Let Sanity Reign!

When I was wandering in the desert
I was searching for the truth
I heard a choir of angels calling out my name
I had the feeling that my life would never be the same again
I turned my face towards the barren sun

So I picked my son up this weekend for the first time since I was re-injured by my ex in that debacle last month.  That made 26 days since I had seen him, for those of you keeping score at home.  And yes, that sucks.  A lot.  As luck would have it my back had been flaring up the last half of last week (probably from the weather) though it had been slowly improving overall to that point.  To the point, the 7 hour round trip was pretty rough, particularly since I had decided to pass on the Norco throughout the day to make the trip a bit safer when I left work last Friday.  Also, I had emailed my ex earlier in the week to let her know I would be picking our son up that weekend and specified to her that she could pick him up that Sunday (at 4!!) at a restaurant less than 2 blocks up the street from me, being that she wasn't allowed to go to my residence anymore.

I received no response so Thursday I called my son from work (still no phone here) and asked if he knew if his mom had received the email.  He said she read it and she told him that I wasn't allowed to pick him up at her house.  I assured him that I was, barring some kind of legal document I was unaware of.  Quick side note here: when I pick him up, I'm not one of these people that insist on coming in...I'm content to give a couple taps on the horn to let him know I'm there and then cut out.  On occassion I've asked to use the bathroom, but never have I disrespected her by forcing my way into her home.  So his response was that she told him the OP I had stated we couldn't be within X feet of each other.  Again, I assured him that wasn't the case but I suggested he keep an eye out for me beginning at a certain time so we could avoid any potential problems.  He interjected that because she told him that, he had already come up with a plan.  Some of his friends are old enough to drive, so he would go to the mall with them and I could just meet him there.  Smart kid, and you can't blame him for not wanting any more problems.  So I told him that sounded great and we planned accordingly.

So I pick him up at the mall, and as we're walking out to the car he tells me his mom is going ahead with that plan to go to our old meeting place in order to (in her mind) get me in trouble and allow her to call the police on me.  Unbelievable, will it ever end?  So I told him that the papers said nothing about that location, just the day and time.  I had told him this before.  He said he tried telling her this but she wouldn't listen.  I suppose thats a good thing that my son believes me (and trusts me) to the point where he'll argue a point on my behalf just because I told him it was true.  On the other hand, I hate him getting involved in this.  Then he tells me the reason she says she's doing this is because the OP says she can't even go into Woodridge, let alone to my residence.

<sigh>

Now I'm not particularly proud of this next part but I felt it was necessary.  We had just picked up some burgers at McD's so I pulled over in the parking lot and pulled out both the mediation paperwork and the OP.  There were no lurid details exposed to him, but I wanted him to see exactly what it was the agreements and orders stipulated, and to know that I was abiding by them 100%, and just so he had a better idea of what was right and what wasn't in this case.  Basically I showed him that the papers said Sundays at 4pm during the school year and that the OP had no mention of distances or even towns.  So now I had the spectre of more potential bullshit at the tail end of a weekend I had been looking forward to for awhile.  My fear was that she was going to try and actually pull this off, wind up pissing off the cops because of it, and go back to the slammer.  That would leave Billy up here with school the next day, and thats no good for him.

Happily though, she called him on his cell today about noon and asked him to ask me if it was ok if she picked him up on this little cul de sac on the next street instead of at the restaurant.  I'm guessing because it had an easier exit point with traffic there, I dunno.  But anyway I saw no huge reason why she shouldn't be able to do that instead (aside from me preferring to do this around a lot of people for safety) so I told him sure.  So I walked him over there a bit ago, we left here at 3:50 and enjoyed the autumn weather in our brief walk down the street.  She showed up, he got in, and that was that.  No angst, no drama, no cops.  WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!

And I know of the pain that you feel the same as me
And I dream of the rain as it falls upon the leaves
And the cracks in our lives like the cracks upon the ground
They are sealed and are now washed away

Speaking of my back, my doctor finally called me for the first time since I had the MRI and confirmed I had a disc herniation at L5/S1.  He wants to do a series of 3 epidurals.  I passed for the time being.  I mentioned that albeit the process was slow, recovery was underway.  I asked if he thought it possible to achieve our goal of recovery by continuing the conservative treatment of rest and meds, and he said yes.  He also told me the epidurals probably had no more than a 20% chance of helping, but he felt that was chance enough to make it worth it.  I told him I would re-evaluate how I felt in 2 weeks and get back to him.

Overall its gotten slowly better, but as mentioned the last half of last week was rough.  The week started off limp-free but as the week wore on I began to tighten up and limp/hobble a bit.  Most likely its just the change in weather.  I'm still remaining positive though.

You tell me we can start the rain
You tell me that we all can change
You tell me we can find something to wash the tears away...

And speaking of phones, my boss told me last Monday he finally ordered my work cell.  So here's hoping that pans out, because thats what I've been holding out for all along.  Kinda cheap on my part, I know, but oh well.  And honestly its not cheapness so much as brokeness, but rumor has it I may be getting 2 raises in the next 5-6 months (hoping one is a promotion raise) and then my normal yearly raise in March.  Man, that would help SO much...

You tell me we can start the rain
You tell me that we all can change
You tell me we can find something to wash the tears away...

And finally, I would like to take a moment and whine a little more about Guitar Hero 3.  I know I've probably cried more than most would care on the boards, but here goes:

I give the game a 5/10.  Neversoft sucks.  I know a lot of you are REALLY good at this game and dive right into the harder modes, but I think the first 2 difficulty levels are where they really screwed the pooch.  The way they place the notes is ridiculous, and the setlists are overall putrid.  Yes, putrid.  For every Maiden, Metallica, Sabbath song on there, you can count probably 3 songs you've never heard by bands you've never heard of.  Thats what the extras section is for, folks.  I LOVED GH2 even though I'm not that good at it, and had A BLAST playing co-op with my son...even though I was using a controller most of the time.  The songs were good, they were fun, and time flew by.  In GH3, notsomuch...its literally a chore to play through many of those setlists, and the difficulty is so skewed it just adds to the frustration.

Ok thats it for now, thanks for reading.  And treat yourself to a cookie if you know the song those lyrics belong to.  :D