Rain is pouring straight down, thunderous on the roof, and so dense that I can't really see through it. Heavy, solid water, pounding down on the ducks in the pond so that they are not actually swimming but just enduring its force with their heads down. I'd get off the water, if it were me, were I a duck -- and get under some shelter. And how is that goose doing on her nest?
I wish I had a camera that I could use -- I do, but can't use it -- to take a shot or so a day of my life. Wouldn't that be lovely?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Contraband
...
Okay.
I feel the need to write this stuff down. I want to tell someone, but since it is not quite 8:30 on a Saturday morning, I don't want to interrupt anyone, or wake anyone up, and I do want to say this!
A few days ago, my son Joe called and got permission to have Nick spend the night. That was the day -- remember? -- that I came home and found that my apartment had been turned upside down by two stoned teenagers who thought they were so funny and clever, but then immediately after each funny/clever incident, forgot it and wandered off to do something else funny and clever. And then when they decided to leave, they just left, without turning off any lights or closing any drawers or putting any of their funny and clever things back where they got them. So I came home and found the obviously post-dope-session apartment. As I was stalking around, fuming to myself, putting thing after thing back where it went, I noticed a large blank and empty space on the top shelf of the hall bookcase. Where the boxed set of hardbound Tolkien sits. I looked around for it, feeling quite certain that it had been used like the other books still out on the dining room table, as a jump for a tech deck, but could not find it. Anywhere. And this apartment is quite small, so there aren't any places to hide a boxed set of books.
When I next saw Joe, which was at least 48 hours later, I asked him where this boxed set was. He denied all knowledge of it. I asked if anyone else had been in the house, other than Nick. He denied that, too, vehemently. "Then Nick has it," I said. Joe denied the possibility of this. I pointed out, that with only himself and Nick in the house, then ONE of them, at least, must know. He just looked at me blankly, and said, "Nope -- neither of us do."
Nope -- neither of us do. As though this FACT was going to dissolve because he just shook his head. No understanding of A plus B equals C, just thinking, "If I don't admit it, she can't do anything about it."
Okay -- so then he sold his truck and went off with a handful of money, which he certainly needs to pay at least some part of his bills. I haven't seen him since. And this morning, I was tidying up the house, and decided to pick up some of the garbage in the computer room, where Joe sleeps. And found, squirreled away behind a box, and under his covers, and squished behind the bookcase, to wit:
1. One 2-pound bag of raisins, opened and eaten from -- the second one of these he has taken into his room
2. A bag of very moldy bread, half eaten
3. Three mostly-eaten bags of chips
AND
4. TWO half-empty 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor.
In my house,in my house,IN MY HOUSE!
And we have had the conversation about why he cannot drink, that it is, simply, illegal, and so therefore he cannot -- end of story, just like he has to have car insurance if he is going to drive -- and you know how well that worked out, right? -- many times! And quite recently, too.
But still, he just took these two bottles out of his backpack and left them on the floor in my house, hidden behind a wadded-up blanket, but very findable.
So what does that say about his attitude toward me? That I am just the mother, the one who feeds and comforts, but not the one who punishes? The one who knows the answers to questions, but is too stupid to move a blanket? The one who pays for the house but has no right to say what happens there?
I'm really, really angry about this! Help!
Okay.
I feel the need to write this stuff down. I want to tell someone, but since it is not quite 8:30 on a Saturday morning, I don't want to interrupt anyone, or wake anyone up, and I do want to say this!
A few days ago, my son Joe called and got permission to have Nick spend the night. That was the day -- remember? -- that I came home and found that my apartment had been turned upside down by two stoned teenagers who thought they were so funny and clever, but then immediately after each funny/clever incident, forgot it and wandered off to do something else funny and clever. And then when they decided to leave, they just left, without turning off any lights or closing any drawers or putting any of their funny and clever things back where they got them. So I came home and found the obviously post-dope-session apartment. As I was stalking around, fuming to myself, putting thing after thing back where it went, I noticed a large blank and empty space on the top shelf of the hall bookcase. Where the boxed set of hardbound Tolkien sits. I looked around for it, feeling quite certain that it had been used like the other books still out on the dining room table, as a jump for a tech deck, but could not find it. Anywhere. And this apartment is quite small, so there aren't any places to hide a boxed set of books.
