2000-10-15
feeling kinda
it actually started on friday, when i heard from my best friend about their court date. i'll assume that you've all been following the various court sagas; if not, feel free to troll thru the older entries. the MegaBitch (henceforward referred to as MB) decided not to show up for her court date, but to send the troglodyke instead. this, of course, was of no use at all. just some stupid head game. so, again, MB has to be summoned to court, this time on a contempt charge. another court date, another game. and the stakes go up with each round. and the cat is still missing; MB claims to have taken her to a shelter that, amazingly, doesn't exist! are we suprised? nope, not really. and peaches (for the sake of privacy, most people here will go by nicknames, and she's from the south, so short for georgia peaches, we'll call her peaches) had a rough week on top of having to go to court just to get her stuff back, falling off a ladder at work and bruising most of herself, including, i'm sure, her ego. poor kiddo. you wonder why we're the morton salt girls? wonder no more.
the next court date in my little saga is the 20th. fortunately, i don't need to be present for that one either. i'm sure she's gonna pick a jury trial, and at this point, that's fine. she wants to face me down, i'm game. the evidence is on my side. it just annoys me that she's dragging this out.
had a run-in friday with one of the guys working on one of the projects i picked up, and it wasn't pleasant. he cornered me in the hall (don't think about the physics of that too hard; you can be cornered on a straight-away, trust me) and refused point blank to do something, raising his voice to make his point then walking away. what bothered me the most was my response, which was just telling him to do the work. he had a valid point about not understanding something, which i should have taken the time to rephrase as a question that i could answer. but raised voices and combative people spark my temper, and i don't always catch it soon enough. the fact that i have more tenure there, and know the ropes well, should be a reason to help, not give orders or lose my temper. i had my boss run interference for me, and marked it as a lesson for the next encounter (work harder to see the other point of view), but it had me a little off-balance for the next few hours.
talked to dad on friday, just to check in with him. dad has had to pick up all the day to day stuff that mom usually deals with, and that includes looking in on my gram. so he works, commutes, shops, takes care of mom, takes care of gram, does chores, and still deserves to have some time for himself, which i think is in short supply these days. and i worry about the toll that all this is taking on him.
the upside to all the worry about my mom is that dad and i are communicating better now than in a long time. i think it makes a difference that i call him at his office, when i'm in my office. makes it sort of a peer-to-peer thing, as we're both in places where we're seen as people, independent of our family roles. usually, i call the house, dad answers, and asks if i want to talk to mom. end of chat. but calling him at the office, he finds 15 or 20 minutes to just talk. it's nice. rough way to get there, but it's still nice.
called to check on gram saturday, because i haven't talked to her in a while, and she just had a tooth pulled. quite a blow to her pride - she's very proud of the fact that she's 86 (i think) and still has all her teeth. the dentist decided that the work to repair the tooth might not work, and it was just as easy to remove it (it's a molar) than put gram thru all the possibly not effective work and associated trauma. she's doing just fine physically, but she said she cried when the dentist told her what he thought would be the best course of action. the way it came out, actually, was 'my eyes were running down my face' - since the stroke, her words don't quite come out right, altho in this case, it seemed like a wonderful description. it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to be upset about, i told her. then i told her some happy stuff - my raise, and plans to go out to dinner with my sweetie. she was very happy to hear the news.
but that started her talking about boyfriends and relationships. this was the hard part of the conversation for me, for a lot of reasons. i'm happy with where i am right now, and i think my family is too, but sometimes i read expectations into comments. so i had some of the little voices in my head singing a chorus of 'settle down with a *nice* man', even tho gram never said that in so many words. and she shared a few opinions about family that i would rather have not heard. every family has it's problems. our family has it's problems. we know they're there. i know they're there. but talking about it, hearing someone's opinions, what they wish had happened, what they think they did wrong... it's rough. i got a lot of this when i was going thru my divorce, too, and it wasn't any easier then. actually, it was even tougher then, because it was tied directly to something in my life.
