November in Rewind or Vignettes From the Month
November went by in a puff of smoke. Maybe it’s because I’m so fond of it. Maybe it’s because it happens to be that time of year which I tend to look forward to expecting that it will heal whatever scars were created from the crippling middle quarters of the year. The entire year is endured with the anticipation that autumn will reap magical things while sweeping out the suffocation of summer’s heat in a swirl of dead, pretty trees and the scent of burning leaves.
It certainly was a month of a few changes, most notably Malena Moua’s departure from the billing department to Payroll upstairs. She’d been my partner for longer than a year now and her voluntary usurption was quite a surprise though I should have expected considering that she’d been talking of getting a day job for a while now. What I’ll miss more than anything is not so much what she pulls during her work load but how much time and effort she spent looking after me. Texting me on the weekend to be sure I didn’t sleep thru the day. Telling me about job openings in the area. Or restaurants that I needed to check out. Or trying to motivate me to get back into a fitness routine all the while feeding me Reeces peanut butter cups.
Maybe I’m just an overly sentimental person. And don’t misinterpret, I am happy for her. But it took at least two weeks for me to get past the fact that she wouldn’t be around anymore. Realizing that the comfort I felt by having her sit right beside me would, for good or bad, be forever altered.
That isn’t to say that her replacement, Zoua Xiong, who was promoted to Lead status on Novemeber 1st, wouldn’t do a good job with filling her shoes. Zoua, a product of my very first class in March of 2007, has been a good friend of mine for a while now. We offered her the position because her performance has always been high and she takes pride in her job which is probably why she’s always top of the list in accuracy. This last quarter, for instance, only two 90% on the statistical audits provided a blemish on her record. That’s two errors in 3 month’s time.
Her zesty spirit has hardly given me a chance to miss Malena and thankfully we do work very well together. I couldn’t be more proud of having someone I actually trained joining the management team.
With Malena gone, now there are only two billers left from that first class in 2006 which was hired on to help establish the ACO billing department: Wendy Davis and Kelly Clifton.
I do keep in contact with Malena at least a couple of times a week thru email. And Danny and I met she and her husband for lunch at the Thai Diner at Discover Mill on Sunday, November 7th. It had only been a week since her new position but we caught up as though it was a year since we’d last seen one another. She promises that we’ll have a lunch encounter at least once a month.
That first weekend in November marked the first time I was able to spend a day on the couch resting without the worry of having to go out or leave town or pack a bag for this or that. October was fun, but November provided a much needed resting season.
Other than the outing with Malena I didn’t even bother leaving the house that day. Danny went out to meet Hawkins at his friends’ place in the city sometime around 10pm.
Left alone on the couch with his mother a few feet away flipping the TV channels, I spent practically the entire night uploading photos on Facebook. Alissa kept issuing kidnapping threats by claiming she would take Lu to Indianapolis and hold him ransom until I uploaded the photos from Halloween. “I hope Lu enjoys Indy,” she texted with a smirk. And of course, being the anal psychopath that I am, I needed to add other photos from the month beforehand so that my albums would be in chronological order.
I was expecting Danny to stroll back in at 3 or 4 in the morning long after I had decided to retire for bed and really I didn’t care. I wasn’t stressing over it. I really wanted to rest at home. It was my only goal and I was sticking to it. Surprisingly he was back in three hours resurfacing sometime after one. His mother and I were still on each a sofa in the same position that he left us. “What?” he stated, “you look as though you expected a prowler to come thru the door.” “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” is what I replied. A part of me smiled inside. He sat on the sofa next to me and tucked his feet under my legs.
It was this night that we watched “The Walking Dead” for the first time. We’d been anticipating the show for a while now. This Zombie drama set in the city of Atlanta centering on a boring cast of survivors after an undead apocalptic event occurred. This particular night was the episode following the Pilot - and probably the most exciting thing was the undead themselves in their fucked up, campy makeup and cheap costume. The characters are dull, the plot insipid and the buzz about the show highly overrated. But yet we sat in front of the TV every Sunday night of this month at 11 fixated and mesmerized. One good thing is that Nilsa doesn’t like the show, so she usually takes it upon herself to exit the room for bed at this time leaving us to man the TV alone without her itchy finger trying to switch up the station to some dull Lifetime drama or boring reality show.
