Suzy Says

It’s been quite a year:

January: First trip to Chicago ever. Fell madly in love despite the fact that it was -16&deg F and as famously windy as advertised. It was fun to visit the snow, which was really pretty and romantic. Finally got to visit the incredible collection at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Met the fabulous Kelly, live and in person!

My sister Beth’s first visit of the year.

March: The horror of the clock begins.

Trip to Boston to see the Impressionist Landscape exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts on Dad’s birthday. Saw the legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet perform at Harvard.

My stepmother Margaret visits for the first time without Dad. While she’s here, her house burns down. House still being repaired as we go to press.

April: Beth’s second visit of the year, this time accompanied by her daughter Cat. Mom’s 71st birthday celebrated with all her kids. The ass grabbing incident seriously shakes my composure for weeks to come.

May: Trip to Toronto for Birthday Week. Clock saga finally ends. First check-up in {mumble} years (surprise: I’m perfectly fine!).

June: Birthday party with fabulous girlfriends (including Kelly, who couldn’t escape even after she left the country). Visited John’s parents for the first time in 9 years. Official Child Duty (receiving Dad’s friends & colleagues at a party). Mom’s stroke. Her cat comes to stay indefinitely.

July: First baseball game ever. Birth of Sporty Suzy. First mammogram in {mumble} years. Surprise, I’m fine (though almost fainted). Mom allegedly dying. Laid off after seven years in the same job.

August: A month in the country, attending allegedly dying mother. Second anniversary of Dad’s death. Mom amazes everyone by not dying. Beth’s third visit of the year, Cat’s second. Flu from hell which goes on into September.

September: Go back home. Watch the playoffs and don’t do much else (mini nervous breakdown?) for most of the month. Horrified by the Giants being thrown out in the first round (but have to admit the post-season was completely kickass). Start looking for a job.

October: Start job from hell, though unable to commit to it. May have to be committed after working 8 to 5 for the first time in years. Mom well enough to visit for 2 weeks. No injuries or police intervention necessary. Unable to resist watching the World Series despite hating both protagonists.

November: Sell my car. Mo Mom. Thanksgiving with Dad’s closest friend Colin. Quit the hell job. Still hoping for a job I can stand, but hope fading. The therapist fiasco.

December: We become trailer trash. Beth’s fourth visit of the year. The great Blackalicious adventure. Yet another Christmas without Dad. Acquire a black eye and almost certainly a scar, due to combination of gracelessness, disgracefulness, and gravity. Mom still in Intensive Care as of December 30.

I think I did pretty well with my resolutions for the year, which were to do things for myself (all those trips and art exhibits) and find some kind of peace in my relationship with my mother (all those visits, yet body count remains at zero, both from natural and unnatural causes).

2004 resolutions: Figure out that whole spiritual thing. Oh, and get a job. Not necessarily in that order.

Happy new year, everyone!

Yet More Updates

There’s no escape for Megan at work, either. She went to work at 7 this morning, dealt with a car crash involving a 17 year old kid (he lived), to which our brother was also called in his capacity as fireman (he says you never get tired of driving the fire truck as fast as you can with all the sirens going), before heading off to a fire meeting. Meg went back to the hospital, cleaned out the ambulance, then went to check on Mom, only to find that she had been moved to Intensive Care.

Beth & I headed over right away. Megan paged Jonathan, who arrived quickly. She still has congestive heart failure and despite the medication she has been on for 5 days to wring the excess liquid out, it’s still building up in her lungs. We took it in turns to sit with her all day. They’re taking good care of her, but it’s impossible to know what will happen. It’s a waiting game now. I don’t even know what to wish for at this point, other than for her suffering to end.

Further Updates

Mom still in hospital. Still don’t know when she’ll be getting out. My bro & I had Christmas dinner with her at the hospital, and she seemed better then, but has gotten a little worse since, so they’re keeping her in for now. Megan works tomorrow (actually today; I can’t sleep tonight for some reason) so she can keep an eye on her.

There really is no escape for Megan. Sometimes her work follows her home. Sometimes it’s actually in her home, the way it was on Christmas night when I managed to fall and acquire a long and very bloody scrape right above my left eyebrow, accessorized by magnificent carpet burns both above and below the eye and with the most subtle of black eyes. Meg put me back together with butterfly stitches and gauze pads and I spent most of the following day removing what little stomach contents I had (when I make huge, elaborate dinners, I never want to eat them) and sleeping. I’m a natural at this trailer trash stuff, I’m telling you.

