I'm sure I've blogged about this before, but if being repetitive is my worst trait in life, I'll be fine.  Every year my mind goes back in time.  No matter where I've been in the world, this week, my mind comes home.

It's Derby week!  That's right... it's time to get out your prettiest, most expensive, smart-looking floral dresses and brightly colored suits.  Ladies, only the biggest, most intruding hat will do!  White lace gloves and outrageously loud ties.

This is how I remember the Kentucky Derby while growing up.  People attending from outside the state don't get what it's really all about.  They still believe it's about the horse race.  The entire week prior to the derby is filled with gala after gala.  Parties on every corner. 

When I started attending the derby as an adult, I quickly realized the place to be was infield.  Forget the pretentious tight assed people in the stands.  The FUN people were all infield in their jeans and amazingly creative derby hats they had spent hours making themselves.  EVERYBODY is happy.  Everybody is drunk, and NOBODY gives a rat's ass about who wins the race.  Oh sure, we all placed minimal bets, but I honestly can't tell you how I ever chose my horse.  I'm guessing I was drunk enough by the time I placed the bet that I probably picked the horse with the prettiest name or something similar to that.  Yeah, I know, I'm such a girly girl.

Have you ever actually had a mint julep?  That is the nastiest drink I have ever had in my mouth.  And I should note that I'm not really a girly drink kind of woman.  If I'm going to get plastered, just give me the tequila.  If I'm sipping to enjoy the buzz, I'll water it down a bit by drinking rum and coke.

Anyway.  Mint Juleps are a derby tradition and it's completely sacrilegious to attend the event and not drink one.  In the South, we're nothing if not traditional.  So every year I would drink one mint julep because I was too dumb to just say, "No thanks.  I don't really like them."

I grew up next door to my grandparents.  They owned a small horse farm.  Being raised by a Southern Baptist deacon didn't allow for attending the derby or doing much of anything else.  But growing up next door to a moonshine running grandfather allowed for PLENTY.  (Knowing this about me  you suddenly realize how one woman can be so screwed up, right.)

I was the favorite grandchild.  I'm not just saying that!  They never actually "showed" it.  They loved us all very much.  But I was the first.  I was also the only one that ever really showed an interest in my grandparents, so it didn't look like I was the favorite.  It just looked like I was the one that chose to always be around.

Helping my grandfather around the farm used to get me five dollar bills and all the candy in the world.  Back then a five dollar bill was wealth beyond measure to a kid.  He'd buy mixed candy by the pound because he knew I only liked certain kinds... jellybeans, licorice, and juju beads.

I was such a wild child.  During summer vacations I was always up and running through the field to get to my grandparents' house long before the dew evaporated off the grass.  And I never wore shoes.  My grandmother would scold me and tell me I'd get worms if I didn't wear shoes.  The only time I wore them was if I knew I was going to be mucking around in the horse poop in the barns.  Being in the barns scared me to death.  Black snakes hung out in there.  You weren't allowed to kill them because they kept the rats out of the hay.  I still shiver thinking about them.

Pappaw lost a leg in a farming accident right before I was born.  The artificial one was awkward so he couldn't really climb around the barn lofts.  He made me feel so important by letting me climb up there and knock the hay out to the animals.  Although he had adult help, he pretended the farm would go bust without me. 

He taught me things most kids never get to learn.  Things I've long since forgotten.  Hundreds of times I've cut through the fields bareback on a horse too fast and too big for me.  He taught me how to handle them.  He'd tell me how to tell a good race horse from a bad one.  He knew which crops were going to do well long before harvest.  He knew if the last frost had happened before the weatherman knew.

With all his knowledge and all my hero worshipping, he was just a man.  He had faults.  He drank a lot.  But he was one of those drinkers that can be absolutely smashed and you never know it.  And he liked to gamble.  He played poker on the weekends.  Gambling and liquor don't mix.  When I was eleven years old, on Halloween night, my grandfather was shot and killed by his best friend over a hand of poker.  I kid you not.  My whole world changed that night.

Within a few years we moved and left the farm.  My mother wanted to be closer to her family, and my father couldn't stand looking at my grandfather's legacy every day.  Today, all that's left is one barn and a decrepit farm house that my grandmother refuses to leave although it's falling in around her.  I watch the derby on tv... if I see it at all.

