Dear Roger, Movie Premiers Or Why I Dont Teach Tweens

Well, last night was finally the night! I did something I have never done and I actually went to opening night of a major, guaranteed to be freaking insane, and chock a block full of annoying tweens and dodgy others, movie. I managed to put aside all my hating crowds issues, my not liking other peoples tweens issues, as well as my general dislike of all things media hyped and insane and I took Chance to see the premier of Eclipse. We went with my friend Elisha and we saw the film along with the other two previous films, which was kinda cool because I realized while I was watching them, that I had never seen any of the actors in any of the movies in the theater ever before, I mean, sure, I had seen other movies of theirs, but always on dvd or cable, never on the big screen, so it was pretty interesting, and I realized that WOW! some of those guys are even better looking, BIG! but hell, when isn't big,better??

The theater was slammed to hell and gone and I was very glad I had gotten out tickets over a month ago, because even arriving an hour early with advance tickets, we still had to sit down pretty close to the front. They had over 900 people turn out here in the ghetto in the meadow to see this, and there were more who wanted to, but it sold out so damn fast that they had to turn people away. People had camped out, and the line went around the building which really shocked me considering we are such a podunk city that doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of a celebrity showing up for any kind of events, and in fact there really weren't any events to speak of, just long lines at the womens restrooms and concessions.

The crowd was good natured and really diverse with a large contingent of Native kids, Twi-moms and the ever present vaguely psychotic, tweens that screamed for not apparent reason and seemed to have bladder issues, or at least the ones on our row did. It finally reached the point during the second film that much to Chances dismay, Elisha and I finally got a little hostile, because if you have an issue that means you cannot sit through a 2 hour movie without having to get up and wade across 12 people more than 8 times with your 4 little girlfriends, then you need to be either sitting on the outer row or your momma needs to take your ass home instead of trying to mad dog those finally get sick and tired of getting their boots stepped on and say something.

There was lots of cheering as the favorites came on and lots of hooting and hollering during any kinda romance or smexyness and I only embarrassed Chance a little by whooping it up when Jasper showed up in his back-story wearing a Confederate uniform, riding a horse, but DAMN! there is only soo much a grown assed woman should be expected to take and keep silent, and in my defense, I was not the only person that got a little vocal, there were more than a few grown assed women, and (men) that let it be known that Team Jasper was in the house. I know I had a big ole grin, and I probably embarrassed the hell out of Chance, but he was good natured about it and I only herd a muttered,"Cougar" once or twice, but then I think he realized he was outnumbered by,"Cougars" so it was probably safest to be quiet.

On the way home at 0300, I asked Chance if it was totally horrible? and he said,"Noo, it didnt totally suck, there were lots of hot babes wandering around, the fight scenes were pretty wicked". When I pressed him to pick a favorite character, he went with Jasper,"Gotta go with the Texan, DUH!" Thats my boy!

It was good, I will buy the dvd.

Dear Roger,I Got A Pair Of Boots Older Than My Last Friend With Benefits

Well, the time is getting short and im really having to get stuff ready to go, and I have spent most of the past few days looking for places to live, sorting out things that can go to storage for a while, things that have to go with us right away and things that are just gonna get gone. The worry about the unknown is the biggest thing bugging me now and oddly enough my boots are my biggest issue. I have more than 8 pairs of cowboy boots, in fact they are pretty much all I freaking wear and have worn for most of the last decade or so. I have walked the soles off of several pair of Ropers, worn down the sides on a pair of combat boots, and I have some Tony Llama Rough outs that are older than my last "friend with benefits", in fact they are actually 36 years old and in better shape than he was in and much tougher. I own boots that have waded thorough mud, blood, beer, cow pastures, crime scenes, and dance floors. I have worn them for horse back riding, running, fighting, motorcycle riding, one really interesting night with a fella that found my boots and Vickies to be quite the turn on, and the spurs to be quite the icing on the cake,(actually my PaPa's spurs)but there is no accounting for the oddness of some folks.I value my boots up there with my books and my music and I have worn and carried them with me pretty much everyplace I have lived. I do not own a pair of heels, and I only bought a couple pair of tenny shoes after my ortho guy had ten different fits about me working out in boots on their mats after my back injections were done the last time. I used to wear Doc Martens quite a bit as my tenny shoes, but then they got adopted as the unofficial footwear of those who bat for the other team, and considering I have enough trouble tracking down a fella willing to put out, I sadly had to let them go, so that I would not shut down any interest based on first impressions.

