WannaBeGythaOgg

Maybe OLD dogs can't learn new tricks...

...but there's still some hope for the puppies.

I was pretty depressed yesterday, and it lasted well into today. The cause of this wallow was, as it is so often, the overgrown 43-year-old five-year-old to whom I'm married.

My kids who were out of school for Columbus Day. I had put in for a vacation day, having anticipated their request for me to stay home, since they prefer me to do so whenever possible. This is because their father doesn't find life congenial, and prefers to spread the misery around so nobody feels left out. Fortunately, he slept most of the day away as he always does when I'm home, so we managed to enjoy a fairly quiet environment until 3pm or so. That's when it all went downhill.

Samantha, my older daughter, has soaked up a lot of her father's behavior patterns. She tends to yell first and ask questions later. Between the two of them, it's easy to believe one is under constant attack. Yesterday, my tolerance for this crap evaporated, especially after having been called a few choice names by my (hopefully future ex-) husband. I briefly escaped by taking a trip to the laundromat (our washing machine recently breathed its last and hasn't yet been replaced), but while I was there had to endure yet another spousal diatribe by cell phone, a modern convenience that is not without its drawbacks. As is true in many instances, with one hand technology giveth, with the other it taketh away.

In any case, at the end of a long day full of incidents that made me feel like a substandard member of the species, I was sniffling to myself on the couch. Samantha arrived home from a friend's house, and actually indicated concern...a rare occurrence. I explained that I was tired of being spoken to as if I were worthless. Amazingly, she has since been offering me food, chatting with me, performing the tasks I ask her to do, and in general acting the way a child should, at least in my fantasy life.

I'm not sure how long it will last, but at least now I have hope that maybe she can be taught. The old dog, though...the only hope I have there is that he'll either become a stray or otherwise permanently exit my life. I don't see it happening due to any effort on his part, but I did think of a great analogy today...forget the dog thing, he's much more like a toxic waste dump. One doesn't wait for the dump to move - one packs up one's stuff, and of course one's several children, and hightails it for safer, less oozy ground.

Time to leave the Love Canal. Anybody wanna help me with a plan of escape?

posted by PratchettFan @ 8:13 PM