"Don't Tell Mom The Babysitters Dead!....(He Broke His Neck Falling Over All The Damn Toys.....As He Was Trying To Escape From The Grand-Monsters)..."

Good Evening:

It's good to be able to get out of the shoebox/insane asylum/Jenn's apartment!
Have I mentioned my love for cold weather and my related affection for snow!!!
YEAH....riiigghhhhtttt!!!!
First off...read this, the triumph of the spirit, and man's humanity!! to man!
Inside a United States Courthouse: A Native Hawaiian Speaks.
I am privileged and honored to be able to say I know these folks and can call them friends. 'Iokepa's quiet dignity and the strength and power of his of his belief, and the courage to act upon them in against all odds has been an inspiration to me and a source of power in my own struggles. Click it, read it, and be renewed!

So....If I ever needed an object lesson as to why I could not live with Jenn, the grand kids, and my son-in-law, even if we all had a big...Big..BIG!! house, these weeks have been it! I am awaiting enough of the snow to melt so I can get to the shed and assess the damage, if any, that the wind and the drifting snow has left. The door was blown open during the 2nd heavy, record breaking blizzard, and between the drifted and piled up by the plows snow mountains, I have not been able to safely and inconspicuously get in to the shed. I have been at Jenn's since Feb. 3rd, the night we went to the Ice Show. I have been doing more than my share of child care and babysitting duties as part of my effort to pull my weight and show my gratitude. I have also been food shopping and cooking, both to give Jenn a break, and to take advantage of the opportunity to do so, I never get the chance anymore, and my culinary skills are one of the ways I identify myself.

Differing attitudes as to a father's household duties, and attitude toward participatory child rearing are forcing me to keep my mouth shut as tightly as I can...my tongue is nearly bitten through.....!

The other major issue is the attitude and behavior of my grandson, and the at times schizophrenic ways, means, and style of discipline he receives...or does not!!

And of course I'm a dad, and trying not to say something when your daughter and her husband argue...fight...and at times verbally eviscerate one another is a supreme effort, although it is made easier by Jenn's ability to hold her own ground.

Add to the mix a dog that effin' STINKS, and is suffering from severe dry skin (as are we all from the forced hot air heat, and the fact that whenever Jenn and I try to put a big kettle of water on the boil to humidify the air, someone keeps turning off the gas stove, moaning about utility bills as he leaves every damn light and the television on in the bedroom, while also turning out the 7 1/2 watt night light an the dark kitchen.....false economy, the price of everything...and the value of nothing?), and is constantly scratching & biting at herself all night long as I am trying to sleep on the couch or recliner that leaves my back worse off than the cardboard box mattress in the shed.

Hey, I'm grateful as can be to be out of the old and the snow, but even if they wanted me to stay long term, (and I am honest enough to admit that I am not the perfect roommate either, especially in a family situation, where boundaries are so much more fluid and the "gray areas get real fuzzy around the edges"), I would never be able to survive, nor would our renewed relationship. And to be brutally honest...I'd be doing dope eventually.....it can get that tense.

Which brings me to the final tangent of the evening....7 years ago, Presidents Day 2003....we here in Baltimore also had a blizzard that, if not breaking, at least equaled records going back over 100 years. 7 years ago...I was 6 months married to the woman who would become Rachels mother, and pregnant with what would have been our first child if it had not been for a later miscarriage. I was unsuccessfully coping with her viscious custody battle for her 4 kids from her previous marriage to a man who did not want the children for their own sake, but only to deny them to her, and to bolster his own image in the frum community, and who used any and every unethical legal and dirty trick to make her, us, and me look bad, including filing false police reports, which were dismissed on a total lack of grounds, spreading lies and rumours , taking her to the Rabbinical court the Beit Din, which threw his case out, and eventually to the civil courts, whom he had ignored denied their jurisdiction over him, and was eventually jailed by for contempt, but who he used to his advantage when he could throw money and lawywrs at my 'ex' in a concerted effort to break her monetarily. The man who the judge said of, "I do not want to give these children to you, but on a financial level I am legally bound by law to do so."..(paraphrased).....just a little back story...lol. 7 years ago, I was stressed to the point of breaking and had relapsed over New Years Eve, and acquired a dope habit again, that because of the city being totally shut down over the course of 4 days did not get fed and sent me into withdrawal halfway through the storm....not a fun time at all!!!!

So........it is said that the human body renews all the cells capable of renewal in 7 year cycles, and ones life is divided into 7 year phases or segments.......

7 years later,....I am homeless, and not working, with some physical and mental health issues that are or have the possibility to become fairly severe or even debilitating......at times I have been eating out of garbage cans, at other times panhandling, I am deep in debt that I cannot ever see getting out of, and possibly facing jail time in March because of old child support arrears....(almost forgot about that, didn't you....well I haven't....lol)..it would seem that I was at my lowest point would it not...Well, you would be wrong!......

I have been invited back into my oldest daughter's life and family, and home, I am clean chemically or that would never have happened. They say that since you and I have been doing this blog thing together, and I have been on my meds, that I have changed for the better. I have a wonderful relationship with my beautiful Rachel, and see her as often as I can, (and you know that when circumstances dictate that I don't, the blog reflects my sadness), I have met an amazing assortment of people, on the street corner when begging, in the coffee shop, on Craigs List, and through this blog.....I have not one but 2 magazine stories about me being published within 2 weeks of each other...(According to the latest info...see the Baltimore Jewish Times, February 19th 2010 issue, this Friday......geez I hope I don't come off as an asshole....or at least, TOO much of one!)...

And as miserable as I sometimes get, in general, I have never been more grateful, or happier...Yeah I could use a few things....but who couldn't, welllllll....maybe I COULD use a bit more than most of you.....LOL!

But.....the very fact that even at the blackest moments, when I could taste the cold blue steel, and the smell of oil and cordite filled my sinuses, and the click as the hammer cocked reverberated like a gong as the sound was amplified by bone conduction straight through to my brain.....even when the pain, both physical and emotional was unbearable,

there was always that tiny little spark of HOPE that remained lit deep deep down inside, that and and the thought of my girls....and the pain it would cause them...that prevented me from pulling the trigger.....as much as I wanted to stop hurting, I stumbled on, another breath, another minute, another, hour, another day. And like Robert Frost's two roads converging in a wood...it HAS made all the difference.

I can still retain a little bit of independence, a smidgen of self respect, a bit of dignity, a whole batch of gratitude, a modicum of humility, and an outrageously large sense of irony/absurdity/humor.

So 7 years of not so good luck, and out of that...almost 6 years of sheer and total shock and awe at my amazing Rachel, child of light and love, I'm ready for 7 years of better circumstances to be able to give her what she deserves......And to try to make amends where and when I can, to do something useful and fulfilling, and yeah...to get some "stuff" too.

I'm starting the 4th quarter of my life in 10 days, maybe I can emulate the Saints, not the Ravens this time around....LOL!

I'm done tonight, it is back to Jenn's, (after a quick pass by the beer store for some anti-freeze to keep me from freezing on the bus stop.....lol! and a sanity buffer!), I may see if I can get to the shed easily tomorrow, and maybe to the Starbucks for the first time in 2 weeks.

As Edward R. Murrow used to say:

"Good Night, And, Good Luck"

Dave.....................