Month: July 2023

More birthday festivities…

/ Outrunning my demons / 1 Comment

My son’s girlfriend Lexi’s birthday is the day after mine. What she wanted to do more than anything was to go out dancing. She also wanted to go to the martini bar we visited earlier in the week. Because of shootings in the neighborhood, the martini bar now closes early on the weekends at midnight. That really wasn’t a problem because after midnight I tend to turn into a pumpkin.

Before we went out dancing or to the martini bar, Lexi wanted to go out for pizza. At the restaurant, someone told the waiter it was her birthday. The server mumbled happy birthday and was on his way. Gone are the days of free drinks, meals, or desserts for those celebrating a birthday although the celebrant tends to bring all their close friends and family out. I remember times when the whole server staff would come out and sing happy birthday. Some would even add the little cha cha cha’s and really get into it. They would come out with a cake with a little candle on it. Everyone would clap. I haven’t noticed much of that spirit after COVID though. Now they have the attitude of….so, what?

After pizza we went to the martini bar. We were having a lot of fun and things were going good. Then around 10:30 we made our way over to the dance club. It felt creepy because we had to walk through an alleyway to get inside. When we got in a security guy wearing a bulletproof vest took a copy of our driver’s license and took our picture. Still feeling a little creeped out. The whole place had this dirty and dingy vibe going on for me.

When we got inside we were approached right away by a guy who was pretty messed up asking me to buy him a drink. He was in my face. Then Lexi got in his face and told him to back off. He wouldn’t leave us alone. Then my son got involved. The guy told my son he was going to kill him multiple times. Then he started to take off his shirt telling Lexi and I to look at his muscles. Meanwhile, the rest of our group was far enough away they didn’t hear much of what the guy was saying.

A woman came up looking for the man who was still acting erratically. Then he started touching me, running his hand down the side of my body. I don’t think my son saw that because he probably would’ve punched the guy after watching him harass his girlfriend on her birthday and his mom. This is where I got in the middle of my son and this guy. I wanted to be the protector. I told the lady to take the guy home but she was almost as messed up as he was. I really didn’t want a big bar brawl. So we ended up leaving before we even got to dance. On the way out, my son told the bouncer about the guy who was harassing us.

My kids told me the guy was really messed up, not only drunk but probably on meth because he was twitching. I’ve never seen someone on hard drugs like that right in front of my face. But I know what it is like to live with someone that is violent and erratic. It’s like my PTSD kicked in and I responded to the man just as if he was my brother when he would get violent. I wanted to protect others. I ended up apologizing to my son later. He handled the situation well, I did not. I could’ve really gotten hurt if the guy attacked me. Who knows what would’ve happened if we would’ve stayed. The guy was out of his mind, aggressive, and unpredictable.

Once we left the dance club, we tried to get out of there as quick as we could before the guy saw us after he got kicked out. Sure enough, the guy got kicked out but he walked by us without even recognizing us and that we were part of him getting kicked out. Then he walked into the martini bar and my son also went back in to warn the bouncer of what previously happened. It was a crazy night out. People were so messed up, running out in front of cars when the light was green. Paranoid. On hard drugs. Is this what the world is like now?

I miss the days when a group could just go out and have fun celebrating a birthday. I like it when the restaurant you go to makes you feel special on your birthday. A time where you didn’t have to worry much about violence or strange guys touching you inappropriately.

Although, I am happy that my son’s girlfriend included us in her birthday plans.

Birthday and court date

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

Last week I left off with my daughter getting ready to go to court and not being sure if she was going to be coming back home. The next day we went to court and we are still waiting…waiting to see if she will get into mental health treatment court. It looks good, but the process is taking a lot longer than I ever imagined. I feel like I offered Arabella false hope because the lawyer seemed pretty certain everything would be wrapped up by this court date and it wasn’t. Her next court date is in August but now I won’t mention anything about her coming home then because I was sure she was coming home this time.

It was a hard day riding the roller coaster of uncertainty and there is not much I hate more. Not to mention seeing my daughter be led out in an orange jail jumpsuit in handcuffs. If she wasn’t being released, Paul had plans for the rest of the day. He was getting lunch with the pastor who he usually meets up with once a month to talk about a book they are reading together and life in general. Then later that evening he was meeting up with his buddies for the weekly sailing race and wings at a local bar afterwards.

I didn’t want to sit at home alone and wallow, so I decided to go out and asked Alex and Lexi to go with me. A friend of my son’s dropped us off at a martini bar for a few drinks. Then we walked to a nearby brewery for supper. They ended up having a jazz band playing outside which was really enjoyable.

Thursday night my son had a gig at a bar near our cabin up north. So I decided to spend a couple days up north at the cabin for my birthday. My Aunt Jan has a cabin nearby so we got a group together to see my son play. It was an enjoyable evening. While we were out, we saw a guy that looked like our friend Jerry. He even had the same mannerisms. I asked other family members who the guy looked like and they also said Jerry. Now Jerry’s brother also has a cabin nearby and although I never met him I thought it was a good chance it could be him.

