Love on the Rocks Ain’t no Surprise, Pour Me a Drink and I’ll Tell You About My Parrot

It was a weekend right out of a Neil Diamond song, I’m afraid.

Friday night I met my friend CombatGirl for coffee for the first time in a couple of months, and she filled me in on her recent breakup with the guy she had been seeing for the past year. I knew she had been on the fence regarding this relationship for a while, but apparently the deal breaker happened a few weeks after Christmas, when the boyfriend asked my friend why her father hadn’t shown up for the family Christmas gathering at her house.

Given that my friend has been estranged from her father for years—which she had told the boyfriend all about—and given that she had, not long before, experienced a difficult emotional episode related to her estrangement from her father—an episode which the boyfriend had witnessed part of—CombatGirl was understandably surprised by his question. She promptly introduced herself as the woman he had been dating for the past year, and then broke up with him.

I’m thinking she made the right call.

The next night I had dinner with Dr. Dave, who was in town for a few days, and who, coincidentally, is also fresh on the heels of a breakup. A woman he had met here in Minneapolis started pursuing him via e-mail shortly after his move to Maryland last summer, and at first the effort of trying to do the long-distance relationship thing had seemed worthwhile. They shared a number of common views on things like religion and politics and buying locally-grown produce, and she even liked baseball.

But, over time, he grew concerned that she was a few years younger than him. And that she seemed a little bit closer to her parents than most adults he knows. And also, that she had a habit of taking in wounded or abandoned animals. Her menagerie of pets included a three-legged kitten and a couple of parrots, and while Dr. Dave doesn’t have a problem with animals specifically, there seemed to be a lot of them, and he began to find it a little bit odd that she treated them more like children than animals.

Then, after a couple of back-and-forth weekends, it seemed like she was maybe a smidge more invested in the relationship than he was. And, he learned, she had a funny way of turning every conversation around until it was all about her. And so, after much deliberating, Dr. Dave decided to break it off.

Still, when we met on Saturday, he was not 100% sure he had done the right thing. Much of our conversation during dinner was about just that, and it continued in the car as I was driving him to the airport after dinner.

Finally, he said, “...and she sleeps with her parents.”

“What?” I said, horrified. “Like, in the same bed?”

“Yes,” he said. “Birds. In the bed.”

I realized then that he had said “parrots,” not “parents,” although I couldn't decide if that was better, or worse.

“Is that weird?” he asked. "That's weird, isn't it?"

I imagined little feathery heads nestled into fluffy pillows, with a comforter snuggled up under beaky chins, and Dr. Dave and his girlfriend tucked in on either side.

“I could have saved you a lot of time if you had told me about this months ago,” I said.

But, apparently, he hadn’t known about the birds in the bed until very recently. And I did not ask him for the details of how, exactly, he had learned of the birds in the bed. Because I have learned from experience that one should not ask questions that one really, REALLY, does not want to know the answer to.

I'm pretty sure he also made the right call.

People I Am Thankful For

I am thankful for my daughters, for the things they teach me every day and for giving me a reason to keep on keepin’ on, even when I really, really don’t want to at all.

I am thankful for my niece, Madge, for being my excuse to shop for toys this Christmas, which she is going to get lots and lots of because she now knows my name and runs to give me hugs and kisses whenever I come over. What color pony would you like, my little munchkin?

For my smart, funny, gorgeous sisters and sister-cousins, whose e-mails make me laugh out loud, and who are not afraid to dance entirely without inhibitions whenever Neil Diamond is on. Even when they have not been drinking alcoholic beverages beforehand.

For my parents, and my aunts and uncles and second cousins and first-cousins-once-removed and all the rest of my giant, noisy, often dysfunctional extended family. For my Aunt Linda, who remembered to call me on my birthday, even though she and my Uncle Dave divorced when I was eight years old and she now lives in Louisiana. And for my brother-in-law, Jim, who will soon be helping me hang drywall in my sunroom, although he doesn’t know it yet.

