a stepson update and watching a cousin crash and burn

i haven't added anything lately because i haven't been able to work up much interest in what's going on in my life. my stepson's birthday was yesterday, so i spent about an hour talking to my daughter-in-law and about twenty minutes with my stepson. i would have spoken with him longer, but by the time he got home it was already just about time for me to go to bed. dil (daughter-in-law) was in houston over the weekend, helping some friend of hers move. she told me stepson has been very clingy lately and that she's trying to work on repairing the damage he's done to the relationship. my husband thinks she just get over it and move on, but i'm a little more sympathetic to her plight. my stepson has a gig lined up on march 19. he's still working at the pet store and, of course, he still really hates it. i'm hoping that this will be some impetus towards getting some kind of training for a real job. there's nothing like being a pet store clerk at 36. he hasn't mentioned wanting to figure out something to do with himself other than be a musician. being a musician is great, but he's not making much progress in having that be a source of real income. i don't know. i guess i'm too pragmatic sometimes.

i've been thinking about one of my cousins lately. i really never knew any of them particularly well. this one lived in the same town as i did when i was growing up, but i never saw much of her after her toddler years. my aunt (on my dad's side) was nutty and periodically decided she didn't want to see member(s) of her family. she'd get angry with them for ridiculous reasons. i was around for one of the meltdowns. for some reason, my parents had been storing some fish (??) at my aunt's house. they wanted to get it and drove over to her house. she wouldn't let my parents come in and get their fish out of the freezer because her son (not the cousin i've been thinking of) had thought our showing up to get fish was disrespectful. that resulted in a rift between her and my parents that lasted for some time.

my cousin, dee, was the older of her two children. she was about 11 years younger than i. i'm certain that she was sexuallly abused by my uncle--the one who abused me. he lived with them for a period of time when she was a little girl. for the longest time, she was the perfect older daughter. she and her mom were really close, it seemed. dee went to college and got a couple of degrees. she then got married out of state one day and neglected to tell her mom. after about a year or so, dee left her husband and married another guy pretty quickly after the divorce. after she had her first baby, she developed chronic fatigue symdrome and motored around in a wheelchair for a couple of years. my mom always thought the cfs was just a way for dee to get out of caring for her new baby. i think that's possible, but i think it's just as likely that she really did have cfs or that she believed that she did.

dee and her mom continued to be really close and she ended up paying for a number of repairs to my aunt's house. she and her husband had another baby about five years after the other one. he little boy (whose name i can't recall) was about two when my dad killed himself. when my cousin found out about my dad, she offered to take my dad's bloody truck to be washed. even though it may have had very little to do with what happened next, i think i'll always feel some level of responsibility. part two tomorrow. been arrested for something. she

quote of the day:
"We only regard those unions as real examples of love and real marriages in which a fixed and unalterable decision has been taken. If men or women contemplate an escape, they do not collect all their powers for the task. In none of the serious and important tasks of life do we arrange such a "getaway." We cannot love and be limited." ~ Alfred Adler

america held hostage day 1883
bushism of the day;
"I do remain confident in Linda. She'll make a fine labor secretary. From what I've read in the press accounts, she's perfectly qualified."
—Austin, Texas, Jan. 8, 2001

website of the day: the iditarod!
http://www.iditarod.com/" title="http://www.iditarod.com/" target="_blank"http://www.iditarod.com/