It may be the beginning of the end. (258 lbs)

This weekend was kind of the blow up. Nancy left on Friday, leaving me to work from home on Friday to watch the kids while she went to Norfolk to play tennis in a tournament. I didn't even mention staying with my parents, as she got so pissed off at me last time she went to Norfolk and stayed with them. She accused me of "forcing" it on her. All I did was suggest it. She complains all the time that my parents don't see the kids, and when she gets a chance to make up for that, she blows up at me. All I did was say I'd set it up if she wanted to stay overnight. Apparently I didn't "read her mind" enough on that one.

So it's Thursday night prior, and I am trying to figure out how I am supposed to get the boys to their sendoff to boy scout camp on Sunday at 8, when I am supposed to be practicing with the church band for service on Sunday, from 7:30-8:45. I made a little joke that I could send them walking through the playing fields behind out house with all their things, to get to the drop off point at the local school. I was sort of freaking out about the problem solving, as we don't have anyone to rely on here.

She blows up at me, calling me a bad father for even suggesting such a horrible thing, and not seeing them off. She is going to be at TENNIS ALL WEEKEND. This isn't something she's paid for. This isn't work. This is CLUB TENNIS, but she's going to that and not seeing them off to camp. So it's already started. The fight progresses and I tell her that yes, part of me is jealous she gets to do all these fun things and go out at night, and if I ever want to go anywhere, she's calling me 45 minutes after I get there asking me when I'll be home and complaining that she can't control the kids and that I am a bad person for even wanting to spend time with people other than them, because I can get all that out of my system at work. wtf?

So she stays with "friends" on her tennis team. Apparently some of them are freewheeling divorcees (cougars I guess? I don't know) and drank a lot and smoked and hit on guys. To say Nancy is a prude is like calling superman "kinda strong". She hates drinking, smoking, and is very vanilla in all her ways (read this as you will). I have tried over the years to get her a little out of her shell but have been completely rebuffed. I am not the big party boy either, but I am not going to judge people if they want to drink heavily and sleep around. Carpe diem! It's just something I don't have fun doing, because I don't like the feeling of being out of control of myself.

Anyway. I perform all my "fatherly" duties on Friday while working 10 hours. I get the kids to swim and dive. I stay at swim for the smaller ones to make sure nothing happens (11 am - noon). I take one of my daughter's friends home with us and they play all afternoon. I return daughter, and get my littlest son off to a birthday party. I come home and grill ribs I have been slow cooking all day (not as good as it sounds. they were really flabby ribs). I pick up son from party. I watch a movie with the kids and get them to bed.

Saturday - I get up and go to band practice. It's raining. I practice for 2 hours and come home at 11 am. No one has died, which is good. It's still raining. I check the weather in Norfolk. It's raining. Ok - I wonder if Nancy will have her match. Then I get the call I never should have taken. I just should have turned my cell phone off and gone to toy story 3 with the kids, which is what I wanted to do.

The call is Nancy. She wants (really reaaaallllly reaaaaaalllllllly wants) the 5 of us to load up in the Prius, drive to Norfolk (90 miles is no big deal if you're talking say, Richmond to Waynesbor0, but from Richmond to Norfolk on a Saturday is torture. It's usually a parking lot from Richmond to Williamsburg then again from Newport News to Norfolk. A 2 hour drive can easily become 6. AND it's raining! But she reeeeealllly reeaaaallly realllllly wants us to come down because we're not being supporrrrrtive enough and her teammates are drunk sluts and she can't seem to have a good time, even at an event she worked to get to, and is there with her team. All I can think in my head when she's saying this is - where were you when I ran a triathlon last year? Oh yeah, you decided to take the kids camping elsewhere instead. I gave her all the arguments against - the boys need to be up and ready for boy scouts in the morning and we still don't have everything we need. The fish tank light had fallen in the water and shorted out and to save things from dying, I needed to buy a new light and install it. It was RAINING AND YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYING TENNIS OUTSIDE! But she cries about how she is having such a bad time with her "slutty" friends, and awful stupid me, I do it. I pack the kids up at 11, and get there about 2:45. Nearly 4 hours in the car with 4 kids. In a prius. My ears are rattling and my head is aching. And IT'S RAINING. So there is a huge delay while they move to an indoor facility which is smaller. Seeing as how they were supposed to go on at 2, it's probably best we were terribly late, since we waited until 4 to watch her play.

