Almost time to go

I'll be leaving for Orillia in about three hours. It takes an hour and a half to get there so, by my estimate I should be gambling my ass of in around 5 hours. I'm getting a little revved up here now.I plan on trying my hand at a little blackjack and maybe some craps but mostly I'll just be sticking to the slots. Wish me luck.

Friday Five

1. If you had the chance to meet someone you've never met, from the past or present, who would it be?My father. I've never met him and, as far as I know, he's still alive. I have many questions, most of which wouldn't be very nice, I'm sure. I'd probably end up disappointed that I use him as my choice of the one person in time I could have met.2. If you had to live in a different century, past or future, which would it be?I'd love to be able to see what we've done with the world a 1000 years from now. 3. If you had to move anywhere else on Earth, where would it be?I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world other than where I am. But if I had to choose I'm sure it would be somewhere that was a little bit warmer year round. Maybe California or Hawaii.4. If you had to be a fictional character, who would it be?Ohhh... that's a hard one. Off the top of my head I'd have to say maybe Jean Grey aka The Phoenix from X-Men. All that psychic and telekinetic power... I could rule the world! *Evil laugh*5. If you had to live with having someone else's face as your own for the rest of your life, whose would it be?Angelina Jolie's for sure.

A little gambling

Well, the Hubby and I are off to Casino Rama on Saturday. My daughter will be with her father for the weekend and my son is staying with his Grammy. We'll only be gone for the one night but it should be fun. We are going to stay at a hotel in Orillia and take the shuttle to the casino. Hopefully we'll come back a little richer.We plan to gamble for a while, check out some live music, and eat some great food. It should be a nice get away if only for a day.I've already made reservations for the hotel room. All we have to do now is wait for Saturday.The last time we went away for the night and stayed at a hotel was over four years ago and we were less one child. We went to Niagara Falls and did a little gambling there too. It was a good time. It was the first time I had been to a casino since I was just barely old enough to get in. This will be my second time to a casino. Wow, I really don't get out enough, do I? Ah well, let luck be a lady Saturday night.

