried.

It's emotionally exhausting some days, which is something I wish that Em would understand, but at thirteen you can't really expect it. That particular day was a bad day for her to start something with me at the mall, particulary after we've spent the last month buying, buying, buying and she was whiny and insistent that it wasn't yet enough. It doesn't take long for that sense of entitlement to kick in for teenagers and I'll always put the kibosh on that! Still, I hope one day that Em realizes she'll avoid a world of trouble if she just watches her tone when she's addressing adults.

Tokyo ran way three days ago and we don't know where she is yet.

Now it's Saturday and we've all made peace again, although we're all worried sick about kitty. Bill and Em are bedroom cleaning and I'm blogging, after having made eggs & toast for breakfast. I have some chicken soup on the stove and I'm going to try my hand at cooking this hard bread that Bill says is such a Newfoundland delicacy. Today is the eighth anniversary of Dale's death, which is hard to believe! Time truly marches on.

Have a wonderful weekend.

disclaimer: all names and locations are changed to protect privacy.

Christmas Morning

Em's new Ideapad

That's what it felt like at 9:00 last night, when we gave Em her new Ideapad.

I've wanted to give her one since she came home from her Auntie's house asking if she could use my laptop (nope, sorry) and the best time to get it would be during the month of September when all the back-to-school sales are still going. Bill and I were paid on Wednesday, it took us three days to find the time. Finally, he decided to take Em with him to Edmonton, to drop off his work truck and I took Jamie with me to get the Ideapad and to buy Jamie's textbooks for her college classes.

I can't tell you how satisfying it was to see the look of relief on Jamie's face; her books total hundreds of dollars and she was so worried! Then several hours later, we called Em to the kitchen for a family meeting and presented the little 10" laptop. It was just awesome.

I know that money isn't everything but dang does it buy some personal and parental satisfaction! I think yesterday's date will go down as one of Em's Big Days in the years to come. Yay!

monday quiet

Jamie, July 2010

Last week when Jamie said, "Well I dunno how to tell you guys so I'll just spit it out."

In that second, Bill and I both thought 'don't be pregnant', as a knee-jerk reaction.

"I'm moving out."

*sigh of relief*

"Moving out!" I parroted, somehow not surprised. In the past few weeks I'd seen the odd comment on Jame's facebook page, then she started organizing her things. That alone was the biggest red flag of all, lol. Anyway, for the last year I have been waiting for that moment, yet it still felt a little shocking.

Jamie turned twenty-one last December and many of her friends have have been out of their parents' homes for years by that age, although some still require assistance from their parents.

I'm so happy that I had her at home a little bit longer.

She'd gone through Dale's nervous breakdown, alcoholism and death between the ages of eight and thirteen and lost at least two years of development in 2001 and 2002. In the aftermath of all that, we moved into an apartment on the east side (I always refer to those two years as our pergatory) where Jamie struggled through a myriad of challenges.

These last four years have been spent building a foundation for the kids. In the past both myself & Dale and Bill & Tina had been caught up in all the problems associated with mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse, and the kids paid a high price for that. Dale passed away in 2002; Tina passed away last March.

The kids have really bonded these past four years! That's the best thing about Jamie having stayed home a little longer. Plus, I got to know her as she grew and changed and in these last few years she's gained a graceful self-confidence.

Em stayed with her last night but forgot to take a change of clothes so we're running some items over after this, I think we'll also take an old buffet table and some of Dale's things. After that, Jamie is taking Em shopping for more school clothes. Yay for holiday Mondays :)

a conversation about journalspace

Em came home from school yesterday, exclaiming "Oh my God! I was filling out forms today and had to give my social teacher your email."

I was sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop open, Jamie was making something to drink by the fridge, having come over to finish packing.

"When she looked at it, she said 'Becomingkate?' and I said 'yeah' and she said 'oh my God I used to follow her on journalspace!'"

I looked up over my reading glasses. "Journalspace?! What did you say?" I asked.

"Nothing! I just looked at her like this. Oookayyy."

"I didn't know there was anyone from here that followed me at JS," I said, surprised.

Jamie walked over. "Me either!! Small world, hey?"

Indeed! I have so many happy memories of journalspace. There were so many people whose lives I really cared about, and so many people that followed my posts from the time I'd first met Bill. Some of the very first I remember meeting was Silent Whisper, Wizardress, Tammy and Kittywoman.

Remember Smotlock? He was definitely one of a kind, love him or hate him.

I really enjoyed photography blogs, or blogs with the writer pouring out their hearts, or sharing their stories of every day life with family and friends. It's true that at the end of the day, I would much rather leave a nice, encouraging comment than a contrary one, but most of the time my comments were like a friendly wave as I weaved through link after link of friends posts.

Maybe now that I have weekends off, I can keep up with the awesome friends I have here and at various other blogsites.

