summers with my dad

This sucks- I'm still having issues sleeping. I woke up at 430 and laid there for three hours thinking. I thought about a lot of stuff, then my thoughts turned to my trips to CA and my summers with Dad.

I haven't talked to my dad in a few months. There have been several points throughout my life where I just thought it would be best to accept the fact that he will not be there and whipe him from my life. But, as I have grown older I see that he will be a small part of my life; not fully there and not completely absent.

One of the very first summers I spent with him, he was living with his girlfriend Terri, who had two teenagers who were hardly around. She was one of those overly tanned, bleach blonde types, but treated us nice. I loved that she cooked rice a lot for dinner. They had a hot tub that we'd swim in, and I got an ear infection that sucked. I remember we made cupcakes for Ash's birthday and that's when we realized that dad thought her birthday was the wrong day... well, that year he learned, lol.

Then they broke up, and for some time he lived back in the house that I grew up in with a roommate that would get stoned and eat all our cereal. That was a great little house, on a large plot of land. The memories are bittersweet, as I remember my parents fighting a LOT in that house, but I also remember things like learning how to ride a bike in the yard and the upside-down christmas tree. I remember one time dad was in the backyard and he showed me a black widow in the wood pile and told me to stay away from it. He pointed out the hourglass on its stomach and it scared the crap out of me, haha.

I remember one summer it was just me that came, and my dad's friend's wife babysat me during the day. She had a son about my age- his name was Chris. We had so much fun playing all summer, and went to the beach nearly every day. We'd boogie board in the freezing water till our lips were blue. I ended up with some pretty bad sunburns. He had one of those little tables that you could change from ping pong to a pool table, and I got pretty good at it. I also got to watch MTV because mom didn't let us watch it. The Black Hole Sun music video played a lot that summer. At the end of the summer he got me a ring with a pink stone in it- he made sure to tell me that he paid ten whole dollars for it, which is a lot when you're 9 years old. I think I still have one of those strips of pictures you get in those photo booths of us. I think I might have the ring somewhere too!

Then one summer we came to visit and he was dating Carol*. Carol had two children, a girl and a boy. She was around 10 and he was 2 or 3. The very first thing her daughter said to me when we got into the car on the way back from the airport was, "I can breathe through my eyes: look." She then proceeded to bulge out her eyes for a few seconds. I knew it was going to be a long summer.

Then, the very first thing Carol said to me when we got back to the house was, "Oh, you have big boobs for a 13-year old," right in front of my dad. Perfect thing to say to a self-conscious 13-year old with big boobs that she's trying to hide under big t-shirts. Needless to say, she was an enormous bitch. A trashy, enormous bitch. I could go on and on about all the things she did that made you go, "WTF?"

She hardly ever wore a bra, and this was a big woman- all around. We lived a couple blocks from the beach, and she'd go swimming in a white t-shirt -- ! I would be mortified.
One time she got her welfare check and went and got groceries, then spent the rest on a stupid tattoo of an earth or something. Instead of spending it on, oh, I dunno, clothes for the kids or something like that.
One other time we went to get pizza, and 1. she didn't wear a bra and 2. she had a scrap of mushroom or something that had fallen and stuck in her leg roll while we were eating, and she noticed it when she got back into the car. She picked it off, said, "scraps," and popped it in her mouth. Ashley and I just exchanged half-horrified, half-laughing hysterically at the absurdity looks.

There was a store a few blocks away, Pappy's. We'd take some change and go buy treats. One time Ashley bought some beef jerky and Carol wanted a piece but Ashley just looked at her like, "yeah, right," and told her to go get her own if she wanted some. I wish I could have high-fived her right there.

It wasn't only Carol that was a nightmare. Her kids were horrible. Carol laid in bed all day, I think she had a back problem that put her in pain, but she did the bare minimum of parenting. If she heard a ruckus she'd just scream from her room for us to be quiet. Her son would unlock the door and go running around outside in his diaper, and we'd have to go catch him. He was also a biter and a screamer. He was a huge pain in the ass with no discipline whatsoever.

But her daughter was the WORST. She was messed up. She got on my nerves a lot. We would be driving in the car, and she'd be singing Metallica with a country twang at the top of her lungs. I swear...
One time we were bored and she said, "Let's play strippers." Then she took off her clothes and stuck her panties up her butt crack to make them like a thong. At that point, I noticed they were MY panties! So wrong! She'd get into trouble for doing inappropriate things with boys... and she was only 10. My dad told me that it only went downhill from there as she got older.

At one point my dad and Carol got into a fight and she was complaining about how dad said her kids were nutso rotten children and we were just angels who could do nothing wrong. He replied that we really were angels compared to them! I mean, we were raised with manners and class- something none of them had. Ashley and I cheered when we heard they had broken up. We always tried to give his girlfriends a chance but we really hated that bitch.

Not that it was all bad. We always had a good time but the crazy crap makes for better stories. :o)

*names have been changed, for obvious reasons