Paul sent a picture of the guy to Jerry who said no way that guy owes me money. I told him tonight we will be collecting. I just had to have enough liquid courage to go up and talk to Jerry’s brother. Later in the evening Lexi and I approached him. It turns out that Jerry was pulling our leg and the guy was not his brother. I said, “No way!!” The guy said he was from Texas and I did notice he had a bit of a southern drawl. To prove he wasn’t Jerry’s brother, he pulled out his Texas driver’s license. I showed him and his family photos of Jerry and they agreed they looked exactly alike.

Now my husband saw me talking to this lookalike for awhile and assumed he was Jerry’s brother. What I didn’t tell you before was that Jerry’s last name sounds a bit like a racial slur. We all are in agreement if that was our last name we would change it. Anyway, my husband came up and yelled really loudly hey Jerry’s last name that sounds like a racial slur. How awkward! It surely made for an interesting evening.

The following day was my birthday. I wanted to check out a nearby casino in the morning. Just to let you know, birthday is not synonymous with the word lucky. It was fun anyway. Then we ate lunch at a restaurant I really like for special occasions. I ordered king crab legs with a martini. Then we took a gravel one lane road back to the cabin. Halfway back we stopped at a bridge and I took out my magnet fishing kit. I pulled up a couple spikes that were probably part of the bridge. I still didn’t find anything interesting. No antique typewriter, not even a murder weapon.

When we got back, my son took me out for ice cream. I also rode the moped around in our yard. I turned around the corner and didn’t want to hit something so I pressed the brakes hard and flew off. I smashed one of the mirrors in the process. Seven more years of bad luck? Sheesh. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to hit the brakes hard while the wheel was turned. Lesson learned. Thankfully I didn’t get hurt.

We spent the rest of the afternoon out on the water. Angel, Dan, and Lexi joined us later after work to grill out. I tried to talk my mom into going out and doing stuff with us, but instead she went home to pick up Matt which took most of the day. When she was around, she was anxious and crabby which I found annoying. We had a campfire going in the evening, but then a storm blew in so we went inside. My mom yelled at us to be quiet because Matt was trying to sleep. It was only around 9:30 on a Friday night. But all in all it was a pretty good day.

On Sunday, I had some friends over for a murder mystery party. No one guessed who the murderer was this time. Overall, it was a good and interesting birthday weekend.

Just a few more fireworks

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Tomorrow Arabella goes to court. I thought maybe she would be getting out of jail tomorrow, but now it’s doubtful. Again, I am anxious about her being in jail and about her coming home. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. On one hand I really miss her and on the other hand she is more volatile than a mid-July storm. I want the quiet boring life, but I’m afraid it is much too late for that.

We went up north for the fourth. Alex brought up a couple of friends the first night and the second night they wanted to stay again but we had family time in mind and there was some conflict about that. We came home for the 3rd and quickly cleaned to have people over for live music at night. It was all very last minute but we had a great time. By the time the actual 4th rolled around I was exhausted. My insomnia kicked in big time and physically I felt miserable. I’m too old for a 5 day holiday weekend.

At the last minute, my son had some friends over to light off some fireworks on the 4th. I told them it was okay but they had to shut everything down by 10. They started at 9:15 and at 9:30 the next door neighbor came out and started yelling and swearing at them. He said his baby couldn’t sleep and they had to work the next morning. Then Paul got upset and kicked everyone out. There was a lot of conflict between our son, ourselves, and our neighbor. Everyone apologized and it gave us a good opportunity to work things out, but it was stressful.

We are having problems with our 17 year old cat. It is getting close to the time where I need to think about putting him down. It’s a hard decision to make. My parents aren’t doing well either. My dad is still in and out of the ER after his surgery and can’t take care of himself all that well. My mom is starting to get dementia. To be honest, she was showing signs for over a year now. But I really didn’t want to accept it. Maybe she was just stressed out or tired. Then this past weekend, she told my niece she forgot how to use the oven and asked her for help so she could make French fries. So my parents are stumbling along with my dad being the mind and my mom being the one who can still get around. Very soon there will be some more hard decisions to make.

Meanwhile, Paul had an emergency at work that was very stressful but turned out okay. At times, we are completely overwhelmed. The doctor increased my anti-depressant and insomnia medication. The last several days I’ve been sleeping better which has really helped.

It’s my birthday this week, the big 49, my last year in my 40’s. We just found out that a friend of ours was in the ER the same time I was. Except she got bad news. Stage 4 lung cancer that went into her brain. She is my age. She just got her PhD a few years back and was starting to live the life she wanted and now this. Life sure is fleeting. I feel bad because although I am going to be okay, I haven’t really been enjoying life much lately. Sometimes I just muddle through and that’s not living life to its fullest. But for now I guess it’s good enough.