43. 2010

Not one rant in 2010. I feel like I got run over by a truck for 2010.

The Good
Started off nicely doing construction work at the recording studio. This was a matter of re-facing walls, putting in better doors, improving things that were already there. Bringing them to a place we felt they should be. It was difficult. But well worth it. I think that would have been enough for last year. Two stressful months. Done.

The Bad
March was weird. Found out my Jr. High church “boyfriend” was put in jail for molesting middleschoolers? Talk says maybe it was more complicated than that. An ugly divorce, bad kids etc. I dunno. But what a thing. Right around that time, a client and one of Dave’s friends shot himself. Ok. So March kind of freaked me out.

In May found out someone who I cared about was considered to be drinking himself to death. He went to rehab. Then my kitty of 18 years died. My kids are 13 and 16. My littlest said it was easier for me because I had lived before having Freddy around but he had never had life without Freddy. It was a sad month.

The Ugly
Next, we decided to build an addition to the recording studio. Just a room for sound isolation. But we learned that construction isn’t really for us, as, although very well done, the job, which was slated to finish in July, extended to October.

In the meantime, relationships were failing. For summer fun, two of our key friendships were dissolved and/or strongly damaged. One person began to hate us so much that we had to end many of our key projects and all business ties with them. There was a 10 page paper written that although it was concluded to be a misunderstanding, still meant a lot to me. Sometimes things like that can change the whole atmosphere of a relationship no matter what you wish would happen. Nothing looks or feels the same after that. Another friendship was lost to someone who cannot drink, drinking and calling threatening Dave multiple times. Dave even tried to follow up on these calls. If anyone knows the situation, they would know Dave has been the kindest person to him on the planet. This was now something that had gone way too far. And that person was also out of our lives. Two major losses for us. And the loss of every last one of my projects.

The Trips
Since we had this never-ending construction job, we didn’t go camping or take a proper trip. We did go to a couple fun shows though. Devo was the best. Unexpectedly great. Neil Finn called with a few hours notice so we ran out to meet him. He sang Message To My Girl for me.. For Mary. We went to Lips show in Artpark. That was cool because that place was something from my childhood. Fun to see friends playing at a place where you could have never imagined where your life would end up when you were a kid. We met Keane in Toronto. And I think I stopped them from cutting the Keane song in my head from that setlist. We drove to NYC for a day.

When we got back, the neighbors had cut down the trees in their backyard and put in a pool. Which meant many late night pool parties and since they do a lot of work themselves, much much construction sounds and smells. We like to keep our windows open in the summer but now our backyard was rarely ever quiet and stuff was loud many nights. We started looking for places with trees for sale. And then we found one. A good place.

The Move
Moving. Moving from a place I thought I would be in until Fredonia Place, a local old folks home. The realtor for the sellers made things very difficult for us. But the sellers are/were sweet people who it turns out everyone in town knows and loves. Buying their house, around here, seems to be more impressive news than winning a Grammy. We worked things out. Signed papers early September to close end of October. They asked for an extension to end of November. Then the wife died. Nov. 7. We still didn’t know what would happen. Everything was in her name as he was older. Until the closing day, we didn’t know if it would be the closing day.

We had a good Halloween and Thanksgiving to wrap up our almost 9 year tenure in our last house. Due to having Thanksgiving and also due to not knowing when closing was, we were only somewhat prepared for big movers on Dec. 4th. That was like a bomb going off with mostly good results. I think only one cabinet was broken in the move. And on January 4th we did the final carpet cleaning at the old house.

Reset
I think of 2010 as a giant reset. Perhaps this is hopeful for 2011. Happily I met several kind and good people last year and also met up with some of my oldest friends and really enjoyed it. So all was not loss. I feel shaky and nervous though. Hopeful? Not sure.

Mgf 1/6/11