Bank of America sucks

So I refinanced my second mortgage at a lower interest rate for five years less and while I did that I paid off my stupid ass Bank of America Visa that unbeknownst to me was at 29 fucking percent interest. Because of my complete stupidity and ignorance to all things financial, I racked up a HUGE bill consisting mostly of finance charges. So I walk into Bank of America, tell them I want to pay the balance and close the account. I wrote them a check, received a letter that my account was closed and low and behold. . .I get a fucking statement today stating that I owe them $22.37 in FINANCE charges. FOR WHAT??????? How can I owe a finance charge on a zero balance on a closed account??
Those motherfuckers.
So I try to call my branch.
They're closed.
Until 10:00.
What lazy asses.
If I have to get my ass out of bed to take kids to school at 7:30, they should be there banking.
I am so pissed right now I could scream.
And I think I will, at the stupid Bank of America people!

A little photo blogging from the long weekend

Well my holiday started with seeing my girlfriend in concert.
No, we didn't run away together, but I had fun just the same. Like I said before, I don't have good pictures because I don't have a D-70 (or D-50, which is what I am currently covetting)
But here are two.
My Mom and I waiting for the concert to begin.

Gwen in all her beauty.


Then on Thanksgiving, LBCG and I went on The Portland Spirit's Thanksgiving Brunch Cruise. It was quite fun.

It was very good food, great drinks and very pretty scenery. It didn't even rain.
After the cruise we came back to my house and watched the dog show that I had TiVo'd, drank hot chocolate Mojitos, and read the paper.
After that, we had a bite to eat and went to see Walk the Line. I highly recommend that movie, it was fantastic!
Then on Friday, we were lucky enough to have LeLo and her partner AdRi come over and bring Wink, Gingers bio sister.
They were so, so, so cute and had a blast playing, biting eachother, fighting over bones, running around in circles and peeing on the floor. We had some nice mulled wine and some food and had a very lovely visit.





Aren't they precious?

Today DD#3 woke up with yet another fever. She is just finishing her course of antibiotics from the strep of ten days ago. I guess it's back to the doctor for her tomorrow.
LBCG and I have also not been feeling well so I had a lazy day of laying on the couch and watching more kids telelvision shows with my wee one.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day with healthy children???
(Fingers crossed. . .)

Gwen Rocks!

The concert was fanfuckingtastic and I was completely happy and in heaven the entire time.
I don't have good pictures because, well, I don't have a D-70 and my camera did not have a good enough zoom to get excellent shots of her. Besides, Kami has the best damn pictures of Gwen in concert I could ever imagine. Go see her pics, pretend it's in Portland, and you'll have what I saw on Wednesday night.

My Mom rocks and I am so grateful to her for taking me! I will most definitely go see Gwen again when given the chance.

Okay, I didn't get to run away with her, but that's okay. . . next time!

Thanksgiving

I hope you all had the very happiest and most wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. . . and D. and all of my other non-US friends, I hope you had a Happy Thursday!

Thanksgiving is one of those weird holidays; yes it's something to celebrate but when you really get down to the real reasons we celebrate it, there are few redeeming elements about it. But nonetheless, it's TRADITION! And I'm all for tradition.

It's a day to remember what you are grateful for, and I am grateful for so many things in my life this year.
My Beautiful Children and sweet puppy

My LBCG

My Mom

My Brother

Old Friends

New Friends


All that I have, and all that I am.
Where I've been and where I'm going.
I am Thankful.
I am also thankful for all of you.
Thank you!

Tonight's The Night!

That one of my dreams come true!

