Suzy Says

There are two kinds of coffee drinkers: indoor and outdoor. The indoor type (me, except in Paris) needs coffee before setting foot into the cold world, or even thinking about it. The outdoor type (John) gets coffee on his/her way to work, or goes out to get it. John is completely un-outdoorsy in every other way except coffee, and I am pretty much an indoor girl all the way.

In the morning, after the alarm has gone off at 0 dark thirty, and I have lain there for a few minutes taking in the horror of the early morning and the necessity of working for a living, I stumble out to the kitchen, put the kettle on, and grind my Caffe Trieste mocha java — accept no substitutes — for my French press coffeemaker, which only makes enough for one glorious cup of strong coffee.

When the coffee is ready, I pour it into a cup (no sugar, and no damn dairy products) and stagger back to bed, where I read and drink coffee until the life-giving caffeine gives me the will to get out of bed and deal with the horrors of make-up, contact lenses, etc. This routine is varied only by the days when my monumental laziness gets the better of me and John makes the coffee and brings it to me in bed. See why I love him?

Although I absolutely must have this one cup of coffee, it’s the only one I have all day. The rest of the day, I just drink spring water. Honestly!

Now John gets ready for work and actually walks to within one block of work before getting coffee, which mystifies me. Today, we had a full day of painting scheduled, so he went out to get coffee at 7:30 this morning at Notes from the Underground, a cozy little cafe just a couple of blocks away. Because of the day of manual labor looming ahead, I asked him to pick me up something called a Wake Up Call, which was supposed to be coffee with a shot of espresso in it, but turned out to be a milky horror ? la cappucino or au lait. No matter what language you hide it in, it’s still milk in my coffee, a place it never, ever belongs.

I really hate milk, in fact all dairy products, except cheese and butter. My parents made us drink milk when we were kids and I hated it so much that I used to hold my breath, drink it down as fast as possible, and then eat something immediately to take the milk scum off my tongue. This was a pretty good method of avoiding milk taste, but it backfired on me once when I got halfway through a glass of milk before realizing it was, uh, past its prime. No wonder I have been scarred for life by milk and refuse to have it in my coffee, or anywhere else unless heavily disguised, as in say, cake.

So I had to face the day of painting less caffeinated than I would have wished, but maybe that made it easier to deal with all that grovelling on the floor — I realize how seldom, if ever, I have cause to be on my knees in every day life, since I discovered today that my knees still hurt from that telephone induced tumble almost a month ago — and reaching up as high as I can on tiptoes.

Next time, I swear, I’m paying someone to paint.

Yet another day destroyed in the early morning hours. This is getting to be the theme of the week.

My mother, who is the source of all pain in my world, called me up early this morning — at work, too! Yay! — and started making unreasonable demands, threatening to write checks that will bounce, etc., etc. For those of you unfamiliar with my remaining parent, here are the Cliff’s Notes:

1. When my parents got divorced, Mom got: the house, the car, the antiques, her jewelry, half of Dad’s pension (including more than $50,000 in cash), and alimony for a year after she married a jerk half her age. Wonder what jerk boy’s motivation was?

2. She was an only child, so she inherited everything from her parents, including a three storey Victorian mansion near Rochester, NY.

3. She is manic-depressive and doesn’t always take her medication. This made her such an interesting mother that only one of her four children has ventured to become a parent. Also, it makes her grasp of reality tenuous and bizarre, so talking to her is much like being in a bad dream.

4. She has the fiscal responsibility of a delinquent 12 year old. I set up a bank account for her in my name and she overdrew it five months in a row, by as much as $200 a time, until I closed it in despair, my credit rating destroyed.

5. The jerk half her age left her and his employer, the US Marines, last year, having spent every nickel of Mom’s money. He is in Canada, and we know where, but apparently he gets away with it. The Marines won’t go after him, and we have thus far been unable to make him give my mother the court-appointed support payments. She is now on welfare. She doesn’t own her apartment, her car, or anything else to show what may have happened to all that money. Nothing.

6. She refuses to take responsibility for anything that has happened to her. She blames my father for her financial situation, and apparently sees no hypocrisy in constantly telling me how difficult his death is for her — far worse than it is for me, you understand.

I finally just lost it with her this morning. I had reached my limit after months of her self-pity and bullshit, and let her have it, telling her that it was her own foolish choices that got her where she is, we all told her this would happen, what happened to all that money, etc., etc. She started telling me how it was all my Dad’s fault, and I said, “No, it’s yours,” and she hung up on me. I am now sitting here with hands shaking, with 6 hours of work left, barely able to concentrate on anything. Woo hoo! Why can’t we divorce our parents? And why is this the parent I have left?

Ack! She just called me again. I’m going to kill myself.