forgiveness

Forgiveness if a funny thing, really. The Dalai Lama says that we must forgive but never forget....that we must withhold negative feelings towards those who have wronged us & that we cannot hold the weight of a grudge. He says that holding a grudge is unhealthy & will break us down...or something like that.

Mom talked to my Aunt today for about 3 hours. My aunt suspected that I was not going to be out of town & had told her husband that she thought I just wasn't coming to her house on Christmas Eve because of what had happened at the wedding. (shocking!) Her husband told her that she needed to talk to my mom about what the truth was...maybe she should've talked to me instead, but whatever. At least he encouraged her to talk to someone about it all. In the meantime, I told Mom that I refused to lie anymore & was essentially hurt by the fact that she continued to do so. I felt like she was protecting my Aunt & not standing up for what is right. Selfish on my part, probably.

So Mom talked to her today at work. She basically indicated that she has played the entire event out many times in her head & of course she said the oh so typical "if I could take it back I would, but I can't." Don't we all wish that we could have a re-do? Basically, she said that she was hurt that her ex husband & his wife were seated at my parents table, amongst our family. They have been divorced for 20+ years, have both remarried--oh, and he happens to be my Dad's best friend. He has remained in my life & he genuinely cares about me. He gave us a very generous wedding gift & wrote in our card that I was his favorite niece & that I would always be his #1, despite the fact that he hadn't really been my Uncle for most of my life. I totally disagree--he's my Uncle. Nuff said on that.

She also confirmed to Mom more of what we already knew--that she was upset that she wasn't asked to do a reading in the wedding. She wanted to be more involved, etc.

I asked Mom not to engage her in an argument/conversation--just tell the truth that I'm not coming to her house on Christmas Eve. She was upset & said that it wouldn't be the same without me, yadda, yadda, yadda. Mom & I had already had a laugh about that in fact. I told her it was going to be a pitiful party without me & The Scientist...just Mom, Dad, Granny, Papaw, my Aunt & her hubby sitting around staring at each other. The Scientist & I breathe life into a family with so many secrets & skeletons.

I'm told my Aunt will call me tonight to tell me that she wants me to come to Christmas, etc. She believes we need to have a conversation. I struggle with getting a handle on my rebuttle...because I have one for every excuse she makes. Its like I said in the other post--don't call me because its Christmas & our family is obviously fractured. Call me because you mean it & sincerely want to make this right.

The right thing to do is to go to her house...It would be the best thing I could do for my parents & grandparents. I'm just not so sure that I can do it, no matter how much I want to.

On a holiday note, I've still got a couple of last minute things to get & nothing is wrapped. My house is an absolute pig sty, I need to go to the grocery to get stuff if in fact my family does come to my house after my Aunt's celebration. I'm not much in the holiday spirit, which is so not me. Maybe buying Rock Band will make me feel better?? To be determined.

What the frick?!

So I went back & took a look at my long neglected blog and saw that a bunch of my posts were out of order with the wrong dates. According to me, Obama was inaugurated way back in 2008..crazy stuff. So here I am again..starting fresh..again.

I felt oddly compelled to blog something today...maybe its because I've read about the trials of Skinnybeard & facebook..more likely the fact that I'm in the middle of a huge family drama that causes me to have nightmares & provides me with many sleepless nights. Maybe I'll feel better if I type it & send it out into the oblivion. I don't think anyone reads this anyway so here goes...

I never thought I would say this but I'm currently estranged from my aunt. My mom's only sister. My maternal family is small--me, Mom, Dad, Aunt Brenda, her husband Fred, & my grandparents. I am the only child & only grandchild. Of course I have The Scientist now, but we're still a small group. It happened on the most wonderful night of my life--March 28,2009--the day I married The Scientist. The short of it is that for reasons still unknown to me (9months later), my Aunt left my wedding reception basically before it began and I've only spoken to a couple of times since. There's a lot of "he said, she said" going on about what happened but I'll tell you what I know & what I saw.

