One day at a time

So, Bug (my ex-boyfriend's mother) seems to be stable. We are all praying that she'll (somehow) make it through the holidays. According to one of her regular visiters, she has maybe two months left in her. I've made a decision.

I'm not going to mourn her before she's gone. I'm going to take it all one day at a time, and hope like hell that somehow I'll still have some sanity left by the end. I'm going to try to visit her everyday.

It's the very least I could do for a woman who, almost singlehandedly, managed to bring me out of a deep and dehabilitating depression. I would do anything for her.

So, blogging world, I may touch on the subject in future posts, but because I'm not going to engage in preemptive mourning, I'm going to move on.

I think I'll tell you about happier times. I'm afraid that life right now kind of sucks - not just because of Bug, but also because of work.

You know that work had to figure into my bad mood, right?

Not to go into any details (because you never know who out there could be reading this), but there's a serious managerial problem at our store. Our assistant manager has been fired unfairly. The backlash from it (and years of upper-managment screwups) has been pretty severe.

That and my best friend, my sounding board, my emotional support has died at the ripe old age of eleven. Rusty is now among the deceased.

All of this adds up to Nyx in a pretty bad mood that rivals even the pissiest PMSing gorilla.

So yes, look forward to many stories about happier times, back when none of this existed and life was as simple as life can get.

Cancer

Today is Thanksgiving. A day of joy, happiness, and above all, a day where we can all be thankful for what and who we have.

These words have never been truer.

Today my ex boyfriend called me. And today he informed me that his mother, a woman who I consider to be almost a second mother to myself, is dying. From stage four lung cancer. The doctors said that she had two days to two months to live.

He was crying to me on the phone. Somehow, a simple "I'm sorry" can't even begin to cover it - I sat there and listened as he told me about how he didn't know what he was going to do without her, about how much he loved her, about how he had to explain to his boss what had happened and how he's not quite sure how he's going to tell everyone else. I have never had to comfort anyone like this before.

I am speechless. Something so rudimentary as language cannot even begin to describe the overwhelming emotions I feel coursing through my body. She was there for me after we broke up - he was my first boyfriend and I was devastated when we broke up. She told me that I'd get over it, and she was right - I did. She brought me back to my religion, and helped me develop my moral compass. She's always been there for me, for almost six years now. She's seen me go through boyfriends, listened to my rantings about the injustices of the world, watched as I've become the person I am today.

What do I do?

I can't do anything. I'm still reeling from the death of my dog - arguably my best friend - a few days ago. And now this. This isn't something I can fight. This isn't something that I can win against.

This is cancer.

I will go and visit her tomorrow morning in the hospital. I'm not quite sure what is going to happen. She's pretty out of it, from what my ex has said.

For those of you out there that are religious, I ask of you one thing: please pray for her. If the Lord deems it necessary to take her from us now, then so be it. But a little prayer never hurt anyone. I'm sorry that my postings have been a bit sporadic lately, but I'm emotionally drained. What's worse is that everyday I have to paste on a happy face and act as if nothing is wrong.

Somehow, I think that doing that is going to be a bit more difficult tomorrow.

Back Aches and Swindling

Very Random Post Ahead!

There is a little man who is living in my spine at the moment. He's running up and down, playing my vertebrae like they're some sort of xylophone, and every once in a while he grabs his little ice pick screwdriver and jams it between vertebrae and twists. I think he's trying to tune me. It hurts. He's been there since yesterday, but yesterday it wasn't nearly half as bad as it is now.

Why does it hurt so much? Because I'm a glutton for punishment.

So I woke up early today to go to work with my kids. I've been pretty psyched for this - we've been planning to do a service weekend for a while with the teenagers at my parish, but we've been rained out until now. I used to be highly involved with the youth ministry (see my post here), and I've missed it very much. Well, I don't miss the bullshit and drama that certain higher-ups may or may not have created, but I do miss working with my kids.

So I wake up at the ungodly hour of seven (urk...I am not a morning person, especially not after partying the night before), somehow manage to do what's necessary in the morning (shower, brush the teeth, try not to kill the dog as I trip over him...), and get my tush in the car and on the road. I make it to the church by the time we were all supposed to meet (a novel occurrence - anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm usually five to fifteen minutes late...to everything).

And I arrived to...old people. And the two other adults that were scheduled to be there. None of our kids had shown up...none at all.