When we get up there we will not have any furnishings! Im going to have to buy beds, a table, a tv, and all kinds of stuff, but it will all be a clean start and as long as my boots are on the ground and my I can see where the starting point is, its all good.

Dear Roger,Cooking Up A MId-Life Crisis On The Road to Hell

Well hell, the fire is finally mostly out though we are STILL getting smoke, the God damned ex is still here and has decided to raise his fucking voice to me from time to time and I have come real damned close to telling him to take his fucking attitude back down the road to his crappy apartment, because until I hand over the paper and its recorded, the place is NOT his and I can still tell him to fuck the hell off and get out, and I can walk away from the house, or sell it and then move the kids to wherever and he can try to take me to court to stop it. Im really trying to be overly nice and im getting sick of him not realizing that. Im stressed out and he really pushed it today and considering he didn't pay me any damned rent or child support or any other damned help, and I have let him use my car, and I could let a much younger and nicer and better looking guy move in here that would pay rent and probably clear my sinuses with a good thorough trouncing several times a day. I have 8 days left to put up with him wandering in and out and trying to get the kids on some kind of schedule and sorting out my stuff that I am planning on taking to Portland from the stuff that I am leaving here for the kids to have for their comfort and the stuff that I am selling. I have 40 years worth of crap to sort out and its not easy, and his attitude making my PTSD fire off like a bottle rocket on the 4th and im back to not sleeping and stalking around like a stressed out ally cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Chance is being a big help, he has been distracting me with movies like Harold and Kumar, and endless games of Wii Rockband where I actually scored 100% on "Give it Away " by the Red Hot Chili Peppers while singing bare footed with my shorts falling off my ass while I did the funny dance to the music and made him laugh his ass off and freaked out Fergus, nearly resulting in getting my butt bitten again. He also keeps acting like a living countdown, reminding me that we have very few days left here to put up with the shit attitude and the stress and soon we will be in the land of green and rain and trees and where everything doesn't smell like smoke.

Im not sure what all is going to happen once we get there, and I worry about things, but im doing my best to keep my kids fed and clean and sort of happy. I have been cooking more than normal, and I have busted out some of my old favorite recipes,even if I cant eat them I at least get to enjoy cooking them for my big son who really enjoys eating them.

When I was in college at University of Texas, I was in the International Student Union and I had friends from all over the world, and we got together and had communal meals every single day. We kinda functioned as a large, weird, dysfunctional family, with kids from all over, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Palestine, Israel, France, Germany, England,Ireland and me, the token Texan who loved to cook and hang out and play soccer with them. I gained the Momma Bear nurturing bone from my grandma I kinda started looking after some of them that seemed to need it, and we ate meals together often several times ag day, and I learned to cook large, recipes that were a blend of Asian, Texan and even African and Mexican, and I still love to cook that way, and I have even considered opening a restaurant at times like the bar b cue joint near where I grew up, where even if you could only afford the smallest, sandwich, the old woman who ran the place always made sure you had a bowl of cowboy beans and cornbread and sweet tea to go with so you never left hungry. I love cooking, and I love seeing folks appreciate my work. When I was a firefighter/EMT, I used to cook large meals in the fire station kitchen and feed all the duty officers in the area all kinds of Tex/Mex goodies, and I miss the camaraderie, and perhaps I could someday own a combination bookstore, coffeehouse restaurant that allows me the ability to make sure young uns are fed and taken care of, as well as allows me the time and place to write and relax in my kind of place. Who knows, maybe I can finally track down my muse and get back to writing again.

