A Week of Surprises

I was already getting lazy from backing up files and all that shizz that I almost didn’t want to blog…again. I totally need to invent something that reads your thoughts and blogs them into a draft until you proofread it and publish it later. If I had something like that, my blog would ALWAYS be updated.

I’ve got so much stuff to write about. Most is the usual crap I write about: talk about the kids, bitch about the husband, describe my day. But this past week things got a little crazy. And I did something I never thought I’d do.

(No, I didn’t cheat on Mario.)

I’ll start from the last day I updated. Let’s see…as hard as I tried, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of resentment towards Mario for what happened — or didn’t happen — on Friday. The next day, Saturday, Mom, the kiddos and I had plans to go visit Gramma, then stop by a few thrift stores and then Target later on. It starts to rain, which was totally unexpected, so we have some lunch and leave the house at noon (we were ready 2 hours before that).

We visit Gramma, but only Mother gets down to see her since it was still raining and I didn’t want to risk any of the kids getting sick. I’d taken my book with me, the boys had their DS’s, and Alaethia was asleep so we had a pretty relaxing 45 minutes. Mom comes back and tells us Gramma’s doing much better and said hello.

We go to the thrift store and look around. After half an hour there Mom found some pots for her flowers and found me another Primrose custard cup!

Just beautiful. I haven’t had any luck finding anything else unfortunately.

Mary calls us and asks if we’d like to go to a movie, the new Ninja Turtles one. I’m not too keen on it, but the boys have been dying to see it so I agree. Then, as Alaethia starts screaming, I automatically wish I hadn’t because the last time we went to the movies with her (Bridge to Terabithia) I was standing in the stairway the whole time. I pray for the best and we meet Mary.

The movie’s much better than I thought it was going to be. It was funny and had an okay storyline. The boys loved it, of course, and Alaethia slept the entire time. Whew!

Mary takes the boys with her and Mom and I head over to Target, where she was looking for more pots for her plants. That’s her thing lately: plants and flowers. She’s always been into gardening, just never got back into it once we left McAllen — until now. She’s got a green thumb, that woman!

Well, she didn’t find anything at Target, so we went to the new H-E-B Plus! next door. It was the grand-opening, so it was full to the brim with people. So hectic. I did enjoy looking at the three-or-so scrapbooking isles it has! Granted, everything’s expensive, but super cute. Mom gets her plants (she bought, like, 10 different flowers) and we finally come home. I didn’t even bother grocery shopping there because it was that packed.

Mario left for work the next day, Sunday. He was supposed to have the day off but one of the guys he works with asked him to switch, so he did. I was incredibly bored, and while having some cereal I start checking my e-mail. I had a friend request from TheThriftShopper.com on Myspace so I added them (like, duh!), then started searching for thrift shops in our area that are open on Sunday. I found two, and I quickly got the kids ready and Mom, the kids and I all got into the car and went. There was nothing else to do and what better way to spend a Sunday morning? We had to be back by 2:30, for something Eenan needed to attend at church, so that was going to be a little annoying. I hate rushing around. And I also hate that they always wait till the last minute to let us know when something’s going on.

Well, we got some pretty good finds at the first one, Goodwill. Everything’s expensive though, much more than it was a few years ago when I’d frequent it. Right after Goodwill, we stopped by another thrift shop where I found a mint-with-tags Bright Heart Racoon and a Hello Kitty for Alaethia.

We were already late to the meeting at the church by this time, but Mary was already there (she and Yadira had been at the storage units organizing and putting more stuff in there so that Jorge can stay in the empty bedroom at Yadira’s. He’s officially resigned and is moving back to Texas!) so she said not to worry about it.

Since I was already in town I stopped by the pizza place to reserve the day for Jaylen’s birthday party and then stopped by the storage unit to give April’s payment.

As I’m handing the money over through the drive-thru window the guy asks if I’d gotten their notice yet. I tell him no and he says, “Um…it’s because we’re closing. Let me ask my manager if I should still take your payment.”

My heart sinks. All my crap. My assload of crap that I have stored in that darn storage unit. If they’re clsoing, where the hell am I going to put all that junk?!

