Oh Can't Complain

Today is my older brother’s birthday. For a change I was aware of its approach and I pre-purchased and sent out a card well in advance. I even remembered to call him and we talked for hours. While this isn’t an unusual thing for me, some people might find it for him. As a kid, Jerome was the one who always managed to find something interesting to do and didn’t mind if I watched or tagged along. Granted he often got into trouble with his thinking outside of the box activities (I think Dad still has pieces of that lawnmower you disassembled.) I know I’m probably repressing some of the torturous moments, okay I’m not, I still remember being locked into the tire well of the family station wagon. I still don’t like tight spaces.

But I mostly remember the fun times, like sneaking off on a Saturday morning to take a bus all the way to Yonkers to see the latest James Bond movie. Of course we would stay in the theatre all day long, y’know because they wouldn’t kick you out if you were behaving yourselves. And the sledding ramp he showed us how to build was great. I can remember taking pitchers of water outside so that we could ‘set’ the ramp. Setting meant going out after dinner and pouring water over hard packed snow in the shape of a ramp until it froze solid. So now we could careen through the air into the piles of snow the plows left at the bottom of our dead end street.

He also helped me to be more self-sufficient. In high school if we missed the school bus, rather than going back home to incur the wrath of Dad and have to listen to him yell at us for the entire 20 minute drive to school, we’d walk into White Plains and catch a bus to school from there. Sure it would take 40 minutes, but it was a peaceful 40 minutes and at most I’d miss 1st period, which was usually band or a science lab. By the time he graduated, I was able to get around most anywhere by bus. This is a good idea when there are so many kids vying for the keys to the car.

But with all of these things, chatting on the phone for hours is not something Jerome is known for. This seems to be a late-in-life trait he’s developed. I can’t even tell you all the things we talked about, although talking about work or computers is a good bet. Otherwise it could be anything. I totally forgot to ask how his bees are doing.

And just as I was thinking about how much I appreciate and enjoy my brothers and sister, I get an email from my s-i-l, Hyunjoo. It’s a great newsy letter that just made me grin. So I suppose I should expand my thought to include my sibs-in-laws too. While they don’t have all those weird idiosyncrasies you get when you grow up in the same house, they are still pretty damn cool. Not everyone is so lucky.

In general, life’s been good. I’ve been procrastinating about things I want to get done. But things seem to get done eventually. I guess a better way to look at it <watch for the spin> is that I am enjoying the summer more by doing things I enjoy with people who are fun. If that means that I drive around another two weeks with my funky taped up top and primer grey fender, then okay. I can deal with that. I’ve seen some great movies, had engaging conversations, and seen vistas of San Francisco that would take your breath away. Oh yeah and all this at the lowest stress level in years. So you know when you ask someone how they are doing and the respond, “Oh can’t complain.” Well they really mean to say things are good and I’d like it to stay that way for a while.

Got any complaints?

Goodbye Peach

18 summers ago we got a kitten from our cousins. They had named this kitten Ghost, but it didn’t work for us, she was a white cat with big tabby-colored spots. She was friendly and curious and when offered a bit of a juicy summer peach would actually eat it. So we named her Peaches. She was a hunter cat, climbing trees and always tempted to pounce on anything even if it was just your foot under a blanket (ouch!), but would allow you to hold her and pet her, but never stayed long. When I lived at home, I was her preferred piece of furniture. If I were lying on the couch, she would come up and lounge on my hip or curl up on my stomach.

I’m not sure what makes a cat decide that you are her people and that this is the place she will come back to every night. But this must have worked for Peach since she did just this for the past 18 years. She liked a good fight and for years we called her boo-boo face because she always had a scratch or two on her. We hoped that the other guy always looked even worse. Now she was a moody cat and would often get irritated about something or someone. One of her favorite hiding spots were on the dining room chairs. Since they were typically tucked under the table, her position was secure. However the backs of these chairs had slats just wide enough for a kitty arm to reach through and swat at the offending party. Both the dog and the humans learned to watch for the little white arm or risk getting scratched.

A couple of days ago Peach got shot in the head by a pellet gun and was found on the front steps of our house covered in blood. She was still alive but not doing very well so Mom and Aunt Alice took her to the vet to put her to sleep. Right now I’m sad and furious. Sad because she couldn’t end her life in the peaceful way that she had lived hers. Furious because we are pretty sure that the ‘kids’ who live across the street were playing with their gun and shot her. Of course they denied it, and the police can’t be bothered by the situation, but other neighbors have complained about damage done to their property by these kids and their gun. Mom is going to talk to a bunch of people to see if anyone else can be outraged by this and at least investigate. More times than not seriously damaged people started out their careers of cruelty with animals and worked their way up to people. My parents live in an area that is more like Columbine than not. I just hope that these kids don’t end up living in their parents’ basement when they grow up. If they are allowed to get away with this I’d be happier if they didn’t continue to live in the neighborhood. I want them gone before they do something worse.

I do truly believe in what comes around goes around. It’ll make it easier for me to get over this horrible thing. It’s strange how people can look at animals one way and others can bring them into their homes and hearts and turn them into so much more.

I’ve been exceptionally affectionate with the four cats that are in my life right now. I hope my body can withstand the allergic reaction because the rest of me needs to enjoy these connections while I’ve got them.

