Flat Tire in the Rain

Well, I'll tell ya.  This past week has been difficult and annoying, but also sort of rewarding.  Both from the same source: my son Joe.

On Tuesday morning, the phone rang before I had gotten up.  It was Joe, letting me know that he couldn't start his car, and asking me to drive over before work and give him a jump.  Which I did, but it would not take.  His little BMW was just not responding at all.  We went through several rearrangements of engine parts and what-not, and finally I had to call it quits, or be late for work.  I agreed to take Joe with me, and let him drive my car back and keep using it to get his car started.  He would come and pick me up that evening.

Well, at about three he called.  "Mom," he said.  "I got my car started!  But hey, your car has a flat tire.  I've got to go to work now, can you take the bus home?"  

 

So I did.  It's a two-bus trip, taking just over an hour, instead of the twelve minutes the car trip takes, but whatever.  No problem.  My car is still in Joe's friend Brian's driveway.  Joe assures me earnestly that when he gets off work he will go and fix it.  

At about three in the morning Joe comes to my door, awakens me, and tells me that his car is not holding a charge and although he is willing to attempt to take me to work in the morning, he cannot promise that we will get there.  Oh, and my tire is not merely flat, it has a large area of rotting rubber, and cannot be repaired. 

I take the bus to work.

At about three I call Joe and ask him for an update.  He says, "Oh -- yeah.  Uhhhhh, I've been working on my car, and haven't gotten to your car yet.  I'll give my tire guy a call when I get cleaned up and see about finding a tire to fit your car."

I take the bus home.

When I get home, Joe is not there.  I call him and find him picking up his girlfriend from work, in his friend's truck.  When they finally get back, it is dark.  I ask Joe what the plan is, and whether he has fixed my car yet.  He gives me a look.  "Mom," he says.  "I haven't even gotten my car running yet!"

I tell him that I don't want to interfere in his arrangements, and ask if I should just go and buy a tire myself.  Joe is distressed, and urges me not to, saying that his "tire guy" will be able to find us a tire, we just have to wait for the "time to be right."

I take the bus to work.

Now I am annoyed as well as concerned.  I know that Joe is  perfectly capable of replacing this tire.  I also know, however, from long years of experience, that Joe is very, very easily distracted.  Almost anything can turn his eyes away from what he is supposed to be looking at.  So when I get home, (on the bus) I repeat to him several times, loudly and clearly,  that I need to know if he is going to fix the tire before Friday night, since I must drive it Saturday morning.  Can't take the bus to Beaverton, after all.  So can he?  Cuz if he can't then I will go and buy a brand-new tire at full price at Les Schwabb and have them put it on my car.  

When he understands that I mean it, and that it is now Thursday afternoon already, he sort of comes to attention.  Calls someone and has them drive him over to Brian's house, where he puts the donut tire on my car and drives it home, and calls the "tire guy" and gets an appointment for the following day.

 

I take the bus to work, but at about two in the afternoon, I get a call from Joe.  A proud and happy call, saying, "Guess what, Ma?  I'm driving your car!  It has a brand new tire!  I'm going to come and pick you up from work!  How about that!"

He then went on to add, "And thanks for being SuperMom and coming to the rescue when my car wouldn't start. I know you don't have to take care of me anymore, but it sure makes me feel safe to know I can call you when I need help." 

No doubt you are looking askance at me and telling yourself that this is merely sucking up, and you may, of course be right; to which I reply: shut the hell up.

So all the waiting at bus stops (in the rain!) I have done this past week, are now forgotten.  I am happily waiting for my grown-up young son to come and pick me up!  Ahhh...!

Memory

Sitting and listening to the D'oyley Carte Opera Company singing Pirates of Penzance gave me an immediate sensory memory of sitting in Dad's warm and airless little shop, listening to the record player he had in there.  Even though I have listened to this very song performed a number of times, quite recently -- maybe four? -- by the actors who made the musical movie.  You know, Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, Angela Lansbury -- those guys.  But something about the full-throated chorus of men singing

"Here's a first-rate opportunity/ to get married with impunity/ And indulge in the felicity/ Of unbounded domesticity..."

brought that smell of wood glue and warm dust rushing back.

Bittersweet

Well, it is a lovely, heart-swelling, blue-and-gold morning, and I am feeling distinctly introspective and nostalgic.  Nostalgia for me, though -- not for any past time that I was never a part of, which is the shape my nostalgia usually takes.  I am remembering the days of living alone in Northwest Industrial, and walking to Powell's Books several times a week, (and always on Sunday) and spending hours in a squeaky basket chair, reading, sipping hot tea, watching people, and writing.  I would write letters, write in my journal that I carried with me everywhere I went, and write in the Coffee Room Book.  

See, the woman who owned and ran the Coffee Room in Powell's Books would put a large blank book out on one or the other of the tables when she opened in the morning, and over the course of the day, it would get moved from table to table and people would write in it.  Jot down their thoughts, draw little pictures, write angry diatribes to politicians, rhapsodize about the boy/girl they had a crush on, complain about their mothers or teachers or boyfriends, mourn the death of a husband or father or child.  

