A Voice from the VERY Distant Past
Somehow I managed to finish month-end close, type up my employee self-evaluation, and sign up for open benefits enrollment this week. HR doesn’t give a sh*t about Accounting. Well, I haven’t submitted the self-evaluation yet, just typed it up. I want to give it one more read-through with fresh eyes early next week.
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Neighbor’s kitty was up on their roof stalking a squirrel today. He got about six feet from it before the squirrel took note and scrambled away. A few minutes later, kitty was after Mr. Squirrel again, or another squirrel, coming back the other way, both running but not in a big hurry. Gotta get lucky to nab a squirrel. They are out in force right now. That’s why the cat has been so busy running back and forth the past few days, stiff-legged with excitement. Gonna lose some weight, most likely.
Then later today I saw a different short-haired gray kitty with white paws on the Rooftop Highway!
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Late in the day my phone showed an incoming call from a number in Georgia. I just let it roll to voicemail. The caller said she was my cousin (whom I’ll call Peach, since she’s from, well, the Peach State), my mom’s brother’s oldest daughter. I haven’t seen her since I was four, before her family moved from Indiana. The recorded message said she was trying to reach me, to get in touch with Mom. Curmudgeon told me she also left him a voicemail. So after work I called her back.
Curmudgeon is suspicious and told me to be careful, but Peach knew too many things about the family not to be the genuine article. Besides, I didn’t give her any sensitive personal information, unless you consider gossip about how mean Grandma was as dangerous info. If so, she dished as good as I did.
Grandma told Peach’s dad that he had ugly kids. I told Peach that Grandma would say loudly in the grocery store, “Isn’t that woman fat?!” Mom, Dad, and I would be embarrassed and walk ahead like we weren’t with her. I didn’t tell Peach about the racist stuff Grandma would say in a loud voice in public. That woman had no filter. After we hung up, I told Curmudgeon about the time I was twelve and we came to visit Grandma. We’d been there about five minutes when she looked at my face and said, “You have spots just like your mother.” (I knew she meant pimples. I wanted to crawl away and die. When you’re that age, you don’t want anyone to notice, much less say anything!)
Peach had gotten my number from one of those pay services online that will help you find people’s phone numbers. One of my old high school friends did that a couple of years ago, too. I’m not that easy to locate because I don’t do social media, just LJ and LinkedIn. Peach said she’d gone off Facebook temporarily till after the election madness died down. She couldn’t take it anymore.
She was calling me because she and Mom occasionally wrote and called. She had called Mom recently and the phone was disconnected, so she was concerned. I told her that Mom moved to assisted living because she wasn’t safe living in the old house, and I went ahead and gave her her address and phone number. Good luck getting Mom to hear her or read her writing.
Peach is several years older than me, and she told me she remembered when my family visited hers in Indiana. She said, “I hate to say it, but your mother was kind of overprotective.” Yep, this woman was for real. “She had you sitting in a high chair, and you were four years old!”
Dear god.
I told her that, young as I was, I actually had two memories from that visit. Of course, they could have been implanted by things people later told me. Anyway, one was that I had played with one of her younger sisters, the one who was my age, and that we were great friends. (Peach said she had asked her and the next-oldest if they remembered the visit, but they didn’t.) The other memory was of a screen door. You know, one of those that has a spring and so they slam when you let go of them. I can picture that and a yard or field outside the door.
Later this evening, I was texting my cousin in Memphis on my dad’s side of the family (Neighbor Girl) about my phone reunion with the cousin on Mom’s side of the family and our family gossip about Grandma. Neighbor Girl texted, “You remember [Great Aunt M] and her husband? I can’t remember his name. She was the devil!”
Then the gossip about Dad’s side of the family started up. I told her I wish we could have a family reunion (but not invite the devils)!
~~~~~~~~~
Neighbor’s kitty was up on their roof stalking a squirrel today. He got about six feet from it before the squirrel took note and scrambled away. A few minutes later, kitty was after Mr. Squirrel again, or another squirrel, coming back the other way, both running but not in a big hurry. Gotta get lucky to nab a squirrel. They are out in force right now. That’s why the cat has been so busy running back and forth the past few days, stiff-legged with excitement. Gonna lose some weight, most likely.
Then later today I saw a different short-haired gray kitty with white paws on the Rooftop Highway!
~~~~~~~~~
Late in the day my phone showed an incoming call from a number in Georgia. I just let it roll to voicemail. The caller said she was my cousin (whom I’ll call Peach, since she’s from, well, the Peach State), my mom’s brother’s oldest daughter. I haven’t seen her since I was four, before her family moved from Indiana. The recorded message said she was trying to reach me, to get in touch with Mom. Curmudgeon told me she also left him a voicemail. So after work I called her back.
Curmudgeon is suspicious and told me to be careful, but Peach knew too many things about the family not to be the genuine article. Besides, I didn’t give her any sensitive personal information, unless you consider gossip about how mean Grandma was as dangerous info. If so, she dished as good as I did.
Grandma told Peach’s dad that he had ugly kids. I told Peach that Grandma would say loudly in the grocery store, “Isn’t that woman fat?!” Mom, Dad, and I would be embarrassed and walk ahead like we weren’t with her. I didn’t tell Peach about the racist stuff Grandma would say in a loud voice in public. That woman had no filter. After we hung up, I told Curmudgeon about the time I was twelve and we came to visit Grandma. We’d been there about five minutes when she looked at my face and said, “You have spots just like your mother.” (I knew she meant pimples. I wanted to crawl away and die. When you’re that age, you don’t want anyone to notice, much less say anything!)
Peach had gotten my number from one of those pay services online that will help you find people’s phone numbers. One of my old high school friends did that a couple of years ago, too. I’m not that easy to locate because I don’t do social media, just LJ and LinkedIn. Peach said she’d gone off Facebook temporarily till after the election madness died down. She couldn’t take it anymore.
She was calling me because she and Mom occasionally wrote and called. She had called Mom recently and the phone was disconnected, so she was concerned. I told her that Mom moved to assisted living because she wasn’t safe living in the old house, and I went ahead and gave her her address and phone number. Good luck getting Mom to hear her or read her writing.
Peach is several years older than me, and she told me she remembered when my family visited hers in Indiana. She said, “I hate to say it, but your mother was kind of overprotective.” Yep, this woman was for real. “She had you sitting in a high chair, and you were four years old!”
Dear god.
I told her that, young as I was, I actually had two memories from that visit. Of course, they could have been implanted by things people later told me. Anyway, one was that I had played with one of her younger sisters, the one who was my age, and that we were great friends. (Peach said she had asked her and the next-oldest if they remembered the visit, but they didn’t.) The other memory was of a screen door. You know, one of those that has a spring and so they slam when you let go of them. I can picture that and a yard or field outside the door.
Later this evening, I was texting my cousin in Memphis on my dad’s side of the family (Neighbor Girl) about my phone reunion with the cousin on Mom’s side of the family and our family gossip about Grandma. Neighbor Girl texted, “You remember [Great Aunt M] and her husband? I can’t remember his name. She was the devil!”
Then the gossip about Dad’s side of the family started up. I told her I wish we could have a family reunion (but not invite the devils)!