My eyes are sore

My neighborhood is pretty nice, except for the house next door. It's a little rundown. OK, it's a lot rundown. There are garbage cans on the front lawn, the steps leading up to the front door are unusable, the roof on the back porch has caved in on itself.

When I was buying this house, the listing agent said that one potential buyer offered $20,000 less on the home just because of the eyesore next door. She also mentioned the neighbors had been cited for disrepair. She couldn't say when or if those repairs would begin.

They began this weekend.

I'm sleeping in the living room on the futon because I still don't have a bed (damn State Farm!), and here is the scene I woke up to:



I stayed in bed for a couple hours watching them scrape old shingles off the roof and put down tar paper. It wasn't particularly fascinating, but they were working in the rain. I was thinking if one of them would slip and fall, I wanted to be one of those neighbors on the evening news: "He was a nice guy, a quiet guy. Kept to himself. Things like this don't happen in our neighborhood..."

Sunday morning I woke up to the same racket.



The noise didn't bother me, and in fact I love hearing this kind of noise; similarly I enjoy lawnmowers starting and kids screaming in a pool. It all reminds me of the sense of community I moved here to get. Oh, and that summer is freakin' right around the corner finally.

But the scene did bother me, a little, and if you didn't catch the butt crack in that last photo, here's a more obvious zoom:



I wanted to watch them again this morning, but I just couldn't take that crack. And every time I peeked to check on their progress, I found mostly that the guy's pants had progressed lower on his hips.

Luckily, by lunchtime, they were on the other side of the house.

Man's best friend

Zoe was sick today, so I dropped her off at my dad's instead of sending her to school. After hours in the morning of her constant "eh eh eh eh," as if she were stuck under a fallen rock and no one was rescuing her, it was so peaceful to get back into the car and hear quiet. I briefly felt bad for my dad, and hoped for his sake she would sleep most of the day.

Everyone had survived when I made it back there in the evening. I thought about putting SarahB in the car and bringing her home, since I was going to get her this weekend anyway, and I turned to her and said, "Are you ready to go home now?"

My dad shot out: "NOT UNTIL SHE GETS HER HAIR TRIMMED. And I might not get to it this weekend."

He might as well have sprung up and placed himself between me and my dog, in a foreboding stance that meant, "We can take it outside if you don't agree with my assessment of this situation," as he wrung his fists and glanced back protectively at the pup.

Because I'm sure by his tone that's exactly what he would have done if I had made any attempt to remove the animal.


I guess I'll give him a little more time.

Music to our ears

"What the people need
Is a way to make 'em smile.
It ain't so hard to do if you know how."

-- Listen to the Music, Doobie Brothers



Zoe loves music as much as I do. She's always singing, in the tub, in the car, in her sleep...

If the radio is on, she wants to know the words to the songs. "Sing, Mom!" And most of the time I do. And then she asks me to stop.

Every other song is her favorite song, and each gets a ranking. "This is my 15th favorite song." And amazingly, she always remembers what number she is on, or if it's already got a number.

She will hear a song and identify it by where she's heard it: "That is the Shrek song," or, "That's the song that plays in Mommy's car," or "That's in the commercial with the dog."

One time Alice Cooper was on. "Did he say no more school? Mommy, do I have to go to school tomorrow?"

The other day we were driving around and an old 80s song came on. Immediately: "What's the name of this song?"

Sometimes I can answer this question. Sometimes I can't, and that upsets her, so sometimes I make something up. I was listening to this particular song, and of course it was familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on the title. Was it Boy George?

"...There's boys you can truuust.... girls that you doooon't..."

I was singing along and trying to fast-forward in my mind to the chorus, where surely the title would be...

"...Won't tell you no liiiies...."

Oh, it was George Michael. But I hadn't heard it in so long. "Mommy, what's it called?" I can't remember... Faith? Freedom?

"Every mannnn's got his patience and here's where mine ends..."


I would have hurt myself if I had gotten to the power button on the radio any faster.

George Michael. I Want Your Sex.

The new house

The back yard, from the family room: Zoe is watching bunnies in the yard one morning.


I was fussing with Zoe's camera tonight, the REAL camera my dad got her for Christmas, the one that is nicer than mine, and I found that she had taken a bunch of photos of the new house. I vaguely remember telling her, one day when I was unpacking my sixth box on my fourth cup of coffee, to go take pictures to show her dad the new house just to get her out of my hair for a few moments. Because I'm such a bad mom, right?