Convertibles are so cool

It was a beautiful day today. Granted I was up late the night before and slept until 10 am, but the day I did see was wonderful. The night before I had dinner with my friend Christopher. It dawned on me that I have known him longer than anyone else, aside from my family. How long would that be? 22 years. We met in 9th grade. Our lockers were only a few apart and his door opened so that I could see the inside of his locker door. He had this picture of an old man with a cigar stuck up his nose. It was gross and I told him so. He laughed. So when we met in the graphic arts room later that year, we already had this antagonistic relationship. We’ve been friends ever since. I’ll note here that he still does things to get a rise out of me. Last night it was sticking his food-covered tongue at me. This time I laughed and told him it was gross and to grow up. But really I hope we never do.

But I digress, let me get back to today. I have been teaching Christopher the ways of the mobile phone and had planned on going to pick one up for him this afternoon. I had coasted across the bridge with my gas gauge on E last night, so getting gas was priority number 1. My gas gauge doesn’t have the nifty little light that tells you when you are really empty and the last gallon is being consumed. So I try to keep things well above E most of the time. I kept expecting her to sputter on conk out on me, but she didn’t. Another catastrophe averted. I thought things would be okay since my cell phone had a fresh battery and I only seem to need to call AAA for assistance when I have a low battery and no spare.

So fresh from the gas station I head off to the city where they must have been giving something away. Why else could the traffic at noon on a Saturday be worse than any time I have crossed on my way to work in the morning? I arrived to hear the new Robert Plant CD blasting on the stereo. Christopher decided to hold off on the phone until later but wondered if we could go to Target instead? Of course we have to drive some where, the top is down on the Miata and it’s too nice of a day to be inside. We brought CDs to play. It would have worked out great if my tape player hadn’t kept ejecting the speaker/tape doodad that you use to hook up a portable CD player. I guess I better buy one of those head cleaners when we get to Target.

I’m getting better at getting around in the city. I managed to find the way to the Target in Daly City without getting too lost. We shopped, bought mundane things like paper towels and soap, had lunch, bought a cool plant and headed back. It was a fun day with a great friend in a cool little car.

I am so glad that I bought it just over 5 years ago. It’s been fun and economical. We used it to carpool to work saving bridge fare and getting from home to my office in 20 minutes during rush hour. The numerous trips out to see the area or just running errands is so much more fun with the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. Sure I’ve bought my share of hats and sunscreen but it was all worth it. I got my title in the mail the other day. So now the car is all mine. Some days I wish that she had a more spacious trunk or a back seat, but most of the time she’s perfect the way that she is. I love driving people around who have never driven in a convertible before. I love the sheepish smile they get when I ask them if they’d like it if I took the top down. Playing with the wind is way cooler in a convertible. Even if it’s a little cold out, I can always turn on the heater. Some days I think about what I would get if I had to buy another car. I go through all the options but today I know I’d get another car just like the one I have now. I know that when I’m old and looking back I’ll remember how cool it was to have had a convertible. Who knows maybe I’ll still have one then.

What was I Thinking?

Even in the dark mood that I’m in right now, I still manage to make myself laugh. The ex and I have been exchanging email the past couple of days tying up loose ends. Every time I see her name in my inbox I am overwhelmed by these feelings. They run the gamut as they have since the sixteenth of February when we decided to call it quits.

I’ve been mostly sad and angry. I wasn’t expecting her to give up on us when I issued an ultimatum that took me a couple of weeks to compose in my head. She was the one who taught me it took more than desire to make something work. It took work and effort and lots of times it wasn’t going to be easy. And there were lots of times when I wondered, what was I thinking?! We got through a lot of those times and I always felt stronger, more able to cope with life.

Now that it’s over, I say those words and hear Christine Lavin's voice saying, "What was I Thinking?!" and it makes me laugh.

I’ve been thinking a lot today about my life. I’m still happy that I am getting a chance to start things over again. I realized that I keep tripping over memories. I think I was avoiding them by keeping busy and distracted by the logistics of moving and job hunting. Today the smell of a grove of eucalyptus trees reminded me of the weekends I spent with her in her grad dorm room when I first moved out here. The green lushness of the Mills campus was the backdrop as I slowly fell in love with her. Later, hearing a song on the radio as I turned onto Gough, reminded me of the time a year and a half ago when I was afraid that she might die, as I drove home from the hospital. I remembered how scared and confused she was earlier that morning. I remember reassuring her that everything would be all right. Within a few hours time, while I went home to try and get some sleep, she slipped into a coma as her body tried to cope with fulminant liver failure. When she got the liver transplant she needed, I was so relieved and thought that if we could get through something like this, everything else would be easy.

I know there will be more memories to deal with. The bad ones make me feel better that this was the right thing to do. The good ones make me feel sad and wonder why there weren’t more of them. I’m still very sad that I’ve lost my best friend. There are so many things that I only shared with her. I’ve been lucky to have other friends step in to help fill that void she left behind and share how they felt when this happened to them. I know this is the part where someone reminds me that time heals all wounds. And maybe they’ll say in their best Christine Lavin impersonation, “What was I Thinking? What was I, Blind?!...” and make me laugh again.