Grandparents Day (Part 6)

The evening of Grands [Grandparents] day at the private school, the mommies told us they are also a bit taken back by Random Granddaughter’s extreme moodiness.

“She will come home from school and be in an extremely bad mood and not want to speak to anybody for half an hour,” they said. “And then she will perk up and play and talk in an normal way.”

I suppose it is only to be expected that a science fiction child will go through adolescence by the time she is five years old. Perhaps she will be fitted for a training bra by the time she is six.

Teach Your Cat to Drink Like This

Bad, Bad Grandchild, Meaner Than the Junkyard Dog

 

A few weeks ago we received an invitation to come to “grandparents day” at the School for Very Bright Children where our bratty, trouble-making grandchild attends kindergarten. Are we going to attend? Does the Pope bring all his Cardinals to watch the bull fight?

Perhaps we will wear t-shirts that say

We don’t know Random Grandchild!

There is no Genetic Connection between us and this child!

Will adopt your grandchild for food (as long as food is organic)!

I have been told that RG is hanging out with the worst child in her kindergarten and giggling inappropriately.

My theory is that her peer is an extrovert and a show-off, and that RG  (very introverted)  has turned herself into a “sidekick” and “hanger- on” to get attention and applause in a parasitic manner.

I have also heard that she is being mean to other kids, and becoming a bit of a bully.

No doubt, there is probably some little David-like child in her class, and she is turning on this poor child to torment him or her.

As her Mommy (birth mother) is a teacher in the same school, Mommy is hugely embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior.

This reminds me of a story, and a possible strategy, though it is one that would horrify the mommies.

Perhaps You Can Just Let Me Live My Life

RG again. Grandpa is collecting on a flash drive all the “RG stories” he wrote about me. (Don’t believe half the stuff he writes about me, either.) He plans to put them on a flash drive and attach a note that say, “Give to RG when she turns 15.”

As he reasonably accurately noted (for once), when I was three I said to Mommy, “You are deciding too many things for me. I am almost grown up. I should get to decide more things for myself.”

Anyway, I’ve read all his stories already. He thinks I will want to know about what I did when I was young when I get older because his parents and grandparents didn’t write down their stories for him to read. (That’s why he made up a bunch of stupid stories about his relatives.)

Here’s the thing Grandpa doesn’t understand. My mommies already have sixty-eleven million digital photographs of me. They have documented every inch I’ve grown and every cute word I’ve ever said. They have measured every pound I’ve gained (though I am still very slim, thank you very much), kept track of every shot the mean doctors poked into my arm or my butt.

I have to be the most documented child in the history of children. (Except for all the other kids in my kindergarten, of course.)

Suppose I decided to run for President some day. (Don’t worry; I’m moving into a new dimension instead.) But if I did all my political enemies would be poring over all the documentation collected on me. I can just see the headlines: RG Pooped her diaper on the way to the park at the age of three! Do you want to elect this woman President?

Look, Grandpa, I appreciate how you are collecting all your stories to have the mommies hand to me when I turn 15. But how about you just let me live my life?

V3 Rides into the Sunset

As I’ve mentioned, V2, who reads only memoirs is pretty in a wan, ethereal way. Her younger sister, V3, is attractive and vigorous, and always strikes me as very presentable and conscientious about making a good impression on customers and fellow workers. (This description fits my wife as well.)

However, I was a bit surprised the last time I encountered V3. I was parking my little car in the main library’s underground parking garage. I looked up and saw her roll into the garage on a large, impressive motorcycle.

When I was in my twenties, I thought it would be cool to own a motorcycle, and I rode on the back of a couple of friends’ motorcycles a few times.. However, I was quite aware that if I tried to ride one myself I would kill myself in very short order. My brother, more adventurous than I am, owned a large BMW for a while. However, one day he took a jolly spill. Aside from a few scrapes, he was not injured, but he said to himself, A fellow could kill himself this way and sold the bike a few weeks later.

I am not really surprised at women riding motorcycles, either. When my wife and I owned a pre-press business, two female employees owned and rode motorcycles.