Friends in low places

The following entry will be fairly long, as it requires quite a bit of back-story to truly understand. This is something that happened about a week ago and I haven't put it to paper (or journal) until now. Most of this post will be about past events that led up to last week and will finish with my uncertainty as to what I should do now. Be forewarned that the following is not an uplifting tale. I have one friend in this world. She's been my best friend since kindergarten. She and I are 24 now. She's had a rough life by some standards. Her mother is an alcoholic who had drank while pregnant and is presently living with a disease that destroys the liver. She's pretty much killing herself by continuing to drink but I bet one of the reasons that she drinks is because of the disease. Talk about irony. My friend, we'll call her J, grew up with her mother and has never known a father. He was murdered when she was three. That's one thing that we had in common, she and I. I've never met my father. Men came and went in her mother's life, bringing experiences that were pleasant and others that you never forget no matter how hard you try. I remember one time being with J, her mother and the man of the week, who's name I can't remember, at an apartment complex that had a swimming pool. We were going to go swimming and, at the time, let's just say I wasn't exactly a fish out of water. I was about 8 years old then. Apparently, J's mom and the boyfriend were high on coke and I remember being told by the boyfriend, for some reason unknown to me, that he didn't wear underwear. The only reason I mention this is because I believe it gives one insight into the character of a man that would share this type of info with an 8-year-old girl. Later, when we entered the pool area, the boyfriend thought it would be funny to throw a child that can't swim into the deep end of the pool to see if she'll sink or swim. I sank. This experience, combined with a few more later in my childhood, left me with a healthy fear of the water, which I carry with me to this day, although I do swim. The point of this is to let you know the kind of people we're dealing with here. At one point I believe one of J's mom's men actually got into bed with her in her early teen years and tried, unsuccessfully, to molest her. So, as you can see, her mom wasn't exactly the epitome of well adjustedness or emotional stability, considering the company she kept and most of our behaviors are learned, which brings me back to J. J went through a deep depression when she was 20 that was brought on by a job that had her working the hours when most people are all snug in their beds. This job took away her social life with the exception of the loser boyfriend of that time. She stopped calling me and wouldn't answer the phone when I called. Actually, I don't think she ever answered the phone. That's the funny thing. The job, originally, was what had instigated her social seclusion but it was J that maintained it. When I was finally able to get in touch with her I found out that she was about four months pregnant, no longer with the father, and was in complete denial about it. At four months she was already past the point of abortion as a choice and was not financially stable enough to take care of herself much less a child. She still lived at home and all this happened right under her mother's nose and it never sent up an alert even thought she had been in the same boat herself at one time. J's mother had a baby at 18 and had given it up for adoption and it seemed that J would be following in her mother's footsteps. J went into labor at the adoption agency's office, having put off the inevitable for so long. Nothing had been finalized with regard to the adoption and the baby went to a foster home until decisions could be made. J stayed with me after the birth for a few days while she chose a family for her son, eventually deciding to go home so she could crawl back into her hole of depression, uninterrupted and unnoticed while leaving a wake of loose ends behind her. The baby remained in foster care for many weeks while the agency desperately tried to reach J to sign papers and such, so the baby could be placed in the home that she chose. This, of course, made me furious. The fact that she would leave her baby to bond with a family that he would ultimately be taken from enraged me. I received many calls from the agency trying to reach her. I went as far as to tell them to go to her apartment and repeatedly buzz her suite until she answered because I knew she was there. It didn't work. Again, her mother did nothing as far as I'm concerned. I finally spoke with her mother and asked her straight out what the hell was going on and when she was going to get J to sign those papers. Her response was mostly made up of "I know" and "I've been telling her this and that" - bla bla bla. Hello … Obviously not working. She got J on the phone at which point I blasted her about how irresponsible and selfish she was being which, as you can imagine, didn't go over well. I felt badly later but someone had to say those things to get her ass moving. There would be plenty of time for her to wallow in self-pity after her job was done and that's exactly what she did. Months later she was sleeping all the time, had no job, no social life to speak of, and the boyfriend was still gone. He had never known that she was ever pregnant or that she had given the baby up. I eventually encouraged her to come over to the house and have some dinner and rent a movie; nothing special, just spend some time in the real world. We ate something unassuming and watched "The Sixth Sense", relaxing on the couch. In retrospect, those details seem meaningless considering what was to come. J stayed the night and we spent the better part of the next morning playing card games. I even got out my tarot cards, giving her readings to the best of my abilities, which aren't great; let me tell you. We talked, we played games, we watched some T.V., and then it was time for her to go. She said that she would go to her aunt's place, hang out for a while and try and get a ride home. I told her to call me and she said she would. I knew she