Our family agreed not to exchange presents this year, since we’ve been so very economically challenged lately. Though the Grinch would have approved, my good friend Kathleen couldn’t bear the idea of my family not having anything to open on Christmas Day. Being a talented artist in the medium of yarn, she created scarves for each of us, with her own hands and in what little spare time she has and out of the goodness of her heart, which is approximately the size of Texas.

Here’s a picture of Kathleen with her work. Please note that this picture doesn’t come anywhere near to doing this lovely woman credit. So, yeah: she’s beautiful and talented and incredibly kind and generous. But I love her anyway (even though she makes me look bad).

And little sis didn’t take the moratorium too seriously, either: she made stockings for each of us, and an extra-special one for Mom, who is still in the hospital but hanging in there. Megan worked at the hospital all last night and checked in on her from time to time, and brought Mom the stocking when she finished her 12 hour shift at 8 am Christmas morning. We all had coffee and opened our stockings, just like when we were kids. So, yeah: Megan’s like Kathleen. And I love her, anyway, too.

Meg is now having some well-deserved rest, Beth & Ben are with Mom, and the rest of us are working on Christmas dinner. We’ll bring Mom a plate later.

Hope everything is merry and bright and hospital-free, wherever you are!

I’m off to the country for our first annual Trailer Trash Christmas.

If I say I believe in Santa, will he bring me money and drugs?

Happy holidays, everyone!

Update:
December 24, 2003

Took Mom to the hospital at 2:30 am with pneumonia, congestive heart failure, and high blood pressure. She’ll be there at least two days, but not in intensive care. She is conscious and everything, so hopefully everything will be OK.

Megan works tonight, so she’ll be there to keep an eye on things. I’ll keep you posted.

Part II

Though delighted to exit the cab, we were discouraged to see the length of the line of would-be ticket buyers outside the club. The line, in the manner of most lines, such as those inevitably found at post offices and airports, moved exceedingly slowly, if at all. We decided that the worst case scenario was that we wouldn’t get in and then we’d just go to our room at the swanky Holiday Inn and get room service (I love room service) and watch bad TV and giggle. But the powers that be took pity us on us, and at last we reached the door, where we were carded (!) and then allowed inside to buy tickets.

The tickets took the form of red hospital bracelets. Megan told me that in the hospital, these have the patients’ allergies written on them. I said she should write BOREDOM on mine. She said I should write OD’s on hers (she says they’re the worst ER patients ever, what with the puking and screaming and other attractive character traits). She went and bagged a table, and I went and bagged the first of far too many Cosmos.

Yay! We were less than an hour away from Blackalicious. Or so we thought.

They were scheduled to start at 10, but at 11, there were still miscellaneous guys messing around on stage. Finally, an opening band appeared and starting playing a strange mixture of hip hop and disco. It devolved into pretty much just disco, and then they left and the miscellaneous guys reappeared for an encore of moving things around on stage. We were getting justifiably impatient, and Megan said that if Blackalicious didn’t come on after we finished the most recent round of far too many Cosmos, we should leave. The powers that be once again got off their asses and got Blackalicious off theirs around 12:30. They started playing and we started dancing and it was nothing but fun. As soon as they started, all our annoyance just disappeared as if it never existed. It was the most fun I’ve had a very long time.

Shortly after they started playing, I noticed a familiar fragrance. Someone had wasted no time in firing up a joint, and my sis decided that if they could, she could, so she did. This increased our popularity with the locals, but not with the bouncer, who eventually repo’d it from the guy who had it at the time and then stuck around us for the remainder of the night. I guess bouncers have the ability to identify degenerates without any real evidence.

When the show was over, we were at the very dangerous stage of having had enough to drink that we wanted more to drink. We started hotelwards and passed a quickie mart. Though Megan assured me that quickie marts only have beer in them, I had to go in and see for myself. She was right, and we were saved from ourselves, because neither of us drinks beer. Once we got to the hotel, we had to get the manager to open the door for us with the card key thing since we were pretty uncoordinated at that stage of the proceedings. Also it was 3:30 am.

