bad news and good news

Bunny wasn't going to write again so soon but she has the day off from working in the store and she is eating her lunch. she has some bad news and some good news.

start with the bad news. end on a good note.

someone hit her car again. 3.5 weeks before, a fancy woman in her brand new big car {2 miles off the lot} rear-ended Bunny when her daughter was driving her car to get it inspected. a cop saw the whole thing and the woman's insurance took care of Bunny's car.

yesterday, Bunny had to go in for a conference call at work and when she came out, there was a woman taking pictures of Bunny's car and a cop filling out a report. the cop told Bunny that the woman had hit Bunny's car trying to go into the parking space next to her; that a witness had seen the whole thing and stopped her from driving away, and had called it in to him. by the time Bunny had gotten there, it was basically a done deal. now Bunny is waiting for the police report to pop up in the computer and for her insurance company to call her.
poor Bunny's poor little car. Midnight has had a rough couple of months. she is an outlaw at the moment since she cannot get inspected until the damage is repaired. Bunny cried a lot yesterday. off and on all day. she's crying still today. she is just weary with all of life's unexpected bumps and scrapes. and right in the middle of writing this, she gets called to come in to work from 4 until close. Bunny, of course, said yes because she needs the money. she doesn't know when the next bump and/or scrape will come rushing at her and bowl her over.

she needs her Dragon so badly these days, but one of the scrapes from life took him from her and now all she has is her memories of him.

oh, how Bunny hates that concept at times. "oh, my dear, but you have your wonderful memories of your husband to cling to." tell that to someone who's drowning in sorrow. 'oh, i don't need to call someone to talk to. let me cling to my memories.'

stupid heads. Bunny wants her Dragon, and she misses him more when something bad happens to her. calling up all her lovely memories hurts her. it reminds her of what she had with him and how alone she really is. and oh, Lordy Lord how she knows he isn't going to get to come back to her loving fuzzy arms. so she does a lot of talking to Heaven up there. she does a lot of praying, just talking really to God and Mary, and to her beloved Dragon.

*Bunny looks up at the sky and waves hi to her sweetie.*

so she is dealing with this; this new car accident. she is dealing with life. and sometimes it sucks. she wants to move. she wants to be on the move. maybe get a camper and just drive around taking pictures and uploading, making millions that way; money she can survive on. she could be a little gypsy Bunny with Scotty dogs off in a cool camper off seeing places and avoiding people when she wants to. people hit Bunny's car wayyyy too much for her to want to be close to them.

now for the good news. Bunny has been asked to take over assistant managing a store of her own. she said yeah she would. it is more money. health care. and a lot more hours.

so that's it. the bad news and the good news. that's Bunny's life thus far.

missing her Dragon, getting smacked a bit by life's down, and getting lifted a tiny bit by life's ups.

"we are the music makers,

and we are the dreamers of dreams,

wandering by lone sea-breakers,

and sitting by desolate streams; -

world-losers and world-forsakers,

on whom the pale moon gleams;

yet we are the movers and shakers

of the world for ever, it seems."

~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Voldemort & conflict resolution

had to gather my thoughts to write this. but i need to write it out. that's what this place is for. getting it out of my head.

it happened Friday while i was still at work. i had to close that evening. i was nervous throughout the day. tension building like a storm inside my blood. my daughter was supposed to be on the flight to New England at 6. her husband was driving her. their car stalled out. she missed her flight. not only that but now the car is out on the road to the airport in a part of town where it would be stripped clean by dark-30.

so she called Voldemort who said, and i quote, "so get the tow truck to take you to the airport. i'll have another flight waiting for you."

"i can't get to the airport. we got a friend to come get us and he took us back to work."

"okay, here i've got you a flight that will leave at 10 tonight. you'll get into Boston a little after midnight. there's a bus 2 terminals over. get the tram to take you there and get on the last bus. it leaves at 1:30 and will drop you {near where he lives} between 3 and 3:30 AM. call me when you get at the station and i'll come get you."

"are you serious? and what about my car?"

"call a tow truck."

she hung up on him. she cannot afford a tow truck. she cannot afford to fix the car again. he had paid to have it fixed this time and they did not do the work properly. she called me at work sobbing.

in the middle of her conversation with me, she was interrupted by her brother, already in New England, ringing in.

"okay, i've talked to him. this is how it's going to work. call a tow truck and give him dad's number. he's paying to have it towed. tell the tow guy to tow the car back to where you had it fixed. i've already called the service manager and told him that he will fix the car and honor his work. that's it. he is going to honor his work. and you're not coming up here this weekend. the flight he put you on just got delayed until midnight. you won't be getting in until after the bus leaves and i'm not driving to Boston at 2:30 in the morning. it's ridiculous to try and do that. i've made him cool with that."

"oh, my God, how did you do all that? how did you get him to agree to all that?"

"money. his money paid for work that wasn't satisfactory. he needed to be reminded that his money and what people do with it is more important that family. the flight? money again. it would cost him more of his money. he doesn't want to see you and parade you around pretending that he has this great relationship with you more than he wanted to keep his money. now i love you to death and i know you never wanted to come up here so it was easy. money."

"thank you, thank you so much."

"it's okay. i really wanted to see you and hang out with you. you know. a band of brothers or brother and sister thing, but i can take it better than you. i don't care as much and i paid my own way. he can't hold that over me. you, he can manipulate, and he was whacked to try all this and then have you scrape the money together and borrow from mom who has less to try and tow your car and get it re-fixed. that's nuts. he's easy once you remember he really doesn't care as much as he pretends to. it's always gonna be about the money."

and there you have it. conflict resolution. you have to remember what matters most to your opponent and dangle that in front of him/her/them.

the Three Musketeers, or in this case, one of the Musketeers got it done for another Musketeer. "all for one and one for all."