The Big Day

So, today is the day that Joe gets to take his driving test. Hooray! Huzzah! Whooeee! We've been hearing about this day for months. In all kinds of ways -- longing: "When I get my license, I'll be so happy!" -- threatening: "Man, I'll have my license then, and you just wait...!" -- begging: "But that will be after I have my license, and I'll be able to....!" and so on and so on.

So. Test scheduled for ten a.m. Joe nervous the night before, says, wake him up early, like at eight. Then, at about midnight, he comes and wakes me, asking for his car keys, so that he can go and pick up Nick, who is currently walking down the hill to our house. This discussion goes on far longer than one would think, but he finally accepts that he isn't getting the keys, and goes off to meet Nick on foot, just like he used to. Then there is some scuffling around the house, and surreptitious eating of various articles, both upstairs and down, and then they settle.

At eight I go downstairs and wake Joe. At eight-thirty, I go downstairs and wake Joe. At 8:45, I go downstairs and wake Joe. At nine-oh-five I go downstairs and yell, "If you aren't ready to go when I think we ought to leave, then I'm not taking you!" It is now 9:28. The test, in case you have forgotten, is at ten.

Fog on little cat feet

"Why, there's nothing there but a field!"

Thus Uncle Ken, when I presented a map I had edited for him, for a mailing he was putting out to lure other unsuspecting real estate agents over to Oregon First. It was not, you understand, an accurate map -- not a map you would use to actually GET somewhere. Just a stylized map to sort of show how many offices we have in the Portland area. And the little conversation bubble which was pointing to the Vacouver office was maybe a thirty-second of an inch below the spot which held the invisible office. Where, in Uncle Ken's deathless oratorical style, there was nothing but a field.

This is going to represent Uncle Ken to me, now and hereafter. It's possible, I suppose, that he will say something else that will be even more Kennian to me -- but so far, that's it.

The drive in this morning was lovely, in spite of a lot of traffic -- and in spite of the fact that I overslept this morning by about an hour, as a result of my stomach pain last night -- because the lovely drifting fog straying down the sides of the wooded hills, from the fat white bulk of it along the tops of the hills.

Yes -- serious pain last night for about two hours -- when I at last woke this morning, it was with a sense of amazement that I had actually slept. I've got to go and see a doctor.

Last night when I arived home -- late, after picking up Kevin Ray and taking him to Fred's to get a prescription filled -- I found the house standing wide open -- three doors actually open, and several blinds pulled up. When I went in, I found the kitchen and dining room pretty much trashed, and smears of butter, bread crumbs, mango peels and chunks of cheese and scrambed egg smearing the counters. Twelve glasses were standing around the kitchen full to varying degrees of milk and juice. Other evidence of the juice-making were on the counters, from the empty cans to the trails and trickles and sticky spots of juice. Eaten -- or at least, vanished, were: two mangoes, four pears, six yogurts, a loaf of bread, two half gallons of milk, a lot of cheese, a package of pre-cooked Indian rice, four of the bottles of water I was taking to work with me (waah!) and a full dozen eggs.

And this is what the house still looked like when I left this morning -- Joe slept most of the evening, and then when he did get up, he kept not taking cae of any of it. I confess I did pick up and stack up and wipe up several screamingly egregious examples of the above-mentioned stuff. I did leave him a big-lettered note, though. So we shall see. I should be prepared, when I get home, to find that nothing has been done.

Yay, Labor!

It started raining in the night, sometime after midnight and before six. Pretty steadily, pretty hard -- big fat drops of very wet wetness. Makes me cherish my steaming hot cup of tea with quiet gleefulness and try to let the rain work its old-time magic on me. I remembered when I woke that my car's windows were open and went outside in my nightshirt to close them -- six am on a holiday weekend morning, who was going to be up? And no one was -- and got my feet good and chilled. They are still cold and feel damp, even though I went back to bed for another hour or so, and then sat at the computer for a few. It's eleven now, and I'm wondering what this day is going to hold for me? I've got housework to do, of course, and laundry... but I already swept the dining room, so that looks better to me... I guess we will just have to wait and see.

I called Mom and Dad this morning, to see if they were home, thinking of going down to visit them -- but no response. Don't really want to drive to the coast on a holiday, or be in Cannon Beach on a holiday, either. And, I went over to Mickey's last night and hung out with her and Bryson, which is always enjoyable. This time was good, too, cuz we were at Gabriel Park, watching Bryson play on the playground equipment and talking. And then coming home and listening to Mickey reading Treasure Island aloud, and eating watermelon. A very nice evening was had by all.

I got an e-mail from Ruthie last night, which was very cheering -- amazing, isn't it, what a sucker I am for affection from my family? But yes, it cheered me no end just to see her name on the message, and reading the loving words was the icing on the cake. She thinks I should allow Joe to get his apartment and move on out of my life, just for the sake of sparing myself the worry and distress. (Which I am eager and anxious to do, if for nothing else, then because I am developing an ulcer. Serious pain whenever I eat anything other than yogurt.) But see, I also know that Joe will still be calling me probably every other day, wanting money or food or laundry or some such thing. Which I will, of course, be happy to provide, as long as I can -- as long as I am only responsible for my own bills. This morning I went downstairs, for some reason, and found three lights left on -- none of them visible from the stairway, of course, and turned them off with a sinking feeling -- the exchequer is getting extremely thin. So the thought of my own tiny apartment with only the lights on that I have turned on, and nothing ever left on overnight or while I am at work, sounds very seductive -- calls to me across the tossing seas!