I've lived in Europe.  I've lived in five different states.  I've driven on the autobahn in Germany, hiked along the paths of Hitler in Austria, and climbed the Eiffel Tower.  I've seen the snowcapped mountains of Montana and learned to two-step from cowboys in Texas.  I've sunbathed on the beaches of Florida, toured the lighthouses all along the east coast, and lost a really nice pair of heels partying in Nashville.  I learned what it really means to go clubbing from the grundge kids in Seattle and picked up men with my accent in Boston. 

I could name dozens of places and even more experiences but the point would be the same.  And that is, no matter where I've been and what I've done, at some point I have always clicked the heels of my ruby slippers and ended up right back where I started. 

It might not be the way you left it, but you most certainly can go home again... no matter how long you've been gone.

I've deleted this post to start over four times now.  Knowing the mood I'm in and what I want to say is entirely different from actually being able to say it.  Not to mention, every time I think I'm on the right track I get distracted and end up back at zero.

When I woke up this morning it was really cold in the house even though I remembered to check the thermostat last night to make sure the heat was on.  I hate these transitional weeks between seasons.  It's hot during the day and frosting at night.  Although everything was set right, there was no heat.  I went downstairs to check things and thought I'd fixed it.  But now I'm sitting here an hour later, and it's still freaking cold.  So I'm going to have to go back down to the freezing creepy basement and try again.

The first time I was down there this morning trying to fix the broken heat I found a leak coming from somewhere.  Isn't that just wonderful.  There are definite drawbacks to buying a hundred year old house.  Not so much that I regret it but enough to make me want to punch something sometimes.

I love my house.  I'm even looking forward to putting some hard labor into the landscaping this year.  Hopefully I'll be able to turn the yard around finally... make it something we can enjoy.  I want to be able to sit on the front porch, in the swing I've waited my entire life to have, and actually like what I see laid out before me.

I like the backyard better because of the deck and what you would think to be privacy provided by the six foot brick fence, but somehow our neighbors still manage to take notice of everything we do back there.  Women like her are why so many people are in prison.  And her husband... when I catch him watching us... he's the slimey bottom of a really sticky feeling for me.  It's just creepy.

If I sit here any longer trying to convince myselt it's getting warmer I'm going to freeze to death.  My gift of denial is strong but not that strong.  I can't feel my toes.

I put yesterday's emotional overload into physical labor and did what I love to do best.  I worked outside.  I got dirty.  I am determined to finish correcting the landscaping issue this year.  I think having a barren wasteland for a front yard has caused me more trauma than I'm willing to admit, and considering I've bitched about it as much as I have, you can assume that's a lot.

Teen social butterfly went with me to choose some flowers yesterday.  I have to tell you a bit about her.  She's a beautiful girl.  She's going through typical fifteen year old girl stuff right now.  She has gone from being on top of the world to having no self-esteem whatsoever, and I'm doing everything I can to be a positive influence in her life by letting her know what a remarkable person she is becoming.  Not only is she truly a physically pretty young lady, but she is also very smart.  She is an A student knee deep in advanced placement and pre-college classes in school.  And this is just her freshman year.  She's very social, too.  Just a very well-rounded young lady.  She has goals and dreams, and I will do my best to help her achieve them.

Now having said that, I have to admit having her hit puberty makes me want to strangle her at least once a day.  One minute she's fine, the next... I have a priest on speed dial, and I'm not Catholic.  On top of this, as intelligent as she is, she has absolutely no common sense.  I mean none.

I always have the local news playing in the background while I'm getting everyone ready in the morning.  One particular day this past winter the local weather forecast was calling for some pretty cold temperatures.  When we got into the car to head toward school, from out of nowhere my fifteen year old girl wonder suddenly says,

Girl Wonder:  "I don't get it.  Why do people even care how cold their windshields are."

Me: "Huh?"

Girl Wonder:  "People's windshields!  Why does it matter how cold they are?  And how does the weatherman know how cold our windshield is gonna be?"

It hits me.  I spend the next ten minutes explaining the weatherman isn't saying "windshield", he's saying "wind chill".  She'd spent years thinking people wanted to know how cold their windshields are during the winter.

