Weasel Of Doom

C: motivation is so lacking today

O: i bet your motivation is hanging out in a bar somewhere, with my motivation

C: probably…when it will return, God only knows

O: and even if it does, it is gonna be so drunk it will be useless for DAYS

C: and then it’ll have to enter rehab. which will mean it’ll be checked out for months

O: so we might as well not miss it

C: it’s true, it’ll be a very long time til it returns…if it does

O: yeah, plus rehab might not even work

I left the milk in a refrigerator in my office, knowing that I had a lot of running around to do in the evening, and not wanting to risk the milk spoiling. The plan was to pick it up on the way home. Good plan, as plans go. Unfortunately, it did not take into account that my access card will not work. I could not get into the building. Parking structure – sure, be my guest. The actual building where I work – access denied. So tomorrow (well, later today, since it is almost 1:00 am as I write this) I have to drive to work, get the milk, drive back home, wash the bottles and pump parts, drive to daycare to drop off the milk, and drive back to work. Forgive me for not being excited about having to deal with rush hour traffic twice. Grrr. I am in a snarly mood now.

I am in one of those moods today…

We used to have ivy at work. It climbed the walls of the old building, turned gorgeous colors in the fall, and even made it into some of our publications. It was distinctive, and cool. Somewhere along the line, a decision was made that the ivy had to go (high costs of tuck-pointing the brick, dontcha’ know. We are penny-wise and pound-foolish in all that we do).

Now all that’s left are dead branches, still clinging to the brickwork. A lot like this place, really. The roots have been torn out, and high above, the branches died.

For some reason, it makes me almost unbearably sad to walk by and see the tendrils still clinging to the brick, like little dead hands.

Work has been less than inspiring lately, as evidenced by exhibits below:

1. [email from husband] “I hope your day is going well. Did anyone else quit or get fired today?”

2. [from uber boss, cc'ed to under-bosses, after I screwed up and did not submit a survey on time]“I don’t like receiving these kinds of notes. What’s up?” [followed by a groveling email to the survey people and total silence from the under-bosses. It took me all of half an hour to get the survey done and submitted. It does not seem like much now, but at the time it happened, I almost quit on the spot.]

3. [from an email about early move-in policies]“There is no early move in just for convenience or a less expensive flight.” [you pay $25K a year to come here, so SUCK IT UP. yeah. feel the love.]

Email conversation on Tuesday, May 22:

[B.] PS Happy two days before our Tenth Wedding Anniversary. PPS I don’t plan on cooking Thursday, want to order out at Applebee’s?

[me] want to ask (our friends) if they can watch the kids for a couple of hours Thursday evening? ;-)
(oh crap, oh crap, totally forgot we have an anniversary coming up! wonder if I can get my hair done in the next two days)

[B.] Sure we could drop them off or they could come to our place either way.
(hmmmm….. I don’t think he is getting it)

[me] ummm…. what if we want to use our place for something? unless you’d rather go to a Motel 6….
(I doubt work will appreciate if I spell things out for him)

[B.] I didn’t know they had Asheron’s Call at Motel 6. :-) I did say “drop off” first for a reason. :-)
(nice save there, B.)

There is a rocking chair in D.’s room. (That was B.’s birthday gift for himself. I am not big on rocking chairs, they tend to make me feel car sick.) Every once in a while, when D. can’t sleep, he would crawl into the chair with his blankie and toy(s) of choice, and rock himself back to sleep. Of course, this is D. we are talking about here, so the rocking in question is not gentle. We can hear the “thump thump thump” building up speed, and often wonder what would happen when the chair actually tips over. As of Saturday morning, we don’t have to wonder anymore.

We heard D. get into the chair and start the rocking. Faster and faster the thumps went, until finally there was a rather final “thwap” followed by silence. We rushed to his room. The chair was laying on its back, and D. was sitting on the bed wearing a “who, me? I had NOTHING to do with this chair on the floor, why would you even suspect such a thing?” look. Well, kiddo, seeing as how you were the only person in the room with the gate locked, this ain’t exactly a great mystery. Not to mention we heard the whole thing.

Oh, and once we came into the room, D. got off the bed and started trying to push the chair back upright, saying “up up up.”

Sunday night, we heard him go back into the chair. D.’s new toy de jour is Mr. Banana (which was his favorite thing ever when he was S.’s age, and apparently now D. has rediscovered it), and it jingles when moved. So around 2 am, we heard “jingle jingle jingle-jingle … thump thump thump … jingle thump…. jungle… thump…” – D. has rocked himself to sleep, without flipping the chair over.

Squeeker crawled forward today, while I was talking to my Dad on the phone. He saw a xylophone stick that DemonChild left just out of reach, got on all fours, and ambulated to it. He must have made at least 7 “steps” – previous record was 2. Squeek is pretty good at going backwards (wedging himself under various things in the process, and then having fits because he is stuck), but forwards has been a challenge – he is SO ready for it, but most of the time the right hand does not know what the left foot is doing, so at best he goes in circles.

Also today Squeektar is sticking out his tongue a lot, drooling all the while. I wonder if more teeth are getting ready to appear and provide company for the two at the bottom. He also babbles a lot – DemonChild was the silent type, ahead of the game physically, but verbally, not so much. Squeeker is showing signs of being more verbal of the two.

