Missing Persons

My one friend who I actually have fun with is leaving the mountain. I can’t tell you how upsetting this is to me. He does shit like this every couple of years or so, just ups and leaves.  This time he is planning on living in someone’s house in the Poconos while he goes to Truck Driving School. I tried to talk him out of it and he just laughs. I think I may have convinced him to give two weeks notice at work, but we’ll see. Meanwhile I will just sit back and enjoy the chaos his leaving will create.

He loves to write succinct, truthful letters right around the time he disappears, and leaves them for the intended recipients, slipped under doors and other dramatic places. This should be good, because I know what has been on his mind lately.

I don’t think this is going to be the best thing for him to do, to disappear and move to Pennsylvania. I mean, what is Pennsylvania besides the state that is in the way? As far as I know,  he’s never lived on the East Coast. And Truck Driving School? For a man who’s dream is to be a florist? Ok, gay Truck Stops aside, I can’t see him being very happy living out of a rig for long distances. The man loves his creature comforts and signature colors, not to mention his designer sheets and scented candles.

These are all his choices, and there is little I can do besides be supportive. And mope. I officially started with the moping last night, and he’s not even gone yet.  He has to help me move a piece of furniture before he leaves. My power lesbian friends are giving me this exquisite white sectional sofa: they’ve opted for a more butch looking living room, with leather chairs and love seats. Marina will be taking the one we have now to school with her in the fall.

What will I do with myself, with both of them gone? And to make my anxiety worse, Marina may be spending next summer in France. The loneliest woman in the world has just gotten a whole lot lonelier. Yes, this is me moping. I’m planning on a long term mope complete with alot of chemical dependence for the next few weeks. Don’t try ‘n stop me.

 

A something in a summer’s noon….

An azure depth, a wordless tune,
Transcending ecstasy.

 I’m sitting here waiting for one of the ski camps to arrive…It’s been an interesting two days. Kim suggested that our boss’s husband could be losing his mind. To me he seems the same as ever, and I’m not buying 100% into his forgetfulness act. Ok, the guy has some health issues, he’s HIV positive and on a drug cocktail that can’t be having a positive effect on his liver. Apparently he and his wife were quite the coke fiend party animals before he was diagnosed. Glad I didn’t know them then.

I think he’s pulling a Corrado Soprano. Pretending to be slipping away while actually doing so.

His wife on the other hand, needs to be taken down with an elephant gun loaded with tranquilizers. I have had to look for every excuse I could find to get out of this place. The heat has driven her mad. She is wound so tight she answers every question defensively, and even when she’s trying to be accommodating to guests, she is seething with irritation. I wish I could just send her home. To make matters worse, she went and got her hair cut and it looks absolutely horrible. I mean, seriously bad. Hurts to look at it.

I often describe these two as menopausal….and now, my period is three weeks late! I’ve had PMS for over a month. If I caught their menopause I am going to kill myself! Usually the women around me adjust to my cycle, in fact, Kim started menstruating again once she started working with me. Yes, my mojo is that strong 😉

Actually, the same thing happens to me every year: June and July, no periods. I wonder if it has something to do with the amount of sunlight affecting my hormones. It has not done my mood swings any good, and I am running seriously low on Vitamin P ( fluoxitine ) Grrrr…….

I have been taking the nicest walks, though. I love this hot weather. I love wearing summer dresses, tank tops, sandals. I walk around feeling like I am in a perfectly maintained habitat: perfect temperature, perfect light…and these little tips of pine branches mixed with pine needles that accumulate on the sides of the roads to walk on. It’s like a crunchy, lovely smelling carpet that cushions every step. That, and you actually see other happy people out on the road doing the same thing you are.

I ran into Joe last night. He owes me about three hundred dollars for a car I gave him, and though I doubt he will ever pay me, at least he doesn’t avoid me. In fact, he invites me over all the time. What is up with that? People get very lonely up here, I guess.

It would be convenient: he lives right up the road. However, proximity has never been a priority of mine when it comes to men I like. Besides, he’s 30. I’ve decided that’s a little too young. And he smokes.

I need to bring a camera on our next hike. Nana swims like an otter in the river, and then climbs up on these big rocks. It will make a beautiful picture.

 

But For Now….

…..let’s keep the car door closed with a  futon screw.

Memories of the Blue Bandito, of which I have no better pictures.  Which is a shame because it really was a Very Trashy Car. Trashy in the sense that it was not the car you wanted seen in your driveway, if you were at all concerned with appearances. Which is why I wound up with it. It was given to me by what my friend Peter refers to as “Gucci Hippies”, a couple I knew who moved here from New Jersey, as I did.

