The past is not always passed

Today I am very proud of my baby girl Lily. My baby girl is turning 21 in a few months – but she will always be my baby girl J

She is studying event management at CPUT and as part of her 1^st year she had to put on an actual event. The class was put into groups and they had no input into choosing who was in their groups. Unlucky for Lily this resulted in her being in a group with a bunch of lazy eejits. They had 60 tickets to sale and Lily sold 26 of those tickets and could have sold more if those eejits had brought in their unsold tickets but they couldn’t even be bothered to do that. They had to get 12 auction items, Lily (with my assistance in some regards) got 11 of these, she also got all of the items in the raffle. She did most of the bookings and organisation. So basically it was Lily’s event in actuality. Lily even got the auctioneer to come for free as he is a friend of mine and Mr Kitten’s.

Last night was the event. I was stressing on her behalf that everything worked out OK, even though it was not my event I wanted her to succeed. The thing that stressed me out the most was the knowledge I had to see my ex-husband. I had not been in the same room with him for years. Now that the girls live with me I do not even have to speak to him on the phone.

The girls keep saying they can’t understand why I cannot just let bygones be bygones. But this is because they have no idea of the things he did to me. I do not want them to know, I do not want to turn them against their father. He is their Dad no matter how he behaved as a husband. I wanted to say to her, what if you were mugged at gunpoint, would you be happy inviting your mugger into your home and being hospitable to him? No, I suspect that like me, when you saw his face you would panic. Holding a gun to my head was only one of the things he did to me. He would choke me to unconsciousness. Once it was so serious that he phoned 911 to get LAPD to come out, telling them he had killed me. When the cops came screaming up in the squad cars to find me walking around the garden in my pajamas it didn’t endear him to them. We had phoned them before when he had beaten me so maybe they were immune to it all, they were the ones who took the gun off of him when he threatened to shoot me in the head. After we moved to South Africa and had eventually split up he would break into my home in the middle of the night and I would wake up to him standing over me, watching me sleep.

I thought I had my emotions sorted out to give me the strength me to encounter him at the event, but then while I was in the shower Cait pops in and shouts, ‘just wanted to let you know that Dad is coming here to get dressed for the event’ and skipped out leaving me hyperventilating in the shower. I am not exaggerating, I could feel my blood pressure instantly shoot up, my heart started pounding and I immediately felt like I could be sick.

After I got out of the shower I went and said to her that she had no right to invite him to my house without discussing it with me first. She said it was too late to tell him not to come as he was on his way. I told her he could stay outside in the granny flat to get ready, I did not want to deal with him. I did not want him in my house, his energy or his face in my space. (That sounds a bit like a Dr Seuss rhyme...I do not want him in my house, I do not want him near my mouse, I do not want him in my space I do not want him in my face lol)

I heard his car arrive and heard him get out of the car and come to the gate, I shouted across the house to Cait to keep him outside. He obviously heard this as he stopped out front and Cait ran out to meet him. He changed and then sat at my outside garden table while Cait got dressed. I did the cowardly move of asking my lift to meet me out front and I scooted out the garage to the road, thereby delaying the inevitable meeting.

I knew I would have to see him, but I wanted it to be on neutral territory. When we did finally meet up, he actually leaned in to try and kiss me. I nearly projectile vomited in his face. If I hadn’t worried about messing up my frock I might have given it is a try.

My friends had never seen him, and they spent the event making jokes about his giant tash (not just there for Movember, it is year round).  He looked like a walrus and the motorcycle cop from the Village People had a fat little baby.

But now it is all over. I survived it. I didn’t freak out or embarrass Lily. I guess I am stronger than I think. I will comfort myself with the fact that now he may know where I live, but he also knows I have a lovely,  home with a stunning view and that gives me a tiny bit of satisfaction because I have seen how he lives…...and I thank the Universe that I have a wonderful man like Mr Kitten and a happy home.

Crazed Kitten

Things are so busy at the moment. Or maybe it just seems that way without Mr K here to help me with things. I take him for granted sometimes and only realize just how much I depend on him when he is not here.

He is away for 3 weeks, 21 days…but who is counting? Me that’s who!