I am thankful for the family members who will attend Thanksgiving dinner in spirit. My Grandma Devoy through her creamed onions recipe, which I wrote down shortly before she celebrated her 90th birthday, and my Grandma Townsend by way of her Fire King casserole dish with the fruit painted on the side, which I will be serving the creamed onions in on Thursday.

I am thankful for My Ho, who is kind and thoughtful and loving and trustworthy, even when I don’t feel very deserving of any of those things. And patient. I am thankful that he is very, very patient. And also that he is bringing pie.

I am thankful for the babies on the way—Batgirl’s Baby Boof, and my cousin Kerry’s new little girl, because it will certainly not be a boy THIS time around.

I am thankful for my friend Liz, who keeps me sane. For my friend Dr. Dave, who makes my brain hurt (but in a good way). For my friend Batgirl, who continues to prove that baseball, good writing and sass make an awesome combination. For Mother Bear Amy, who provides an ongoing example that one person with an idea and a little passion can make a big difference in the world. For Leah, who doesn't care that my dog jumps over the fence to poop in her yard (I seriously am going to clean that up). And for my friend Daniel, who souped up my PC so DemiGoddess the Younger can watch Degrassi episodes online, and so I can now play the latest Age of Empires games, and he did it all for only the price of the hardware and a sandwich from Jimmy John's.

I am thankful for that handful of blog browsers who kept coming here when I was silent for an entire month with no explanation. I don't know who most of who you are, and I don't know why you stuck around, but because of the miracle of StatCounter, I know you were here, and I thank you.

I am thankful for all the Demis’ terrific teachers and Girl Scouts troop leaders and the other adults who are helping them become amazing young women.

I am thankful for doctors and nurses, for police officers and sanitation workers, and all those people who do the jobs that I would never in a million years want to do.

I am thankful for Nancy Pelosi and all the new blue congresspeople. (Please, please don’t f*ck it up in the next two years. PLEASE.)

I am thankful for my dog, who is not a person, exactly, but she still counts as a family member.

And, of course, I am thankful for the Minnesota Twins. All of them. But especially Johan Santana.

The End of an Era

In August of 2002, on the night we first met, Dr. Dave and I went to a Twins game. We arrived at the Metrodome late, so we missed most of one of Johan Santana’s few starts of the season, but we did see Torii Hunter’s sixth-inning home run, which also scored Corie Koskie to put the Twins ahead of the Mariners 2-1. David Ortiz and Everyday Eddie Guardado made appearances, I was as yet undecided as to which player I harbored fonder feelings for—AJ Pierzynski or Doug Mientkiewicz (it would later prove to be enthusiastically Doug)—and their win that night brought the Twins' magic number to clinch the American League Central division down to 13. It was an exciting time to be a Twins fan.

That turned out to be the first of many regular and post-season games that Dr. Dave and I attended together. He was very much a stats-head while I, on the other hand, was all about the sass, so we made a yin-and-yang sort of baseball-watching team. He understood my appreciation for the aesthetic aspects of the game, at one point offering the brilliant suggestion that I design my own line of baseball cards featuring photographs of the players from the back. (He’s for sure getting a cut of the first million I make on those.)

Having grown up in Chicago as a Cubs fan, Dr. Dave’s playoff excitement in 2002 was understandable and contagious. He ordered the tickets for us both. I gave him a Cubs Fan Barbie for Christmas.

In 2003, when Hideki Matsui tried to kill me by hitting his first post-season home run directly at my face, Dr. Dave ducked right along with me.

In 2004, during a 14-strikeout Santana start (on the day I first met Batgirl in PERSON), Dr. Dave helped hold the “Santana/Nathan ‘04” campaign sign that got us on TV.



By then, he had become known in Batgirl’s comments section as“TwinsProf.”

When the Twins three-peated that same year, Dr. Dave and I were at the Dome, Homer Hankies in hand. And when, after they incomprehensibly surrendered a four-run lead to be eliminated by the Yankees (AGAIN) in game four of the ALDS… as I found myself standing on Washington Avenue trying very, very hard not to be one of those people who cries actual tears over something so stupid as BASEBALL… Dr. Dave was there, graciously pretending not to notice.

