listening back/weekend in review/she's so difficult
I'm listening back to Saturday's show. I'm at the very beginning, so have a little under three hours left to listen to.
I won't write (much) about the dj's in front of me who kept yammering on and on and ended up running into my time; they did me a favor, though perhaps unintentionally. Their yammering on and on allowed me more time to collect cd's for my show, which was to be a funk/soul/blues thing. And I needed the time because (1) funk and soul do not have their own niches in the library and (2) I'm just not terribly familiar with funk [or soul, blues I can fake to my own satisfaction because it has its own section in the library]. Hence, I played lots of tracks off the "Eccentric Soul" collections (which were, by the way, 100% awesome).
The first song I played was "Give up the funk" by Parliament. I pronounced the group name in four syllables: par-li-a-ment. That doesn't sound right, so I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be only three: parl-a-ment. So much for my street cred.
In other news from this weekend...
On Saturday, also, I attended Cousin E's fiancee's bridal shower. Prep for this involved going shopping with my mom on both Friday night and Saturday afternoon (visited three stores before giving up on the idea of finding a nightgown; neither of us being of a mind to purchase lingerie for the girl, we settled on lotions).
Then we had to go down and pick up my aunt, and the friend she'd decided to invite. Lucky for me, rather than calling me to try to arrange for transport, my aunt made the arrangements with mom, instead. So, unlike last event, I didn't have mom yelling at me for agreeing to give my aunt a ride. Instead I got to listen to mom complain about my aunt lying and saying that she already had talked to me, making mom think that the ride-sharing was a done deal. Sigh. These women.
(And let me not go into detail about the joys of driving with a drama queen in the back seat who freaks out every time another car passes or changes lanes in front of you. Oh, and also the joys of women who don't have directions somehow deciding that you don't know where you're going because they just saw a sign saying "BFE -->" so why aren't we there yet? By the end, I was driving about 80mph just to get the trip over with as soon as possible.*)
Here was an interesting moment from the prep portion of the day. We're in the car, having just left Victoria's Secret (where we went to get the lotion). Mom's phone rings and it's my aunt, again. She decides to answer this time.
Mom: Hello.
Aunt: Have you been on a secret rendezvous with your boyfriend or something? I've been trying to reach you all day.
Mom: [something about how she hadn't gotten my aunt's messages even though she had and was just ignoring them, which my aunt probably could have guessed]
Aunt: Are you on your way here?
Mom: No. [stuberyl] still has to get ready. I'm waiting for her.
Aunt: But you're ready to go?
Mom: Yes, I'm ready. I'm just waiting for [stuberyl].
So, I mentioned we were in the car, yes? We weren't on our way home. We were on our way to mom's office to pick up her mail, and then I would drop mom off at her house to change, and then go back to my house and change, and then pick mom up, and then head to my aunt's place to pick her up. The timeline my mom gave my aunt (her sister-in-law, in case that wasn't clear) was way way off. I'm not sure whether my aunt guessed this as well, but at least there was no argument about it.
Event started at 3:00pm. We arrived around 6:30pm (because, did I mention we had to drive to BFE? this involved going on 3 or 4 different highways. and need i mention that this was the hottest day in creation, and it was even hotter where we were going than where we were coming from?). Anyway, there were still food and people and my aunt got to do her thing of insisting that an audience be present when her present was opened and then talking about how cool the present was, so how cool she was (because she'd purchased pearl earrings to match the pearls on the nightgown, etc.).
Cousin Aurora was still there, so put me in charge of her little one (recently turned one) while she made the longest restroom trip ever. I don't know why it had to be me when there were so many other more qualified candidates, but it worked out okay. By the end, the baby even let me hold her. Cousin Aurora was quite surprised, and again wished she had her camera handy to capture the moment. My female cousins seem very invested in getting me to hold their children, and getting pictures of me holding their children. (Cousin Agby wonders why I haven't held little Savvy yet. It's the standard reason, infants are too small and fragile-looking. But I'll have to make some effort to do so, I guess, before they leave for Nigeria.)
On Sunday, I attended my second memorial/funeral service of the year. T'was winterredwood's third. Another friend lost her mom to cancer. We'd both be happy to start seeing a much larger gap between these types of events. winterredwood commented that attending the funerals of her friends' parents makes her feel old. (Imagine how the parents' friends must feel.)
