I have been sneaking around.

I've been sneaking around with a hot guy for the past two weeks, and don't have an ounce of guilt or regret. Not only is he intelligent, handsome, funny, but he plans to whisk me away to a place I have missed for almost 15 years. Can't blame a girl for taking a chance on him. We have been meeting for lunch, just the two of us; making sure my night owl daughter goes to bed early, and just hang out. Dude even volunteers to go on boring errands with me, as long as it is just the two of us. Any good mother would feel guilty about sneaking around on her child, but I'm just fine with it. In a week we are returning to the days when SS will be omnipresent. Sounds selfish, but also necessary.

The moving planning and doing is going slow in my opinion. P differs, he thinks we are in good shape to leave on schedule. I have had a couple of obstacles that have been unnecessary, and thus, annoying as heck. I went Online to pay or cable/Internet bill and schedule an end to our service. That is when I found out my debit card was not going through. After an eternity on hold I was informed that my account was closed two days prior, not by me, but by one of Chase's geniuses.I explained that we are moving and I needed a card ASAP. The woman had the gall to tell me I'd have to wait 10 business days (HELLO we won't be here!), then her supervisor stated that the account could not be reactivated after 2 days. The story then changed and my card was deactivated 16 days ago. After that came questions "from information in public records" to verify my identity. Now that was a hoot.

The first question had me at a lost, I did not recognize any of the agencies mentioned. Then I was asked which of three addresses I had been associated with in the past. The "right" answer was P's address his first year in college. Really people? I am surprised I remembered. Then I was asked to identify where in Texas my son owns property. Huh? JJ has a very distinctive name if spelled properly, the name provided (and I asked for the spelling more than once) was not my child. My last name is not very common, but not rare among Spanish descendants. Except that JJ has my and P's last names, just like SS. They had the wrong guy, but in their eyes, I was the one in the wrong. P made it better by going to the bank with me, and restraining me from going ballistic on them. The nice teller could sense my frustration (and capacity for inflicting harm) and in fifteen minutes my card was miraculously reactivated. Seriously, phone lady expected me to write checks all the way to our new home? The only reason we have checks is because SS's school accepts only checks.

P decided to treat me to lunch today (we had yummy Thai yesterday), but took a detour to upgrade our phones. That took forever, but he is a short timer, so he was not worried about how long he was gone from work. I drove home after lunch and tried to set my new, shiny, overly hyped phone. It died, the mother trucker, after just one phone call JUST DIED. What is it with me and my bad freaking luck? I called Apple's tech support and the nice gentleman (whom I could barely understand) cheerfully told me that my phone was probably locked during the set up. He cheerfully announced that he would unlock my phone for the dirt cheap price of $69.99! I might have used some colorful language. I had the freaking phone for one whole hour. I just have the worst luck ever, except when it comes to my kids. Drove to store, store did not have my phone in black, and there's no way I would be caught with a white one. Drive to other store (arranged by original store), where I'm informed returns can only happen at the point of sale (POS, very fitting I think). Long story short the manager recalled a positive experience with me, made an exception, and I had only wasted three hours of my very busy day. That running around usually would not bother me, but when I'm in pain, well, I get kind of grouchy.

P has been in a rather cheerful mood the past two weeks. It's no surprise that when I told him my "poor me, first my card, now my phone" tale of woes, he could not have been less sympathetic. That is one of the things that I admire and also infuriate me about the guy. He does not mollify just because it is expected. He empathized with the chronic pain, but also reminded me that if I followed doctor's instructions (dude's a dreamer), and plain common sense (Have we met?), I would not be in as much pain. P also reminded me that we are in a pretty good place right now. Pretty stressful but also hopeful. The thing is to get through this move with the least amount of disruption to SS (HAH!).

7 days till...




It's good to find many SS's "I'm doing my normal thing" moments, amid the chaos that is our place

P playing with learning his new toy how to operate his new mode of communication, purchased for the sole purpose of communicating with his daughter. Because as we all know, SS gets so little face time with her Baba. Still, they are so freaking cute.