RSG's residence, searched by local police

So yesterday, I'm in Petco with FIVE children (mine plus LBCG's two DD's) when my cell phone rings. I look at the caller ID and see that it's my home number calling me. Assuming it might be LBCG or my Mom, I answer the phone to a strange man's voice.

strange man: "Is this RSG?"
me: "ah, yes."
strange man: "this is officer Soandso with the Scary Suburb police station."
me: "what's wrong? you're calling from MY HOUSE"

Well apparently my front door was wide open. One of my neighbors in the land of tupperware and mini-vans got concerned and called the police to investigate. Mind you, nothing ever really criminal ever occurs here; the occasional car break in, sometimes someone's wallet gets stolen or sometimes a persons lawn ornament gets taken, but for the most part, there's not a lot going on in Pleasantville.

So officer Soandso, doing his police duty searched my home from top to bottom, (hopefully avoiding my underwear drawers. . .) and then CALLED MY EX-HUSBAND!!!!!!!!!!
XH was the last one to call me on my phone and Officer Soandso went throught my Caller ID list and phoned the last person who called me. Officer Soandso asked XH if we were going on a trip because he observed bags left in the hallway. (They were the girls school backpacks. . .) XH was quite alarmed and giving Officer Soandso quite the inquisition. He wanted to know who he was and why was he calling from his ex-wifes house. He wouldn't even give him my cell phone number.

I asked Officer Soandso if my dog was still there, (I meant LBCG's dog who was staying at my house.) He told me that my XH told him that I didn't have a smal black dog; so Officer Soandso called the number on the dogs tag (which is the Captains number,) to tell the owner that their dog wandered into someones house!
Can you believe this shit?
I assured Officer Soandso that the dog did indeed belong there and that as long as everything looked to be there; the crime was nothing more than my one of my kids not shutting the door all the way. I sent him on his way and hope he then got on with his life catching criminals.

When I arrived home; all I could wonder was if Officer Soandso was judging me for the three baskets of clean laundry waiting to be put away or all of the stuff all over my counters from shopping and were there any of my bras hanging on the doorknob of my bedroom?

So today, before I leave the house, it will be picked up and clean; just in case my house is once again searched by the local police.

I suggest you all do the same.

Thank you all for the wonderful hair advice. Who knew you bloggers were so knowledgable about beauty?

In my own defense, I must say that I apply the hair color just fine. I know how to properly mix it and apply it, check it, rinse it. I do all of that just fine.
It's picking the color that gives me a problem.
So I figure that all I have to do is have Dashababy pick out the color FOR me,
I'll go to the store and BUY it, put it on, and all will be well in the world of my hair.
Yes?
Dashababy?

I know you're all DYING to see my DYE job. (he-he, that was kind of funny.)
I couldn't post it yesteday because LBCG hadn't seen it yet, and I didn't want the world to see before she did. I did call her and warn her though. She just keeps looking at me and saying, "oh my god RSG . . . that HAIR"
Everyone at my Glamorous Waitressing Job did get a chance to see it though; and I will tell you that I made GREAT money last night; I only had $500.00 in sales and made $100.00.
It's got to be the hair.

I'm not saying it looks great, because it is a bit, how do you say? Dramatic? But it's not the worst color I've ever seen, actually the color is pretty, I'm just not sure I like it on me. But I think that being a redhead is a little fun and a little sassy.
And I'm a litttle fun and a little sassy.
Plus plenty of other people have colored their hair red and they look GREAT.
I like to think of it as I am joining the ranks of some famous redheaded people.
People like:
Queen Elizabeth the first

Bette Davis

Lucille Ball

Susan Sarandon

The very beautiful Julianne Moore,

and Sydney does it ALL of the time:

Even my girl, Gwen:


And now, RSG:






I guess I should just be thankful that I don't look like him:

Do I?

I color my own hair

which LBCG finds apalling. But when LBCG said that she counted "numerous" grey hairs, I figured it was time for a color job.

I should have known when I started washing my hair and it looked like someone was murdered in my shower that I was in trouble.

The lady at the beauty supply store said that it would be brown with red highlights.
That my natural color was so dark, it would actually be MUCH lighter than the swatch showed.

Uh, Beauty Supply Lady.
You were wrong.

I look like a cheap hooker.
Or a cheap stripper.
Something cheap.

