Regina Noctis

So much for my lead’s repeated assurances that people are uneasy about their escrow closing on Halloween. We got hit by far too many files for me to be out in time to see any part of Deviation’s last night. 118 was the count when I called around to find out how many files we were getting, and we only got 20 or 25 less than that in the end. We got out just as Kleidon’s was closing, so I opted to head home, pick up , and drag her off to the store so we could get the rest of the things we needed for the party she’s throwing while I’m at work on Halloween eve.

Halloween marks something of an anniversary, too. It was two years ago that I first struck up a friendship with . A friend I’m very, very happy to have. Among other reasons, everyone should have a friend who’s so funny that they succeed in making you laugh hard enough that you fall off of furniture.

Tonight’s the last night of Deviation. That’s one more link broken. One less thing that calls up the memory of a time that I’d rather not have been a part of now. In many ways, that time started after Deviation on Wednesdays, when I’d go to the Mini with and meet up with a selection of the people who’d gone dancing that night. While Counter Strike has stronger emotional ties for me, Deviation certainly had its share of them. I have stayed away from both for a while now.

However, workload permitting, I will be going to Deviation tonight. Almost have to, since it’s the last night. If nothing else, I can kiss those memories goodbye. It’s easier to pretend that those weeks never happened if there are no ties to the memories.

What Color Eyes Should You Have?
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We have now achieved smoked-glass dining room table and six chairs. Yay!

Mom just called. It turns out that the reason that the birthday dinner didn’t arrive is that Haute at Home never sent it. The capon is on back-order, and they don’t know when it will be in stock again. Both Mom and I are irritated that they didn’t bother to call and let us know this.

I still have the list of possible menus. Now I go through them again and try and figure out which one we’re going to get instead. We’re not going to wait for Haute’s eventually. We’ll just switch to something else, and then the dinner party will be when the new stuff arrives.

She also told me some other rather less than happy news. Much less happy, as a matter of fact. Whiskers had another asthma attack, only two weeks after the last one. They’re coming more frequently now, and that’s a very bad sign. And I’m torn. There’s a part of me that wants to suggest to her that maybe she should have him put down. I’ve seen what those attacks do to him, and I know that in many ways, he’d probably be better not to have to suffer. At the same time, I can’t stand the idea of putting him down.

On top of that, my cousin apparently went nutso again this weekend. He threatened Mom’s life again. And she again didn’t call the police.

I also wonder what’s going on between him and his oldest daughter. Janette’s nearly 13, but he insists on her sleeping with him out in the garage that’s been converted to a bedroom. Away from the house, where nothing can be heard. We have no evidence to support anything going on, of course. But he’s so crazy, none of us can put it past him to be doing something to her.

Both Mom and Grandma felt that it was completely inappropriate for the two of them to be sharing a bed. They told him, after they discovered where Janette had slept the first night she was visiting, that she couldn’t sleep out there anymore, she had to sleep on her own in the house. That’s when John started threatening Mom’s life again. And that night, took Janette to his room again. More and more often, he isn’t bringing the rest of the kids over to visit. He only brings Janette. And we never get anything out of Janette. Having the kind of father she’s had, she and all the rest of the kids have learned to never talk to anyone about anything.

When I’m there and around her, I’ve been watching her. Looking for the reactions, the body language, of someone who’s being abused. From what I’ve seen, I suspect very strongly that there has been at least physical, if not sexual, abuse. I suspect that it’s ongoing as well. But I can’t get her to talk.

I know that he’s beaten his son. That’s the only abuse directed toward the children that I’m sure of. But if one, why not the rest?

My grandmother is, apparently, remembering once again how awful he is. She always forgets how insane John is, how horrible he makes life when he lives there. While he’s in jail, she forgets all of that. But ever since he came back, she’s been asking, “What are we going to do? We can’t live like this.” She was saying that before he went to jail last time, but forgot about that while he was gone, and brought him back when he was released. So now she’s doing the should-I-or-shouldn’t-I dance about pressing charges again, to get rid of him for another while. She never pressed charges on the checks he wrote against my grandfather’s bank account. Forging is a felony. He’d be gone a long time on that one. I hope she does it.

I missed today. She was arriving as I was leaving to meet , , and Angel over at Borders. I didn’t see her, but she saw me as I was pulling out onto the street to drive on over. Talk about bad timing for me to take off!

But at least she’ll be around for a while to come. I’m looking forward to much time seeing her. I’ve missed her so much while she was in AZ.

