Random Acts

It’s night two of my fruitpie being gone.  I’ve managed to blast some more Tori and cook the girls’ stew.  It’s not quite done, even though it’s their dinner time.  I gave them each an early treat to hold them over until it’s sufficiently cooled.  I’m keeping myself busy, because as the sun sets I know the loneliness will descend upon me like a shroud.

The day went by quickly, surprisingly.  Two of the girls downstairs took me to lunch for my birthday, and tomorrow the group upstairs will do the same.  They’re only doing it for an excuse to comp their lunches somewhere, but I’ll take it.  They are already trying to sway me to the restaurants of their choice…and come tomorrow I don’t think it’ll matter to me in any direction.  Italian in Lake Elsinore or Carnitas Express by the office seem equally unappealing truth be told…but it’s not like there’s a Thai or Indian place by the office.  I could just imagine this group in those kinds of places.  I won’t even suggest sushi.  They just might take to the Vons counter.

It’s 8 o’clock and I’m making myself dinner.  The kitchen needs to be cleaned up from the girls’ food, but one more round of Tori should do the trick.  If only I could keep myself this occupied throughout the night without slowing down…maybe I’d be able to fall fast asleep without my Fruitpie beside me.  I know it’s harder for her where she is.  It’s so foreign to fall asleep without the sounds of puppy snores and kittens walking all over you.  Tuck curled up between my knees last night, and I know Dante was incredibly disappointed to be locked outside.  I couldn’t wait for him to come home all night, though…and I called for him for a full hour.  When I finally let him in at four thirty, the first few drops of rain started falling from the sky.  This weather has been so strange for the middle of July.

My Fruitpie went to her conference this afternoon and I already miss her.  I grilled us some steaks and packed it up for her, complete with an Aquafina bottle of our favorite cab.  I guess it’s kind of silly in a way…apart for just a few hours and setting up our webcams to have dinner together.  I just can’t help it.  I’m in love with her and I don’t know what to do with myself when she’s gone.

I drank the last of our McWilliams and moved on to the Ravenswood shiraz I know she’d hate.  I have an addiction to Australian wines lately…which seems a bit silly since we live in the pork of california’s wine countries.  We’re nowhere near Napa and not quite Santa Barbara, but Temecula is definitely trying to work it’s way up to at least Santa Ynez.  Still, if I could visit any wine country in the world, it would almost certainly be South Eastern Australia.   But, perhaps that’s also because I have always wanted to visit Australia anyway.  When I was younger, I dreamt of moving there…just selling everything and buying a one way ticket to the largest island in the world.  The first order of business would be to flush the toilet repeatedly…then I would travel all over the outback until I found that one perfect place I knew existed for me.  The thunderstorms would be spectacular…the sun blazing…the rain torrential…the water crystal clear.  It was all such a beautiful fantasy that I’m not sure I want to ruin it with reality.  But, I would undoubtedly jump at the chance.

We went to the beach for my birthday yesterday.  It was in our old stomping grounds…and I think we were both a little shocked at how crowded it has become…how much things have changed.  We walked at least a few miles of beach…stepping cautiously around children and avoiding their sandcastles.  I hadn’t seen waves in far too long, and I think Fruit and I both wished we still lived this close to the ocean.  There were so many days when we would just drive out for a quick walk along the shoreline…so many days we took for granted because it was just a short trip.  Now the closest water is a muddy lake stocked with fish we can’t seem to catch and water the girls can’t be within a hundred yards of.  I love our house, but I would sell it in a heartbeat if I knew we could live that close again.  My Fruit and I would have more time together because we’d be closer to her work.  The girls would get to go to the lagoon at least once a month.  We’d get out of the house more because we know the area so well, and my Fruitpie would be in her element.

