I'll begin this post with saying that Tyson & I had a wonderful Christmas & enjoyed the Christmas Eve service at Applegate Christian Fellowship very much! We were invited by my good friend, Denise. We arrived in a fantastic winter wonderland in the middle of nowhere! They had hundreds of thousands of lights in every tree & bush, plus white & red poinsettas strategically placed & decorating the main stage, next to which was a gigantic bonfire, about 8-9 feet high! They had a formal choir in robes & did a gospel-choir type thing with Christmas carols & several different soloists.

On Christmas morning, Tyson was very excited to see that his two biggest (literally!) gifts were from Santa - a coffin guitar case & a fender guitar stool that he'd been looking at in his Musician's Friend catalog. We both thoroughly enjoyed all of our gifts & eachother's company all morning, then went to Denise's house for Christmas dinner with her & her daughter & hubby. We sat around playing spoons & movie trivia games & had a good time.

Now then, let me vent about the screwy things that happened with Seth! So, Tyson went Christmas shopping for me with his Grandma Robbin on Saturday. Seth was coming into town with his girlfriend for a Christmas party at his sister's, so it made sense for Robbin to just take Tyson over to his Aunt's house to meet his dad, then go home with him over on the coast for a few days. When we made these plans, I made it very clear to Seth that I thought enough time had passed that it would be ok for Tyson to meet his girlfriend, but I asked him to sleep with Tyson while he was visiting, since I didn't think it would be appropriate or comfortable for him to see them going to bed or waking up together. He agreed that this would be fine. I also asked, since Seth doesn't have a phone, that Tyson give me a quick call every night to tell me goodnight & just check in so I knew everything was going alright. I didn't hear from Seth until Tuesday, when he called me from the bar next door to his place, to let me know that he didn't know how Tyson was getting home, but thought he'd send him home with his brother (interjection: the ex-con scam artist/theif/druggie/alcoholic/dealer who doesn't like kids & has demonstrated sadistic tendencies all of Seth's life, not to mention stole Seth's identity on three different occasions, which resulted in suspension of his license!). I said HELL NO!! I told him that I couldn't take any time off of work, but if he'd keep Tyson until Friday, that I'd drive up there & get him myself after work (7 hour round trip)! He then had the balls to say that driving one way was the least I could do. That got me really steamed, so I told him that I made Tyson readily available to him & that it was his choice to not call or visit, and that he has to make that effort. I finally got to talk to Tyson the next day, but then Seth called me Friday morning & when I asked him why they hadn't called me the previous night, he said that his mom said she didn't have time to take Tyson to a phone. He then said that he thought it was ridiculous that I wanted him to call every night, anyway, and I told him what was ridiculous is that I'd talked to my son once in six days & that it didn't matter if he thought it was ridiculous; it was what I'd asked, and it wouldn't even be such a big issue if he had a phone & I could reach Tyson in the first place! Anyway, Seth was calling to let me know that I'd need to stop by his sister's place in Medford to pick up some of the presents that Tyson had gotten me, since they forgot some there & told me that he'd called ahead & Traci had reassured him that the bag was right there. I stopped by on my way out of town, but no one was home except for their 10 year old daughter, who knew nothing about the bag of presents. By the time that Tyson & I got back to town that night, it was 10:45, much too late to drop by. So I told Tyson that it was no biggie & I'd just get them after Christmas, since I really didn't want to bug them on Christmas Eve, which was the next day, but he insisted that the majority of what he got me was what got left behind & I had to get them. So I called first thing in the morning & left a message at Traci's, asking to please call me back & let me know when it would be convenient for them for us to stop by & pcik those up. I finally got a call back at 3pm from Traci, acting all put out & imposed upon, saying that she didn't have the presents & knew nothing about them. I told her that Seth had told me he called her to make sure they were there & she said he never called her. Long story short, I still don't have the presents & have no idea what happened to them. What pisses me off most is that Robbin told me he knew exactly where he wanted to go & what he wanted to get me & got some great deals & ended up with exactly 50 cents change. All that time, effort & thought (not to mention my damn money!) and someone takes that away from him.

To make matters worse, Tyson tells me that Seth & his girlfriend got a motel room & he stayed with this aunt that first night, then Seth asked Tyson if it would bother him if he slept with his girlfriend for the duration of his stay, to which Tyson of course said no, he didn't mind - what else could he say?!? As bad as this was, that he'd deliberately disregard what I'd asked him not to do & putting Tyson on the spot, this meant that Tyson had to share a room (used to be his; now belongs to Seth's girlfriend's daughter) with a six year old girl! Tyson said that they were told to take turns sleeping on the floor or the bed, but since she was just a little girl, he gave her the bed every night. Not only is this not ok that he had to give up his bedroom and didn't have a bed to sleep on, it is completely inappropriate for him to be sharing a room with a six year old girl! I am so furious I wouldn't be surprised to see steam coming out of my ears as I type this! So, now how to proceed? I realize that it's not illegal for Seth to sleep with this girlfriend when Tyson's over, but he did directly go against my request & in the interrim, put Tyson in a compromising situation. The correct thing to do would have been for Seth to sleep with Tyson & have Sherry sleep with her daughter, which is what I specifically asked him to do! The thing is, I don't want Tyson to get in trouble for telling me what happened or put Seth in defensive mode, to where he asks Tyson to lie to me & puts him in a bad position, but I don't feel right about not recongizing the fact that nothing went as we'd discussed: I spoke to Tyson once instead of every night. I had to go pick him up myself. Then the sleeping arrangements. So I think I'm going to approach the subject by asking him & telling him that I didn't want to ask Tyson (which I didn't - he brought it up to me), so I'm asking him. Then, if he tries lying to me, I'll call him out on it & say that something Tyson said clued me in on it...I want to strangle him right now!