Before bed we watched “The Legend of Hell House”, a 70s horror movie I had rented for the Halloween season. It was watchably campy until the over-the-top far-fetched ending which completely ruined the movie.
It was a nice relaxed weekend. We didn’t skip a beat with Heather who was a major player this fall. She always resurfaces in our lives at the right moment -just before it looks as though the most excitement we’d get on the weekend is staring at the walls. Our little weekend parties have dissipated yet in walks Heather Power to more than fill the void. Saturday, the 6th we had gone over to her house for “game night”. Heidi was babysitting their nephew. We just sat around the fireplace watching them play xbox games. Josh was there and Mike. At one point we sat around the kitchen table trying to complete a round of Kings; it just kind of fizzled as everyone had become uninterested. Heather, Mike and I had gone out for an alcohol run but ended up at a filling station after realizing all package stores had already closed for the night. The liquor laws of the county here are a wicked buzz kill and before midnight most of these designated stores are closed.
Some black boy named Bruster, Buster or Buddy that Josh was crushing on showed up for a bit. He had some cheap weed that Heidi, Danny and I went outside in the cold to smoke up. It felt pretty lame to stand out in the cold for something I wasn’t even enjoying. I dashed back to the warmth indoors and sipped on my beer not even remotely feeling a buzz.
The climate was so unpredictable this month ranging from cold, to chilly to warm to perfectly crisp autumn air. This particular night I remember it was quite bitterly cold.
* * *
Besides losing Malena to a transfer, November marked quite a bit of changes at work. We lost Chan who was, in my opinion wrongfully terminated over point issues revolving around the vertigo stemming from her cancer treatments and Lely’s medical issues. Philip White from our last class and LaAndrea Gipson from my first class this year both resigned. And of course our department didn’t escape the ugly face of the lay off, Naja Sudan, Brandie Gonzalez & Dewayne Moss all becoming victims of November 5th’s red slips.
But most surprisingly was a message left on Diane’s answering machine Monday, Novemember 8th from none other than Ali Voisin. Diane was out so I had received the message: “Umm Diane, this is Ali, I just wanted to say that I don’t think I’ll be coming back to work for Saia anymore. I’ve not had feeling in my left arm since 12:30 on Friday, that night we stayed til 3am, and I don’t think I want to put myself thru that anymore. I figured I was probably going to get fired anyway so. If you need me you can call me but I will be by some time this evening to drop off my things.”
Now Ali had her delusions but I never thought she’d have the nerve to quite. Kudos to her even if she was a bit out there. She arrived on Wednesday of that week, dropped off her photo badge, her procedures manual and told Diane “this is all that I have of Saia’s.” When Diane told her, “Good luck Ali.” She response in a half-sneer “I’m going to need it.” She walked away from her desk turning back abruptly and stopped dramatically only to say: “I hope one day you get out of this hell hole to, Diane.” With that she was out and no one has seen her since.
I sent her a message on Facebook to give her my new phone number and to tell her I was here if she needed. She never responded. I also invited her to Thanksgiving dinner to which she issued a brief, but very polite decline a few days later. And with that, the chapter ended. I just hope she can use this time to heal. She’d lost a bitter 30 or so pounds around January leaving her frail appearance a skeletal 89 pounds for the duration of the year. She kicked out Ryan sometime at the end of the summer; chances are he moved back to Louisiana. She doesn’t speak to Aaron anymore. You have to admire the boldness of her life changes; I just hope she knows what she is doing.
With Kerri transferring to Payroll around February of 2008, Tina moving back home last November, Aaron transferring to Truckload and now Pricing upstairs, and Ali’s resignation, me and Diane are the only remaining survivors in the billing department of the move from the Houma office.
* * *
Perhaps the loveliest thing to report was the visit the weekend of the 12th thru 14th from Mom and Dad. I had not seen them since my last visit to Louisiana in December of 2008. They had not come to Georgia since November of 2006 during their second trip up after helping me get settled in September of that year. I’d moved three times since then and they completely missed out of my two-year stay at Tree Summit, now known as the Overlook at Berkeley Lake.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take off a night of work without risk of losing vacation slots from the Christmas vacation but I did make sure to tell Diane I would be going in late on Friday. I figured they usually hit the hay around 9 anyway so I wouldn’t be missing out on much. They had driven in on Thursday afternoon. In true fashion they were in a tizzy about the traffic in Atlanta and said they had missed the exit several times and had to double back. Daddy said Mom went crazy; she complained that Dad was yelling. I had imagined the quarrel in my head vividly and chuckled; some things never change.