Dear Roger, For A Suck Ass Week, Things Have Actually Been Pretty Good

My boy is home! He is so different from the boy that left here a battered and bruised wreck of a young man, and I am glad to see that. We seem to have a better bond, perhaps gained through him realizing that we were both just surviving our circumstances and doing the best we could and that I was trying my best to protect him from the worst of it all.

He has grown so much. He is taller than me now and spending a couple of years playing athletics in Texas has given him lean muscle and made him fast and much more confidant than he was before. He still has the intensity in everything he attempts, music, athletics,harassing me about whatever, but we seem to get along really well.

We joke a lot more than we ever used to, and he seems to enjoy teasing me about whatever Twilight young man I have on my screensaver or picture that pops up, and I harass him about selling himself as my escort to the premier of Eclipse.He agreed for $35.00 so he could take out one of his girlfriends in Texas, that he would accompany me and my friends to the premier, wearing whatever clothes I selected without complaint, he just didn't realize that I would select clothes other than ripped skinny jeans and faded rock t-shirts, so now he is screwed, so he twitches and shudders just a little every time someone even says the words "Twilight" or "Eclipse" around him, because he saw the shirt and tie and vest and jacket and he KNOWS he is done for, though I did buy him a brand new pair of skinny jeans that he selected as a comfort, and I am allowing him to wear his Vans that don 't stink. He also knows we are taking pictures and hamming it up and planning on having a good time as well as posting pictures, so I guess he is glad that we are in the middle of a move between cities so that he can reinvent himself all over again in a new city and erase the shame and stigma that comes with having a mom that is full bore in a midlife crisis.

I am so damn glad to have him home that things that would have driven me nuts 2 years ago, dont even phase me. He has jacked my cell phone, some of my Affliction and rock t-shirts, my skull crusher headphones,my socks, and money, made fun of my screensaver, my taste in music and men and movies, and drank most of the sodas and dominated the tech area with Halo and Wii and attempted to P'wn me in Wii baseball while making bad "ball" jokes and trying to harass Fergus into biting me on the butt while I was at bat, yet I have reveled in ever moment of it. We watched the Team USA/Ghana match and he yelled with me and and we booed and cussed and mourned the loss together and fist bumped after the one goal and agreed to cheer on team England. We even went out and threw a baseball back and forth in the road for an hour or so, watching the helicopters flying gear in and out of the mountains where they were still fighting a few spot fires left on this side of the Peaks from the Schultz fire.

We have sat around watching weird movies, listening to different types of music and comparing musical styles and making fun of each others generations, though today he even admitted that Gen X'rs like myself had music that seriously,'Rocked balls" and still rocks harder that most of the stuff out there.He has refused to allow me to sit back in my room and hide from the commotion that is going on in my house while the ex prepares to take over operations. He has come back into my room and grabbed my computer out of my hands and said,'Old woman! quit perving over pictures of guys that are young enough to be your sons, get your ass outta bed, and come out to the living room and be with your family!" He has admitted he is scared but excited by out pending move to Portland, and he knows we will have nothing starting over again, but we will be free and we will be healing and no one will be able to hurt us again and I think that is why we are both feeling like life is finally worth living.

Dear Roger,I Think I would Really Be Capable Of Significant Violence At This Point

Rog, I have come to the conclusion that some people are poster children for 'Shoulda been Drowned at Birth", yes, that is not politically correct, no, I never claimed that I was politically correct. If I were the person to catch to stupid sons of bitches that went off and left a camp fire burning up in Schultz Pass on Saturday, I would probably strongly consider doing the world a favor and preventing them from ever breeding and contaminating the gene pool.

