maxandmolly’s blog

I got an email from the MSW progream I applied to today:

After careful consideration and review of your credentials, we regret to inform you that you have not been recommended for admission at this time.

I am, however, welcome to reapply if my credentials change in any way in the future. WTF?!?!

Got home today, turned on the tv.....nothing. Called cable company, bought a new HDMI, reset the tv....nothing. After like an hour and a half waiting on hold with the tv company, I have to take it some shop in the crap part of town for repairs. I mean, come on! Teeth, car, cat, AND tv? I need a break already.

-My car is home! I had my friend J run me from the rental car place to the dealer yesterday, totally forgetting her dad has worked in a body shop since she was in diapers. So they finally get the payment sorted out (I STILL can't write a damn check anywhere) they pulled it around and she helped me check it out. She said with the amount of damage they had to repair, she would have been surprised if I didn't have to take it back for something.

-The outside is FANTASTIC. The panels all line up perfectly-J says this is important and sometimes not done right, the color matches exactly, and it certainly hasn't been that shiny clean since I bought it. You'd never know I have an all-new driver's side.

-The inside, not so great. Several of the trim panels don't lay properly, and the window made a gawd-awful noise when I hit the Chik-Fil-A drive-thru (sorry Rachelle) on the way to work. *sigh* Took it back today, something about little plastic clips for the panels, ordered, will be in tomorrow. Tech said he couldn't hear a noise in the window, but took it all apart and made it sure it was well lubed. Yeah, not so much. It makes a clicking noise (and I can feel it move out of place with my leg against the door) on the way down. Grr. But I wanted to get to work, and figured I have to go back tomorrow anyway, will deal with it then.

-Turns out the rental played cds just fine, mine all got scratched up in the accident and wouldn't play at all. I'm a real genius, only took me five weeks to figure that out.

-Been feeling overwhelmed and stuff lately. I mean, teeth pulled, car with over $10k of damage, still have a bruise on my leg, case load has doubled in last couple months, Max has been acting all weird, still no answer on my grad school app. So, my solution to that? A haircut I really couldn't afford at the moment. But I was on my way back from a home visit, the salon was on the way, gave her a call and she could squeeze me in. My hair had been looking utterly atrocious-bangs all straggly and grown out, split ends, shaggy. So I got my bangs trimmed (and realized I was sweeping them across in the wrong direction) and a layered semi-bob, shoulder length. May go shorter again when the weather cools off.

For "stained living room carpet". 
The best part?  I took the cats first thing this morning to a co-worker/friend's house to hide them, since I refuse to pay $20 per month, per cat.  Forgot to take down the window perch, so I think that busted me.
Also?
Got t-boned leaving said friend's street.
YUP, you read that right.  All of a sudden I was *real* up close and personal with the headlight of a Dodge Ram pick up. 
Thought the guy with the other pickup and trailer had stopped because he couldn't turn left around me, and was letting me go to make room for him, start to turn left, BAM!
The pregnant wife went to the hospital in an ambulance.  The husband went later on.  I went too, major seat belt bruises/soreness in left shoulder/collar area, left hip, major scratches on left leg.  That would be from the inside of my door basically splintering and shooting outwards.  Pretty sure it wasn't from the two shattered windows, since that glass broke into little pebble-y kinda pieces.  You know, and went up my shorts, down my underwear, in my shirt, in my hair, and everywhere else.  Glasses flew off my face and into the backseat.  Phone hit floorboard.  Couldn't open my door.  Had to climb over the console, pull myself into the passenger seat and get out that way.  After the deputy stopped traffic to make sure no oncoming cars hit me while I climbed out. 
Went to ER, they put me in one of those awful collars, did x-rays, took off collar, gave me an Rx for a dozen Vicodin, and sent me home.  Will be following up with regular doctor and chiro as I feel like crap, my back is all stiffened up, shoulder hurts like hell, and I've got too much existing back damage to fuck around with it. 
OH!  And I got a ticket for violation of right of way.
What a day. 
Off to take a shower, a Vicodiin, and a kitteh nap.

I bought a Coach purse today. Went to the outlet mall with BFF and her friend, who is also Trenton's extra grandma. Wander into the Coach Factory Store, where of course I would normally scoff at the prices, make fun of BFF's love of them, and move on. But then she picked up, off the clearance table, this adorable patchwork small bag with purple C's and purple trim. *sigh* HAD to have it. Regular price $169, outlet price $158, clearance price $99, extra 50% off. I have NEVER spent $50 on a purse!! But I figure, I spent $15-20 several times a year for purses that crap out on me, this one will last, right? Anyway, there's no pic on the website, in fact, no patchwork looking ones at all-are they out now? Oh well, always behind the times. Will take a pic eventually.

...that a clean house is overrated.  And now that mine is clean, my suspicions have been confirmed  A CLEAN HOUSE IS OVERRATED.  And totally not worth the screaming back pain.

I don't give a shit where you go, as long as it isn't to the Bucs. Seriously, we already have like, 5 QBs. Jeff Garcia, Cade McCown, Chris Simms, Brian Griese, and some other guy. We don't fucking need, or want, Brett Favre. We no longer have to tolerate 35,000 Cheeseheads every year for the annual Bucs-Pack game, like in the days of the old NFC Central.
So seriously, Brett? STFU. Retire, get traded to the Giants, stomp your foot and throw a 2-year old tantrum demanding to go to the Vikings, I don't care. But for the love of all that is holy about the game of football, get it over with so I can go back to drooling over Warrick Dunn, who has finally come home to where he belongs.
/rant

Go here!

