TEN ON TUESDAY (only this Tuesday looks an awful lot like a Wednesday)

So, there's a two hour late start here due to icy/snowy weather.  Two hours, dropped in my lap like a "just because" gift from Mother Nature and Old Man Winter (aww, you shouldn't have, guys!).  What's a woman to do?  Laundry?  Read?  Go back to bed?  No.  Today is your lucky day, lovelies.  TODAY I SHALL BLOG.

I have a lot to say.  There is some gray area here, and I hate this gray area.  Do I write about what's happening?  More importantly, CAN I write about it?  I mean, I know that legally I can write whatever I want here, as long as it's the truth and as long as nobody is maligned (beyond the maligning that happens when the person you have screwed over for several years decides to tell the world about it, that is.  That's kind of like sun exposure.  It just happens, naturally.)

There's really no cloak and dagger stuff going on.  It's not me, having secret meetings with some Deep Throat in shadowy parking garages.  Everything that is happening is legal, and just.  And...everything that is happening is a direct consequence to actions that a certain someone did (or more to the point, DIDN'T do).

I'm finally getting some justice.  And please note, I call this "justice" and not "revenge".  Two different things.  I want to talk about it, and want to share the whole story, and I will, very soon.  Let's just sum it up like this:

It's a very, very interesting story.  I'm finding, once again, that the man I was once married to is like a rotting onion.  With seemingly endless layers of stink.  A bad onion that has made me cry for the last time, sisters.  Oh...and Secretary?  She's right there with him.  Like Batman and Robin.  Or Beavis and Butthead. Pinky and "The Brain" (that one made me GOL, guffaw out loud).  I'll come up with some more monikers this weekend, when I have my hens gathered 'round and we toast this good news.

Before I get on with my Ten, there is one thing I want to say.  And this is directed at the women like me.  The women who have gone through the humiliation of betrayal, the hurt of being left.  The anger of watching your kids cry.  And those who have experienced the pain, the physical and emotional pain of trying to stay afloat when your ex not only stops loving you, but stops helping you raise your babies.  You amazing, strong ladies out there, who are reading this on ancient laptops, or library computers, or while you're on your lunch break at work, eating your can of Progresso soup or your hard boiled egg and drinking water not only because it's good for you but because it's FREE.  Ladies?  My friends?  My comrades?  HANG IN THERE.  Do not ever, ever give up.  Don't you ever stop fighting for what's right.  Don't you ever stop advocating for your kids.  And don't you ever, ever get to the point where you look up at the heavens, tears streaming down your cheeks, and say out loud, "Well, I guess he's just going to get away with it."

He won't.  I'm going to make it my life's work to see that other women, just like me, get help.  I went to food shelves to feed my kids while my ex-husband and his shiny wife bought new iPhones and Kindles and new cars and got new windows on their house.  I lost my house while my ex-husband and his shiny wife went on trips and ate out at 5 star restaurants and bought diamonds and designer dogs.  But you know what?

None of that matters.  I kept records.  I kept track.  I kept my eyes open.  And now?  Lady Justice is makin' it RAIN up in here.  It's been hard, and at times I wanted to give up.  At times I looked up at the heavens, tears streaming down my face, and said out loud, "Well, I guess he's just going to get away with it."

Ladies?  Guess what.  HE'S NOT.

And now, on with the TEN ON TUESDAY WHICH IS REALLY TAKING PLACE ON A WEDNESDAY:

1.  Yesterday I found this exact same coat at the thrift store: Lands End Down Chalet Coat.  Except mine was $10.00.  If you live here in the Midwest, you know what a score that is.  And yes, it's one size too small but I will fit into it next winter.  The coat I have now is losing feathers rapidly, due to a big rip in the side that happened when I first zipped it up this year.  Zipped it up over my fat ass.  So yay for me.

2.  Elisabeth Shue is now on CSI.  One of my first girl crushes...she had me at the black frumpy one piece she wore in "Cocktail".