Have a good weekend.

the flowers, the job and passing another milestone

For the last couple of months we've been watching these strange, sedum looking plants pop up all over the front bed but until now, we haven't know what they are or where they came from. Turns out that it's Rosemoss, and I have yellow and white blooms. We don't know if they were planted or dropped from a planter on the porch, but they're hardy little things!

My new job has been pretty good so far. Neither of the women in the office has been very welcoming or helpful, but I've discovered that I'm senior to one and on par with the other; one is down to help from Edmonton and the other has resigned and her last day is on Monday. Anyway, I have had the Regional boss stop in and have secured $1,500 in stainless steel tables and cabinets and while I'm waiting for those I've gutted the warehouse that Bill works in and re-organized everything.

In between all that, I am delivering oxygen cylinders or concentrators and getting patients set up on the proper flow before the Respiratory Therapist arrives 24 hours later. I enjoy it so far and have been getting an hour or two every day in overtime. Yesterday I picked up a custom fitted company van with 35 km on it!

In other news, my oldest daughter Jamie is moving out. She's 21 now and attending college in the fall, this place is about a block from the college. It's a great opportunity with the rent being so low! I will miss her every single day but I know she needs to do this and it's time. I'm proud of her.

Today we're going to transplant my Mom's peony so I should finish up and read a few friends. Happy Saturday!

she's officially a teen

Today is Emily's thirteenth birthday!

I can hardly believe that she was as small as she was when I first met her. Now she is almost 5'6" with a love for tank tops and sneakers, skateboards, curling irons and flat irons and high end phones (Jamie turned her into a phone snob by giving Em her Blackberry when she got a new one) Things have definitely changed!

The first time I met Em, it was two weeks after her seventh birthday. She was a tiny little thing with chipmunk cheeks. She was just finishing up grade one and still carried around her favourite stuffed animals, (which she called stuffties) and she fell in love with Jamie immediately. I think she loved how punky/emo/unusual she was with the spiky, dyed hair and funky clothes.

Now, Em is the one experimenting with all the different looks and Jamie is settling into adulthood. It's been an interesting few years, to say the least.

Happy Birthday Em! We love you and wouldn't change a thing, even if we could.

PS: If you have a Wordpress blog (Wildstorm and Burstmode come to mind) please know I am reading your blogs and LOVE your recent pics. For some reason, my laptop won't allow me to add my info to comment, and I will have to do that next time I am on the desktop)

Jamie's Bday weekend

Lola, 2008

I can't believe that December is almost over! On Tuesday, Jamie will be twenty-one years old, then a few days later it'll be Christmas.

I have most of the shopping done, although I still have to get Jamie one more thing for Christmas and I have to figure something out for Bill. We've all had so many sacrifices this year (he sold his Xbox360, as well as both his Serius radios) so maybe I'll replace the radio. He always enjoyed the Talk Radio.

After the holidays we have to concentrate on getting the mortgage caught up, which should be simple enough with all of Bill's overtime and my hours at the off-price store. I'm also looking forward to getting a car on Tuesday! It's going to be a little tight because the insurance agency and the car dealership are nowhere near each other. I'm going to be bussing it out to the highway for the car, so I'll have to stop at the insurance place first to pay some kind of credit so that I can do business by fax. Then I work from 1:30 - 10:00. Long day!

Today Em and I are bussing it to the South End to pick up a few things, then bussing it to the North End to meet up with Jamie, who is working with a crazy part-timer at Body Shop. That's the problem with retail - you just don't know someone is nuts until a few weeks later. Then it's too late to do much of anything, unless they get caught stealing or something. After that, Bill will join us and we'll decide if we should eat out to celebrate Jamie's 21st birthday, or come home and make Shepard's Pie, like she requested. It'll be up in the air, depending on the time.

Happy Sunday!

friday full of promise

photo by Eve Parry

It's a foggy Alberta morning, but promises to get warmer as the day goes on. Both Bill and I have the day off today, and the kids are leaving in an hour! *insert happy dance here* Jamie and Emily are leaving for an anime convention, so that leaves us to ourselves for our second wedding anniversary on Sunday. I think we're going out to dinner for that.

Hard to believe we've been married for two years already! We haven't had the easiest time of it financially, but the family seems to thrive anyway. Jamie and Em have become sisters in the truest sense of the word and both have had success in school, although Jamie is struggling to find a good job like the rest of us. All of her post-secondary plans are on hold until she finds a way to fund them, and I hope that I can help her as time goes by.

Speaking of work - I think that I will start something on my own to supplement our income. The mean-spirited manager that I work for approached me yesterday and asked me not to quit, so if she works with me on a schedule I might stay on while I start my own consierge business.

