Weekend roundup– first off, how was YOURS?

Mine actually went okay. The Tour went fine, took all of ten minutes. Dad liked my place, said it was very nice. I don’t believe I cleaned and scrubbed and fluffed and shined and worried and shopped for a ten minute cursory overview. I am going to appoint myself the Queen of Overreacting. If ever you need someone to overreact to something, please consider my services. I overreact for cheap!

For the first time in my life, he had no criticism or ‘helpful ideas’, but then again that’s kind of my mom’s department. She’s nosy (where I get it from) and will scan a room and go ‘mmmhhhmmm…’ which means something but she won’t come right out and say she doesn’t like something. But nope, not dad. No offers to fix anything or paint anything or arrange anything, which was great. I didn’t want to go through the discomfort of declining and then later him holding it over my head when he wants something… ‘remember that time I did that thing for you? I need you to do something for me now.’ Nope. Leave it alone. I’ll do it myself.

We did have a slight snag. I arrived at my Aunt’s house on Saturday at 11:30am, which would have been perfect timing to drive 45 minutes north back to my place, have lunch, and then drive back down south for his nephew’s basketball game at 3pm.

Except no one was at the house. I rang the doorbell and knocked and rang the doorbell and knocked and nothing. So I get back in the car and call my dad. He answers. “What are you doing?,” I say, sounding irritated. “I’m outside the house, no one is answering the door.” I get a curt, surly, “Well if you would have been answering your phone, you’d know we took your Aunt D to the hospital this morning.”

Color me shocked, confused, and a little pissed off, because my phone has not rung all morning. I have no voicemail and no missed calls. “Just say right there,” he snapped. “Roz will drive me to the house.” And hangs up. I am left to fume inside my car at my Aunt’s house, thinking of the things I am going to do to his cell phone when he gets in the car. Dreams of snatching it from his hands and throwing it into the street and then running it over dance through my head. I already know what has happened. He is dialing the wrong number, again.

Cousin shows up, they both get out of her car and my dad has this stony expression on his face, his lip curled in irritation. This look used to send ice through my veins and make my butt go numb.  It almost has this effect on me as I watch him stomp toward my car, before I remember that I am just a few weeks shy of 36 and he can’t really hurt me anymore.

He opens my door and yells, “Girl, what is wrong with your phone?!?!” I reply, “Nothing’s wrong with my phone, I haven’t received any calls today!”  I show him the call log on Berry. NOTHING. He whips out his phone and dials my number and hands his phone to me and says, “The message says you’re not taking calls. I couldn’t reach you!”

I grab the phone, wishing I had the nerve to do what I really wanted to do with it, and glared at him over the display. “That’s not my phone number,” I growled at him. He blinks. Then his eyes close and he sighs and he knows, now, that he’s done it again. Dialed the wrong number. I punch up my actual number, saved in his phone with no name. “THIS is my phone number! If you’d called THIS number you would have reached me!”

I’ve never seen my dad look sheepish in all of his life. The look on his face as he ducked into the car and put on his seatbelt was priceless. Not that I enjoyed making a fool of him at all, but I felt good for not just cowering in his presence like I am 15 yrs old, which is what I normally do when he gets mad.  Growing up, I could get hit for just looking at him wrong. He demanded contrite obedience. We weren’t allowed to argue or talk back.

He apologized as I backed out of the driveway, and I accepted his apology and then said, “don’t let me near that phone, I might toss it out the window and run it over.” At which he laughed, and said he didn’t know I could go ghetto. I can’t, really, but I like for people to think I can.

I had planned to take Dad to lunch at Houston’s, one of my favorite places that was quick and close. Before I could open my mouth to tell him so, he declared that he wanted to eat lunch at Popeyes Chicken. I rarely, if ever, eat at Popeyes. In fact, when we went to dinner on Tuesday, I was all happy to take him to this cool place in Midtown but he seemed uncomfortable, like he would have been happier at Red Lobster. Except I don’t eat at Red Lobster. I may be becoming one of those Atlanta snobs that I hate so much. Damn!

So, because they don’t have Popeyes in Podunk, WA and he wanted some Popeyes Chicken,  I shrugged and directed the car north. There happens to be a restaurant mere minutes from my apartment.

Popeyes it is.

So, in my efforts to stop acting like an asshole because my dad is in town, I drove all the way out to forever, picked him up, drove 20 minutes north in rush hour traffic to take him to dinner, drove him SOUTH again and then drove all the way back up to NW Atlanta where I finally sat down around 9:15. Holy. Mother. But I had my shrimp and grits and my stomach is HAPPY.

On the way home from the restaurant, my dad called my mom. I guess to gloat, or whatever. Then he said something about having not seen my apartment yet and asked my mom to talk to me. What am I, five? She says, ‘do what you have to do so your dad can see your apartment.’ She says this in a tone that is not to be argued with. I tried to say no. In fact, I said no several times. Why doesn’t no work on them?

