Oh, What a Night!

So, I've been part of a sort of "email loop" for a long while now--over 14 years?  There are eight of us now (there were more over the years), and we keep in touch on a Facebook form of our loop.  Some of these women I've known for even longer, from an old breastfeeding board (and an old circumcision debate board).  Well, last night four of the women from our loop converged upon my home, with two spouses and NINE teenagers in tow.

I admit, I was incredibly nervous.  I mean, how were we going to cram 18 people into this place, and be comfortable and able to talk and keep the kids (nine of them!) entertained?

Turns out it just happened.  No fuss, no problems, it just worked.  It worked, and it was fun, and I loved hearing their voices and seeing their faces and it was terrific.

Great kids, too.  Our boy was in heaven--with the ratty kids in this neighborhood, he's been alone other than at Hapkido three times a week.  So to have a house full of kids?  Playing video games, then Guitar Hero, then a little Nerf shoot-em-up?  He had a great time.  And it was a good lesson, too--I think he's always feared that somehow the disaster with the kids on this street had something to do with him?  I think last night helped him see what I've been saying all along--smart, cool people like him.  We just have a dearth of those in this neighborhood.  We had a houseful last night, and he keeps thanking me for it.

And I have to say, I was really impressed with the spouses here--incredibly smart, fun guys.  I really enjoyed their company, and it made me happy to think of my friends married to cool guys.

Now, these ladies came in from a heck of a distance.  One drove six hours from Ohio (Jenni), another six-and-a-half hours from North Carolina (Lara, Scott, and their kids), one for three hours from Maryland (Mary and her boys), and one flew from coast to coast--all the way from SoCal (that would be Annie, Eric, and their boys).  And if that doesn't make you feel special (and nervous!).  And they really did make me feel special.  And they really are special.  And it was an even cooler night than I'd dared hope for!

I hope we can do it again.  Next time with the other ladies from the loop here, too.  My sister, Debbie, and Debra.

Oh, oh!  I have to brag on my friend Lara!  Everyone pooled for pizza (except US, which was hell on me, I don't handle not treating my guests very well, that was hard, but, financially, it was incredibly helpful).  Anyway, folks pooled, and then we sat down and figured how much the pizza would be.  Came to 136 bucks.  But Lara calls the pizza place and she just sweet talks and haggles and lets them know, "Hey, this is how much we have, and we don't want Dominoes of some other crappy chain if we can have you guys instead--here's what we need, can you do that for us?"  And they DID!  They knocked 34 bucks off!

She is amazing!

Anyway, so that's how I spent my night last night--it was happy, it was good, it was fun, and I feel really lucky to know these wonderful folks.

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Now, do you remember a few weeks ago when I was talking about Demarquise Elkins, the kid who allegedly shot the baby in the face down in Georgia?  Remember how his family leapt to his defense, were so eager to provide him with an alibi?  So eager, in fact, that they provided him CONFLICTING alibis?  Remember how his little banger buddies leapt in and claimed that it was "RACIST CRACKERS" who were falsely accusing him?

His mother, aunt, and sister have all been arrested for lying to the cops.  The sister appears to have tampered with evidence.  The mother?  A felon.  If you were wondering where ol' Demarquise got it from, look no further.  They appear to have crawled out of a pit of feces to plague humanity.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/justice/georgia-baby-killed

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/national/sabrina-elkins-demarquise-elkins-sister-arrested-in-brunswick-georgia-baby-shooting-case

http://newsone.com/2308574/demarquise-elkins-karimah-elkins-brunswick-georgia/

Oh, and on further questioning?  The mom and aunt's answers led to the cops finding the gun submerged in a pond, allegedly thrown there by the sister.  So for all you folks out there who claimed that it was the mother of the baby who did it?  If so, she did it with a bullet in her leg, she did it in the space of seconds, running 2.3 miles with a bullet in her leg, there and back before the neighbors who heard the shots could  make it to where her baby had been shot.  Oh, and then she told Elkins' family about it so they'd know where the gun was.

And one more thing?  Demarquise is up on additional charges for another armed robbery earlier last month.

Principle of Parsimony, folks. The simplest, most reasonable answer tends to be the correct one.  I'm thinking Demarquise is a scumbag gang member from a scumbag family who murdered a baby.

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Well, it's now April fifth, and our Callery Pear (aka Bradford Pear or Chanticleer Pear) out front is just now starting to blossom.  That's almost a full month later than last year.  If you're not familiar with Callery Pears, here's a picture:  

Now, this tree, while gorgeous (not just the blossoms--it turns amazing shades of red and orange in the fall), was quite a let-down for us.  You see, we thought it was a dogwood when we moved in.  It was fall, and all we saw where the dogwood-shaped leaves.  Come spring, that beautiful white bloomfest?  

Stank.  To high heaven, it REEKED!

