Bad Moon Rising

Tonight, I watched the movie Blow...again... and it's made me introspective.  Thinking about things I'd rather not remember. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the movie's soundtrack, or if it has to do with the sorrow, the regrets, the pure shit that just happens because life is hard; and then you die.

How my uncle returned from Vietnam a shell of his former self and shot himself in the head in my grandparents' farmhouse just after my cousin had been sent upstairs to let him know dinner was ready. He told her, "okay, I'll be down in a minute."  That's it, that's her last memory of him alive.  The bloodstains are still on the old hardwood floor up there in that bedroom.  How her brother is still emotionally scarred now that we are all adults because he idolized his father. How people said suicides go to hell. And how that made me not believe in God because that can't be right.

How my grandfather used to get on the floor and wrestle with my brother and I when we were very small and then he had a massive heart attack, had open heart surgery, and was never the same man. Not ever. He felt bad. He lost weight. He could never get warm again. And, I think he wished he had died that  day. 

How I refused to use the toilet at my maternal grandmother's house because it was so filthy. The entire house was filthy. My mother and her siblings used to go over there and clean before letting us children loose in there...and it was still dirty. In the summer, we never were in the house.  We all peed outside, no matter the weather. No matter who else was around.  And upstairs, there were always those bloodstains.

How one of my uncles was born with cerebral palsy due to a doctor's error and lived his own personal hell of knowing exactly what was happening around him, but being unable to interact, trapped inside his own body and was trapped in there for 49 years before he died.

How my maternal grandfather was an abusive drunk. He's still alive to this day, and wonders why no one wants to visit. He's still a raging asshole.  Respect for my mother drove me there to say hello to him last Christmas even though it was the very last place I wanted to be. She thought, as she always does, it will be his last Christmas. I don't know. I'm not sure that man will ever die.  I don't know how she and my aunts and uncles survived living in that nightmare dirty house with THAT man.

There are good memories.

Fourth of July family gatherings where illegal bottle rockets were fired into the sky as my Aunt Nita and her band played country songs. They were so good.  She's the only person I've ever met that can really sing.

Creedence Clearwater Revival playing on the record player along with Charley Pride, Hank Williams, Sr., Herman's Hermits, the Beetles; and other records my dad had from when he was a kid.

But, tonight, I can only remember the things that hurt.

Where I Left Off

I'm beginning with October 2015. Why October? Because I have evidence of what happened in October on the very early morning freight crew.  My very wonderful friend Jen found something more fun to do than stock. Unfortunately it's a phone video. What I miss about  Tractor Supply is a lot of the silliness and fun we had. Other than that, I'm glad to be done working there.

I was also supplementing my income cleaning up cow and sheep pastures for a very nice lady.  Her neighbors landed a hot air balloon there one night when I was out working. These are also phone snaps. This job provided my gas money each week for a while, which believe it or not, really helped. Also, I got to hang out with cows, in peace. Big perk.

I still have the same phone. But, its now possessed and dials people it wants when it wants with all disregard to the lock screen with a pin number being activated. I, er my phone, called three different people this week, all at inopportune moments.  It's hard being my friend. Unfortunately, one of those people was my close friend Ruth and it called her at not quite six in the morning as I was getting ready for work. Here is her wonderful son, James, who has grown much larger since this was taken.

We adopted an abandoned cat. He was older than we knew, and had chronic kidney failure. But, he was a very chill, bomb-proof, friendly cat.We thought he was skinny when we got him, but in these photos, he looks beefy compared to his final month. Snarf gave no fucks about my dogs. Move, over dog, cat is here! He passed Christmas Day 2016. I had been visiting my parents and came home to a failing cat who had no hope of recovery. It was such a rough day. I miss my Snarf.

That's 2015.

On to 2016, specifically April, when Jon and I went walkabout around Michigan with no real plan. It was such a fun time, we hope to plan another trip wandering around randomly doing whatever we feel like whenever we feel like it. This is South Haven, MI.

These were all taken at Holland, MI.  There appears to be graffiti of Grimace of McDonald's fame on spray painted on that buoy.  I had to take a photo of that!  As you can probably tell by the fog, it was warm outside, but the water was still very cold. There was quite a big of fog. What I like about the middle photo is the difficulty identifying just where the lake ends and the sky begins.

We crossed the Mighty Mac. And visited the lighthouse at St. Ignace.  Seagulls have been pooping constantly on that red roof. That amuses me, for some reason. Even more amusing, one of them was on the roof, probably pooping while I took photos.

We crossed back to the Mackinac City side and I took some more photos. I took tons of photos, but I'm only posting a few or this blog post would never end. As it is, I suppose this is the equivalent of watching slides of someone else's vacation.

That's enough writing for now. we drove back home the next day. Three days isn't really long enough for a trip. There was a lot of driving. But this trip really did make me want to move to Northern Michigan despite my hatred for cold and snow.

I hope to post sooner than two years later the next time. It's not that I plan on letting my blog go dormant, in fact, I rarely plan anything.

I'm back.

Look! It's the blog I abandoned almost 2 years ago because I suppose I was tired of writing about the same old things, because nothing happens to me, until it does.

I have a new job of about 4 months with its own different bullshit. But, its NEW bullshit so I'm not to the point of quitting on the spot yet. The only thing that kept me at my retail job was I couldn't just quit, I had to find a new job first. I can tell you, I still miss my old co-workers. We were a family of sorts.

 I'm getting ahead of myself.  I want to start with something good because I've had a very awful weekend that includes forced sleep deprivation as my husband's Jeep was stolen, reporting the crime, going to work, then, because he works nights and I work days, going to pick him up from work, getting the call that the Jeep was impounded, driving to Crackton to retrieve the Jeep, and, now, since the bastards stole the license plates off of it we get to head to the Secretary of State to replace those so he can drive it without getting pulled over.

So, I'm going to make a separate post and start over.