Yep. Lace covered grey-haired ladies' heads like ancient cobwebs as they sat in the pews and prayed. Father Neil stood at the back of the church, waiting for the music to key up so he could walk down the aisle. He gave me a slight disapproving look as we snuck into the church and made our way towards our chosen pew.

Mass proceeded as it should have, and still none of the kids showed. So we made our way to the house we were to work on for the day, figuring that even if it was just the three of us, we could at least make a dent.

Which leads me to why I'm a glutton for punishment.

In hindsight, moving those pieces of drywall probably wasn't a good idea. Nor the old furniture. Or the television(s).

I arrived at work today (yes, I went to work after engaging in the child labor camp wonderful service opportunity) practically crippled. I hobbled my way into work, hand on the small of my back and moaning pitifully about how awful I felt.

And then my boss told me she was run over today by a truck.

I think my thunder may have been stolen slightly. Although, I gotta say, she had a damned good story. Apparently she was at the farmer's market, and some bimbo ran her over. Literally.

She was walking out of the entrance of the farmer's market, and some lady drove by her. She looked over, and realized that the lady had stopped, and put her reverse lights on.

Unfortunately, my poor tiny little manager (she might weigh 100 lbs soaking wet and weighed down with a few bricks) barely had time to jump out of the way as the dumbass hit reverse with all the enthusiasm of a madman escaping zombies. Or a tween who's spotted free Miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers/Taylor Swift tickets.

And why? Because she saw a parking space she wanted.

Ridiculous. She clipped my manager, then sped away. And you know what the kicker is?

She damn well knew what she did. She waved at my manager and mouthed the word "sorry" and drove away.

Bitch.

So she was in worse pain than I was. All night long we bothered our co-workers, begging for any painkillers they might have on hand.

On the upside, I almost made two hundred dollars in donations today. We're running our donation drive for a couple of the local no-kill animal rescues until Christmas, in the hope that we might be able to help them out a little bit. Our store gets no profit from this, and 100% of the proceeds are going straight towards the rescues. I'm just asking people to round up their spare change - if they buy an item for $1.49, then they could donate $0.51 towards the cause, and then pay $2. It's working pretty splendidly - I've already gotten over $500 so far (and that's just my total...it doesn't include any of the other slaves worker bees).

Everyone at work rolls their eyes at me whenever it's donation time. I always look forward to it because a.) I'm fan-fucking-tastic at it, and b.) every dollar earned really does go towards helping an animal in need. A lot of the rescues now are really hurting for money because of the recession, and animals are getting dropped off in record numbers.

So, I hope that we can get as many donations as possible this year. Sure, I may remind some of a cracked-out cheerleader when this time of year rolls around, but mneh. I don't think I care very much, because every dollar earned is like a little mini-win for me - it means that one more animal might get the medical treatments that it needs. One more animal might be able to be adopted out faster. One more animal might be given a life that it was previously denied.

I would also like to give a special shout out to Twinkles, my co-worker's (Pumpkin) fiancee. He was an awesome sport and bought one of our calenders (yes, we're selling calenders and sweatshirts and tee shirts this year for the rescues). He, of course, told me I was swindling him. Pumpkin tried to convince him that they could use some of the coupons in the back of the book.

He glared at me as she mentioned wanting to get a new fish tank stand for a bigger fish tank.

Whoopsies. Sorry there Twinkles. It's all for a good cause...heheheh....

Picture Monday

The majority of this week's Picture Monday pictures come from Martha's Vineyard. I was blessed enough to be the Maid of Honor in my friends Sarah and Sean's wedding this past summer. The only exception is the last photo, which was taken on the way to Buffalo last week.

I know I know...the horizon line isn't perfectly straight. I like it that way. I also particularly like the way the perspective element that the pier provides, and the way the flowerpot starts it.

It was the last night of my trip, and I decided to go see what I could capture with my camera. Someone had been having some sort of party, and the sounds of the guests drifted past my ears as I took this photo.

Ah...we partied all night long. I like this photo because it reminds me how drunk I got. And how much fun everyone seemed to have - I think that small intimate weddings are the way to go (unfortunately, I've resigned myself to a large wedding - my family is ginormous).

The bridal bouquets.

The promised picture. We were completely lost, and Pookie was all "er...I don't know where we are." My response? "Well how the hell am I supposed to know?"

