Tal, I am glad you're doing better -- I hope you and your S's get completely free of this sickness. So many people I know, all over the country, are suffering the "lingering crud" of this cold season.
Lwb, I did what I did, but because W proceeded to negate any offering of love or good will I gave her and the boys, I can now say that I shouldn't have bothered. Aside from me and God, no one else seems to care. I don't expect a medal or anything -- I'm just recognizing this is the way it really has been for a long, long time now. Time for me to just walk it off.
Hey, chicki. I appreciate you dropping by.
RMG, I don't have much more to add, other than I am still pondering this matter very heavily. In fact, I have placed a copy of Steinbeck's "East of Eden" on reserve at the local library. It has been almost 30 years since I first read it, when I was a senior in high school. I was sooo green and naive back then -- I know I grasped a lot of the subtleties of the morality tale at that time, but I also know much of it was lost on me. It will have a whole new feel to me now.
I also want to retrieve my copies of C. S. Lewis' morality books from W. I'm sure she boxed them up tight and locked them away somewhere.
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I can't say as I am sad to see Halloween (and October) gone. Took the boys trick-or-treating last night in the "old" neighborhood -- probably for the last time. W couldn't wait for me to meet her down at the house to exchange the kids, she came straight to my apartment instead. Though she veiled it well from the boys, I got the impression she was anxious to dump them as soon as she could.
The boys went as Transformers Autobot characters. S7 went as Optimus Prime, S3 as Bumblebee. They were so cute -- I need to ready pictures for the "alternate universe."
Once there I saw and spoke with all the neighbors. Briefly traded info about what's going on. I let them know we had someone going through the actions to buy the house. I didn't mention anything about how I regretted it or how all of this was turning out.
After we covered our street and a couple of the adjoining streets, W called to see if S7 was still interested in visiting her apartment to trick-or-treat. So I took the boys over to their mother's apartment-- it was "dead" for such Halloween activities (not unexpected) but W got to see the boys all dressed up. She seemed happy to do see them.
Oddly, S7 then said he wanted to stay the night with his mother right there on the spot. W told him he couldn't do that, that he had to go with his father. That made obvious to me that W was planning something else for the remainder of the night, so I encouraged both of my sons to head on back to my place, with promises of hot chocolate while we sorted through our haul.
So now here I am still pondering my life and how in the world I got into this situation. How do I keep from ever getting into such straits ever again.