We picked up salads on Thursday when I had introduced them to Zaxby’s and brought them back home where we had dinner around the kitchen table with Danny before we had to leave off for work.
I was a bit apprehensive about how they would hit off with Nilsa but the next day when I inquired they noted how wonderful her company was and that she offered hugs as she entered the door.
On Friday we barely had time to drop Danny off at work before getting stuck in traffic on the way to the market. They had hopes of cooking a gumbo for me on Saturday and wanted to pick up a few things for the pot. It was so strange shopping with my mother again - a ritual we would do every week once Daddy got paid when I was a child. It’s strange how adolescence brings forth that feeling of embarrassment when the notion of being caught with your parents at the grocer by a school mate but in adulthood, particularly if you’ve moved out of the house, it’s not the least bit humiliating.
We stopped at a Pizzeria in the Kroger parking lot on Steven Reynolds to scoff down some pepperoni pizza since sitting at a nice restaurant was out of the question due to the time; I had promised to be in at work for 9 though I wished I had said 9:30 or 10. We had time to drop off the groceries and sit around for a bit while talking to Nilsa who was sitting on the sofa watching TV. I visited for a spell before dashing out of the door.
It felt really nice having my parents in. So odd how life has a way of moving on so that the people who enveloped you in your formative years become simply background players - the people in the chorus who hum softly simply to harmonize with the choir leaders.
It’s not a bad shift when this happens; it’s simply the path of life. I think people who live within the comfort of their family are crippled in a way that they’ll never realize until they get away. I don’t think I’ve really seen it that way until now but I think I was smothered.
That I’m not entirely happy is not only irrelevant to the issue but a whole other issue I wouldn’t divulge for lack of time or words.
Each day my parents were here it seems as though they were up early. Cleaning, washing clothes, cooking just as though they were at home. “We feel so much at home here. At Jenny and Travis’ we have designated days to wash clothes. And we could only use so much water or Travis would have a fit.” I, on the other hand, have no such rules.
Mother would make the comment “I feel like a fat pig. All I’ve done is sit on the sofa all morning.” It’s difficult to convey the message that sitting on the sofa doing nothing is not a crime but they both have work engraved into the fabric of their being.
I tried to make it a point to wake up early but couldn’t quite pick my head off the pillow before 10am each day. I’d go downstairs and it seemed as though half of their day had gone by already. Daddy typically wakes up at 4 or 5 back at home, which is before I even go to bed most nights (or mornings, if you will.)
Saturday I descended the stairway to the aroma of Mom’s gumbo drifting into my nostrils- my hair a tangle of dreamer’s knots.
We sat at the kitchen table: Me, Mom, Dad, Danny and Nilsa and had dinner like a real family. Potato salad - which mom had to improvise with honey mustard after noticing I didn’t have a bottle of yellow mustard on hand- gumbo, and garlic bread. We talked about organic vegetables and hormone pumped chicken to such an unappetizing degree that Nilsa had to stop eating after getting grossed out by the chicken swimming in the soup. Her gumbo, as usual, was fantastic - better than my grandmother’s though I’d never tell her that.
Today was certainly the most wholly satisfying day of the visit as I decided to take them to Lake Lanier for a view of the Lake in the autumn. During their visit the trees had turned vivid shades of bright oranges, yellows and reds and the roadways here were lined with fallen foliage. Though talks of visiting me had surfaced since January, it’s really the fall that mom has been dying to see here. She’s always been intrigued by the changing of the leaves.
Today had definitely satisfied those desires. We rode thru Suwanee and turned into a woodsy area with a sign that said West Park -a place in the Buford area of the Lake hosting one of the Lake’s many tributaries. I didn’t quite know what to expect and was prepared to turn the car around and try for another area if this didn’t offer such a picturesque view.
