Not Goldfish Chicken! PARTY Chicken!

Okay, so I have a funny story to share with you about Kayla. The past few days have actually been mostly ABOUT Kayla actually around the house. Funny how that happens sometimes. Although, truth be told, it's nice having her home - I enjoy her company.

We had a 'girls night out' a couple Sundays ago. Chris had left gone to work, and it was just Kayla, Kayte and Jonathan at home. Well, Jonathan really didn't want to stay at home, but he asked if he could go out as well and bring his girlfriend along as well for 'girls night out'. I agreed - those of you who know Jon know that him wanting to go OUT with us is RARE, so I considered it quite the treat that he wanted to spend time with us.

Well, this was at 5. My plan was to leave at 6 and head out to dinner somewhere first, then catch the movie at 7:40. Well, right about 5, Kayla heads out the door with this guy "TJ", whom we have never met. He sat outside in a car and just waited for her. Irritating because she JUST said she was going to go to a movie with us for "girls night out". I called her and asked her where the heck she was going. She happily said "to the mall!" I said "I thought you were going out with us?" She said that she was, she wanted to do it all. I told her that I was leaving in 30 minutes (by this time it was now close to 5:30) with or without her. 6 came and she wasn't home so Jon, Kayte, Ashley (Jon's girlfriend) and I all headed to dinner. Kayla met us there.

We ate dinner, saw the movie (My Sister's Keeper) - big-time tear-jerker by the way - and had a great time. On the way home, Kayla tells me that she needs to go to the walk in clinic. I asked her why. She explains that she needs a note for work.

A note for work? Why??

Well, she called out of work on SATURDAY. We went to see the movie on Sunday Sunday. By the way, the time was now after 10 pm.

I explain to her that, first of all - the clinics are closed. Second of all, she is NOT sick. Third of all, if they even DID give her a note, it would be dated today - Sunday - not Saturday. Why on earth did she need a note?

Well, she explained that she called out of work on Saturday and lied, telling them that she was sick. She was fired from McDonalds for calling out of work too much, and for lying about WHY she called out. I think I told you about the DAY she was fired. She told me she was fired because she "couldn't get along with her boss" but in reality.... she told her boss that her mother had overdosed and was in a coma. Then, who shows up in drive-thru asking for a big mac and Kayla? Julie. They said "Who are you?" She said "Her mom, why?" They called and fired her right then and there. Sadly, it's not even the first time she's said that her mom was in a coma or that her mom overdosed... I recall her using that excuse multiple times. Anyways....

She and I and Kayte talked about her being fired from McDonalds over this. Then we talked about her calling out on Saturday... and why she did it. She wanted to be home for the Kayte and Justin's birthday party. Well, it was her Brother's birthday. It was a planned birthday party... she SHOULD have planned the day off. But she didn't.

So now, she's stuck in this lie. And her bosses at Taco Bell apparently now KNOW about all her lies at McDonalds. Kayla said that she told them, and that is why they expect a doctor's note.

So, I said to her:

Kayla... I tell you what... just this once, why don't you do this:

Go to your boss and tell him/her this:

Listen... here is the whole entire truth:

It was my brother's birthday. My family had a party. Originally I wanted to attend, but I forgot I worked. I LIED to you telling you I was sick. That was wrong of me. I should not have done that.

The TRUTH is that I wanted to be home with the family. As it turned out... my mother tried to kill herself that very morning. She never showed up for the party, and the family was together, and through the family being together, we made it through the day.

She was taken to an Emergency room. They pumped her stomach and she survived. Then they took her to a psyc ward. She is okay now.

I didn't want to call and tell you all of this because -- this very TRUTH is the exact LIE that I told McDonalds. It's ironic. It's sad. And, well honestly, it's true.

I can't get you a doctor's note. I can probably get you something from my mom's nurses telling you that she really IS in the hospital. They probably can’t go into much detail because of her being in the psyc ward, but it'll just tell you she's in I'm sure.

I feel really bad about lying, but I'm hoping that by telling the truth it'll be a good start for me in this new job.