Angel was kind enough to drive Locke to the Fremont BART station so he could head back up to Berserkely. She did it because I’m largely broke and couldn’t afford the amount of gas I’d be using up to drive up to Berkeley and back. And also so I could be here when gave me a call after her return from the City. She and both said that they’d be coming by, since they missed out on Saturday dinner.

But I never heard from either one of them. So I eventually shrugged and settled in to watch movies. It was lovely to curl up on the comfy new couch, relax, and watch The Crow trilogy.

At first I was irritated, I’ll admit, about their lack of an appearance, or even contacting me via phone to let me know that they wouldn’t be making it over. But really, I know that many of the friends I have are flaky, and that the two of them certainly can be. It wasn’t that much of a surprise. And after all the coronary antics at the end of last month and the beginning of this, I really don’t care to stress over anything. So I decided that I didn’t really care, and no more being hurt and angry about it. Up until I decided that, I’d been feeling as I usually do when friends do this. I felt as if I am of no importance to them whatsoever. After all, if my feelings mattered in the slightest, they’d make some effort to at least let me know that they won’t be there, so I’m not sitting around waiting all night, right? But in the midst of being hurt and angry about it, I could feel my heart rate start to accelerate in the way I’ve come to recognize, and I just reached the conclusion that I had to stop, right there and then. Stress like that is something that I can’t afford, but at least I’m learning to switch it off if it starts to happen. it worked. My heart rate dropped back to normal before it reached the point of the arrhythmic pounding and skipping beats. It only took a couple minutes before I managed to feel relaxed again. So, that is a good thing that has come out of the situations of the last couple months.

Off to read for a bit, and then sleep. I start my new schedule at work this week, and I have mixed feelings about that. Nothing particularly strong, either way, but still mixed.

Which Wax Trax! Artist Are You?
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Three of the folks who were going to be coming to dinner didn’t make it. I assume that they couldn’t tear themselves away from Counter Strike and whichever after-party they went to. Though it would have been nice to get a call if they weren’t going to be here (so I wouldn’t spend money on food that didn’t get eaten,) the rest of us had a good dinner and a very good time without them.

And considering how well the dinner I cooked came out, it’s very much their loss. ;)

Thanks to Angel, , , and for joining me and making it such a good night. I love you folks.

It’s my sister’s birthday today.

is 25 today. I can’t believe it. I’m not old enough for her to be 25!

Bestest of birthdays, sis o’ my dreams. The one who got the brains AND the looks in the family. I love you sooooooo much.

And now that the nice part has been said…

All right you, back to 15! Now! Quit making me feel old! ;p

The dining room table and chair still haven’t been delivered.

Neither have all the gourmet goodies for my birthday dinner tonight. They were supposed to arrive, shipped overnight, packed in dry ice, yesterday.

I’m about to head to the store for an emergency shopping trip. Looks like I’m cooking dinner for my birthday party tonight. And no table to accommodate the group of us.

At least there are couches to sit on. A week ago, there wasn’t even that much.

What Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Are You?
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Thanks to

Find out which Discworld novelty you are.

I love that luggage. One of my four favorite characters in the series. (The others being Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Greebo.)

So be it.

Which Disney Princess are you?

You are a quick-witted tough dame with a tongue of steel. This jaded, cynical outlook is your suit of armor worn to protect you from further hurt and mistreatment. You may have been burned in the past by a love. Though your history weighs on your mind, you still have a little bit of faith in love. Don’t deny it, girlfriend! Let go of the past and move on, embracing life’s possibilities. But being more optimistic doesn’t mean you have to lose your wit or independence!

It can be found at http://www.antispin.net/~martine/cgi-bin/insanity.cgi?YOUR_LJ_NAME_HERE

While the overall thing sounds like someone who oughta be on lithium, there are some good lines to be found sometimes. Strange little sentences thrown together through the site’s “interpretation” of the contents of the journal.

Some selected segments:

It was very good feeling crappy.

I’m planning to happen.

That sort of tears the middle of cookies like Achilles with jobs.

Everyone’s welcome to the Hellano thing easily. (As if I’d wish that on anyone!)

I could get away from my chest. (Sometimes, when it’s being talked to instead of me, don’t I just wish!)

I’ll sleep, and I don’t feel anything.

You’re lost if you’re a bus driver in New Jersey.

A pickup, a hangover, and the floor. Ahhhh yes, there’ve been a few parties like that…

I did the dance like she did that weekend

A cry to dominate the lymph nodes Some people just need to control everything, apparently.

Misdev off to happen? Well why not? She happened all over the apartment, and it’s looking pretty damn good because of it.

Three people I can’t do at all …and a whole bunch more I wouldn’t want to do at all

Madman warring with your heart I think I kind of like that image. Rather describes some segments of my life.