Yesterday we're out buying plants.  She sees these darling little rose bushes and falls in love with them.  I give in and decide to buy a couple of them even though I doubt they'll live where I'm going to put them.  She was just so animated about them.  As she's walking to get them I say,

Me:  "Be careful with those when you pick them up!"

Girl Wonder:  (suddenly in a really shrill voice) "OUCH!"

Me:  "What's wrong?"

Girl Wonder:  "They have thorns!  I got thorns in my hand!"

Me:  "I told you to be careful.  Come here and let me see your hand."

Girl Wonder:  "I thought you meant for me to be careful and not hurt the flower.  I didn't know roses really have thorns!  I thought it was just a song!"

Guess what... she's a brunette.

One thing I've never done since starting this blog is censor it.  When I decided to use a blog as sort of a diary/personal therapy session, I went all in.  I was at a point in my life where merely putting my thoughts to paper wasn't enough.  I'm not the type of person who can find comfort by writing a letter and then throwing it away.  If I have to get something off my chest, if it gets to the point of needing to put it down, I have to also put it out there.  There's no release for me if I stay safe.  So this blog began for that reason.  I needed to feel the sending and receiving of it all even if no one ever actually read it. 

Of course these words have become so much more than that over time.  I'd be lying if I said I don't thrive on knowing a few people read this and some of them even enjoy it.  I love positive feed back and just like any attention whore I aim to please when I post.  I don't fancy myself a "writer" by any stretch of the imagination, but I do love to write with a passion I can't explain.

There have been times when I needed to bare my soul but fought off the urge.  Most of the time I didn't do it because in my heart I knew the situation wouldn't change, I wouldn't feel better, nothing would be better/worse even if I did.  I have regretted not posting a thought or two over the years.  And lord knows I've gone back and read a few posts that have made me cringe. 

This post would be one of those... probably the most intimate ever.  I would stand here naked before you... no pride, protection, or logic.  I would blatantly humiliate myself with a magnitude of raw emotion I've never displayed before.  And I need to do it.  But I can't.  I can't because somewhere around 3am I lost the ability to breathe.

Despite all the heartbreak, stress, and negativity around me right now, in my heart I know I've never really been happier in my life.  But in reality where does that actually get me?  Endlessly caught between begging for happily ever after and saying fuck it all?  I'm not a fence riding kind of girl.

When Screwboy and I got married there was never really a honeymoon period.  We became a ready made blended family with mortgages and car payments and credit card debt out the butt.  We had high stress jobs, critical families with attitudes, physical health problems, and more emotional baggage than suitcases in the cargo hold of a 747 airplane.

We even had sexual hurdles to clear in the beginning.  I remember, quite clearly, something he said to me right after some particularly hot monkey sex one night.  "That's it.  Fuck this.  I'm buying you a mattress.  This piece of shit is ruining my knees."  How could it not be love.

But we've overcome all that to settle into a wonderful life and a wonderful marriage.  In ways it feels like we're in a honeymoon period that will last forever.

We had a fairly relaxing evening last night.  We watched Juno  and laughed a lot.  We're both so tired lately anything that will relax us at the end of the day is just great.

Once it's time for bed, I love him, but he drives me crazy.  He's like my grandmother.  It takes him an hour to get ready for bed.  What does it take?!  Pee, brush your teeth, take your drugs... get naked.  Some nights by the time he's in bed, I don't want to jump him, I want to smack him.  Yeah, I get frustrated easily.

But somehow, even in the glaring bright glow of the freaking blue satellite receiver light, the flickering green from his cell, the cat digging around in her food bowl, and the mentally handicapped birds outside our window, he manages to relax me.  He always pulls me close and tells me how much he loves me.  The world is perfect. Yeah,  permanent honeymoon.

Then he sticks his cold-ass feet on me, I kick him, and we fall asleep.

I didn't feel this morning's earthquake or aftershock, whichever it ends up being.  It does freak me out a little, though.  All those times I did something really stupid and prayed for the earth to swallow me, and nothing.  Now, now when I'm perfectly happy...

I spent the weekend doing absolutely nothing noteworthy.  I fought with blog templates written in Italian which has led me to the conclusion I need to learn Italian or learn to make my own template.  I'm from the southern United States.  I do well enough to speak English, so I think I'll just make my own template.