Turns out Callery Pears stink.  A lot.  I smell . . . old, bloody bandages and dog feet.  A friend last night let me know she smells, to be completely indelicate, semen.  Every spring, the health department in DC is inundated with phone calls from folks complaining about the smell.  These Callery pears are EVERYWHERE out here, and they're very common to the entire east coast and parts of the midwest and south.  They are, apparently, viciously invasive:

http://triblocal.com/glencoe/community/stories
/2012/06/invasive-ornamental-plants-pose-threat
-for-native-wildlife/

So they stink and they're invasive.  Oh, and because the crotch angles are so extreme, they're also particularly prone to wind and snow damage.  But gosh, they sure are pretty.  From a distance.  With your nose plugged!

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Leftover pizza and garlic toast for dinner.  We sent half the leftover pizza off with one of my ladies last night to put in the hotel fridge for munching and/or breakfast.  

And that's about it.  I was going to post about an Arabian horse named Perkal I almost knew back in the early 1980s, but I think that's for another night.  It's time to start dinner and get ready to watch Grimm.  Not a particularly deep show, but it's fun.

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

It Ain't All Fairy Tales

I was just blundering through the Huffington Post, reading this and that while I wait for my husband to be done with a tele-meeting so we can drive out to Clifton for my latest round of x-rays (thoracic spine this time). While blundering, I came across a story about rekindled love. A sweet tale of a couple who fell in love as kids, drifted apart, only to be reunited 40 years later. Nice, huh?

Made me want to scream.

You see, my Mom found herself in a like situation. After being divorced for 36 years (and alone that whole time), she was contacted by an old flame. An old flame I didn't even know was an old flame. I had known Ned all my life, he'd been the father of playmates, the husband of Ellen (a wonderful lady who was never anything but kind to me). It turns out there was so much more to it than that.

Where to start? Many years ago (in 1950, to be precise), my Mother and Ned began dating. She was 16, he was 15, and one of them was desperately in love. It wasn't her. After months of playing couple, my mother stepped out with another guy. Ned was devastated. When that didn't work out, Ned pursued her again, and again, they were a couple. And again, she stepped out him. This time?

She got pregnant. Or at least that's how the story goes--she's changed that story repeatedly, and refuses to give anything solid enough for us to track down this mythic sibling she claims was adopted (sometimes by family members, sometimes by strangers, sometimes in Pennsylvania, sometimes in Florida). After the alleged birth of my alleged half-brother, she once again wound up with Ned, who was desperate to marry her. She took his ring, headed to Philadelphia for nursing school, and promptly married my dad. Who is not Ned.

Then comes the twisted, sad part. Or part of it, anyway. My Mom and Dad split up in 1976, after 17 years of marriage. I was 11. After that, my Mother and I spent every summer back on the east coast--renting a car, driving up as far as Maine or Nova Scotia, then spending a couple of weeks in our hometown--also Ned's hometown. I knew Ned--he was the husband of sweet Ellen, the dad of the kids I loved to play with. We would go over to their house and Ellen would feed us and so sincerely inquire about everything in our lives.

And she must have been terrified.

You see, Ned, years later, confessed that he married Ellen because he couldn't have what he wanted. He "settled," and always carried a torch for my mother. The really sad thing? He got the better woman with Ellen--by far! He got a woman true and loving, a woman able to really embrace and adore without a price. I don't mean to diss my Mom, because I do love her, but she is powerfully flawed. She is given to pettiness, meanness, and rank, inherent dishonesty. She's immature and wants so much for people to see her as impressive or noteworthy. Poor Ellen would smile and welcome us, feed us, care for us, and all the while she had to have known that he'd have left her in an instant, had my Mother said the word.

Poor Ellen. I had no idea. I never would have been party to that, had I known. My heart breaks for her still, and she's been dead for years now.

So, anyway, that's the past. Fast-forward 30 years. Ellen is dead, and Ned sends a Christmas card (as Ellen did every year). My Mom, on a whim, calls him. And it's ON! They start calling once, then twice, then four or more times a week. They exchange pictures of the kids and grandkids, he starts sending sad little gifts. My Mom starts ending phone calls with, "Love you, babe--can't wait to talk to you again!" Isn't that sweet? Isn't love grand?

No. No, it's not, because she didn't mean it. Any of it. She didn't love him, she wasn't hauling about some torch for him after nearly sixty years. No, she was just playing. Sadly, he wasn't.

After a few months of this, he started making "let's get together" noises. See, I think my Mom thought this game was safe because he was over 2,000 miles away. But Ned makes a good living, he can afford airfare. And, in fact, did. Now the phone calls were ending with, "Love you, babe--can't wait to see you!" Except, of course, she could wait. Forever. She was horrified that he was coming, and increasingly angry about it. He gave her months warning, and yet she never once said, "Ned, I don't feel good about this." No, she just strung him along.