The seating at our wedding was a colossal screwup. The tables in the back of the room were flipped..so those who were supposed to be in the tables closest to the stairs were actually sitting at the back of the room & vice versa. I had a bridemaid all the way in the back of the room (sorry Karen!). When The Scientist & I were announced & entered the reception, I saw my Mom standing with my Aunt & Uncle near the cake. I went over & asked them why they weren't in their seats. Mom said that there had been a mix up with the seating. One glance & I immediately knew the problem. My great Uncle & his children were sitting in my Aunt's seats. In the meantime, someone else had gotten up from their table & filled those empty seats so that they could sit with the family that was seated at that table with my great Uncle. My wedding planner was all over it & had offered my aunt, uncle and 2 cousins 2 other seating options but they refused to sit. Unfortunately, one of those options was at my parent's table which was occupied by Dad's best friend, my Aunt's ex-husband. There were 6 empty seats at the table next to the cake so I offered those to my Aunt & again, she refused. When I asked where my 2 cousins were, my Aunt told me that Nancy had a bit too much to drink & was upset about not having a seat so she was in the lobby. We cut our cake & were seated at our table for dinner.

The captain's call came out for dinner & we went out into the lobby. I saw my Uncle standing at the top of the steps to the 20th Century's VIP lounge with my cousin. I heard my cousin say, "well I don't know Fred, she's your neice." I started up the steps but my husband said no, its not our problem, etc. When we sat back down for dinner, I looked around & saw that my parents, Aunt, Uncle & cousins were nowhere to be found. I immediately felt queasy & told my friends that I was going to walk around & mingle with folks during dinner. I took my glass of champagne & headed straight out into the lobby where I found my mother looking very pained. I asked where my Aunt was & Mom told me that she was taking Nancy home but that she & Fred would be back. Nancy & her daughter had come in from KY & were staying at my Aunt's house in Indiana, more than an hour's drive from the Theatre. I knew immediately that this was a lie & that my Aunt had left. I burst into tears & had to be calmed down in the VIP lounge. I honestly cannot describe what an overwhelming, awful feeling that was. I have since found out that my Dad was outside trying to get my Aunt to come back inside & all the while she is outside crying & throwing a fit. She was belligerent to my wedding planner & was standing outside crying with multiple people coming outside to talk her down. It was childish, petty, rude & most of all--SELFISH.

To avoid a painfully long post I will say this--my Aunt has never apologized or acknowledged to me what she did. In fact, she's done just about everything that she can to paint herself out to be a victim. In true maternal family fashion, she, along with Mom & Granny, have taken the stance that if we just ignore it, it will go away. Well, guess what everyone? It hasn't.

So here I sit, 3 days before our family's celebration with a deep, burning feeling in my belly. I'm not going to her house to celebrate with my family. The insanity of it is that to protect her, they've all lied to her & told her that I'm going to Hodgenville to be with The Scientist's family. My mom has made peace with her & I have to really fight the urge to think of Mom as a sort of Benedict Arnold. I've never wanted her to choose sides but at the same time, I want her to fight for me. She's my Mom, ya know?! So it hurts to see that she's protecting my Aunt, instead of telling her to apologize or acknowledge it & end all of this. I have one champion--my Dad. He & I talked about the incident for the first time last week & it was very interesting to hear his perspective on the situation. He's a wise dude & probably the most level headed man I've ever met. I take what he tells me very seriously. He wants me to get over it, grin & bear it for the sake of my aging grandparents but at the same time, he gets exactly why I have made the choice that I have. He. Totally. Gets. It.

So it sounds like my family will go to her house during the day & then come to my house in the evening (their choice, their plan). Dad says he's not going to bring it up but he's also not going to lie..if it comes up that I'm actually still in town, he's going to tell her that I'm hurt & pissed off. Again, its 3 days before & they've still not told my Papaw that we're doing this...its kind of sad how this family communicates & handles problems.

I have had more than 1 nightmare about my Aunt, where I wake up in a sweat or feeling sick to my stomach....and I've internalized so much of this, its hard to even articulate it..except what I know is that I'm sitting here right now, alone in my office, crying as I type this.

At what point do you give in (or give up) when you feel so very strongly about something but when you've known all along that you're never really going to change that person? Oh, and I keep waiting for the call--when she calls to say that I can't miss Christmas Eve (the first time in my life) & makes a half hearted, insincere apology, just to keep the peace with my grandparents. Is it too much to say that I want it MY way?

Counting down

Last night was the culmination of events leading up to my wedding--the bachelorette party!! I continue to be amazed at how lucky I am to have such great people around me. From April's mom allowing us to borrow her house for the Pure Romance party to Lana, who changed her call schedule just so that she could come. I had told April ahead of time that I didn't want to get so drunk that I was sick or acting stupid, unlike the Redneck Scientist who came home without a shirt and not remembering a lot of his night with the boys. Thankfully, I am headache free this morning, despite the number of shots I ingested.