So.... I tell all of this to Kayla and she says "Wow Auntie Tina. That is SUCH a good lie!" I said "KAYLA! What about that is a lie? That is 100% true!! Honey... you don't EVER have to lie! That's how I keep every job I have. TELL THE TRUTH. That's all ANYONE ever wants from you. The truth. Work hard. Be honest. You will get far in life if you live by these things!!"

Well, she sort-of did this. She told them part of the story. They let her keep her job anyways.

Kayla is out there right now… just learning things the HARD way. Regretfully, I feel that is how she is going to have to learn. Last year around Christmas she had nearly one thousand dollars saved up for a car. Since then she’s worked all summer, but has not put one penny of those checks in the bank SINCE Christmas, and has managed to spend all but eight dollars or so. She’s going in her own direction… and nothing I seem to say to her is making any impact. I show her the website to apply for small college scholarships – she sits on Myspace or goes out with friends instead. But I know that – at the age of 18, I have to let her learn. Allow her to make those mistakes.

Kayla and I had a horrible fight, sort-of, the other day. Julie went over to my house and basically told Kayla that I was going to throw her out. Kayla has been going out – a LOT – at night with friends. She’s rarely home over the summer. Spending money. Doing things that, let’s just say – she thinks that we don’t know about but we DO. (Remember, we were 17 and pregnant, so we were not old fogies as parents!) I reminded Kayla that I took an oath before my husband, the family and God that we would see to it that these kids graduated high school and we would do our best to get them INTO college. What they chose to do from there was up to them… but we would, at the very least, get them on that path. She is not yet done with high school… therefore WE are NOT YET done with her. Oie.

Things at home the last month have been…………… odd. While I realize how blessed we are that nothing is really serious… it’s still odd that a lot has happened the past month. I was really, REALLY sick… requiring multiple doctors visits, shots and even an MRI and ER visit. Chris was rushed by ambulance to a hospital. Oh – I haven’t blogged about that!

Chris was horribly sick at his job while in Melbourne, FL. Just feeling dizzy all the time. He wasn’t feeling too well while home a few days before, but we chalked it up to a touch of the flu or whatever. So he calls me and tells me he’s dizzy. It must be bad… he never really complains, and I didn’t realize till later that the poor guy was falling over bad. I ask him if he’s eaten, and he says yes. Well then, I think, it has to be his ears. Can only be ears or sugar, right? I mean, he’s only 41… what else can it be? He at one point mentions “ambulance” but I brush it off as an exaggeration or something – I dunno. I was KICKING myself over that for a LONG LONG time later, let me tell you. Instead, I looked up an address for a local walk in clinic. You see, the kind of work Chris does, you can’t just leave one day and come back to the next, it HAS to be done on a time-line, and they HAD to be done by midnight the day he called me. He snaps back at me when I give him the clinic info “How the heck am I going to get there? I’m working!” I mention that they could take a lunch hour and go, and with that, apparently they decided that Wayne would drop him off and go back to work.

Apparently the next thing that happened was that Chris was ‘trying’ to sign in at the desk of the clinic when he passed out. He awoke in the back, with the doctor trying to do the ‘follow my finger’ exam. When he tried to follow the finger, Chris threw up on the doctor. The clinic doctor called an ambulance and they transported him to a local hospital.

The next phone call I get was from Chris : “Hey honey… now don’t panic. I’m in the back of an ambulance and I’m on my way to the hospital.” Oh yeah…. Don’t panic? Chris has never, in his adult life, been taken by ambulance to a hospital. Not worry??? My butt was in my car so fast, I made it across the State of Florida and was in that ER in 2 hours and 30 minutes. No lie. End diagnosis was Labrynthitis, a swelling of the inner ear…. Not an infection or anything, but caused by a virus attacking something in the inner ear. It self-resolves (goes away on its own) in anywhere from weeks, months, to a year. He’s been getting better – although had an episode even yesterday.