But we got up in time to catch the 10:15 am bus, though it was in fact the 11:10 by the time we left (is constant tardiness a normal Greyhound quality? Enquiring minds want to know), and guess what? Poetry Guy was on the same bus! We avoided eye contact and headed for the back of the bus as fast as we could. The fun was over. But it was all worth it.

Part I

Still more public transit for poor (in every sense) Suzy. This was the first time I had ever taken a Greyhound bus anywhere. Buses in my opinion are not good, but the great Blackalicious adventure was worth it all.

Megan and I got to the frightening bus station with five minutes to spare before catching the bus to Sacramento. We ran down the hallway toward the ticket counter to the visible amusement of the clerk. Whether it was the panic on our faces, or just our faces, I don’t know, but she thought we were pretty damn funny.

Clutching our tickets with our misspelled names on them, we went to the door behind which there should have been a Blackalicious-bound bus, but no. In front of the door was a geeky guy who immediately started a one-sided conversation with us, during the course of which it was revealed that he was a poetry-spouting Jesus freak, which is the very worst kind. Oddly, what annoyed my sister and me the most was that he kept saying he had written a haiku of 22 words (and then reciting it). A haiku, any haiku, consists of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, not 22 words.

However, the bus was at least 22 minutes late. What with Poetry Guy and the fact that we had to buy our tickets to the show at the door (all advance tickets being sold out), we were approaching freak out point by the time the bus arrived. We made sure that we sat far, far away from Poetry Guy, preferring the company of the far less obnoxious bathroom.

Traffic was very bad, and the bus was already late, so we arrived in the Governator’s town almost half an hour after tickets had gone on sale. We were encouraged by the sight of a dozen cabs lined up outside the bus station, apparently willing and waiting to take us to the club. But most of the cabs were driver-free, and the first one in line, which actually did have a driver, wanted us to wait while he got a jump start.

This idea did not go over well with two girls whose only thought at this point was that we would have endured all of the above only to find the show was sold out. We finally found a cab which was equipped with both a driver and a working motor, and off we went. Less than half a block into the ride, discovered that cab driver was also a Jesus freak and not shy about it. At least he didn’t recite poetry and may have known what a haiku was, though the subject mercifully didn’t come up.

I’m all Jesused out and it isn’t even his birthday yet.

I try so hard to be good. I really do. Possibly the problem is I can’t actually tell the difference between the two, and this gets in the way of any real success. Anyway:

In an attempt to be responsible since I am a) underemployed (almost chronically, at this point); and 2) technically an adult, I decided to take BART to the airport instead of a cab. The fact that it was preceded by a haircut and two hours of shopping at Vickie’s and Sephora and Lush is irrelevant.

So, carrying my purchases and impeccably coiffed for a change (underemployment leads to underachievement in grooming on the whole), I descended into the bowels of BART, and into Hell.

In my innocence, I tried to charge the $4.70 it takes to get to SFO. BART machines will only do credit card transactions for $20 and up, the scam artists that they are. Though the booths are manned, the people manning the booths will not give you change. Why they are there at all I couldn’t tell you. The change machines will only change $20’s, and they will not give you coins. I didn’t have the exact change, so I ended up spending $5 for the ticket and being totally ripped off for 30 cents.

I was incensed, and yes, I realize that someone who spends that much on her hair and underwear shouldn’t get so upset about 30 cents, but again: not the point. The point is that they deliberately stole that 30 cents and you can just tell they make a career of it. Also, no-one gave in to me to fix it, and that is always unacceptable. On top of everything else, public transit. PUBLIC FUCKING TRANSIT, OK? And I haven’t even discussed the smell and all those other people.

So the train finally shows, thinking it’s fashionably late when it’s actually just rude for making everyone wait so long. Two stops into the whole ordeal, train appears to give into the despair I am feeling, and sits dejectedly at the platform. Finally, there’s an announcement that there’s been a damn earthquake again, and they have to make sure everything is OK before letting us go on (even though quake was in Oakland, miles and miles away, and teeny, like the late and notoriously petite Herve Villechaize). Why it couldn’t have waited until I was off BART, I don’t know. Earthquakes are so self-centered it’s really shocking. Sat there listening to Wilco and thinking evil thoughts for an eternity, alternating with thinking of a cab, any cab, with the longing usually reserved for dinner at the French Laundry or a frosty bottle of vintage Cristal.

