About the Ex & stuff

OK.... so here and there I have said small disparaging remarks about my ex-wife...... and gees I think that is perfectly normal... I mean, we are divorced, something did not work out, right?  It wasn't about sex, drugs or violence or taking out the garbage or snoring.  It just wasn't working. And just about everyone who is DIVORCED has something not so nice to say about  their ex, like gees..... but mostly I say it tongue in cheek.

But the real deal is, Her&I, have a great divorce.
Really.
We had been 'together a long time....I am six years older and I met her when she was 17.  Sounds funny, huh?  She had graduated from HS a semester early and I met her in my taxi when she would get late night rides home from her waitress job and I would see her in the college bars...gees how was I to know?  After awhile she would call for my cab specifically and bring me onion rings and hamburgers for the ride.  Now that is love.  So we dated for a few years and when she was in need of a room mate for her last year of college I just told her to move in with me. I paid the rent and bills and she bought groceries. And three years after that we were married.  And then we had two children.  It was good stuff.  Nice even.  I mean, there is more to all of that, but who wants to hear?

The whole thing fell apart a few years after children.  By then she had a Masters Degree in what I call "Teaching Highly Fucked-Up People" and was working in a Wisconsin DOC facility.  Working with sex offenders.  Really really nasty people.  Maybe beyond nasty.  "Really-Truly-Extremely-Fucked-Up-People. Enough that you just can't leave all your emotions at work and bringing those emotions home wasn't working out with me.  Well... again, who wants to hear all that shit.

So it wasn't working.  And seeing as I had better health insurance and no one was "seeing" anyone else...we didn't get a divorce until about five years after the separation.  The real deal, though, is that after a bad initial six months.... we reconciled just enough to decide, collectively, that we would raise two children not ripped apart by adults.  And it WORKED!

 Well.... mostly worked.  He still hasn't a clue about getting a decent haircut..... and she runs on her own clock.....MT...Miriam Time...which can be irritating, but we have never had problems with them.  Or never anything beyond the "Ward&June" kind of problems.  Like yesterday.

See, Miriam had already called me saturday nigh to say she was snowed in just off campus at a friend's house, car was stuck. "Stay there, " I said, "we'll worry about it in the morning.  It was already 9pm and there was no way to deal with it at night, it was a blizzard.
Her Mom calls me sunday morning.  "Miriam is stuck."  Well, I told her I already knew and we arranged to go pull her out.  Three is better than two when pulling cars out of snow.  I found the tow rope, grabbed a shovel and the Ex and I went off to digg the Kid out.
Well, by the time we got there the Kid's car is plowed in under about four feet of snow.  The Ex starts shoveling the front, and I am working on the side and the Kid is sweeping off the windows and crawling in to start the thing.  It really wasn't that bad; in about an hour, we are out.  For about 5 minutes.  See, I told the Kid I would drive her car, cause I am really really good about driving in snow, so it only took me 5 minutes to slip across the street and plow into a snow bank.  Well, by pre-arrangement, I told the Ex we would meet her at this Fast Food joint that I had noticed DID have a plowed drive.  So the EX is gone, the Kid and I start digging out again... with the help of some really cool passers-by.  Twenty minutes later... out again.  Five minutes later, on the way to the Fast Food joint, the Kid and I notice a college girl stuck on a side street, spinning tires, totally mired.  The Kid looks at me and I knew we were going to push THAT car out, too.  And we did.  I can't begin to tell you how happy I am by this time.... especially since the Ex does not have a cell and we really don't know where she is.  And where SHE is... is stuck about a block away from the Fast Food joint.... but we don't know and are sitting at said grease trap place wondering what we are going to do now.  Which thankfully took only ten minutes until the EX pulled in... having some passer-bys ( is it Passers-by or Passer-bys?)  push her out.

Well.... by now I am in a crabby mood, very cold, very wet, and feeling ugly (on top of just LOOKING ugly)..... and am in no way mood enhanced when the EX starts laughing at me.  But she buys the coffe and the three of us just sit a bit and talk.  About the Holidays.  Her brother is coming home in ten days and all four of us are getting together for the Un-Family Christmas.

See.... the deal is, The Ex and I worked very hard not making the kids victims, too.  Through the last 15 years we always made sure that the kids came first.... PTA, football, soccer games, violin recitals, plays, it didn't matter, we could still go to such events together. We reached a mutual decision that we could still be civil, maybe even friendly....especially when it came to whatever the kids needed....whether it was pulling them out of snow banks........ or letting them know that they both had two parents that loved them very much, and even if the marriage didn't work.....the divorce did.