When I next saw Joe, which was at least 48 hours later, I asked him where this boxed set was. He denied all knowledge of it. I asked if anyone else had been in the house, other than Nick. He denied that, too, vehemently. "Then Nick has it," I said. Joe denied the possibility of this. I pointed out, that with only himself and Nick in the house, then ONE of them, at least, must know. He just looked at me blankly, and said, "Nope -- neither of us do."
Nope -- neither of us do. As though this FACT was going to dissolve because he just shook his head. No understanding of A plus B equals C, just thinking, "If I don't admit it, she can't do anything about it."
Okay -- so then he sold his truck and went off with a handful of money, which he certainly needs to pay at least some part of his bills. I haven't seen him since. And this morning, I was tidying up the house, and decided to pick up some of the garbage in the computer room, where Joe sleeps. And found, squirreled away behind a box, and under his covers, and squished behind the bookcase, to wit:
1. One 2-pound bag of raisins, opened and eaten from -- the second one of these he has taken into his room
2. A bag of very moldy bread, half eaten
3. Three mostly-eaten bags of chips
AND
4. TWO half-empty 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor.
In my house,in my house,IN MY HOUSE!
And we have had the conversation about why he cannot drink, that it is, simply, illegal, and so therefore he cannot -- end of story, just like he has to have car insurance if he is going to drive -- and you know how well that worked out, right? -- many times! And quite recently, too.
But still, he just took these two bottles out of his backpack and left them on the floor in my house, hidden behind a wadded-up blanket, but very findable.
So what does that say about his attitude toward me? That I am just the mother, the one who feeds and comforts, but not the one who punishes? The one who knows the answers to questions, but is too stupid to move a blanket? The one who pays for the house but has no right to say what happens there?
I'm really, really angry about this! Help!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Monday, Monday...
...can't trust that day!
I do believe I've said that before.
It is a very fresh morning, very fresh, crisply washed, freshly rained-on, but bright and blue with brilliant, eye-popping white clouds trimming the pale blue sky. Lovely! A very Spring-like Spring!
The vivid green, newly-minted green, glowing green of newly sprouted bulbs is decorating the back patio, to add to all the newly sprung colors of Spring. And since the maintenance man was out there this past weekend with a compressor and a high-pressure washer, blasting moss and grime and all other dulling agents off the fence and the cement and the brickwork, it's very clean and bright out there! Very vivid!
Wait, wasn't that one of Digby's words? I have spoke!
I do believe I've said that before.
It is a very fresh morning, very fresh, crisply washed, freshly rained-on, but bright and blue with brilliant, eye-popping white clouds trimming the pale blue sky. Lovely! A very Spring-like Spring!
The vivid green, newly-minted green, glowing green of newly sprouted bulbs is decorating the back patio, to add to all the newly sprung colors of Spring. And since the maintenance man was out there this past weekend with a compressor and a high-pressure washer, blasting moss and grime and all other dulling agents off the fence and the cement and the brickwork, it's very clean and bright out there! Very vivid!
Wait, wasn't that one of Digby's words? I have spoke!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
A delicate silver rain
Sitting in Sully's, in the warm and comfortable space, sipping their extra good dark coffee and smelling french toast and maple syrup. Mmmmmmm -- I took my "morning walk" this morning, (calling it that to convince myself to take it every morning) and as I passed one of several houses with a daphne odora bush, I paused to control my swooning as the unbelievable aroma wafted around me. Then I snipped off a cluster of the heavenly-scented flowers and dropped them into my cleavage. Whence, every so often, I get a heated scent of the gods. It is SUCH an aroma! I do believe it is my favorite smell on earth. Yes, better than midnight honeysuckle; yes, better than baking apple pie.