However, I had never thought of V3 as a biker sort of gal. I walked over as she parked and said hello. I noticed that she owned an unusual brand of bike (which I don’t remember) and that it looked exceptionally spiffy and well appointed. I asked her about it.

“I think most motorcycles are kind of ugly and offensive,” she said. “I spent a lot of time choosing one that not only runs well, but also looks very tasteful and attractive.”

Which struck me as fine, but also very feminine. If my wife were into motorcycles, that is exactly how she would approach choosing her steed.

I am all for equal rights for men and women, and to the extent that a man can be a “feminist” I think I qualify. However, there is no doubt in my mind that there are innate differences between men and women that pop up in all sorts of odd ways.

Part 5: Tattling on the Drama Queen

Later, after I met her younger sister, V3, I once asked V3, “V2 once hinted to me she had been an alcoholic? Was she?”

V3 laughed and replied, “No, she is such a drama queen. Sometimes she likes to get all melodramatic about herself, but as far as I know she never had had a drinking problem.”

New Perils of Pauline post for those skipping over the once in a while changing permanent post starting my blog. Shareware contribution tied to the railroad tracks.

Quick Notes

We are heading off this morning to see the mommies and Random Granddaughter. I don’t have much time to write and may not until next week. We spoke with Mommy last night (RG’s birth mother).

My daughter has started graduate school and is having a hard time with her first class, which involves fairly advanced calculus. She is studying like crazy and feeling very stressed. She mostly wants to be left alone to study, so we won’t bother her.

RG is doing fine with kindergarten, though as an introvert she is somewhat stressed by all the social interaction. There is more, but I don’t have time to describe now, but overall she seems to be doing fine. Her cross-country competition is over. Pete was worried about her being injured. I communicated the concern to Mommy. She is aware of the issues.

RG is still taking piano lessons and seems to enjoy them.

Sylvie, their wonderful cat, has had health issues. She is getting older, has oversensitive skin, and may be developing cancer. Her condition is very unusual and the vets are a bit puzzled. This is sad because she is a remarkable cat, extremely extroverted and loving.

That’s all I have time for. My wife will get up soon and start yelling at me if I am not ready to go.

Book Notes

Book notes for Pete and David.

Pete, you suggested I read Gold Coast, by Nelson DeMille. I just finished reading it. The book was very stimulating, entertaining, thoughtful, and well-written, and I plan to read the sequel. I thank you for the suggestion.

The main lesson I drew from reading it was not to get involved in a ménage à trois with a Mafia don and my wife, not a kink I am likely to pursue. (My wife has made it clear to me that if I am not faithful to her, I am not likely to live for a long time. I don’t think she would bother to hire someone from the Mafia to help her hit me.)

I presume you are adhering to the same sensible policy in regard to your lovely bride.

Pete, in turn I will suggest two possible books for you to read. They are not exactly like Gold Coast and I don’t know if you will like either book, so please don’t put out a contract on me if you read either and find you don’t like them.

One is called Vertical Run, by Joseph Garber.

The other is Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry.

David, on more than one occasion, you have suggested I read The Road to Wellville by T. Coraghessan Boyle. I just checked it out of the library and I have started reading it.

It does indeed seem to relate in a deep way to my family’s history. (My paternal grandfather was a big fan of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.) Although I have only started reading the book, I do already sense a connection and it does bring back moving memories.

 

The Heavy Door

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wife tells me that I am a very negative and pessimistic person. She is just as negative and pessimistic as I am, but she refuses to admit it. Every morning when she gets up, she grimly says to herself, I will be positive and optimistic.

Front Door with Inset

It takes her a couple of hours and several glasses of tea for her determination to take effect.

 

I meant to write this story about five years ago, when our house was being built. I was optimistic, but I am finally getting around to it now.

 

My wife is a person with a highly developed aesthetic sense. It is very important to her to be surrounded by things she finds beautiful. For example, our garden is full of many nutritious food plants, but it is also full of beautiful flowers. It took four years for the garden to reach its full flowering. We are now harvesting our fruits and vegetables, which have been abundant, and sniffing the flowers, which are beautiful and provide beautiful scents.

 

When we were working with Tom, the contractor we hired to build our house, my wife said, “We will purchase the front door and bring it out to the construction site.” She said this because she didn’t want any old door. She wanted a door that represented us and our values and aesthetics.

