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September 22, 2003Little BitsToday might be the day my grandson is born! Michael called this morning to say that Lilly had gone into labor. Nothing to do now but wait for some word. I hate waiting. Though I've been hanging around a bit over at Colloquial, I can't believe it's been nearly three weeks since my last full-fledged entry. During that time, several events have occurred. 1. The backyard landscaping was completed. In case you didn't see the pics over on Colloquial, here are the before and after shots, taken somewhat from the same angle so you can get an understanding of the impact.       We've been spending time nearly every evening, sitting on our camping chairs on the patio, enjoying the misters (Calvin cleaned the nozzles with muriatic acid, which was fun in an Evil Scientist kind of way, and now they work like gangbusters) and gazing out upon the green grassy goodness. And yesterday, while sitting in the hot tub, we got to laugh at an unsuspecting Gypsy, who was lying in the grass when the sprinklers came on. Birds have been visiting us (and tearing the flowers off of the budding hibiscus), and I have big plans for bird feeders and Adirondack chairs. I've lived in our house since 1994. Nine years later almost exactly, and I finally have a back yard. Good things come to she who waits. 2. Marie turned fifteen. To celebrate this event, Calvin and I gave her her gifts a day early because we're dorks and couldn't wait. We got her a silver musical jewelry box, engraved with a message from her dad and I. She got a new watch to replace the one that was ruined when a boy pushed her into our community pool, and the requested DVD of "Curley Sue". We also gave her a "Circle Journal" kit. Using the provided materials, she begins it, then sends it on to a friend, who adds to it and sends it back, or on to another friend, etc. Cologne and shirts from Hollister (where I shall shop as soon as I have money to spend) finished off the presents. One of the shirts sports the words "California Girl" on the front, and "Out of your league" on the back. Very appropriate, I thought. Although we're not from California. The next evening, on the actual day of her birthday (which is September 18th, by the way), we met her best friend (whose birthday is the day before Marie's, except she's a year older than Marie) and her best friend's mom for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Where I was thrilled to learn that I am only TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION FROM GEORGE CLOONEY. The best friend's mom has a friend who works at The Phoenician, and she gave a private in-room massage to George Clooney. Nekkid. As in, she got to not only see his ass, she got to touch and rub his ass. It is quite possible that I may die of envy. Two lousy degrees of separation. Sigh. We're planning a surprise for Marie's sixteenth birthday, but I can't put the details here because she reads. So! If you're dying to know, just e-mail me and I'll tell ya all about it. She knows we have big plans, but she doesn't know what. It'll be fun teasing her about it for the next year. 3. We went to a funeral. A good co-worker friend of Calvin's lost his father earlier this month, so we went to the funeral to show our support for him. They are Buddhist, and we had no idea what to expect. When we arrived at the temple we spotted Heather (and here is her entry about the experience), who used to work at the same company as Calvin, and another friend of ours. So we all stood in line to sign the guest book, then found seats together. Shortly after that, the chanting began. I wasn't expecting it, and was startled when the audience started in after the person leading them had chanted a moment alone. Every now and then he would sound the gong, and the chanting would pause or change. I know nothing of the Buddhist religion, and so sat, enthralled, listening to the chanting and watching people handle beads and rub their hands in a gesture that I didn't know how to interpret. Every now and then, I closed my eyes and breathed to the rhythm of the chanting. After a while, we began to notice that rows were being called up one by one, to go up to the front where a photograph of the departed was displayed, and do something that we couldn't see at that table. The four of us were at a loss for what to do, since none of us were familiar with the traditions and hadn't been instructed. Would it be worse of an insult to sit and do nothing, or to go and do the wrong thing? Row by row people went up, performed this gesture, embraced the family members, then came back and sat down. When it got to our row, we let the others seated with us go ahead while we stayed, conflicted. Finally, we saw someone else we knew going up, and figured that hopefully we'd understand what to do as we got closer to the table. As our position in line got closer, we could see people taking pinches of incense from a small dish, and casting it into an urn. Some bowed their heads or performed some kind of gesture - when Calvin and I went up, we just bowed our heads silently for a moment, and added our incense to the urn. We embraced our friend, who seemed truly grateful to see us. After everyone had cast incense, friends and family members spoke about their experiences and memories. When our friend spoke, he got me crying, and I was grateful for Calvin and Heather's hands to hold onto. The entire service was beautiful, and it really made me want to learn