It’s not that my apartment is… well it’s just that… I mean, no one ever comes over. It’s very comfy and now I have to clean for company. I have a bedroom and a guest bathroom that have never been used, let alone furnished or decorated. I don’t have a table. And the entire time I lived in Podunk WA, my parents never cared about my damn apartment. GAH. So I guess on Saturday I have to drive out to get him, and bring him up to this side of the world so he can see my apartment.

I am trying not to roll my eyes, because frankly my parents love the crap out of me and they are proud of me and they want to be close to me. SO. Hence the trying not to be an asshole about it. It’s hard and kind of pitiful when you have to scold yourself.

So today I get to go shopping for a little bit of house stuff. I was thinking of Marshall’s or Tuesday morning. I hate shopping for clothes. LOVE shopping for housewares! And I think I am going to have someone come in and give me a good, thorough clean.  For spring. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Dinner went fine, by the way. A few awkward pauses. I am kind of a weird person anyway, off in my own world. Several times, he was like, ‘why didn’t you just…..?’ I just shrug and go on my merry way. Don’t like the way I do things? Don’t be with me when I do them. I am me, get used to it.

We talked a lot about my mom. She is not doing too well– not dying or anything, just not living well. Back in 2001, she had the RNY Gastric Bypass. A year or two later, she was in the hospital with complications. And now she is having the same issues she was having in 2003. Her stomach is protesting anything solid. I guess she is down to just over 100 lbs right now, which blows my mind because she used to be pretty heavy. In addition to the weight loss issue, she is not dealing well with Joe’s death at all. My dad says she has been on sleeping pills since his death and she’s having a lot more bad days than good ones. She has an injury from a car accident years back and her job is a bit physical, so that makes working hard.

We also talked a bit about depression. Mine specifically, and then he asked some questions about one of my friends that was diagnosed BiPolar 2. He acts like I never told him about my bouts with depression, but I did. I sat right at that kitchen table and told both of my parents about that. He doesn’t remember. He also doesn’t remember telling me that we had a family member that was institutionalized for Schizophrenia and other mental disorders. He was all shocked that I knew. ‘You told me!’ I said. He just shrugged.

He tried to go in on me, all about calling more often. Excuse me, I talk to you people frequently and you don’t tell me these things, so come on off of beating that dead horse.

In all, I was pretty proud of myself, had a good meal, he ended up paying for dinner (woop!) and I didn’t go straight home from work and get in the bed, so yay!

Tuesday meeting on Thursday today. Reports. Oy.

At the moment, my weekend rundown is rather anti-climactic. And that’s a good thing.

I spent most of Friday with my stomach in knots, not really sure what was going on, what was expected of me and how much of it I could get out of. My dad called me late morning and basically just said that he wanted to see me before he left town and wanted to see if I was coming to Uncle T’s 80th birthday. Much of the family from Colorado and Illinois and Indiana were coming to town. I said I would go.

I wrote on Saturday about my sucktastic Friday. Thankfully, that day went much better, because two crappy days in a row makes for a cranky Curvy. I took my time getting ready and instead of meeting the family at 4:00 at the restaurant where the dinner/ party was, I drove to Aunt and Uncle’s where my dad was staying.  He wasn’t there, as he had run to the store quickly, so I had a chance to talk with my Aunt, 78, and my Uncle, 80.

Their house is always 104 degrees. This makes me laugh, for no apparent reason.

Another thing is that my Aunt is so very frank and direct. She’s a funny little lady. “Well [insert my name]. I haven’t seen you for awhile? You married yet?” [Read more →]

First I have to give a shout out to everyone who was so supportive yesterday. I feared a lot of ‘be thankful you even HAVE a dad!’ and ‘at least your dad wants to see you’, kinds of comments, which, I suppose would be fair to leave but I still wouldn’t want to see/read/deal with them. So thanks for sensing the kind of support I needed and givin’ it to me!

Second, yesterday sucked. I got out of work early on the premise that I was going to see my dad. I went to the salon instead. Well, I tried to go to the salon. It seems like everytime I go, I get lost. I take the wrong exit every fricken time. There are 2 exits to Highway5 in Canton. I always take the first and it’s the wrong one. Or I completely drive past it and end up in freaking Chattanooga. Not really, it’s Woodstock but may as well be Tennessee! [Read more →]

It’s Friday. I ADORE Friday. It’s my favorite day of the week. Right about here is where I’d be excitedly prattling on about my weekend plans. The ones that never come to fruition but at least I make them, every week. There’s my weekly trip to CVS,  laying in bed trying to get myself to get up and go to the hair salon, writing, watching a lot of TV, maybe some movies, maybe some grocery shopping, maybe some cooking, maybe some cleaning. Two glorious days to myself, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it.

Right about here is where I am kind of freaking out. As I mentioned last night, I got a bombshell dropped onto said weekend. An email from my mother:

From: Mama Jones
Re: Your uncle’s 80th birthday party

Your dad is in Georgia for your uncle’s birthday party and to see your Aunt D. Your cousins want to know if you’re coming to the party. Call your dad at [cell number]. I was just thinking, you all live in the same city and you never talk. Was there a problem?

[other random things]

Love, mom

And soooooooooooo. WHAT? [Read more →]