We got back home at eightish and started getting the girls and boys fed.  My dad called at 8:30 to wish me happy birthday and promptly hang up the phone.  Bessie sent me an ecard…and while I was relieved, I had to wonder if she felt like she was making some kind of a statement since it’s all I did for her.  She probably thought she was showing me what it felt like or something, completely oblivious to the fact that I was relieved not to have to make nice-nice over the phone with that dreadful woman.  With a card, I don’t have to lie that I miss her…I don’t.  I guess that’s cruel of me, but it’s the truth.  I never have moments where I want to talk to my mother.  I never get those sudden urges to call and see how she’s doing.  I’m probably cold and heartless, but honestly, it’s probably just that I’m spent.  I had years of wanting my mommy.  Countless years of wishing she would spend time with me…wishing we could go somewhere together or do things…that she would teach me to cook or sew or put on makeup.  There were years I wished she would just get to know me rather than scream at me every chance she got because I wasn’t doing what she wanted or being who she wanted me to be.  Now that she’s reaching the end of her days, she sees that she’s alone and she wants to reach out to me.  I understand the thought processes that must be going through her head.  I know that she’s constructed me into something she can admire or be proud of, but it’s just too little too late.  She’s been so hurtful and damaging that it just doesn’t mean anything to me now to hear those words I so longed for as a child.  My emotional availability belongs to my family now, and she did nothing to reserve herself a place in that group.  Now any level of care for her will be out of obligation rather than love and respect.  The last time we spoke…before the thing with my dad’s car breaking down in La Jolla, she threw up in my face how she took care of my grandma.  I know she thinks that her doing that makes her eligible for the same treatment from me.  She said, “Don’t you think we get lonely without you around?  Don’t you think it hurts us that you kids don’t ever call us? You’ll understand when you get old and your kids don’t come around”.   With that last statement, it was abundantly clear that she has no fucking idea that she had this coming to her.  I sincerely hope that my children and I have a good relationship.  I hope that I will give them the love and nurturing that I never had.   I hope I never throw things I did up in their faces…and if I’m a good mother, they will call.  They will come to visit me.  If I do my job right, they will genuinely miss me…and if I don’t, I hope I realize that I brought it all on myself.  I hope I can look past my own selfishness and let them go.

I’m not ready for work to start tomorrow.  There is so much that needs to be done.  Fruitpie gave me a class for my birthday…and I have to request Wednesday off.  I can’t wait to go, though…and I can’t wait until my girl comes home to me.

Fruitpie took me to dinner at the casino last night.  It had been an extremely long time since we’d been.  In fact, I can’t even remember the last time.  The girls at work are always trying to get me to meet them at Cabaret on Friday nights, but I can never bring myself to.  I don’t think I’ve ever been one to go late night drinking on a regular basis.  Fruitpie said that she worries about that with me sometimes…that I never got it out of my system.  I don’t think it ever was there in the first place.  We had fun, but I have to admit that I couldn’t do that sort of thing often.

We had amazing crab legs and two bottles of newcastle at dinner.  The waitress was incredibly annoying and even tried sticking us with the Surf & Turf price.  It’s kind of funny how they try to take advantage of the drunken gamblers…I’m just glad we weren’t among the oblivious.  She theatrically smacked her head and said, “Oh, they have to fix the computers”.    I had terrible luck at the slots.  It wasn’t until we went to the high limit machines that we made any kind of winnings.  At that point, we’d lost so much at the crappy nickel machines with that weird bingo shit on them that it wasn’t really wise to keep playing.  We left when we made ten bucks on what we’d put in.  It was incredibly nerve wracking playing a $5 machine.

When we walked out into the valet area, it looked like a high school dance had belched.  The roar of drunken jackasses dressed up in their best party clothes filled the entire area.  Some were dancing to their own bad singing…some were just making out.  My personal favorite, though, was this girl who had been vomiting on herself.  She was pushed out in a wheelchair holding a hefty bag to her mouth.  Her friend had a concerned look on her face, frantically looking for their car to come as the yellow clad Pechanga security person wheeled her into a less conspicuous area.  At that moment, I was so glad that I didn’t get inebriated.  Is this really what people my age like to do?   Will she even remember when she wakes up this morning, head pounding and stewing in her coagulated vomit, that she was wheeled out of the casino unloading into a hefty bag amongst a crowd of others just like her?  I guess once you get to the point of vomiting, you don’t remember that sort of thing…but it was certainly good for a laugh.  Poor bastard.

