Memories

I usually wait until something funny happens or at least until a few funny things happen before I submit a post. I am submitting this one – not because it is especially funny but because I want to.



We spend a good 18 years with our parents. From there we chose are paths and visit from time to time. I was convinced that as my parents aged they became weird. For example, my mother and stepfather wear glasses all of the time. They ordered caller id for the same reason that you did. Unfortunately, they did not order a large text screen for their caller id unit. Every time I called them I could not understand why it took them so long to answer. One day during a visit I learned the answer. This is the scenario:

Ring....

“Babe, who is it?” Mom

“I don’t know, aren’t you near the phone?” Stepdad

Ring...

“Yes, but I don’t have my glasses.” She picks up the phone and hands it to her husband. Almost hitting him in the head because he is trying to read the display from far away.

Ring...

“Well, I don’t have my glasses either, where are they?”



“You left them in the table, mine are in the bedroom. So, YOU see who it is.” He reaches for his glasses on the coffee table almost tipping over in his LaZBoy chair.

Ring...

“Okay, I got them… Now let’s see. Ooop.”

“Hello, you have reached the…..” Answering Machine



I couldn’t believe it. This scene had been playing for weeks. Prior to the caller id phone, they answered the line with no injury to themselves. I talked them into getting a separate unit with large screen display. Later when they ordered satellite dish, I enabled Caller ID display on the TV screen for them.



My father suffered a rash of hubcap theft his first year in his new Detroit home. I went to visit him one day. Very funny. Dad was so angry about losing yet another hubcap to the thieves that he drove me around his block shouting, “That’s my damn hubcap. No, there it is! ”We must have passed each of his hubcaps twice during that 4 block drive.

Dad is also a trickster. He will invite me up to visit and then sit outside drinking beer listening to classic soul. As if we did not have plans. The last time he did this was Father’s Day. We were supposed to go to a festival that featured WAR, yes War. He goofed off showing to me his latest wood whittling project, the compost pit that he built, the birdfeed he made, his new blooming bulbs and perfect lawn. Yes, he rubbed in the fact that I cannot seem to keep a green lawn. He is very proud of his new hobby and talents. So was I, but I wanted to see War live in concert and he knew that. Besides, he never asks me about my crochet hobby. Of course, we missed some great songs by the time he got there. Over the years, I have learned just to go into the kitchen and listen to my stepmother tell her very funny stories and let him be with his beer and classic soul.



If my parents got old and wanted to live the rest of their lives with one of their children, I would bid on MOM. She is a great cook but I am not. In her twilight years, I will cook a lot of vegetarian, tomato based and diabetic meals. When she asks “What is this?” I am going to say, “Why? Do you think that I am trying to KILL you? Just eat it.” A common response to my question about many family dinners as a child. Payback, I can’t wait.



Grandparents are another story. Being the oldest granddaughter takes some responsibility. It means making sure that my grandparents recognize me before dementia sets in. Yesterday, I spent the day with my sick grandmother and my senile grandfather. I realized too late that I haven’t spent enough time with Grandpa. He became rather angry with me in his home without my aunt, his eldest daughter there. I had tried to visit whenever she was there so that he would know that I belonged there but I hadn’t visited enough.


That day I was alone with him and Grandma who was too ill to get out of bed. Knowing that I would be there all day, I decided to help Grandma out and skip the Westerns watching with Grandpa. (They never tire of Western movies and Encore has a dedicated ‘Westerns movie channel.’) Bad move on my part. He demanded to know why I was taking all of his cat food. I was bagging it for the trash. He didn’t care that all 30 cans of cat food had expired the end of last year and most of it had gone bad two years ago. He insisted that he will feed his cats even though I reminded him that he hadn’t fed them in years. In fact they were long dead. He wanted me to leave. I had no right to clean his kitchen. No right to move the 10 fuses that he didn’t need because his home had been converted to a circuit breaker 5 years ago. I told him that I was not leaving and that I would clean his kitchen because Grandma was not feeling well. He threatened to call his daughters on me to get me to leave. I gave him the number to call my mother. He called it and of course she did not answer. He accused me of knowingly giving to him the number to a messaging service.


One of my older cousins came over and convinced him that I was my mother. He stopped threatening to punch me out. (it is okay to giggle) At the time, I was annoyed but patient. It hadn’t occurred to me that he had forgotten who I was. I came around and I visited when I could; just not enough. I knew that he would forget about the cat food and I continued to clean the kitchen. He would forget that my cousin came over or that I told him that i could outrun him if he came after him. I left the fuses stay where they were and cleaned out canned goods that had expired in 1997. Besides, the whole thing was actually really funny.