He was a java programmer and she was a meddlesome woman, a one time psychic to the stars.

This is the car I gave/sold to Joe

 

But Wait, There’s More

Spirits were not so high the next day. Kim the Klingon’s daughter tends bar at the restaurant and was not happy that the place emptied out during the fight. Neither was management. Apparently there was only 16 dollars in tips to split by the end of the night.

On Friday there was a custody hearing down at the courthouse, so the Kim didn’t come to work. She was supposed to be at home with her grandson while his drug-addled parents fought over him, but when we tried to reach her by phone, we found out she left the kid with her boyfriend and went out drinking. Oddly, my boss had nothing to say about this.

Nor did she say anything on Wednesday when Kim was hungover and amusing herself by searching an online roster of who is currently in the Clackamas County jail, to see if any of her friends were there. She was doing this while the boss was freaking out over state tax records that mysteriously disappeared from payables. It’s discouraging.  I’m not exactly sure what it is this woman manages, because it certainly isn’t the office.  Amy and I started keeping track of her personal phone calls. Added up, they average about five of her eight hour day. I’m not exaggerating.

I’m also not sure why she was hired in the first place. This is a small town and word gets around. About five years ago, her son needed a kidney. She volunteered one, and the whole town pitched in for a benefit which raised about $20,000 to cover hospital expenses and a portion of the medications for her son.

Shortly after the benefit and the surgery, she showed up in a new Mercedes ( well, new to her) and was buying new furniture for her house. Shortly after that, as her son filed for bankruptcy, she took a vacation.

And yet, my boss not only hired her, but loves her and believes she can do no wrong. It’s disgusting in a way I don’t understand.

I know all about why we sometimes see only what we want to see, or why we make excuses for the men we love, or for our family members, or glossing over little imperfections in our friends for the sake of maintaining friendship……….but this makes no sense until I look at it from the perspective of my boss’s addiction to chaos.

Of all the things there are to be addicted to, that are so much more fun, addiction to stress and strife just seems dumb.

 

The Lamp From Estacada

The Lamp From Estacada

Stuff like this always makes me nervous. While we’re sitting on the step of our delapidated front porch, and two identical big white furry dogs come over to say hello. They move in unison, bark in unison, and then go over to Nana’s tie-out and check her out in unison. I didn’t say anything about the creep factor of the encounter until my daughter’s quiet comment “It’s almost like they are aliens, isn’t it?”

She was right. But I had a different reason for the creep factor. A few years ago I had a bad dream about a big white violent dog that suddenly showed up at our front windows. When I told this dream to the local psychic, she said the dream was a warning that someone was gonna hurt me. She was right too.

The dogs left, in unison. Marina mumbled something about Twin Peaks, which was interesting being as I just got done describing this as a teeny-tiny little Twin Peaks town in my last weblog entry.

And now this. A teeny-tiny little woman named Ginger came all the way from Estacada to see if we would like to sell her big weird lamps in our teeny-tiny little shop. See picture above. Doesn’t it remind you of the Leg Lamp from “A Christmas Story”? It’s so horrible that it’s fantastic.

I get to work this morning and the Klingon of an Office Manager is beaming with pride: last night, her son and his girlfriend got into a barfight that wound up in the parking lot of a local restaurant, the patrons of which witnessed not only the fisticuffs but the girlfriend’s tube top being pulled off in the process. Yes, tube tops are still very much in vogue up here. Several cop cars were called to the scene but her kids took off before they could be busted for the drugs they were carrying. Kids? Wait a minute, they are at least 30.

My Office Manager is one tube of blue eyeshadow away from being Mimi in the Drew Carey show. I will find a picture, and you will see I am not exaggerating.

It’s all very Hatfield/McCoy. This feud started several years ago when said Office Manager drank too much tequila tried to strangle some woman named ‘Cyndee’…who happened to be Jeff’s wife, who I believe threw the first punch last night, at the Office Manager’s son’s girlfriend.

Spirits were high here at work today, I heard the story repeated 9 times to different people ( yes I counted). This was enough of a drama fix to last all day and hopefully well into tomorrow afternoon. Also, she just scored some Lorazipan, which we are waiting for an excuse to partake of.

This is why I never burn my bridges. A girl needs all sorts of friends.

 

….maiow

Cats who disappear without a trace leave us no closure or finality, except for Slinky: I found her when the snow melted. They don’t leave notes telling us why they ran away. Like the last episode of the Sopranos, the possibiities are only as limited as your imagination and your willingness to face the violent truth.