The watching was fine. She and her doubles partner won 6-2, 6-2 in about 35 minutes. but then it was after 5, and I really didn't want to get home after 9, with things still to get from the store, and last second packing, and exhausted kids. So I left as soon as the match was over, and not in the best of moods, although I tried not to show it while I was there. I do feel bad because a few times I lost it and took my anger out on Nancy by yelling at the kids, which is wrong. A stern talking to is usually all it takes to get them to settle down or do what they are supposed to. I moved to yelling a couple of times because I was so incredulous at her attitude - my (and the kids') needs are nothing and hers, contrived or not, are much more important.

We did get home about 9, and got our packing done and kids off to bed. I still needed to get up at 5:30 to make all these last second printouts and copies of things that we hadn't been told we needed until Saturday, for the boys' camping trip. I get them up at 7, and we do our even more last second things and get them there at 7;45. I may get to band practice on time! No such luck. Nancy, who gets the emails for the boy scouts, must have missed the email or forgot to tell me I had to pack a lunch for them! I had to rush home and make them lunch and bring it back to the dropoff point, then get to band practice.

After practice, and church and now with only two kids, we went to the big box pet places looking for a set of t5 lights for the fish tank. The only type they have are canopy lights, for an open topped tank. We have a top to our tank, so I had to wait for the fish store to open. I went to the fish store and for $160 (!) I got the worst jury-rigged looking lighting system I had ever seend. Plus the screws I got were too short to hold up the lights so I ended up using screws I had to sercure it in place. the wires were a mess, I'll admit, but when I installed it, there were no wiresin the water and the lights worked! the fish were happy!

Nancy was not. Yesterday morning, I get a call from the fish store saying that they were on their way out to install the lights. I told them I had already installed the lights and I get "Well your wife called us"...So I call Nancy and it turns out she doesn't trust my job, and would rather use the fish store people, who have me screws that didn't even make it through the plastic much less the wood of the canopy, to re-install the lights so she could feel safe. It was very hurtful to me, for her to basically say "I don't trust you to do anything right".

We are set up for a new counsellor on Tuesday because she didn't like the last one. She changes doctors of all kinds like some women change shoes or purses, or men change - do men change anything? their underwear hopefully? We have changed pediatricians, she has changed her PCP 3 or 4 times in the past year or two, hates her eye doctor, and dentist, and Walt's endocrinologist. Then, our counsellor. I found the last one, and I liked her but she didn't, and I said at that point that I needed her to find the next one because I didn't want to be blamed for being the one who found the next person she hates.

On other topics, of health, other than the ribs and a terribly awful day of McD's for lunch and Taco Bell for dinner (on the road on Saturday), I have been eating pretty healthy and in the past two weeks have gotten in about 4-5 miles of swimming, which is good for me. I have decided to stop timing myself and to up my distance instead, to 1000 yards, with the goal of getting to 1500 yards, and then a mile (1700 plus yards) at a time. Swimming is a great place to think things out. I'll admit (yeah I'm a wuss) that I often end up crying about the mess my life is in, when I am swimming but hey - no one can see you cry when your face is in the water!

The older kids all made champs for dive. This is the second year they have all made it and I am so very proud of them. Plus, my daughter made champs in two swimming events too! Backstroke is her best, and then freestyle. She has one last shot at making it in butterfly on Monday! GOOOO FRANCES!

My life is a big mess now. I could be laid off in two months, my wife is about to leave me, and I'm fat! Come on lottery!