Oh good lord.
It will fade, right?

Don't tell LBCG.
But maybe she's right.
Maybe I SHOULD pay someone to do my color?

It's Friday

and I haven't participated in Stuff Portrait Friday in a long, long time. I'm a loser, but I'm getting over it. Maybe next week.

Today I took DD#3 to see the very nice and personable pediatrician who is filling in for my regular pediatrician who is having a baby.
DD#3 was not so pleased when she found out that she was seeing a "boy" doctor, but I assured her that "boys" can be good doctors too, and that they can grow up to be anything that a girl can be, (but probably not do it quite as well.)
So they stuck one of those swabbie things down her throat and low and behold, they pulled out some good old fashioned strep bacteria.
YES!
The $20.00 co-pay and exposure to millions of microbiotic germs was at least worth it.
Now don't think that I'm HAPPY that my daughter has strep throat, I'm just happy that I didn't drag our asses there, pay money, and breath dangerous air to hear, "well Ms. RSG, is looks like your daughter has a virus. Make sure she gets plenty of rest and drinks a lot of fluids, if she doesn't improve by Monday, bring her back and we'll take 20 dollars more of your money to pronounce exactly the same thing."
A strep throat diagnoses means a prescription for amoxicillan and guaranteed improvement in seven to ten days! Yippee!

Normally I would be concerned about DD#2 catching it next, but I think we're probably safe; she being an alien and all.

And DD#1 has never had strep (nor have I,) probably because we both had our tonsils out at age 3. Of course, because of the sheer fact that I don't have health insurance right now, I'm SURE I probably will get the strep-throat, it would just figure. Maybe I could pretend to be DD#1? I'm not THAT much taller than she is, I could maybe pull off 11??

In other news:

THIS opens today,

and yes I will be there at 6:30 at the very new, very fancy, shmancy theatre that we have open at our very new, very fancy, schmancy outdoor mall.

I will be attending with LBCG, my friend D.Nice, and another girl from my glamorous waitressing job. It will be swell.

THIS is happening right now:

It's dangerous to go out of the house, the air quality is so poor. Really sucks.
But no amount of pollution will keep me from seeing my movie. Remember, I've been in the house for three days watching kid shows on television. I couldn't even go to work today because of the strep attack on my child, so you better believe, just as soon as XH picks the girls up, I am OUTTA here.

One last thing:

Go over to LeLo's and see the picture of Gingers sister who is being adopted today by LeLo and her partner AdRi. I'm so excited I can't even stand it!

I hope you all have a magical, wonderful, strep-free weekend!

Cast of Characters

I stole this idea from Chickie after Syd mistook Ginger for my partner and thought that she peed on LeLo's floor. I thought that those people stopping by or just starting to read my blog would be helped by a little description of the people in my life that I blog about. Believe me, if all y'all did that, it would save me HOURS of reading your archives to see who's who! So why don't you ALL get on that project, okay? Okay. Good.

