Me and My Imaginary Friends

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.

Monday, June 18, 2007

What's going on

I took Mama to the convention on Sunday.  I figured it would be easier on her to split up the days since she gets tired so easily.  For the next 5 weeks, she will be in therapy every single day.  So I don't think she will get to a Friday of one of the local conventions.  I'll have to see if there is any way to get her to the Friday of another one later in the summer.  I would like to just have a way to record the sessions and play them for her.  I don't have the equipment to do that, but I'm looking around on the net this week.  Maybe I'll even stop by Fry's.

I told Mama that I thought we'd see a lot of our friends from the southside at the convention.  After we negotiated our way to our seats, she looked at me and said, "I haven't seen a single person I recognize."  I had to fess up that I'd only assumed this was the southside convention because T was assigned to this one.  It turns out that only one or two congregations from that district, including T's, had been assigned to this convention.  By the end of the day, I think I spotted about 30 people I knew. 

Most surprisingly, the first people we saw were my cousin's family from Savannah - Xoomie, his parents and sister.  He was also assigned to that convention and his parents had come up to be with him.  They came over to our seats with me. His mother (who is my first cousin) stayed with us until the session began, visiting with my mother.  That was a good thing.  Her mother (Xoomie's grandmother, my aunt) had been up here to see Mama while she was in the hospital.  But no one else from Savannah has been able to see Mama in a while.  I think Mama enjoyed it.  I certainly enjoyed hearing some of her stories. 

One particular story had to do with a really funny tactic she used to avoid visiting with someone who dropped by unexpectedly to see her.  I will just not answer the door if I'm not in the mood to talk (who am I kidding? no one just drops by to see me).  She didn't have that luxury - 1) because her house is nothing but windows and 2) because she was in the backyard which is very easy to get to from her driveway.  Somehow she was able to tell who was coming up the driveway without the person seeing her in the backyard.  She looked at her son and said, "Buh-bye.  I'm gone."  He said, "What do you mean?"  As she turned to flee, she answered, "I'm at the neighbors."  She then literally fled from her yard and ran through the backyards of her neighborhood until she got to the house of someone she knew.  (It's a good thing there aren't any fences on her street.)  I'm not quite sure if she just waited in the neighbor's yard until she thought it was safe to come home or if she actually went to talk to the neighbor.  I personally like the image of her lying in the yard of a neighbor and counting "one-one hundred, two-one hundred, three-one hundred," like we used to do when we played outside as kids.  Ultimately, her son was able to go to the door and tell the unexpected visitor that his mom was "at the neighbor's."  (Is it funnier for you to know that this woman is pushing 50 even though she looks like she's barely 40?)

See, the people in my family would make great characters for a novel.  Who does this kind of stuff at that age?

Let's see, what else is going on? 

Last week I told you that I thought I'd bought a Wii.  I was wrong, though I was right to be suspicious of the price.  The person did refund my Google Checkout purchase, but did not sell me the Wii.  I finally found one on eBay that is higher priced than I could get at retail, but I don't feel like I was gouged.  There's obviously a market for these things right now and I can't expect people not to make some profit from that - the law of supply and demand and all that.  Right now amazon.com is selling the $250 pack for like $450.  That's gouging.  Hopefully, it will come in this week.

Someone called about Stinky Garbage Trailer.  I don't know if it will lead to anything, but it was the most coherent conversation I've had about it since the other deal fell through.  Good signs: 1) the man spoke enough English for us to have a conversation  2) when he heard the price he didn't just hang up, he asked if he could negotiate.  Most other people ask, "How much for a down payment?"  Me: "No, you see, I'm not a bank.  I'm the owner.  You have to BUY the trailer from me.  I can't finance it for you."  (Said in a nicer way.)  Them: "Oh. [click]"  Well, there was the one man who argued with me that I could finance it and refused to believe that it was against the park's regulations for me to do so.  Yeah, I'm not the park.  Thems their rules.

I started reading The Diary of Anne Frank.  I'm kinda glad that I haven't read it until now.  I never kept a journal as a kid.  The closest I've ever come is this blog.  As I read her story, particularly her justifications for keeping a journal of what she thinks are inane musings, I find myself really relating to her.  And of course, there's all the Jewish boys she talks about...

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This SO has nothing to do with your post (I'll get back to that) but I was just half watching an old episode of Gilmore Girls and it ended with the perfect example of why Rory is our Affie.


Rory had her new artsy friends over at Logan's apt and they were going thru the kitchen cabinets and began a 2 minute dialogue on .... guess what???????????


All the different kinds of RICE in the pantry!!





long grain, short grain, brown, jasmine.....






I should have blogged about it..... but I figured so few people would understand it's cultural significance.

9:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Will you be at the convention at all in the coming weeks?

This weekend is my parent's convention. (Dad is in the drama)

Next week Dad is also in the drama.

The following week (1st week of July) is the one we are assigned to.

Affie and fam are assigned when we are, too.

The story about your mom is great. I reiterate my agreement that you should definitely write a book.

9:13 PM  
Blogger Affable Olive said...

It was Easel's aka- Miss Tyra's convention.
They are assigned to the second weekend your dad does the drama.
That is quite entertaining thinking about Xoomie's mom doing that.
I was about to ask if Rory started rearranging the cans of campbells soup in the cabinet by alphabetical order and place of origin.

3:27 PM  

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