The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

No.  Not THAT Good Bad and Ugly

I've been sitting on this one for a while... it was written at a point that I was feeling kind of frustrated.  A lot of it is still true, so I may as well publish it.  Otherwise it was a lot of typing for no reason.

The good the bad (2x) and the ugly

The good:  I have accepted a pretty significant promotion at work – giving me a huge salary jump as well as double the vacation time.  My responsibilities have increased somewhat (I'll take a class and become a licensed FAA inspector), but not that much… in truth the raise is an attempt at making up for what they viewed as undervaluing me.  It came at a good time for us… I had even applied to a teaching position here in Florida that I didn't even get an interview for.  Laura and I have been in a little bit of limbo – waiting for something else to come up, an excuse to move to North Carolina (or possibly Ohio), but it just wasn’t happening.  And, as a result, we were hesitant to do anything that resembled a commitment to the area or to friends, etc.  So unless a miracle job opens, we plan on being here for a while.  In what might be a blur of professional and personal, my boss is looking at buying a beautiful craftsman house on his street that he could rent to us for a few years.  If at the end of that we want to buy it, he's open to that, too.  It's a short sale, and there is a contract, but it sounds as though there is a decent likelyhood of it falling through.  So... yeah.  A big raise, a 100% increase in vacation time, paid for training and certification, and a boss who wants to buy a house so we can live there.  I guess they like me!

The bad:  My house in Oakley refuses to sell.  Most feedback responses are based on the immediate neighbors – slobs – even to the point of leaving a butcher knife on the hood of the car in the driveway.    I have dropped the price to the point where I’m losing so much money that I will walk away with almost nothing.  And still…. Nothing.  I feel pretty helpless and depressed about this.  And, until it is gone, we can't really buy anything for ourselves (however, see "good" above - with potential nice house to live in)  Update:  I have an offer.  A piss-poor offer, but an offer.  I'll loose my shirt, but it will be a giant weight off.

The bad:   So far this is just bad, not ugly.  Hopefully it stays that way.  Luca has been diagnosed with Urticaria Pigmentosa – a rare disease that causes what appear to be hives.  The spots are always there, and (so far) rarely become inflamed.  So far his case appears to be mild – although the spots have seemed  to slowly increase in number.  It’s also unclear what causes them to become inflamed/irritated.  There really isn’t a treatment.  Hopefully it goes away at puberty.  Again.  Helpless.  He's such a great kid and it's super frustrating to not be able to do anything about this.

The ugly:  My relationship with my brother.  We haven’t spoken in about six months because I was exhausted from the emotional stress of trying to have even a simple conversation with him.  The complaints he registers are constantly changing and shifting, and the current focus is on Laura – he even de-friended and blocked her on Facebook.  (Something I suspect he personally may not even really know how to do…. Given his lack of technical know-how)  It’s clearly a gesture to irritate us because he doesn’t even use facebook.  We’ve been blocked from viewing his wife’s page for a couple years now.  That doesn’t even bother me anymore.   My brother has created a web of lies that extends so far in both directions it seems irreconcilable.   He has called me from friends’ phones, emailed from secret email , and even had a secret meeting in a parking lot.  (The final one of those happened at Thanksgiving because I really wanted to see him and for him to meet Luca.  I pushed it.  I shouldn’t have.  If he wanted to meet him he should have made it happen.)   As for Richele, Laura and I have been repeatedly instructed not to address the issues with her – or for that matter even contact her.   Only recently has there even been contact with my parents.  It has created a significant strain in our family, and my brother has clearly made the choice to follow her and exclude his family.  I never viewed it as an either-or option, but apparently she does.  I don't get it.   Update:  My parents talked to him and for now this will stay just as it is.  He and I will have essentially no relationship and he will have a very limited, minimal relationship with them.  But at least we all know where we stand.

I have much to be thankful for, and this is really just a rant to get a couple of things off my mind.  It's weird how life has its ways...