5 May 1999: Vexed

Yesterday I hopped off the bus a couple of stops early to vote. At 4:15 I was 29th; RDC had been the sixth at 9:30. This was for mayor, among other things. The volunteers clearly had been trapped there too long and gotten silly with boredom. I got jokes about my name I hadn't heard in years. Hot Lips still occurs, infrequently, but "Hoola-dancer" and "Hoola-handster" are just tired old third-grade things. I expect the Monicas of the world have it rather worse.

I don't like to make a joke unless I know it's original. Gag bumper stickers annoy me for this reason.

Which is why although it does bother me that I had nowhere but home to go with my "I voted" sticker, I didn't initiate that tired jest with the volunteers. Yes, I'm superficial and I want everyone to see what a good citizen I am; yes, I do think a person might notice the sticker and vote when otherwise they'd forget. Yes, I realize my reluctance to invent idle chatter makes me unfriendly.

I stood in front of my front door, staring at the envelope in the clip. The fourth of May. Rent. Late rent. Fuck. Also since Blake had seen me walk by, he'd begun to yell for me, but as I pulled the key strap from my pack I realized my house key was still in my shorts from the walk Sunday, since I have continued to neglect getting a spare key. Fuck.

I scurried to the office, got a key, and skedaddled back before Blake gave himself a coronary. I tidied and vacuumed and did laundry and returned "A Bug's Life" and talked to my mother and made dinner and by 7:00 sat contently on the floor folding laundry and watching "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

My mother continues to vex me. She is--quite understandably--frustrated with my grandparents but she does not see that her infuriation aggravates a rapidly deteriorating situation. She has painted herself into her martyr's corner. Also it seems to grieve her that I try to see things from both perspectives, that I am able and willing to do so. She cannot, both because she has never been able to put herself in someone else's shoes and because here especially that other perspective is so near her it's entirely elusive.

For instance: she claims she likes DEW's cat but after DEW goes into residential care, she will find another home for Squeaky. She says she doesn't want any more responsibility for pets because her life is too busy, what with caring for her parents and all. After her parents move elsewhere, her life will not be so hectic, and do two cats need so much more than one cat? Maybe they do: I don't know. But she doesn't like the cat, has always spooked the cat, possibly has sibling-envy of the cat. (Whereas the other cat's is BDL's and therefore holy as well as his responsibility.)

Poor Granny.

RDC has had a cold the past few days, so I tidied the place up fast so he could come home to clean quiet house. I started laundry--I really like being able to do four or five loads at once (although that convenience of time is one I shall happily exchange for convenience of geography)--and then I called BJWL. I brought Blake into the bedroom, leaving RDC watching the news. At the end of the call, I lowered my voice, saying "Hold on a minute."

Immediately she had a fit, screeching about my voice fading out and "What's WRONG" and so on, which I bore until I was back in the bedroom with the bird. I told her that since our conversation was nearly over, I left the bedroom for the living room to cage Blake before going out to the laundry and when in the living room I saw RDC asleep, I lowered my voice. I told her that particularly because of his cold, I didn't want to wake him.
"Oh, he has a cold?" Yes.
"How can you tell?"
I paused, deliberating, then, "Because he told me."
"He told you?" then, realizing, "Oh RDC has a cold. I thought you meant the bird had a cold."
Good thing we got that straightened out.

The same letters my sister and grandmother enjoy leave my mother cold. Sigh. So I didn't tell her my latest. RDC made Pacific snapper (a fish) for supper Monday night. I wondered aloud if anyone Irish ever made the modest proposal to eat some snapper.

Also last night came the unlovely realization that Indiana Jones is Mr. Gradgrind. Mr. Gradgrind wanted children to learn only facts and to have no flowers on wallpaper because that would be fanciful and no good. Indiana Jones said archealogy is the search for facts and that X never ever marks the spot. We know he was wrong about the latter; perhaps he was about the former too.