He comes back and says he can take my payment, but that this is the last month they’ll be open. So…how nice of him to tell me with one month’s notice that I need to get my junk out of there. It took over 6 months to put all that stuff in there and now I have only a month to get it out!

I told Mary about this and she was, naturally, upset. She and Yadira had just been there earlier in the day and nobody told them anything about it closing! Now they have even more stuff to get out of there and spent all morning organizing it for nothing!

I decided that I want to sell most of the junk I have in storage. Most of it is, after all, absolute junk that we stuffed into bags because we were too lazy to get everything together for a garage sale. I don’t want another storage unit, I just want to bring my collections back home and store them in the living room closet that’s currently being occupied by even more shit. That’s easily $45 that we’ll be saving a month. Probably more, since that was the cheapest storage unit we could find in our area. The other one nearest to our home charges $54 a month and it’s 5 square feet smaller than the one we have.

Mario got out at 6 Sunday night, but had more work to do here at home so I didn’t see him till it was time to go to bed. It was becoming the norm seeing him only when I was passing by the living room making my way to the bedroom as he was watching TV. And I know he was working and all that, but I was quickly getting annoyed. Didn’t help that it was that time of the month and every single thing either pissed me off or made me cry. In Mario’s case, it was both.

The next day was the usual. I was going to take the kids to school myself but Alaethia didn’t go to sleep till 1am and then was up at 4am for a bottle. Needless to say I was exhausted and overslept. The boys had about 20 minutes to eat breakfast and get ready and be ready for Elda to take them for me.

I don’t remember much from that day, but when John got home from work he looked defeated and sick. The rash he’d developed on his hands in the previous weeks had gotten much worse overnight and they noticed (finally) at work. They sent him to the doctor and prescribed some medication. He asked if I could take him to H-E-B to get it after I picked the kids up from school so I took him. We get to the pharmacy and, just as I suspected, it was a 2 hour wait. I needed to get groceries, but I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to need 2 hours to do that so we decided to go to Target to waste time.

I actually didn’t want to go to Target, but John bribed me into it. He said he’d get me my birthday present if we went. And he also said he wanted to blow some money on something, but didn’t know what. We go to the scrapbooking section, where I quickly find the two storage boxes I wanted and then we wander over to the electronics section. John was looking at games as always and as I’m passing by the cameras, I notice lots of orange clearance stickers. I tell him, “Why don’t you buy a camera?” and he says, “Because I want one that’s better than yours,” — typical John constantly trying to get “better” stuff than mine. That gives me an idea and I wander off and look for the camera that’s just like mine. It’s got a clearance sticker of $195. John gets all excited, because it’s $13 less than when I got it (except I also got a 1G SD card for free). We wait for an employee and I tell John, “What if they don’t have it?” and he says, “Shut up!”

The employee comes around and looks for the camera and says, “No, man, we don’t have it.” then, “But we can sell you the display?” I tell him, “Do we get a discount?” and he says, “30%?” I get my cell phone out and calculate it. He’d get the camera for $136!! We checked it out, made sure it was okay and John buys it. For much less than I got mine!

So he was happy and I was happy that I got my scrapbook storage stuff. We went to H-E-B to pick up his prescription and do my grocery shopping. We got home, and I made dinner, fed the boys, and spent the night trying to console Alaethia. When she was sleeping I put my storage cubes together and watched a show on TLC about a young couple who had trouble having children, so they tried fertility drugs and ended up with twins. When their twins were 4 they wanted to try for another child so again, they used fertility. They say that with fertility drugs, you can bet that you won’t just ever get one child — it’s usually always multiples. Well, they weren’t kidding. They conceived and ended up with 7 heartbeats at their first sonogram! They ended up losing one, but had 6 healthy babies. So they had 8 kids under the age of 6, can you believe that?! They spend $1,150 on groceries and house cleaning supplies right now that the kids are 5 (twins) and 16 months (the sextuplets). This poor woman’s whole life revolves around the babies, but she’s extremely organized. She’s got lists and labels all over her house. They’re going to start a series about them on Discovery Health, but I don’t have that channel!