Our community of Seniors has grown so much over the last decade, yet they really struggle to get around. A taxi might cost $30 round trip, or a daughter might not be available to take her mom to get a dress. They want to mail packages but the Senior's Bus only runs on certain days. I think I could help fill that gap, but first I need to look into liability insurance and First Aid & CPR training. Hopefully this will something I can do around any jobs I get in the next few years.

Have a nice weekend!

busy summer

It's so nice that things are slowing down a bit, now that the rain has been here for a few days. Also, the trees are looking a little greener, and I bet the farmers are happy to see all this moisture!

Rain usually spurs a few gutter cleaning jobs as well, and now that Bill is between jobs again, every penny will help.

Today we have to buy a bus ticket for Emily, who is attending an Anime convention this weekend in Edmonton with Jamie, and Jamie's boyfriend Kyle. However, she has to be back on Sunday at noon so that she can pack for her second summer camp beginning at four p.m. that same day.

Em has been so busy this summer! She just returned from a camping trip to Crowsnest Pass and still has to get all her clothes and bedding washed. After she gets back from camp, she has a two day trip with Bill's sister, then the only thing left to do is back to school shopping. Hard to believe it's all going by so fast.

Anyway, today Bill and I are going out to drop off more resumes and hopefully we get some kind of meaningful work out of it. This past six months has been brutal in the job market!

Happy Wednesday!

little thieves

photo by Wally Herrala

When I was younger, I would have found the idea of a city curfew ridiculous. Now that I'm a homeowner with children, I hope that the RCMP are going to be vigilant about maintaining our city by-law, which requires anyone sixteen or younger to be inside and away from public areas by 1:00 a.m.

To be honest, it's not so much the police I want help from, it is the parents of the teenagers that are over-running our peaceful neighbourhoods at night. Teenagers that are spray painting our fences, breaking into our cars, and keying the paint.

The other night my next door neighbour heard a commotion outside, and when she went out onto her front porch she spotted a man in pajamas chasing a very large group (she claims to be up to a dozen) of older boys. That would have been the same night they went into my truck and rifled through the glove compartment, took my coffee money, and my CD's. Little bastards!

At any rate, the truck was unlocked because Bill often forgets to do so, although I'm sure he'll start now that they've gotten his Sirius radio. At the same time, I want to know if the parents of these thieves have a clue - do they think they're all hanging out at each other's homes? Do they know what damage their kids are doing, or do they care? It wouldn't surprise me to hear they don't.

This neighbourhood is about ten years old, and the one behind me is only three years old, with homes going for between $270,000 and $450,000. Most of my neighbours are homeowners, but there are a surprising number of rental homes in this area and in order to live here, you've got to work a lot. Maybe these kids aren't supervised because their parents are always at work, or asleep, or drunk.

I just wish they'd step up to the plate and keep their kids where they belong.

not the momma, update

photographer unknown

I wish I knew who took this photo of the cups. I have a bigger love for coffee than I've ever had, and I am always on the look out for a beautiful mug. These are very vibrant, but I think I want some in that bright summery green.

I couldn't wait for a lunch with Em, so I came home between picking up meds (for her ulcer) and milk and job searching, and sat down with her before she went swimming. I actually said to her that I was worried about our relationship because when I start nagging her, she might think she can't do anything right. I wonder if she thinks it'd be any different if it was her own mom.

When I mentioned the "bond" thing, she said she felt more of a bond with me than her own mom, and when I said it was okay to hate me for awhile (even though I admitted it would still hurt my feelings) she replied, "I don't hate you, but if I do just tell me, and I'll say 'sorry.'"

In the end, I told her that my job was make sure she was a strong, independent woman who could hold a good job and influence those around her by being courteous, helpful and organized. Since so many of her peers will lack that (her friends are always incredulous that Em pays her own way to the movies and for swimming, or that she pays us back if we buy minutes for her phone) she'll have an advantage.

Now if we can just get through the eye-rolling stage, although I am NOT ready for the phone calls or the boys.

not the momma

I've been struggling a little in the last few months with Em.

It's not that she is any different than any other twelve year old girl, but I truly feel the absence of a bond. Mothers will know what I mean - you can love a child and care deeply how happy they are, but the frustration that goes with loving someone who is going through one of the most self-centered stages of their lives is overwhelming.

I find myself doing the same thing I did with Jamie at that age - pick that up, put that away, why is there nail polish on the coffee table, whose bra is this, stop wasting food, save your money, have a shower, eat some real food and with it comes the denials and the eye rolling.

When Jamie hated me at that age, I knew the relationship would recover, but this is my first step-child and I hate it that right now she hates me. I hate that I try to avoid too much time with her and she tries to avoid too much time with me.

I hate that I am the only one to stay after her on this. Bill works so much, it really is up to me. I think I need to take her out to lunch so we can talk about all this openly. *sigh*