I pointed out that I actually am old. (Yup, practically middle-aged, she agreed.) This growing up stuff kind of sucks. I don't believe in immortality. It seems an irresponsible concept considering how many people already exist on this planet. But death is just not a fair alternative. Where's that little-known third option?
~~~~~~
* = This reminds me to mention that my mom has been nothing but drama about every step of this wedding process. She's constantly complaining, or threatening not to attend this or that function. (I mean, I'm not so crazy about the idea of attending either, but at least I recognize that that's just me being self-centered and shut my trap about it.)
First, she complained that Cousin E hadn't properly let her know about the engagement. This I can more or less understand. He sent out a mass email; she prefers to learn such important news more personally, by phone. So he called. Problem solved.
Cousin E's having family cook for the wedding. He wanted moy-moy, which is mom's speciality. Cousin Aurora asked mom if she would make it. Mom said yes, then complained that Cousin E hadn't asked her himself. Never mind that Cousin Aurora's the one organizing the catering. But she'd already agreed to do the cooking, so whatever.
The aunts in New York didn't get their invitations on time. Rather the younger sister got her invitation before the older did. So of course the younger aunt wouldn't go if the older aunt didn't receive an invite, and I think mom threatened not to go out of solidarity. So Cousin E sent out all new invitations, which I think must have arrived since I haven't heard anything else about it.
Most recently, mom said she wasn't going to attend the bridal shower because she hadn't received an invitation. So Cousin E called me and said "Hey, did you get your invite?" I said that I had. And then he let me know that mom hadn't, for some reason, and that she was refusing to attend and could I please talk to her. (Everyone seems to think that I have some sway with my mom. In some ways I do, I guess, but she often does not listen to me. Especially when it comes to issues of family/respect//whatever, since she doesn't generally believe i know anything about these topics.)
Cousin E then sent another invitation next-day air. (Never mind that the bride's mom, who was hosting the shower, had sent out the original invitations.) Mom said, "Too late, you shouldn't have bothered, I'm not going." But then she was forced to change her mind. She discovered that her original invitation had been dropped in the mail slot in the garage rather than deposited in her mailbox. (Must be a new mailman.) So she had been invited after all, and that is how I found myself driving to BFE on a hot Saturday afternoon.
I won't write (much) about the dj's in front of me who kept yammering on and on and ended up running into my time; they did me a favor, though perhaps unintentionally. Their yammering on and on allowed me more time to collect cd's for my show, which was to be a funk/soul/blues thing. And I needed the time because (1) funk and soul do not have their own niches in the library and (2) I'm just not terribly familiar with funk [or soul, blues I can fake to my own satisfaction because it has its own section in the library]. Hence, I played lots of tracks off the "Eccentric Soul" collections (which were, by the way, 100% awesome).
The first song I played was "Give up the funk" by Parliament. I pronounced the group name in four syllables: par-li-a-ment. That doesn't sound right, so I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be only three: parl-a-ment. So much for my street cred.
In other news from this weekend...
On Saturday, also, I attended Cousin E's fiancee's bridal shower. Prep for this involved going shopping with my mom on both Friday night and Saturday afternoon (visited three stores before giving up on the idea of finding a nightgown; neither of us being of a mind to purchase lingerie for the girl, we settled on lotions).
Then we had to go down and pick up my aunt, and the friend she'd decided to invite. Lucky for me, rather than calling me to try to arrange for transport, my aunt made the arrangements with mom, instead. So, unlike last event, I didn't have mom yelling at me for agreeing to give my aunt a ride. Instead I got to listen to mom complain about my aunt lying and saying that she already had talked to me, making mom think that the ride-sharing was a done deal. Sigh. These women.
(And let me not go into detail about the joys of driving with a drama queen in the back seat who freaks out every time another car passes or changes lanes in front of you. Oh, and also the joys of women who don't have directions somehow deciding that you don't know where you're going because they just saw a sign saying "BFE -->" so why aren't we there yet? By the end, I was driving about 80mph just to get the trip over with as soon as possible.*)
Here was an interesting moment from the prep portion of the day. We're in the car, having just left Victoria's Secret (where we went to get the lotion). Mom's phone rings and it's my aunt, again. She decides to answer this time.
Mom: Hello.
Aunt: Have you been on a secret rendezvous with your boyfriend or something? I've been trying to reach you all day.