Curly haired girls around the world, rejoiced.  One of US got the guy!  And it was Tom Cruise!  Before he went whackadoo!  Love that movie.

3.  I went to my first shiva on Monday night.  My friend's brother passed away.  It was lovely, and they had cookies.  All went well, and uneventfully, until my friends and I were leaving.  As we made it to the front door, one of the ROCK GODS from my youth walked in.  John Munson, bass player for the most ultimate Minnesota band Trip Shakespeare, was just inches away from me.  He's Adonis-like and beautiful up close.  And tall.  So tall.  Yes, that was me looking through a window at him as my friends loaded themselves into the car.  Like, "hands planted on the glass, peering through the pane" window peeping.  I have zero shame.  I'm a shiva window peeping fangirl.

4.  If we could play Scrabble using celebrity names?  I'd love to use "Zachary Quinto".  That would be awesome.

5.  Every light bulb down in the mancave bathroom is burned out.  Last night, I went to the store to buy more and left with half and half, a container of strawberries, a gallon of milk and a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos (I'm an enabling mother effer).  And no light bulbs.  The mancave bathroom is the one toilet in the house that can handle the freakishly huge poops that some* of my kids produce.  So this morning, one* of those kids had to poop in the dark.  He said it was like a bad dream.  Today I shall get lightbulbs.

*you know it's just one of my kids, but I don't want to make him feel bad.  His overstretched colon already does that.

6.  Wheat belly update:  I fell off the Wheat Whagon.  It started with a few innocent funeral cookies and beer this weekend, and ended with an unsightly take-and-bake pizza binge.  And you know what?  I think those Wheaties (as I have come to call the followers of Wheat Belly) are on to something.  I felt like crap the next day.  I don't want to sound like someone on a Betty White fan chatboard, but I had been getting unreal heartburn.  When I started the no-wheat no-gluten thing, it disappeared, completely.  It came back with a vengeance, so bad I had to go buy some extra strength Tums (I was going to by some of the stuff with more scientific sounding names, like ZYRTEC or REFLUXBEGONE but that shit is expensive..holy buckets).  Back on the Wheat Whagon for this fatty.

7.  I tried to watch Hugo last night and just couldn't get into it.  It was all very lovely.  But so very "OOh look at this.  Look at how artsy we are!  I am MARTIN SCORSESE."  I'll try again tonight after church.  But I may be too lowbrow for this movie.

8.  Speaking of the Oscars, bleah.  About an hour into it, the kids wanted to watch Walking Dead.  I protested for just a second and then I realized, I DON'T CARE.  I don't care about any of the award stuff.  Pretentious, entitled buffoons who have too much money and not enough sense celebrating themselves.  If I have to see George Clooney's big smug face once more I'll scream.  The funniest thing I've read about the Oscars is a comment someone made about this picture:

"What a cute father/daughter shot!".   Again, GOL.  But I'm still going to see The Descendants.


9.  Two reasons I'm so freaking happy about my new little car:  parking in the garage (there is like an inch of glaze ice outside today.  Try scraping the windshield of a truck that's 9 feet tall when you yourself are just over 5 feet tall.  Good times) and the fact that gas is almost $4.00 a gallon.  Sure, my Ford Focus may be little more than a Starkist Tuna can with the label peeled off and four wheels attached, but it's saving my ass a ton of money and morning misery.  And it's paid for.  So glad I sold my truck.

10.  Hug your kids.  The funeral I attended this past weekend was for a 16 year old boy who took his own life.  A handsome, popular, athletic, all around good kid is no longer here.  His mom can never again kiss his forehead, his big brothers can no longer give him shit about anything, his dad can never take him fishing.  He's gone.  Parents of teenagers, this is a big scary world.  Much bigger than the one we grew up in, with so much stuff flying at our kids 24 hours a day.  It's up to us to be there for them, talk to them, hover if we have to.  My friend buried her son this weekend.  I will never, ever forget her wails as we sang one last hymn for Wyatt.  Rest in peace, sweet boy.  

That's my 10.  Now go out and do something fabulous with your bad selves.