The park was small but monumentally nicer than the one we had taken Jenny and Travis to last summer when they had come. I’d say it was even nicer than the one we had gone with Kathleen in the springtime and forged future trips to New Orleans and Miami that never materialized. But maybe my opinion was influenced by the gorgeous nature of the season. The leaves were golden and reds. Bright hues that lined the banks of the Lake. It was like I had imagined the setting of A Separate Peace -the book that defined my sophomore year in High School. The place offered a nice view of the Lake beyond and even had its own small beach area. The park was empty save for a man on a motorcycle who was reading a book at a picnic table in a remote corner of the park.
Danny had tuned me in to an iPhone camera application called Hipstamatic which takes vintage photos via various lenses, flashes and films. I instantly became addicted to it painting all of my photos in a fine, vintage hue similar to how photographs had appeared in the 60s, 70s and early 80s. I still say, though technology has taken giant leaps -most for the better, we have still lost a quality to photographs that once seemed so fantastical but now get awash in harsh lighting, glossy prints and boring flashes that reveal far too much detail that need be.
I snapped photos of the trees. I snapped photos of the water. I took some of Danny. Some of my parents. Some with Danny and I. Some with Mom and Dad. Some posing. Some candid. Mom took some of me and a couple of Danny and me. At one point she was trying to get a photo of a squirrel by the restroom area and I snapped photos of her crouched down onto a brick barricade.
I took photos of the sandy beach area. Some of Danny swinging on an old tire. We must have stayed in that small park for two hours snapping photos and soaking up the scenery.
At one point Daddy helped mom pick out some tiny pine cones she uses for her crafts and it was funny while watching her pick out the ones she didn’t like from his hands and toss them to the ground with no regard at all of how he had spent the time picking them “nope, not that one. that one’s ugly” etc.
In that single moment I had come to a strange epiphany - how after all these years of disagreement and disharmony somehow the fact that she waited it out and stuck by this man worked. I’m not condoning long-term relationship or even becoming a spokesman for monogamy but I think in their case something was worth while - something has clicked. They seem to be compatible to a degree that they’ve adapted to one another so closely going so far as to evolve to the other’s traits and habits.
The sun was slowly setting and our stomachs were getting agitated so we headed to Taxco for food. It was only fifteen minutes away or so from the park and along the route we had a great view of the Buford dam from the narrow, twisty mountainous roadway. I was able to see only a fraction of what the passengers viewed by Danny and Mom were both hanging out of the window with their cameras trying to snap photos. It was beautiful.
I try to support Danny’s family by introducing everyone to the restaurant which I truly do feel serves the best Mexican food I’ve ever had. We were seated in a booth by the door. Still fascinated by my new toy, I snapped photos with the Hipstamatic of the all-too-familiar surroundings which mostly included Aztec and Indian knickknacks placed on the inserts within the wall that divides that bar from the main eating area.
Indecisive as always, Mom and Dad had me order for them. “Whatever you order for us, we’ll eat.” I ordered the same thing that I get time and time again: Mexican-American tacos with carnitas. And they were served the same way as each time I ordered them: four flour tacos stuffed with pulled pork, lettuce, cheese and topped with diced tomatoes.
It was a success. They couldn’t rave enough about the pork for the next two days saying it was the best Mexican food they have ever eaten. I’d say we had a winner considering they’ve had Mexican food in Texas which I’m sure plays host to more immigrants that Atlanta, if one could imagine.
It was a fantastic day overall and I felt elated as I was able to offer up a spontaneous itinerary they at least enjoyed.
Back at home we sat on the sofa and watched scary stories on the Bio network’s programming showcasing Celebrity Ghost Stories. This particular night Margaret Cho, Rebecca DeMornay, Vince Neil and Cynthia Rowley all offered their intriguing vignettes. Danny spent most of the afternoon upstairs and Daddy went to bed sometime around 8pm.
Mom and I sat with Nilsa who had put the Christmas tree up partially and decorated the fireplace mantel in the hours that we were away that afternoon.
Heather had insisted we meet she and a group of friends at Le Buzz after we failed to meet at Heidi’s for pregaming but this left me torn between staying home with Mom and going out. I didn’t really feel up to some smoky club but I wanted to hang out with Heather. By 9:30pm, mom was falling asleep on the sofa and this was the deciding factor for my plans for the night. I told her to retire to bed and that we would be leaving to hang out with friends soon. “Go on.” she said. “You guys have fun. I’m falling asleep here anyway.”