My mountains are devastated, my neighbors and my family has lived in fear and apprehension for the last 3 days, and our home will never be the same again, all because some stupid bastards were too lazy to ,make sure that they had done the right thing and put their fucking campfire out properly. If not for the balls to the wall efforts of the Firefighters, people would be homeless right now, myself and many of my friends included. Our forests havent been properly thinned for decades because the Forest Circus has been micro-managed by a bunch of Kum by yah pussies that think every tree is sacred and they might not be able to commune with the bark beetle as well if even one scrub jack pine gets cut! Well, its damn sure thinned now ya fucking dumbasses! But hell, they wont care, they will just pack up their trust fund paid for houses and take their PETA loving asses onto the next state to fuck up,(Probably Texas), and leave the locals here to look at the mess and deal with the mudslides.

Sorry, im pissed and ranting, but I got a clear view of the Peaks today when the smoke cleared for a bit and I actually puked. Its horrible. There is nothing left, it looks like everything up there either crowned and was lost, or is soo badly scarred, it will die anyway. Its not going to come back in my lifetime and I want to fuck somebody up over that!

I used to take my cup of coffee out on my rickety porch every morning and I would sit there and think,"Well, im broke, lonely, sick most of the time and surrounded by liberal Californians, but at least I have the best fucking view in the world", and now I dont even have that.

I threw on my tennis shoes, my ipod and my most arrogant Texas ball cap and funkiest 100 Monkeys t-shirt and I walked the mile down to the Chevron to see if I could get a gallon of milk without getting hooked up by the cops for being in the evac area,(I figured if I looked crazy and ornery enough they would leave me alone), and I needed to just get out of the damn house. The view from the main road was sickening and I just sat on the side of the road and watched the choppers go over with the bambie buckets for a little bit, my hands shaking and tears rolling down my face. The 4 Peaks are the spiritual center to the Tribes and to tell you the truth, after soo long up here, they have become my center as well, and to see them soo badly damaged and hurting, I just wanted to rage and hurt the fools that did it.

My walk cleared my head a little, and I spoke to a few other neighbors who gutted it out, another PTSD sufferer and another Texan, not surprisingly, and we commiserated for a few mainly by just standing there and looking like we wanted to cry on each others shoulders, but all knowing we arent the type to do that., we wanted to jack someone up. I managed to get in and out and get my milk without the media vultures harassing me, though they did give me the,'Look" as if to say...welll there is a mountain crazy, and you know what? They are right!

Chance is in Flagstaff and I cant get him, hes 7 miles from here and the cops told me that they will let me drive out, but not back in, so im hoping like hell they open up the roads tomorrow, or I may just walk my ass into town.

Dear Roger, Defender of the UnderMonkey! (hes a Texan God Dammit,You dont mess with my Homeboys)

