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The Real World: A series of unfortunate events
2006-11-09, 9:22 a.m.

Oy... What craziness...

The last two days have been exhausting, to say the least. I left here early on Tuesday to haul myself across town to my former address's polling place so I could vote. The Democrats really won the day here in Ohio, besides nationally in the House. I am not terribly ashamed to say that I did vote for the Democrat for Governor. I am still a hands-down, raving Republican, but I have my reasons, both personal and political. Not the least of these is that our former governor (who was NOT voted out--his term was up) spent his whole last term raising taxes, screwing up the state and just demontrating outright behavior of corruption. This was my little way of saying to my party, "Hey, that guy made us look BAAAADDDD, and I'm not going to let anyone else think that I think it's okay." And at the very least, I figure that while I have no faith in a Democrat to cut taxes back down to where they ought to be for this state, maybe he'll be a little better at allocating the money we're already paying. Democrats = Taxes... It's their thing.

Anyway, that's the least of things. I left for work early to vote, got to work late because the new voting system in this county is stupid and tedious, and worked my entire shift, and then some. I came home, slept for 4 hours and went back to work on first shift for a training workshop that I couldn't miss. Yesterday, especially the early part, is a blur to me now. This all, on top of finding out that my supervisor bid on a manager's position in another department, which means she'll be leaving us if she gets it. That's stressful, but I think it can spin into something good later. At the very least, I'm going to bid on her job (if she leaves, that is). I don't really expect to get it, and I don't necessarily want HER job, per se, but I do want to be promoted and this will send the message that I'm interested in moving up. I'd kill for just a nice "group leader" type of position--authority enough, but less responsibility. I'd really prefer to ease into a leadership position slowly, rather than baptism by fire, which is what taking her job would end up being.

Soooo, after not seing Jack for over 30 hours, and barely seeing Jeff in that time, I'm finally on my way home yesterday when I get the call from Jeff that it finally happened... A quasi-major catastrophe has befallen my sister-in-law and the nieces. One of the girls set the apartment on fire while they were home alone. I'm not sure that I totally understand HOW it happened, but I know it involved a lit candle. It was something about it being dark in their room, behind the bed. The logical thing would be to think that the bed caught fire then, but no... It was the curtains. I really don't get it, but the point is that the girls' room and everything in it is completely destroyed. I haven't seen it, but I'm told that everything in the rest of the apartment was undamaged by the fire, but is all smoke-damaged. It is only sometimes considered to be the main priority, but thankfully, the girls (only the older two were home at the time) got out and no human beings were hurt. Their 4 cats all were killed though, by smoke-inhalation. It really burns my ass though, that a bigger deal is being made over the cats dying than the fact that the girls could've very well been hurt or killed in this event. I'm somewhat amazed that they didn't try to put it out themselves, which I'm sure would've led to this being less of a catastrophe and more of an all-out tragedy. The way it sounds, it was no small blaze, even if it was contained to just their room. The girls have no clothes now, other than what was in the basement laundry room in the washer and dryer at the time--if even any of their clothes were in those loads. They don't know when they'll be able to live in their apartment again, though that place was a bit of a hole even before it was torched, so if my SIL is smart (and we'll see), she'll turn this around for herself and use it as a reason to better her situation. Her boyfriend didn't fail to disappoint me in his uncanny ability to make things worse, though it wasn't NEARLY as bad as I feared it would be. I actually saw a side of him that indicated that maybe he's not 100% asshole, though I'm still holding out for about 85%. To a very small extent, I'm cutting him a little bit of slack because the cats were his and he was pretty torn up about them, at least. He did tell Melina he forgave her and that he loves her, at which I was floored. Though that was in between scolding and guilting them about the event itself. And you know, I'm all for that they need to understand the seriousness of what happened yesterday. They need to have it pointed out for them at some point all the things that they should not have done that caused this to happen. I'm not advocating a punishment for this, and I don't think anyone else is either, thankfully, because I think the scare, loss of their property and death of the cats is as much punishment as they can handle and more than enough for them to understand. So anyway, I do think the lecture is in order, but I also think that last night was the wrong time to start it. It's going to be an ongoing-thing and last night was the time to deal with the circumstances themselves, do what can be done to make life as normal as possible in the meantime, pull together as a family and count their blessings that it wasn't so much worse. Jeff and I went down to them, not really expecting that there was much we could do at this point to help, but just to be there for the support. I don't think his sister cared much, but she had a lot on her plate. I don't actually think she would've cared much anyway, though. I wish his family was different.

I did take the opportunity to reach out to his nieces. I really want them to know that we do think about them and care about them. Sometimes, I really wonder if they think anyone loves them. I told each of them that Jeff and I are here for them and really extended myself to Shawnee, which I hope wasn't a mistake since she doesn't really have the best behavior record and is prone to lying. As children, I don't trust them and I don't have much faith in them to be responsible, but I'm hoping that as they get older they will take some lessons from Jeff and I or their grandparents and grow into trustworthy adults that we can be closer to.

And in other news, the last stressful event of this week was that we got notice that we will soon be responsible for paying a gas bill here. That was the ONLY reason we moved here, was that gas was paid. We turned down a much, much nicer apartment (albeit smaller)in a better location to avoid paying gas. Through all of the crap that this place has meant to us, with the spiders and the faulty thermostat (which became the broken thermostat), and the broken door lock, and the building security locks that have never worked, and the state this place was in when we moved in and anything else I'm forgetting, we really were just like, "at least we're not paying an arm and a leg for gas." That was the silver lining and now there is NO reason to stay here at all. So I think we're going to try to move back over to the nice place we turned down. Besides being a nicer, newer building it has sprinklers in the suites (which seems especially appealing now--Oh and my SIL didn't have renter's insurance either, btw), and an in-unit washer and dryer... Can you even imagine my joy?!? No more dirty laundry room or fighting for machines or paying for each load. I hate, Hate, HATE the idea of packing up and moving again so soon, but I am loving the other apartment more and more each day. It's in the same general vicinity of where we used to live, so we'll be back close to Jack's pediatrician and we'll no longer be a town and a half away from his daycare. My drive to work will be shorter and more relaxing. I just really hope that once we decide for sure to do this that it works out for us. I really, really hope so.

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