The photos are cute. It is nice to see things from her perspective. If the photos seem a little fuzzy, I think it's because I fed her a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.


The dining room, which serves as the holding station for the remainder of our boxes that have no home yet. Which is totally appropriate since I have no dining room furniture. That's the front door to the house.



The kitchen. We just had that range delivered Saturday, and cooked our first dinner -- cod -- in the oven tonight. It made the smoke detectors go off for some reason. Good to know they work, even if they are a little sensitive to fish.



Zoe's room, the first one we set up. And the only one we've changed around several times. Zoe wants to paint it purple. No, pink. No, purple. No, pink.



Mom's room. Note it doesn't have a bed. It would have a bed if State Farm had not denied my claim, saying that after Hurricane Wilma a flood destroyed my bed, and I didn't have flood insurance, but funny how that flood didn't touch the rest of the house, just the stuff under the big hole in the roof over my bedroom that the WIND blew off. But I'm not bitter.


Jacob's room: Sparse, but I'm afraid to buy anything for it since I'm suing the pants off Joe for all the stuff in his house that I bought for Jacob, which is all the stuff in his house for Jacob, actually. We're doing a fish theme in this room eventually.



The hallway closet. Zoe overlooked no details.



The basement.




My dad and my brother have been cleaning out my grandpap's house, and by "cleaning out" I don't mean scrubbing it down with bleach, but removing all the good crap from it and pitching the rest. I was able to snag my own finds, including a bookcase we're going to paint pink (no, purple... no, pink) and put in Zoe's room. And an old pole lamp that is so rocking it is now the most favorite thing in my house.

I wish I had taken a picture of it all put together before I took it apart to clean and rewire it. The sockets are absolutely shot. But since I was a kid, this thing was in my grandparents' house. It has three drop lamps on it, with metal cylinders that fit into glass shades dangling from brass fixtures. So 70s. So unbelievably cool.

Anyway, since I was a kid, these glass drop lamps were kind of an amber color. I thought yellow, and my brother thought maroon, but the point being, we thought they were opaque. I put them in a soapy sink, and all of a sudden, the "finish" started melting away on these shades, and I started to panic, that I was ruining them, by god, a wonderful collectible and I was ruining them!

Then I realized... that coating on the shades was from TOBACCO SMOKE. They were actually clear glass to begin with. Here's a dirty one, and a clean one:



My grandmother died from emphysema. I can't imagine what her lungs must have looked like after decades of this building up inside her.



And finally, I can't resist thrusting my newest upon you:


Jacob and Kipper, both looking pleasant as ever.

Counting my blessings

"Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams
With you and me."

-- Wind of Change, Scorpions



Thank god for gas dryers. I got three loads of laundry done in under four hours tonight.

At Joe's, where he is not keen on "bringing an explosive into the house to run appliances," I spent about an hour and a half just waiting for a load to dry.

Joe's counterclaim in our lovely custody case lists my inability "to finish the laundry in a timely manner" (I kid you not), and now I can officially tell a judge, "Your honor, but Joe wouldn't give me gas."

Fun!

I also took the time tonight to appreciate that I could fold towels any way I fucking pleased. And socks too. I didn't have to cram all my jeans into a single drawer. I was no longer strapped with a woman's unending dilemma: Just how on earth do you fold men's briefs?? And I didn't have to lie in bed and watch Joe unfold and refold all his laundry, making changes I couldn't even detect.

Can't finish laundry, my ass.


Maddie moved in with us yesterday. My poor aging black lab had trouble adjusting... for about 20 minutes. Then she was right at home. She lived with Aimee for ...christ, it's been more than a year... and I am so happy to have her home.

We're getting the other dog, SarahB, next weekend I think. I stopped by my dad's house to visit her tonight, and he kept saying to her, "You're outta here soon." But he didn't sound very enthusiastic. In fact, he seemed despondent, and he mentioned he was going to get her coat trimmed, as if she wasn't departing in a matter of days. AND HE WAS FEEDING HER CRAB CAKES. Real, actual crab cakes, intended to be consumed by humans.

I kinda feel bad that my dad won't have his companion, but I think he'll get over it quickly. I bet he gets a dog for himself within a year.

My pups were another thing listed in Joe's countercomplaint: That he didn't want his son to live in a dirty household with two unruly large dogs that he had forbidden in his townhouse. Only when Joe and I were well into shopping for a house together did I realize his absolute objection to them.

Joe met Maddie once, Sarah twice. Briefly. (He didn't socialize with my friends or family much.)