Over and over and over Amy said this, to every close friend who knew about the circus freak she married. They met online-she had a major thing for men in uniform. He was ex-Navy, or something. Had her all convinced he was working for some Top Secret something or other. He lived in Virginia-she went to visit him one weekend last fall. He had been here, she had been there before. He managed to convince her that if he died, no one would notify her, so they should get married. And she bought into it. She came home, alone, and told no one at first about her non-wedding at the courthouse in VA. Eventually she told a friend or two. But she refused to tell her family, saying they had agreed to have a 'real' wedding in April (actually, it was supposed to be yesterday) and their families need never know about the original ceremony.
Then he got weirder and weirder. Listened in on her phone calls, hacked into her computer-at home AND work. S was getting more and more concerned. Then Amy called her in a panic one day saying he had claimed to ahve a video of Amy & T-S's husband-having sex. Which, if you know T & Amy at all, you would agree was a ridiculous idea. But she was all freaked out, called S in a panic. Supposedly that was when she broke the engagement. I'm a little fuzzy on wether they were married by then or not.
And he got weirder and weirder. She wouldn't talk on the phone-he had tappedher phone, or so she believed. She thought he was following her, so she took S's car to court the day after he was arrested for domestic violence in January. And we're pretty sure she only had him arrested that time because some friends brought her home and they found him drunk, sitting inhis truck in the yard. He grabbed her by the hair, they insisted she have him arrested. She went along with it but insisted he hadn't meant to hurt her. The duty judge that did his first apperance was a recently elected judge who used to do defense for our parents. He recognized Amy's name, and chewed the coward out but good, and gave extremely strict pre-trial release conditions. As soon as the case was settled, she filed for an inunction but because he hadn't been served, it wasn't in effect yet. (Paper got it wrong.)
It seems she had been letting him stay there a lot lately. She would do really well for a while, then he would re-appear and fuck her all up again. All of her close friends told her again and again, Amy, I'm afraid he's going to hurt you. I'm afraid he's going to kill you. PLEASE, get away from him, I'll help you.
"He won't hurt me, he won't hurt me." She thought he might hurt her dog Lucky or her cat Annie, or send someone to hurt her, but insisted he would not hurt her.
Friday night, she stopped by S's house, but she had gone to dinner with her parents. Amy called her and said where are you? your car's here. She told her, they actually ended up passing each other in opposite directions on the road, I'm headed home, ok, I'm headed out to dinner with a friend, see ya tomorrow at the wedding. We expected Amy to go to the wedding with C & M, who planned to go early and spend the day at the beach. S mentioned she hadn't gotten hold of Amy, but she was probably at the beach with C & M and left her phone in the car. We finally get to the beach yesterday, and ran into C & M. S asked where Amy was, C said she didn't know, she hadn't been able to reach her either. C thought she may be skipping the wedding since it was the day Amy had originally wanted to have her wedding on, and it might be too hard to watch G get married instead.
So we enjoyed the wedding, and ended up talking about Amy on the way home. That she needed to cut him off for good, before she lost her career and everything she had the way I did with car thief. And S said she knew, but everytime he reappeared, she lost her resolve.
Then this morning the nextel goes off. I was all confused, hearing S's assigned ring tone-assumed she was calling from the house, let's go shopping, or some such. Instead she had alerted me, I radio'ed back, and all she could get out was "He killed her, he fuckin' killed her." As soon as I was awake enough to process the words, I knew who she had to be talking about. Got dressed and headed to her house.
Friday, on her way home from dinner with friend(s?)-had to be teacher friends, no one from our office that we can find was with her-she talked was talking to C. She got home, and told C she had to go, her neighbor wanted to talk to her.
She talked to her neighbor about 15 minutes, begging her not to go in the house alone, that she had seen him come up, on foot, earlier and she was worried something was really wrong. Told her she didn't have to go in, she coudl stay at herhouse, or call a friend, but don't go in the house, he seemed very riled up.
"Don't worry, I'll talk to him." And she walked away.
The neighbor said she had barely made it to her front door when she heard three shots BOOM BOOM BOOM, a pause, then another BOOM.
He waiting inside the door for her, naked, shot her three times, then shot himself. She died immediately, laying on the front walk of her house that she loved so much. He died inside the house, on the carpet past the entry. It was a gruesome scene when we got there today.
Sandi needed to reach her family-cops had notified but she really felt a need to make contact-and try to find out where Annie and Lucky were. Cops said Animal Control, neighbor said she never saw Animal Control come, and never saw Lucky at all. Lucky is HUGE-you can't miss him. Apparently another neighbor said he saw Lucky pacing around Amy's body, then ran off. But no one else saw that, and there were several neighbors in the street within moments. The neighbor who had been talking to her went to see if she had a pulse, and she was already gone. They didn't bother checking on him, other than to see he was naked.
They found a number for her brother, got his mom, and S talked to her about Lucky & Annie, the car, etc. She said we had found a couple important documents, insurance, marriage certificate, etc. Amy's mom says "Marriage certificate? WHAT marriage certificate?" The cops hadn't mentioned they were married, assuming, of course, the family would already know.
The family is flying down tomorrow. Supposedly, Lucky & Annie are at Animal Control on a hold til the family comes in. They're taking Annie home but can't care for Lucky. Someone will take him, just not sure who yet.
S was pretty wrung out by the time we made it back to their house. T was all quiet and barely knew what to do with that many women in his house. He was pretty close to her-closer to her than any of S's friends.
I left them curled up in bed with the cat, and came home, where I have done almost nothing since. I was gonna do A, B, C, whatever. But it just isn't in me today.

Edited to add:
Got so involved in telling the story, I forgot my point.  (I do occasionally have one.)
Amy worked in child welfare for nearly 5years.  She saw, over and over again, what domestic violence could do to a family.  She KNEW everything we 'should' know about red flags, warning signs, when to get out and how.  She knew all of it, and it didn't matter.  It didn't save her.  It can happen to anyone.