Bullets

• Last night, I went straight from work to a friend’s house, where I spent a little over an hour chatting with a few women, nibbling on olives and sipping on weird vodka-centered concoctions. (Seriously weird – we had a bottles of fizzy lemonade, fizzy lime water, plain old lemonade, and pomegranate juice sitting on the table, and just splashed stuff in until it tasted good.) Beloved was making me a steak dinner, and one friend had kids to tend to, so we had an end-time of 8 p.m. But instead of ending, we strolled through the neighborhood together to first look at one friend’s renovated kitchen, and then show them my new place. Beloved was prepared and had some food ready for them, too, and I basked in their adoration of the sheer perfection of our new digs. It was nice. I think Beloved was a little disappointed, though, because he worked his ass off in the house all day on a Zuska-assigned (and deadlined) project, and was so excited for me to see it. Coming in the door as a 4-some, and excited to show people our new place as a hole, made it harder for me to gush on the progress he made. He did a LOT of work, and things are taking great shape. It was lovely.
• We are off to buy our next round of furniture tonight. I am unhappy because there is a problem with the manufacturer of the kitchen island that we found and fell in love with. It just keeps NOT coming. It is so perfect, I don’t really want to give it up yet. But our kitchen is big and empty, and there is nowhere for me to sit and hang out with my husband while he’s cooking for me.
• I am now approximately 4 days beyond the worst drama I have ever lived through related to my kids and their horrendous excuse of a father. Over-reaction, impatience, intolerance and two very strong authoritarian personalities all twisted together to result in something grossly resembling abuse toward my older daughter. I cannot adequately or constructively explain the horrible feelings of helplessness and misery that I experienced last week. My dear friend tells me I need to go get my girls (and on Friday night, Beloved and I were alternating between getting in a car – any car – and driving all night to do just that or calling the police in the Middle-of-the-Country to get our kids pulled from a situation much-devolved). The problem being that I have no legal right to do so. If the crisis had continued – rather than eventually subsiding – then I could likely show up with the police and have the police observe the distress of the girls, and been permitted to remove them. But when less than 12 hours I receive a text message from E saying, “Dad told me what you said – not letting us come back is going a bit too far” – then my going to get them, over the Ex’s objections, would essentially make me the same as this person. [E's text was triply disturbing because I did not verbalize that threat - What I did say was that if he followed through with his threats "we would have a serious pro -" The rest of that word was to be "problem" but he hung up on me before it came out of my mouth.]
• The girls now say they’re fine, and are leaving their father’s house in a couple of days to go to their grandparents’ for a week and then on a cruise.
• I am in the market for a lawyer. I am thoroughly capable of handling a similar situation for someone who isn’t me – but know better from my experience working for a family law judge to think that any judge would ever see my actions as advocacy for the girls. They instead choose to see all mothers as vindictive bitches who are upset that they’re no longer adored by their ex-husband, and choose to fight back by “alienating” the father from his children. I also live in a county where 50/50 splits are the most common. I do not know how an out-of-state parent factors into that known preference. I also need to know what my chances are for getting a revised order in the event that the girls feel guilty or like traitors to the point that they refuse to speak to an evaluator candidly, and say “everything is fine at my dad’s.” Like they’re saying all this week. As if last week didn’t even happen.
• The cats have fully acclimated to the new house. Seems like that happened fast. We’re even letting Boots outside already. They spent some time getting lost amongst the rooms. Boots (the only one of the two with any brains) kept finding himself on the other side of the house from us, and would let out a couple of “meows” until we would call him, and then he would come running to where we were, just to flop on the floor nearby. Trixie just hid in closets behind boxes. (Her usual behavior – move or no move.)
• That is all.