Most of it is just unintelligible or weird rambling (and hey, isn’t that what most of this journal is, anyway?) But it had its moments.

and I got things ready for the delivery of the dining room table and chairs, which will hopefully be sometime today. Afterward, we sat down to watch some Red Dwarf. She broke out a canister of long, tubular cookies filled with a chocolate cream while we watched. I don’t recall what they’re called in this incarnation, but they sure brought up a memory.

The first time I ever had cookies like those, they were called Papadopoulos. It was the summer of 84, the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I was spending a magical twenty-five days touring Greece.

Other than two short, half-day tours when my mom and I first arrived, we avoided the pre-packaged tour deals. We did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. We took things at our own pace. And for the most part, we travelled on the kind of transportation that Greeks took rather than the tourist buses to and from cities.

That day, we were moving on from Delphi to the city of Patras. We were supposed to catch one of the local ferries there, which would sail us overnight across the Mediterranean to the northernmost of the Greek islands, Kerkira.

To get to Patras, we took the Greek equivalent of Greyhound. No one spoke a word of English, and our five or six words of Greek certainly weren’t going to be enough to strike up a conversation. Most people were dressed in standard, modern clothing. But some of the people wore rustic, peasant-ish garb. It was never quiet as we wound down the mountain roads from Mount Parnassus toward the valley called the Sea of Olives and the Gulf of Corinth beyond that. There was constant chatter. It was like we were on a bus where everyone knew everybody but us. A couple times, sections of the bus broke into song. Though we didn’t share a language, one elderly gentleman tried to get us to join in with elaborate gestures that put me in mind of an orchestra conductor.

We loved it.

We’d gotten on the bus first thing in the morning. We hadn’t even stopped for breakfast. By the time we got to the Gulf of Corinth, it was around noon. The bus driver stopped there. It was his lunchtime, and folks in Greece take the afternoon break fairly seriously. Almost everything closes for a good two or three hours in the afternoon. Rather like the siesta in Mexico.

He stopped the bus in a town on the sea. Neither of us know, even now, what the name of the town was. And he got off the bus and wandered away.

We didn’t want to go wandering too far from the bus. We didn’t know when it would get under way again. We also didn’t want to get lost. We were famished, since we hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before, but wandering would have done us little good anyway. Even restaurants, for the most part, close during the time of siesta.

The bus driver had parked next to a small general store. And amazingly enough, the store was open despite the way everyplace else generally rolled up the sidewalks for a couple hours in the afternoon. So, we went inside.

There was very little there that we could eat. The food there was mostly stuff we’d have needed a stove or an oven for. But we did spot a canister of tube-shaped cookies. I’ve generally been decent at picking up alphabets and such, so I puzzled out the writing on the side well enough to discover that the name was Papadopoulos, and that there was something about chocolate and hazelnuts involved. We’d both always loved the combination of chocolate and hazelnuts, so we bought the canister of cookies and a couple of the local sodas.

The sodas were too sweet, but the cookies were amazing. And they were just rich enough that half the canister made us feel satisfied. Not the healthiest way to go about lunch, but they were worth it. We sat and watched the tiny waves roll in and enjoyed the sea air while we had our small, sugar-laden lunch. It was a beautiful day. Clear, cloudless, deep blue sky, and the Gulf of Corinth darkly blue beneath. It was our first up-close view of any part of the Mediterranean, and we saw why Homer called it the wine-dark sea. At first, when the bus driver stopped in that town and left us there, we’d been uncomfortable with the whole thing. By the time he came back two hours later, we were both quite content to just sit and enjoy the day. It was almost a disappointment to get back on the bus to finish the trip.

I’ve loved those cookies ever since. Occasionally, in the years since, we’ve been able to find them at Cost Plus Imports. We always grab a canister or three, and enjoy them over the course of many weeks. Just two, maybe three at a time, before resealing the canister. Every bite of one of those cookies brings back that day like we were living it again.

*sigh* I want to go back to Greece. I have got to figure out a way to save the money for a trip one of these days.

I’ve been 34 for a whole three hours. So far, feels just like 33. Like I expected anything else.

What kind of dog are you?
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You’re not a dog at all! You’re a CAT! Aloof and lazy, you nonetheless rule the world.

I guess that means I’d better go take a nap now, so I’ll have the energy for my main snooze later.

If you’re going to give someone a swift knee to the nuts, do not use the bad knee.

Owie.

I forgot something in the last several months. It’s a lesson I’m constantly forgetting and relearning. Maybe this time it’ll stick.

If something looks too good to be true, it is. And this applies to people, not just things.