I'd like to find your inner child and kick it's little ass...

I have a hideously spoiled inner toddler.

I mean, I need Super Nanny to get all English up on this kid.

The minute I posted that last thing about eating right and all that shit, I blew it.

I'm going to Vienna, did I mention.  ha.  Anyway = Mike is going to watch our dogs while we are gone and in exchange for that I told him I would stock the fridge/pantry for him.

My pantry?  is my spice cupboard.  I have nothing in cans, absolutely nothing in boxes.  Eating 'meat only' leaves very little in the way of processed foods for me to buy.  I would guess, like nothing.  I think I had 2 cans of refried beans when I started stocking up.  The only sweet crap I have are these dark-chocolate covered almonds from Trader Joe's that are pretty good but dark chocolate goes a long way with me so I only eat like 3 at a time.

Mike on the other hand, is a starving poor college student and is easily boughten with boxes of junk food.  So I started buying Kraft mac & cheese, rice-a-roni, stuff like that - you get the idea.  So IT WAS IN MY HOUSE

*crashing minor chords of a horror movie*

So I posted that post and walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboard to feed the dogs and "hey!  there's mac & cheese in there I LOVE THAT ME WANT NOW!" and I said 'no Bunny, we'll have some steak and eggs and go for a walk' and my inner toddler threw the biggest fucking TANTRUM.  So I said "FINE!  asshole!  let's make it and eat it!" and oh. my. god.

Firstly, it wasn't all that great.  Once you've had home-made cheese sauce with real (not powdered) cheese you can't go back to the orange stuff very well.  but.  BUT.

*sigh* see, we all know I am allergic to wheat.  I've spent countless hours boring the fucking crap out of y'all talking about it.  But pasta has always (since early childhood!) made me especially bloated and uh, *gassy*.  I haven't had pasta since the last time I did this supidity.  Which honestly I do believe was right before we went to the mountains.  When i got strep throat the last time.

I remember I ate some at that point and suffered a bit for it, but didn't write about it because it was just a small blip and I didn't put it all together.  Now I know.  My wheat allergy somehow knocks me down DEAD if it's pasta that I cheat with.

Turns out pasta is made with semolina flour, which some sources swear has double the amount of gluten in it than bread or regular flour.  hmmm.

I eat gluten, it causes an immediate and GIGANTIC allergic reaction in me - inflammation up the wazoo.  A slight case of being glutened and my skin reacts, my joints ache, etc - all inflamed.  With pasta it's an emergency of flashing red light proportions.  And since I'm prone to sinus infections and that portion of my system (probably lymphatic stuff) is my weak spot, that's where the inflammation really hits.  My body starts producing mucous and it starts to run down my throat in post-nasal drip style, with all the allergens and immune response going on, which irritates the hell out of my throat.

Here's where my theory jumps the shark.  If this was an immune response, an allergic reaction to the gluten, then why do antibiotics help?  The last time this happened the doc saw canker sores on my throat, but those are viral not bacterial.  So antibiotics shouldn't have been working in either case.  So I don't know the connection after my body's response with the post-nasal drip crap...

ok so, I ate pasta like a dumbass and I got seriously 9-months pregnant looking, my belly ached, I was gassy, and I was hitting myself in the head.  THEN 12 hours later I was so sick I couldn't lift my head and I went willingly back to the doc for meds, which makes twice in 4-months, when previously I hadn't taken antibiotics for YEARS.  All this to say:

Do you guys have to fight your inner toddler every fucking day?  Is it just me?  Is this an addiction thing?  Because as soon as I tell myself 'NO', it becomes ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT.  An inner brain cacophony of screaming and wooden spoons on pans and ah-OOO-gah horns and it. is. ridiculous.  It's like, you are all comfy in bed and then the dog jumps up and traps your feet and all you can think about is MUST MOVE MY FEET! when you were perfectly fine before.  I don't understand this constant need to sabotage myself.  Just like I don't understand how I went from being so 'on target' with this food crap to being so easily led off the path - which would be bad enough it was all about gaining back any weight but it's also about how FOOD HURTS ME and I don't get how my brain can convince me, against all evidence to the contrary, that it's a good idea to eat something poisonous (to me).

I'm fine, I'm out of bed today for the first time since Friday but I may nap later.  I'm an asshole, I know it.  Gee, life is hard, mistakes are made, sunrise - sunset all that crap.