Doesn't April look pretty in this picture? We had our makeup done yesterday as a trial run for the wedding. April felt like a tramp but she looked amazing. The girls will have a very retro look--thick, black eyeliner, big lashes & red lips. Its pretty much my normal look but April wasn't used to it. A funny thing happened to me at the mall yesterday. I was in Torrid, one of my favorite stores and they were having a modeling try out. I walked by several times but paid them no attention. As we were leaving the store, they stopped me and asked me to sign up. I hesitated and gave several excuses about why I'm not model material. The owner of the modeling agency told me that I was exactly what he was looking for. What a hoot! On the way to the bachelorette party they called me to tell me that I made their top 10, out of 45 girls that they saw yesterday. I told them that I was getting married in 2 weeks so when they called me they told me that they changed the date of their "pagent" just for me because the owner was so impressed with my look. Its funny to think that I have a look. So as it turns out, they moved the date to the following saturday and we'll be in Seattle on our honeymoon. I'm not going to pursue it at all...the guy seemed really interested in me so if hes serious, he'll contact me.

Jerry is away in Baltimore until thursday. Everyone said that it would be nice to have the house to myself & to have a break. I'm finding its just the opposite..I actually miss him already.

Las Vegas

Tammy wants to hear about my adventures in Vegas. Unfortunately, it wasn't as great as I had expected. My mom scored a great deal for airfare out of Nashville way back in December so I said I would go. I thought $180 was great for roundtrip, despite the fact that I had to drive to the folks' house and then onto Nashvegas. Anyway, we left on thursday april 19th. I called Granny from the airport and she told me that her sister, my aunt Nellie, was in the hospital in Lexington. She had a respiratory thing going on--basically some mild pneumonia and that she was taken there after not being able to breathe on Wed. night. I told Granny to call me if there were any changes. So we had a very uneventful flight ( I actually didn't get airsick for the first time ever!) and I was so excited when we landed in Vegas. Now there were 9 people on the trip with us. Half of them were staying at the Stratosphere and the other half in free rooms at Harrahs. So, I was on my way to the Stratosphere while my mom and aunt were at Harrahs. Got to the Strat and saw that I had a message from Granny. It went something like this...

CC: Granny?! What's wrong?
G: she's gone sissy. Aunt Nellie is gone.
CC: huh? What happened?
G: Aunt Nellie died. *sobs*

Welcome to Las Vegas! Apparently, after my aunt was settled into her room at UK, the doctor came out and told my family to give them 3 days to give her some treatements and oxygen and that they could take her home. 30 minutes later she was dead. As you might imagine, the entire situation was a mess and we really struggled with what to do. So we waited. Tried to enjoy our first night there but I think we all kinda felt like a black cloud was overhead. We went out to Freemont Street thursday night and I think that's a great way to get the Vegas experience, especially on the first night there..its kinda gritty and harks back to the Frank and Dino days of Vegas, despite the multi million dollar big screen that now covers the street. I was also disappointed to see the big Golden Nugget sign had disappeared off the entrance of the casino. Anyhow, the drinks were cheap and we even tried fried oreos. That's a little bite of heaven, right there.

We didn't find out anything in regards to funeral arrangements until about 4pm Vegas time on Friday afternoon. At this point everyone told us to stay out there and enjoy ourselves. My aunt Nell was a big gambler and really loved Vegas so everyone said she would be upset if she knew that we were cutting our trip short. Of course people don't really know that do they?? Let me just put it out there--if I die, y'all better haul your sweet asses back to Cincinnati for my funeral! I don't care if you're laying on the beach in Cancun. Come to my funeral or I will haunt you. We legitamitely tried to get back to Cincy. I guess if we REALLY wanted to we could. They gave us only one option. A 0630 flight out on Sat. morning. No available flights on sunday. So then Delta tells us that they will waive the $50 change fee but that since we only paid $180 each, that we would have to pay the cost of a one-way ticket to get back early. So be wary if you're using expedia, travelocity, etc. That's the kind of stuff that happens.

