Old Newness (And New Oldness)

So here is the entry I was fixing to post TWO WEEKS AGO when life (in the form of a silly ex-husband) intervened.

New this week:
1) Fall weather! I LOVE 50 degree nights and 75 degree days!!! Hello football weather.

2) Speaking of football, Havoc wanted to play fantasy football too so he created a team this weekend called the Gridiron Chefs. :D He jumped up and down in excitement when he got his favorite QB, Tom Brady, in the draft. He's wearing his Patriots jersey today to celebrate. (**Update is that Havoc's fantasy football team is kicking the snot out of mine and Bet's team. Butterhead.**)

3) Mayhem has a girlfriend! He told me that at the dance, 8th graders kept asking him to dance and he turned them down. I asked him why and he looked AGHAST. "I couldn't dance with them when I was there with Lisa!" Ahhhh. Because I was supposed to know that he was "there with Lisa"? I dropped him off at MAT'S house before the dance and took MAT home after the dance and all I'd heard about the girls was that business of zapping! Bet teasingly asked Mayhem if he had kissed Lisa and Mayhem said, "Never on the first date!" which was funny but also good. However, yesterday Mayhem went ice skating on what was supposed to be a "double date" of him and Lisa and then his buddy Sam and Sam's girl (who I think is Lisa's best friend.) Turns out that Sam couldn't make it and Lisa had two friends with her. Mayhem did not seem to mind spending the afternoon with three girls. (**Update is that Lisa is not only quite pretty but she's in the super gifted group at school. Cute and smart! Yay Mayhem. Only thing is, I think she's turned his brain to mush. Calls from teachers over the weekend indicate that Mayhem needs to pay a leetle more attention to school. A suggestion was made that turning in worksheets with actual work on them would bring his newly dropped grades back up. Doh!**)

4) Ridiculous emails: Mr. Tapioca Head has been sending me harassing, pathetic, crazy emails. He calls me names. He threatens me with things he's going to bring up in the "trial." Then he closes with something like, "Do not respond to this email. I will not read it. Respond only to my lawyer." So I haven't responded. THEN he starts sending me whiny, lecturing emails because I'm not answering him. My attorney told me to send this email to him (which I did):

Mr. Tapioca Head -
Unless there is an emergency affecting the children, please direct all communication to me through the attorneys.
-Lilymane

It is amazing how free I feel having sent that email. Don't get me wrong - I HATE the lawyer games. They are expensive and stupid. But since "he started it" and I have to pay lot$ just to have an attorney - it is great to know that from now on she can be my filter. I no longer dread opening my computer.

(**Update is that I was all ready to post that until I immediately got more email from my ex. Not only that, but he started sending email to MY attorney, too. She responded to him with this:

mr. tapicoa head:
it is my understanding that you are represented by the firm of bubba, redneck, and earl in this matter. since you have an attorney, it is improper for you to communicate directly with me. please do not email me directly any more. just ask your attorney to communicate and i will deal with him. if you are not represented by an attorney, then i can talk to you directly.
lilymane's kickass attorney

(Apparently I do not pay my attorney enough money to use capital letters. That must be the platinum level of representation that I can't afford. Still, lower case aside - I love my attorney.)

Do you know what Mr. Tapioca did when he received that email from my attorney? He wrote her back saying he had not meant to be improper but blah, blah, blah. He wouldn't shut up! A dozen emails later (sent to both of us) and my attorney sends him another note:

mr. tapioca head:
please stop emailing me. it is improper and inappropriate, as i have already told you. i will not read what you write. if you have something to communicate about this case, please direct it to your attorney, who can then get in touch with me.
lilymane's kickass (and pissed off) attorney

Take one guess what the man did! One. Guess. If you guessed that he EMAILED HER BACK then you have begun to comprehend the vast expanses of my ex's inability to respect anyone's boundaries. Would it surprise you to learn that at one point he was TEXTING me trying to get me to agree to his proposed visitation plans? What did he expect back, do you think? A text saying, "ok u get kids when u want & dont 4get Rx info"? I don't know about you, but in my world text messages are for things like, "Will be 10 min late. Sorry." NOT for discussing issues that are in the process of being contested in court! The man is beyond irritating.

His new and completely passive aggressive strategy is to send an email detailing how he wants things to be and then to conclude with "If I don't hear from you, I will assume this is all ok with you," which makes me want to pluck out his eyeballs. Does he think that strategy is going to work? When he shows up at the airport and the children don't get off the plane, do you think he'll whine to the ticketing agent, "But she didn't write back and say she objected to taking the children out of school to fly them to me so I assumed she'd just do it." As if he hadn't already been a pain in the ass enough for four exes, he has changed jobs (and phone numbers and health insurance for the kids) AGAIN. That makes seven times (although Linus insists it's eight times) in six years. And again, he's playing games about getting the information to me. i could care less about his address but I found out the health insurance was no longer valid when I couldn't refill Havoc's prescription for asthma medicine. My child needs this medicine to help him BREATHE! I get emails without ceasing concerning matters of Mr. Tapioca's convenience but not a bit of communication about matters vital to the health and well-being of our child (in spite of my lawyer asking his lawyer for it, etc, etc.) And that is waaaay more update than any of us wanted, isn't it?**)

So maybe now you can see why I haven't been posting? I've been trying to spare you the rant that I knew would spring forth the minute I got to typing. I also have to admit, I've spent as little time on the computer as possible in the past two weeks in a futile attempt to avoid the tapioca tide myself. That's been a little bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water as I've really missed my blog and it hasn't stopped the insanity of my ex. I need a new coping mechanism that's lighter on the avoidance and maybe heavier on the butter and salt. Butter and salt make everything better, don't they?
Peace.

PS - Mojo requests! Please send good thoughts to St. Ann and John the Magnificent this week as they have their own tapioca to deal with. And send some healing vibes down South to my buddy Steve's mom. Peace, peace, peace to everyone!