Possumblog

I really think it started in earnest on Thursday.

Thursday morning, every lane I got in on the way to work slowed down. The right would be zipping along, I’d find a break and move over, and then come to a dead stop. That’s the sort of frustration that just about pegs the meter. Then we had that building committee meeting Thursday night, and it too was an exercise in extreme frustration. The architect had brought along a little floor plan diagram (that didn’t actually conform to what we had been telling him for a month now) and then to make matters worse, he handed out three or four copies of it. Once everyone got those, the meeting devolved into three or four different running conversations--quite literally, we weren’t on the same page. Everyone was jabbering back and forth and the architect--who I really thought should be guiding the discussion--didn’t. It wound up with me trying to interpret all the side conversations and distill them into something he could take back to the office and use. I don’t know how successful I was. But I made sure to tell him to be sure and bring ONE large drawing this week, and no more. Second, I may have to have a talk with one of our committee members, who is a wonderful, garrulous, raconteur who enjoys being around people. Leading to many asides, quips, jokes, stories, jests, japes, and general BSery which is fun when WE’RE NOT PAYING SOMEONE TO SIT THERE AND LISTEN TO IT! At this point in the process, we’re paying them an hourly rate, and every wasted moment is money flying out the door.

Then Friday, that funeral to attend. I picked my mom up from her office--early. She didn’t understand why I wanted to leave so early (I picked her up at 1:00 for a 2:00 funeral in Leeds) but for once, I wasn’t going to be late for something. Good thing, too. She got in the van with a wad of paper towels, having developed a nosebleed right before she walked out of her office. This continued all the way from downtown--she went through a stack of towels and cotton balls, despite my efforts to tell her to A) leave her nose alone, and B) stuff some cotton in it and lean her head back. But it kept on coming. And she managed to get it on her white blouse. ::sigh:: So, in the middle of a rather solemn ride to the funeral, we have to make a stop at Wal-Mart so I can get her some peroxide and cotton balls.

“Why peroxide?” she asked.

“Takes out blood stains--pour a bit on there, let it foam, then blot it.”

“All those years ago, I wondered why I had you, and now I know.” That’s her standard running joke whenever I manage to come up with something that she didn’t know about. I came along late in her life, and not quite expectedly, and she often (more often nowadays, it seems) tells me about how she wondered and wondered if she was going to get pregnant again, why did it happen when she was nearly 36. Back then (you know, the Pleistocene) women didn’t usually wait so late. She keeps telling me she’s glad, though, because I turned out to be relatively useful to her. Glad to help.

Anyway, I ran in and made her sit at the restroom bench so she wouldn’t bog me down--she tends to walk too slowly, and get distracted by sales items--and I found the supplies and checked out. Gave them to her and sat myself down on a bench to see who all comes through the Leeds Wal-Mart at 1:30 p.m. on a Friday. Interesting crew, let me tell you. And again, I really must say how objectionable it is to see all these saggy wrinkly mee-maws with tattoos. And leathery hairy old paw-paws, too, for that matter. Y’all please stop doing that.

Anyway, Mom came back out of the restroom, free of nosebleed and free of blouseblood, and we headed on over to the funeral home, conveniently just down the street. Saw the man’s mother and his brothers, paid our respects to the deceased, looked at the flowers, visited a bit with folks my mother knew from back down in Quinton or Twilleytown, then sat down for a short quiet funeral. She didn’t want to stay for the burial, so we said our goodbyes and I took her own back to work, and I came back and really couldn’t do much in the way of productive work.

So much to think of, and so few brain cells to process it all.

Home, where I thought I would be able to get out and cut grass, so we could be all ready for our visitors on Saturday. Oh, but Oldest simply MUST go to the football game. MUST. GO. Which is difficult to imagine that there could even BE a football game, seeing as such a contest requires other people, and she has led me to believe by her behavior that she believes herself to be the only person in the world. ::sigh:: I got on the phone and called the lady who’d come by our house, and asked her if at all possible to allow us to put off her nephew and his family from viewing the house for yet another week, because it simply wasn’t going to be ready for them to see. Mine and Reba’s bedroom is still a wreck--well, ONE side of it is still a wreck. And now, since I was going to have to cut grass Saturday, there wasn’t going to be any time for dewrecking the other side of the room. I didn’t tell the kids until Saturday, though--I wanted them to finish cleaning up as much as possible.

Anyway, on to the game, made even more stressful by the fact that Catherine suddenly decided she wanted to tag along. ::sigh:: Went out to get in the car, put the key in, clunk. Tictictic. TICtictictic. tic tic ti c. tic. Deader’n a hammer. ::heavy sigh:: Have to do that tomorrow, too--go buy ANOTHER car battery. I told the girls to go get in the van and then we were off to the stadium.

Paid our admission, got a burger for Cat, went and tried to find a seat that was unmolested by yellow jackets. The stands usually get washed down, but for some reason no one had done that, so there was a huge section of seats without people, all due to a thin sticky drink spill that had become Stinging Insect Central. So, we moved on down a ways (actually better seats--almost on the 50) and sat down. Hey! It’s hair cutting Alisha! She was there to see her cousin play. Talked to her a bit. The game itself was a blowout--playing Carver, and it was already lost by the second quarter. They had a couple of amazing catches, including one for a touchdown that the kid managed to pluck out from in between a sea of our red jerseys, but overall they had too many penalties, and just not enough defensive oomph to slow us down. Final score, 56-18. Not that I saw it--we left sometime during the third quarter. Home, and to bed. At least for me. Reba stayed up working on her stuff for school.

BRIGHT AND EARLY SATURDAY MORNING! That’s what’s next, you know--after I get it written.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at September 12, 2005 10:04 AM