When your heroes disappoint you

I have a weird relationship with my father.  At times he's my best friend.  At other times, he's hurt me more than anyone else in my life.

In some ways, my father is my hero.  He's built a business that I am lucky to work for, and that I believe in.  He runs it well and has navigated a lot of twists and turns.  There are a lot of ways I'm proud of my dad.

But that doesn't make the offenses sting any less.  My dad has an amazing ability to make me feel utterly unimportant. 

Last July, I was 20 minutes late to my step-brother's birthday breakfast at the house.  I was subsequently chewed out for the offense.  Six and a half weeks ago was my 25th birthday.  The only contact I received from my dad was a text that read, verbatim: "Happy b day.  Where is an iPad.  I want to take one to Chicago."  I honestly believe that I wouldn't have heard from him that day if he didn't need something from me.  I didn't get a call.  I didn't get a card.  And truly, I didn't want a present or a big party.  I just wanted to be recognized.  That's all.  Three weeks later on Thanksgiving, my stepmom said to me, "I know we still haven't celebrated your birthday - we've just been so busy."  Well, fuck you, too.  We're all busy.  My mom is a full time nurse, my stepdad is a busy criminal lawyer.  They threw me a badass birthday party with my favorite family friends.  My BOYFRIEND'S FAMILY (as in, not even actually related to me) threw me a birthday party, and their grandma and grandpa came.  Busy people, who made time because they cared.

My dad doesn't know that I know that he bailed on his promise to make a donation to the hearing research lab that is trying to cure my (and everyone else's) hearing loss.  He made a big show of saying he was going to donate, then dropped off the radar.  Meanwhile, he's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Janene's singing hobby.  Yes, hobby.  It's not a fucking career when you don't make money, you just spend it.  A LOT of it.  It's so hard to see him pour tens of thousands of dollars into that thing while I'm fielding calls from researchers asking them if my dad is still alive.  AND WHY THE FUCK ISN'T MY HEARING IMPORTANT?  I guarantee you that if it were Sophia's hearing, Janene would put her whole career on hold to put every dime they had toward fixing it.  

Now he's bailing on a fundraiser that almost a year ago he said he would go to.  He takes trips to the Caymans for business, bringing Sophia along to keep Janene company.  But God forbid he support this.

I don't fucking know why, and it makes me cry.  I have worked my ass off to be successful at work, to be a good member of the family, to be supportive and to try to be someone that people would care about.  But nobody from that side of my family fucking cares, and it really hurts.

New car!!!

So I've been trying for about two weeks now to buy a new car. Unfortunately, with the economy the way it is, car salesman are more shark/weasel-like than ever. I knew what car I wanted and what color I wanted, and multiple sales people tried to convince me that it was nowhere to be found, and that I should just buy the car on their lot. One guy even got angry when I told him I wouldn't, and followed me out of the dealership yelling at me for wasting his time! My other problem is that because I don't know a lot about the car business, I was being a bit of a pushover when it came time to start talking numbers about any of the cars.

Well, finally last night I got my act together, put on my "business Katherine" face (as boyfriend calls it) and went to the Norm Reeves Honda dealership. I told them what I wanted and what my budget was, and after about 30 minutes of negotiating and running numbers and various deal twisting, we did it! Got me the car I wanted for the price I wanted! They are detailing it as I write this and I'll be able to pick it up at lunch today! I'm so excited :) I'll post pictures as soon as I have them. It's a CR-V with Navigation and bluetooth, along with a slew of other awesome features.

SO EXCITED!!!!!!

Takin' Care of Business

I have been ridiculously busy lately. I have had to deal with a bunch of stuff at work, go car shopping (have to get a new one in the next WEEK), find a ceiling fan for my very hot bedroom, do the family bonding thing, get stuff together to go back to school, and file a lawsuit. AH. BUSY!

But, I'm enjoying it. Last night I got the last of my things out of my old apartment (I had left stuff there for the girl who was subletting) so that will be resolved this week. I filed the lawsuit on Friday, now I just have to wait for the court date. Work is mostly under control.

Richard and I had a good weekend. He got all cheesy when we went shopping at home depot for stuff for my house, and that of course led to the "when we eventually have *our* house..." talk, which of course led to the "what are we going to do if Richard goes to medical school far away?" talk, which is of course a big issue. And honestly, in the long run, I'd follow him. For the first time in my life, I'm in love with someone who makes me happier than anyone else ever has. I'm not going to let that go because of medical school. I'll adapt, I'll make it work, and I'll be there.