wouldn't and that I'd end up calling her but that was fine with me. I didn't hear from her, which was expected. What wasn't expected was the call that I got from her mother that night; J had not gone to her aunt's but instead had made her way to a set of train tracks, laid down on them, and waited for the train. The fact that she had laid between them and not across them really meant shit. Clearly this was a cry for help. To this day I still think about what could have been. What if she had made one wrong move, raised her head at the wrong moment as the train passed over her or had really just wanted to die? These are things I don't like to think about but they invade my mind from time to time. Her stint in the hospital began once the police were able to talk her out from under the train. I visited her there, now and then, looking for signs that she was improving, that she was somewhere closer to being herself again but I was disappointed more often than not. She was only there for a few months. When the doctors felt it was time for her to go home she wasn't ready. She knew that going back to the dingy little apartment she shared with her mother was not going to help and the fact that the medication they had her on didn't seem to do anything was a factor as well. The first of the two problems was rectified when her uncle allowed her to stay at his home, rent-free. The second problem was never solved. During the summer she spent at her uncles, she took herself of her meds, began sleeping with a guy more than twice her age, carried on a friendship with a woman she met in the hospital, and all the while cohabitating with a man who was a strange bird indeed, family or no. She was getting better in spite of all this. The medicine had made her hear voices and see things that weren't there, the new friendship was fleeting at best, and her uncle was nutty but did not hinder her recovery. That leaves the man she had hooked up with. He was an artist and a womanizer who had no real right to be. She indulged in that relationship against her better judgment and mine, as well as the advise of her doctor. It didn't last. As all things must come to an end so did her stay at "casa de uncle". Her aunt was having a house built and would be moving in and staying until its completion, which meant that J would be moving out. The house had belonged to J's grandparents who, when they died a couple years earlier, had left the house to their children. This meant that her aunt, by rights, could move in if she chose. When her uncle was faced with the choice of supporting his niece who was sick or sharing his humble yet disastrous abode with a sister who would pick up the tab on half the bills, he chose the later. He probably would have let J stay but her aunt decided, under no uncertain terms that she would be leaving and her free ride was over. J moved back in with her mother, fearing the worst but hoping for the best. The fear that she would get sucked back down into the depression was almost palpable. I know because I felt it too. The first thing on her to do list was to find a job. I offered to let her stay with me if she found a job in the general area, despite the inconvenience it would pose as I had a common-law husband and two children. She lived in the next town over and that option raised the odds of finding a job a bit in her favor. During her stay back with mommy dearest she hooked up with some new friends and met a man whom she became involved with, we'll call him G. Turns out it wasn't the healthiest of relationships as this man was prone to bouts of crying and stating things such as he would kill himself if she ever left him. This was after an involvement of about two weeks. He was 26 years old, wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful, was unintelligible when he did speak, partly due to his Newfoundland accent, and the longer of his two sole relationships in his life had only been a couple weeks. He couldn't read either, which meant he had very little to offer in the way of… well, life prospects, really. The fact that he couldn't read didn't bother me half as much as the fact that he was unwilling to learn. J managed to get a job interview at a Subway shop not a 10 minute walk from my house. The strange thing was that G showed up at the interview. It seems he had a habit of showing up at strange times and out of nowhere, almost like he was spying. He also had a habit of accusing her of cheating with absolutely no motive, rhyme, or reason. J got the job, which meant she would be staying with me, which she did, except for weekends. Those she spent at her mothers with her G until a ring was stolen and G was suspected as the thief. Her mother told J that he was not welcome in her home any longer but when J's mom wasn't around to object, he was there. No one approved of their relationship, least of all me but J was never one to take advice on love and relationships or on anything else for that matter. She continued to work at Subway and stay with me until she quit a few weeks later or so I thought. I was to find out later that she was fired for reasons unknown to me to this day. Subsequently, she moved back to her moms again only this time her mother kicked her out after a few months. It had something to do with them fighting all the time and money or rather the lack of it. J and G found some little hole of a place in the upstairs of a house and moved in there together. With no phone and no vehicle or licenses for either of them, keeping in touch became difficult. The only times I spoke to J was when I got in my car and drove down there until I got fed up with the one sidedness of our friendship. I vowed not to go there again until she called me or made some effort of her own to maintain our friendship. I didn't hear from her for months. I finally broke down and showed up at her door, knocking incessantly until she answered. What I found was a deeply troubled woman. The mask of depression had settled on her face once again. She was hardly recognizable, her weight had ballooned to over 200lbs, her hair was unkempt and hung in her face and she looked like one of the most unhappiest people I've ever seen. I played all these images