My nephew, John, just turned 16 and the moment he blew out the candles on his cake (which I so cleverly made in the shape of a guitar), he showed immediate interest in learning how to drive. The first thought that crossed my mind: Alleluia! If he could drive himself to school and everywhere he needed to go, it would mean I might actually get a moment or two to simply breathe or perhaps do the jitterbug in my underwear. The possibilities were endless.  Indy told me my eyes started twinkling when John asked me to drive him to the DMV so he could take his written permit test. Needless to say, my nephew passed with flying colors. Everything was going grand until dun dun dun: he got behind the wheel.

There's nothing wrong with his driving. In fact, I think he drives a little too cautiously considering he's trying to be the world's greatest rock star that ever lived, but I guess that's a good thing since speeding tickets can get very pricey. We contacted a driving school and signed my nephew up for six lessons at my nephew’s request because he wanted to get his license as soon as possible. When it was time for his first lesson I took as many pictures as I could before my camera committed suicide from exhaustion. I was proud and waved John goodbye from the door then chased after him yelling things that would embarrass him as they went down the driveway (his instructor was a young lady who's hooters were practically popping out of her shirt so I had to make sure he'd be too embarrassed to keep staring at her since his eyes needed to be on the road). I carried on with my day and didn’t expect him home for another two hours.  I got comfortable and braced myself for the ten yards of skirt I had to hem by hand on a wedding dress. 

Only twenty minutes had passed before I heard the front door open.  John stormed in as red as a tomato and locked the door behind him so the big hootered instructor couldn’t come in after him.  At first I thought she had tried to get frisky with him but quickly realized that probably wouldn’t have made John furious so it had to be something else.  Why did John have ketchup face syndrome?  Because apparently that’s what driving in LA does to people.  I’ve let him drive with me when we were in the middle of nowhere and I thought he had no problem driving.  This had been his first time driving in LA, and it was enough to make him swear off driving until he’s in a retirement home.  I talked to his driving instructor and she told me John was doing really well until they reached the downtown area.  He was surrounded by road rage and had enough so he made his way home and encountered even more road rage on the way back.  We’re going to give John some time to cool off and hopefully he’ll want to give driving a second chance so I might finally have enough time to do the jitterbug in my underwear.

I have a difficult 24 year old bride I’m dealing with right now.  She came to me with her great grandmother’s wedding dress.  Let me say that again.  Great grandmother’s dress.  A dress that was about a hundred years old and far too delicate to mess with.  She came to me with an atrocious attitude, handed me the dress and said to make it look sexy.  Her mother was standing next to her looking completely heartbroken.  Clearly, she wasn’t ok with a family heirloom getting destroyed.  Neither was I.  I told her I’d be more than happy to make her a dress inspired by her great grandmother’s dress, but she started throwing a fit and flung the dress at her mother.  She started accusing her mother and I of conspiring together against her.  She was convinced her mom had called me and told me not to take the dress and so on and so forth.  Long story short, the appointment ended with her mother writing me a check for a broken statue in our foyer. 

Surprisingly, I got a phone call an hour later asking to reschedule (the great grandmother‘s dress will not be brought).  I still haven’t decided if I want to work with her.  Her family and fiancé’s family come from prominent backgrounds so it wouldn’t hurt to have my work among them.

I might’ve mentioned this before, but Indy and I often leave each other little notes.  I thought I’d share the one I found yesterday in the fridge:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I ate the last piece of pie
And there is none left for you.
Love,
Your Husband

I immediately e-mailed him my response to his post-it love note which had been cleverly placed inside the empty pie box.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
If you come home without a replacement pie,
I’m going to feel really sorry for you.
Love,
Your Wife

He came home with apple pie.

Life has been crazy lately and I realized earlier that I haven't posted anything in a while. So, quick update:

- I'm possibly opening a store (found a really nice location but I'm still not sure if I'm ready for that big of a step yet)

- I finally have an assistant! (Believe it or not, my mother-in-law has decided to take on the job)

- Indy's friend has almost convinced me to set up a website where people can place orders and by some of my clothing (again, might be too bug of a step)

- I am currently negotiating with a manufacturing company to see if I might be able to start the production of a ready to wear line (this ties in with the store and website so I still shake in my boots when I think about it)

Again, life is crazy around here but I love it.

My friend needed a ride to work last night because she drove her car into a wall (don't ask). She works on Hollywood Blv., and I couldn't help but notice the giant swarm of fans/paparazzi/impersonators gathered around Michael Jackson's star on the walk of fame. I couldn't help but notice it because this swarm of fans/paparazzi/impersonators was causing more traffic than there usually was. Because of this, my poor friend almost got fired for being late to work.

I think it’s about time someone invented a flying car.

With the world going to hell in a handbasket lately around here, I finally have the chance to do another photoshoot for my client. We're only doing photos inspired by two of Edward Runci's work this time because everything is hecktic around here and there's no time for more at the moment.

I have some spare time today and I’m not completely feeling like a dead person today, so I figured I might as well share all the insanity that’s been going here lately.