Yeah, I'm realizing more and more how good it is to be away from that man. I feel like it's all coming together.

I think I can stop feeling sorry for myself now.

This IS what I dreamed of when I moved back to Pittsburgh: A house full of fun. And love. And safety.

And who needs ADT when you have large, unruly, dirty pets? I mean, really?

I am unbelievably sad

I'm about to crawl into bed with my two kids. We're having a "sleepover" on the futon in the family room. Zoe was so excited to be able to curl up with me and watch TV.

They have been asleep for hours as I unpacked more boxes.

Joe is waging all-out war on me... and all I wanted to do when this started was get out from under him and take a breath. Today I took the kids to the park and we went grocery shopping at the new Giant Eagle, the big, most hugest one that is closest to us now, and as I was driving around, every once in a while I'd see something and think, "Oh, I should text Joe about that." And then an overwhelming feeling of nausea would come over me.

And tonight I was explaining fire safety to Zoe and it totally backfired. She started wailing that she didn't want a fire, that she wanted to be back at Joe's where they have sprinklers so there's no fire.

Whoever heard of a mom spoiling her kid BY GETTING SPRINKLERS INSTALLED? I'm actually thinking about it.

I don't want to go to work, I don't want to go through this mess ahead of me. I don't want to defend myself against all the lies Joe is feeding into this, and I don't want to think about how I actually almost married this man. That he can be this cruel, this evil, I can't believe I exposed myself to it, THAT I EXPOSED MY DAUGHTER TO IT, and was so stupid not to see it before now. AND I JUST KEPT GOING BACK FOR MORE.

He has asked his lawyer to order a psychological evaluation of my daughter, he's poised to sue any of my family members who watch Jacob on my behalf, he's even brought my dead mother into it. Every time I think it can't get any uglier, he finds a way. I just can't believe this mess.

I feel so fucking lonely. It's so difficult to come to terms with the fact I've been believing in a lie for a year. The fact that I completely ignored my intuition makes me physically ill.

All I ever wanted out of this was a family.

And tonight, I will have it. I will crawl into bed with my children, something that has been forbidden by Joe for so long. I will feel their breath on my neck and snore along with them, and I will let myself be at peace for a while.

The gloves are off

I got this gem from Joe last night, after I told him if he couldn't speak to me without hostility, he could get any information he needs through my lawyer:

Not telling me how my son is wouldn't seem to be a way to bolster your custody petition. I guess every lawyer has his own strategy.

You might think or hope or expect this has angered, upset or hurt me. Not in the least. My custody complaint and Generations filing were to be filed this afternoon or Monday morning. Now, we can answer your complaint.

This is the forum I've long wanted to make my case. I want and will pursue custody of my son publicly, aggressively, relentlessly, with no regard to expense and your feelings.

You know why? Because this isn't about you. It's about Jacob. He deserves better than you. Yes, I believe, in fact I know I am better than you.

We've observed each other in close quarters for about a year. My observational skills are acute, so, despite my inherent disadvantage of being male, I feel good about my chances.

You are a bad parent, and you are blind to the evidence right before your eyes.

I'm not.

Lovely, ain't it?

I closed on my house last night. At the end of signing my life away (I offered my firstborn, because I'm such a bad parent, but they declined), they all shook my hand and waited for my reaction. I guess I was supposed to jump up and down with glee. But all this crap shadowing it... it just doesn't seem like a dream come true anymore.

But I'm sure, a year from now when this is all behind me, I will truly appreciate cutting my own grass and shoveling snow from my own driveway. With my children playing nearby.

Ahhhhh, internet

"You need to know
This situation's getting old
And now the more you talk
The less I can take."

-- Walk Away, Kelly Clarkson



I now have INTERNET. Finally.

The move this past weekend went fairly smoothly. The only exception was the box my cousin dropped: the one that contained all the pottery I made in college. About 50% survived, so I guess I should be thankful.

As much as I want to rant about my situation with Joe, I have to restrain myself. It's that bad. I am calling off work tomorrow because he has not threatened, but flat-out said, that he is taking the baby from day care tomorrow, even though it is my weekend with him.

He's doing this because I took Jacob to the doctor today without giving him due notice in case he wanted to attend. Way to develop an interest in a child when faced with child support payments.

OK, that was a rant. I'll have to stop myself there. We have lawyers and work involved now, and it's a big fucking huge fucking mess and I've put everyone on notice that it stops now, that I'm keeping the boy as long as the boy's father wants to continue to attack me verbally, thus shutting off effective communication about what we need to be communicating about regarding our infant son. That sounds good, right? But what I really mean to say is, you don't punctuate each sentence to this girl with "you cunt" or "you bitch" and get away with it. Oh, fucking no.

