From Live Journal 7-17-11

It's a hot Sunday morning, we are having summer with a vengance this entire week with heat and humidity and lots of thunderstorms in the mix. I apologize for not having been very present online, responding to comments or commenting on others' posts. But then you probably are aware of how stunned I've been by life's twists and turns. We are all settling down and into the reality of shattered lives. Perhaps it would have hurt less if John's wife had died, an ughly thought, but it's out there. Still it has been a death of sorts. We all did not grieve less because of Angie and Whitings betrayals. Our world as we know it has been forever changed.But circus show must go on and we each haul our buckets of water to the elephants in all our waking hours.Just as we settle down, a new slash in the flesh of life. The latest being that Whiting has had the nerve to have all his mail forwarded to John's house for John's *wife* to pick up and haul back to their love-nest. It is spiteful and cruel. Whiting wants, his wife, his daughter, and it would appear his home, with this metaphorical action. It's as if he wants to BE John. Shades of the movie SINGLE WHITE FEMALE. Very disturbing. But the upshot in all of this is that we have our son back, we have talked and cried and laughed together. It has come to light (from his friends, John is not telling us unsavory things about Angie) that it was Angie who never wanted to come up here to see us, and who never wanted to go to the Twin Cities to visit Noah and Kay and Julie and Matt. So John says he's looking forward to bringing Ashlyn up for overnights and special days, their assumption that she is controlling and bossy and wants things under her control and on her own turf. Perhaps we'll have them for a holiday or two now. He says he misses going to church but Angie would never go with him. This was his first weekend alone, Jay and Nancy went ahead and went to Deadwood for a few days as the group had planned to do. Since he wasn't going he has to work today and that will pass the time a bit for him before Ashlyn returns this evening. We couldn't be prouder of the wise and mature way he is behaving through all of this, and his willingness to share how he's feeling, and thoughts about what he might have done differently had Angie given him a chance or clearly communicated her unhappiness and not have expected him to read her mind. Our son has more strength than we would dealing with this ugliness.

Perhaps the hardest part of this, after the shock of the double betrayal, is the undeserved shame he feels because of the break up of his marriage. I think that the best description/definition of shame like this was described by Milan Kundera:

The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone.
Milan Kundera

Friday night after work there was a Mexican potluck dinner at the church. The food was really good this time. I took my lentil/brown rice tacos with all sorts of taco fixings and wheat tortillas. My friend Brenda made fresh quacamole and pico de gallo that were out of this world! There were enchiladas and burritos, churros and other treats from south of the border. The kids enjoyed a pinata, and we escaped before they made us do the Mexican Hat Dance. LOL It really was a fun evening. I was grateful for the leftovers so I didn't have to cook other than to warm up the taco filling and tortillas last night.

The mosquitoes are horrible right now!

I am not looking forward to church this morning, the building is hot and stuffy, but I didn't get out of bed to go out to the country church for the early service; that church has AC and would have been comfortable. We are forecast a week of heat and humidity with heat indexes into the 106 degrees range. Very unusual for our area. It is hotter down in Fargo and in the Twin Cities. We have already run our window ACs more in this week than we did the entire summer last year. I've got to see what I have that will be cool to wear to church this morning. Pantyhose will NOT be an option!

We are leaving Thursday morning to go to the Twin Cities for the weekend. Tom is officiating at the wedding of our DIL Kay's brother Nick's wedding. It is planned as an outdoor wedding at a golf club, I do hope that the thunderstorms that are in the forecast do not materialize. We had thought to drive down to Wisconsin to see Mom again after that but are postponing that trip until sometime in September when it may be cooler and easier to travel.