The Recovering Straight Girls Cast of Characters

RSG: Well, that would be me. I'm a 36 year old Aries who shares a birthday with this Hooker Ass Bitch (HAB, for short.) She's my kindred spirit blog sister and I heart her. I also heart this HAB. We had our own Blog This 2005 conference this summer and it was the highlight of my year! Other bloggers I heart IRL (in real life,) are:
Woos: they are Shelly and Angie. Some bloggers and others IRL call them Shangie because they are a couple and it's easier to say than Shelly and Angie. I call them Woos and they call me Woo. For more on the Woos, go here.
XH: (X-Husband) is my ex-husband. We were married for ten years and were divorced a year ago on November 12, 2004. During our ten year marriage we made three beautiful daughters in this order. . .
In October 1994, XH and I gave birth to,
DD#1: (Darling Daughter #1) She is my smart, sassy, knows absolutely everyfuckingthing child. She just turned 11, but you would think that she just turned 19. She is a great student, good piano player, plays three sports a year and excels at every one of them. She and I get a long very well, but sometimes we are so much alike that we butt heads.
In May of 1997, XH and I welcomed,
DD#2: (Darling Daughter #2) She is currently eight years old and is the biggest drama queen I have ever seen. She is often abducted by aliens and causes me to take a LOT of Xanex, but I heart her and one of the happiest days of my life was the day she was born. She's gonna give me more grey hair than the other two because I'm sure she will someday have a boyfriend named Bubba who drives a Harley.
In December of 1998, XH and I had,
DD#3: (Darling Daughter #3) She is the sweetest, most laid back child ever put on this earth. The ONLY thing that she does that drives me nuts is she dawdles. That child dawdles more than any other child ON EARTH. Why? Because she is waaaayyyy too busy singing or drawing or playing the piano to be worried about getting her shoes on, brushing her teeth, or any other such nonsense stuff. She is so cool because she just goes with the flow, (she does NOT get this from me.)
Ginger: Is our baby puppy who we really, really adore. After our dog Rudder died in June and Macy died in October, I for sure wanted another furry family member. I spent quite a bit of time looking online and finally found this little sweetie. She really brightens up our lives (when she's not peeing on the floor.)
So those are my children.

I have the MOST WONDERFUL PARTNER in the entire world. Her name is RMWHG, (Rock My World Hottie Girlfriend,) or HG (Hottie Girlfriend,) for short.

She rocks my world, she's super hot, and she's my girlfriend; you get the picture. She has great parents, Hottie Mama and Hottie Papa.

My Mom and My Brother, are just My Mom and My Brother. I guess I can come up with something for them. . . I'll have to think that one over.

They both live here in Portland near me after relocating from our native home of Pennsylvania, which is very cool.

My Mom reads my blog, my brother thinks I'm a dork for having a blog.

I believe that's it.
Now it's your turn!

Where's Steve?

DD#3 is sick with fever. Yesterday was my day to get some errands done. I had just arrived at Marshalls and was intrigued with all of the holiday gift packs available at very low prices. Good smelling things like peppermint soap with matching lotion for the bathroom. Who wouldn't want that as a gift??? I know I would heart it. Anyway, just as I was fully immersed in the possible Christmas shopping frenzy I was about to engage, my cell phone rang with it's familiar "Just a Girl" ring. Annoyed, I pulled it from my pocket and saw that it was the school.
That's never a good thing.
It seems that DD#3 came to the office shivering with fever, looking pale and not herself.
I sighed and told the office person I would be right there. I looked longingly at the scented drawer liners and linen spray and walked out of the store to pick up my sick child.
And sick she is. 101 degree fever, even with Tylenol and Advil. Poor thing.

So today, here we sit in my bed; me with my laptop and she with her dry erase board and the television. It's been awhile since I sat and watched the Disney Channel and Nikolodeon in the day time, I decided that there are some very strange shows on these days. There is a new "Baby Einsteins" on which seems to focus on music, but in a very weird way. Dora has a new friend named Diego, and what is with that show "Higgleytown Heros?" WHERE are their bodies? Are they like weebles? They store things inside themselves; I just don't think it's right to portray people without their proper anatomy.
And Blue's Clues. It came on today and we were watching. DD#3 said, "oh they changed the beginning, and when is Steve coming back?"

When IS Steve coming back. Where IS Steve?
Anyone who has watched Blues Clues knows that Steve left the show several years ago to "go to college . . ." Well, what kind of college program is Steve doing? Kids are waiting for him to come back to Blue with his damn degree, get a job and move them the hell out of that freaky house with the talking alarm clock and the procreating salt and pepper shaker, (how many kids do they HAVE now?)
As much as Steve likes clues, he should think about getting a job on CSI, or perhaps Law and Order. They could do a special cross-over event, Blues Clues meets the detectives of CSI in Las Vegas.
Whatever he decides, he should get back to the nice blue dog that he left with his weird brother. Children of the world are wondering.