He didn't ask what the doctor said about Jacob, but he produced 20 questions demanding why he wasn't alerted to where and when I'd be if I was taking the baby from day care without his knowledge, even though I obviously TOLD HIS ASS about the appointment or how would he even know I had taken the boy out of day care? OH MY FUCKING GOD. He doesn't even know what Jacob's doctor's name is.

OK, that was a rant too.



I would love to be enjoying my new home, my first home, my beloved home. But all this shit is overshadowing it.

Which is not to say I'm not happy in it. I can't even imagine being in that fucking townhouse right now.


I got about a hundred boxes unpacked. Which means I have only about a hundred more! This house is not big on storage, so I'm going to fill the place with bookshelves. What I don't want to be looking at will go into decorative boxes and put on the bookshelves. My knick-knackery will go on the bookshelves. Toys will be hidden in baskets and put on the bookshelves. I might even dig up a few books to put on the bookshelves.

My walls will be lined with them. I will be dusting endlessly. Cozy bookshelves.

I'm deciding between building them in or not. Which I have time to think about, since I have to also decide on a lawnmower or lawn service, what color dish towels I want, how much I want to spend on blinds, and couches: leather or cloth?

And whether or not I want to get a restraining order.

No, I didn't sit at his desk

Every day around lunchtime, I head over to my designated pumping area, usually an empty office in the back of the marketing department. The door has been locked lately because someone is storing boxes of Colby Armstrong bobbleheads in there, so when I head over, one of several women with keys unlock the door for me.

Today I turned the corner and the lights were on in that office, and there was a woman sitting at the desk, presumably working. My backup office was also occupied. I stopped in my tracks. This was... something that had not happened to me yet... bad bad bad... trying... to cope... aching boobs....

"We'll get you something," one of the key ladies said in all dramatic sincerity, realizing I was standing there in a panic. She darted off. Two of the other key ladies joined forces and scurried off to try to find a room for me too.

It was as if they sensed my shirt would bust open and milk would gush forth if I didn't pump RIGHT NOW.

It was a neat effect to be able to have on people. But really I was feeling disappointed that I might miss my afternoon read, our seedy little afternoon edition, and I was wondering how I would otherwise get my Carolyn Hax fix.

After a little whispering and knocking on doors and making calls, key ladies No. 1 and No. 2 steered me to an office that was clearly occupied for the day, and asked me if I could get my business done in 20 minutes, because "he's out at the moment, but he'll be back. You should be safe."

Key lady No. 3 looked like I shouldn't take the deal. "It's Scaife's office."

Scaife, as in Richard Mellon Scaife. One of the richest men in Western Pennsylvania. One of the richest men in the country. My ultimate boss, the owner of the entity that employs me. I went in.

"We'll keep an eye out," one of the key ladies called out as I shut the door.

LET ME TELL YOU how long it takes for let-down to happen when you're under that kind of pressure.


Afterward, I told my regular old boss: "I bet I'm the only person who will ever be able to say she pumped breastmilk in the office of Richard Mellon Scaife."

He looked at me sideways. "That's more information than I want to know."

Yeah, it's probably more information than Richard Mellon Scaife wants to know too.

As seen on a bumper sticker

You're born
COLD, WET and HUNGRY,
And it just gets worse from there

dream of me, baby

"Times have changed, and times are strange.
Here I come, but I ain't the same."

-- Mama I'm Coming Home, Ozzy Osbourne



I've been staying with my cousin, who is a single mom with two kids of her own, and it hasn't been so bad so far.

One of her kids ignores me. Which is fine. The other is like a Zoe replica. Only worse, because she doesn't know me very well so I am subject to all the questions Zoe already has answers to. It's like.... 15 Zoes in the room, quizzing me. After a while of her chattering and crawling all over me, a buzzer goes off in my head, and I become a robot. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

I am so happy to be here, and I feel safe. I probably feel safer because I surrendered a little.

Joe has Jacob tonight. I offered to let him pick him up from day care and drop him off tomorrow morning. I got off work early today and went over to the day care and spent as much time with Jacob as I thought I possibly could before Joe might walk in. I got to give the boy a bottle and got a lot of good conversation... a bit of a fix!

It was so fucking hard to walk out without him though. I felt like I just left him behind. Before I got to my car I was weeping. Still, I feel like I cheated a little bit. Not that I give a shit.