Tom, the contractor, a very nice guy who did a good job for us in building the house, explained that we should purchase two doors: the permanent door and a temporary door. The contractor would use the temporary door during construction because it might accidentally get damaged. He would only install the permanent door near the end of the job.

We found a “door store” near where we lived on the mainland.. The large showroom includes racks and racks of doors in various sizes and designs. Many of the doors have glass or plexiglass decorative insets.

My wife, as is typical of her, spent hours studying different doors and beautiful decorative insets until she found just the right ones; a combination that would create a front door that would say “Us” to the world. We also picked out a cheap temporary door. Both doors were very heavy. Two strong employees helped load them into the back of my wife’s pickup truck.

We took the doors home, to the duplex we owned at that time with daughter and her partner on the mainland. Again, they were too heavy for us to lift by ourselves. Fortunately, some teenagers were playing football in an empty lot across the street. We asked them if they would lift the doors and put them in our garage for us. Welcoming the opportunity to show off their youthful strength, they cheerfully lifted the doors and put them in the garage. It took two of the husky young men to carry the main door.

We delivered the doors to the work site. We got our next door neighbor at the time, Tim, to help us get the doors into the truck. My wife has a bad back; it was not very safe for her to help me lift the door. I could not do it by myself.

The contractor said to take the “real door” back as he could not store it safely at the work site. It was a little irritating to drive the door back to the duplex where we lived and get my neighbor to help me unload it again.

The contractor typically worked on three houses at a time. At the time, his business was going well and he had a fairly large work crew. One Saturday morning we arranged to deliver the “real” door to the island. Terry the foreman, was supposed to meet us at the work site at 9 am.. To get there on time, we had to get up at 5 am in the morning. I arranged with Tim, our next door neighbor, to help me load the door in the truck, even though it meant he had to get up at 5 am on a Saturday morning. My wife had taken a dislike to Tim before she ever talked to him because he always had a dozen cars sitting on his front lawn, most of them in various states of assembly, dis-assembly, and repair. My wife thought Tim’s constant auto repair projects made our neighborhood look like a white trash headquarters. But, in fact, Tim proved to be a very pleasant neighbor in various ways, not least when he cheerfully agreed to get up at 5 am on a Saturday morning to help me load the door into our truck.

We loaded the door at 5 am, caught a ferry, and arrived at the work site about 9 am. The not quite finished house stood empty. There was no sign of Terry. We knew Tom, the contractor, was off island on other business. We did not have a phone number for Terry, the foreman. We sat around the work site in our truck for about an hour, extremely frustrated and irritated.

In the early days of his blog, David Rochester would write little stories about the irritations and frustrations of his life I called “Rochesterisms.” This was clearly a Rochesterism; not really a disaster, but certainly maddening.

We debated what to do. We were irritated at the prospect of making the long trip back to the mainland, unloading the door, and doing it all over again another day.

We drove the five miles back into the nearest town on the island. We stopped at a pleasant coffee shop and had some tea and pastries to console ourselves in our irritation and frustration. Having a house built is a stressful and anxiety producing activity. My wife and I stared at each other in gloom. We wondered if we should drive the five miles out to the work site just in case Terry the foreman had arrived. We decided to take the trouble.

In gloom we drive the five miles in silence. We drove down the gravel private road to the site where our house was being constructed. There was no sign of Terry the foreman.

We trudged up the driveway to our truck. Just as we got up to the truck, we saw Terry’s truck pull up.

He got out, explained that an problem had occurred at one of the other work sites. Apparently a building inspector had decided the other house did not meet code, and Terry had been forced to rush to the site and deal with the problem while his boss, Tom, was out of town.

We drove our truck back down the driveway.

Terry, the foreman, is a man of average height and build, as am I. I prepared to help him lift the door. Terry lifted the door by himself and carried it to the house by himself and propped it against the wall next to the construction door and my wife and I stared in amazement and admiration.

“There,” he said. “I’ll have the crew install it on Monday.”

My wife and I thanked him effusively, got back in our truck, and drove back toward the ferry dock, our load lighter and our hearts singing.

 

Sweet Peas