I had a bad feeling about not going back..something about it just didn't sit well with me. I guess its easy to look back and say we should've tried harder and gotten back but its also hard to say what the right answer in that situation is. Everyone telling us to not come back but we still felt guilty for staying. We saw Celine Dion friday night. We paid $86 and sat all the way in the top section in the farthest section to the left of the stage. The next available tickets were $176! She started the show with her song, "A New Day" and as she was singing, about 40 dancers, all clad in black were slowly approaching her. I have to tell you that it definitely had a "Night of the Living Dead" kinda feel to it and I was thinking if the whole show is gonna be like this, I'm gonna be asleep. Fortunately, the show was amazing. She had 6 costume changes and most of the songs were ones that I actually like. It was cool and something we all felt like we had to do since it was her last year in Vegas.

So some drama went down and I got pissed off and took my stuff to Harrahs around midnight on Sat. night. I decided to go to the Crazy Horse Paris show at the MGM Grand instead of going out Sunday night to the Buddha Bar with the young'uns on sunday night. Dita Von Teese was headlining at Crazy Horse and since I have a girl crush on her, I had to go. I was a bit nervous going alone but it turned out to be really fun. I sat at a table with some other singletons and it was good to have people to talk to before the show started. So, just as the lights were dimming, a guy caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. It was Tommy Lee coming in to sit 2 tables over from me. There was a woman with him that I immediately thought was Jenna Jameson but it turned out not to be. If you can imagine a cheap, $20 hooker version of Pam Anderson, you would see this chick. She had long, platinum blonde hair and it was so matted in back that she couldn't even get her fingers through it. She was picking her hair up and fluffing it and it was coming up in chunks! Eww. So at the end of the show, I ended up walking out with Tommy and his group. I said hello, he said, "what's up red?" like he'd known me all of his life. He was cool as hell..I just couldn't believe how down to earth he was. So back to the hooker...she comes out in these huge clear acrylic stripper heels and instead of pantyhose, she has stars tattooed up the back of her calf and thighs. Now I'm all for tattoos but this just added to the cheapness and to top it all off--she had an ugly face! She was a 2 bagger, for sure. I guess she could just lay one of her dreadlocks over her face to cover it up.

So, sunday night I called Delta to make sure that they had our reservations correct since we had been trying to get them changed on friday and they said everything was good. We show up at the airport and my mom checks in no problem. My mom's friend and I try to check in and they won't let us. They say that our reservation has been cancelled. Fortunately they were able to get us on the flight to CVG but we couldn't sit together. We get to Cincy, eat dinner and go to the gate for our 830 pm flight to Nashville. Once again, Fran and I go to check in only to find that we were placed on the 730 flight to Nashville and the Delta receptionist neglected to tell us. We never looked at our tickets simply because we just assumed that she put us on the same flight as mom. Finally got back to Scottsville KY via Nashville around 1130 that night. The following day Fran and I had to drive back to Cincy.

You may have read the story of the fall...so you know how that goes. I can't wait for my next vacation! Bonnaroo here we come!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

back in action

So its been a long time since I've blogged. I guess I haven't had much time or inclination..not that I don't have anything to talk about. The Redneck Scientist & I are getting hitched in 27 days. It seems a bit surreal to even type that. Between the wedding & lots of changes at work, Ive neglected the blog. Who knows if anyone even reads this thing anyway..there's something about putting your thoughts out into the oblivion that is very therapeutic.

Work has been crazy busy since the beginning of the year. We lost one of our nurse coordinators & I have had to cover half of her patients, including most of her "complicated" patients. The increased workload has been very demanding. I applied for and have been told unofficially that I've been accepted as an RN III. There are 3 levels of RNs in our hospital and the RN III is the highest of those. I have been working on meeting the requirements for the RN III for the past year, including taking the Certified Pediatric Nurse exam. So not to totally toot my own horn, but its kind of a big deal! With it, I received a 10% pay increase & 1 more week a year of vacation, which brings me up to 5 weeks a year. As I said, its unofficial...I've been told by my manager that I was approved, even before my committee met, however, I still haven't officially seen anything in writing. If everything goes as planned, I should see my raise on this coming pay check, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one!

Lots of wedding stuff going on..too many last minute holly hobbie projects. I am so blessed to have a great maid of honor who is taking her post way too seriously but has totally been into helping me with everything! That's her at the top of the page, folding paper cranes. I can't figure out how to put her in with this paragraph! I currently have 3 projects in the works--menus, bridesmaid hairpieces, & picture boards to cover some nasty black velvet at the 20th Century Theatre. We will add the programs to our workload once we meet with the Minister this week and know the schedule of the cermony.

If you're out there, let me know..give me a reason to keep this mess up!