What a BuzzKill

Over the past week I’ve received a few emails from family members asking if we were being impacted by the fires. I suppose that with news headlines like “Southern California is Burning” from news organizations looking to grab a few more eyeballs, it may sound as though all of SoCal were a charred ember.

The fact is that the fires started around and mainly consumed open/ wilderness/ forested areas and homes within or bordering those areas. I live in the middle of a very suburban area, so it’s highly unlikely that a wildfire will overtake us. We’re probably more likely to get hit by “The Big One” earthquake and/or slide off into the ocean. Okay, probably not that remote of a chance, but I’m just saying. Fine … I don’t know what I’m saying.

The only real effect the fires had on us was from all the soot in the air, which made eyes itch and sinuses irritated. I imagine that people with allergies experienced more problems, but thankfully I’m not one of them.

Today is Halloween, in case you’re stupid and didn’t already know this, so I’ve been kicking around the idea of dressing up tonight. Either way, I’ll be accompanying Rece, Sam, and some of Sam’s friends for trick-or-treating. Maybe I’ll wear that dress again …

_{This entry uses sound scientific methodology in order to reach its opinions.}

These are real. You can buy USB drives with little dog characters on them that when inserted into a USB drive, hump your computer.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjBVyxc1EHU]

_{This entry … ah, hell … what?}

Sherise finally resurfaced yesterday. I got 2 voicemail messages on my mobile phone. Not phone calls. Voicemails. I guess she’s figured out a way to skip the call and go directly to my voicemail.

Anyhow, as I expected, she was seeking money. Apparently she feels that I owe her child support, even though Rece lives with me more than 75% of the time — and I pay for all his living expenses (health insurance, clothing, food, entertainment, etc). After hearing from her live-in boyfriend that she’s been disappearing a lot lately, doing drugs (smoking and/or snorting crystal meth), and that 2 people showed up at their place at 2:30 am looking for her after they apparently loaned her $3500 a few weeks earlier; there’s no way in hell that I’d let Rece stay with her unsupervised.

Yes, I realize that this is all hearsay. When you’ve lived with a person for over 14 years and hear friends and relatives all saying the same thing, independent from one another, seeing patterns of behavior repeating themselves … you just have to realize that your suspicions are probably correct. If it looks like a duck …

She is claiming that she’s afraid of her boyfriend, that he’ll hurt her or worse. Yet she seems to find it perfectly suiting to leave my son alone with him after school and various other times. This doesn’t make sense. If it’s true, then she’s put Rece in harm’s way on numerous occasions. If it isn’t true, then it just reinforces my belief she’s unstable and not somebody I want Rece to be around for extended periods of time.

Back to the voicemails … she said that she wanted the money and that she’d come by my office to collect it around 3:00 pm — in cash, not a check. I didn’t get the money as I didn’t plan on giving her as much as a dime. It didn’t matter, as she didn’t show up and instead left another message stating that she’d be at my home at 6:30 pm.

Her boyfriend called shortly after I arrived at home asking if I’d heard anything new about her whereabouts. I invited him over so he could be there when she arrived. We talked for a good 2 hours about some of the things Sherise had done in our relationships and found that many of the scenarios were quite similar. 6:30 came and went and he eventually gave up, deciding to leave shortly before 8:00 pm.

At around 8:13 pm Sherise left me another voicemail telling me that she was running behind due to some “errands” (she uses that excuse more than any other) and that she would be at my place in 10 minutes. My friend Christine and I were supposed to meet up for a cup of coffee at 8:30 pm, so I called her to see if she’d be up for meeting me at my place instead. She agreed, arriving at my place at 8:35 pm.

Sherise arrived at my apartment around 8:50 pm. I invited her to have a seat and told her about her mother’s death. I told her of how her family had been trying to locate her so that they could do something about her mother’s body, which was still on life support the last I had heard. One of Sherise’s first responses to me was to ask what her family was saying about her and what I had told them.

I told her that I let them know that she had disappeared again and that she was likely using drugs. She became very defensive and demanded that I reveal the names of the person(s) who said she was on drugs.

The conversation was awkward and she requested that I step outside to continue the conversation in private. We went out and sat in her car to talk. It quickly went downhill from there. I don’t know why I let the conversation go on for so long, to be honest. It had been about an hour since she first arrived when I finally came to my senses and decided that it was going nowhere and ended the discussion, walking away. She got out of her car and followed me back towards my apartment, yelling at me from behind. She said that she had people depending on her to get the money, to which I replied, “the only person depending on you is your son.” The last thing she said as I was walking up up the stairs was “you are so going to regret this”.

I’m thankful that Christine was there. I don’t know if it would have gotten worse without a witness nearby. She did a great job of keeping Rece occupied while Sherise and I spoke. She also helped me sort through the mess that had just happened.