One Week From Today. . .

Will be Wednesday, November 23rd.
(hello, I'm a dumbass, I said the wrong date . . . thanks Lelo for straightening me out!)
And I will be using these:

To go here:

For this:

To see HER:

Be still my heart!!!!!

I have to deeply and gratefully thank the most wonderful woman in the world, who not only gave birth to me and raised me, (I was a vicious teenager,) but also got up at 6:00 AM the morning these tickets went on sale to purchase them for me.
She said I could take whomever I wanted.
I chose to take her.
I still have NO idea what I will wear, but whatever it is, must be hot so that Gwen will see me sitting in my seat and fall hopelessly in LOVE with me!
After that, I'll be blogging from the road, as I tour with my girlfriend!

For some super HOT pictures of Gwen's visit to Dallas, go check out Kami's blog . . .

Lovely Sunday Morning

I had the complete pleasure of meeting LeLo IRL yesterday! If you've never read her blog, you should get right over there; she has great photography, a lovely way with words and is a wonderful balance of great intellectual information, humor, sweetness, and a little sarcasm.
In real life, she is the same way.
She and her partner AdRi invited Ginger and I to their beautiful North Portland home with the wonderful garden, for some delicious coffee with soy milk and fresh yummy fruit. It was a fabulous way to spend a Sunday morning.
Ginger had a great time, they have two cats that come with very cool cat things; cat food, cat toys, and cat litter boxes.
Ginger was enjoying them all.
We really hope to be invited back, but Ginger did pee on their rug twice, so hopefully she didn't ruin the possibility of any future coffee dates!
Hope all of you enjoyed your Sunday as much!

Ginger hates the shower too

I have NEVER seen anything funnier than what Ginger looks like at bathtime, I guess she is for SURE one of my kids now. She carries on like you would not believe and her legs go and go like she is swimming anytime she comes near the sink. It's hilarious.
I attempted taking video today but I'm a complete ass and held the camera the wrong way.
I still think it's funny, even if it is on it's side.
See for yourself:


Here she is after all of the trauma of the shower and the combing of her hair . . .

Isn't she the cutest?
(I know, I know, I have issues with my dog . . .)

I swore I would never

tell my kids something that would scare them to get them to do what I wanted.

Well, it took eleven years, but I did it.

We have shower issues in our house.
You would think that the girls were made of sugar or that they were descedants of the wicked witch the way that they carry on when it's time to take a shower.

I require that they shower every other night and after sports practice. I don't think that would be considered torture by any standards, but to them, it is.

So every day that is a shower day is like pulling teeth to try to get them in there. They fight about who has to go first, who went first last time, cry that they had a shower the other day and that they are not stinky, etc. etc. etc. I've tried the "I don't want you to be the stinky kid" plea, the "a clean body is a healthy body" plea, and, "You don't want someone to look at you and think that you have greasy hair" plea.
I've tried it ALL.

Last night, just as soon as I said that they needed to get in the shower, DD#2 (of course,) stomped her foot and said, "I am NOT taking a SHOWER!"
I was not in the mood.
I was severely PMS'ing anddid not want to deal at all with the drama of it all.
The crying and fighting and her telling me how mean I am.
So I did it.

I said, "Well, that's fine if you don't want to take a shower anymore. But just so you know, if you go to school day after day and you haven't had a shower, your teacher and principal will get concerned and they will want to talk to Mommy about it. It's Mommy's responsibility to make sure that you have been fed and bathed and have a clean house to live in. If it looks like Mommy isn't taking good care of you then Mommy could get in trouble. You know, sometimes when children are in homes that their parents aren't taking good care of them, they get taken away to live in foster care; I'm not saying that would happen or anything, but it is important that all children are well taken care of in their homes."

That was enough.
DD#2 looked right at me, hugged me and said, "I'll go take a shower."
WOW.