As I was speaking to Mayra that night, I get a call on the other line and it’s Mario telling me that he’s staying late after work to help Albert with a car. Lovely. That meant that he wasn’t getting home till really late, just like the last time when they worked till 3am and he didn’t get home till 6am since they delivered the damn car to the customer I-don’t-know-how-many cities away. I was annoyed, so I just hung up.

Alaethia and I went to bed around 1am. She woke up at 3am (she only does this once in a while) for a bottle and I notice that Mario’s still not here. Grr. I feed Alaethia, burp her, change her diaper and try to go back to sleep. All these thoughts are running through my mind, like what if he was drinking and got into an accident? What if something happened to him at work and the hospital just hasn’t called me? What if he’s with someone else?!

I tell myself to shut up and try to sleep again. This time I start thinking about how anti-social I’ve felt since I’d been so angry with Mario the past few weeks for not spending time with us. I was avoiding everyone just so I wouldn’t have to talk about Mario and I. I hadn’t returned any of my friends messages, hadn’t called anyone, like Juan, my friend from elementary and middle school whom I’d just found on Myspace after 10 years! I tell myself that the next day I was returning everyone’s Myspace messages, text messages and calling whoever needed to be called.

I look at the clock and it’s 4:10am. I’d been thinking for an hour. I hate when Mario’s not home, not in bed; I can’t sleep. So, with every fiber of courage I have, I call him and ask where he is. I hate being one of those naggy wives who’s calling all the time asking “where are you? what are you doing? who are you with?” but I hadn’t called, had I? It was perfectly fine if I called. He says he’s already getting into Palmview. I say ‘fine’, and hang up.

He gets home and I pretend to be asleep. I’m so angry that he’s kept me up worrying that I don’t want to talk to him at all. He gives Alaethia a kiss on the cheek and gives me one on the forehead and within 10 seconds of his head hitting the pillow, he’s asleep and I’m still awake. I could have smacked him.

The next morning Alaethia’s moody and awake right after I’ve sent the boys off with Elda to go to school. I don’t have a chance to make Mario breakfast, so I know for sure he’s thinking it’s because of the night before. At the time I didn’t care, and was hoping that’s what he was thinking. I got a chance to get his lunch together and as he’s getting ready to leave he gives me a hug and says, “God, I hope they let me out early today.” The audacity. I bite my tongue, because I totally want to yell, “If THEY let you out early? You mean if YOU decide to come home early!” but I just roll my eyes and nod in agreement.

I didn’t go anywhere Tuesday. I tried to not go anywhere so that I could force myself to be home and start going through all the crap in boxes that Mary’d gotten out of her storage unit that belonged to me. It was the boys’ baby clothes. I’d already had a garage sale once, where I got rid of a LOT of their baby clothes. I’m such a packrat that I still kept 4 boxes worth of their stuff. I guess I hold on because I feel that if I let go, that means I’m letting go of their babyhood as well :(. But I have the memories and I have pictures (although I did lose many due to harddrive crashes) so I got rid of almost everything. I just kept their Baptism outfits, their first shoes, and a few little t-shirts that I fondly remember them wearing. Then I was left with 2 empty storage totes!

I also got some messages sent out on Myspace and just as I was going to call Juan, he called me! We spent most of the day catching up and it was great. Truly refreshing to hear his voice and have him in my life again! He says I sound exactly that same, laugh the same and that I’m still sweet and well-mannered, like he remembers me when he last saw me in 6th grade. Aww :). He still laughs and sounds the same to me and is still incredibly sweet, but he’s so crazy LOL.

I talked to Mayra again and she told me she found the Special K Red Berries cereal at her H-E-B and was bringing to me the next day, Wednesday. She’s the best! I was just telling her the day before that I could never find it and that I wanted to do the 2 week Special K diet to lose the 6 lbs. you can supposedly lose. I was excited. I was finally going to get to see her after forever!

Aunt Nora called that night to let us know one of our uncles passed away. We got into talking about family and I told her I had something to tell her. I know I mentioned it last year sometime, when my Gramma asked me to do it, but I can’t find the entry at all. She’d asked me to look for my grandfather, my Mom’s dad, and to tell Mom about it if he was still alive. See, all these years my mother didn’t know that her father’s still alive. She thinks he’s dead and that he used to live in Chicago or somewhere in California, because this is what my Gramma would tell her. Just in 1991, Aunt Nora found out that she and Aunt Sylvia are Mom’s half-sisters, when all that time they thought they all had the same father. My Gramma had been hiding all this from them because you know how it was back in the day: 3 kids, 2 dads? You’d be labeled a slut immediately. It’s not like that now, of course. And that’s what I tell Gramma. It’s okay. She doesn’t have to be embarrassed about it.