This morning, at 10:16 am, Sherise left another voicemail. Her tone wasn’t pleasant. She let me know that her mother had been pronounced dead on Friday. I didn’t know this, but it really didn’t matter, as Sherise was missing when she needed to be contacted about the situation. I guess she feels that somehow I’m to blame for her disappearing and stories of drug use and defaming her character and abandoning Rece without as much as a call to let us know that she wouldn’t be available this week for Rece to see after school (which was the working plan). She declared that our friendship was officially over and that “it is so on, it is not even funny”. I didn’t realize we were friends and I don’t understand why my showing my displeasure with her behavior and alleged drug use constitutes a threat of some sorts.

The drama stops now. Rece and I don’t need it in our lives. I refuse to get pulled into it or to let Rece become affected with this garbage.

This entry now knows what needs to be done.

All right … something a little lighter for a change.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZBevXohCI]

_{This entry wants to look on you with its own eyes.}

Sherise’s boyfriend and one of her friends went and filed a missing person report at the police department yesterday evening. The friend called me and asked for some details they could provide the police. All I had still locked in my head was her SSN and date of birth.

Sherise’s grandmother is definitely stressed by all of this and seems more than ready to just get it over with and pull the plug. Looks like it can remain a stalemate for another 6 days while they attempt to reach Sherise.

Again, I don’t know why I feel the need to write about this here. It really doesn’t have much to do with me anymore.

_{This entry is tired from a stressful week.}

I received a call today from Sherise’s grandmother. She told me that the decision of whether or not to take Sherise’s mother off of life support falls to the oldest (adult) child of the patient. So the doctors will leave her plugged into the machines for up to a week before they’ll consider looking to the younger children (22 and 11, I believe) and the mother.

We still haven’t heard anything from Sherise. Nobody knows where she is or how to contact her. So this ordeal has become even messier.

It seems odd to be writing about this. I don’t know what else to do. It’s frustrating to see it happening from my perspective and I can only imagine it is even more frustrating and painful for members of her family who want closure.

_{This entry just wants it to be over.}

Sherise’s mother suffered a brain aneurysm on Monday, October 10th, 2007 at approximately 3:30 pm. This effectively ended her short life of 53 years. The many tubes and medications that the doctors had stuck into her did nothing to bring her back. Her pupils were unresponsive, she did not respond to any pain stimulus: her brain was dead.

Yesterday Rece and I went to the ICU to join her family in their time of need. Rece wanted to see the grandmother he never met. We went into her ICU and saw her in the hospital bed with tubes and devices connected to her failing body. He was sad, but it seemed as though it was in reaction to hearing of a death of somebody he didn’t know. I found that to be one of the many saddening things about the visit.

In a way I’m glad he didn’t get to know her. She was full or pride and hate and spite. She was physically abusive to her daughter as she grew up, then, as an adult, was verbally abusive until I stepped in and told her that it had to stop. And stop it did … she broke off all contact with us while Sherise was still 5-6 months pregnant with Rece. Over the years she made deliberate efforts to avoid us and exclude us from events where she would be present. In this effort she was successful. It was difficult for Sherise to deal with, but I sincerely believe it was for the best.

Sherise still doesn’t know that her mother is gone. On Sunday, while Rece was spending his every-other-weekend with her, she left “to run some errands” he told me. A few hours later he left to return to my home, as planned. Sherise had not yet returned by the time he had he left. When her grandmother called me about what was happening and tried to reach Sherise, I was unable to provide any additional contact information, so I immediately left work and went directly to her home. I was greeted by her live-in boyfriend who appeared very concerned, asking if I had seen Sherise. He told me that the last time he had seen her was when he left for work on Sunday, while Rece was there. She had disappeared … again.

He shared with me that a couple of weeks earlier he confronted Sherise about her unpredictable behavior (more disappearances). He said that she admitted to having a drug problem and that it was “meth” that she had been on. Undoubtedly this is likely the reason for her recent absence in her normal life. It is also the reason for her being unavailable to learn of her mother’s passing.

I’m shocked by the death of Amy Victoria McManama (Lewis) and the news of Sherise’s descent into the world of drug addiction. At this point my job is to provide the best home as I can for Rece.

_{This entry doesn’t quite know what to do with it all.}

This is amazing. Yep, this is another YouTube video.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sptkTmF8Jgk]

This entry appreciates the talent of a good musician.

The next time you feel the need to grasp a fistful of fluffy wool and hear panicked bleating, just remember that ewe are one sick puppy.

_{This entry isn’t all there, is it?}

Just in case you’re wondering, my best friends are Quinn & Christine. I may not always mention all the stuff we do or how often we talk and such, but it does happen. So when I say “I don’t have any plans for the weekend” I very well might be hanging out with Christine at some point over the weekend. I just mean that I don’t have any formal or complicated plan that might get in the way of me trying to sleep in or having some quiet time to myself.

_{This entry wants to be sure that his introverted behavior isn’t taken the wrong way!}