I wrote a letter to Netflix today talking about their issues with closed captioning. I posted a copy of it on my other blog, Life Without Noise, which is all about my hearing loss. Check that out here: http://lifewithoutnoise.blogspot.com/

Back to work now, break over :) Adios!

4th of July weekend!

Amazing 4th of July Weekend!

Richard and I had arts and crafts night Friday night. We went to Michaels and got markers, crayons, coloring books, craft kits, felt posters and more, and went home, put on pajamas and colored and crafted until we fell asleep. Seriously one of the best date nights I've had in a long time.

Saturday, we woke up late, got pancakes for breakfast, then ran a couple of errands. Richard had to go get his TB test checked at Mission Hospital, and I had to renew my car registration. Once home, we packed up and went down to the harbor for dinner and playtime on the boat.

On Sunday, we woke up somewhat early, made breakfast with Richard's parents, and lazed around on the boat. The champagne was flowing, the sun was shining, and I was a happy camper. I did the water wars for one round (Richard went 4 times). The fireworks display was beautiful this year - much more coordinated and elaborate than the last couple years. I was happy to be snuggled up next to my Richard on the boat to watch the fireworks. Being with him makes me feel like everything is right with the world.

Monday we got out of bed late, got lunch at Carlos' Restaurant, which is always an experience. The food is sooo good, but the service is generally terrible. Oh well. We went to the mall to switch out my again-malfunctioning phone, and wandered around for a while. We went into Sephora and smelled a bunch of different colognes for Richard. Monday night I went home around 9, planning on doing laundry, and instead passed out. It was kinda nice though, and I stayed in bed till 8 am.

Back to work today, slightly sunburnt but very very happy :-)

i failed

I will admit. I went waaaayyy too long without writing.

I'll update later but here's a summary:

• Richard graduated
• I went to Europe
• I put together a big government contract proposal
• Stuff happened at work

I know it's lame and short but I'm at work and have lots to do.

Oh, also, I came up with an idea for another blog, so if I get it started, I'll update with a link here.

Adios!

explicit

Warning - the following post contains explicit language and harsh truths.

Let me tell you something.
It felt so good to tell her the truth.

That girl needed to hear the truth about you ages ago, and you promised and promised that you would tell it to her. Yeah well, you didn't. So someone else did.

You lied to her just like you've lied to everybody else. Hell, even I fell for the act for a while.

You're a selfish bastard, and you play everyone around you for a fool.

(amusing side thought - my father gave me this pearl of wisdom today:
"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, SCREW YOU!")

You love your movies and you felt like you were a fucking Casanova. Look back on our history, honey. I had you when I wanted you and you weren't around when I didn't need you. I was fine with the way we played the game, but all you did to that awesome girl was fuck with her head.

No more, you bastard. You're done. You'll probably run off and find some innocent, naive girl to believe your lies, but at least I've saved this girl any further heartache. I just wish I had talked to her years ago. She should have known about you from the start.

You got lonely, you missed being loved. So rather than sacrifice your selfish habits and actually fucking take care of the girl, you decided to pull another movie maneuver, swoop in and tell her you're a "changed man," and make sure she stays with you till you come home. Guess what? We've all heard your shit before. "I didn't know what I was doing before, but then my world crashed down (how many times is your world gonna crash, huh?) and I got a new perspective and it's all clear now - you're the one for me." BLAH BLAH FRICKIN BLAH.

And you know what? She had no problem believing it when I told her. She knew deep in her heart what you were doing, but she cared about you so much that she turned a blind eye to it until she heard it from someone else. You struck a goldmine with that girl, and yet you still whored yourself around and left her wondering. Idiot.

She's better off without you.
I'm done with you. I feel so much better now.



QOTD: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, SCREW YOU!
- Daddy

Damnit.

I got the call from Erin at UCLA.

The tests came back

NEGATIVE.

I'm so annoyed with that.

(time for the sciency stuff)

My Connexin 26 and Connexin 30 genes are normal. Which means that they still have no idea why I can't #&@%ing hear.

Damnit.

Damnit Damnit Damnit.

All I have ever wanted was just to have some sort of reason for all of this. Something concrete like "well your parents both carried a recessive gene that caused a mutation in your Connexin 26 gene which resulted in your hearing loss." Basically, I wanted to hear that I was a mutant. But no, they tell me I'm normal.

So much for clarity.

I'm going to go stare off into space now.

QOTD: "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."