I do love this place, but I have found, in my walking, that there are several other small and unprotruberant restaurants in my neighborhood. One at least that I had not ever noticed before -- some sort of bar and grill, on Main, I think. They do serve breakfast, so that makes three breakfast places all within easy walking! PRET-ty cool. Until I try the As-Yet-Unnamed-Place, though, Sully's is still the best!
The walking that I've been doing -- so far just on weekends, since I'm leaving for work more than an hour early these days, but that won't be for very long -- doesn't tire my body out the way I was expecting it to do. It just tires my calves, which really do hurt (BING! lightbulb just went on re: charleyhorses!) and makes me very thirsty. I don't remember getting thirsty in my walks on the beach. But that could also be because the air there is so very full of moisture. 'Course, here I'm walking beside a river, so... But I guess an ocean, with the constant moving of the water, would dispell a lot more into the air. Anyway, whatever. Perhaps the calves thing is just that I'm fatter and heavier, and in much worse shape.
Well, Joe. The whole Joe thing is getting both easier and harder to bear. Easier because he really is a good boy, a wanting-to-please boy, (underneath, WAY underneath!) and because I know he will be leaving soon. And harder because he is just such a little shithead! And because I know he is leaving soon!
He and Nick came home one night -- Joe called and got permission to bring Nick home to spend the night for some reason, can't remember why, but anyway -- they were both drunk and stoned when they got here, and woke up and got stoned again. And then went somewhere. So when I got home from work, I found my sweet little apartment, tidy and welcoming as it always is when I come home to it, nearly unrecognizable. They had stolen one of the goose eggs from the nest and then left it out on the deck, had dropped several cigarette butts out there, had thrown the pillows from the couch on the floor, and the stack of bills from the table on the floor, and had mashed a banana into the mouth of the little china hippo, and turned the Headless Nude upside down and leaned her against the wall, had pushed my reading books off the ottoman and pulled several records out of the stacks and CDs from the drawer, had made macaroni and cheese and eaten some of from my special black-and-white teacup, but left several bites and a fork still in it, and several servings still in the pot. They had also eaten several frozen yogurts and a couple of frozen cheeseburgers, cuz the wrappers were all on the counter and floor in the kitchen. The salt shaker was taped to the top of a cardboard box which was lying on the table. It just didn't seem possible that they could have done all this ridiculous mischief and then forgotten it so completely as to leave the house with it all still there.
AND! Joe called me the other night, and asked if I had found his wallet, whcih he had left in the car. I said yes. He then asked me to bring it to him, along with ten dollars. (This is the day after he had admitted to me that he had spent an additional $20 of my money that I had told him to leave on the table for me.) I asked him what he needed this additional money for, and he said promptly, "I'm going to buy alcohol with it." I said, "No." He replied in a very no-nonsense voice, "And why not?" I said, "Joe, are you drunk right now?" And he hung up.
I do love this place, but I have found, in my walking, that there are several other small and unprotruberant restaurants in my neighborhood. One at least that I had not ever noticed before -- some sort of bar and grill, on Main, I think. They do serve breakfast, so that makes three breakfast places all within easy walking! PRET-ty cool. Until I try the As-Yet-Unnamed-Place, though, Sully's is still the best!
The walking that I've been doing -- so far just on weekends, since I'm leaving for work more than an hour early these days, but that won't be for very long -- doesn't tire my body out the way I was expecting it to do. It just tires my calves, which really do hurt (BING! lightbulb just went on re: charleyhorses!) and makes me very thirsty. I don't remember getting thirsty in my walks on the beach. But that could also be because the air there is so very full of moisture. 'Course, here I'm walking beside a river, so... But I guess an ocean, with the constant moving of the water, would dispell a lot more into the air. Anyway, whatever. Perhaps the calves thing is just that I'm fatter and heavier, and in much worse shape.
Well, Joe. The whole Joe thing is getting both easier and harder to bear. Easier because he really is a good boy, a wanting-to-please boy, (underneath, WAY underneath!) and because I know he will be leaving soon. And harder because he is just such a little shithead! And because I know he is leaving soon!