Well, I tell Aunt Nora how Gramma wanted me to find my Grandfather, and that last year, when all this first happened, I’d found that he was still living in McAllen. I’d told Mary about it and she’d found more info for me. He’s actually living down the same street where Gramma’s nursing home is located. I’d found his phone number in the phone book and clutched onto it. Aunt Nora told me to keep her updated and give her a call if I ended up speaking to him.

It took me forever, but I called. I was calling my grandfather. A man who didn’t know I existed. And I didn’t know at the time, but he didn’t know Mom existed either. I called and an old woman answers and says he’s not there, but takes a message and says my number came out on her caller ID.

Mario got home early that night even though it was Wing & Beer Night. I actually thought he’d stay for Wing Night to tell you the truth. I felt he didn’t really care if he was home at all anymore.

He got home, ate dinner, and then we watched TV. I don’t know how it happened, but we got into a conversation about how I’d felt lately and although he kept snapping at me and raising his voice, I kept my calm (even though I was bawling) and just let him speak. I felt like we didn’t make much progress, but at least we got to talk about it. Then I told him about my uncle, the conversation with Aunt Nora and how nervous I was to speak to this man.

He gets into the shower and the phone rings. My heart skips a beat as I look at the caller ID and see my grandfather’s name. My grandfather. Up until last year I didn’t have a grandfather. I answer the phone and he says he’s looking for the young lady who called him. I introduce myself and ask him if he knew my grandmother. He said yes, that long ago he knew her. I didn’t know how to slowly break it to him, and I was fumbling all over my Spanish so I just said what I knew: he and my grandmother had a daughter and I’m his granddaughter. Hi, nice to meet you. He’s super quiet and I can tell he doesn’t want to say much because his wife’s in the room and obviously, if he didn’t know he had a daughter, she didn’t know. He asks how he can get in contact. I feel a rush of happiness and ask, “With who? Me?” and he says, “No, no. With…”

I ask, “With my Mom? Grandmother?” and he grunts, “Yes.” I tell him that she’s in a nursing home, one down his street in fact, and he says, “That’s fine. That’s all I need.” Which sort of scares me because he sounds a bit threatening. My hearts beating in my ears and before I lose the nerve I ask if he’d like to keep in contact with me. He says a plain: no. I thank him for his time, appologize for bothering him and hang up. And I bawl my eyes out.

I didn’t know this man even existed till last year and here I was crying over him. I felt so disappointed. I sort of had this happy picture in my mind that he’d find out he had a granddaughter and that he’d accept Mom and I with open arms and that we’d spend our first holiday, Easter, over there getting to know him and all these Christmases and what if I had more aunts and uncles and cousins!?

Mario gets out of the shower and asks how it went. The knot in my throat that I’d tried so hard to swallow down came right back up and I cried all over again. I was sort of hoping Mario would pull me into a hug and just hold me, but instead he said, “He hasn’t been in your life this long and you don’t need him. Fuck him, Babe. You don’t need that shit.” My husband, the romantic poet.

I got everything ready the next day. Alaethia slept till 9am(!) so I got a chance to iron and made breakfast and everything. It was hilarious that morning — I’d left my jeans and the boys’ jeans draped on the back of the couch and Jaylen accidentally grabbed mine instead of his. My jeans were HUGE on him and yet, there he was, trying to button them up LOL. We all had such a good laugh that morning.

I made Mario and myself some omelettes (that were delicious!) and made myself some coffee so I’d stay awake. I had some cleaning to do before Mayra got home, which didn’t help the look of the house anyway since I still had garage sale stuff all over the place.

