2009-02-16
Romance and sweater de-fuzzing
This evening marks the end of a long weekend in Milford, Connecticut, America. I am grateful to have Lincoln's almost birthday off of work. This weekend, however, was not the most relaxing owing to the craziness of my almost in-laws. At least my dog is moderately sane.
Saturday (V-Day) was rather uneventful, though late that evening, on what actually would be the 15th of February, J & I took in the second half of the Ken Burn's documentary on women's suffrage called "Not for ourselves alone." Perhaps that might be characterized as the highlight of the day. Though there was also an Indian Food Buffet at Coromandel that was populated by us and some other Indian families that was also splendidly delicious. Apparently I have decided to spend the new year contemplating civil rights, between my MLK readings and my susan b anthony/e. cady stanton movie watching.
Sunday I went to hang out with Jon's cousin Jen and his mom Lu, who were going to do some shopping in Westport. Not that I am a shopping in Westport lass, but I have no car so excursions are fun to go along on. And I hoped to convince them to go to Anthropologie, and I was successful. We went to Stratford Antiques first, which was nice, and then this silly lady fabric store, and then Anthro, where there were many things on sale but nothing that really struck my fancy. Then Jen was starving and I was hungry, so we went to this genric american place--Joe's American Grill, on the post road in Fairfield. As we walked in I said, "Geez! Everybody and their uncle appears to be here today!" and Luann was all, "If I see anybody I know, I'm just going to die!" Well 1/3 of the way through the meal, after a glass of wine and the bread, but before we really stepped into the appetizers, who should walk in but her ex-husband and his new wife. They didn't see us, but I saw them and they were literally seated one booth away from us. In retrospect, I should have shut the hell up and just dealt with it silently, but given Luann's propensity to shout loudly about people using their full names, I was like "OH jeez! Rich just walked in with Lynnie." She just about exploded, there were some long moments of disbelief and then she stood up and walked out. For a brief spell, she was pacing outside, and then she disappeared when Jen went out to the parking lot to open her car so Lu could go sit in it. I went over and said hello to Rich and Lynn because I thought they'd seen me, and I was trying to be grown up, and Lynn was all wearing a workout outfit and put on her lipstick when she saw us, and then Rich walked up and was surprised to see us. (Jen came over to say hello as well.) Lynn mentioned that she would NOT go to Phil & Jac's engagement party next weekend if Luann wanted to go, but lord knows that Lu would not choose to avoid going regardless of the circumstances. She would rather have a dramatic shit-fit for 2-3 weeks in advance than have to actually attend. We went back to our table, Jen called Lu, we got the waitress to bag our food to go. Sometime in the interim Lu called Rich's cell phone and left a threatening message about how she wasn't going to stand for this anymore, and some other crazy ass threats. Rich, playing into the high drama of the situation, made Jen listen to it. This made Jen uncomfortable, as she is a lawyer and doesn't like threats.
Eventually, we got out of there and picked Lu up across the post road, in Bob's where she denied the call (she said she had not spoken to Rich since Christmas) she yelled the whole way home, Jen and I were just like, "Chill out woman," she kept saying "I'm always in the wrong! You think I'm crazy! Rich is always the good guy." and all the rest of the crazy nonsense. We dropped her off, Jen was still obviously upset, she drove me home. We talked about the insanity and gulped deeply and goodness, how the hell did that happen. There are no freaking accidents, only freaks who can not be adults.
This morning I'm chilling out with Jacob in the living room, having my morning coffee when Rich comes in with some friend who is a cop. Rich wants, like a true sports fan, to do the whole play-by-play again, because he gets some sort of strange pleasure from engaging in worrying himself about the old lady, as he calls her. He and the cop friend are standing around sort of salivating about the prospect of re-hashing the whole thing. I am irritated because not only does he ALWAYS do this in situations of family drama, but also because not three days earlier, while I was home settling in from work he brought over some dude, who I gather is a sportcaster, to show him the apartment to rent it. He kept saying, "There's a lot of junk in here, but these guys, we can have them out of here in a week." (These guys being us, Rich being the kind of man who, for the right celebrity, would quickly kick his family out of the apartment they are renting from him for $1000 a month. Ah, family. (Which is not to say that I might not do the same thing if, say, David Byrne showed up and wanted to rent out the place, but if I had to kick out my family, I would probably think about it for a while before just walking in with David and being like, "Yeah, we can put in a window here if you want, or blow out this wall...")
So anyway, between his dad walking into our place on a Thursday night threatening to kick us out so Dan Patrick, who I wouldn't know from the bum on the street, can tape his sports programs here, and his dad showing up on MY DAY OFF FROM WORK while I am still drinking my coffee and trying to enjoy a leisurely sunny Monday to demand that I re-hash a non-event (namely the quartely Luann-Jon-Phil-Rich blow-out) I got a little peeved. And so, when I failed to feed him and his cop friend the kind of juicy details they wanted, (I believe I may have said "She was being crazy. And why do we have re-visit it?") he sort of pointed to me and said "Now isn't this scary? She was there and she can't even really give us the details!" I said, "You know, if you want to re-hash this shit, give me a phone call. I am just trying to relax and drink my damn coffee and I'm not really interested in re-visiting a ridiculous and pointless situation that occurred yesterday. Could you just leave?" He left, I hurt his feelings I gather, Jon shouted from bed that it was poor form, and then for about an hour I stewed around the house, his dad just some hunks of drywall and 2 by 4s away, making calls to others about how I was a bitch, probs, because Jac. sent me a text being like "Good for you, kicking him out!" and then Jacob and Jon were like, "Breakfast isn't going to taste good unless you make peace" and so I did. And he was like, "Just lock your door." and I was like, "ust ignore the crazy ex-wife, she isn't going to hurt you, and all you do by being scared is engage her in your life, which is all she is really after--still being able to get some sort of reaction from you." Its just a shitty clusterfuck quarterly insanity fest and I dont want to be involved in it.
Then I ate some rally good homefries, overeasy eggs and toast with bacon. And drank more coffee, probably too much coffee because by the early afternoon I was crashing. Jacob and I went to the goodwill that sells by the pound and I bought a sweater that I have been de-fuzzing, but it still needs a lot of pill-shaving and I'm not entirely sure I'm up to it. I can't tell you where I last saw the lint, or what it said exactly, I AM JUST TRYING TO DRINK MY COFFEE HERE> OKAY? Thank you.