So, there’s me going to the ER with the migraine for over 2 weeks, Chris going to the ER for the first time in his adult life – and by ambulance to boot, Julie overdosing ON her son’s birthday and on the day of a big party for 2 of her kids birthdays, there is some stuff going on with my daughter that I can’t mention here but she could use prayers for love and strength. Oh, Mom going into ICU for heart problems. That phone call was fun… the first thing she tells me, before she tells me where she is or what is going on, she says “promise me you won’t call you sisters”. After I promise her, THEN she tells me that she’s in ICU – for her HEART. Now… how am I not going to tell my sisters that she’s in ICU for her heart? That’s just WRONG! Jeez mom! I told her that I wouldn’t tell them, but I’d post it on my Facebook as a status and then not only would my sisters know, but her sisters and all the family would know and would worry about her. I kinda think she was okay with me telling my sisters at that point. **grin**

School starting is around the corner. We are supposed to have a BIG back to school/birthday party for Justin and Kayte. Gwen wanted to go in (financially) on this party. I’m just not sure about it… how to have it… if I want to have it at the house… how to host it… etc. Every time we host it, it seems to get out of hand. It’s always ‘successful’, but – there are always a LOT more kids than we intended to be there, they always are louder than we thought they’d be (i.e. the neighbors complain), they stay later than we ask them to (have had to stand out front and literally offer to start driving kids home if they didn’t just leave). And, well, the kids are getting OLDER – ya know? And OLDER always comes with whole new sets of problems. 14 and 15 year old kids are different than 17 and 18 year old kids. I don’t know…. Chris and I really need to talk about this some more.

I have to blog about one big thing that is super concerning to me as of late.

Little Kayte isn’t wanting to talk to her mom (Julie) at all after the overdose. She’s really mad at her. Kayla – well, Kayla’s mad, but she’ll talk to Julie when she wants something. Justin… Justin is a bleeding heart and will do ANYTHING for his mother. And I do mean anything. Julie has him absolutely positively wrapped around her finger. And it makes me sick.

The relationship between Julie and Justin is not healthy. I fear it is getting worse actually instead of better. Julie will come in on a Sunday morning, and Julie will walk PAST Kayte and Kayla to get to Justin to say good morning. She – no doubt – favors him. And, I get it that a lot of parents have ‘favorites’. Most try not to show it. She doesn’t hide it. She talks to him all the time. Text… calls… I’ve tried to talk to Julie about it, but she doesn’t see it. She flat-out believes that when Justin grows up and gets married, it should be ‘normal’ for him and his wife to ‘take care of her the rest of her life’. She tells him that this is his responsibility. After all… "who else is going to do it?" Julie, in her childish mind, can't fathom that it's NOT her child's responsibility to actually take care of HER. She doesn’t see a darn thing wrong with it. When Julie is sad, she calls Justin. Happy, Justin. Just wants to talk, Justin. Wants someone to walk her out to her car, Justin. Wants to go to the store with her to get a burger, Justin. It's always Justin.

Recently Kayte had gone on a one-week trip to Miami with a friend and was due back late Saturday night. She gets back close to midnight. When she arrives, Kayte tells me “Auntie Tina… is mom coming over tomorrow, because… I do NOT want to see her. I am still very mad that she tried to kill herself at my birthday party and I am not ready to see her here. If I have to leave tomorrow, I will, but I do not want to see her!”

Well, heck, she just got home! I don’t want her to be forced to leave her own home. So, I sent Julie a text message and told her that Kayte was not ready to see her and that she should not come over for her weekly visit on Sunday. Julie called me Sunday morning and you won’t believe what the first thing she said was.

NOT… “Oh my gosh! My daughter… my youngest daughter is still upset with me? What can I do to help repair the relationship?”

NOT… “Thank you for letting me know. Tell her to take as much time as she needs and I’ll be here whenever she is ready”

NOT… “MAN! I really wanted to see Kayte! I haven’t seen her in weeks!”

Nope! The FIRST WORDS out of her mouth… “What about JUSTIN? Do I still get to see Justin? I mean, he’s not mad at me! Can I see him somehow? What if I picked him up? Can we go to the park? How about lunch? I mean, I can still see Justin can’t I?

