Entry102101

10/21/01 - This weekend I learned that if you have two big, grumpy dogs in your back yard you better damn well be sure they are fed. I had to go buy a humungus bag of dog food for those phantoms. Gees ... this situation is really dreadful. I sure hope The Kid comes to his senses one of these days. I can't take this stress much longer.

I also learned that you can survive walking down the grocery isles with two 13 y.o. boys who think it's cool to impersonate Erkle in public.

I learned that working graveyard causes one to run away at the mouth when in the presence of badly needed company. It happened again, ran into yet another long lost friend. Funny, we remembered everything about each other but our names. Crissy was with her husband who I had never met before. They had just finished dinner out and were headed to the same destination as I ... The Coffee House. Crissy works with pre-teens, she was in bad need of adult company as well. Well, we got our fill. They were the perfect company, the three of us being the same age, give or take a month or two.

I also learned that there is some fun to be had in a chat room after all. I visited a somewhat hidden (try bookreporter.com) room at my favorite book review site. It was late and a Friday night and ... We were all grownups, yippee. We weren't acting like grownups completely though. I don't know how I ever lived without knowing my Hobbit name, which is Azaelia Sandybanks of Frogmorton (Hobbit Name Generator). It was a friendly site, and monitored. There be the difference from most chat rooms. I also found, again well hidden, a writer's chat. Here they were having a discussion, quite grown up. I was a lurker there, needless to say. However, the chat did lighten up some with the mention of donuts.

Another thing I learned ... I can be fooled. Most of my friends know that about me. I wish I would remember that about me. The Jock got me big time. I saw him actually take the vacuum cleaner into his room. I heard the clanking of unidentifiable objects being sucked up by the vacuum cleaner. I envisioned having to buy a new vacuum cleaner. I said nothing though. Then, I saw him walk by with a big empty box from the garage. I checked it out. He was using the box as a hamper, he said. He hadn't done it right, he left the box flaps out. I showed him how to make the box strong and more compact by putting the box flaps in, duh. Did I have to explain to him that I was an old hippie and very experienced in "crate" furniture? The fooling part came when a while later he hit me up for gas money. I should have known.

I learned I am resourceful. Someone spilt a glass of water all over my stack of bills waiting to be "done" which were sitting much too conspicuously (obviously) on the kitchen table. I couldn't wait to "do" those bills any longer. So, there I was using a hair dryer to dry them out, using a letter opener to unstick the return envelopes, using "magic" tape to restick the return envelopes. It was humiliating.

On Saturday I took myself over to Fin Food for a tostada and beer, something I'm learning I probably don't have to mention anymore like coffee house visits and fretting about my work schedule. Just ordinary stuff.

Later that day I learned that spending hours on the Internet, cleaning up "favorites" and diary sites (deleting the non current or depressing ones) makes you feel organized but doesn't show for much.

Oh yeah, I watched the VH-1 concert for New York (all 5 hours?) with The Child and The Ex who knew every word of Fire & Rain by James Taylor and who also sports a shiny thermal coffee cup emblazoned with the words: PROZAC Weekly (the ex, not James Taylor). I can only say that during 14 years of marriage I don't think I ever heard The Ex sing (how can that be?) and no matter how you got a cup like that you still don't have to carry it around in public ... Gees. Occasionally we are friends? I don't think it's exactly like that. I think we are just used to each other's bad habits enough that we don't get bothered anymore. I'm probably being fooled again but he spends some Saturday nights here under the guise of having no where to take the kids and not wanting to miss the visits. He's pretty pathetic. And that's something I didn't just learn.

And on Sunday, I contemplated the Universe ... who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?