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Because I can't bear to eulogize Doug - 2008-08-19
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12:46 a.m. - 2005-05-22
I keep opening this thing, typing a paragraph or two and then deleting the whole works and wandering out into the kitchen for tea. This lack of words isn't worrisome, it happens. A few days from now I'd have to be sedated to shut up. Rain, finally. A sprinkle early this afternoon and then rain in earnest starting around 10:00. Thank goodness. Everything was getting crispy. Despite the steady sunshine the temps are still on the cool side. A blessing. I like some of the summertime stuff, going to the beach, the county fair, etc. But I loathe hot weather. Getting thinner didn't help as much as I hoped it would. I figured fat was a major contributor to my overheating and dumping more than a third of my body weight would help cool things down. Nope. Darn it all. Alex is home with a van load of junk. We helped him lug it all into the house. It's weird to me that my kid owns furniture and appliances. I told him I was making a hope chest of sorts for him. No cedar lined box, just a collection of housewares set aside with an eye on the future. Mike's folks supplied us with just about every necessary when we were starting out. I like the idea that I can do the same for my kid. Some of the stuff is hand-me-downs, some of it is new. When I make raids at the Dollar Stores I toss in a couple spatulas or oven mitts to go into Alex's trove. Our old kitchen table and some random chairs are out in the shed waiting for him when he wants them. I left my mother's house with little more than the clothes I was wearing. She wasn't about to let me have anything of hers, even if she didn't use it anymore. There was a floor to ceiling set of shelves down in the cellar with doubles and triples of things like toasters and hand mixers. When she and my stepfather got married they were combining well-established households and had repeats of nearly every kitchen and linen closet goodie you can imagine. She sifted through all of it, chose the best stuff to use and set the extras downstairs 'for emergencies'. As far as I could remember we never had a blender crisis or spaghetti pot rebellion, but that didn't stop her from claiming all that dusty stuff downstairs was far too necessary to allow any of it to leave home with me. All that 'vital' stuff went to the Salvation Army when the folks split up the following year. I was sooo loved, eh? I'm not saying I'm going to denude the house when Alex gets his own place, but it gives me a great deal of pleasure to think that my son won't be squatting in an empty apartment with nothing but a change of underwear to his name. Wolf is driving me bonkers. He's such a noodge! He gets fixated on things and harps on them until I'm gibbering. I find myself getting sharp with him because no matter how many times I explain why he can't do something or what the situation is, he digs and digs and digs and digs. He doesn't take 'No' for an answer. And he's spun out into one of those cycles where everything that comes out of his mouth sounds critical and ungrateful. Gets on my last nerve. Of all his social deficiencies this one is the most annoying. Most of the time I can deal with his lack of awareness about personal space. I can handle being barged into, stepped on, head butted, and no matter how many times I adjust him on my lap for the Go To Sleep Song he still jams his arm behind my back and sets off a string of muscle cramps from the nape of my neck to my tailbone. Mike is worse and he's a whole lot bigger and stronger. Pretty much if Mike gets within 5 feet of me I can count on a new bruise or two. At least he doesn't bite hard enough to draw blood anymore. I've made that much progress with his total touch blindness and oafishness anyhow. I can cope with Wolf's endless recitation of solar system facts. His obsession with time is a toughie sometimes, but deal-able. The set-in-concrete routines. The hysterics if the lunch sandwich is cut the 'wrong way'. The dramatic wincing and flinching during nail clipping and ear cleaning. His total inability to disrobe in one spot and the trail of discarded clothes and the frantic morning hunts for matching shoes. The way he asks a question then says, "Huh?" when I answer. I mean, c'mon! Why fricken ask a question if you're not going to listen to the answer? Still, I usually manage to hang onto my sanity and sense of humor. But this rude critical self-involved endless noodging shit makes me claw at the walls. It's either that or beat him. And now Alex is here. My older son isn't quite as graceless as his father or his brother. Alex can give a hug without stomping on my foot and knocking my glasses askew, but in other ways he's just as hopeless and dim as the other two. It's going to be a long summer. The only Suave thing around here is the shampoo, ~LA
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