I also spent most of Saturday trying to fight back the urge to help my witch neighbor end up on the back of a milk carton.  I know that's crude, but if I had a single nerve left, she'd be on it.  She is the most arrogant self righteous bitter bitch on the face of the earth.  Her life isn't easy.  I get that.  She has a husband (her fourth or fifth) who rarely works, the job from hell, and she's raising her grandkids.  Okay, "raising" is being nice.  She keeps them drugged so that she can pretend they're perfect when the reality is they're evil little buggers.  Kids should get to be kids.  If not, they grow up to having their neighbors being interviewed on the local news saying such things as, "But he was always such a quiet young man.  I can't believe he ate those people."

That was my weekend.  How was yours?

What's the perfect way to end the week from hell?  Why, an earthquake, of course!  Not what I mean when I say I want to feel the earth move, by the way.  It was felt around here, but it hit north of us along the Indiana/Illinois line.  Tornados, I can handle.  Feeling the ground shake beneath my feet is just a bit too intimidating for me.

Color me bitchy, but I'm tired of hearing about the pope, polygamy, and presidential wantabes.  I realize I may sound close minded since I'm not Catholic, I don't play well with others, and I don't give a rat's ass about the two Democratic crybabies currently playing the "he said... she said..." game.

I worked outside yesterday and absorbed some sunshine.  It put me in a better mood although it kicked my butt.  I hate physical labor, but the good thing about it is I'm able to see the progress.  It's tangible.  There's so much to do around here, and I'm always playing catch up.  I'm still trying to get past feeling guilty about not being perfect around the house since I'm no longer working professionally.

I hate feeling grown up guilt.  I'd rather feel guilty over something like having too many shots of tequila or eating too much chocolate.  I hate important guilt.  I hate anything important these days.  I don't have the attention span to deal with them.

I hope your weekend is filled with tons of relaxation.  If not, you can always come here and bitch about it with me!

Just a bit of morning trivia for you. 

Three cups of coffee and narcotics on an empty stomach is not nearly as fun as it sounds. (Okay, maybe it is, a little.)   If you add in no more than three to four hours of sleep per night for the past week or more, you get one completely spazed out woman.  Me.

I have a plan every single day.  I get up early, and by the time I have to wake everyone up I have my schedule of responsiblities figured out, and I'm ready to go.  And then something ALWAYS shoots it to hell.  I don't remember the last day I actually accomplished what I set out to do that morning.  Up at 5am and not asleep until midnight or later... you'd think that would be enough time in a normal woman's day.  Apparently not.

I think I was seven the last time I said, "I'm bored.".

I'm thirty-six years old, and I am not aging gracefully.  I'm fighting it every step of the way.  I still consider myself to be a young woman.  I'm in complete denial.  I have to constantly remind myself that all those commercials for anti-aging products are aimed at me, my age group.  Unless I'm thinking about it, my mind still registers those as being my mother's products.  Oh I buy them.  I just don't tell myself about it.

Over the years I have watched my mother age in her hands.  I never really noticed the addition of lines and wrinkles on her face or the gray appearing in her hair.  I haven't really paid much attention to the onset of frailty at all.  But I've watched her hands slowly go from young, soft, and smooth to rough, creased, and blotched.  At first it scared me.  I didn't want to think about my hands eventually looking like that.  Her hands were ugly to me.  However over the past few years I've realized she has the most beautiful hands in the world. 

For someone who might stumble onto this blog for the first time just let me note that my mother has never been the most emotionally sound or responsible parent.  To be honest, she was down right neglectful more than once during my childhood.  Some people are capable of giving and giving and sacrificing everything for love and family.  My mother is not one of those people.  But I know in my heart she did the best she could.  She has loved us as much as she's capable of loving anyone or anything.

Every single age spot and every tiny crease on her hands was put there while using those hands to care for her family.  There isn't a cream, lotion, or miracle product my mother hasn't tried to slow down the process of growing old.  But there is only so much she can do.

Lately I've noticed my hands are looking old.  Being that I'm in denial about evidence a crow obviously walked across my eyes while I was sleeping at some point in recent history, I surely haven't been able to admit my hands are looking like a dried up lake bed.  Unlike the respect and love that I feel when I notice the age showing on my mother's hands, it's freaking me out about my own.  I don't want old hands.  I want the young, smooth, delicate hands of my youth.