Finally pull thoughts away from Self and realize this also means I might get to the airport after Beth & Ben emerge from Customs and they would wonder. I have never yet failed to meet someone at the airport when I said I would (even though no-one ever meets me at the airport. Ever). Try to call Beth’s cell phone to tell her I might be late. No service for my cell phone in the deep, dark Hell of BART. But then, what else can you expect? I mean, it *is* HELL, after all, even if they try to disguise this fact by calling it BART.

Finally get the all clear, and as Elvis Costello would say, things got back to normal and the train began to roll again. Get to the airport approximately the same time flight is scheduled to arrive. Even though BART arrives at the international terminal, (which I can never find and always have to ask directions to at least twice every time I’m looking for it), still can’t find the arrivals hall, and yes, have to ask where it is. Turns it out it was only down one escalator, but guy took me there personally, undoubtedly feeling I was too stupid to be trusted on an escalator.

Get to the arrivals hall to discover flight is in fact, delayed, meaning more boredom for poor, beleaguered Suzy, and the boredom quota for today had loooong ago been reached. Beth & Ben finally turn up. I spend $40 on cabfare to get us home in heavy traffic, but the horror of the whole day is immediately redeemed:

Megan has agreed to go to Blackalicious with me tonight!!! But they’re playing in Sacramento and the show starts at 10 pm so we’ll have to stay overnight, but Blackalicious! We’ll have to stay overnight since it will be late when the show is over and it won’t be at the Sacramento equivalent of the Drake.

Also it could be considered rude to ditch your relatives on their second night in your home, but: Blackalicious, baby! And I did ask both B’s if they’d care to accompany us on this intellectual outing and they declined, so I’m not completely without manners. Just almost.

Did I mention Blackalicious?

My sister Beth arrives today from England for her fourth, count ’em, fourth, visit of the year. By now, she must be on very friendly terms with the stewardesses – oh, excuse me, flight attendants*:

Flight Attendant (Heathrow): “How are you today, Mrs. A—-? How’s your Mum? So lovely to see you again!”

Flight Attendant (SFO): “Hi, Beth! Your Mom still around? Wow. Your usual Scotch?”

She and Megan are close contenders for the highly coveted Daughter of the Year Award. I wasn’t even nominated, for obvious reasons.

Beth is accessorized on this trip by her son Ben. I’m hoping we’ll all have some time in the city before heading up to the country together for Trailer Park Christmas. The good news for me is that I’m taking BART to the airport this time, and guess what? It goes straight to the International Terminal, which I can normally never locate without assistance. The powers that be at BART must have taken pity on me. That, or the airport employees I keep asking for directions couldn’t take it anymore and united in demanding that the International Terminal be the BART station so they wouldn’t have to deal with me several times a year.

I know what you’re thinking, but remember, I’m underemployed and nouveau pauvre, so yeah: public transit to the airport. However, we’re taking a cab back to Chez Suzy. You can’t expect people who have endured 11 hours of bone-crushing boredom of public transit, in the form of airplane travel (and in coach! *shudder*) to deal with still more, and at rush hour, too. Why do they call it rush hour anyway, when it actually goes on for 3 to 4 hours and ain’t no-one rushing, which is the whole problem right there?

Also, I’m having a festive Christmas lunch downtown with my old friend Richard that day, and filling in the hour or so before I need to head out to the airport by doing some non-holiday shopping. Fortunately, Lush and Vickie’s and Sephora are conveniently located right near the BART station. Now, if I can handle the horrible hordes of holiday shoppers, I’m set. If I can’t, there’s always the bar at John’s Grill, an oasis of peace and perfect Martinis.

Why can’t we still say “stewardess” (or, as it might be, “steward”)? So much sexier. I mean, can you imagine a Penthouse story that starts, “The flight attendant leaned over me, revealing her full, creamy cleavage”? And who hates being considered sexy?

I must be stopped.

I’m eating PopTarts (raw, not even toasted, and with frosting) while watching Mexican soap operas. I feel like my mascara’s running and I’m not even wearing any.