A few weeks before he came out, she hung up with the customary, "Love you, Baby--so excited!" She then looked at me and said, "This is a terrible idea." I cried, "Are you kidding me? What are you doing? Cancel!" She started to blame Ned, but I cut her off, said, "Whoa, no way--you're giving him every reinforcing thing, you're telling him you want to see him, that you love him, that you're so excited you've wet yourself, and now you're mad at HIM because he can't tell YOU'RE a liar?" In a rare show of honesty, she admitted that she'd led him on because it was thrilling to be desired, to be adored. It was the last flash of honesty on the subject--after that, all of it, everything, was (according to her) Ned's fault.

By the time Ned arrived, my Mom was in an utter tizzy. I'd had a good friend do her hair for her, really gotten on her to bathe (which has been a problem for years), and even arranged a small trip for them--up to Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, a rodeo, etc. Just to give them something to do, something other than sitting together in her house and staring uncomfortably. Also to give her the opportunity to sort of play western tour guide to his eastern boy, since she so likes to show off and seem knowledgeable. I still can't believe I bothered.

From the moment my sister and Mom picked Ned up at the airport, she was sullen and silent. My sister had to carry the conversation all the way home. Ned was jovial and boisterous, my mother withdrawn and near-surly. The mini-vacation? An utter flop. She wouldn't talk, so he, sensing her discomfort, talked more loudly, more boisterously, and more intimately. You know, reaching back 60 years for "inside" jokes and the like. He didn't want to travel--he just wanted to be with her, mapping out their life together.

Oh, what a mess!

When they came back, she shuffled him off to stay with my sister. That poor man. She would come over for dinner ONLY because we insisted--she was not going to leave him sitting at my sister's for a week without seeing him! What did he do? He tried to be helpful around my sister's place, he cried a lot, though he tried to hide it, and he was amazingly kind to me, my husband and son, and my sister and her kids. That poor man.

Within moments of his boarding his plane, my Mom did exactly what I knew she would--she piled every ounce of blame for everything onto him. How did I know? Because it's what she's done all her life. Within a day, he was no longer Ned, he was "that prick." He tried to call, and she refused to pick up the phone. The one time she did, she was so distant and nasty that he never called back. Eventually, he wrote her a heartfelt (and barely legible) letter, saying, in effect, that he wasn't sure what had happened, but that she was just not at all what he thought she would be, she didn't even seem to be the same person he remembered or the woman who had been so affectionate on the phone. He said that he was sorry if something he had said or done had caused her to behave that way.

She exploded. That bastard! That asshole!

And me? I exploded right back. I chewed her to a nub, I told her that I would never, ever tolerate listening to her tear him down again. Period.

I admit, it wasn't just about Ned (though that was most of it). It was also about the possibility of getting her into a situation where she's loved, taken care of, and financially secure. She was teetering on the brink when Ned came out. My husband and I were paying half her property taxes and buying all her groceries, and yet she was still faltering. She was so deep in debt, it was unbailable. She had cashed out her retirement (they forced her to retire at 75 because, as a nurse, her skills were slipping along with her hygiene, which made her dangerous), paid down most of her credit cards, and then proceeded to max them all again within a year. Her pension isn't great, but between that and her Social Security, she's got around $2,500 a month. Not bad for a woman whose mortgage is only $500 a month. But she craves entertainment, and, for her, that means taking my sister and her kids out to eat restaurant meals three or more times a week. There goes almost six hundred bucks a month. This went on for years as she collapsed into financial ruin, and no amount of pleading with her or with my sister would put a stop to it. She wouldn't stop because she's old and spoiled and doesn't really "get" things, and my sister wouldn't stop because--well, because why stop a good thing? Life with Ned would have solved it all. She could have sold that rattrap house, paid off her bills (or at least most of them), moved in with Ned in her hometown, and lived the life she wants. See, Ned goes out for breakfast most mornings, likes to have a nice dinner out a few nights a week, and a few times a year he heads down to Atlantic City for a nice gambling weekend. He spends his days doing puzzles and watching MASH and taking long drives. In other words, he's the man of her dreams.

Not long after the heartbreaking Ned fiasco, my mother filed for bankruptcy. Any dream she may have had of living out her last years comfortably is gone. Any dream she may have had about moving back to her hometown is gone. She is broke, in a falling-to-bits house, with a car that is disintegrating. She is sad, bitter, and knows that she blew her last hope. Yes, she knows it, she's not stupid. She's may be unreasonable, and she's definitely petty and immature, but she's not stupid. And my heart?

Oh, it breaks for her. I cried and cried when we moved away. That was a year ago, and I still cry. I call her three or four times a week, have my boy call her twice a week, and my sister does see her pretty much every day, takes her shopping (and out for those damnable meals she still can't afford), but fact is, at the end of the day, she is alone. She didn't have to be, but she is. She's going to die that way. So is Ned, for that matter.

It's really not all fairy tales. If it were, the happy endings wouldn't be worthy of Huff Po human interest pieces, huh?