Welcome to the heat wave. I feel a little guilty labeling weather like this as a heat wave, as I don't think we've even passed 95 yet, and in Oklahoma that's barely a reason to start sweating.. Real heat waves involve temperatures over 100 for days and days on end (and humidity over 90% if you want to nitpick). But this is Connecticut, where the standards and tolerances are much lower, and we've had enough mildly hot days in a row that it qualifies for the announcement. To be fair, those of us who have to hundred-year-old houses with no central air and only window units have to decide how much we want the electric bill to be, and that makes a difference. I've had the kids over at FIL's in the pool and central air for part of most of these days.
Four more days, and then we are officially off to Texas to see Auntie Mame and Uncle Wome. The kids are excited, and I think I will pack relatively light for them (definitely for me as I'm sending a separate suitcase to Vegas with Hubby so I don't have to haul it to Texas and then on to Vegas). Eclipse comes out just before the trip, so I will be schlepping that one along for the ride, and I have to throw some more in the Vegas suitcase.
Went through the toys and shipped two boxes off to Mame for her to tuck into the closet for the kids to have once we arrive (and hopefully keep at her house). Hope the tea set makes it through the trip unscathed. I sent the white ironstone set... it's cute but also big enough to have a "real" teaparty and has a few dings and cracks, so them abusing it won't be a huge deal.
Had a very enlightening discussion with UM regarding the Murphinator. Last week I sent her flowers for her birthday from FIL and me. FIL at least got a terse thank you note. I got nothing. She sent UM an email saying his entire family had "written [her] out of their lives" and she was completely alone and ignored. Right... that was immediately after we had the Happy birthday flowers delivered. She announced a week or so ago that she wants to take their kids to Italy for Christmas, and she wanted him to pay for the trip. He agree to pay for one, so that he is funding half the travel expenses for the kids. Fair -- he says he thinks this is a great opportunity for them and doesn't want them to miss it. I thought that was nice, but something was gnawing at me and it took me a quiet evening doing something else before I realized why that bothered me so much. M has been announcing left and right that she has no money. (and he pays all bills for the house and gives her $2500 a month) She told UM that he had to buy the kids their backpacks for school because she couldn't afford to do it. In January when I went to lunch with her she was going on and on about how she had no money to pay for a lawyer. Three years ago in the aftermath of The Incident, she was at my house in tears for four days going on about how she had no money and no way out... so I gave her an envelope of cash (an amount that was basically 1/6 of my checking account, not much in Greenwich terms but in terms of what I had it was substantial). So how does someone who has no money take two kids to Italy at Christmas??? I asked UM that. His answer: she has multiple savings accounts in her name only totaling six figures, not counting the hundred grand she put into buying the house. She can, according to him, lay hands on five figures in cash any time she wants, as part of the money is in retirement type accounts, but the rest is in regular savings. Apparently the funds came mostly from inheritances from her aunt, mother and grandmother, but that only tells me that she's had that money quite a while. Hmm. Kind of hard to play the abused neglected cashless wife whose husband withholds all money when you have a shitload of money in the bank. I am so pissed at myself for getting played like that. I knew all three of those women had died and I knew she had inheritances, but I never asked how much or whatever because I thought it was a crass topic to bring up. Hell, my grandmothers died and my mother bought us plane tickets for the funerals. Welcome to the grand sum total of my inheritances. Apparently nothing we do (like sending her flowers for her birthday) counts, and she can moan about being broke while having six figures sitting in the bank. Well, fuck her and the horse she rode in on. I told him I am now absolutely done with her. I hope UM can get the divorce wheels moving -- he says his lawyer thinks they can be done in 4-6 months. If he had any sense he made copies of all of her account statements so she can't conveniently forget they exist and not give those over to the court with all of the other financial info they have to provide. I didn't ask whether he had or not -- I don't want to know. But I really hope he did.
No comments:
Post a Comment