Personal Update

Professional Update in the making.

Last weekend I was able to wash my camp dishes and cooking gear. Apart from the food and fire wood for the actual trip, whenever it will be, I think I have procured everything except mirrors for my bike. Given the state of the roads, I want to be able to see how the trailer is doing without having to twist around while riding.

The preexwife is…is…is what, exactly. Losing it? I guess that fits but not like a glove. It is time for the house to be repainted and other maintenance done. The manifold for the faucet and shower in the bathroom leaks horribly, so that is certainly in the list to get done. There are lots of other options such as remodeling the entire bathroom. She’ll have a cabinet installed in the upstairs restroom and the one in the downstairs stairs one lowered. She keeps asking me for my thoughts on these but I am not going to be here. Has she forgotten that she is throwing me out? It often seems so. However, a few days ago, out of nowhere she said out loud that she didn’t need to ask or share anything on the house upkeep. Since then, she has again reverted to asking me about various things. I just shrug. Today she informed me that she will not remodel the bath as she does not know how long she will be in this house. Why does that statement hurt so much? I know the reality, am preparing for it. Yet, the statement and her cold callous way of saying it is like thrusting the knife deeper.

But it more than just this. She loves to cook and is an excellent on eat that. While we have long used heat and eat dishes either as a main or side dish for the extra busy days, she is using these much more than in even the recent past, relying entirely on these for a couple or more meals a week.

How to relate this episode without appearing more callous than I am, and a bit callous I am, but not as much as will probably be conveyed here. A few weeks ago my preexwife broke her foot. She gets little sympathy from me as she need not have done so and I have little sympathy for those who foolishly injure themselves, including myself. One reason for this with my kids is that I do not in any way want to encourage them to self harm for sympathy. The KID may be inclined to do so, so needy are they of mommy’s attention.

We were on our way to a basketball game when preexwife panicked and decided we had to hurry. Runny and looking at her idiot phone, she did not realize the side walk slowed to the left to allow cars to enter the driveway she was running past. Nor did she see the one, solitary, largish stone and stepped on it at the trot and broke her foot. I was behind her and witnessed it. Immediately knew it was bad but from what I saw, expected an ankle injury not unalike my knee injury. I was a bit surprised hours late when we got home and she took off her shoe and saw the indications of an obvious broken bone in here foot. The rush was completely unnecessary as even with the broken foot slowing us down to a snails pace we got to the station with 3 minutes to spare. Of course, running and looking at an idiot phone is not unknown to bring about calamity.

Her injury also makes my life more difficult. At the end of each semester and especially at the end of the school year, I am quite busy and my work materials tend to clutter the den. However, after each is complete, I have always put things away. The preexwife’s refusal to return to the office following the lockdowns lite means that I have not been able to put things away for 5 full years. This is one of the main reasons she wants me out but refuses to leave the house and not bother me, like third degree on every task I do, if she is present when I attempt to put my things away. It was attempt to iron my work clothes so that I could then put them away that triggered her to throw me out.

In recent months, her employer, “PF”, requires all employees to be in the office 3 days a week. This has helped me out enormously but not as much as it should. After being essentially banned for the room and rushing up stairs to it when ever she comes down to prepare dinner to make copies and or dig and find teaching materials, any amount of time in the room is folded. But she doesn’t stay in the office all day unless there are meeting scheduled. She is a confirmed coffee badger and as such is usually away for no more than 2 1/2 hours. Time to get a little done, not enough for the big project of putting g 5 years of clutter away. Of course, this is my fault, as everything is.

But she broke her foot and cannot go in to the office at all thus denying me the few hours a week I was counting on to prep my lessons, iron, fold and put away my laundered clothes and possibly scan negatives again after a 5 year hiatus. Now that classes are back in session, it looks I will not have a chance to short anything before I have to move out.

To highlight her mind set, I will relate a recent episode that I shared with one of my reader/commenters. A few days ago, a week, perhaps a little more I was yelling at the Kid to put their school backpack away. They just started 6th grade, so for a full r5 years, each and every day they put their back pack on the floor just inside the living room and right in they way for anyone entering the room, and each and every day they are told multiple times to move and to never put it there again, which they ignore until I yell at them with my petty office in the engine room voice which makes them cry. Before getting to the point they get yelled at, preexwife yelled at me for having my back pack in the living and the pile of stuff I was working on before dinner and placed on the floor to make room to eat. I reminded her that the dining room table had become my work station. Screaming, so told me to work in the den. When I told her that I can’t until I can dig my deck out for the 5 years of clutter and put it away and that i can’t do that while she is working in the den, she kept saying “No.” to every reason I gave. Then, the very next morning, they very first thing she says to me is that she has a zoom meeting followed by a zoom interview which will take all morning and that I cannot enter the room nor use the printer. AND the same the following day as well. Being out each afternoon, I was denied access for two more days, a realty that she denied just the night before.

Parting company from her is something I cannot wait to do, leaving the kid’s breaks my heart. But they too are making it less difficult with their refusal to even acknowledge my presence more often than not. Still, they are kids and know no better, they are just following the poor example their mother provides for them.