The one good thing about his going is that I refused to put up with his friend ‘J’ while Mr K was not even here and so J has moved off to a B&B. His last night in our home was also Mr K’s last night before his trip and his friend was so obtuse he couldn’t even catch a clue that I wanted some alone time with my hubby before he left. He stuck to Mr K like a feckin limpet until I threw a bit of a wobbly and then he finally went off to bed. (He sleeps in a garden flat so we cannot put the alarm on or go to bed until he does.)

But on his way out he made sure he grabbed the last cold cider out the fridge, he didn’t dispose of any of the 7 bottles he had already drank (which I bought) or restock the fridge for the next person. OMG he annoys me.

Before he went outside he mentioned that he had a date on Sunday! I had gotten wind that he had spent the entire Halloween party asking out my friends. WTF dude?! You are married! So when he told me he had a date on Sunday I asked if his wife knew? He said ‘it is all in innocence nothing to hide.’ So I asked again – does she know? I quickly realized no, she hadn’t a clue.

I am not a jealous person – Mr K travels a lot and has a lot of female colleagues. If I was jealous it would make me crazy wondering what he is up to. But I trust him. However if I heard that he had been in a social environment while overseas and had spent the whole time chatting up women and asking them out for dates, I would snip off his bollocks with my nail scissors.

The really dull ones.

Needless to say I told my friend that J was married and that was the end of his ‘date’. The annoying little feckwit of a scumbag.

What else is going on….oh yes I won a month long design course by retweeting and I asked R to join me. We were not happy about getting up so early on a Saturday as it starts at 9 but once we got there and got into it I was very happy I did. It is 4 half day sessions and the project I have chosen is my kitchen and scullery. It is serviceable but very unattractive and bland. At some stage I want to gut it and redo it. Tonight we have to make mood boards for our project.

But any remodeling will have to wait as Mr K has been told the company that funds his NGO is in a bit of difficulty and may close. It now appears his NGO will be able to carry on solo but it is still a huge level of stress until it is confirmed he will have a job. I have 3 weeks leave booked in Dec-Jan and as a contractor I do not get paid, so if he is out of work I can’t take off or we will have no money coming in.

The girls are in the middle of exams and are highly stressed, Lily has an event which she is putting on for her end of year project, we have another houseguest coming next week and we have tickets for Janet Jackson. I’m also hosting book club, so this month is just chock full of chaos.

But I am blessed to have such a wonderful husband, a fabulous family and friends and a job. Everything else will just have to work itself out.

He said, She said

The last couple of weeks has felt a bit like I am living in one of those jokes with ‘His Story’ and ‘Her Story’ where the 2 people experienced exactly the same things but interpreted it completely different.

I can understand Mr K defending his friend when all of the women in the house are annoyed by him. But when I mentioned that our visitor ‘J’ was ‘taking advantage’ Mr K blew up and started saying this wasn’t true.

This is when we realized that our memories of the previous week were completely misaligned.

His story:

The night we went for a group dinner at the Lookout, ‘J’ didn’t pay for his dinner, but he then paid for the next meal. Every other time ‘J’ has paid his own way, he put in petrol, he bought a crate of beer.

Her story:

The night we went for a group dinner at the Lookout, ‘J’ didn’t pay for his dinner, I did. (full stop) The next time we went out was the following morning when we went for a coffee and ‘J’ treated us to a coffee. The next time we went out for a full dinner, ‘J’ was short and paid half his bill, Mr K even said ‘ok well you owe Lisa x’ but that was the last I heard of that debt.

Despite us taking ‘J’ on sightseeing trips all over Cape Town from Simon’s Town to Hermanus I have NEVER seen him offer petrol money.

Every night ‘J’ drinks at least 6 or 7 beers, so I hope this ‘crate’ of beer is a magical one, never depleting or ‘J’ is now sucking down our booze supply every night.

When we had our Halloween party 'J' did spend some money - he bought a crap load of some of the stinkiest, smelliest, retch making cheeses in the universe which makes me ill every time I go near my fridge.

End story.

I know they say we are blind to the things we do not want to see, but come on!? How could we be so divergent in our understanding of the events under our noses?

What makes me sad is that Mr K goes away on Friday for a month. He is travelling for work and attending conferences and visiting his Mom.

We’ve had hardly any time together in the last few weeks and when we have it has been tense and strained.

I hope he comes back.