Let me rewind to sometime last week (or the week before) (I’m not sure anymore because I’ve lost all track of time lately).  The institute that my sister-in-law was staying at informed me that she was doing much better and that she was going to be moved back to the previous place she was at.  From there, they estimated it might be about a month before she could come back home.  I know a month seems like a lot, but this was actually the first time they gave us some sort of time estimate.

She got moved, and something bad happened two days later.  The recovery place that she was at once again gave her a lot more freedom and didn’t do as much monitoring as the institution.  She got a letter from my brother’s lawyer informing her about something that had to do with their divorce.  We’re guessing that she snapped, called my brother, and had a bad conversation (just about all conversations are bad).  Later that night they found her passed out in her room and had to pump her stomach to remove the cleaning agent she had ingested.  Two of her organs suffered some damage and she was actually in a comatose state for five days.  Obviously, she’s not going to be coming home anytime soon.

Indy and I are general guardians of my nieces and nephews, but it was a nightmare trying to get everything organized in order for us to have a quick adoption process if anything happened to Julie.  I had to contact my brother for several reasons, and all hell broke loose.  I started getting angry, harassing phone calls from all of my family members (including my parents).  All of them seemed to think that the kids should live with my parents if something happened to my sister-in-law.  Of course, I didn’t agree and neither did Indy and the kids.  After accidentally listening to the message my parents had left me a couple of weeks (or possibly months) ago, the kids don’t want anything to do with my parents.  I try my best not to let my relationship I have with my parents affect the relationship the kids have with them, but apparently they were already on shaky grounds and the message didn’t help.

I stopped answering the constant phone calls (my house phone and cell phone rang at least twenty times every hours and that is not an exaggeration) and dreaded the fact that I couldn’t just unplug them or turn them off since I had to take calls from clients.  The next night, my door bell rang.  I was shocked to see my parents standing outside the door.  I didn’t want to open the door, but I was scared their constant banging and kicking of the door accompanied by occasional yelling would cause one of the neighbors to call the cops.  I made the kids go down to the basement, but they decided to sneak out and saw my very loving mother slap me in the face when I told her the kids were staying with me if Julie’s condition got worse.  My parents tried to be nice when the kids came running out of their hiding place, but they had seen enough to see past their act.  When my parents realized this they got madder at me than they already were and my wonderful mother pushed me up against the closest wall and tried to choke me. 

All my years of self defense training rushed through my head and every inch of me told me swing my arm down to break free of her hold then bring her face down on the floor and hold her arms behind her back until she calmed down.  Every inch of my body told me to do that, except for one.  Something inside me was screaming out that she was my mother and it was enough to keep me from defending myself.  They both reeked of alcohol and that small part inside of me kept hoping the mother and father inside of them would come out and they’d stop.  They didn’t.  Indy had to grab my dad right before he joined in the chokehold, and John (my oldest nephew) got my mom away from me. 

They escorted my parents out of the house and told them they had two minutes to leave or else the cops would be called.  Clearly, both of them were extremely intoxicated and it was not safe for the kids to be around them.  The next day, I got a knock on my door.  It was the cops.  The kids had seen my parents sitting in their rental outside the house, and our little Lilly took it upon herself to call 911.  We had to explain the situation to them and my parents were asked to leave.  My mom was way too drunk to drive, but my dad barely passed the breathalyzer test and was allowed to drive away.  The officers suggested we get start looking into getting a restraining order in case they show up again.  I’m not sure I want to take it that far, but I might have no choice if they do this again.

We haven’t completely informed the kids about what happened to their mom.  They knew she was in the hospital but think it was a bad case of food poisoning.  The doctors asked that we didn’t bring the kids to see her.  Luckily, they understood because they know she’s been having a hard time.  They had extra therapy sessions to deal with everything that’s been happening.  The younger ones are having some trouble accepting the fact that their grandparents psychotic drunken addicts.  Hell, I’m having trouble accepting it and I’ve known it for years.  I’m sure they’re also having trouble dealing with all of it because it reminded them of my brother.  They haven’t said it, but I’m sure my parents were a bad reminder of what they had to go through with him.

So, besides working my ass off, that’s pretty much what’s been happening lately.  It all started with a letter and escalated to ridiculous lengths.  I was planning of possibly going back to school for the summer session, but that’s definitely not going to happen.  I hate having to keep putting it off when I’m so close to finishing.  Part of me thinks I might not go back since I’m not learning anything new from them.  Just about everything they teach me is something I already use in my daily work, and it seems like a waste of time to be there when I could be earning money.  I’m trying not to think of it that way but I can’t help.  The important thing for me right now is to be there every way possible for these kids.

Indy and I have been looking into going somewhere on vacation with the kids this summer.  We’ve worked really hard and need some r&r.  We don’t know where we should go.  We’ve been looking into Disneyworld.  They have some specials that we ran into so it would be really affordable.  We thought about island hopping in Hawaii, but it might not be as kid friendly as we’d like it to be.  It actually sounds exhausting to be honest.

Hopefully I’ll have more time to write this week so I don’t have to cram a lot into one blog.  Reading all of this made me realize how chaotic and overwhelming this past week (or weeks) has been.

