Day Drinking , That's A Thing?

I am busy at work dealing with contract negotiations in Malaysia. It will keep me up tonight until 3 a.m. While I am too old for this shit, I am loving it. Very few people have had the opportunity to participate in overseas collective bargaining, so I am lucky.

If you follow my Facebook, you know Abby's car was stolen from school on Monday and that, unbeknownst to us, the car had LoJack on it, and thus the cops found it and found the thieves. The thieves took the state patrol on a high speed chase ending on Beacon Hill where the car was ditched after the front axle was damaged and the transmission ruined.

The loss of the car has proven challenging, given that Abby goes to school downtown and I am working so many hours in a day. Today, I will drive her to the Armory and work from there while she attends 1 class. Yesterday was a nightmare, trying to get her from school to home. I had meetings from 2-7. Mind, she could have taken the monorail to the train, the train to the SeaTac stop and then either walked or Ubered home. But, her debit card expired teo months and she hasn't done what she needs to do to get a new one (I tried to do it for her, they said no soap). She has no idea where her school issued ORCA card is. She could have Ubered home, but her phone was at 1 percent and she didn't bring her charger. Teenagers. Leiney skipped class to pick Abby up and bring her home.

Abby, in teenage fashion, was pissed I couldn't drop everything to get her--even though I told her that in the morning, before I drove her to school. 

The other day, for the first time since Jenny died, I broached the subject of their mom with both of them. Here is what I learned: They both thought their mother had gone round the bend after she was diagnosed--and honestly, who wouldn't? But they also made it clear to me that they remembered her anger issues--her rage-- would ebb and flow over the years. You just didn't know when it would come. Both girls discussed the memory of a hike we went on, when Abby wanted to stop almost right away claiming her ankle was hurting. Knowing Jenny would be mad, I lied and said my knee hurt too, I guess, in retrospect, to deflect anger away from Abby. We turned around and as we headed back to the car, Jenny, furious, said to all of us, "I have the wrong family." She had some ideal in her head about what her family should be and we didn't meet it. Whether Abby's ankle was a problem or whether that is what her 2nd grade self said to get out of the hike I will never know (or care). I just know that those words were cutting for my kids. I told Jenny, at the time that she was being ridiculous, and that such a statement was not okay. In fact, intentional or not, those words were cruel, so hurtful that 10 or 11 years later both kids remember them and are still hurt by them.

The most poignant part of the discussion is when we discussed Jenny's behavior further. I made it clear she mistreated both of them as she was dying, because I knew that Abby feels her mom turned her back on her specifically. It was more stark, given she had just given up on her mom ever treating her well, which suited Jenny and her el pinchè obsession. But, Jenny bailed on both the kids. I won't rehash what has already been written here.  

When I said to the girls, "You know your mother did love you dearly," The only response I got was Leiney nodding her head. I looked at Abby and asked her, "You know your mother loved you dearly, right?" She made herself into a ball, began nodding no over and over and sobbed. I wanted to comfort her, but she won't let anyone hug her. She is in therapy. It's 7:45. If I enjoyed alcohol, this would be the day to start day drinking.