There is a link somehow between gluten-inflammation-immune response-strep throat but damned it I know what it is.  It sort of defies logic.  But then, doctors would always tell me (when Mike was a baby) that teething didn't cause fevers.  But every single time that child was teething, he got a fever and got a cold/runny nose/cough.  Inflammation-immune response-sickness.  I don't know HOW but I know it's so.

Another tool to keep in my tool-box that I FORGET TO USE.

Peace out.

And now for something completely different...

Today marks (almost) exactly one month until I leave for Vienna (sausages).  [if I don't add a quiet *sausages* to the end I invariably say I'm going to Venice which, you know, is a TOTALLY different place]

I've been totally slacking on the diet/exercise thang.  I'm up 5 pounds from my "I lost weight lar lar so there" weight.  ACK SHOO LEE I'm up TEN POUNDS from my "oh jeebus lookit how low my weight is!" weight.

That 5 (ten, asshole) pounds has been bounced off and stuck back on a coupla times.  *shrug* in the big scheme of things what is 5 pounds?

I'll tell you what, thanks for axing.

That 5 pounds is my tail wag of HA HA I DID IT.  That 5 pounds is my jeans are too tight.  That 5 pounds is I'm all puffy from sneaking in wheat and I look a little like a balloon again.  It's MY PRIDE, ok?  Yes, I think I'm a much better human bean and deserve much more love when I'm smaller.

Amy from 'Big Bang Theory':  sometimes you forget, I'm a lady. And, with that comes an estrogen- fueled need to page through thick glossy magazines that make me hate my body.

Anywhozle - I have given myself a month, which is an arbitrary date because I'm not trying to fit into a gown or a bathing suit.  But a goal is a goal, right?  So for a month, I am going to post here about my weight/food, and turn this into a miasma of self loathing/self congratulations because I live to torture y'all.  In between, mixed into the gristle of the post, will be updates about narc crap.

I'll tell you at the front of it if there is anything other than flagellation in the post.

So, regarding Vienna (sausages):  for Jeff, this trip will encompass the big meeting with the Saudis (remember this post?) as well as the MIRB which stands for, um...  the 'MIDS International Review Board' - of which MIDS is the thingy <--(technical term) Jeff works for/in/around WHATEVER I JUST LIKE HIS PAYCHECK.  The MIRB is a huge gathering party at a hotel conference room with round tables and a buffet dinner and speeches and would usually be on my Top Ten List of Things I Will Fake My Own Death To Avoid.  But not this time...

Never fear - I am not going to the dinner party with the Saudis.  I learnt mah lesson, dammit.  Also, the prince I met is no longer a part of this thing, he moved on to bigger and better stuff of which I remain blissfully unaware seeing as Saudi Arabia is such a champion of human rights an all that.  So - RIGHT!  moving on.

But this trip - I feel so normal this time.  It's so different from the last two times I've gone to Europe (I had to throw that in there this will be my 3RD trip to EU jeebus ME, the asshole who can't walk and hold a job and sing at the same time I will have 3 stamps in my passport).  But my brain doesn't feel broken anymore.

See, this ties into the 'report my walking and diet' bullshit.  Because that is all part of why I feel whole and unbroken now.  Meds, diet, exercise.  (also less alcohol, did y'all think I'd forget to praise that part because I don't take it lightly.  It's still a once in a while thing, not a last summer drunk fest thing).  I hated myself for so long.  I hated my whole self - not just how I looked, that is just an outward manifestation of your inner physical/mental health - I hated my brain.

And now I don't.

I'm dumbfounded.  (too bad it didn't strike me into silence, eh?)

I still haven't figured ME out yet, not all the way.  But I have this new understanding for where all the cracks and fissures are.

My cracked brain is like this poor bunny

And I am seeing the beauty of my broken self.  There are others with bigger mental health problems than mine, that's a given.  Mine are puny and mewling little kittens, compared to some.  But they have crippled me, just the same.

I was thinking how so many of my sisters were cheer leaders through Jr. hi and hi school - and how that could NEVER have been me.  We grew up in the same house, with the same parents, but my self esteem and confidence was broken far worse than anyone else's.  All with good and proper reasons/understandings on my part about why it happened, this isn't a discussion of my abuse so much as it is a discussion of coping.

Because coping is all you can do.  Coping is a form of healing - you learn how to use your fake arm, you learn how to hold the broken vase.  You play to your strengths, and keep yourself and your brain as healthy as you can.