Okay, in getting just a little stir crazy being trapped in the house with the kids and the dogs and the ex, laying low to avoid the POPO who wants everyone to leave even though the fire is not near here, but because it makes their job easier if they don't have to worry about people potentially breaking into neighbors houses and such. I stayed up all night last night and stood fire watch for the family and because my ex for some reason felt perfectly fine with going and getting into my bed and making himself comfortable! So even though I didn't have to go stay with a bunch of dodgy strangers in an over-crowded evac shelter, I did Suffer somewhat after all. I stayed out in the living room, watching weird TV and reading stuff online and checking in to see whats up in the world of my favorite guilty pleasures, and I guess because I was already in a mood or something and feeling a little stressed that my own oldest son may not be able to come home this week after all, I ended up getting into a pissing match with some tweeny bopper over some rude comments she made about the young man who plays Jasper in the Twilight series. I KNOW! I know..., ever the protector and one to start a pissin match over a fella that could give a crap, but thats just how I roll and it wasn't like my social calendar was jammed up with other people to knock heads with in the wee hours, so when she commented on his horseback riding posture and made some other snide comments, I called her out on her basis of expertise and just kinda bitch slapped her around a little, and let her know that I have been riding horses longer than her and the young man have have been alive, so rather than making snotty comments based on her 1 hr a week lessons, I could speak from pretty much my whole damn life and I felt that if he was nervous or uncomfortable, it was probably warranted and smart. Hell, Rog! I had to defend the kid, hes a Texan and I feel like I kinda owe him after perving over pics of him for the better part of the last couple of years. Hes a cute damn kid, and as a Texan, warrants special defense, but Chance thought it was pretty damn funny, and I think he his hoping to be able to deflect some of my Momma Bear tendencies off of him onto anybody else, even if vicariously.
It got pretty weird around here yesterday, the map of the flame from on the forest fire was a real wake up call, it was 2 blocks away from our front door, and I had to keep the windows and doors shut last night to keep the house from filling up with smoke, so it was hotter than Satans ballsack, and then add in that the ex was here and making no secret of the fact that he had things on his mind other than the forest fire, namely trying to get a pity lay out of me! I mean really? I thought he was joking, until I bent over to retrieve some papers off the floor of my room and he was quick to try and show me just how serious he was! I almost elbowed him in the parts, but I figured I needed him capable of ambulation and sane thought, so I just spent the evening ignoring and deflecting his comments. He is so dense sometimes, he would compliment me and then turn around and denigrate the music I like calling it,"Juvenile and undeveloped" and try to talk movies with him? He tells me that he cannot believe that I like a certain actor because he looks like a,'Demented Hobbit", or then he started in on my clothes, telling me that if I was going for getting ,"Shanghai'd on a trap steamer of Lesbians" after I moved to Oregon, then I had the perfect wardrobe. It was really like watching a train wreck unfold, the man has no filter or no common sense if he thinks that is the way into getting any kind of pity anything from me.
Im hoping they life the evacuation orders soon and allow people in a out of the area again, but with the winds we are getting and the difficulty they are having in the terrain, it may be a few days and I am going to end up ,missing my damn doctors appointment and after this last few days I was really needing to have a heart to heart with my doctor about the twitches and headaches, but considering that I hope to be out of here by July 5th and well on our way the hell out of Dodge, it may just have to wait until I find a doctor up in Oregon.

Chance aka Big Son has been a constant nag and worry wart over the past 24 hours.He has called at least every few hours to see if I have changed my mind about evacuating, and when I tell him ,NO", he then proceeds to nag at me for the rest of the conversation until I start talking about Twilight or which guys I find interesting, and nothing gets him off the nag trail faster than me actually sounding like I may actually say the dreaded,'S" word. I once tried to have,"The Talk" with him about safe "S"ex, and the poor kid about had a heart attack and died right over the phone, it was one of the few times he has hung up on me. But someone has to make sure he knows how to protect himself, its not like he has a father to tell him the important stuff.
I think I was a Momma Bear in a past life, I always wanna look after the cubs, even when they don't need it or really want it.Thats why I had to quit teaching that the High School, I worried about my kids too much and so many of them seemed to have parents that either had already kicked them out into the world, or who never even tried, and now I have at least 5 of my kids over in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they are in my mind every day. My ex thinks I over indulge Chance, but I would rather be guilty of letting him know every minute of every day that I love him and I have his back, NO MATTER WHAT, than I would rather living with the regrets of never telling him enough, I live with that already from losing 'G' and you, so hopefully we will find a balance.But Ill tell you, that snippy lil tween heifer is damn lucky that wasn't my kid she was talking smack about...id cut a bitch over MY baby.

Dear Roger, Floods,Fires,Wrecks,Tornados,Hurricaines,I must be indestructable!

