Gonna be a fun summer of navigating. Guess I better actually study the maps before we leave…

I just had three weeks off of work. The first two were forced, as they closed the university.  We went to visit relatives for Christmas (THREE toddler girls, YAY did I have fun!) and we went on Jamcruise 8

I practically slept through this week at work. Once I caught up on work (sometime Tuesday) I had time to catch up on Tee Vee. After three weeks of not watching it, now I have all these people in my head and I keep trying to place them in reality. Jenna? was she on the boat? No she’s on 30 Rock. I still have some Community and Parks and Recreation. I should save them for next week at work. I love hulu.com .

Meanwhile, someone sent me a friend suggestion on Facebook and I immediately defriended that someone. It seems my boss is on Facebook now so I may be around “here” more, again, for my work whining.

Another of my friends “friended” the boss, probably for work-political reasons. Sigh. I don’t want to defriend everyone who works there. But at least he had the sense not to suggest me as a friend.

OH HAI

I am sitting here envisioning her next year all too clearly.

Him: “what would help?”
me: “I don’t know”
Him: “I guess I’m on my own, then.”

Oh hey *that* sure helped, good job.

Let’s see, which of these would be more likely to help:

a) arrange for someone she’s insecure about to drop by (to get some free tickets) and see how we live, on a Saturday. (We live in a very strange mess, several rooms of dusty air pollution equipment mixed with decades old computer stuff and decades old catalogs)  Vacuum the living room to make it “presentable” (sure) and then get ill for several hours. Bonus points if the person doesn’t show up on Saturday, thus ruining the whole weekend.

b) get ill around the time you usually feed her. Wait til she’s napping, starving, and has given up on going out for 45 minutes of music at a very late hour. Wake her and offer to go after all.

c) Let her sleep in on Sunday morning, while you go out in the sunshine and play music, and go to Costco, without getting the list she made on Saturday, when you were still going to go on Saturday.

d) At noon, offer to make her breakfast after your shower. Stay in the shower for 45-60 minutes, during which time the person supposed to “drop by” calls twice and leaves messages.

e) Miss connecting with the “drop by” person so that she doesn’t come by at all. Leave a message, but don’t bother trying to call her again to see what is up.

f) Leave it to me to get the free tickets to the “drop by” person at work on Monday. When I complain about having to wait to go on a break, pass that right on to the “drop by” person, along with the idea that I want to get coffee at a place that I actually never go to anymore, and suggest she might want to meet me there. (Sometime in the last week I mentioned I never go there anymore because of the people I might run into.)

g) Tell the person at the last minute that I want to go with her to use the tickets she is picking up, even though I just said this weekend that I did NOT want to go. Thus giving the person the impression she has to take me with them in order to get these “free” tickets. (And why would she need to pick them up if I’m going?)

h) All of the above?

Bonus points for complaining about how you’re just trying to help, get nothing but bad feelings back, and will never do it again.

I guess my grandmother had nothing else but us kids, after my mom devastated my grandmother’s peer group, by breaking up a marriage of a man 15 years older than herself.

I miss my grandma. Her old friend, my half-sibs’ mom, has been really nice to me lately on Facebook. Maybe someday we’ll talk about my grandma…

Mom always told me those people in my dad’s family didn’t like us, but she never revealed the extent to which she devastated all their lives.

The oncologist called today to schedule a followup in a month, with a blood test, the one that tests tumor markers, beforehand.

Last week my tumor markers were regular people level. Last spring they were high. So, as I said to a doctor “that that means they might mean something.” He said that’s the correct way to state it.

Life is going to be a long series of exercises in not panicking. Luckily I have great denial skills. No really. I didn’t think about this except for half hour periods, over the last week. Of course one of those was while driving to the ultrasound… Pay attention to the road! I had to keep telling myself.

I’ll just briefly mention that T has stopped talking during the music and I’ve been enjoying her company. We are managing to stay neutral in N’s melodrama and enjoy her company. This update is about B…

The next time we saw B after the phone call and email mentioned in Communication, was at a concert in a nearby city. She had to fly down for it or was there on business, which defeated my purpose when I chose to go to that city instead of her city to see this band. OH well.

We stayed in a hotel. She had a room. We shared a room with our male friend H, who is a delight to travel with. (He came to our elopement in Vegas and ran one of the cameras (still or video.) He drove 8 hours to do it.)

The three of us wanted to go eat food and then hang out in the parking lot at the concert. Yes, we’re talking the (no longer Grateful) Dead. B wanted to delay at the hotel and get a burrito to go somewhere, to take to the show, because she was not hungry. She continued to express this preference for 20 minutes and we all caved and then she said “oh but you have veto power”. I said “I told you what I wanted 20 minutes ago, so whatever. I’ll just keep eating these chips, here.”

We had some videos on some hard drive and she insisted they hook them up to her computer in her room. After about 10 minutes of boys futzing with wires, I said to her “you knew it would be like this, right?” she said “no.” I said “Oh I guess I know it because I’ve ever touched technology before.” she said “I call Gomer my neighbor and he always fixes it in five minutes.”

I just stared at her. She said “oh… I guess I should call him then” I just nodded. They finally got it hooked up, we watched 3 minutes and then left.

We found a burrito place.  It was after all Los Angeles. We went inside and sat down. The three of us decided to get our food to stay. She ordered hers to go. There was no A/C and she kept fanning herself but we refused to leave. I even put on my outer shirt just to piss her off, but I was comfortable.

We arrived at the parking lot. She wanted to get in line. We had assigned seats so the three of us wanted to do the parking lot. We figured out that she thought she would get the water she had and the burrito inside. We assured her there was no freaking way. We parted ways.

Later I saw her with a hot dog and found out she got to the door and found out she could not get the stuff in. Did she get out of line (still plenty of time) and eat it? No, she threw it away.

So we did everything she insisted on and she still didn’t get what she wanted. It totally made my day, seriously.

Earlier, when we were going out to buy the chips, she made us wait while she not only reported, but waited to see if the hotel was going to fix, a problem with her room. The problem? Her toilet seat was loose. I doublechecked on our toilet when we got back. You hand screw the plastic nut to tighten the toilet seat, just like on the one at home. I wonder if she calls her friend Gomer for that too.

Oh and I forgot to mention… she ironed her shirt, to go to a Dead show.

We recently went to our yearly campout and B was there. This trip was even more satisfying to my evil heart, but I think I’ll put it in another entry.