ALL BETTER!

Hiya!

Ok, so I may have recently been a bit hormonal and psychotically obsessed distraught over things that a certain friend of mine may or may not have done. If she's reading this, she knows who she is and what my feelings are on the topic (seeing as how I wrote a lovely angst-filled post about it). It's caused me to think a lot lately on the subject of friendship and what exactly a friend's purpose is.

This post will not be about that. I refuse to dwell on the subject any longer than necessary, and I've deemed it no longer necessary. Things and people change, including myself.

It'd be a boring world if it were static.

So, I'm rather cheery this morning. I think it's safe to say that the raging bitch inside of me is safely gone away to her little cubby hole only to return again next month.

My betta fish is looking rather cramped. I think that it's about time I set him up in a proper aquarium. I've been meaning to stick him in my R2D2 aquarium (what, you didn't think I was a geek? PFT!), but I haven't had the room to fit it anywhere. If I clear off the top shelf on one of my bookcases I think I can fit him there.

Maybe. The R2D2 aquarium looks like this:

Yea. It's full of the awesomeness. It retailed for $103.99.

I, of course, would never pay that price for it. I did what any self-respecting store slave employee would do.

I waited for it to go on clearance. And waited. And waited.

And wound up getting it for $13.

Oh. Yea. That was a happy day in Nyx-land. He's a neat lil' guy who moves his head around and has red, green, and blue LED lights.

I think that it would be a nice little tribute to a series that I grew up on (that and Indiana Jones...it's all my dad's fault).

More pictures to come tonight! And I may even (gasp) put a picture of myself up!

Why?

I started this blog as a sounding board for my opinions, thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

Hence the title, Notions.

Well, I'm about to enter into very *depressing* territory here (at least, for me), so don't say I didn't warn you.

I feel as though my stomach has twisted in on itself. And no matter what I do, I can't seem to untwist it. There's this really big lump in my throat that won't go away. That's right...I think I might be a bit depressed.

See, I'm a bit PMS-y, which can and does throw my emotions off a bit. Usually everything is intensified (I can just feel all you guys out there who've had experience with this phenomenon wincing), and for all intensive purposes, sometimes I can go a bit apeshit.

Right now is one of those times. I recently logged onto facebook (I know I know...it's the devil), and saw that one of my friends has unfriended me. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal to me. But...she was someone who I've always held in high esteem, and who I had once considered to be my best friend.

Granted, we don't really talk all that often anymore. And yea, I don't exactly agree with her choice in boyfriend material. We won't go there though, and I think I've been pretty good at not ranting about it anymore (may have had a few rough spots in the beginning of their relationship, but whatevs...I figured it was all under the bridge). But we still contact each other on and off, and I have some comfort in knowing that she is simply a phone call away if I need her. That is, at least, until last night.

Damnit, it hurts. She was my best friend once upon a time, and I like to think that we helped each other out in some pretty rough spots. I used to be able to tell her anything and everything, and not fear recrimination or judgement. She was like a sister to me.

I think that we began to separate when we both started to get different friends in college. She made a whole lot of friends that were within her major, and I made a few that were in mine. From what I understand, this drifting is pretty normal for people who enter into the insanity of college life. And drifting is normal, and I even expected it. Regardless, we've always been very friendly throughout the years.

So why now? Why has she chosen to eliminate all traces of me from her life? I don't think I've done anything to offend her. And if it were just a matter of her "cleaning house" as it were on facebook (that is to say, unfriending all friends who she hasn't spoken to in a while), then she would have unfriended a whole lot of other people as well...people she hasn't talked to since high-school. Instead, from what I gather, she simply unfriended both me and Pookie.

I don't know why, and that kind of kills me. And I'm sure a lot of this hurt is caused by the hormonal condition known as raging bitch syndrome PMS. But 10 years of friendship (ok, 8 if you don't want to count the recent years where we've just kind of contacted each other on and off) is a lot of years to just flush away without a thought.

So I'm in a bad place right now. I'm hurting, and I don't know how to make it stop.

I think I'll start with some chocolate, and go from there.

Buffalo, Pt. Two

I'm back!

I know all of you have been awaiting my return. Oh yes, gentle reader, I know that you have been anticipating this post with barely-contained anticipation. Just face it. My blog is the center of your world.

