Birthday Update

Well, I hope the turnaround trend continues.... Some good fortune and a bunch of last minute coordination has turned things around.

Visitation

The court order does not grant me flexibility to schedule a birthday celebration that includes my other family members, its does grant me Thanksgiving Day every other year, but my ex has ignored the visitation schedule when it suits her without consequences. One of the reasons I was going to travel is because I would not be allowed to celebrate my birthday or Thanksgiving with my son, so traveling would have helped distract me from this NCP reality.

Well I got some unexpected gifts at the last minute. A major tactic to prevent my representation in court was defeated because my investment adviser claimed the court had no direct jurisdiction to circumvent their fiduciary responsibility to me. It pays to develop strong partnerships that will stand beside you in contempt for the contemptible family court. This may have been the trigger for the following two events, my ex broke up her long weekend plans to accommodate my son celebrating my birthday with my family. She also is giving me visitation on Thanksgiving day for the first time in a long time.

Each year I review the 4 conflicting parenting schedules, in the 35 page parenting order, apply the rules in a priority sequence and mark all the special rules on a calendar. In a few cases the order is so ambiguous that I mark more than one schedule in a day. Why is it this complex? Because the lawyers and Guardian drafted them that way. Why did I sign it? Because my ex's hired bitch faxed a threat to take away Christmas visitation last Christmas if I didn't sign it, just like the year before. I paid a few thousand in legal fees the first year to get the Christmas visitation that year, so last year I submitted to the hired bitch's extortion on advice of counsel and accepted the unacceptable overly complicated, overpriced, unusable parenting schedule.

So after checking my court calendar, I saw that in fact, I should have my son from 10am to 8pm on Thanksgiving, so this wasn't any special favor but compliance with the court order. So what did she do, follow the order to a T? Hell no, she is cutting my time short by 2 hours because the weather forecast calls for 2 inches of snow and that will increase her travel time. My suspicion is she wants to get him earlier to take him to her parents. And as usual, the NCP gets the short end of the stick.

My Son

At my son's class last week, the teacher wished me a good holiday and I said that it was my birthday too. So after their usual thank you of a class cheer, the whole class sang Happy Birthday to me. It was very cute. Oh and finally that PC that I diagnosed, was back in service.

Family Celebration

My brother has been involved in a very large project working many hours and it was unclear when we could get together. Well he came through and brought his family to my parents. My son and his cousin had a very good time together as usual. It was very nice to have the whole family together. We all had a very great time.

My ex

My ex asked what my dinner plans were for my birthday. I said well I have a couple of ideas, why do you ask. She cooked for my birthday "so I didn't have to go to McDonalds on my birthday". I responded, well I was thinking more upscale then McDonalds. Rather an odd comment, I think there was some subtle sarcasm implied. I am not a frequent visitor to McDonalds or any other fast food restaurant. I actually shop and prepare food. I'm no chef, I take advantage of shortcuts. I could have prepared something easy or gone to a medium scale restaurant with my son. There are three new restaurants in the area I was considering, None of them using infrared heating lamps.

So I accepted. It doesn't begin to fix the last three years, but I have no need to give her cause to call be ungrateful or who knows what.

So while my ex was making a birthday dinner for my son and I, my son decided that fresh baked cookies would be the natural addition to the meal and he even offered to help. So she made cookies with some help from my son too.

And we ate it all and suffered no ill effects. Wonders will never cease. LOL

Birthday Bummer

Well, how could my birthday pass without its usual bump. As a teenager, I had an accident that broke a front tooth, it wasn't capped, it was pinned and rebuilt, it wasn't expected to last over a decade, but it lasted several. Until my birthday when it finally gave way and broke, leaving a hole for the holidays. So the next day I called the dentist, expecting that I'd be sporting an odd smile for a while and guess what? More luck, when I called, they said they just got a cancellation and could get me in that day. So now I have my old smile back, just in time for a thankful Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving

My son probably can not remember the last time he celebrated Thanksgiving with my family. Well this year he will finally have the chance.

Status: Actively Being Updated - Last Update 11/21/07 1am

Halloween

Well apparently I have an avid computer using neighbor.
How do you like his pumpkin smiley?

And here's my son, hamming it up for the camera in a scary mask.

My son had fun decorating my house, putting lights in the windows, spiders, skeletons, ghosts, and eyeballs. He keeps opening and eating Halloween candy so I had to run to the store on Halloween day and get some.

Check out my ex, the bitch, on Halloween dressed as herself, a monster. LOL

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Halloween was on Wednesday, my visitation day, but as usual the ex shows up to supervise the trick or treating. I wouldn't necessarily mind if I saw similar flexibility as it relates to me, but my ex likes one way streets, her way, or no way.



The next day was my volunteer morning for my son's computer class. I brought left over Halloween candy to the class. That made me even a bigger hit with the kids than usual.

This year's computer class is such a marked difference from the prior year. My son's teacher can see that I am a big help and occasionally leaves me with the whole class. She has an interesting custom, my son gets to select one of several class "cheers" that the class will do to thank me. Last year's teacher, preferred to use two inexperienced helpers rather than me and closed me out of every volunteer opportunity. Another teacher in this grade that follows my son's class prefers to use no helpers and I have sat through her class and its a zoo compared to my son's class. Just an interesting social observation. I'm happy to contribute and since their other coursework is integrated into the computer lab (in other words they use the computer to do course work not just for the sake of using a computer) I get a closer look at what's going on in my son's class. Funny my ex had signed up for computer lab, but then decided to switch to a different subject (Art I think). Just as well, I don't really need to see that "monster" any more than necessary.

Birthday Bombs

Well my son's birthday has long passed, had some thoughts to blog about but I was overwhelmed with the events surrounding post decree harassment (PDH). Not much progress there. The courts are acting against me, without representation, the county clerk of courts forwards me the results of their decisions but never am I called in for a hearing to present my side. My birthday is fast approaching as is the six month past post decree point.

My Son's Birthday

My son's birthday party is awkward. In order to invite his child friends it is held on the weekend, when I have no visitation rights. My ex invites his friends, her family and my family. The trouble is that my family are not good actors or hypocrites. They saw what my ex's actions did to me and my family, they saw that as they tried to help our marriage stay together, her family placed no value for the marriage knew in advance of the kidnapping and assisted in it.

They view this as unforgivable and literally can not stand to be near them. I am forced to put up with a lot, just to see my son. My son wonders why my family doesn't come to the party with his friends. For the good of my son, I put up with the pain of being amongst those who helped plot and execute his kidnapping. Sometimes I wish my parents could do the same, but I understand how difficult that would be. So my son and my family celebrate his birthday separately.

My Birthday

After six months of being divorced I was hoping that would be the end of the post decree chapter and the start of something new. But alas my ex's hired bitch plans to make this a career of torturing me. If I just sold the house so she could lay claim to the $100K equity that is locked away in it for fees it might end quicker, so I guess in that respect I have chosen the torturous route, but is that fair, I ask stupidly and rhetorically, I think not is my answer.

I was hoping that I'd celebrate my birthday with a nice vacation, maybe meet some friends, and have fun. So just before my birthday, I get sick, then I find some of my planned destinations are not open, a friend decided that they couldn't meet me, so everything started falling apart.

But then what was I thinking, I have a bit of a birthday curse. Over the years many of my major illness, injurys, car accidents, occurred on my birthday. So being sick for several weeks before my birthday could have been easily anticipated. But I've been working hard in the week prior to my birthday to get things back on track...

So for the latest status on my birthday see my latest post.