I ran away from home exactly twice in my life, once when I was four or five, and once again after I was married for a few too many years. Both times I left notes. My mother saved the first one because she thought it was cute, and my ex husband saved the second one and brought it in to my shrink for analysis. In essence, they were the same:

“I leffed home frum yur famly becoz yu were meen too me. I am tacking blanky and bluey.” (Bluey was the name I had given to my favorite pillow)

That’s what the first one said, the charming mispells and scrawled, kindergarten handwriting (yes, I was so eager to read and write I learned way before my time, just like my daughter did) . Oh, and I illustrated it, of course 😉 With a stick figure of a sad little girl with one of those hobo packs over her shoulder.

The second note was called “My Life As A Ghost”. Somewhere around here I still have a copy of it. It should be entered in some psychological journal somewhere as a disturbing self portrait of a woman experiencing severe dissociation as a result from living too long and too closely with a clinically diagnosed narcissist. It was all about how since no one could see me, I was fading away piece by piece, and basically, was running away before I lost what I had left.

The last note was followed by an addendum which stated I’d be taking our daughter, George the rabbit, the Saab 900, my two jade trees, the Le Creuset and some clothing, and signed

I Quit,
Your Ex-Wife

There are times I feel like writing a third note, entitled “Fuck All Y’All”, but I don’t because I have a daughter, three ( soon to be four) cats and a puppy that no one else would put up with, to take care of. My daughter is not home for 24 hrs and already her father is fucking with us. My electricity got shut off ( it’s back on, obviously) and I took at least a dozen crisis calls from the fat angry incompetent bitches at work ON MY DAY OFF!

I’m getting hate mail from some psycho who thinks I stole her boyfriend ( an amusing side note, really), while I was on the phone with my boss fixing her problems she alluded to my ‘dressing like a slut’. Ah well….at least I can still almost pull it off…let’s see: a daughter in tears over our finances….could my day get any better? Thank god for Peter, who in his infinitely twisted goodness, gave the remainder of his bottle of codeine cough syrup to me. I had a very peaceful sleep.

All things in moderation. I’m not about to write the final ‘I Ran Away From Home’ note, or destroy myself a little at a time, because I will not have that family legacy passed on to the lovely young lady who is still asleep in her room at 11AM on a day when she really should be out looking for a summer job. Let her rest. I love her more than anything and will sell a kidney on eBay if I have to.

Nana is asleep and snoring in the big chair and one more day we’re allright.

 

On The House

I’m Still At Yahoo 360
According to “The Secret language of Birthdays” I pay inadequate concern to negative energy and I ignore resentment in others, all of which are quite capable of surfacing swiftly and blowing up in my face.

Is that ever true;)And because of my transcendant, Piscean nature I am more likely to try and adapt to a situation rather than flee for my life, for years at a time. I’m also guilty of the “Why-Should-I-Let These-People-Spoil-My-Good-Time” approach to problem solving. Oh but it gets worse. I can’t resist paying the occasional well-aimed, oddly-inverted compliment to people who annoy me. This is unlucky when it’s La Grande Patrón who has parked her whale of a dorsal hump as well as those of her friends en la mesa you were saving para su camaradas a beber y bailando, refusing to relinquish said seats upon their fashionably late arrival. I swear, some people get fat just so they can take up more room.

Her persistance did pay off later in the evening when I introduced her to a la amiga mío que posee que dos casas hermosas she would love to have in her piscina de la renta. Sus ojos encendidos arriba con avaricia. Don’t say I never gave you nada’;D

Both Bradley and I attempted to set an example of what we believe to be good manners mountain style: we fetched them their first drinks. My daughter just ignored them all till it came time for introductions and then flashed that disarming smile of hers. Resistance is futile. We illicitely added rum to her can of cola because she was such a good sport.

But nevermind all that, it was an awesome party. My compliments to the chef and whoever’s idea it was to invite the whole town for free food and booze. I vaguely remember my power lesbian friend trying to fix me up with her Italian contractor who allegedly has las calientes para mi, and then finding a quick ride home before I was forced to come face to face with this hombre de mistero. I was too borracho. No good would have come out of it. He is alto y moreno and looked pretty guapo after a bottle and a half of Oregon Pinot Gris.

The road home was swarming with la policia and it was a good thing I didn’t have my car because I would probably still be in jail. Bradley did get pulled over in his Country Squire, and charmed his way out of it. I can’t say enough good things about good manners.

OK now I hit publish?