As I type this there's a former employee/co-worker of mine working at a PC out in the lobby. She came in and saw me and I saw her and both of us are pretending we didn't recognize the other because neither of us wants to say hi or how are ya or any of that bullshit. I see her boyfriend occasionally on campus and we're civil but we have no real reason to talk to each other except for some vague rules of etiquette.
I'm astonished at how gray she is. I saw her about 1.5 years ago and she was only starting to get some gray, with a few strands here and there. Now she's got a few strands of dark hair here and there! She's I believe a couple years younger than I.
So for the first time in 17 years I was off four days at Thanksgiving, and let me tell you, work is less exhausting. Christ! Three days of non-stop cooking/cleaning/socializing--that shit's for the birds. I'd rather sit here in the library or work the Borders info counter. We had more than 20 family members over yesterday, the first arriving around noon, the last leaving around midnight, and it was exhausting. All the stupid petty games families play--for instance, Cha's mom can't drive and lives way the fuck out in Parkton. She cooks for two days for our Saturday thing and then Cha's dad leaves her at the house without transportation and disappears. There's a last minute crisis because he does this at just the wrong time--our guests are arriving, we've got food cooking ourselves, and suddenly we have to find someone who has the time and inclination to run 30 minutes north and back. Ugh.
But mostly things went well. There's a new baby in the family--my niece had a girl last week, and my mom trash-talked her for days and kept saying she wasn't welcome to Thanksgiving etc, etc (you know, the typical "values" voter), but as soon as she saw the baby it was all "coo-coo, cootchy cootchy," and then I'm sure after my niece left the trashing recommenced. Now there ARE reasons to trash talk her--she had a baby with a moron who beats her, the baby died of SIDS, they broke up, and then she saw him again and got pregnant, and now they have restraining orders against each other and have another baby, etc--but my mom married a moron who beat her and stayed with him for 8 years, and went back once after getting away! What's that Bible verse about the mote in God's eye and the beam in thine own?
Cha's cousin Lenore is preggers after YEARS of procedures and fucking on a schedule, and she's got the unsurprising fertility treatment result: TWINS. 15 weeks along, and everything looks good. Of course this resulted in all the aged Philippinas pooh-pooing Cha in Tagalog for much of the day. What's the point of being married if you're not having kids? There's no other reason to get married!
Friday we went up to Buf and MA's for a game night--the Traveling Joneses and Sluggo and Spooge Whore were there, as well as others we hadn't seen in ages. The evening went by in a blur, much like the last 20 years.
More later--time to read the papers.
4 comments:
So so happy to read about Lenore. Hurrah! Even if it meant Cha got an earful.
She didn't even talk to you?! I'm surprised, I guess.
We ended up speaking later. I think I was projecting my own anti-social attitude when I first noticed her; then, and worse, HE came in to meet her and I had to speak with HIM. She's taking classes to avoid having to pay student loans, but her MS is done except for the thesis. She looks well, but tired.
I'd rather hug Stinky Steve than speak with HIM any more. What a phony!
It is good news about Lenore. She's starting to get achey already in the ankles and hips.
Nobody ever pays attention to that verse about the beam in your own eye. It's the most neglected verse in the Bible! After "Love thy neighbor," of course.
That one about giving away all your possessions because a rich dude can't possibly get into heaven--well, it isn't precisely ignored, but I read and hear a lot of tortuous logic explaining how Jesus didn't really mean what he said.
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