Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Molly's decided because my income is so low, she's going to apply to ALLLLLL the East-coast colleges she wants to get into, but apply to apply to Bryn Mawr for early decision, and then go THERE when she gets in....and I HAVE WITNESSED AT LEAST 5 or 10 OWL PICTURES OR REPRESENTATIONS, AS WELL AS A FAMILY OF REAL-LIFE HOOT OWLS JUST LAST WEEK WHEN TYLER AND I VISITED LOVERS' LANE PARK IN LIBERTY, MO, ON THE MOTORCYCLE, we heard a family of them!  I take that as a sign that although I am down on my luck, my Molly is on her way to her best life!  Bryn Mawr's mascot is an OWL...and she's heading out there the last weekend of September as a Lantern Scholar to take part in their program!  Wow.  ANYWAY... WHY?  My parents and I are SO, SO, SO very proud of her!!!

This Labor Day, I wish I could be at IrishFest helping people get to where they need to be, but instead I will likely be enjoying a backyard pool and taking care of pussycats while my MIL is at her fancy condo in Branson.  I have no friends here.  I don't even confide in my best friends from high school anymore.  ...I STILL can't deal with my dad's house, it's still TOO overwhelming...even though it's been 3 years this October 28th!  I STILL CANNOT WALK IN THERE WITHOUT FEELING PANIC AND FEAR.  He left Griffin 28 or 29 or 45 guns...I lost count after 30 and had to walk out and throw up...and there are MORE still in there!  Griff has asked various weekends to bring about 7 or 8 home from Todd's safe (where I moved them after Tyler and I broke up, as I had previously stored them from Sandy's gun safe) so he could sell them, after Griffin almost shot himself in the face in Todd's kitchen one day...OMG!!! I WAS SOOOOO FUCKING MAD THAT TODD LET GRIFFIN SHOOT A GUN ALL ALONE!!! Griffin honestly wants nothing more to do with guns after that experience ---prior to it, he was TOTALLY a-go with my dad and his NRA stuff.  BUT...The gun was loaded; Griffin fired it.  Todd's ceiling still has a hole in it with bullet penetration.  I thank God everyday that Griffin is still with us.  Whenever Todd FINALLY told me, I simply wept.  I am still weeping.  Griffin is such a sweet, sweet soul.  Mostly I already feel dead inside, but I would actually choose to die, should anything happen to MGG.  I honestly don't think I could take it. Griffin is ALWAYS the first to give me hugs (I love hugs).  He is ALWAYS the first to come talk to me and ask me how I slept, how my day was, how our bike ride was, etc.  He is ALWAYS the first to tell me about his day if I am in a place where I can listen.  Bless his heart.  <3  He resurrected a kind of monument to his grandpa, my dad, by finding a car that most represented his Mach I mustang. Griffin is, by far, the most sensitive and respectful young man I have ever met, and I am SO proud to be his mother. UNLIKE my dad, who didn't give a fuck what kind of chaos it caused, Griffin is all about peace, love, and CARS. He just wants everyone to get along and will put himself out there to help make that happen. He has often spoken of being a soldier, but I fear for that because he has absolutely NO spatial awareness, so he would get himself killed FAST.  :(

Grace Ann?  She's just like me. Money burns a hole in her pocket, and then she starves for it and regrets her dumb and impulsive decisions that have culminated from previous days.  Fuck today, let's spend until tomorrow.  :(  We will worry about it then, no matter how much we have.  Grace is a lot about herself, but she is also a 12-year-old girl, in love with what others think and know about her.  Grace Ann is in all of us, that girl who is popular but still holding on to what she believes others want to see, what they want to hear, what they want to watch.  My dad was once like this.  He once walked into a Rolex department store off 71st and Memorial and wrote a check for just under $3000.00.  WHY???  Just so he could say he had a Rolex?  I got so mad at him every day that I had to get up to do the dishes in the middle of the night, the rage I felt that he was drunk, that disappointment I always held for him for ridiculing me for what he'd always HOPED I would be, but I was never fueled for the things I COULD BE...Ssssure, I worked, but not for not.  My dad gave me $700/month starting at age 12, and never taught me how to handle it.  I received $700-$1200/month in benefits from my mother for SSI for most of my underage life, and my dad never saved a penny, just invested it all with Prudential and put on a new roof and a new porch, which I would always tap dance under, and then just turned it all over to me, at age 46.  Sometimes in those days he'd ask to borrow money, but that was mostly when he was in trouble with the law or divorcing someone. He paid my car payments, so I always had a lot of money for a kid my age, every single month.  Hell, I could buy anything I WANTED!  Guess, Pepe, Girbaud, etc.  I was styling...but too embarrassed for my GrandMaud to pick me up in our Oldsmobile '98...little did I know that this vehicle would soon be a rather coveted vehicle, an Olds '98!  I will forever love my dad and grandmother for this!  They both did their bests, and so am I.  I am trying.

Shortly after my dad received my mom's life insurance money, he hired Mike Hough to do him a concrete porch, and one day Mike called me outside and told me to put my hand in the concrete.  I did what he told me to do!  I put my hand down there, smiled at him and told him how "gooshy" it felt!  He smiled his crazy smile and said, "I know it, Girl!  You'll appreciate it one day!" and I NEVER, EVER really knew what he meant until waaaay later.  

Thank you, Lord, for keeping me alive for this long, because You KNOW I've thought otherwise.  I HATE the mess I've left behind me in Nowata.  Going through that house is disturbing and I'm not sure I can do it and stay as sane as I am right now, which isn't very.