Libelous and Satirical Fun

So two of the great things about living in the USA are that you can speak the truth without fear of legal retribution.  Social retribution is another matter, but I am willing to deal with that.  Hell, I have been a jackass most of my life, so am somewhat used to this by now.  

This is going to be funny to some and rough to others, but I need to get it out.  Now. I will be 41 in one week and I do not want to carry this shit around any more.  “Demons!  Be gone!”  Did that work?  If anyone shows this to my dad, I will deal with it myself.  If I want to kill someone, I will take care of it (note to law enforcement, I am not planning to kill anyone and do not have the means to do so).

About a year ago, I feel in love with someone I had known for a very long time.  He was charming, funny and had an accent and I will do about anything for an accent.  But he had a medical condition that was previously undisclosed and I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. 

We had a great time, we were silly, I felt like I was a 16 year old.  It was crazy and weird and exotic and chaotic and then he proposed.  This was my first proposal and as I always say in business “never, EVER accept the first offer”.  But I did.  In the parking lot at Bel Square mall.  Eww.  A mall?  In Bellevue? What kind of crack was I on?  But I did.  I made plans to introduce him to my dad, we flew out to Hawaii and he actually asked for my hand in marriage.  My dad cried.  I guess he figured he would never get rid of the mouthy, insolent brunette only child and decided to go for it.  Did I mention he had an accent?

He wanted to move into our own place so we could start our own memories.  Fair.  I get that.  However, it was not my kind of place.  I like a house with a history and some places you can’t walk or you will fall in to the basement and maybe a slight smell of mold.  I grew up in this kind of house and it just feels like home.  This is why my own house is a little fucked up and you should be wary going down the steps.  But I love its quirky weirdness, I love its imperfections, much in the way I don’t have any respect for people that have bad habits.  Like heroin addiction. 

So we leased a (no shit) $5000 a month townhouse overlooking lake union.  My mortgage is $1500 and my income at the time was $5,250. It was nice, if you are into new money.  As the old saying goes, new money or old money, it is still money.  But I like shabby chic.  This was all stainless steel crap. 3 story windows and 4 bathrooms.  Look, I am not the kind of girl to hire a maid, but four fucking bathrooms?  Really, who needs to pee that much?

After we moved in, things went south, fast.  He was unable to work, feel into a depression and started behaving really strangely.  No, you can’t go to breakfast with your friends!  No, you have to come home right after work. One night I got home to find a butcher’s knife and razor blades floating in our bath tub.  He showed me the marks the next day.  I had lunch with an old friend who told me “horizontal = therapy, vertical = morgue”.  He also threatened me to the point where I said I would call the police if he came one step closer. 

I left that night to sleep on my own sofa.  At my house.  He came home hours later and demanded I come home.  According to sources, on nights he didn’t return, he came to my house to sleep there.  Should I get a new sofa? 

Now I am not a pussy, I do not do what I am told.  I DO NOT cave in to men, but I was scared.  A few nights later, he didn’t come home.  He claimed to have slept with two of my friends.  At my house. 

Now, this starts getting good.

Christmas Eve, 2011, I got several texts and phone calls from my friends.  “are you OK?  And I am just thinking”, and I am just thinking “did I drink and facebook post or something?”  He dumped me.  On Facebook.  On Christmas Eve.  While I was in the next room.  Warm fuzzy photos of us together, sad songs – am I dating a 16 year old?

Is this a bad episode of Glee?  I packed my clothes, my cats and my toiletries and slept on the basement floor of my house.  MY house.  I was still on the hook for rent and fuck knows what else.  All Christmas weekend I moved what I could carry.  I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day moving what I could in my truck.  Merry fucking Christmas.

I had a friend move in while I was done (you do the math – Lease, $5000, mortgage $1500, income $5200) so had to couch surf in my own house for a week while we found her another place to live and had to move all of her shit because she had not planned for this eventuality).  Luckily, a very dear friend helped me move her to a house with 87 stairs so I could sleep in my bed and not the ground. 

Fast forward – he moves in with a Russian cupcake hooker while I am still paying half the rent.  He then moves out with an 18 year old (so my sources tell me) and demands I get my shit out of there within 3 days.  Tomorrow is the final walk through (learned that today).  So one more encounter with the ex, luckily one of my dear friends cut the engagement ring off my finger which will stay off.  For a very long time.  

Let the Games Begin!

I love walking/running around Greenlake – it always makes me feel better.  Not because of the exercise, but because there is always someone out there worse off than you.  After the long dreary winter, we have all gotten a little pallid and paunchy – some more than others and I am afraid I am in the “more than others” category. 

Today was a gorgeous spring day, like yesterday, and I was outside to soak it up.  After I got home from work both Saturday and Sunday.  At noon.  Poor me, I have a job I love and sometimes they make me work extra, I know I sound like a wuss, but couldn’t they have made me work extra in January?  Oh wait.  They did. 

Saturday was epic.  I had contractors at the house, a yard to mow, a meeting to attend, clothes to wash and then a charity event.  It was going to be non stop running no matter what.  Then I checked my Blackberry.  Shit.

