 Recap |
|
Karla and I went to dinner on Friday night, ate some cheese fries, and drank a couple of beers. We then went to the martini bar and tried to drink a white russian with Stoli Vanil and a chocolate martini, but clearly, we are getting old, because we could hardly stomach them. We went to my house and watched a little bit of Felicity and ate popcorn until she rushed home, realizing that her dogs had not been let out since that morning. "Things just got drastic!" she yelled repeatedly as she ran down my driveway in her high heels. The next morning, she picked me up, and we proceeded to shop more than I have ever shopped in a single day in my entire life. I am not really a shopper. If I had unlimited funds, perhaps I would enjoy it more, but come on. College girls who work in little dress shops are not the sweetest. Bitches, man. I finally had luck at a little dress shop and bought a black strapless dress with pink stripes on it. It's cuter than it sounds. My breasts are going to look gargantuan and I might look somewhat slutty and hookerish, but what're you gonna do? Throughout the course of the delirious day, we ate bagel sandwiches and drank smoothies. I bought three lamps. I bought a hat for the beach with an owl on it and four boxes of potpourri for $1. We each bought a pair of $15 shoes. It rained. We were cranky. We found a ziploc bag in her purse with three pretzel sticks in it and we gasped and pounced on it like we'd never eat again. We were accosted by workers at one of those carts in the middle of the mall until I caved and bought my dad a vibrating massage pillow. We laughed. We went to both malls. I got home, I showered the filth off of myself, stir-fried some veggies over pasta, and watched season two Sex & the City DVDs until I passed out. On Sunday morning, I mowed the lawn, washed my sheets, and trimmed a tree whose limbs have been scratching the tops of all cars entering my driveway for the past month. It was so hot outside that I actually swooned and sweat was dripping into my eyes. I went to see my grandmother. My aunt was there and she said she thinks Memere is still holding on because everything in her life has been a struggle and this is no different. "It's her tenacity!" she repeated over and over and over. "She is tenacious!" I stroked her hair again and felt so sad to see her come in and out, talking gibberish in her dreams. She did say, "I love you," at one point, after I said it to her about ten times, and I swear she said the name of her daughter in California whom she hasn't seen in years. "Don't hold my hand," she said at one point to my uncle, who announced that he wants to keep a vial of her ashes and set up an altar in his house. Mostly we just tried to decipher what she was saying, but it was impossible. My aunt and uncle actually tried to convince me that if she dies when my mom's out of town, my mom should not be told until she returns so she doesn't have to cut her trip short. I looked at them like they were psychotic and said, "Um, I don't think that's a very good idea," and my aunt said sternly, "You need to learn how to be pragmatic in life!" Then she talked some more about her bladder leakage. I lied that I had to go buy my dad's Father's Day present and fled. I then drove to the site of the engagement and the upcoming high school reunion. It started to pour down rain. I parked near the rose garden and turned off my radio. It's really beautiful there. I just sat in the car and took it all in, trying to be brave. It was darkening outside from the storm but the roses and crepe myrtles were still exploding with color and light. I swear, I sat there and heard Mandy Patinkin's voice in my head singing "Color and Light." It was weird. I didn't stay too long. I realized gratefully that the reunion is taking place in the front area and not in the back where we walked that day and where he actually proposed. I have memories from the orangerie and the rose garden, but it's okay. I'm okay. I really am. I went to Target and spent too much money, which is just inevitable, for FUCK'S SAKE. The electricity went out at one point and kids started screaming. The Target employees handled it with great panache. Sometimes I want to live at Target, wrapping myself in the bed linens, arranging books on the walnut bookcases, lighting candles, sniffing potpourri, and eating soy crisps. Then it was time for mass with my dad and brothers. We have a substitute priest for the summer while the pastor is on sabbatical, and this man, I swear, I have never seen anything quite like him. He would interrupt parts of the mass with little comments. With little parenthetical asides. He'd be reading the Gospel, and point little things out. Like, "By the way, this is the origin of the sign of the cross." And "Oh, by the way, it only says that there were eleven apostles because this is after Judas' betrayal." And then he'd continue reading like nothing had happened. And during the consecration, he was doing the wine, and he just started rambling, "Once, I lived in Arabia, and we were really thirsty. We should drink the wine as if we're in the desert, with that kind of thirst." It was so strange and unexpected that I couldn't help but be a little charmed by it. I started giggling uncontrollably at one point until my dad elbowed me and said, "Are you okay?!" I think he thought I was having some kind of attack. I was just thinking how hilarious my sister would have found the whole thing and for some reason, it set me off. When mass was over, he held up a bag of Hershey's kisses and said, "This is a bag of Father's Day kisses for whoever has a green slip of paper in their hymnal that reads, 'Happy Father's Day!'" A college student walked up in mortification after finding the paper, and he gave them to her and made her promise to give her father some real kisses, too. It was bizarre, just bizarre. But a nice change of pace, I guess. My dad took the kids to dinner and my brothers devoured ribs, my sister ate 1/2 a chicken, my dad ordered his usual Diet Coke with green olives, and I ate my weight in chips and spinach and artichoke dip. Oh, and he loved the vibrating pillow. I think sometimes I have moments when I do things that are so embarrassing that afterwards I look around to make sure no one has seen me, even when I'm alone. This morning I was listening to Once More with Feeling on the way to work, and I was at the end of "Where Do We Go from Here?" when Buffy and Spike start making out and I was singing at the top of my lungs, clutching my steering wheel spiritedly, and then I exclaimed aloud, "This is so awesome!" Much like I did, I'm sure, when I first saw it. But I was caught off guard by my dorkiness, and I actually looked around to see if any cars were around me with their windows down who might have been privy to my outburst. Nobody was, but I suspect a few construction workers on the sidewalk were casting odd glances my way. And last night, my sister came over and we did her highlights with Feria. Alas, that is not my story to tell.
© Copyright 2003 elb |
|
