My Woman on the Inside
I got a newsletter from assisted living. The closing “signature” on the email was an unusual name I recognized from the past. I’ll just call her Snowflake. My college roommate my senior year, CaraSusanetta, had roomed with someone of this name our junior year, and I knew Snowflake slightly. So I texted my old roomie to ask if she knew if it was the same Snowflake. CaraSusanetta agreed it probably was. So I went ahead and emailed Snowflake back to ask if she was indeed the same Snowflake and if she remembered me. It was her, and she did. It's a small world! She kindly visited with my mother that day and told her she knew me from college. She reported back that my mom was just delighted.
So as I said, Snowflake had been my senior roommate’s roommate the previous year. The reason the two of them didn’t room together my senior year is that Snowflake was a senior the previous year, but CaraSusanetta was a junior. Snowflake graduated, leaving CaraSusanetta roommate-less. I was in the same situation. My junior roommate was Carous, also a senior. Carous, too, got her degree and moved on. I knew CaraSusanetta from our music fraternity and various activities in the music department. When we were talking one day and learned we were both in this situation, we found a mutually beneficial solution would be to room together the next year. She was a great roomie.
Our two former roommates had not been friends with each other, though. There was some drama between them involving a guy they both liked. My junior roommate, Carous, and some of her friends made lots of snarky jokes about Snowflake behind her back. (I thought one of them was Stan Harding.) I got the impression from this clique that Snowflake was, well, kind of flaky. Probably Snowflake wasn’t very kind to Carous, either. I really don’t know. I didn’t know Snowflake well and wasn’t involved in all that. Sometime after graduation, Stan Harding told Carous and I that he spotted the young man who was the object of the two ladies’ attentions carrying the rainbow flag at a gay pride parade. Oh, the anticlimax!
So once Snowflake turned up at Mom’s assisted living facility, I had to dish the gossip to Stan Harding. I ended the email with, “She’s in there with my mother” :O
It’s always a let-down to think you’ve made delicious fun of someone only for the joke to fall flat. It turns out that Stan was not one of Carous’ friends who was in on the anti-Snowflake snark, after all. He said he had known several people who had known her and had heard many interesting stories about her from different viewpoints. She certainly is a polarizing personality. Anyway, serves me right for making a mean joke about someone who treated my mother kindly. I should have put a meanspirited situation of decades ago behind me.
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This reminds me in a roundabout way that we’ve been searching around for stuff to binge watch on Netflix. Suggestions would be welcome. We recently watched A Man on the Inside. The always charming Ted Danson plays a retiree. A private investigator hires him to go undercover in a retirement community. The fictional Pacific View Retirement Community has a pretty authentic feel, and the place looks a lot like Mom’s assisted living facility, especially the hallways, only with blue wallpaper instead of pale gold. The show’s residents are also more with it (at least, most of them) and interesting, of course. It is quite funny and enjoyable in a quiet, subtle way. Would recommend.
We started watching The Good Place next. It also has Ted Danson in it, though he’s a supporting actor. I didn’t get into it as quickly, and Curmudgeon fell asleep the first night we were watching. CaraSusanetta and Kirby Hall encouraged me, though, so we’ve continued, and it is picking up. I’m finding a lot of myself in Eleanor. Heh. See above story about Snowflake, for example. *blush*
So as I said, Snowflake had been my senior roommate’s roommate the previous year. The reason the two of them didn’t room together my senior year is that Snowflake was a senior the previous year, but CaraSusanetta was a junior. Snowflake graduated, leaving CaraSusanetta roommate-less. I was in the same situation. My junior roommate was Carous, also a senior. Carous, too, got her degree and moved on. I knew CaraSusanetta from our music fraternity and various activities in the music department. When we were talking one day and learned we were both in this situation, we found a mutually beneficial solution would be to room together the next year. She was a great roomie.
Our two former roommates had not been friends with each other, though. There was some drama between them involving a guy they both liked. My junior roommate, Carous, and some of her friends made lots of snarky jokes about Snowflake behind her back. (I thought one of them was Stan Harding.) I got the impression from this clique that Snowflake was, well, kind of flaky. Probably Snowflake wasn’t very kind to Carous, either. I really don’t know. I didn’t know Snowflake well and wasn’t involved in all that. Sometime after graduation, Stan Harding told Carous and I that he spotted the young man who was the object of the two ladies’ attentions carrying the rainbow flag at a gay pride parade. Oh, the anticlimax!
So once Snowflake turned up at Mom’s assisted living facility, I had to dish the gossip to Stan Harding. I ended the email with, “She’s in there with my mother” :O
It’s always a let-down to think you’ve made delicious fun of someone only for the joke to fall flat. It turns out that Stan was not one of Carous’ friends who was in on the anti-Snowflake snark, after all. He said he had known several people who had known her and had heard many interesting stories about her from different viewpoints. She certainly is a polarizing personality. Anyway, serves me right for making a mean joke about someone who treated my mother kindly. I should have put a meanspirited situation of decades ago behind me.
~~~~~~~~~~~
This reminds me in a roundabout way that we’ve been searching around for stuff to binge watch on Netflix. Suggestions would be welcome. We recently watched A Man on the Inside. The always charming Ted Danson plays a retiree. A private investigator hires him to go undercover in a retirement community. The fictional Pacific View Retirement Community has a pretty authentic feel, and the place looks a lot like Mom’s assisted living facility, especially the hallways, only with blue wallpaper instead of pale gold. The show’s residents are also more with it (at least, most of them) and interesting, of course. It is quite funny and enjoyable in a quiet, subtle way. Would recommend.
We started watching The Good Place next. It also has Ted Danson in it, though he’s a supporting actor. I didn’t get into it as quickly, and Curmudgeon fell asleep the first night we were watching. CaraSusanetta and Kirby Hall encouraged me, though, so we’ve continued, and it is picking up. I’m finding a lot of myself in Eleanor. Heh. See above story about Snowflake, for example. *blush*