The Heat is On

I use the time with the kids to prepare for my argument. Ask for a few benign details without crossing any boundaries.

"So Hil, what hotel are you staying in at Disney? You said it was a nice one."

"Ohh! The Grand Floridian! We looked at it on line! It's beautiful. And huge!"

Good. Now I know where to reach them when Lars insists that the phones are turned off and locked away so I can not snoop long distance.

"Is Liza going with you?" I ask cheerfully. Liza is the woman Lars has managed to trick into dating him for the past 3 years. She conveniently has the same name as me, thus not taxing Lars's already limited capacity to remember names. She is also a Yoga Instructor, which he loves telling people.

"No, Liza is watching Bailey." Because hello, even though Liza is very nice and the kids really like her, and she is stupid enough to have committed her life to a complete whackjob, she is nobody's fool when it comes to being the conveniently uncompensated babysitter on a trip to Florida that she'd pay her way for, while Lars travels on his employer's nickel.

Good info to have. Looks like the same damned if you do, damned if you don't travel situation we had last time.

And while I am beginning to froth at the mouth a little at figuratively backing him into a corner, I am also feeling a little blue. I need to be honest with myself. I am really not going to be able to do anything to change his plans, however harebrained. I have expensive baseball tickets that I need to use or get rid of, and need to focus on the latest development. Making sure my kids are safe.

True, Lars is a lunatic helicopter parent who tries to maintain the children's childlike dependency on him, when it comes to What Works for Him, he makes some alarmingly irresponsible decisions. Decisions that, if they were made by me, would have him calling the authorities to have me hauled away in cuffs for incarceration in the Home for Phenomenally Bad Parents.

Quite a quandary.

I ask one more question. "Hil, aren't you and Pat a little worried about spending all that time alone in the hotel while Dad is in class? It's not like being in your own house with all your regular stuff and people you know on the street. It makes me a little nervous."

I am a little surprised at her response.

"Actually," she starts. "To be truthful..."(My kid, my vocabulary. She kills me.) "I am a little nervous."

I look at her, with my eyebrows raised as if to say, "Go on. Tell me why you are nervous."

And she says. "Hello...Casey Anthony? Duh!" Like Florida is brimming with characters of that sort. Which it very well may be, but I'd need a little more evidence before making a hands down condemnation of the Sunshine State.

Armed with enough details to win this argument, I am still feeling like I've lost. What is abundantly clear to me is that yes, I certainly can make Lars's life difficult, and very deftly make him sweat like a pig in July, I can't control what he does, however irresponsible.

And for that reason, I am deeply saddened.