Armed and Fabulous...

Today started out crappy, but hey, at least it started.  At the early hour of 2 a.m.  I realized the stress insomnia is back.  I think I dozed back off around 5-ish, only to have to get up at 6 to get the little darlings started for the morning scream a thon.  Normal people refer to it as morning routine.  Not in this house.  I turn into a Drill Sergeant.  Make a good one, too.  Perhaps I missed my calling.

Tuesday happens to be trash day in our hood.  I happened to be the only one available to take the trash and recycling bins down to the road.  How convenient.  So after I got the kids ready and it was almost bus time I ventured outside to take the recycling down first.  That all went fine until I reached the end of the driveway and was doing the spin it around to face the road as I have at least two hundred times before and it fell over.
The contents landed in the one effin puddle that we had leftover from yesterdays rain.  Yup.  Not a shallow puddle either.
 I lost it. 
I started kicking at it and yelling.  We live on a highway so cars and dump trucks were just a whizzin' by at about 65 mph.  I must've looked like a lunatic.  In my rage I kept telling myself to find something positive about the situation. I guess that's called bi-polar anger moments.  So pissed you can't see straight yet telling yourself to find a positive.  Kind of like on Seinfeld when the dad would have to scream "SERENITY NOW".  I started picking it up and decided on my positive:  at least it wasn't raining. 

So on with my day I went. 

I wish I had been warned that today was going to be one of those days that you wish you had a pie to throw in someones face.  No one in particular (though currently I have plenty of selection) just  do it to make you feel better.
Well, instead I had to borrow Jacob's BB gun for my personal feel good moment.  The neighbors, as we do, have chickens.  The difference is ours are in a coop and theirs are free range.  They have 2 roosters - one is actually hatched from the current rooster and is excluded from the posse.  So the cock (hee hee) has taken to chillin' near our coop.  Clyde, my blue ribbon (in my eyes) rooster isn't taking too kindly to him.  Those hens are his bitches in the coop and he ain't about to share!  Well, while waiting for the kids to hop off the school bus, skip into the house and immediately do their homework without being told...Oh, June Cleaver moment gone...while waiting for the kids to sluggishly roam off the bus complaining about hunger pains and homework I heard my Clyde giving his get the eff away call and I spied that rooster trying to get in.  The scheming in my mind began.

Operation Cockfight to commence at 2:37.  

As soon as the kids were home the plan would be executed.  Kalogeris style.  I, with all my Jedi-sniper training (don't tell anyone) snuck out the back door.  There were my darling chickens.  I gave a nod to Clyde.  He made a funny noise and shit.. it was time.
I had loaded the BB gun and spotted the enemy.  With stealth like moves I began chasing it out of my garden while shooting and hollering at it to stay out of my yard.  Ummm, so yeah, the problem with BB guns is of course, that you have to do that thing in between each shot.  Even with that, I think he learned his lesson and won't be back...until tomorrow.   Wow.  I kinda felt better after my 'everything that could go wrong did' day.  I even hollered " I say I think, I say I think I say I think I defeated you young fella."  This, was of course done in my best FogHorn LegHorn impression.  Yeah, I know, I got issues...
Then I let Jacob finish the BB's off that were in it.  As I watched my 9 y/o boy shoot a memory flashed into my mind about two childhood friends. I believe the back sliding glass door at a home on Emerson Mill Rd. was the casualty of 2 bored, young teens with a bb gun.  The memory made me smile and a little nostalgically sad.  One of them passed away when we were in high school.  I caught my breath and realized that my day wasn't at all one of 'those days'.   That everything seemed multiplied as horrible only because my marriage is crumbling. I don't know what the future holds and I am scared to death to be alone with 2 children.  I bet my mom was as well, but she did it.  I think you get to a point when you understand that living is about smiling not arguing.   You get it.  You know your children have to be in a healthy environment to be raised. 
And all you want to do is throw your hands up in the air and say "I QUIT." 

But you don't.

Instead, you continue.

I want my children to have and see the best of me and right now they don't have that and are not seeing that.  But I guarantee they will. And one day when they understand the sacrifices I made for them they will smile - just as I do now for what my mom did for us. 
Jesus turned water into wine at a marriage for a reason.  Your gonna effin need it to get through it.  Smart guy, I think I'll listen to him more often.  I mean he's already answered several of  my prayers.  And I know he can't wait to see me smile again...