After I made him dinner he told me stories. He told me about one event that changed everything. Losing his father at 15 and being the eldest son to a family of 9 made all the difference. No college for him. Becoming a father himself just six years later and then caring for two families left no time to pursue his dreams. His memories of his youth and his 30 year career are crystal clear. It made me think about his dreams, his mother and my mother. I can listen to him talk about events that happened 40 years ago as if they happened last week for hours even told twice. But I can’t sit and watch Westerns all day long.

Perhaps in my twillight years after my crochet hobby has crippled me, my grandchildren or my sister's grandchildren (which is more likely) will sit at my feet watching Encore SciFi on the holovision and i will chase after them for trying to throw out my yarn basket.

Kitten Farts and International Incidents

Kitten farts zap like a man

A few weeks back I babysat for Cousin L. Lil T is four years old. Have you ever watched a precocious child play with a kitten? You don’t really know what to do. It is a cheap and lazy way to keep her entertained on one hand and cruelty to a defenseless creature on the other. Lil T, couldn’t keep her hands off of the Kitty. She wanted to know, “where is her momma?” Then she promptly told everyone who came to visit that Kitty “Kitty don’t got no momma, she still at the pet store.” When I was cooking dinner, Lil T runs into the kitchen holding Kitty in her hands as if to drop her down a well. She says, “Kitty has to booboo. Kitty has to go potty. Kitty farted.”

You see, Kitty has an annoying gas problem. Her farts take you down just like a man’s. The next day we took Kitty to the Vet. Unfortunately, Kitty cut a big one in the waiting room. Lil T shouts (like her mother) "Kitty Farted AGAIN" "when are we going to see the vet and ask him why she keep farting/" This went on for 20 minutes in a crowded waiting room. Lil T tells the vet, “Kitty FARTS,” before I could ask him anything. “Why does Kitty fart like that? Kitty smells like she has to go booboo.”

I had a lovely weekend with Lil T. But my cousin did not warn me about her early morning adventures. I don’t have kids. My sister’s kids are all teenagers. I forgot that when preschoolers get up, you have to get up with them. She came in my room around 7 am. I turned on the tv and went back to bed. When I finally got out of the bed I found gum stuck to everything. Her nightclothes, the kitchen counter, the bookshelf and the Kitty. Yes, she stuck gum in Kitty’s fur. Very funny.

She told her mother that my cat farts a lot and it smells like a grown person.



I have the best bowel movements now

Between yoga, fiber enriched cereal and spicy food I am regular. Getting older asks for problems. Your bowels change, your metabolism changes, skin (what the hell is with adult acne?), suddenly you can’t eat foods you like anymore – it just sucks.

I may be wrong, but I think He was looking for a Whorehouse!

So, I was referred a guy for a roommate early this summer by the International office. It seems that many international students live in temporary housing for months after arriving in USA before finding a place. Many of them look for American roommates in order to practice their English. I met with this guy who had failed the English language comprehension test twice. He could not enroll in college until he passed it. He was looking for an American to live with. I figured, International students must past terrorist screening. If homeland security let him in then I could meet with him and perhaps rent a room out to him. Homeland security has some serious problems. Just how much money are they wasting on nonsensical items anyway?

After talking to him, I had already realized that there was no way I would share my home and talk to him. As I was wrapping the meeting, he asks innocently, “Do you have parties?”

“Yes, I had a party just recently.”

“Do you have girl-friends?”

“Yes,”

“Do you have girlfriends that I can meet?”

“No, my girl-friends are married with children”

“Oooh, Do you have a girl-friend that would have sex with me. I have money”

I know, you are thinking, did you pull out a gun and tell his ass to leave? No, I thought perhaps there is a cultural/language barrier thing going on here. So, I asked some clarifying questions.

“ Are you asking me if I know any prostitutes”

Now, he looks confused. As if he is looking in his translation guide for the right word.

“Eh, no. I just want to have sex. I want a girl who would have sex with me. Just for a little while. A few months. I will pay money to her.”

Still thinking, there is no way this foreign guy is asking me to pimp out my friends to him.

“Don’t you have any female friends.”