I guess I can’t say that it’s my lucky number, but certainly my favorite.  I don’t know how or when it started, but 27 has always been it…and now it’s going to be my age…and I hope that means something good.  I’ve been moody as hell the past few days because, like clockwork, I am going to bleed on my birthday.  I’m not even entirely sure that a birthday has gone by since 13 without being in some stage of bleeding.  I guess that might mean something too.  Work has been almost too much to handle in this condition.  I either want to cry or cuss like a sailor…or both.  For the past two weeks everyone in the office has been going on and on about my boss’ birthday and how sad it is that it’s on a sunday because we can’t do lunch that day.  Do they’re talking about getting drinks after work, or lunching on the day before and after, or having a little party in the office.  I know it shouldn’t make me feel bad, but it does.  Maybe if they didn’t know that mine is on Saturday it wouldn’t bother me so much.  But at the first mention I heard, the payroll girl informed one of the women that my birthday is a week before BossBitch’s.  I know it shouldn’t be any different than any other time…like when they ask everyone but me out to lunch or walgreens or wherever else they all trot off to.  It shouldn’t hurt my feelings because I really don’t like them anyway.  But, it still smacks of the days when I was picked last for the team…when they would actually argue when it was down to two over who didn’t get me.  Maybe it’s just that this crab goes softshell once every couple of weeks. 

On the upside, I finished the web pages for our big annual fundraiser.  I coded the paypal portion to do even more than they wanted and wrote some scripts to populate the database and display the information in spreadsheet form for the organizer.  I love this stuff…and despite all the other shitty disappointments at work this week, I feel like I got a huge win here…whether or not anyone notices.  Fruitpie’s design was fabulous, and I even impressed myself with my ability to create a stylesheet that looked exactly like the jpg.  I really need to go into programming and get out of this network bullshit.  I used to like administering this stuff, but over the past few years it really seems that my inclination is for development. 

I have to pry myself away from the computer to clean the house today.  I won’t want to do it this weekend, and I have this kind of superstition about having a dirty house on my birthday.  All I really want to do, though, is play in the LiveCycle sandbox.

I broke down and called my dad yesterday when I had the dogs’ dinner to distract me.  Something about chopping vegetables always relaxes me.  I’m sure the two beers I’d consumed helped as well.  I had caught him on his way back from Trader Joe’s and he immediately went in to this impassioned rant about how the cashier was trying to cheat him out of a dollar.  I told him that he was being paranoid…that it isn’t always easy being a cashier and that she was probably tired from standing on her feet all day and dealing with ornery customers.  He then went into another rant about his lack of a job and all around feeling sorry for himself for being broke.  I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve listened to him complain about that same thing over the course of my life.  He was saying that nobody wants to hire him because he’s too experienced for the little jobs he’d gladly take…and maybe not experienced enough for the ones he’s “qualified” for.  I don’t even know what the man is qualified for, but I’m sure that employers would rather give odd jobs to someone young and active in the industry…not a 57 year old man working out of his pool house.  He’s frittered away his entire life waiting for some big opportunity to just fall on his lap…some perfect job that will pay him what he thinks he’s worth and allow him to work remotely on his own terms.  He’ll never realize that such a job does not exist for someone who doesn’t put forth the effort to make it happen.  He’s waited too long and worked too little.  I guess I’m lucky that I realized early that your work life is a compromise.  Your career path will likely change often and your jobs will kill your soul if you let them.  Maybe you need to be broken down to push through it…but, you push through the shit just like everyone else because nothing in this world just lands in your lap.

He finished the conversation with a complaint about how this is his worst birthday ever…including his 40th which was spent in a hospital room…because at least then my brother and I visited him.  He gave me shit about how I hate my mother and hung up the phone with me because he had to bring Bessie’s soy cream into the house before it melted.  Apparently he didn’t want to be around her while he spoke to me.  I guess the feeling is mutual.

I told him not to do anything for my birthday.  I told him that I would prefer for him to spend his time finding a job rather than burning me CDs from some service he pays $30 a month for.  What the fuck is a penniless man doing with a subscription to anything anyway?  If they just could have been wise with the money he miraculously made over the years they wouldn’t be in this mess…and I am not the one to bail them out.

It always seemed odd to me that my parents, brother and I all have birthdays within weeks of each other.  Mine is the last one of the bunch, but today is my dad’s…the last of the drama producing summer obligations.  Mix those dreadful Hallmark holidays in and it makes for a really shitty season.  I know I need to call him…especially if I want to dodge a call from Bessie because I didn’t do so in what she considers to be a timely manner.  Although, I have to admit that it still feels good to have laid into her the way I did on Father’s Day.  Now it’s my turn to disappoint my father with not allowing him to spend two months at my house.  Perhaps if I liken it to Papo he’ll get the picture.