This was a tremendously fulfilling thing for me.  I had been writing for years, channeling most of it into letters (the year I was sixteen I had 21 pen-pals, can you believe it?  And answered each letter immediately and vociferously) and a great deal of very poor poetry.  I kept experimenting with all these different poetic styles, none of which bubbled up from my own heart -- if any poetry ever does...hmmm.  (Note to Self: ponder this idea.  Is all poetry derivative, since no one would think autonomously of rhyming words, would they?  Or would they?) 

In any case, this was not only a completely new and thrilling chance for me to polish and write mini-essays to the world, but an even newer and more thrilling chance for feedback from the world, as represented by the other Coffee Room Regulars. 

And I got feedback, too.  A lot of it negative and snotty, of course, we all know what "commenters" are like, don't we?  The internet has certainly taught the world that.  Haters gotta hate!  But a lot of it positive and some of it valuable.  Are you listening, Freak?  I signed my work with the initial "B" and several other anonymous writer-types, most especially one who called himself "the Freak" would nearly always slip me an admiring, encouraging word.  I remember one full page directed to me, but written there in the book for all to see, which made it even more moving and important in my young and silent life.  The Freak was encouraging me to value the direct response I got to my writing, and to keep on letting the melancholy and loneliness (which, I'm sort of ashamed to say, made up a lot of my writing in those solitary days) dribble out onto the page and evaporate.
And then to continue writing, with the blues out of the way.

Sorry to say I have not followed your advice, Freak.  Oh, I still write -- but mostly e-mails to loved ones and the occasional blog entry, thus.  No books.  

Not going to lose the happiness I brought with me today, though.  Even if the memory is a bittersweet one, I plan to sip the sweet and discard the bitter.  

Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

Okay, I am distressed and sort of confused in my thoughts right now. See, early this morning (1:38 am, to be precise) my son Joe called me, asking me if I could possibly help him with a little cash, since his car had been towed and impounded, and he needed to raise $300-and-some to get it out. I told him that I had no money at all and could not help, and he said, very cheerfully, not to worry about it, and he would see what he could do.

But telling your mother not to worry about something that you have woken her out of a sound sleep to ask for, rarely works. After the adrenaline surge finally calmed down -- I respond very badly to being suddenly woken, for some reason -- and my heart stopped racing and my eyes would finally close, I was still unable to fall asleep, for a few hours. So I am feeling sort of heavy and somewhere else, today.

And what I keep thinking about, over and over, this morning, is this: to what extent should I, as a mother, and as a human being, be willing to get involved in my son's life by way of giving assistance when the thing he has done deserves the result it has gotten?

In this case, he was parked across several parking spaces in a private parking lot, unloading stuff from his car to someone's apartment. Since it was so late at night/early in the morning, he sort of assumed that no one was going to be doing much coming and going. But apparently one of the spaces he was blockading belonged to someone with a short fuse, they called the towing company, who came at once and towed him before he even came downstairs for his next load. Now, I know this has probably been skewed for my benefit, but I can only tell you what he told me, no?

The kicker is that this morning, as he has spent several hours trying to locate his car, and figure out how and when he will be able to spring it from impound, he found out that they are unwilling to release it to him at all, since his name is not on the title. Oh, dear.

Now -- there are many reasons why this might be the case, but I know Joe, and I know that the reason this is the case is that he simply did not want to take the time out of his important life to make the trip to the DMV ( which he described to me once as being staffed and visited by total losers) and pay the $70 or however much it costs. And while I sympathize, I completely do not agree with this sort of behavior. I don't like the DMV either, but I have never, and I mean never, allowed any of the paperwork of owning a car to even get late. Okay, that is just me, and apparently I was incapable of convincing Joe of the importance of not getting on the wrong side of the people with the power. So, sort of my fault.

But see, that's what I am wondering. This sort of thing is what ought to really make him understand that you can't (to coin a phrase) fight City Hall. But a) I feel tremendously guilty for allowing him to fight this one out on his own, (even though there is, literally, absolutely nothing I can actually do about it) and b) this sort of thing has happened a lot in the past, and hasn't done any good so far. 'Course, this is the first time he has had his car taken away from him. So maybe.

Oh, I don't know. Urg.

Grey Wednesday

Well, I made it in to work today.  You might think this is a non-statement, like saying, “Hey, I breathed ALL NIGHT last night!”   But since I did not make it in to work the preceding two days, you see how it actually makes good sense.  Right?

Made it in to work, on time and all, and have sat here at the desk slowly recovering from the energy required to walk across the parking lot and unlock the door.  I was trembling and gasping, such is the level of weakness to which I have fallen.  It’s funny, I know I’ve had the flu more recently, but my memory keeps bringing up the mental picture of myself, standing shakily at the card catalogue (wow!  Does that date me, or what?)  in the Prairie library, one hand hanging on to the waistband of my skirt, which was showing an alarming tendency to drop off, and the other trying feebly to make notes on an overdue English assignment.  That was after my first bout with sinusitis, but I feel much the same.  Much, much better, and all, but ridiculously feeble and given to sudden stabs of pain or waves of exhaustion.

