Thursday, June 11, 2015

Thursday in June

It's a beautiful day!  At least, so far; the media is threatening that the cool grey beauty of this morning is going to "burn off" and be miserable hot heat for the rest of the day, and they may be right, but at the moment, it is purely gorgeous outside.

I'm at the library, which is cool and quiet (except for the woman next to me, who is trying unsuccessfully to keep her laughter under her breath as she listens to Shia LeBeouf on headphones )  My mouth is a little sore, day two of wearing my brand new bridge, which I am so very grateful for and glad to have! And I feel fairly certain that the soreness is going to wear off, as I grow accustomed to this presence in my mouth.

Talked to Sarah on the phone this morning!  My older sister, who, since she has lived in Mexico speaking Spanish to everyone for the past 25 years or so, has a definite difference to her pronunciation of English and style of speech.  It's the first time we've spoken on the phone for about five years, and I really enjoyed it.  Her second son was just married last month, and she is still recuperating.  I wish I could have been there for it!  

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Bad Craziness

So -- I don't believe I have mentioned anything about my ex's recent behavior...?  With Joe, his son who deserves a much better father than the one he got.  Okay, so Joe had been getting messages on Facebook from Ex,  saying things like,  "Son, call your old papa -- I have no bad feelings for you,  and I hope you can overcome your hard feelings..." , "I want you to be best man at my wedding," along with a picture of a pouting twenty-something, and "I know an old guy who wants to give you some rifles!" along with a picture of him in a sombrero.

Joe has been ignoring them, although talking them over with me (he is offended by the marriage one, I think on my behalf, although I could NOT care less about that;  I am offended on his behalf over the "no bad feelings" one -- where the hell does Ex get off implying that he has any right to have bad feelings toward Joe?) and musing over whether it would be wise or foolish to drive up to Kelso and see his father.  He (loudly) wanted the chance to spit in his dad's face if he wasn't appropriately behaved, and he (secretly) really hoped for a father he could love. 

But then he got a call from Dylan, a young man who is the son of one of Ex's high school buddies.  He and Joe are Facebook friends and see each other every so often, and Dylan was at his dad's house when Ex came over for a visit.  Ex was talking to him and said something about where Joe lived, in a negative way, and Dylan responded, immediately, with the information that Joe did not live there any more, Joe lived here.  When he got home, he called Joe, very apologetically, saying, "Man, I'm sorry!  I didn't mean to, but I told your dad where you live!"

So Joe was at least slightly prepared for the FB message he got from his father next.  It said, rather confusedly, that Joe had better watch his back, because Ex was coming to kick his ass, and bringing with him, "my Aryan Brotherhood boys," all of whom had "done time for the Big One," and they were all coming to wreak unspecified havoc on Joe and his surroundings.  Not for any mentioned reason, you understand.  Just because.  This devolved into an online slanging match with Joe getting pugnacious and specifically asking his father to pick a time and place for them to sort this out between them once and for all.  In the crossfire, Joe said that he knew about a certain crime that Ex had committed, which I know Ex was devoutly pretending had never happened, and was earnestly believing would never see the light of day.   Anyway, Ex stopped responding when Joe asked for him to name his seconds, basically, and has not sent Joe any more messages.

HOWEVER!  The story does not end there.  I got a call from Abdullah, telling me that he had been hearing from Ex about Joe.  Which, considering that Abdullah and Joe have always been very close, seems so crazy to me, that I'm thinking Ex must be back on drugs.  Ex called him, in a pretend panic, telling him that he needed to get in touch with me since I was the only one who had any control over Joe, and could possibly save his life.  How, what, why? said Abdullah.  It seems, (said Ex)  that Joe had gone up to Canada (of all places) and from there had called his Granny Marcia -- Ex's Evil Mother, whom Joe has not seen since he was maybe eleven? -- and spun her some big yarn about being in undeserved trouble with the law up there, which was really the fault of these two other guys, who had set him up in some unspecified way, and could she send him $1900, and save him from jail time?  And she had done so, but now Joe was being charged with Elder Abuse, and theft, and mail fraud or something, and could Abdullah get in touch with me and get me to save Joe from jail?  So Abdullah tried to call me, at home and at work, just to say WHAT the HELL, but of course I had just changed my number and changed my job, so he was unable.  And when Ex called him back, he had to tell him that.

"Oh, no, because the police were here," said Ex.  "The police were here, wanting to track down Joe, who is apparently on a huge crime spree up there in Canada, just wreaking total undescribed havoc in the great white north."  Abdullah tried to get more details out of him, which Ex seemed to be providing, but they were very vague, and seemed to center on Elder Abuse, $1900 wired to Joe in Canada, and the police, who were very sternly looking for this young miscreant, who needed to be protected from his behavior, and was Abdullah SURE  that he couldn't get in touch with me? 

Then the last call was on the same day that Joe had been trying to get his father to name the day and choose his weapons.  Ex called Abdullah, and said, "Good news, it was all a mistake, the police came back and told us that the phone number that called  Granny Marcia from Canada was a very familiar one to them -- it belonged to some Big Daddy Mail Fraud and Confidence Trickster who constantly called little old ladies and pretended to be their grandchildren, and asked them to send him money.  So it wasn't Joe!  All a big mistake!  Whew!"

Abdullah tried to get some information on why Marcia would have thought this unidentified man on the phone was her grandson, and Ex said, "She said, 'But he called me Granny!  No one else calls me Granny!' so she knew it was him."

So there you have it.  Abdullah still cannot accept the Complete Liar diagnosis of Ex, although he has tried, and so he was trying to make some sort of sense of this behavior.  To me, it was all too familiar, and I'll bet money that Ex has some fresh track marks.  That might be an unkind thing to say, but I feel quite, quite certain that I am right.  Any other suggestions?