i did do a lot of celebrating this weekend; dinner friday night was fabulous. sweetie and i went to Lumi�re, a little french restaurant in newton. the chef there used to work at Upstairs at the Pudding, which i've also raved about. we had a fashionably late reservation, so we stopped over at eat for a cocktail and to catch up with adam, the fabulous bartender. then off to dinner... yum. nice, quiet room with a pleasantly subtle d�cor, and lovely, professional service. i had saut�ed scallops with wild mushrooms to start, haddock with a nice spicy batter and braised artichokes for dinner; sweetie had a new york aged sirloin, and we had the valrhona chocolate cake with brandied cherries for dessert. the cake was still warm, and gooey in the middle. fabulous! sweetie tried a few bites, and loved the cr�me anglaise that came with it, but actually, we gave up the pretense of sharing after that and i pulled the plate to my side of the table. 8)
and i got a great treat on saturday - i got to go thru the car wash! it takes very little to make me happy. 8) when we went out to dinner friday, there was a space right in front of the restaurant, but it was between two cars, so sweetie decided to take the next space down, by the corner, so we wouldn't get parked in. there was quite a suprise waiting for us when we came out from dinner. the car was *coated* with bird shit. apparently, we parked under the Tweetie Bird Frat House. the tree was, no joke, vibrating with birds. and they were still dropping little treats. it was a serious case of duck and run (no pun intended) to get into the car unscathed. now, a little bird splat is no big deal. but this was just disgusting. when we headed out saturday morning, i suggested it would be a good idea to wash the car, since the acid would damage the paint. sweetie said 'there is no paint left on this car; it's just steel red'. no car wash. we drive off and i went into Dunkies to get us coffee, and when i came out, sweetie asked if i was in a hurry to go run my errands. 'nope.' 'good. wanna go to the car wash?' yay! i *love* going thru the car wash. the suds, the lights, the big blow dryers... and the high-pressure jets, which apparently were aimed at the top edge of the windows on his little red car. i knew the seal on my window wasn't that great, but it seems the driver side is a little loose too. so we both got soaked, which made us all giggly. swatting at the water doesn't really do much to keep you dry.
then i went shopping and got two new pairs of shoes. i'm not really a girly girl, but i'm such a slut for shoes. i couldn't possibly need all the shoes i have. honestly, a basic pair for every day, sneakers, and a few dress-up pairs would suffice. ahhhhh... but there's nothing like a new pair of shoes. i got black clogs for every day, and a purple pair in a skrinkly shiny kind of fabric which match nothing i own... except black. there's a lot of black in my winter wardrobe, so i figure i'm safe there. i will confess, tho, to having bought a moss green pair of strappy pumps from valerie stevens that really don't match anything. i knew i couldn't match them to anything unless i bought the suit they went with, which i didn't. but i bought the shoes anyway. they're tucked away in my closet, and someday i'll have a reason to wear them. i also went thru a phase of buying two-tone shoes. not saddle-shoe two-tone, more the dress shoes with the cap that matches the heel or flats with a little insert in the front. and i did mary-janes for a while, too, but in funky fabrics like linen. *and* i scored a pair of doc martens in oiled leather for $35 a few months ago! what a score!
saturday night was beer and pool. everyone must have been giggling at me, because i walk in with my own cue and then proceed to suck at the game because i'm wildly out of practice. when i started, we'd play two or three times every week, and sometimes i'd go get a table just to practice. but i have a good time, because now it's just about having fun, not mastering the table. i can still jump a quarter off the bumper, so life is good.
then (next chapter in the band slut career) we went next door to hear four minus one, a local jazz trio, so i could pick up their promotional materials. it was so funny to walk up to the band and have them say 'oh! you must be...' and chat me up. usually, it's me chatting up the band. put me in full-on Marketing Mode. the drummer and i are alums from the same college, so that was a nice little chat. of course, it made me feel really old, since he graduated 6 years after me. anyway, i'm trying to win them a gig at one of my favorite hangouts. we'll see how that goes.
this afternoon was the board meeting for my non-profit group. i didn't really want to go, for political reasons that aren't worth going in to, but i went. the moderator in me kicked in, and i ended up directing a fair amount of the conversation, which was very productive overall. anyone who brought up an idea was immediately nominated to follow thru on it... and there were a lot of ideas. somehow, i got appointed Marketing Diva (at least that's the title i chose), which means i now get to coordinate all these little projects. it's a nice change from the last round of marketing efforts, which felt like a solo venture.
and now i'm gonna get dressed up in my new purple shoes and head out to hear some live jazz at the local watering hole. nice, peaceful evening out, to decompress and gear up for the week ahead.