The rain this morning as I pulled out of the driveway, was that sudden skies-open drenching deluge,  an altogether-boys kind of flattening downpour that made me feel like the roof of my car might suddenly dent in.  The usual traffic problems ensued.  I was in the far left hand lane, creeping along with the rest of the traffic, all of us side-by-side for miles, and I found myself quite freakin’ annoyed with the people who kept wanting to squeeze into the left-hand lane.  People automatically assume that the passing lane is going to go faster, but there we all were!  Creeping along next to one another!  No-one getting anywhere any faster than anyone else!   Clearly and obviously visible to anyone who looked!  Arg!

So.  Now to start digging my way out from under the accumulated paperwork of the past few days.  The office seems fairly tidy, but I haven’t looked in the file room, yet….

Adoption Day Daphne

Went out to dinner with Joe this past weekend, to celebrate Adoption Day. I am very proud of my tall handsome son, and cautiously pleased at his steps up the ladder toward being a responsible and trustworthy young man! He is working hard, always making it to work on time, and staying for all his shifts, which, thinking back on school and his constant skipping of classes, I was sort of afraid (oh, admit it, I was absolutely certain!) that he would fail to do. However, he is proving himself to be both responsible and trustworthy, and I am very pleased!
 

I was surprised,(and delighted) by the way, to notice as we walked to and from our car, (we had dinner at Gino's, which is in Sellwood) that we passed six or seven houses with blooming bushes of daphne in their yards! Daphne is not something I see very oftne -- not like daffodils, or roses or rhododendrons, which are commnplace throughout the Northwest. It is much rarer, and to see house after house with a large bush in the front yard, or two of them blooming on either side of the fornt steps, was really both thrilling and amazing!

 

Made me wonder if one of the older houses had a bush, and several of the nighbors were noticing the gorgeous smell, and it just sort of spread? Maybe they had a clipping party, and everyone got cuttings of that original bush! Or perhaps they had all been planted at the same time by the builders -- perhaps it was fashionable then, or he had had a bush in his front yard as a boy, like my dad, and always loved it! Or MAYBE......

Shoe-trees and Apologies

Last night on my way home from work (left the office right on time, so that I could get some laundry done -- I was going to REMEMBER it this time!) I was lured in by the siren song of the Salvation Army. (Well, I drive right BY it, and it's very inexpensive, and I haven't stopped for weeks, no, months! And they had their Half Off Everything in Store banner up! So come on!)
 

So anyway, I took one of the weird carts, since all the normal carts were in use, and started my usual route through the store. There wasn't a great deal of stuff, so if I stop by tonight it will probably be crammed with new stuff, the Post-Half-Off giddiness of new second-hand things! WooHoo! 
 

Anyway, I found a few shirts and a sweater and a candle, and looked through the books and experimented with a deep-fryer, and then went and got in line. The check-out man was about ten (or possibly 20, hard to tell) very, very skinny, with a strange bony face and very bad skin and a huge shirt which had come untucked in several places, and an odd voice. But he was very chatty and friendly and and talked nonstop the whole while I was in line. I paid for my purchases and bagged them myself, and headed out to my car.
 

As I was starting the engine, I saw him running across the parking lot toward me, yelling, "Ma'am! Ma'am!" I slowly stopped the engine and rolled down the window, and he poured out this very confusing story about how he had somehow inadvertently made some huge mistake and I needed to come back in the store and let him run my bank card again, he was so, so sorry. I said, "Wait a minute -- what?" and he started all over again, interspersed with constant apology, so I said, "Okay -- never mind. Let's just go and take care of it."
 

Back into the store I went with little Mr. Disjointed Apology. We stepped back in front of the guy who had been behind me in line and was patiently waiting to buy a nice pair of wooden shoe trees -- I had looked at those. I handed the clerk my card -- he was babbling about how he hadn't gotten my signature and then when he looked at the receipt he saw that I had only paid $10, when I actually owed $12, and so on and on, he was so, so sorry. So we went through the process of cancelling out the first transaction, and then getting my signature on the second transaction, and then he finally handed me the receipt. I looked at it. 
 

"Well, " I said. "I see the shirts and the sweater, but I only bought one Bric-a-Brac, and here are two Bric-a-Bracs. So what do you think that's about?"

 

He took the receipt and stared at it, and as I watched, his whole neck and face flushed deep dark red.
 

"Oh," he muttered. "I forgot to take that guy's stuff off it," gesturing to the patient man behind me. I looked at the man, while Apology Man tied himself in knots apologizing AGAIN! -- STILL! and said, "Well, sir, your shoe-trees are free!" He thanked me, and tried to give me two dollars, but by that time I just wanted OUT OF THERE, so I smiled, said "No problem!" and fled.
 

I think I will stop on my way home, though, (she mused). You know, just to see the new goods. Don't think I'll buy anything, probably. And if I do, I won't go through the line with Mr. Apology!