I explained to Zoe, when she asked why we weren't bringing Jacob, that it was Joe's turn with him. Like how sometimes it was daddy's turn with her. She didn't seem satisfied with that answer, but quickly grew bored with the subject. "I'm hungry."


I went out to Old Navy and bought a bunch of clothes for me and Zoe since we haven't been able to get our things from Joe's house. Tomorrow I need to go bed shopping.................. since finally I got the word today that I can officially move in Wednesday! I won't actually do it Wednesday, but I'll go over and start cleaning. Arrange for a truck. Line up the males in the family and hold my breath for the weekend.


I'm coming home.

I sure can pick 'em

"Just because you're paranoid
Don't mean they're not after you."

-- Territorial Pissings, Nirvana




This has been an incredibly long 24 hours. Maybe not the worst 24 hours of my life, but definitely in the top 10.

It started with Joe learning that I was buying a house. What I'd hoped for: He'd profess his love, let me go, and we'd work on stuff while living apart and agree on everything. Worst case: NOT ANYTHING CLOSE TO WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

I packed up enough for the weekend after all his threats about lawyers and money and custody, and then he wouldn't let me leave with Jacob. I had to call the police just to get him to let me leave. While we waited for the police to come and mediate our little domestic situation, he paced.

"You better tell your dirtbag family to start giving you handouts now," he told me. "You will need thousands of dollars to beat me on custody. You can't run fast enough or far enough from me. I have resources you don't even know about, YOU C---."

Yeah, he whipped out the old C-word. That's a good relationship-killer. If I wasn't sure... If I was wavering even a little....

Could it get worse? YOU BET.

I fielded a half dozen emails from him today, each worse than the next. I'll clean them up for the sake of decency: He's planning to sue me for sole custody and support, I'm a big slob who can't finish a load of laundry, and he's emailing my mortgage lender to let them know that my income is changing and going mostly to him when he wins his case. Oh, and I can't take anything of Jacob's out of his home or I'll be arrested for trespassing, though I was free to get Zoe's shit out because he doesn't want to look at it. Oh, and Zoe has all kinds of emotional problems because I'm a bad mom.

A BAD MOM FOR STAYING WITH YOU, YOU FUCKING PRICK.

He has pretended to have a lawyer, but I can't honestly believe that he has one. A lawyer would have reeled him in, told him to restrain himself, to not lay all his cards on the table.

I called my lawyer and followed his instructions, to offer to drop Jacob off in exchange for a note saying when he would be returned, to insist on taking certain things from the home to care for Jacob, but the emails just got worse with Joe. I just tabled it all, and told him to contact my lawyer directly. I have nothing to wear to work on Monday, but I'm willing to kiss goodbye all my shit in Joe's house instead of going back over there alone, as Joe demands. Alone. Why would he want me alone in his house?

I've been looking over my shoulder all day. Around corners, in my rearview mirror. Every noise outside makes me jump.

I'm so close to closing on my house, and yet I'm homeless.

This is no way to live.


And to top it off.... today is the day we were supposed to get married.

A one-word guy

I bet he feels like he's repeating himself. Over and over.

Get used to it, kiddo. :)

Weathermania Part II

In a previous post, I mentioned how spring had sprung and all that happy bullshit... how we woke up to cold but ended the day all springy and happy and warm...

Well, shit.

Today, I woke up, it was 62 outside. It can only get better from there, right? I sent the kids off in light clothes, and I had on sandals and no coat myself when I went in to work.

IT WAS FUCKING SNOWING WHEN I WALKED OUT AT 5 P.M.





SNOWING.

Poker face

My head is swimming. I had to find and schedule an inspector, sift through two mortgage offers, get an estimate on homeowner's insurance and schedule that inspection too... collect bank statements and 401k information.... pretend to work and give a damn about it...

I got home from work tonight and cooked pasta. Joe, again, refused to eat what I cooked. I ignored him making his own dinner. While I was scrubbing pots and bottles at the sink, he started on Zoe, who was still eating. "Sit closer to the table. Eat over your dish. Oh, just do what you want. Move more to the side. Wh... Why, WHY??" He turned to me. "Why is she stabbing the seat cushion with her FORK?"

I felt like yelling, "Because she wishes it was you!" or "Because we were never able to afford seat cushions so I was never able to teach her about them!" but instead I mustered, quite loudly, "Why don't you ask HER?" And when he didn't, I offered, loudly, my own explanation: "BECAUSE SHE'S FIVE!"

Which was good enough I guess.