I could feel Danny’s irritation at the time we had left by reading the tenseness in his face. It was after 10 and the pre-game had already started and ended at Heather’s from 5pm. Not blaming me for wanting to visit with my parents, he vented about how he feels he needs his own car for incidents like these. He didn’t even really want to go to Le Buzz.
I felt bad because I didn’t even consider telling him to go to Heather’s without me and swing by on their way out later after I had tucked in the parents. Instead his Saturday evening was spent in his bedroom bored.
I think he was mostly upset because he didn’t even really want to go out. Hawkins had invited him to some art event and if he had his own car, he would gone to Heather’s around 5 then made out to the city by 9. I understood the reasoning behind his frustration and didn’t fuel it by adding my own commentary - any time Hawkins is involved it ends a big disappointment for the both of us. For him because plans always fall thru (usually because the boy backs out) and for me due to the obvious.
Somehow our discussion did turn into a minor argument while in the car waiting for Heather and crew to arrive at Le Buzz. It ended with him venting of how I always end up a saint to people while he looks like the ass a fact that causes him to resent me. My argument in retaliation was that I’m not in control of what our friends feel of me but that I can only promise that I never trash talk about him or our issues behind his back.
We walked out of the car and immediately put on our smiling faces in front of the group.
The night ended a fair deal better than it began. Le Buzz was a bore and the crowd was dead on arrival but Heather and crew provided a fair bit of entertainment. Heidi and Justin had tagged along and Mike. Plus an ex-colleague of hers, a handsome young guy name Nick Edmunds was there with his friend who looked a lot like a girl I went to school with named Mandy Oncale.
Nicole Page Brooks, that monster of a drag Queen who was a failure on RuPaul’s Drag Race and who always runs the show at Le Buzz walked around and made Danny and I the subject of one of her weak jokes as the spotlight temporarily shown upon us. She called me Justin Bieber [because of my hair] and he El Dubarge. Considering she looked like a monster, I didn’t let it ruin my night. And the crowd must have contained a good bit of Beiber fans because they all but roasted her at the mention of his name.
After boredom settle around us we decided to head out - Justin and Mike had already been waiting in the car for longer than an hour. He was irritated with Heidi for some reason and this forced her to ride with Danny and I. Heather grabbed the back seat as well and the four of us headed back to their place. We didn’t stay for an extended period of time, only stopping by to eat some of the cookies she had baked earlier during the night. In true form Heather proclaimed that she was ready to “pass out”. Nick, who spent the night, was the only left over of the group. The two of them saw us out the door.
Back at home, Danny suffered another long, gripping bout of heartburn after sipping on a bit of juice that was in the frig and he spent the rest of the night rocking back and forth in bed while pressing my hand hard against his chest in order to get me to rub it.
In the end, everything hard is forgotten particularly when illness is at stake and the hand that bit earlier provides the only soothing relief when no one else really cares.
* * *
Sunday, November 14th
The last full day of my parents’ stay was bitter sweet. We slept for most of the morning and it wasn’t until mid after before we headed out of the door. During the late morning hours I fiddled on the Hipstamatic uploading the photos I had taken the day before to Facebook.
Mom, Dad and Nilsa tried dismantling the fireplace until I told them that the pilot was located below the glass panel and that screw drivers were definitely not needed. It was like watching the Three Stooges but in the end they did get the pilot lit despite my warning that it would simply go out like it did last winter.
I made a half-suggestion the day before that I’d take them to Stone Mountain. Cindy had contacted Danny this particular morning and said she was up for tagging along but completely ignored our messages when we tried to call her before leaving. We hadn’t seen her since having dinner with her that day Mikey had come over and as of today we haven’t heard nor tried to contact her. Cindy’s games have become too laborious for even me to put up with.
Danny and I spat over his unwillingness to tag along. I closed the bedroom door and walked downstairs leaving him in at a corner of the bed to drown in his sour attitude. I had an odd vision of me closing the door on darkness as though sealing the threshold was the remarkable cure to some grave illness that had plagued the world’s population. Sometimes I get so tired of his selfishness and negativity.
Sometimes I get so tired of being my own second best.