She ONLY CARED ABOUT JUSTIN.

It was sick.

Twisted.

I literally laughed and had to stop myself from laughing. Out loud.

I thought I was being punked.

And – let me be clear here – I don’t think this is in any way INTENTIONAL. I believe Julie has absolutely no clue what she is doing here. I believe that she feels nothing but love for Justin and is clueless what she did to Kayte. When she text messages Kayte twice a day saying “I love you”… driving Kayte nuts because Kayte sees it as another “I’m so sorry”, Julie means it as an “I love you” in her head. Julie thinks she loves Justin – and in her mind she can’t “love someone too much”. But she is in Child mode and Justin is being forced into parent mode by his own mother, which just isn’t right. In my opinion that is. Granted I’m no psychologist, but this is my blog, and I’m raising him and these are my thoughts and opinions.

Ya know, ever since I got back from my trip from Tennessee, I am SO EXCITED about when the kids move out. I used to be afraid. Full of dread…. Unsure of what the future would hold. What on earth would we do without a big house? Kids? What would life be like? Just yesterday Chris and I were talking about the SS funds and VA funds stopping and us being forced to sell the house and moving. He sounded like he was going to miss the house. But I was just sitting here thinking about moving myself. Montana. Virginia maybe. Tennessee? California? Mississippi? New Hampsire? Arizona? Chicago? Who cares…. We can really live ANYWHERE that we can get jobs. We don’t need a small apartment; we can get a mid-size condo perhaps. But goodness the thought of it is so exciting to me now.

Julie just called. Got the check in from Victim’s assistance. I’m telling you – Chris was right when she said that she pees rainbows. Not only did she close on her house… the one that she hadn’t made a single payment on in over a year and then actually get a check for $1,200 in the mail…. BUT… now she dates a scum-of-the earth criminal guy. A felon. A known criminal who beats the crap out of women. A guy so shady that everyone she knows – INCLUDING I might add the guy’s OWN MOTHER tells Julie that she should RUN from him – she dates him, he beats the crap out of her, and now Victim’s assistance cuts her a check to move. The girl pees rainbows. It’s simply amazing.

I’m eating leftovers. My nails haven’t been done in a year or so. And she is peeing rainbows.

Amazing.

Speaking of not-so-lucky – I called the VA asking about Kayla’s money because I swear it seems like they should be paying for her while she is still in high school.

I loved what this super honest guy tells me.

“Ma’am… we have a lot of paperwork here at the VA. A lot of military who are active duty who take priority. It could honestly take a year. Or more.”

A YEAR?

OR MORE?

SERIOUSLY?

I think it’s time to write Senator Nelson, the guy who has helped me out TWICE in the past, another letter. It’s already been 7 months now…. A year??? Jeez Louise. And it’s not guaranteed that they are going to say ‘yes’… they very well may say no!

I told the guy on the phone… “Listen. I’m not a military person. I am an Aunt who is caring for these beautiful kids after their dad died in the military. To be honest with you, I’ve had these problems ever since getting them four years ago. It took three years just to begin getting VA death benefits for them at all. And sir, you have been honest with me so far, so let me ask you this: I’ve been telling these kids that when they start college, they are going to get funds from the GI bill to pay for college. Well, sir, from as far as I can see, everything that has to do with military and the VA has proven to be extremely time-consuming and difficult to do. Can you tell me if indeed these kids are going to be able to enroll in college and have the GI bill cover them right away in college?” He told me that he honestly didn’t know how that worked. I have serious doubts now about the timeliness of this GI bill being taken care of, but I guess we shall see. Course, having never been to college myself I’m not all that sure about how and when to start everything, but I’m hoping their high school guidance counselor will help us with all of that. I already have some kind of approval letter from the VA saying that they can go to the Dale Mabry campus of HCC. Don’t know for sure that the letter is enough… but I suppose it’s a start. :o)