I’ve been having fucked up dreams all week.  Yesterday my dream consisted of two of me at a conference…one older and one younger.  As the younger me, I found and attended the presentations at this ginormous hotel I was staying at.  There was a cruise I was supposed to attend, and I asked the older me to go find something involving our hotel room before we go.  So, older me found the hotel rooms after much wandering around the mall-like conference center.  Pieces of the building seemed to be moving around every time I thought I’d made some progress.  When I finally got there, I did what I was supposed to in my room.  The problem was that every time I opened the door to leave, it was on a different floor or wing of the building.  I’d step outside into the hallway to find myself back in the room on a different level.  I was ready to jump out the window when I suddenly became younger me leaving the conference area.  I was furious with older me for not being at the rendezvous point yet.  I was coming up with the angry script I’d lay into older me with when we finally met up.  I woke up shortly thereafter to a whining dog with a mouth full of underwear.

This month isn’t even halfway through and it’s already been crazy.  I’ve been frantically planning C’s bachelor/ette party and finally reserved the room at Yankee Doodles.  I’m really hoping that more people start RSVPing, because as it stands right now, there will be six of us eating for fifteen and getting plastered.  Not that that’s such a bad thing, but if I’m going to commit to $625 worth of food and beverages, it better be consumed to the fullest.  The best man hasn’t RSVPd yet, but I’m hoping he does soon.  I’d feel awful if C’s fiance doesn’t have his best man there.  There’s nothing I can do about it, but, I’d feel bad for him.

Once the temperature outside broke the hundreds, ants literally started coming out of the woodwork.  I just spent the last hour in the kitchen with the vacuum and the double ovens broiling to drive them out of the holes.  On one hand, I’m really pissed off.  I fucking hate ants.  On the other hand, they managed to carry away some of the stuff that got stuck between the glass of the stove and the corian that I couldn’t remove without ripping the sealant.  I suppose they did me a favor, but I’m still going to kill them.

While I’m on the topic of pests, my father sent me an email in response to the previous conversation we had about him coming to stay here while he tested out a new job.  He was laying on the heavy guilt about how he only wants a room to sleep in for two months and he’d pay rent.  The thing is, it’s really not about the money or having to care for him.  I don’t want him having a key to my house.  I don’t want him setting the precedent to continue staying here and I certainly don’t want him luring Bessie to attempt the same.  It wasn’t that long ago that I stopped speaking to him for attempting to sell pornography from my home while I was on vacation.  The fact that he doesn’t understand how it doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t care if I didn’t know is just even more proof that he shouldn’t be in my home.  Fruit tells me that I shouldn’t feel guilty about it…that he really shouldn’t put me in that situation to begin with.  I don’t even understand why he isn’t looking for a job closer to his home.  He can’t even afford the $1100/month mortgage they pay now and he’d be damned lucky to find an apartment for that much where he’s looking to work.  It just doesn’t make any sense…and the fact that they seem to feel entitled to it is just infuriating.  I know that they’ll blame me if he doesn’t get this job…and I really don’t deserve that.  I’ve worked hard to get where I am and it’s no thanks to them.  They could never do it for themselves, how can they expect their child to do it for them?

I know that I’m doing the right thing by telling him that he can’t sleep here for two months.  I just wish I didn’t feel like the devil incarnate for doing it.

I don’t know what it is about July, but I always have this unsettling sense of melancholy.  I’m sure it has to do with the fact that my birthday is right in the middle of it…and it’s always hotter than hell.  This is the month when ants start crawling out of strange places in the house and I angrily follow their trail to the source before unleashing my fury.  I wish they were sophisticated enough to ask you for food before invading your pantries.  I would gladly give it to them if it meant they stayed out of my house.  The flies are even worse.  They seem to have come out in greater abundance this year than last…but,  I’m sure it’s just that the cool season made me forget how bad it was.  This valley is full of strange critters and insects that had long been eradicated from the one I grew up in.  New development has dislocated various species, and they all scurry about the new houses in confusion.  I feel badly for them…but I still don’t want them in my house.

I’ve been noticeably off lately.   My Fruit and I are just not meshing like usual, and I can tell that it’s my clogged connections causing the misfires.  I have a lot on my mind and couldn’t tell you what any of it is.  The subconscious fog has settled in at it’s thickest…and the more I try to explain my feelings, the more convoluted they become…and the more frustrated I am.  I wish I could just upload them to another brain so they might just make sense to another living thing.

It’s almost time to get ready for work.  I’ve been later than I want to be every day for the past few weeks.  I like getting there before anyone else…but lately I just want to keep the work to a minimum.  It’s too hot and miserable to be hanging around that sweltering city.