“Where’s Danny?” mom asked. When I lied to her by saying he was tired and wasn’t planning on coming she had a peculiar puzzled look that I couldn’t determine was a result of hurt or disappointment or maybe both. For what it’s worth, she really does like him.
And truthfully the only problem with Danny is faced behind closed doors with me, rarely in front of people so that he’d never give anyone a reason to suspect his bratty nature.
In retrospect, a part of me realizes that I was wrong for guilt-tripping him but I had already decided that Stone Mountain would be completely lame with just my parents.
They could have cared less -they’re not exactly the type of people who do things particularly when it comes to scaling a mountain. Detecting something was wrong she said “you know, we don’t have to go to Stone Mountain. Your Dad and I don’t care. We could always go next time.”
But they definitely were hungry and so I decided to salvage the day by taking them for an outing at Jim N Nicks for their first taste of fried green tomatoes and pork stuffed baked potatoes.
The meal was a success and it gave us some time alone away from the Puerto Ricans and the festive household.
I never thought I’d say this, but I think my Mother inhabits a behaviour that irritates me far more than my Father sometimes. We hadn’t sat fifteen minutes at the table after eating before she grabbed her purse and was ready to go. Go where? Who knows. But she can’t simply sit still. It’s maddening to me. Personally, I like to sit and digest. I’m known for sitting an hour or two at a restaurant after eating simply soaking in good company. It’s not as though the conversation had run dry, she was simply revving to go as though her internal biology were somehow connected to a bomb like that bad Keanu Reeves movie, Speed and if she sat down for longer than a half hour she’d explode.
I decided a spontaneous site-seeing trip would be the best to cap off an afternoon with them. If anything, the landscape and scenery here is beautiful to look out and that’s the kind of thing that floats their boat. I showed them that house in Howell Wood that I had all but shamefully begged the realtor for last year. That remarkable house that I had asked them to cosign for when it was simply Danny, Quinisha and I in the equation.
Like the paparazzi, mom hung out of the window to snap photos of the lawn outside. The neighborhood was even more beautiful than I remember it which didn’t help me let go of the fact that we could have lived there.
We ended up at Assi in efforts to show them how cheap the fish, meat and produce were at the Asian markets in the area. This kind of place is nothing like what one would expect back at home as I predicted, they were vastly impressed. Mom stocked up on a bag of Paprika and spices.
The intention was to get some Yoghurt bread at the Mozart Bakery. When I noticed they were sold out, I took them to the independent Mozart Bakery located off of Pleasant Hill. The same one that Tony Young and Amy Moua took me to about three years ago after we had eaten at a “real” Chinese restaurant. I bought a loaf of yoghurt bread and mom bought each of us a small pastry from behind the glass counter. We sat and ate our pastries as she said “oh my god, yum, mm mm, this is the best chocolate I’ve ever had” several times to herself.
Back at home the house was pretty quiet. Nilsa was flitting about but she mentioned Danny had been in bed the entire afternoon. She had all of the Christmas decorations out and completed including the tree which she had adorned with ornaments and put into a permanent spot in front of the back door.
We spent the rest of the evening watching Ghost shows on the couch with Nilsa while the fireplace flickered and the lights on the Christmas tree contributed a warm, cozy glow to the aura of the living room. Before long Daddy went to bed.
They had decided they would leave in the morning rather than stay til Tuesday which was the original plan. For whatever reason, they nixed the idea of visiting Marty and Stephanie Monday night while I was at work. Sometime during the late evening before mom had gone to bed Danny awoke and joined us downstairs. His attitude had melted and I offered a bit of yoghurt bread as truce to which he politely declined. It was as though we hadn’t been irritated with one another twelve hours before.
I enjoyed the quiet evening and a part of me would miss my parents when they left.
The next morning I awoke around 9:30 to see them off. They had already packed, washed sheets, dressed the bed and repaired the garbage disposal which had been broken since our Halloween party last year when someone chucked a makeshift shot glass down the drain.
This was in addition to lighting the pilot on the fireplace, fixing the drain situation in our bathroom shower and tending to the downstairs heater issue (which always shuts off by itself for no apparent reason.) “We’ll be back in January and February to fix your bedroom door.”
We spoke about how I could mend the hole in the living room wall left by Danny’s birthday party.
And with that bit of info, they were gone.