Right? Right.

Now that we've got that settled, let me tell you about my lovely trip to the land of Canada. Well...as canadian as one can get without actually leaving the country.

That's right! Buffalo! Home of the Buffalo wing, and beef on weck, and deep-fried cauliflower (incidentally, they have some of the best heart centers in the country).

The drive up wasn't too bad - we only had to stop for gas once. Woot.

I love my car sometimes (a 2005 Chevy Equinox...it's actually quite good on gas, surprisingly).

Seeing the slow agonizing death of millions of leaves has never been so beautiful before as we passed the scenic vistas of Pennsylvania and New York.

We hit some sleet on the way up (which led to me clutching the armrest and screaming in fear telling Pookie to please be careful with my baby car). Other than that, it was relatively uneventful (we plugged in Kathy Griffin's audiobook).

So we get up to Buffalo, and I met his grandmother for the first time almost first time.

See, she had attended his graduation, but due to circumstances beyond my control (drunken wicked witch of the west stepmother), I hadn't said more than a 'hello' to her. So this was almost my first time meeting her.

A few things struck me right off the bat about her. 1.) She was tiny. The woman is a midget, which is hilarious because Pookie is at about 6'5." 2.) She had a kick ass attitude. The woman's eyes lit up like she had just won the lottery when we mentioned that there was a bottle of Jack Daniels rolling around in the back of my car. She was so thrilled when we gave it to her at the end of our visit. 3.) She was very...VERY...catholic. Extremely catholic. Irish catholic.

I, of course, adored her.

We got along swimmingly. So when she suggested that we go the Basilica, I agreed. And I may have even enjoyed myself. And when we went to goodwill? I shopped the china. I even bought myself a cute little cordial glass (I love cordial glasses. Can't stand cordials, but I love the little petite glasses they are served in).

Pookie's uncle took us to go see the Sabres v. Flyers game. The entire time I was in Buffalo, I was getting shit for being a Flyers fan. His granny even gave me shit. But that's ok, because we beat Buffalo 5-1.

Ha. Take that, granny.

His uncle hooked us up with INSANE tickets - 7th row. I gotta say, I'm not much of an Emery fan (although, I wasn't a Biron fan either...I was a Nitty fan), but the Flyers put up a good defence and managed to score against Miller.

Although, if you know anything about hockey, that isn't all that much of an achievement. I'm pretty sure Miller couldn't manage to block for the pee-wee hockey teams that play at halftime.

Just sayin'.....

Anyways, we I had fun. After the game, we went to Duff's, which is arguably (or so I'm told) the best place to get wings in Buffalo. Sure, there's the Anchor bar, but I'm told that Duff's is where it's at. I've never seen chicken wings that big (here in Delaware (a major chicken supplier, for all you ignorant fools out there) we breed our chickens for breast size rather than wing size. Kind of like South Beach, but for chickens). MMMMMmmmmMMM.

And then, World, the trip started to take a turn for the worst.

That's right. Pookie got the swine flu. Oink oink.

I mean, me and his granny had a grand old time. We ate at Tim Horton's no less than five times during four days, and we discussed everything ranging from religion (I just don't understand why all these kids walk into the church with their jeans!) to Tim Horton's (You know, he was a hockey player) to family (let's just say that hints concerning marraige were dropped by Pookie's dear old granny. I pretended to be ignorant). Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to Niagra Falls, but I'm planning on going back when Pookie's feeling better, and then we can both go see the Falls.

Or, if he dies, then I'll just go by myself. Pretty sure Granny will let me stay with her. :)

The drive home wasn't so bad either. I mean, besides that time that I almost sideswiped the stupid little white Saab that some lady was driving.

She had the gall to get in my blind spot. Pft.

We made it home, safe and sound (and I got to sample the delicacies of pit stop cuisine).

So that was my trip to Buffalo.

So, the Garmin took us some really weird way down the road. I took the rainbow as a good sign.

I have an obsession about wind-energy. More specifically, the windmills themselves. I took no less than ten photos of these.

Ah, the Basilica. I now know Fr. Baker's entire life-history, and I got to see some pretty kick-ass statues to boot.

Yea. Our seats were *that* good. Be jealous.

Free beer never tasted so good.

Buffalo, Pt. One

So here I am in Buffalo, NY.