I have the captioning on in an idle attempt to learn some Spanish (I’m not just eating PopTarts, I’m getting educated over here). It would help me to actually communicate with our cleaning lady. Oh, wait. I don’t have one anymore.

{sob}

Though what else can you expect when you’re trailer trash?

On the bright side, I did have my toes painted festive holiday red today, so it wasn’t a total loss.

?buenas tardes!

Ooh, I’m practically bilingual!

Yee haw! We’re officially trailer trash! Or is it “yeehaw”, one word? True trailer trash would almost certainly know. Though maybe trailer trash in its purest form can’t spell.

Anyway, we bought a trailer for Mom. Those of you familiar with the epic saga of Mom can skip this part – go and have a latte or a glass of wine, depending on where you are and your personal degree of degeneracy, and join the rest of the class later. Those who don’t have the sordid factettes of Mom’s recent life at their fingertips, here’s a quick overview of how we got to the point in our lives where we have our very own trailer park:

– Mom married an asshat half her age who spent all her money and then left her and the country, pretty much in that order.

– Mom is now on welfare. Asshat doing just fine and has not paid her a dime. Such is often the way with asshats, I have noticed.

– Mom has breast cancer which has spread into her bones. She used to live in SoCal, but when her health deteriorated, we moved her halfway between where I live and my younger siblings live.

– Mom’s health got worse. She went to stay with my younger sister Megan and almost died, but didn’t. Still can’t live on her own, so has been living with sis since June.

– House is about 500 square feet and only has a sleeping loft with no door for Megan & her long-suffering husband. Mom in living room 24/7 watching mindless TV and making endless demands. You get the picture.

– Situation has gotten increasingly volatile (think lab rats deprived of personal space, understandably going crazy and attacking each other, only with better vocabularies), so Mom has come down to the city a few times to give everyone a break, but this was obviously just a bandaid on an arterial wound and the real problem had to be addressed.

– Thanks to asshat, we have no money, so we came up with the idea of buying Mom a trailer so she will have her own space and my sister & husband can reclaim their house.

OK, we’re all up to speed. Faithful readers, you can now rejoin the class.

We got the trailer from a friend of a friend. It’s 25 feet long, has a double bed and two single beds (extra sleeping space is a total bonus – we were so short of it in our pre-trailer days that I had to sleep in a tent when I was up there this summer “helping”* to take care of Mom. I hate Nature), a bathroom with one of those little European type bathtubs and a shower, a kitchenette with gas stove and mini-refrigerator like a hotel mini-bar, and really good heating, which is essential. Mom really feels the cold, and it’s a lot colder and rains more up there than it does in the city. The trailer is on Megan’s property, so she’s at hand if needed. All in all, a pretty good deal, and it should make everyone’s life less stressful.

I’m off to Wal-Mart to buy blue eyeshadow and a tube top.

*”Helping” mostly consisted of being bored, complaining, and trying to dodge the more repulsive nursing tasks.

Here’s the final item in our continuing series of Cat/cat related posts. Hope you’ve enjoyed theme week.

Today’s item is my brilliant and charming niece’s take on the joy of tech (or text):

Last night I was being propositioned by A via text message. Isn’t technology wonderful? They should use that as one of their advertising slogans: “With 500 free text messages a months you can hit on chicks from anywhere in the country! Send total filth without fear of getting slapped!”

In keeping with the cat motif this week…

Hannah enjoys an afternoon nap. If the Buddhists are right and there really is reincarnation, I want to come back as one of my cats.

Today I got Cat from Cat.

Usually, my mail consists of: bills, catalogues, flyers, and more bills. It is the mail equivalent of Twinkies.

But today, a small and mysterious package arrived from small and mysterious Wales. Inside, it was wrapped in purple paper – even better. I have to admit that I tore the purple paper off in my eagerness to see what was in it, and I was right to be excited: it was a gem of a book, Cat Haiku, from my gem of a niece, Cat, for no reason except she saw it and thought of me. It totally made my day.

Cat from Cat!

I braved the holiday hordes of shoppers to visit Nordstrom in the San Francisco Shopping Centre (yes, they pretentiously spell it &agrave l’anglais, not that I myself am pretentious in any way whatsoever), and felt positively bruised and exhausted. The only way to holiday shop is to do it on line, have them gift wrap it, and deliver it.