DO NOT check your work email on the weekends, it can only lead to very bad things. 

I had gotten a request from our attorney that I knew would likely mean I would be rewriting the carefully prepared document I had spent the past two months writing and past six months researching in time for a morning committee call.  Yep, Sunday morning conference call.  I cried, I swore, I was able to get the document he needed from a colleague and do a best rewrite in a few hours while the contractors were here and mowed the lawn and did laundry in between iterations.  It led to some awkward moments – me telling the contractors I was going to have to take a shower while they were there (it just seemed like a really bad porno), me coming out of the shower in a towel to answer a call from the attorney and throwing around sentences like “409A valuation” and “salary compression compounded with increased market activity in the informatics sector” while dripping wet with soap left on my face and a half unshaved leg as they pretended I wasn’t really there and tried to look away in shame.  This was only a few minutes after they witnessed me throwing the weed-wacker across the yard and telling it to fuck itself.  They got really big tips. 

I was in a rush because I needed to get dressed for an annual charity event I attend with one of my oldest friends.  (Names WILL be changed to protect the uninnocent.)   I made it just in time for my meeting and showed up at a classic Seattle hangout dressed for a cocktail party.  Everyone else was in biker gear or goth cloth.  I took off my suit jacket to show off my tattoos so they didn’t flip me any shit and I kept flexing my pasty white arm (yeah!  You scared now!).  I hit three hipsters on fixies on my way off the Hill to make it back to pick up my reliable non sexual male life partner, Max, for the event. 

We arrived a little early and decided to class up Fremont by taking a walk down the Burke in dinner wear.  Then we entered the Hall of Darkness.  Or Fremont Studios or whatever.  The point is, the floor is uneven concrete and everyone at this event wears 8 inch heels, so we were all walking around trying not to fall onto the auction items or each other. 

I like to give a chunk of cash to charity because I think it is the right thing to do, and as a non profit veteran of 11 years, I know it funds the programs and salaries to support the key missions of the organizations I support.  Last night it was the Progressive Animal Welfare Society.  It holds a special place in my heart, because my mentor and manager at the City of Lynnwood, Robin Hall, SPHR, was on their board for years.  She died two years ago of cancer and the ache of losing her advice, friendship, wisdom and counsel - many years after I had moved on - is still there.  Plus, she convinced the Police Chief it was OK if I wore glitter on Fridays. 

So I bid on, and won, the cat topiary.  OK, you don’t “win” a topiary – you bid on it and hope you are more outlandish than the next person.  I won.  A cat topiary.  Which I have named Robin.  I have to water her every day.  Interestingly, the only living plant I have in my house is one given to me by my colleague Tracy at the City – it is still alive after 12 years, despite the fact that I am a vegetarian and it should be afraid of me.  Anyway, I now have to water the cat every day.  Hee.

The benefit was awesome – kitten kissing booth (with real kittens!), photo booth, live auction, silent auction and free wine.  Again, as a non profit veteran, the mantra is “get ‘em drunk and make ‘em cry”.  They succeeded.    As designated driver, I abstained even though my host had bid on a sommelier for the table for the evening and “won”.  I think I vaguely remember this from last year.  I think I bought Max.  I am not sure.  Or a beaver costume.  Whatever.  It is for charity. 

Let’s just say that a good time was had by everyone but me.  I cried, but since I couldn’t get drunk as the DD, I had to just sit there and be annoyed with everyone else.  Someone kept yelling “penis”, someone else was stealing votives and everyone else was sneaking the free wine into non portable containers.  I have always preferred hosting luncheons.  No one gets tossed and steals the Girl Scout cookies.  And no one dare yell “penis”. 

After efficiently (and bitchily, I will admit) taking care of the final details, I drove home to try and sleep before getting up at 6 a.m. to prepare for the committee call and finalize the documents.  My CEO thinks I am kind of a spaz (and he is kind of right, which is why I put it in my performance review and he initialed it, unedited), but I wanted everything to be perfect.  So I could not sleep.  I think I took 12 hits of Benadryl.  I hallucinated, but didn’t sleep. 

Finally get up at 5 a.m. and go in to work, rewrite everything.  By 9:30 a.m., everyone has changed their minds and we are back to the original document.  By 9:45, it is changed again and we are on our third revision, then we just declared a universal “fuck it” and let it roll.  Let’s just say that the call went well and I will be living at work between now and the Board meeting.  Send caffeine.  And maybe some sailors. 

After the call, I tried to sleep, but THE SUN was OUT, so I hoofed it down to Greenlake for a walk around the lake.  I lost my iPod to my EE (Evil Ex) but still have my fake mpg thingey.  It was gorgeous!  And everyone was as winterlogged as me (except for the 4 year old girl in a princess dress and razor scooter – I think that is taking the princess thing a little too far, man).

When I got home, I found I was sunburned.  Which is fucked up because I am from Hawaii and we are born with SPF 30.  Oh well, I cracked a new book and took it out on my hula hoop for an hour. 

(Boss, this means I won’t be at work for weeks due to my impending hip and knee rehabilitation). 

Welcome to Seattle, summer!