Chris and I went back to Church last week and this week. If I may be perfectly honest here in my blog…. We’ve missed a few weeks. More than a few actually. It’s been – how do I put this – it’s been difficult to ‘plug back in’ after being ‘unplugged’ from the praise team. Yeah… that, I think, words it correctly for me anyways. You know what I mean, you ‘fit in’ to a church in one way, then when you get disconnected, you have to put your roots in some other way? Well, we had no other roots. Choir? Well… in the choir it was always “we remember when you were out there” kind of stuff. Or we just remembered what it was like to praise and worship with the praise team. It – was very hard. And we have not been able to plug back in. Whether I am right or wrong… whether it’s pride or it’s justified or whatever the reason… it’s been difficult to plug back in. Well, last week Chris and I went to our Jason Nelson’s new church. We liked it okay. This last weekend we went back to Van Dyke again. There sure is no place like home, that’s for sure. They had a new preacher this week, and he was fantastic.

Chris and I have often thought about why it is that we don’t have more friends. Why we don’t ‘get out more’. Why we don’t have dinner with friends, neighbors, etc. This preacher hit that nail RIGHT ON THE HEAD. He talked about how it was that Jesus’ disciples could, in their day in time, with no internet, no Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, could gather 5,000 men (then add women and children to that) in one place to hear Jesus talk. How AMAZING is that? Could we do the same thing today?

In a society that has more connections with people faster than ever in more ways to connect to people faster than ever world-wide… we are more disconnected than ever. And, boy is he right. He asked how many of us know our neighbors. Well, I know my next door neighbors. I know the guys across the street…. But I don’t REALLY know them. I can’t tell you for sure what they do for a living. I don’t know them all that well. And for SURE I have never had dinner with them. Never sat down to chat with them. Just said hi from the yard is about the extent of it. Could I get 5,000 people to an event? Shoot… I couldn’t get 10 people to a purse party… never mind 5,000 to an event.

He talked about how he was in college once and they have a social dorm just down the hall from everyone’s rooms. The idea was everyone was going to meet for dinner and talk. He got his Burger King meal and went to this room. Nobody was there. He walked down the hall only to find everyone in their rooms… on their computer… eating their own fast food – instant messaging one another. He shouted to them all “get OFF the computer and come into the room and actually TALK to each other – FACE to FACE!” I laughed when I heard this because I can recall many a time when Chris and I actually sat in the living room… laptops on our laps…. And actually did the same thing – instant messaged each other. Sitting literally two feet from each other. Funny. But…. Not really.

Yet…. All this technology has turned us into a society that is AFRAID to go and knock on our neighbor’s door and invite them for dinner. The preacher said… “You never really know someone until you eat with them…. There is a tendency to let your guard down when you have your feet under the same table and relax.” Something to that effect. We were all given a task while in church to go take 5 minutes and go up to a perfect stranger and introduce ourselves and find out about the other person. I tell you, that was the HARDEST five minutes of my life. Actually, after we found them and started talking it was easy. It was actually FINDING someone and walking up and STARTING to talk that was hard. After that, it was easy. I guess I need to remember that because the next task we were all charged with was going up to our neighbor at home, picking one house, and knocking on the door before Friday. We are to invite that family to dinner.

OIE

You have absolutely NO IDEA how hard that is going to be for me. I’m sure for Chris as well. We are two peas in a pod. Much alike in many ways.

Our good friend Denise said “I live down the street and we haven’t had dinner together… you can come to MY house!” Well, that’s a nice out…. Really it is… and I do believe I am going to take her up on that…. But I believe that I want to ALSO knock on a neighbor’s door.

Because becoming friends with new people, breaking bread with friends, sharing, caring – that’s all part of Jesus’ plan. And it’s uncomfortable for me, but I know it will make me a better person. I may not have to preach the word of God to them. But I think that they will SEE Jesus in me… and that will be enough.

Now… what to cook might be a whole different set of worries……..

Party chicken?

(Those of you who read Facebook know my Goldfish vs. Party Chicken recipe. It’s NOT Goldfish Chicken. It’s PARTY Chicken. And it’s YUMMY!)