more about Buddhism. I want to understand the significance of the chanting, the beads, the incense. I want to know how they can have an air of celebration to such a sad event. Such a different experience than the one I had when I lost Grandma. Yesterday we went to Calvin's mom's restaurant for breakfast, bringing along Marie and two of her friends, who had spent the night. While there I realized that my former brother-in-law was sitting a few tables away (he married X(m)'s sister). He'd spotted me, too, but neither of us were acknowledging the other. Until, that is, the girls started speaking rather loudly about the situation. I'd hissed over to Calvin, "Oh my God, that's R sitting over there." The girls piped in: "R? Who's R?" "He's married to X(m)'s sister." "Who's X(m)?" "Laura's first husband. The psycho." "R's a psycho?" "No, X(m) is." "So WHO's that guy again??" Loudly. R must've heard, so I got up, walked over, and exchanged a token, "Hi, how are you? How are things going?" with him, for propriety's sake. R's not a bad guy, after all. And we share in common the distinct lapse of judgement in marrying into the same psychotic family. I got out - I wonder if he ever will. It was awkward, though. Pretty much the only thing that sucks about my two-minute morning commute to work is that if I hit it just right (or just wrong), the only thing I hear on the radio, all the way to work, is commercials. The upside of which may be that at least I don't have some dumb song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Which is usually happens with the last song I'm listening to when I pull into work. If we go over to San Diego this weekend, I think it's Calvin's plan to load up some of the furniture and stuff from Michael's old room and bring it over with us. Which will free up Michael's room for something I've been wanting for years. Book shelves. I'm not saying that I want to turn the entire room into a library - we still have need for a guest room, and a place for Lilly and Michael and the baby to stay when they visit. But I do want a nice big bank of shelves so I can once again put up my vast assortment of books. I will be weeding through the books, though, in order to determine the "keepers" from the "non-keepers". The non-keepers I will haul over to Bookman's (the local discount used book warehouse store type thing), who will give me credit which I can use toward the purchase of even more books. What a marvellous system. Speaking of books, I read "When the Wind Blows" by James Patterson (a birthday present from Dawn, who I lurve more than chocolate cake). It was fairly good, though it didn't get too deeply into character development. It was kind of odd, reading the thoughts and actions of all these different characters, with the "feel" that they were all the same person. A very skim-the-surface kind of a book. Still, I will be reading the sequel, "The Lake House". Because, you know, the concept of kids that can fly is cool. I haven't updated my Reading List in ages. I got Calvin some really cool presents for his birthday, and it's all I can do not to dork out and give them to him before October 1st. But I like the feeling I have when I know I have something for someone that they're really going to like. I guess I'll have to learn to like to draw that feeling out. Or else start shopping on the day before his birthday. We were planning on having a happy hour get-together kind of thing with family and friends, in lieu of an actual (and strictly prohibited!) birthday party. But with Michael and Lilly coming home (probably) around that time, and the baby shower we're having for them, and the going-away happy hour we're having for one of Calvin's co-workers, and the going-away happy hour we're having for one of my departing co-workers, it looks like it might get pushed out a bit. Which is fine by Calvin - he HATES being the center of attention. I love him though, and I want to make him feel special. Whether he likes it or not. Marie is still making straight A's in school. At some point during her high school career, I may not be able to help her any longer with her math homework. She's on Algebra II right now, which is as far as I went. Perhaps when I'm taking calculus (I have the goal of starting school up again in the next month or so, and calculus is in the requirements), she can help me. Probably not without rubbing it in, though. Fair enough. I have been getting up early every single morning before work, and working out. Haven't missed a day since I started my Personal Challenge, which makes me damned proud of myself. Of course, it's only been a week, and I have 21 to go. So we'll see if I can keep this up. Still, it's a good beginning! DVD's watched in the last several weeks:
We've been noting it on the calendar in the kitchen every time we learn the date of a new season premiere. Tonight is CSI: Miami. Tomorrow is Frasier. Thursday is Friends, Will and Grace, and ER. 24's premiere and That 70's Show premiere are sometime in October. Plus there are some new shows starting up that we want to check out (Threat Matrix, Joan of Arcadia, Skin). And we're continuing to watch Sex and the City, Angel (well, I'm watching it, anyway - does ANYBODY know when the premiere is??), The Sopranos (whenever they start up again), and Nip/Tuck. Must-see TV, indeed. And that's the news. Comments on this entry? Head on over to Colloquial! |
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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2003.