Anyway, while walking through Nordstrom in my search for one particular item, I passed a display of gorgeous ball gowns and thought, “I will never, ever need to shop for one of those.”

Don’t you hate it when you break up with someone and they’re already dating someone else by the end of the week? Well, I have become one of those people and now have a temp job at an investment bank just days, or even hours, after heartlessly breaking the heart of the hell job by dumping its ass. At least I had the decency not to rub it in by informing my ex of its swift replacement, unless someone spills the beans at recess or the ex reads it in the tabloids or something.

Even if this job is hell, too, I know it’s only for a few weeks, and they’re paying quite a lot since it will be over the holidays, when normal people don’t want to work. It’s about time I got off my ass and got back to work.

I don’t know what is the matter with me. I mean, I lost my job of more than 7 years 4 months ago, and shouldn’t I be panicking? Yes, there was generous severance pay and unemployment and the hell job to keep the wolf from the door, but this is one expensive city and we have a (not inconsiderable) mortgage and (not inconsiderable) property taxes to pay. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis, or a nervous breakdown lite, but I’ll never know since my therapists won’t stop hitting on me and I’m way too shallow and silly to figure it out on my own.

My niece may have gotten it right when she said, “The trouble is you are a creature of comfort. You were born to enjoy the spoils of another’s labor, for which, in return, they get the pleasure of your company and a hot chick to take places. However, fate has interfered with God’s plan. That’s why you don’t feel inclined to work. It’s not a mid-life crisis, it’s your spirit knowing something has gone horribly wrong. This is how we know God is a man. A woman would not have allowed this sort of oversight to occur.”

Makes sense to me.

So I’ll just do my temp job through the holidays and see what happens in the New Year. It could be pretty much anything.

Updates:

1. Thanks to the incomparable Candi’s brilliant husband Brian, my email has seen the error of its ways and is now behaving itself. I don’t think it’s going to dare to step out of line anytime soon. Brian is not only a total sweetheart, but an efficient genius. I’m writing him in for President.

2. Thanksgiving was great. All the California family was together, and Dad’s best friend, Colin W. It was Colin’s first Thanksgiving ever – he lives in a little village in Devon, England – and it was a real pleasure to have him share it with us. I had cleverly ordered the entire thing (turkey; garlic mashed potatoes; green beans with shallots; herbed stuffing; cranberry relish; pumpkin pie) from Whole Foods, so all I had to do was heat it up in the containers in which they arrived and make my world-famous cheese biscuits (if I could figure out a way to sell them, I’d be a millionaire, if not idle rich). This pretty much eliminated all stress, other than having two & 1/2 (the 1/2 being a 2 & 1/2 year old) extra people show up unexpectedly just as we were sitting down, but there was more than enough to go around and a good time was had by all.

3. Was very busy being Tour Guide Suzy with Colin all last week. It was his first visit to San Francisco, so I wanted to make sure he had a good time. Tour included Hyde Street Pier and its historic ships; riding the cable car; Ocean Beach with its wild waves and birds (Colin is a keen bird watcher); the Legion of Honor; the newly re-opened Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park; and the Asian Art Museum. Not to mention Swan Oyster Depot, Le Petit Robert, and Victor’s. I’m getting pretty good at this. If you’re ever in SF, let me know and I’ll be Tour Guide Suzy for you, too.

4. Broke up with the hell job. The relationship wasn’t good for either of us, so I didn’t see any point in dragging it out. The hell job deserves someone who loves it back, just like the rest of us. Sobbed like a girl, though.

5. Being unemployed again and unwell this week has freed me up to catch up on all of this season’s Gilmore Girls to date and to start on the Herculean task of writing Christmas cards. Decided that it makes the most sense to divide them geographically so am tackling the non-US ones first. Between my friends and the ones I inherited from Dad, there are around 70. Yikes!

And I feel that it’s important to actually write something in each one intended for that particular person, rather than just signing my name or, worse yet, including one of those generic letters which are mostly excuses to brag about the accomplishments of children and/or grandchildren (notice how they’ll always include how little Jimmy got into Harvard, but fail to mention his crack problem). I may be chintzy enough to get a pre-cooked Thanksgiving dinner, but at least my Christmas cards are personal. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere.