Oh yeah

I forgot to mention that K wanted me to pick her up and I gave her a big hug last time she was here. She didn’t want to leave, she really is a cutie.

I forgot to mention in all the confusion of the past month or so that I haven’t been able to find my ring and dog tags. Although they aren’t worth much money I’ve beome rather attached to them. Well, I was almost to the point of giving up and buying new ones when D knocked one of my remotes off the back of the couch they normally sit on (I have two in an "L" shape to define the TV area) and when I got down to see where it was and pick it up there were my ring and necklace! Since I never sit on that couch, I figure Starshine must have grabbed them off the table in the excitement of playing hide and seek with D & B last time she was here. She really likes getting under that couch for some reason. I was about to start looking in her hidey holes anyway since I had finally figured out the last time I knew for sure I had worn them was the last day she was over here. So yay! I’ve got my stuff again!

If I hadn’t known D was ADHD before I certainly would have after Wednesday. I just hope I wasn’t that bad when I was his age. Goodness. Of course he doesn’t know any better, so I’m not upset or anything, I just hope he’s doing a better job of controlling himself at school this year than he was last year.

Now on to some of the weird Critter things I mentioned. A few weeks ago I was stocking one of the departments on my side of the store since we were infernally short yet again (but we’re over payroll, not sure how that’s happening unless day shift is massively over scheduling) and I was thinking about Critter. I was trying to talk myself into a happy place about all this, and I figured if we were meant to be together there would have been some kind of *sign* from God, the Goddess, the Great Pumpkin, Fate, the Force, whatever you want. At that point Aerosmith’s "I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing" starts on the radio station corporate pumps through the entire chain at night. I’ve never heard them play that before. I still have the chorus set as my ringtone for Critter, and it was sort of a special song for us.

It seems like until recently (the last two weeks or so) whenever I was thinking about calling her (or she, me) the phone would ring or there’d be a text message suddenly popping up from her (or me). She’s called me more than once, just out of the blue, with questiosn about D & B’s school schedule. I never told her I had the planned days off for the school year in my handheld, she just assumed. As I mentioned before, I’m on the emergency "we can’t get in touch with your mom" contact list for D & B at their school. I’m number two on the list, right after their father’s parent’s. I know for a fact K’s dad (with whom they used to live) is not on the list at all, and I don’t know about OtherGuy, but if he’s on the list he doesn’t get called until they can’t get in touch with me.

Ember says Critter is using me as the "back up boyfriend". I don’t know if it’s that or if I’m one of the few friends she’s got that’s both reliable and she trusts with the kids. I am trying to move on. It’s going to be hard, I know. I just don’t want to go through another ten or fifteen year long funk like I did after Thumper and I split. I mean, yeah, there was one girlfriend and two or three flings in there, but for the most part I was miserable, lonely and depressed (pathetic). A poor unfortunate soul, if you will. That’s actually an attempt at levity, but a lot of people are going to miss it entirely, I know.

On the other hand, I don’t want to waste anyone else’s time if I’m not really "available" in my own mind. One of my fave’s want’s me to meet a friend of hers who sounds like she’s right up my alley: she’s the same age as Ember (within a few months, anyway), she’s good with kids (she babysits for my fave), and she too has no children of her own but owns a car seat. She’s also in school to be a teacher, which tells me she’s trying to do more than become yet another baby factory looking for a man to support her (there’s a lot of that going on up here). All of that sounds great to me and I’d love to meet her. Even if there is no spark we’ll probably end up as friends or e-mail pals but if I’m giving off a "taken" vibe without knowing it I’ll never have a chance with her or anyone else. What to do, what to do.

And not to worry, I’m still going to find time for that double date, I’m just being all angsty again. I mean really, you’ve been reading me for how long now? You should know at least that much about me.

It’ll probably be sometime in early December before I can get away unless Queeg lets us keep our normal days off. I’ve got to save me up some money for gas too, not that it’s horrible right now. It was something like $2.22/gal for regular unleaded when I filled up on the way home from the meeting Wednesday morning. Not bad at all. I still miss the days before the first Gulf War (if you count them as two separate wars, some don’t) when the Amoco station I used in high school was selling Premium Unleaded for $0.99/gal. And truthfully, once you adjust for inflation what I paid Wednesday morning was only an increase of about sixty cents, not bad for a twenty year span.

Ok, back to bed for a nap before this turns into a novel.