Mayra arrives at 11:10am and hands over a bag of cereal (yay!) and we coo over Alaethia. While she’s holding her I give her the lo-down on my family drama. I told her I have his address and right after we pick up Jaylen from school, would she mind stopping by my Gramma’s to warn her that my grandfather might go over there? She says no, she’s all for it, and I’m so glad, too. I feel braver since she’s with me. If it were just me and the kids I think I would have chickened out and not gone at all.

We pick up Jaylen and she gives me the update on her current situation. We arrive at Gramma’s and my heart literally feels like it’s thumping in my throat as I’m getting down from the truck. Mayra, bless her, offered to stay with both kiddos in the car since they were asleep. I promise not to be long and run into the nursing home.

The hallway feels like it’s much longer than it is as I’m walking towards Gramma’s room. She’s having lunch. I almost want to turn on my heel and run out of the room because I know, once I tell her everything I have to say, she’s not going to want to finish her meal. She’d already seen me, so I say hello and have a seat on her bed. I tell her, “Remember how you wanted me to find my Grandfather last year?” she says yes and asks, “You found him?”

I nod and tell her everything that happened, including the fact that he might go visit her. I tell her, “Would you mind if he came to see you?” She gets a sparkle in her eye, smiles coyly and says, “I don’t mind.” Gramma, you flirty girl you.

I next tell her something I probably shouldn’t have, about Aunt Nora, and to cover up my mistake I quickly tell her about our uncle, her brother, Dionel. I don’t know if it’s because she’s so overwhelmed with the news about my grandfather or that she’s that distraught over her brother’s death, but she starts sobbing loud — shoulders shaking and all. I was so scared — I had no idea what to do. I felt terrible and didn’t know what to say. She never cries when her siblings die, not even when Tio Lupe passed away and he was her closest sibling! She says, “We’re all dying. There’s only 3 of us left.” I tell her, “Oh, Gramma, don’t say that,” and gently pat her leg. She calms down and takes a deep breath. I look at the time and realize I need to get back to the truck before the kids wake up and all hell breaks loose on Mayra. I tell her I’ll see her on Saturday and to worry about herself, not everyone else and finish her meal. She says she will and I kiss her goodbye.

I felt a huge weight in my chest after I leave the room. I was saving Aunt Nora the trouble of telling her about her brother, but I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t have. I’d never seen Gramma get that way, ever.

I tell Mayra everything and then we make our way North. I have my grandfather’s address, and even though he completely rejected me I have every intention of checking where he lives, buahaha. We’re both looking for the house and then realize we’ve gone too far. We turn back and there’s his little house. Not what I expected, but you can totally tell he has a wife because there’s huge butterfly decorations hung on the walls of his yellow brick house.

I try to push everything to the back of my mind because I’m taking Mayra to my favorite thrift store to search for books! She’s excited, and I’m excited. We arrive there, get Alaethia in her stroller and wake Jaylen up from his nap. He goes straight to the toys and finds a brand new Triceratops plush, makes his way to the couch in the library and goes back to sleep. That was easy!

We, Mayra and I, walk around the shop and search for books. I’m picky, so I’m having a hard time finding stuff but Mayra’s got a whole stack! I ended up finding two books: Bridget Jones the Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding and Local Girls by Alice Hoffman. For those two and the plush I pay $2.50. Had the other ladies been there I probably only would have spent $1.50. Mayra ends up spending $9 for 8 books and a water globe. That was pretty darn good.

We wanted to go check out the other thrift shop but we’re starving so we come straight home to have some enchiladas and rice I’d made the night before. Mayra has to get home so she leaves and I have to go pick up Eenan. It was a great day out, well, besides making my Gramma cry :(. I hope we get to catch up again soon!

While I’m waiting for Eenan I call Aunt Nora and tell her what happened. I even brace myself and tell her how I messed up and told Gramma something I shouldn’t have, but she said maybe she’ll forget. Thank goodness. I thought I screwed up so bad!

I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and got the kids bathed. Mario calls and says he’s coming home, which I was really excited about because the first thing he says is he wants to watch The Holiday. Great! We snuggle up on the couch with Alaethia and around 9pm we get the boys into bed. The Holiday is even better than I thought it was going to be. There’s a part where they’re eating and I tell Mario, “You know what I want to learn to make? Meatball soup.” He nods and says, “Sounds good. That’s why I love you.”