D. is going through a “Daddy is cool, Mommy is chopped liver” stage, again. I am OK with that, and just hope he won’t have a meltdown when he realizes B. is NOT going to Russia with us. So I was rather surprised that D. kept crying “Mommy” when B. carried him to bed tonight. Perhaps the fact that it was 10:30, WAY after D.’s bedtime, had something to do with that. At any rate, D. was crying in his bed when I walked in. As soon as I sat down next to him, he stopped crying, said “Спать!” (“Sleep!” in Russian), followed by “Bye bye Papa.” I stretched out next to him on the toddler bed, murmuring the Russian equivalent of “It’s time to sleep.” D., however, was not quite ready to go down yet. He kept saying “Bumblebee” (a new word that Mel taught him when they were watching “Over the Hedge” today). Then he would say “Mel all gone” a couple of times, followed by another six renditions of “bumblebee” followed by “night night”, a minutes’ pause, and then the whole “bumblebee-mel all gone-night night” sequence again. After 15 minutes or so, D. finally was ready to let me leave and go to sleep on his own. If we are lucky, he might sleep in until 7 am tomorrow, but I am not holding my breath.

It was two weeks after BelovedSpouse’s graduation, one week after mine. We have been dating exactly a year. Drove to Door County for our first “official” date. Put things on hold in August while he tried to figure out which Russian woman he wanted to date. Got engaged in November. Almost broke up when I came back from Russia in January. Barely saw each other until May.

I was 21, he was 29. I walked down the isle wearing, against my better judgment, the wedding dress of a woman who has been bitterly divorced for the past 25 years, a home-made veil, and fake pearl necklace and bracelet I made myself. The wedding, which was supposed to have been a small private ceremony, turned out into a last-minute big production, thanks again to my mother-in-law. Our wedding day was not a happy one.

Went to see my father-in-law in South Carolina for our honeymoon, then visited a friend of mine in upstate New York. New Jersey turnpike, 90 degree heat, and no air conditioning in the car. We almost got a divorce.

Got back, BelovedSpouse started working full time, I waited for my work permit. Had a reaffirmation of marriage ceremony in November, my parents came, and bad time was had by all. On what was supposed to be our “real” wedding day, I walked down the isle in a black-and-silver wedding dress. Most of his family members were not there, because “we already had a wedding.” My family looked like they ate lemons for breakfast. Our second wedding day was not a happy one, either.

I got a part-time job, which eventually turned full-time. Got addicted to Asheron’s Call. Moved to a new apartment. Couple of years later we bought our first house. BelovedSpouse got a new job, and it sucked. He got another job, and it was fine until the ownership changed and he got laid off. He was unemployed for a year. We found out we could survive on my income alone, but not very well. Eventually, BelovedSpouse was hired by the company he works for now. In the meantime, things at my work were slowly getting worse. My relationship with my parents was getting better. And through it all, every couple months, the subject of divorce would come up, stick around for a few weeks, then go away, only to resurface later.

One day, BelovedSpouse told me he always though he would have had children by the time he was 35. We were told by an OBGYN in Russia that I would have problems getting pregnant. My OBGYN in the States prescribed a minimal dose of Clomid and told us we may be in for a long haul. I was emergency teaching that semester. Sex was the last thing on my mind. And found out in April that I was pregnant. It was an easy pregnancy, gestational diabetes and occasional crippling headaches notwithstanding. DemonChild was born at the end of January, couple of days past his due date. I could have carried him for another month, I so did not feel ready to be a mother.

My parents helped us to buy a much bigger house half-way between my job and BelovedSpouse’s. We still talked occasionally about getting a divorce. We also talked about having more kids, and how long getting pregnant again might take. We started “practicing” when DemonChild was 11 months old. In February I learned that I was not feeling sick because I had the flu, after all. Squeeker was born in September, exactly on his due date. The boys are 20 months apart.

And now DemonChild is 28 months old, and Squeeker 8 months old. BelovedSpouse and I have been married for 10 years today. We still talk about getting a divorce sometimes. But no matter what the future will bring, it has been worth it. I love you, honey. Happy Anniversary.

Somebody I liked a lot was fired last week. Oh, the official line is that he resigned, but that’s total bullshit, seeing as we all know his manager was out to get him. And now the lying about it will begin. And the worst thing is that we have nobody to go to, and noone will tell us the truth about what is going on.

Our current leadership has their head shoved up their collective ass. Tunnel vision redefined. We are facing a budget shortfall, for a third year in a row. So, to save money, they decided to cut our benefits (starting next year, I will pay $2,000 more for insurance. And max out of pocket is going up by $3,000. 401-k matching has been reduced to 3%). To save a measly $200,000 a year. We have a budget of over $20,000,000 a year. The increase from this year to next is almost $2,000,000. You do the math. So now we are paid below industry wage and our benefits suck. Wonder how many people have started to look for new jobs.

Plus, I am horribly behind on everything. And it is getting harder and harder to even pretend that I care. I think my new approach is going to be “Tying up all loose ends as if I am leaving.” God knows, I should probably start looking. *sigh*

And on this note, may I recommend Despair.com for all your demotivator needs? If only they made a t-shirt with “The floggings will continue until morale improves.” I would go into debt to get them for everybody at work.