How did I wind up here? Well, Pookie came up to me a few weeks back and was like "Wanna go to Buffalo?"

I, of course, said yes. Hey, a free trip an almost free trip is so totally worth it.

Nevermind the milage it's put on my car :P

But it's seriously pretty up here. We're staying with Pookie's grandmother. She's kind of three shades of awesomeness. I know this because her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree on fire when we told her I had a bottle of Jack Daniels hidden in the back of my car.

We plan on going to Niagara Falls soon - I'm ridiculously psyched about this. It's probably because I have a thing for waterfalls and everything pretty and pristine and touristy. We're also going to bullshit around with his aunt sometime during this trip - he owes her a cosmo.

So I have all that fun to look forward to (along with, what I'm sure will be, a few totally awkward silences during the greetings. "Hello, this is Nyx, she's my girlfriend." *cricket*)

I'm not looking forward to the temperature though.

Buffalo is fucking cold!!!

And so here I am. Sitting on a couch, with Pookie's arm around me, watching a small 24 inch television that only gets about five channels on it, operating on a 5.5mbps speed connection (I'm pirating the internet from some poor hapless fool) in his very Irish-Catholic grandmother's living room. I will, after we are done watching canadian television, go to Grandma's spare room and attempt to sleep on half a futon (because the hell if I'm going to try to drag that thing out and then re-fold it. It's like some sort of twisted origami project).

And y'know what? I'm loving every minute of it.

So, that's it for now. I'll be back on Tuesday, so don't expect any updates until then. I'll even put up some pictures from the trip.

See you then!!

Love

Yea. It's kind of like that.

This video is (obviously) not mine. I'm not that talented :P

Picture Monday!

This week's pictures come from Longwood Gardens again :) I've been in a pretty shitty mood, and looking at pictures of pretty things usually cheers me up, hence this week's selection. Enjoy!

Like it or not, Christmas is coming up. I love how all the stores just completely skip over Thanksgiving - I guess it's not as marketable.

So that's it for this week's Picture Monday!

Blah

Warning: morose and broody post ahead. You've been warned.

So this week has been very "blah." I'm going to Buffalo with Pookie soon, and am looking forward to the trip. I need something to snap me out of the mood I've been in the last few days.

I keep on trying to cheer up, but if I'm being honest with myself I'm still a bit sick from the H1N1. I don't think that I'm still contagious (Lord I hope I'm not), but a stuffy nose still remains, along with an annoying persistent cough.

Work has been sucking lately - we've got a new general manager who can't manage worth beans. I'm trying to give him a chance, but he's absolutely awful. His management skills absolutely suck. He's pitting my coworkers against each other by recruiting a few of them as "spies." I don't understand why he would think that appropriate as a manager, but whatever. He's just the latest in a long line of managerial fuckups.

Everyday I go to work, I have to think up excuses not to call out. Honestly, there's only two reasons I show up every day instead of calling out and using up my paid time off - it would be irresponsible for me to pawn off all of my work on my co workers, and I need the paycheck.

Day in and day out I show up, and I'm absolutely exhausted by the end of it. People have been slacking, and I don't know how the heck to get their bums in gear. It's not my job to get them working - I'm not a manager, just a worker bee.

So I'm job-hunting, as I have been since I got my degree. I'm trying like hell to find a job, but let's face it - there are just no jobs for people with no experience. I find myself competing with people who have five, ten, fifteen years experience, and kick-ass recommendations to boot. Pookie is in much the same boat as I am. It's rather disconcerting. I realize that having a diploma isn't a magical golden ticket to the wonderland of employment, but I at least figured that it would count for something. I guess not.

The only thing that I can do is keep on chugging and hope to hell I can find a job that will not only pay the bills, but that I won't absolutely despise either.

So, I'm sorry if my updates are a bit sporadic - I'm just trying to figure things out. I'm also participating in NaNoWriMo (an online writing contest), and so I'll be focusing a good bit of my energy there (I have to write about 2,000 words a day...and I'm already behind).

So, that's what's happening in the land of Nyx. I realize that this post isn't full of the humor and sarcastic wit (ha!) that I usually present, but honestly I just don't have the energy tonight. I debated about not posting this, but that wouldn't be right. Life's not all happiness and sunshine and rainbows. Life's full of the nitty-gritty, and sometimes it sucks. And sometimes it's just "blah."