He and Nick came home one night -- Joe called and got permission to bring Nick home to spend the night for some reason, can't remember why, but anyway -- they were both drunk and stoned when they got here, and woke up and got stoned again. And then went somewhere. So when I got home from work, I found my sweet little apartment, tidy and welcoming as it always is when I come home to it, nearly unrecognizable. They had stolen one of the goose eggs from the nest and then left it out on the deck, had dropped several cigarette butts out there, had thrown the pillows from the couch on the floor, and the stack of bills from the table on the floor, and had mashed a banana into the mouth of the little china hippo, and turned the Headless Nude upside down and leaned her against the wall, had pushed my reading books off the ottoman and pulled several records out of the stacks and CDs from the drawer, had made macaroni and cheese and eaten some of from my special black-and-white teacup, but left several bites and a fork still in it, and several servings still in the pot. They had also eaten several frozen yogurts and a couple of frozen cheeseburgers, cuz the wrappers were all on the counter and floor in the kitchen. The salt shaker was taped to the top of a cardboard box which was lying on the table. It just didn't seem possible that they could have done all this ridiculous mischief and then forgotten it so completely as to leave the house with it all still there.
AND! Joe called me the other night, and asked if I had found his wallet, whcih he had left in the car. I said yes. He then asked me to bring it to him, along with ten dollars. (This is the day after he had admitted to me that he had spent an additional $20 of my money that I had told him to leave on the table for me.) I asked him what he needed this additional money for, and he said promptly, "I'm going to buy alcohol with it." I said, "No." He replied in a very no-nonsense voice, "And why not?" I said, "Joe, are you drunk right now?" And he hung up.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Sisters
Today I got an e-mail from my sister Ruth, which is lovely, and always makes me very happy, especially since a) she is in Germany for a year, and b) she was on a trip-within-the-trip to Portuagal, and didn't have computer access.
And then seconds later, I got a message from my older sister Sarah! Who lives in Mexico, and from whom I had not heard for more than a year! She had just discovered the last e-mail that I had sent her, which had somehow gotten lost for (say it with me now) more than a year. Amazing!
And then seconds later, I got a message from my older sister Sarah! Who lives in Mexico, and from whom I had not heard for more than a year! She had just discovered the last e-mail that I had sent her, which had somehow gotten lost for (say it with me now) more than a year. Amazing!
Lagniappe
Okay, here's the scoop.
Last night I stopped at the Salvation Army on my way home from work. I was kind of cross, since Joe had asked me to pick him up at Nick's on my way home, and I had tried to, but he had then gone to sleep and hadn't come to the door. Even though I had warned him specifically about this, when I called as I was leaving the office to say I would be there in fifteen minutes! So I stood there ringing the bell repeatedly, all to no avail. ARGH!
ANYWAY.
So. I had stopped at Salvation Army, and was tooling around my usual sites within its doors -- glass and china, picture frames, books and sweaters. I found a piece or two of china and a little box of small spools of thread of many colors. And then I found a sweater set -- a truly beautiful one, the color of golden brown sugar, with long cable diamonds running down the front. A two-piece set, and they wanted to charge me for each piece separately, so the set cost almost fifteen dollars, but still -- I will get many many days of wear from this set, and it's even a little too big for me, and so very pretty! So, in my estimation, completely worth it.
However!
When I got home, I was laying the set out to look at it and gloat over it. And, as I spread the cardigan out on the bed, something sparkling caught my eye as it rolled out onto the quilt. And guess what it was?
It was a diamond ring.
Perhaps not real diamonds, it could be cubic zirconia -- feels fairly light for the size of it -- and that's another thing about it -- it's also slightly too big for me! So I'm wearing it on the second finger of my hand, not even the ring finger.
But there it was! In the pocket of a sweater that I bought at the SALVATION ARMY!
A DIAMOND RING!