Yeah I've written about this before.  But if you are healing from abuse, please know it's ALL a discovery.  Just getting to the point where you can be quiet inside your own head and listen to what your under-brain is telling you - that is so completely helpful.

It's funny (to me, in a not ha-ha way) that I found the key to success (diet/meds/exercise) and yet I keep going back to what hurts me, like I'm trying to see 'is this wall still hard?  I'll run my head into it again and just test it' but I guess that is part of the human condition, no?

It's sunny out and my dogs have to pee, and I have to go walk 4 miles.  My posts always end up meandering like this page from Alice in Wonderland

so I'll quit here.

I'll burn it down first.

Nothing really fun-tastic has been happening with the narc crowd.  I know how dull that sounds - not that we wish drama on anyone but it sure does make a great story.  When it's happening to someone ELSE i mean.

Random picture of me and EP France because this post goes downhill and I wanted SOMETHING fun in it.

I pretty much 100% removed my 'helpful' ass from the situation and that was that.  I DO try and be helpful in situations like this, and that makes me sound so GOOD and ALTRUISTIC and it does, actually, come from a place of sincerely wanting to help.

But the fact is I'm BOSSY and opinionated and lack any patience or finesse of any kind.  I just sort of move into a conversation or whatever and take it over because 'I know what I'm doing shut up and y'all stop yammering and just let me fix this' and yeah - that doesn't help much.

So anyway, once Jeff and I both declared "DONE!" there hasn't been much to talk about!  Oh sure - the dad (King Narc) (crown available for taking since the One True King, MY dad, is dead as my '72 Pinto) is back in the nursing home.  Mom and Brother pretty much strong-armed him into going there from the VA - as TW pointed out to me (and I told Jeff, but who knows where it went after that) the VA has advocates on staff for these situations and maybe they got one of them involved in this drama.  I dunno.  It's been quite a while since I've laid eyes on either mom or dad.

Mom called me the other night to make sure she and I were all right - oh crap I need to provide a wee bit of more backstory...

Jeff came home from a visit up there with a Waterford crystal booze decanter* and a mink coat circa 1984.  The decanter was for us to keep (wtf?) and the coat was for me to try to sell.  FINE - I started researching ebay and also found a fur storage place here in san diego (weird I know) that would do appraisals.  Next day Jeff gets a text from his sister that *GO SLOW THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW*

text from his sister 'i wish you had told me about the coat' which ???<--srsly him walking in with that coat was a surprise to ME I'd forgotten she had it.  Also sister said 'mom said Casey will help sell waterford crystal for a 3% fee (oh, snap) and that mom feels like vultures are circling.

AWE HELLS NAW.

Didn't even remember the existance of the coat.  Told brother I would EAT any and all ebay/paypal fees which is not an inconsiderable amount.  3% is too weird of a number for me to have mentioned (remember the weird $45/wk they mentioned for one of the grandsons to help the narc king?) and then.  VULTURES.  reeaaaaly.  even in those two fucked up sentences prior, vulturing (totally a word) was never mentioned.  If I was a vulture, wouldn't I be circling trying to pick off the best stuff for myself?  i DID offer to sell the waterford crap she has, like 8 huge heavy vases and candlesticks (xmas gifts because people have to give STUFF and what else do you get for an old lady but stupid fucking vases??) but I offered to EAT my ebay/paypal fees and most likely the postage but I offered that because THEY WERE BEGGING FOR $45/WEEK.  If you are that broke, sell your shit.  SO, of course, it got turned about and THAT is when I declared NO MORE.

The coat went immedicately back to mom and we were forced to accept the decanter as she said 'it's a Captain's decanter!  Jeff was in the Navy!  He MUST have it!' which, no - it's a 'SHIP'S decanter, same enough I spose, and absolutely nothing in our world would indicate that we need a booze decanter.  Looks like this:

Not the same one but this exact thing.  I dream of Jeannie?

*(also found out that keeping booze in a lead crystal decanter leaches the lead out and puts it right in your system.  ALSO there is so much discoloration/cloudy stuff in this one because of the harsh booze/lead combo I cant get it out.  I've tried dental tablets and CLR/LIME AWAY and nah.  Imma try a big old bat next.  Too bad it's worth about $250 because I HATE IT the ugly thing.

Coat is this exact one, image ganked from Ebay again.

They have like 4 more decanters, plus that mink coat SOUTHFORK CALLED J.R.EWING WANTS HIS PROPS BACK.