“Well yes but they are just friends. I am here all by myself and I can’t take it anymore. Everyone goes to his girlfriend’s house and has sex. I want to have sex. But I will pay. It is okay. “

“Well, I guess we should go now.”

“Oh okay. Well, I want to rent the room.”

You got to be Freaking Kidding me, I thought to myself.

“There is now way I am going to live with you if you want to pay my friends to have sex with you. That would creep me out.”

You creep.

How do these people find me.



I hit the house again…..

This most recent time, I had to take the car to Saturn and have the panel replaced. Yes, I hit it that hard.

Reload No More Strays

This is a post from another journal of mine. I thought that i would finally update my LiveJournal with this relevation

I thought that iw Okay, some of you do not know that i live by myself. Well, had this great roommate who is also a great friend that lived with me until April. I miss her a lot. I got used to having someone around. Someone to talk to. Someone to help out with the crazy high utility bills. I thought that it would be easy to find someone else to live with me. I was wrong. All I have found are strays. And let me tell you taking in a stray is always a bad move.



Strays

Some Definitions

“Stray” means any animal that does not appear, upon reasonable inquiry, to have an owner/guardian

Homeless person is an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence

For some stray animals “follow them home” for me stray humans do the same and I have a heck of a time getting them housetrained or to leave.

I had a cat that was an adopted stray GEEZ that was a nightmare. She pooed everywhere but in her litter box. She chose the bath mat, any corner with accumulated dust, an empty room. I secretly hoped that my roommate would take the cat for a drive. If she did it then I could be free of my unmitigated desire to get rid of her without actually doing it and dealing with related guilt. I kept shooting mental commands at my roommate to take the cat, take her away. I finally left open the door to a room with a broken window. Wheh. Finally, I have admitted it. Now the speculation about what happened to the cat can end. I did it. I shut her in a room with a window open and hoped she would free herself. I blocked out the memory of what i had done and actually accused my roommate of doing something sinister to the cat. I tell people know that she ran away.

My first human stray was Armondoma (-oma means tumor). And a stray he was. No possession just a few bags of clothes, a clock radio, cell phone, space heater and george foreman grill. I guess by homeless people standards he was better off than most. I didn’t pick him for a stray right away because he had family in the area. My mistake. The fact that he obsessed over Mariah Carey, hung out at his job for hours on his days off and recorded ten hours of soap operas and videos everyday didn’t register as a loser. Even when he slept with the light on because he was afraid of the dark- I didn't see it coming. No, it wasn't until i found myself hiding from him at night becuase he would trap me in the kitchen. He had this fantasy that the 19 year old that he worked with and was in a 3-year relationship with his girlfriend was really gay. The girlfriend, whom he hated, had done something to him. The two had been friends since Andy was 17, Drea started working there and now they are a couple. Of course, Armondoma and the guy's relationship would never be the same as long as Armonda had a crush on Andy. I couldn't take it. I finally told the Drea that Armondoma was trying to convince me and everyone else that she had turned a gay man to straight. It made a lot of sense to her because she had no idea why Armondoma was so hostile to her. The Andy, 19 year old boyfriend, finally had to complain to management that he was being sexually harassed by a 36 year old man. All three of them worked at the movie theaters. Ever see the MAD tv skit about ushers? Yeah, it really is like that.

The worst kind of stray is a family friend or a relative. After I cut Armondoma out of my house I asked my relative Imakronikliar (Im-A-Kro-nic-Li-ar) stay with me. Imakronikliar had me going, talking about making a change and just needing some help to get there. I was so happy to have that tumor removed that I didn’t see that Imakronikliar a mouth disease, liarosis. After about two months, I found myself just as unhappy as I had been living with the tumor. Once, I had yelled at ImaKronicLiar for canceling one of my favorite shows on the DVR. I yelled at ImaKronicLiar often, long and loud. It really didn’t matter what was done to irritate me, it didn’t matter if I overreacted. Hell, it didn’t matter if I was wrong. I changed the locks on my doors one lock at a time. Just imagine. You arrive home. There are two locks on the door and for no apparent reason, one lock does not turn with your key. I am sure it was bewildering and upsetting to never know when or where I would strike next. I am sure Imakronikliar got the picture. GET the HELL OUT. When he finally left he had pissed me off so bad, i gave his clothes to Goodwill. Imagine the attendant starting at me as i handed to her very expensive men's clothing. i know what she wanted to ask me. Yet, i would not say.