Well this is a fine how do ya do! I decide to get the fuck outta Dodge, and Dodge decides to burn the hell down to celebrate the departure. In the past two days we have had no less than 5 freaking forest fires start up around here, and of course the biggest and most bad assed of them has to occur right off my God damned front porch!Now those Cali folk may be used to their crap burning up every couple of years, but around here its been a damned long time since we have had anything this dramatic of a nature occur, and I am really not enjoying all the commotion. I am less than 1/8 mile from heavy forest, and I am so glad for that 1/8 mile because I have watched trees explode into flames all day long from my front porch and wondered just when the hell they were going to get slurry bombers to start working the magic on them, but it was 8 hours before that happened because of course Mother Nature decided to throw another little curve ball at the fire crews in the form of Flagstaffs typically fun, 50-70mph wind gusts, and of course we all know that airplanes dont do so fucking great in winds like that in mountain passes.
The ex came out to see the kids before they close all the damn highways and such and he was kind enough to load up all my valuable things like the Gila Monster Painting and my antiques and some of the kids things, and then I got "Go" bags loaded for the kids and such and expected him to follow the advice of the nice firefighters and evacuate and let me stay with my dogs until the last minute when I would then either run them out or hang tough, but NOOOOOO! hes refusing to leave me here in peace in quiet with my dogs. I am fine when I know my kids are safe. Yeah, I have been a damn twitchy mess today, just the thought of going to some crowded shelter with my kids and being separated from my dogs and them getting sent to God knows where, had me jerking and twitching and spazzing all over the place, but he doesnt get that if he took the kids and got them safe, I would be fine here. I know this place is going to be fine because I have lots of defensible space around the house and I know what to watch out for in fire behavior, but try and force me to go to someplace where I have no privacy and people will stare at me and my kids, I will be a damned basket case in short order.I dont cuss or bark but today has been just about bad enough to make me start. My ex is actually trying to be nice, but its grates on me to have him around very long because we have very different lifestyles and he hates my music and I annoy him and when I am tense and twitching really bad or stuttering, he cannot help himself, he has to make fun of me, its like he doesnt even realize he has done it until after the fact and I yell at him like I did today,'Dont you fucking make fun of me in my own damn house!" Because he had just mocked me when I got stuck on a word for forever, and I was already frustrated and obsessing over the fact that the evacuations were being announced and I was trying to sort out what I was going to do about that,as well as face the fact that I was going to have to probably deal with being out of control of the situation.Soo, I wanted him to take my kids and go with Fergus so I know they would all be safe and I would stay here and lay low unless it was a lost cause, and then I had a plan to take the Bernards and Finn and run our asses to the main road. Instead, he has to go and muck up my plans by trying to be all nobel and saying that he is not leaving me here by myself to face danger! Holy fecking Hell!! Im a Goddamned Ex-Cop, Ex-Firefighter,Ex-EMT, and I am still pretty damned bad assed and he freaking well knows it. I may be older, but I am not the one with the paunch. I play soccer and I survived the damn winter here and I still work at staying in shape. He is the one that got told,'Hold my holster" when some scrote tried to break into my truck down in Tucson. He actually said that if he had to punch me out to get me to leave, he would do it! I had to laugh! As if! He knows by now that I can take a punch, so he tried to guilt trip me into agreeing that I would leave with the rest of them on a merry trip to hell, he sent in the Stinky Princess to ask me to promise her that I would go with them if it got any closer. The rotten bastard! But we are taking the dogs and im staying in the car with them and we can bark and growl together.
I have survived many, many, calamitous events, in fact my nickname,"Calamity" comes from an adventure I had in firefighting down in the Nogales Mountains on the border when I had walking pnuemonia and was only supposed to be providing water to other firefighters, but "accidentally" ended up on the leading edge of the flame front with a pulaski and it was my misfortune to end up getting chased up the side of the mountain and getting the backs of my ears and such scorched as the fire crested behind me. It wasnt like I brought the fire with me, but my chief wasn't very forgiving and I ended up dispatching for a while and he stuck me with the nickname.
I have also been in more than a couple of epic vehicle accidents, including a roll over of a pick up truck that rolled 4 times down the side of the I-40 into a ravine in the snow,and my seatbelt broke, yet I walked away..sort of, I mean, yeah,my brains were jostled a bit, but I am still around and most synapses fire sorta normally. I survived 2 majorly scary motorcycle dumps and I still love riding motorcyles, and no...I do not now, nor have I ever worn a helmet, nor will I.
As I have tried to tell the ex in the past, heaven does not want me, hell is afraid I will take over.