*ahem*

ANYwhozle - I told brother about the texts.  Because transparancy dammit.  My opinion?  Mom is a big fat manipulator herself hiding behind the foggy memory/pitiful forgetfulness crap.  So she told sister a different story about the coat/crystal, and had no idea it would get back to us via the power of instant text.  (sad that sister believed mom, as she knows the manipulations, but sister is fighting her own demons of ambivalence toward her dads death so *shrug* grain of salt and all that).  I told brother in very, VERY sharp terms, that I. AM. OUT.  That was the last straw for me.  That he knows specifically I said I would help sell that crap for ZERO dollars, so how did mom get the 3% thing in her head??  That Jeff and I ARE NOT VULTURES and there will be no help forthcoming from us in any direction at this point.  That the coat and decanter are coming back (he said do what you want with the decanter, mom bequeathed it to Jeff, didnt want to argue over an ugly piece of glass so I let that one go).  Brother expressed surprise at all of this, I said whatever - I'm out, you and your brother and your sister are on the front lines and I am simply here to stand behind my husband and not be involved in any of the crap.  NOT MAD and sister or brother, just walking away.

So then mom called me and *airy fairy voice* wanted to make sure she and I were ok.  I was both gracious and firm.  Yes, we're ok.  No, I'm out of it.  Here is what was said (went over it all again) here is my reaction, I have no problems with anyone, this is like a game of Jr. Hi prom queen status, and I'm out.  She tried the old 'dad is just angry and scared and doesnt know what he says' and I would have none of that either.  Told her what dad had done has consequences and he is suffering those now.  Jeff hasn't been up to see him since before the blow out.  Didn't go this last Sunday either.  He can't get up the energy to get yelled at, lol.

Jeff HAS received a text from brother, saying that dad is now blaming brother for spending all their money.  I...  it's ludicrous.  It's a cornered wolverine.   It's stupid.  Brother's text went on to say 'don't think dad has forgotten about you, you are next in line' (for yelling) which probably is why Jeff ain't going near that shit storm no matter what.

I didn't mean to have to go into all of this damned crap but it helps me to keep it sorted.  Really it was over and done in a very short time frame.  Once we got the text from sister that we are vultures I wanted to delete all their phone numbers and block them, but decided to wait on that just in case the old bastard dies and jeff happens to be in a meeting or whatever.  I'm not making a sweeping dramatic exit, is what I'm saying.  Just walking.

HONESTLY?  I've thought about calling my own mother lately because she wasn't as bad as all of this.  Haven't done it tho.  All I have to do is remember how she was toward my kid the last time I saw her and the feeling passes, *snap* just like that.  har.

OH WaIT - did I tell you this gem?  When all the HELP US WITH MONEY crap was going down, after brothers infamous trip to fucking BAKER, ca, Jeff said to his dad "why don't you sell the house, sell the stuff, find a place you can afford...  dad's instant, interrupting reply?

I'LL BURN IT DOWN FIRST, SON.

ok, yeah, because that makes sense...  They don't want to help themselves, he just wants what he wants right now I mean it wahhhh!

***********************************

Let's say you're 83 and facing down the barrel of death, one or the other of you.  You have a house that you've lived in for almost 40 years.  WHICH MEANS:
lawn mower, saws, christmas decor, towels, books, waterford crystal, waffle maker, 3 or 4 hoses, giant casserole pans and dishes, table cloths, sterling silver serving dishes/flatware for Xmas/Easter dinners, oh jeeezhus the list just goes on.

Not to mention the house that you can no longer keep up - dusting the cobwebs out of the corners, sweeping spider eggs out from under outdoor furniture, moving the sofa to vacuum, clearing out old medications, sweeping out the garage ET CET ER UH.

This ties into my revulsion at the attachment to fucking stuff.  Keep photos.  Keep a memento or two.  But all of this random crap that could be sold at a yard sale or included with the house sale...?  it boggles the mind.  Keep what you use, and the few things that are precious.  DOWNSIZE.  Enjoy the last 10 years or whatever.

'I'll burn it down first'.  <--tell me what YOU think that means.  I'm not selling my house and moving, I want YOU (the collective) to help me stay right here.  HERE being relative because he's in a nursing home and mom and brother could very well manage a little 2-bedroom apartment by themselves.

Any of you remember Pip?  Mrs. Havisham?  The wedding banquet?  YES.  Exactly.