Even after My Ho had become my primary baseball buddy, Dr. Dave and I continued to attend occasional games together. Last May, on cap night, we were at the Dome once again, and although I knew he had accepted a new job in Maryland, it didn’t register at the time that an era was coming to an end. Not until a few weeks ago, when we met for dinner and he presented me with his bobblehead collection as a parting gift, did I realize it will likely be a long time before he and I go to another Twins game.

We’ll keep in touch. He e-mailed me just the other day to say that he arrived safely and is slowly getting his bearings. Always a true friend, I wrote back and said that if he decides he hates Maryland and comes back to Minneapolis, he’s totally not getting his Doug Mientkiewicz bobblehead back.

Thanks, Dr. Dave. It was an exciting run. And if the Twins ever see post-season play again, rest assured, I'll have a ticket for you.

The Joys of Homeownership, Part II

The work on my water-damaged sunroom began on Monday morning, although I wasn’t there to see it happen. The crew arrived after I left for work and were gone by the time I brought the ailing elder Demi home from school over my lunch hour.

I know they had been there because the drywall, some of the linoleum flooring, and part of the ceiling in that room are gone. A portion of the subfloor was replaced, and there’s new insulation in the wall, but there’s no new drywall and the ceiling remains open because it’s wet, wet, wet up there. The second time he called me Monday morning, the contractor said he’d send out a roof guy to look around up there and try to figure out the source of the moisture problem. They won’t be able to replace the ceiling or finish the walls until everything is dry, which will likely not be soon with all the rain and snow we keep getting. And I haven’t seen this roofing guy yet, and haven’t heard from the contractor since Monday.

So now mostly I’m trying not to be wholly overcome with anxiety about how much this is all going to cost me and whether or not this contractor, whose name I got from my insurance company, is some kind of predatory scam artist who is going to destroy my house and disappear with all my money.

Which is totally rational since I haven’t actually paid him a cent yet. (And yeah, I checked him out with the Better Business Bureau already.)

I consider myself a reasonably capable individual. Just last week, when the light switch in the living room went wacky and started sparking and making smoke, I replaced it all by myself. So why is it that whenever some big thing needs fixing, whether it’s the car or the washing machine or the roof of my house, all I want to do is crawl into the back of my closet and hide?

I E-Mail, Therefore I Am

I had lunch yesterday with my friend David, who is in the process of writing a book. He already has a publisher waiting for his book to be finished, so David is about to leave for Oregon, where he will spend three weeks in a house that sits 150 yards from the Pacific Ocean, writing. He will not have Internet access.

Three weeks with no e-mail? What??

I actually have several friends who have written books, or chapters of books. I would like to write a book. I’ve taken writing classes to learn how to write a book. A few years ago, in one of those classes, the instructor told me not to write e-mails, because they don’t count as “writing,” and will distract me from the creation of works of any real artistic value.

Well.

Either she was correct and I have ruined myself forever, or she was wrong and I am a freaking genius, because while I regularly compose e-mails of astonishing brilliance and wit (ask anyone in my Contacts list), it seems that I am constitutionally incapable of writing anything longer than that. I simply don’t have the attention span. Or the time.

E-mail isn’t just a creative outlet any more, either. I’ve come to rely on electronic communication as my back-up brain. I can’t retain anything unless I’ve sent or received it in an e-mail, which, if you think about it, is BETTER, because that way I can archive everything and read it again later to remind myself of just how astonishingly brilliant and witty I am, as well as the exact dimensions of that freezer that my co-worker is giving me and the directions for how to get to my sister’s friend’s house. I never have to actually think at all any more, which is great, because I wasn't all that good at it to begin with.

But alas, to date, I have produced no book. Not even a really good idea for a book. Not even a really BAD idea for a book. So the question is, which came first, the e-mail or my brain’s limited ability to function? Has the Internet destroyed my potential as an award-winning novelist, or does it provide the perfect forum for people like me, who can’t stay on task at anything for more than twenty-two consecutive minutes?

Discuss.