Trippingly Along in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

I started this almost immediately after I finished my last entry because… that’s who I am? I mean… I’m a documenter and a writer and a little obsessed with stories whether my own or someone else’s.

My boss said that since it was HOT AS FUCK in my office and that we weren’t doing anything, I could leave early no harm, no foul. So that was cool. Literally. I mean getting myself somewhere cooler was important. Though it is funny. People kept coming by saying “At least take off your jacket or tie!” And this is something I don’t like explaining, so I never do, so I just let people think I’m “strange” instead of stating my reasoning and proving them correct anyway. In acting, costume is important. I once attended an entire lecture about character shoes once. Because the outfit helps direct the character in ways from movement to status to ideas of self-expression. If your character is disabled, wealthy, and creative… how is their appearance going to differ from someone who is strong, poor, and boring? It is one of the ways that acting takes the profane and makes it sacred. We are creating lives that only existed on paper until we breathed into it. Much like the sacred mask-plays of our “less civilized” ancestors… to don a costume without breathing life into the character first is to dishonor that character much as it was when someone would don the costume of a God without giving reverence to that God. So when I’m in my County Attorney Costume, that is my character. Yes, there is a lot of me in that character… but Me in Suit and Badge is not the Me in Simpsons T-Shirt and Jogging Shorts. The T-Shirt guy was dancing in the grocery store aisle and making jokes to try to get his wife to laugh. The Suit and Badge guy is unflappable but caring and serious.

Sometimes, I have to do the Duct Tape Approach. I call it this because when my brother was getting married, Mom had put up a strip of duct tape on the refrigerator as a way of reminding her, “Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to not weigh in on something.” This is a good lesson. One I am doing now because I REALLY want to but know nothing good would come of it.
The Nazi-Paraphernalia guy in my DnD group? Wrote up a whole paragraph chastising CNN for bad mouthing Trump in North Korea. His whole point was that what Trump was doing in North Korea was a good thing so CNN is just doing this because it’s Trump and how they will make sure nothing good happens because if Trump cured cancer tomorrow, CNN would run a story about how many Doctors just lost their jobs!

I’m biting my lip hard trying to keep from arguing with him on this issue. It’s… proven so difficult that I have to come here to write my argument so that it at least goes somewhere!

FIRST ITEM
CNN’s article was covering how his entire G-20 weekend was “The Cult of Trump First” as opposed to spending any legitimate time trying to do something for the country. And of course it was. Watch everything you can get on it… not just CNN’s reporting and not just so you can dump on CNN. Trump spent more time palling around with people who genuinely want harm to come to us than he did with our own allies. NOW… you can call that “good strategy” if you want to. IF IT PRODUCED RESULTS. It has not. Jared Kushner’s own “Middle East Peace Plan” announcement was not attended by Palestinians and the Israeli weren’t even invited. So… explain that one! Or explain how joking with Putin about hacking the next election, after giving an interview openly stating he would accept interference, is in our country’s best interest? Or how after our own CIA indicated that Bin Salman was behind Kashoggi’s murder and the President merely called him “a friend.” On and on and on about how the weekend wasn’t “Let’s get serious and tackle some issues” but was another run of “Donald’s Daddy Never Loved Him, but Donald Loves Tyrants!”

SECOND ITEM
Barack Obama was asked if he would consider sitting down with the North Korean dictator “without concessions or a deal in place.” The then-President suggested that he would consider it. It was the only thing Fox News talked about for an entire week! Does no one else remember this?

THIRD ITEM
It should surprise NOBODY that Trump doesn’t know shit about the Obama presidency… I mean, the man led the Birther Movement saying Obama was born in Kenya and Trump has never publicly apologized or officially rescinded the damned claim. So Trump saying that Obama was begging for a meeting with Kim that Kim never granted is a bold faced lie. Something we all know. Or we SHOULD all know. Because if Obama had ever made inroads to setting a meeting with Kim; then Fox News would have made those documents their freaking homepage to blast the then-President as a “Foreign Policy Novice or Socialist Spy? Tune in only on Fox News!”

I don’t really have to say it but… hands down the list of “Things That Got Us Here” for me is as follows:
(1) Mitch McConnell
(2) Fox News
(3) Paul Ryan
(4) Lindsay Graham
(5) Donald Trump.

Because Trump is a giant asshat; but he’s the black hole into which attention is drawn. Mitch and Fox News are the ones that laid course for it. Ryan and Graham were the ones that refused to alter course. And as soon as the black hole showed up? Mitch and Fox News are back at the stick shouting to everyone that it isn’t a Black Hole, it’s a Democrat Trap!

So now, let’s discuss the trip stuff.

I got back from work around 4-ish, I think. Surprising nobody Wife was on the couch playing cell phone games. The majority of the packing had been done during the weekend but there were still some of Wife’s things that needed to be packed. Not to mention the dog and the dog’s stuff! And none of that was packed. None of the items that were packed were even in the car. So I asked her what she’d done that day. She mowed the yard, played cell phone games, threw some clothes into the washing machine, started the dishes washing machine, and played cell phone games. That had been her day. UF. I was.... a bit miffed. But we had work to do. So I start throwing stuff into the car.... hoping/waiting for Wife to start helping out. She… played her cell phone game. Then said that she was upset that a lot of the food that she wanted to preserve wouldn’t get preserved. I asked her, “You said that you were going to eat it? Was there too much?” No. She hadn’t eaten anything all day. I asked specifically, “Did you skip lunch because you were packing or because you were playing your cell phone game?” She admitted it was because she had been playing her cell phone game. So.... she’d been playing her cell phone game for no less than 3 hours! I finally get her to start helping around 5:00. At which point, she starts to do… everything… without finishing… anything. Like… she took a towel out of the washing machine then took a glass out of the dishwasher then took a bag to the car. It was… frustrating. But it also gave me a bit of am AHA moment. This is part of her stress cycle that keeps her trapped in her stress cycle… coping with bad coping mechanisms. She starts a bunch of things, feels overwhelemed, stress copes by then doing nothing, stress copes by then doing a little bit (tiny elements) of the things she’s started, then goes back to doing nothing. She would be most aided by doing ONE thing, finishing it, then moving to something else. Hopefully, if she follows through on getting EMDR or CBTI as she said she would this could be addressed.

She asked that I drive to Des Moines. Okay. Honestly… a bit annoying since I do a lot of driving anyway but… hey… I can manage. This way I don’t have to feel fear when she fails to pay attention later. But what did she do during the entire drive?! Played her same cell phone game!!!!!

So we get to my parents. I unpack the car. Then it got… awkward. My mom is trying to compliment Wife’s sunglasses, talk to her about Hawai’i, have a conversation. Wife is just talking at mom about podcasts and tv shows and cell phone games. I go outside to talk to my Dad. My cousin texts us that he is super excited to see us. Makes me feel a bit better and has me focus on the awesome trip coming up.

BUT during dinner Wife discusses all the things she wants to do before she goes to bed. Like… take a shower, sew up one of Nala’s toys, sew up one of our checked luggage bags. But what does she do all night? Play solitaire on her phone! So (fucking grumble grumble) I throw some duct tape onto the bag before I go to bed at 11:30!! We have to be at the airport at 6 a.m! So… very not surprised in the morning when Wife tells me she only got about 3 hours of sleep!

My parents take us to the airport and Wife literally stands outside of the car, watching me take bags out. Like I had to specifically verbally express please help me unpack to her to get her to move. When I go to check luggage… I have to tell her to follow me 3 times. In line at TSA, she starts swearing because she realizes she left her phone at my parents. I said, “Might be a good thing. Unplug a little.” She angrily says, “Like you’re never on your phone!” I snap and say, “Not for 6 hours a day!” An hour later, she looks like she lost her child and when I ask why she still looks so upset? “My fucking phone!!” Until she realizes… aha she packed a back up phone for if she wanted to go running! So she makes sure that, while we still have wi-fi access at the airport… she downloads as many cell phone games onto the phone as she can. Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

On the flight? Oh. My. I had forgotten the blindingly intense pain flying causes my left leg, shoulders, and my back!! Yet still… I look over at my wife in the flight and I can see… honestly see her body start to relax. She’s less freaking out about everything and she’s… beautiful.

That was our leg to Phoenix. However there was an issue for our Phoenix to Kona flight. Ten passengers (including Wife and I) had not been assigned seats. Our tickets simply said, “Check with the Gate.” Which… not… inspiring confidence. Really. So, we get to the gate and they take care of us. They compliment me for being nice and understanding and not being gruff. Like… the lady was sincerely surprised and relieved, lol. I get it. But getting pissy at the gate people isn’t going to fix the problem and it isn’t their fault that there was shitty ticketing issues. Except… we tried to get on the plane and… nope. The tickets weren’t “accurate.” What?! So they moved us aside, looked at what had happened and then re-issue our tickets. But now instead of sitting next to each other… Wife is five rows ahead of me on a different part of the plane and sat me in an exit row in front of the bathrooms next to an immense man that could not find it within himself to “be contained” by etiquette of not spilling into other people’s chairs… or things like not chewing with his mouth open. It was… somewhat unpleasant for the 8 hour trip. Like the added fun of being jabbed in the ribs every time the guy moved a little.

We got to Hawai’i and all of our luggage came with (WOHOO!). Then Cousin picked us up and it was GREAT to see him and his wife! Then they took us to the car rental place. They apologized that they did not have any cars in stock that fit our reservation request. Thus they would give us a free upgrade to a Dodge Challenger. That… is a nice upgrade!

One of the things that Wife was happy about is that this far away from my jurisdiction, I won’t object to her use of marijuana. One of our hosts is an avid smoker. Wife had not smoked marijuana for 15 years. Apparently, splitting a splif with a younger avid smoker was… a bad idea. Wife got WAY too high… to the weepy, paranoid, scared, crying point. So I put her ass in bed and continued my evening. And that evening involved apparently consuming almost an entire bottle of Glennfiditch!!

However, waking up Wednesday morning? Both Wife and I are… well-rested, relaxed, happier. We take a shower together. We’re happy to be together. We give ourselves an impromptu driving tour of the area and get a big delicious lunch. We come back to the house for a “relaxed day” because the 4th is going to be BUSY (fun but busy!) We both finished books, enjoyed the day. No phone games and no Television. It was blissful just laying by the ocean together and reading.

Oh… and I forgot to say… after the big lunch, we stopped by a local pharmacy to grab some essentials… and Wife admitted that she forgot to bring condoms. (Sarcastic) Great. That… sigh no, that makes sense. But then she went over to the Family Planning Aisle and picked up 2 boxes of 3. Like… buying ONE pack would equal the number of times we’ve had sex this year and she specifically grabbed two. I’m.... hoping that means good things. Though… it should also be mentioned… the house we’re in doesn’t have Air Conditioning. So… I could also easily imagine that she’ll say (keep saying) “It’s too hot”.

After she finished her book, though? Back to the cell phone games. From 4 p.m. until we went to dinner at 5:30.. and then back to the cell phone games from 7 through 10:00. SO… at this point, who knows what is going to happen. Excited for tomorrow though.