It’s been a tough week.  Too tough if you ask me.

My sister-in-law is gravely ill.  This is so serious that we are taking proper precautions and have adoption papers ready in case something happens to her.  We have a bunch of other legal things we are taking care of at the moment to ensure the safety of my sister-in-law and her kids, but I’ll share some other time. 

Right now I have a very long sleepless night of work ahead.  I’m just about at the end of prom dress season and I can’t wait for it to be over.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s been extremely helpful financially and I’ll be able to afford taking time off (even though I won’t take it), but the stress and amount of work involved was almost too much for me.  I took on way too many orders and there was way too much going on.  Because of everything that’s been going on this week, the only time I’ve been able to work is at night.  I’ve spend a lot of extra time with my nieces and nephews this week since I know they are having a rough time.  They don’t know everything that is going on, but there was an incident with my parents that happened right in front of them and they are still a bit disturbed.  I’m a bit disturbed myself because of it, but I think I might be more disturbed by the fact that I have to get a restraining order out on my parents and possibly the rest of my family.  Once again, I’ll share more about it some other time because I'm not up for it at the moment.

Indy and I have been thinking lately and there is a possibility that we might get a dog.  We know the kids would love it if we got one, but it's already crazy around here and a dog would probably add to that. 

As some of you may know, me and my mother don’t exactly get along.  Scratch that, my family hates me for reasons I will never know nor understand so I had to come with a scheme to wish my very loving mother a happy mother’s day without anyone knowing it was me.  Of course, my mother and possibly my whole family (I stopped answering the angry phone calls yesterday so I‘m not sure if it‘s all of them even though I know it‘s all of them) are incredibly upset with what I did even though I think there’s nothing to be upset about.  I actually think what I did was nice, but you be the judge.

I was on my way home last week and got stuck at a red light by Rodeo Drive.  After nearly running over an idiot paparazzi who decided to run in front of my car without checking to see if the light had changed, I looked over at Frederic Fekkai Beaute and got a brilliant idea.  I went home, did some research and started planning my Mother’s Day scheme.  I arranged for a giant bouquet of flowers to be delivered to my parents’ place yesterday (on Mother’s Day).  I also arranged for a gift certificate to a spa that was not even close to being cheap delivered with the flowers.  I made sure a card accompanied them saying this was a thank you from one of my mom’s patients and that a relaxing day at the spa was the least they could do to thank her.

I paid a ridiculous amount of money to make sure my oh so wonderful mother could go in the day after Mother’s Day if she wanted to.  Luckily, she did go in yesterday and I didn’t waste a ton of money for nothing.  The spa notified me that she was going to show up, and I had a few extra goodies waiting for her when she arrived (a cute pair of diamond earrings, more flowers, fluffy slippers, etc).  I know, you’re probably thinking I’m an idiot for spending so much money on someone who hasn’t been very fond of me all my life.  Looking back on it, I think I’d have to agree with you.

Apparently, she spent most of the day at the spa yesterday and stormed out when she found out I was the one who planned everything for her.  The spa was kind enough to let me know that she stormed out so I was a little prepared when she called a minute later to yell at me and say a bunch of things I’d rather not repeat.  The only thing I could think of saying to her before she hung up was “Happy Mother’s Day Mom, I love you”.  That click on the other end of the line right after I said that just made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  The next call I got was from father telling me I was a bad daughter for causing my mother pain (maybe the massage she got was painful) and that I shouldn’t have done the terrible thing I did.  The next call was from the jewelry place notifying me that the earrings were trying to get returned (at least I got a refund).  The next few calls were from my siblings and I’m sure you can imagine the wonderful things they were saying to me.

I’m feeling better about this that I thought I would be.  Instead of feeling down, I’m finding this incredibly funny.  At least she can’t say I didn’t wish her a happy Mother’s Day.

I’m not just saying that because I turned 21earlier this week.

Before I get to the feeling old part, let me talk about our Casino Royale night last week.  It was probably the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.  It turned out that this wasn’t a last minute thing.  Indy had planned this out and just made it look like a last minute thing so I wouldn’t be suspicious and realize it was my birthday party.  He did a good job at surprising me.  Having the casino night was also a good way of finding out who the serious players were and who was mostly there to get drunk.  We plan on having smaller casino nights on a somewhat regular basis with people who can completely get into the whole James Bond gambling mode.

I ended up wearing the gold dress and I think Indy was happy to have me in his arm all night.  Yes, it did show a tad too much of boobige, but I looked hot and that boobige distracted many people during poker and was easily able to tell when people were bluffing because of it.

Now, back to the feeling old part.  I feel old.  Way too much work.  Way too many responsibilities.  I need a vacation.  That’s all.

We’re going to see my sister-in-law today (once all the kids finish getting ready).  She agreed to see them today because she thinks she’ll be too upset to see them tomorrow.  The kids are ok with that and they are just happy that they’ll get to see her.  I’m concerned that they might be shocked by her appearance, but the institution has assured us that they will do their best to make her look presentable.  They are even going to take her to the special visitor’s center across the street that is used when children and other family members visit so they don’t have to be around the actual institution.