I was having really bad dreams this morning, where all the people close to me that I loved were dying. It was pretty awful. This carried me through until about noon when I decided that I'd had quite enough of sleep and would get up
Ugh, sometimes you just can't shake those mean little demons in your subconscious...
My niece's grandmother, my Dad's ex wife and mother of my late sister sent me a Buffalo newspaper. She was saying we should move there.
Of course there wouldn't be much for us there. It wouldn't much fit the criteria of a city that never sleeps, with diversity and lots of mass transit and great restaurants: a pre requisite in pretty much any place that we consider.
On a more personal end there's the fact that Jennifer always wanted me to live closer, and so it would be a bit weird on that end, as well.
I figure that everything that's going on with my niece is probably playing a role in her suddenly urging us to move there. We were supposed to visit last November, but Megan was getting over pneumonia so she advised us to cancel. We cancelled, but got a 120 re schedule date with the airline. I told her to let us know when a good time to visit was, and that we essentially already had the tickets and could come at a better time. But nothing was ever mentioned about it after that until the paper arrived yesterday.
See, I haven't mentioned much about it here, but there's been a big custody battle over my niece, Megan, since Jennifer died.
The whole time Megan was alive, with a few exceptions of when she was really young, Jennifer lived within a few blocks of her mother and so Megan often had Peggy acting as babysitter, and Peggy was generally around. Well, Megan's father (Matt) moved to Buffalo and towards the end came around periodically. I guess he and Jennifer had been spending time together. Both Matt and Jennifer had struggled with addiction problems. Well, after Jennifer died, Peggy sued for custody of Megan. It was a long and drawn out thing (and is in fact still going on) and at the last hearing the judge said that he was ready to rule in Peggy's favor. His reason was that Peggy had always been a stable influence but that Matt didn't have a consistent enough history for him to be comfortable knowing that Matt wouldn't fall right back off the wagon as soon as he got custody. However, Megan voiced that her preference was to live with her father. The judge set a final court date and urged that they work out some sort of arrangement.
Well, Megan went to visit with Matt and his parents, as she does every summer. She was supposed to be returned to Peggy over a week ago but wasn't. Matt's family refused. He was given a court order to return her. He still has refused. That's the last I heard.
Above all else, it's just a bad thing to do to a kid. I don't know if she wants to go back or not but to actually drag her into something like this is just horrible. It's really upset me from the getgo that folks couldn't just work something out amicably, without forcing a twelve year old kid to be dragged through a court battle. Also, they're putting her in the position of being returned to her grandmother's by the police, which is a horrible and spiteful thing to do. Additionally, it could really hurt Megan's chances to so much as visit with her father now that he has proved that he can't be trusted to abide by the law in regards to her. The whole thing is a mess.
I guess what makes me angriest about the whole thing is that the poor kid has already had to deal with the loss of her mother, and now there's this whole mess.
Well, that's my cheery transcription for the day.