I mean, it's like a stupid scene in a poorly-written movie, too good to be true in several different directions at once!
Ten smallish diamonds, in a gentle curve, in a gold-tone setting. Really just as beautiful as my wedding ring was.
But not my wedding ring! A very pretty ring, and TOTALLY FREE!
Last night I stopped at the Salvation Army on my way home from work. I was kind of cross, since Joe had asked me to pick him up at Nick's on my way home, and I had tried to, but he had then gone to sleep and hadn't come to the door. Even though I had warned him specifically about this, when I called as I was leaving the office to say I would be there in fifteen minutes! So I stood there ringing the bell repeatedly, all to no avail. ARGH!
ANYWAY.
So. I had stopped at Salvation Army, and was tooling around my usual sites within its doors -- glass and china, picture frames, books and sweaters. I found a piece or two of china and a little box of small spools of thread of many colors. And then I found a sweater set -- a truly beautiful one, the color of golden brown sugar, with long cable diamonds running down the front. A two-piece set, and they wanted to charge me for each piece separately, so the set cost almost fifteen dollars, but still -- I will get many many days of wear from this set, and it's even a little too big for me, and so very pretty! So, in my estimation, completely worth it.
However!
When I got home, I was laying the set out to look at it and gloat over it. And, as I spread the cardigan out on the bed, something sparkling caught my eye as it rolled out onto the quilt. And guess what it was?
It was a diamond ring.
Perhaps not real diamonds, it could be cubic zirconia -- feels fairly light for the size of it -- and that's another thing about it -- it's also slightly too big for me! So I'm wearing it on the second finger of my hand, not even the ring finger.
But there it was! In the pocket of a sweater that I bought at the SALVATION ARMY!
A DIAMOND RING!
I mean, it's like a stupid scene in a poorly-written movie, too good to be true in several different directions at once!
Ten smallish diamonds, in a gentle curve, in a gold-tone setting. Really just as beautiful as my wedding ring was.
But not my wedding ring! A very pretty ring, and TOTALLY FREE!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sometimes Fifteen a Day: Or, the Generation Gap
Well, Nameless Agent strikes again, but this time it's an agent that I really like! And I feel slightly guilty for posting this post about him, but it's too good to pass up. I think, anyway. And anyway, he is far too elderly and unaware to find this and read it. Not that he isn't an intelligent human, he is, and knows his job. It's just that the whole technological world has pretty much passed him by.
Anyway.
This past Saturday, I am at the Second Saturday class, and during the break, Nameless Agent comes up to me. We exchange greetings, and then he says, in an undertone, with his hand on my elbow, as though this is a private matter, which he is asking me as a special favor:
Nameless Agent: "When you send out these e-mails, you know, with things like class schedules, would it be too much to ask for you to put (Name of Company Being Withheld By Request) on them?"
Me: You mean in the subject line?
Nameless: "...well, on them where I can see it?"
Me: "...Sure, no problem. I'd be glad to."
NA: "Because it's just too hard for me to tell, with my eyesight, and all, which e-mails are important. I just delete them all, unless I can see that they are actually to me. I mean, you know," and here he lowers his voice even more to make sure I get this, "sometimes I get fifteen messages A DAY."
! ! ! !
Anyway.
This past Saturday, I am at the Second Saturday class, and during the break, Nameless Agent comes up to me. We exchange greetings, and then he says, in an undertone, with his hand on my elbow, as though this is a private matter, which he is asking me as a special favor:
Nameless Agent: "When you send out these e-mails, you know, with things like class schedules, would it be too much to ask for you to put (Name of Company Being Withheld By Request) on them?"
Me: You mean in the subject line?
Nameless: "...well, on them where I can see it?"
Me: "...Sure, no problem. I'd be glad to."
NA: "Because it's just too hard for me to tell, with my eyesight, and all, which e-mails are important. I just delete them all, unless I can see that they are actually to me. I mean, you know," and here he lowers his voice even more to make sure I get this, "sometimes I get fifteen messages A DAY."
! ! ! !
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