Interlude

My daughter (10) cried when I left last night. That was bad. I tried to console her as best I could before I left.

When I went to sleep on the first full day away, it was hard to not have someone to hold.

I still can't take looking at our backyard and our garden. The tree-fort I built for the kids, the raised beds I built - with Mrs-C's perfectly tended and spaced rows in them. The flowers. The deck, the doghouse (all-weather +100 to -55) and kennel, the bricked and groveled pathways. We did it together and for each other. It is iconic of a dying or dead dream. That yard is the hardest thing to deal with.

Mrs_C is losing her shellshock and is starting to work me to come back - already. She called me on my cell at 8:30am to tell me that she read an article on the net that said that time-outs from a marriage shouldn't be more than 3 weeks. I said we would stick to plan and see the counselor next week and see how things worked out.

I/we framed the situation as a need for a time-out to see if things will work, with the possibility things could work out - that line was specifically formulated for daughter.

Even Mrs_C used the word "if" things work out.

Now she is trying to rewrite things.

Not unexpected.

I'm not going to the west coast with my parents as I originally planned. I can't afford it. Well, I can, but prudence dictates that I hoard/hide cash and/or pay down credit card debt - that can always be converted back to cash.

I'm planning a pretty funky set of day and overnight trips within a couple of hours of my city. I am calling in favours and leaning on friends and relatives.

I seem to have a surfeit of goodwill toward me out there.

I am also cheesily leaning on the happiness of my children and their well-being to make people feel guilty - and making them all feel good. Most of my friends and co-workers are pathological and career do-gooders, so appealing to their sense of do-goodness is a fine idea.

My daughter has a smile and a personality that would make Sauron want to bake brownies with her. My son (14) is highly thought of by my do-gooder friends and family as well.

People want to help me out. That is good.

I am taking daughter out to learn how to ride a horse starting this Sunday - for free - a friend - this horse is a mare with a new colt (4 weeks old). This friend had a bad divorce about a year ago. He has grown children, and grand-kids about my daughters age. He has realised his errors of life focus - being in the "action" - and is looking for redemption for being a grumpy regularly absent father by being the nicest grandfather he can. He is thrilled to teach my daughter to ride.

I am leaning on friends and relatives with cottages and livestock farms to have us do stuff at their places, stay for free, and show us around.

I think it will be OK. The only potential negative vector, as always, will be if Mrs_C decides to lose it...

My apartment is OK. Only two bedrooms right now - the kids will have to share and bunk-bed it for the next couple of months while I sort out permanent arrangements. I'm looking for a house (dog considerations).

I will be furnished in early "Art Scroungo" style. I will have to sew furniture covers and curtains. I think I will be able to do OK from a decorating and style sense. I want to have nice surroundings for myself and for the kids.

When I talked to my son a month or so back, and we drove past some rental townhouses, he said "Hey Dad - can we decorate any place we get? Can we have pictures on the wall? [girl from school] lives in one of those places, and it looks like they are ready to move out on a moments notice. That they don't really live there. Can we put up pictures and stuff to make it ours?"

He's right. Even if it is a transitional low(er) cost temporary apartment (it's only a couple of blocks from our house - walking distance for the kids), it needs to be someplace we are moving to. Not somewhere we are moving because we are escaping from somewhere else.

I will make a home for myself and my children.