Mom: [something about how she hadn't gotten my aunt's messages even though she had and was just ignoring them, which my aunt probably could have guessed]
Aunt: Are you on your way here?
Mom: No. [stuberyl] still has to get ready. I'm waiting for her.
Aunt: But you're ready to go?
Mom: Yes, I'm ready. I'm just waiting for [stuberyl].
So, I mentioned we were in the car, yes? We weren't on our way home. We were on our way to mom's office to pick up her mail, and then I would drop mom off at her house to change, and then go back to my house and change, and then pick mom up, and then head to my aunt's place to pick her up. The timeline my mom gave my aunt (her sister-in-law, in case that wasn't clear) was way way off. I'm not sure whether my aunt guessed this as well, but at least there was no argument about it.
Event started at 3:00pm. We arrived around 6:30pm (because, did I mention we had to drive to BFE? this involved going on 3 or 4 different highways. and need i mention that this was the hottest day in creation, and it was even hotter where we were going than where we were coming from?). Anyway, there were still food and people and my aunt got to do her thing of insisting that an audience be present when her present was opened and then talking about how cool the present was, so how cool she was (because she'd purchased pearl earrings to match the pearls on the nightgown, etc.).
Cousin Aurora was still there, so put me in charge of her little one (recently turned one) while she made the longest restroom trip ever. I don't know why it had to be me when there were so many other more qualified candidates, but it worked out okay. By the end, the baby even let me hold her. Cousin Aurora was quite surprised, and again wished she had her camera handy to capture the moment. My female cousins seem very invested in getting me to hold their children, and getting pictures of me holding their children. (Cousin Agby wonders why I haven't held little Savvy yet. It's the standard reason, infants are too small and fragile-looking. But I'll have to make some effort to do so, I guess, before they leave for Nigeria.)
On Sunday, I attended my second memorial/funeral service of the year. T'was winterredwood's third. Another friend lost her mom to cancer. We'd both be happy to start seeing a much larger gap between these types of events. winterredwood commented that attending the funerals of her friends' parents makes her feel old. (Imagine how the parents' friends must feel.)
I pointed out that I actually am old. (Yup, practically middle-aged, she agreed.) This growing up stuff kind of sucks. I don't believe in immortality. It seems an irresponsible concept considering how many people already exist on this planet. But death is just not a fair alternative. Where's that little-known third option?
~~~~~~
* = This reminds me to mention that my mom has been nothing but drama about every step of this wedding process. She's constantly complaining, or threatening not to attend this or that function. (I mean, I'm not so crazy about the idea of attending either, but at least I recognize that that's just me being self-centered and shut my trap about it.)
First, she complained that Cousin E hadn't properly let her know about the engagement. This I can more or less understand. He sent out a mass email; she prefers to learn such important news more personally, by phone. So he called. Problem solved.
Cousin E's having family cook for the wedding. He wanted moy-moy, which is mom's speciality. Cousin Aurora asked mom if she would make it. Mom said yes, then complained that Cousin E hadn't asked her himself. Never mind that Cousin Aurora's the one organizing the catering. But she'd already agreed to do the cooking, so whatever.
The aunts in New York didn't get their invitations on time. Rather the younger sister got her invitation before the older did. So of course the younger aunt wouldn't go if the older aunt didn't receive an invite, and I think mom threatened not to go out of solidarity. So Cousin E sent out all new invitations, which I think must have arrived since I haven't heard anything else about it.
Most recently, mom said she wasn't going to attend the bridal shower because she hadn't received an invitation. So Cousin E called me and said "Hey, did you get your invite?" I said that I had. And then he let me know that mom hadn't, for some reason, and that she was refusing to attend and could I please talk to her. (Everyone seems to think that I have some sway with my mom. In some ways I do, I guess, but she often does not listen to me. Especially when it comes to issues of family/respect//whatever, since she doesn't generally believe i know anything about these topics.)
Cousin E then sent another invitation next-day air. (Never mind that the bride's mom, who was hosting the shower, had sent out the original invitations.) Mom said, "Too late, you shouldn't have bothered, I'm not going." But then she was forced to change her mind. She discovered that her original invitation had been dropped in the mail slot in the garage rather than deposited in her mailbox. (Must be a new mailman.) So she had been invited after all, and that is how I found myself driving to BFE on a hot Saturday afternoon.