I felt kind of bad, but it sure was nice not to have a huge ass battle.
And I didn't really lie, persey.
I just "spun" it a little.
I'm a BAD MOTHER!!!!!!!
But my kids are CLEAN!

It was a tough week for me and I didn't seem to have any time to really write about it. I've just tried to process through it myself at times when I could; in my car, at night before bed, in the morning before getting up, in my alone moments.

It started ten days ago when I had coffee with my XH to discuss some financial issues. The next day we all (dd's and XH and I) had lunch together at DD#3's soccer party. XH and I got into a discussion which led to his expressing to me some of his thoughts about me and my life.
Very few of those thoughts were of the nice variety.

It's been a year since we split up. Our first anniversary of our divorce will be next week.
It still hurts as much as it did a year ago.
And for some reason I still place so much stock in what he thinks of me, his opinion of me, if he's pleased with me or not. It's been a year, I don't understand why that hasn't disapeared yet. I know that I have hurt him; much more than I thought that I did, why do I feel that I deserve any kind of forgiveness or kindness from him? Why do I want that so much? Haven't I left it behind me, forgiven myself for my misgivings and shortcomings, and tried to be honest and move on? I think I have.
I know I have.

It's been so hard, but I've kept going every day. All of those days that I thought to myself that everyone would just be better off if I dropped dead; I kept going. All of those times that I looked at my children and thought that I didn't deserve to be their mother; I kept going.
I'm still going.
And it's still hard.

Apparently my XH feels that he didn't get a very fair deal when we divorced. I guess I don't deserve the settlement that we agreed on a year ago and it makes him sad to see me "wasting my life waiting for my gravy train to run out."
It makes me sad to know how much he didn't value what I contributed to our family.
He feels that it was unfair that he needed to maintain the "status quo," by continuing to earn a living while going through such a hard time.
I guess my maintaining the "status quo" with our children's lives isn't as important.

I want so much for him to understand and I get caught in a dance of trying to EXPLAIN it all to him like he's going to miraculously just look at me and say, "oh, okay Kathryn, I get it; I understand EXACTLY what you mean."
I need to understand that that is never going to happen. Not now, not ever. Period.

Then after all of that.
He's nice to me.
It confuses me a little but it also makes me feel good and scared at the same time.
I want so much for him to accept me into his life, but I want that mostly for my kids sake, I want them to feel secure that their parents are working together for their happiness and well being.
I also want us to try to salvage a part of our relationship that worked, that was usually really good; our friendship. I pin hopes on that someday we can be friends; although XH says that day will only come when he sees a report on the weather channel that Hell has frozen over.
It scares me because I spent ten years trusting him and putting myself in a vulnerable position only to be disapointed and hurt.
I know I don't need to participate in it anymore; I just don't know how to tell my heart that.

It's quite a dance that people do together.
Especially when they shared a life together and then parted their seperate ways while continuing to raise children together.
It's not quite as elegant as a waltz, or as fun as the electric slide.
I guess it's more like a tango; back and forth, harsh and sweet at the same time.
I suppose I'll figure it out as I go along.
Just like everything else.

I hesitated about writing about this is because I know someone out there that I knew IRL reads this blog; and they report about it to my XH. He says he doesn't read it and I don't know if that's true. He says that someone told him about my blog, who knows if that's the case, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I realized that everyone sees and remembers things through their own perspective; their own eyes, and heart, and mind.
The words that I write here are from my perspective; they are MY feelings the way that I see and experience my life. Yes I share it with my blogging friends on the internet and the people that I invite to read it so it's not really private, but it's meant for good, not evil.
My feelings are my feelings and my thoughts are my thoughts.
I am not a bad person.
I'm just a person who has had a very intense, life changing experience.
And it's my experience. I have the right to process it however I want or need to.
The End.

all Ginger, all the time . . .

Ginger is the cutest damn puppy ever.
Just look . . .

Cute Girl

Waking Up

So Tired

Posing


With LBCG in the morning