I laugh and say, “Because I cook?”

“No — well, yeah because you cook, but because you’re always trying new things. I never get bored.”

“Thanks, I’m glad. I love doing it.”

“That’s why I brag to my friends.”

“That makes me feel good. You pay attention.”

“Of course!”

I don’t know what it was about that night, but it just felt like every frustration, every feeling of sadness I’d had never happened. We were back to our old selves. There was a part in the movie (SPOILER! DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE MOVIE AND WANT TO!) where Cameron Diaz visits Jude Law at his house and she finds out he’s a widower and father of two little girls. I’ve got a lump in my throat, absolutely falling in love with the thought of two little girls maybe later in the future and how cute their bedroom is with all their girlie toys and that tent! It’s the cutest, girliest tent, ever! They’ve got the most lovely names: Sohpie and Olivia, which I’ve always liked. And their voices — aww, they sound so cute and I can’t wait to hear Alaethia speak! I find myself getting teary-eyed and say, “Oh. They’re so cute. I’m getting teary-eyed here.” And Mario replies, “I got teary-eyed five minutes ago,” and flicks a tear from the corner of his eye. So he was serious. He does want another daughter some day. Do you know what that would mean? That my dream of having a large family, with two boys and two girls that I’d decided I wanted since I was in 10th grade, would come true. But we’ll see. Again, maybe spacing them like we did with Jaylen and Alaethia. That would be ideal :). I like even numbers :). And of course I really want to have our own house by then, which I’m sure we will. 2 parents, 4 kids, 2 bedroom apartment? Not really.

Eenan lost one of his bottom teeth, finally since his adult teeth already broke through completely behind the baby teeth. He called himself a little shark, because sharks have two rows of teeth LOL. He’s saving up his money to buy a video game. What’s new?

Eenan took his cookies, candies and Easter eggs they’d ask him to take yesterday morning for their party. Jaylen was thrilled when I picked him up, since he’d won some magnetic numbers for knowing what plants needed to survive, aww :).

Mario wanted me to drop our camera off to him so I had a quick lunch, got the kiddos in the car and we left. He’s doing a custom job at work so he wanted to take pictures of his progress. Since we were already over there, heh, we went to Goodwill. Jaylen got himself 3 books that he promised he’d share with Eenan and a large Chomper plush, from The Land Before Time. I found a book that sounded interesting and a beautiful brass serving dish, which I think matches the decor in my bedroom. I’m using it to store my perfumes and it was only $1!

We made a quick stop at the RGCH thrift shop where I found 4 good books: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks, The Deep End of the Ocean by Jaqueline Richard and a colorful dream book. And I only spent $2.17!! See what I mean? The other lady charged me $2.50 for a plush and two books. The lady yesterday charged me $2.17 for 4 books! Grr.

After picking Eenan up I spent the afternoon looking through the crap in the living room closet and I guess I can say I did pretty good. Ricci called around 6pm and told me she was checking out my website. She said she wanted to come over and would bring some food with her so I didn’t have to make dinner. Awesome! We caught up and she told me about how well she’s getting paid. I’ve got to say I’m really happy for her, albeit a little jealous! I’m glad she’s doing so well for herself and her girls. That’ll show her crappy ex!

Mario came home sort of early and ate dinner. We were so tired we went to sleep somewhat early. Alaethia woke up at 4am for a bottle and we both quickly went back to sleep after that. The alarm went off at 8:30, so I ask Mario what time he wants me to wake him up since this week he goes in at 10am. He freaks out and jumps out of bed and says, “I had a car staying overnight, Babe! I’m supposed to be there at 9!” *gulp* He got ready super quick. I didn’t even get to pack his lunch, poor thing. I hope he got there safely and on time. I was so out of it I didn’t even remember he’d told me he had a car staying overnight.

I’ve got so much crap to do today. Clean, get the rest of the stuff out of the closet, go to storage and bring more things to look through (I’m running out of places to store the garage sale stuff!), get invitations from the pizza place, order Jaylen’s cake, buy Cokes for the bar-b-q on Sunday, and Mom’s in charge of buying some pork and chicken for Sunday. Oh yeah, add to that laundry and dishes. Blah!