I turned to Zoe and very firmly said, "Joe likes his things the way they are, so please don't mess up Joe's things. Eat."

That sent him away, mumbling something about etiquette. I mumbled stuff back. It's the longest conversation we've had in weeks.

An hour later the kids were tucked safely away and I headed out to the grocery store.

I broke down crying in the car.

It's just so hard. I should feel good about the house thing, but it's just another layer added to the mess right now. Should I tell Joe? When should I tell Joe? What should I tell him? Should I switch Zoe's school with a month to go, or keep sneaking her into her current school?

I ended up in my new driveway.

I got out and walked around the house, and I felt better. I sat in the car and stared at the thing, and imagined how much I'd be taking it all for granted in a year or two. But how happy I was with it at that moment. I took the time to drive around the neighborhood... it's a quirky little place, with all different kinds of homes, small, big, new, old... and it's own little park. There's probably only 25 homes there, but it has its own park. Didn't notice it before.

And it's not nearly as far away from everything as I thought the first time I went there. It's not even 10 minutes from the day care.



I don't know if Joe knows that I've bought a house or not. My phone suddenly has been ringing in a flurry, and he knows I've been looking... He's a lot of things, but he's not stupid.

I wanted to blurt it out all day, to everyone, I AM A HOMEOWNER, but I had to keep it in. I have to tell Joe at some point. I'm so afraid when I do, he'll say, "I know."

That would really piss me off.

The ship is sailing

"It's not far to never never land,
No reason to pretend,
And if the wind is right you can find the joy
Of innocence again.
The canvas can do miracles,
Just you wait and see."

-- Sailing, Christopher Cross



I woke up this morning, and my first thought was, "You are buying a house today."

And I am. See the details here.







I never saw myself in a ranch, but it seemed to be all that I was getting hits on in my price range. On Friday, Joanne took me around to see a bunch of houses I had picked out, and I have to say, I liked each and every one. Which is why I'm thankful my dad went along for the ride. Two of them, he pointed out, were literally falling off the hillside they had been planted on.

Never would have seen that coming. Until I woke up in the ravine.

The one I picked out to plop my money down onto is a little removed from my comfort zone, geographically. But the upsides are so many: a dead-end street, a big chunk of property, newly remodeled, and its functionality is perfect for me, with young kids and a couple of dogs.

Aimee asked, "So, the house spoke to you?" It's more like a marching band went parading over my giddy self!

So, today is the fourth most important day of my life. The other important days: Zoe's birth, Jacob's birth, and the day they hand me the keys to this sucker.



Joe and I exchanged a few pointed emails last week. It was quite eye-opening, some of what he said. It started out with "I love you... I don't want you to leave..." and launched into a laundry list of complaints about me, mostly how I complain so much and don't appreciate all he has given me (ha!!!), and ended with this little gem:

"If this is how act when you're on your best behavior -- you've said this place could never be home and you don't feel comfortable here -- how will it be when you have equity in a home and add two large dogs to the picture? I don't want to be marginalized in a home that chaotic and dirty."

Well then........

The insight I gleaned from that email snippet alone:

1. Joe thinks I'm a child.
2. He expects me to feel like his home is my home, despite the fact that he constantly refers to it as HIS home and has asked me to leave it multiple times. Not to mention, everything dear to me is packed up in boxes in my brother's basement, and has been for more than a year, because there is not a single scrap of living space here onto which I could unload it.
3. He expects me to be comfortable in an environment where my kids are crammed into one bedroom and have no yard, where my dogs aren't with me and I have forced the responsibility of caring for them onto others for more than a year.
4. He doesn't like dogs.
5. He assumes my dogs and children will run wild in another house and that I will allow us all to live in filth.
6. He has no intention of being pried from his beloved townhome.
7. He's an old fucking pussy coward.

So, instead of sharing as they happened all these things in his email, which included complaints about my expectations of him regarding my daughter and accusations that I bully him (YES, BULLY HIM), he saved it all up for an email he delivered just days before I planned to lawyer up.

Yep, got me a lawyer. And while I am the kind of person who absolutely HATES taking advantage of anyone, after Joe's email, I didn't feel too bad about it. I felt even better when the lawyer ran the numbers by me.

Now when Joe barks at my daughter or hoards my son, I don't feel so intimidated by him. I just tell myself, "In a couple of months, I'll be in my own house, doing my own thing, with my kids out of this mess. And your ass will be paying me upward of a thousand bucks a month."

Guess he'll have to break his Lenox habit. Poor old man.