I can't stop time, and investing in the things those commercials are trying to sell me will only slow it down so much.  Of course even that is going to require me to actually admit I need the stuff. 

Hello.  My name is Angel, and I'm getting wrinkly.  Hurry up and sell me what you can because I can't promise how long this fall into reality will last.  I could be feeling young and invincible again by dinner.  At which time your miracles will no longer be needed by me, and this will return to being my mother's issues.  But for now, I'm gullible, and my hands look old.

I didn't realize the time that has passed since my last post.  It hasn't been intentional, I've just been so busy.  Spring break came and went and now it's back to normal this morning.  We didn't get to do anything "special", but that's both good and bad.  B ended up terribly sick for the first few days of the break, and Screw was sick for the final half of the week.  We may not have gone away for the break or planned anything spectacular, but it was still a good week because we did absolutely nothing.  And when I say "nothing", I truly mean NOTHING.  Now it's Monday morning, and I'm freaking out a bit.  The things I have to do today are overwhelming.  At least they would be if I think about them too much.  I intend to think about them... not at all.  I'll get to them if I get to them.  I've had a migraine for two days now, and for once I'm just not that hurried to put myself through hell in order to catch up!

So the oldest turned seventeen this weekend.  Whoa!  How dumb were we to drop close to a grand on a drum set?!  Not dumb at all.  If you could have only seen the look in his eyes.  He has lived with us for less than a year, and it still blows him away when he sees us sacrifice for him financially, emotionally, or any other way.  (Lord knows we give up plenty mental stability!)  The house is just big enough so that he doesn't drive us crazy with his practices.  Not to mention, what I've heard so far is pretty dang good for a beginner.  I look at him.  He's so handsome with the world at his feet.  He's a good kid.  Make no mistake, he's still a kid.  I was out in the world providing for myself by seventeen.  He would never make it.  Well, I'm sure self preservation would kick in if it had to, but he's nowhere near the maturity my generation was by his age.  And the truth is he's one of the more responsibly mature kids around.  I think trying to provide for our children and shelter them from the bad things in life sometimes causes us to cross the lines from protecting to spoiling.  We have a year to get him ready for the responsibilities of college life.  We'll get him there if it kills us all!

I have missed my quiet mornings.  I honestly thought I'd feel worse when the clock sounded earlier.  I know I didn't fall asleep until sometime after one and the clock alarmed at five.  But the first cup of coffee in the stillness of the morning, watching the local news, reading my favorite blogs... I don't feel horrible at all.  I do feel a little guilty because I'm a little disappointed.  I know it's selfish of me, but I wish some of Screw's vacation had been while the kids were in school.  I know that's horrible.  They need time with Daddy as badly as I do.  But now he's back to work, who knows when he'll get more time off, and we had no alone time at all.  Selfish, I know, but he works so much and I miss him. 

I don't mean to complain.  I certainly don't regret having nine days with my husband and my kids.  And even now, facing this mountain of chores, I don't regret sitting on my arse and doing nothing for the entire week.  Ok... maybe I regret it a little.  I'm only freaking out a little.

A couple nights ago I was reading a news article on the drug Singulair and it's possible link to suicide.  When I come across these types of articles I always read them.  I'm sleeping with a pharmacist.  I  want to know what he thinks.  We get good laughs at the drug commercials now that they're forced to list all those possible side effects.  Mirapex... yeah, you won't suffer from restless leg syndrome, but you're likely to gamble all your money away and become a complete whore.  Never mind that you're more likely to be hit by a toilet seat falling from the space station than experiencing these effects, they have to tell you about them.  And that's good!  We have a right to know!

So I'm always interested in what my husband has to say about these articles when I read them.  I think it's mostly because it turns me on when he gets all intelligent sounding.  And lord knows he's more intelligent than most of the people writing and being interviewed.

Anyway, this particular article contained comments from one of the important people over at Merck.  I'm sure he was nervous and having to watch every single word he said.  This is a drug company.  This is a very popular drug.  Billions of dollars on the line.  And after this comment I don't really believe he made anyone feel any better:

"But because suicide is a life-threatening event we thought it was important to provide this information in the product label."

No shit, sherlock.