through my mind as I sat at her kitchen table, searching for words, searching for answers. Finally, I asked her the one question that kept niggling at my brain… "You're pregnant aren't you," I said. It was more of a statement then a question. "Ya, I am," she said sharply, waiting for me to make something of it. I didn't. I asked her how far along she was so I could weigh the options. Six months. That meant that she knew the last time I saw her and she never told me, never even hinted at it. I asked her why she never told me and, as I suspected, she hadn't wanted to hear what I would have had to say. She didn't want hear how stupid she was for letting it happen. She didn't want to hear how she couldn't afford to care for a baby. She didn't want to hear that she knew next to nothing about raising children. She didn't want to hear. She never did. Although J had not been using protection, we all know that other things can be done to lessen the odds of pregnancy. G would have none of it and he made sure that the one thing that would keep them linked forever happened. She had risked everything by mistakenly putting her trust in him and look at what it got her. Six months later she had a 3mth old baby girl she hardly knew what to do with and lived in a shit hole with a man who had been laid-off from his job building skids and ended up on welfare. There was next to no money, no transportation, and no means of communication other than a cell phone she received as a gift that she bought minutes for when she could afford it, which was almost never. She was truly unhappy. I called her regularly, reaching her only 1% of the time. I had been out of touch with her for a few months as I couldn't contact her on the phone and the beginning of this year had been fairly busy for me so, consequently, I hadn't made it down to see her during that time. March break came and I decided to pay a visit since I wasn't tied down by my children's time schedule. I got the kids in the car and drove down just before lunch. I knocked on the door and heard movement and the flush of a toilet but couldn't be sure if it was J or the occupants of the lower apartment. I knocked a few more times after getting no response while the children waited in the car. After having knocked numerous times I resigned myself to the fact that she might not be home. I got back in the car and pulled away, intent on going home but when I reached the corner I found myself driving around the block and pulling up at the front of her house again. I decided to try knocking just one more time. This time I distinctly heard voices coming from the upper level of the house proceeded by footsteps on the stairs. G opened the door for me and returned up the stairs without saying a word. I made some comment about it being rude to not answer the door when it is so clearly obvious that you're home. It's not like I was a sales person or one of those religion peddlers who tried to convert anyone who'd answer the door. Those type didn't come 'round their neck of the woods anyway. Maybe they felt the folks that lived there weren't worth saving. I got the kids out of the car and herded them up the stairs only to be greeted by… no one? No matter, I told the kids to take off their coats and shoes, doing the same myself. I found J sitting on the couch in the living room next to G. Obviously, he hadn't been called back to work yet. The conversation that followed went a little something like this: "Why didn't you answer the door," I asked. "I was about to have a nap and I didn't feel like having company," J said unkindly. "I've been trying to call you for months." "Yeah, well, I had to sell my phone," she said, which I took to mean that they had needed formula or diapers or some such and couldn't afford it. "You have a car. You can come and visit me any time you want," J stated. "I thought that's what I was doing." "Yeah, well, what do you want me to do?" "Well, you could stop talking to me like that for starters." Things were definitely not right. J began fidgeting with one of the baby's hats and never moved from where she sat. "What's the matter with you," I asked, my temper rising. I could feel the pulsating of my heartbeat throughout my whole body. "Nothing! I just don't feel like having company," she said, her voice rising. And then it hit me. Maybe she wasn't saying what she might because there sat G, right beside her, never having moved either. "Come for a ride with me in the car then. We'll talk." "I don't want to go for a ride." At this point I'd had enough. "I thought you were my friend J. The only one making any attempt to maintain this friendship is me." She said nothing, just kept twisting the hat into knots and releasing. Twist. Release. Twist. Release. There wasn't going to be much left once she was through with her torture of it. I hadn't seen the baby at all during the conversation and began to worry that her current state was caused by much more dire circumstances than an interrupted nap. Maybe the baby had been taken away by social services. The mind works in mysterious ways sometimes and I had to ask. "Where's the baby?" "She's in the bedroom." I was relieved to hear that but an uncomfortable silence ensued and it was clear that I was not wanted there. "Look, obviously I'm not welcome so I'll just go." I went to the door and had the kids put their things back on while they asked me why we were leaving. I didn't really have an answer. "Have a nice life," I said and shut the door behind me. She didn't even say goodbye. I got in my car and sped off towards home, upset, unnerved, and full of questions that weren't being answered. And now it seems that we've come full circle. We're right back where we started years ago only now it's more complicated. Our feet are planted firmly in the present yet somehow in the past as well and there's just one question that keeps niggling at my brain…Well, there you have it. Hopefully, this is not how the story ends. TBC?

Success!

My LJ client is working again! Yeah! I have Zonealarm firewall and apparently (even though it hasn't been running and I took it off my startup list) has been the problem. I uninstalled it and presto, Semagic worked again. Strange but true.