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Heavy People, Aunt Beasts, and Dramatis Personnae

I have often said that my life has no meaning until I tell it to at least two of my friends. These are some of the people who give my life meaning. Because I haven't permission from all (or any, actually) of them to use their full names, I shall refer to them (and everything else I can) as I do in my journal: by their initials. Some of those pesky married women who now have four initials (or five; you know who you are)....

yellow dotDMByellow dotUllayellow dotDAOyellow dot

yellow dotDMB

I don't know what anyone could want more in a mother-in-law. Though she lives a long way away and we might not have oodles in common, she has the one vital thing necessary in any friend-of-a-friend relationship: acceptance. She is also one of the strongest women I know, having raised two children mostly on her own, starting out with only a high school education and working herself first through beautician school and then through nursing school, all the time paying her own way and supporting herself and her children. Now she is raising her grandson, another RDC. I don't know where she finds her energy (and neither does she). When I went with RDC for the first time to spend Christmas with his family, I was nervous. This wasn't dinner out in another town in Connecticut that I could easily escape from. I shouldn't've worried. DMB and the rest of the clan immediately made me feel welcome.
On New Year's Eve 1999, DMB married JJT, who is a prince. He reminds me of my maternal uncle (in a good way, I hastened to tell my father, who heard that comparison with some suspicion). Now the family includes not only DMB's cats Polo and Koko, and JJT's cats Charley and Zach and his African Gray parrot Taz (JJT has Warner Bros.' Marvin the Martian and and Tasmanian Devil tattooed on either ankle), but also JJT's daughter Ashley, whom I liked a lot and who introduced me to butter, peanut butter, and cinnamon sandwiches.

yellow dotUlla

DEDBG met Ulla at the Goethe Institute in Salzburg, Austria (I think). DEDBG always had a photograph on her wall of a group of people hiking, and one leaning over the rest with a long blond braid swinging. A quick glimpse would lead me to think this was DEDBG until I noticed her elsewhere in the photo. So even before I met Ulla, I knew I would like her because she reminded me of DEDBG. In the summer of f1994, Ulla visited the States to go to the wedding of a friend in Long Island, and then crossed the Sound to be met by us in New London. I, Unemployed Girl, was appointed Tour Guide, and those days were extremely fun. Ulla and I went to Gillette's Castle (RDC wondered why, as if that castle could be anything a European ), to Sturbridge Village with SEM's then-girlfriend, and to Newport with the girlfriend and DEDBG, finally able to get off work. Newport was the most fun: a gorgeous wooden yacht, teasingly trying to keep DEDBG away from the bead store, losing that struggle and picking out beads for a necklace for Ulla, and then the Cliff Walk. This last was going to include a swim in the ocean at the foot of the steps, but the sea already looked too rough for that, so we just walked until the sky also became too rough. The gale we sat in eating Oreos and cheese and fruit was quite fun. I was delighted when Ulla got email, and delighted when she announced she and Niels were expecting a child, and delighted when Ulla said she'd have more time to write now that she was on maternity leave, but then not delighted because maternity leave meant no email. 16 May 1997: Ulla and Niels had Signe!

yellow dotDAO

I think CLH told me about DAO before I met him. He worked in a bookstore in Aspen before (and during) Renaissance, the restaurant they worked in together), and there had to deal with Aspen tourists and Aspen seasonals. So once upon a time on Christmas Eve, when the store was not at all busy, someone known to be a legend in his own mind called up and ordered seven books to be wrapped in seven different colors of paper to be inscribed with seven different personalized messages (not written by the giver) to be delivered to seven different addresses, by courier, despite the addresses being in Aspen itself or neighboring Snowmass. DAO said, "I stopped writing after the second book." Finally the caller said, "Now have I left anything out?" and DAO replied, "Yes why don't you give me these people's phone numbers so I can just call them and read them the books over the phone." His manager (who was quickly summoned to the line) supported DAO, which (particularly for CLH who's worked so long in the service industry) was immensely gratifying. Anyway, that's how CLH warned me about him. Then one day in winter of 1996, she and I went for a walk along the Roaring Fork and she waited for me to notice what looked like home along its banks (and I saw) and then, on the way back, we met DAO and a friend at a sidewalk café (ah, Aspen--this was February). DAO shows no mercy.

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Last modified 20 November 1997

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