In other news, dinner tonight consisted of me, the Butcher, the tattooed friend, my mom, my dad, and Mack.
It turns out that some folks refuse to read the blog and others refuse to comment on it. So, I could pretty much say whatever I wanted here about how it went, and there’d be no one to tell you differently.
But, it went fine.
I continue on my quest to get my parents to reconcider their plan to move to Georgia when my mom retires. It’s a fool’s errand to try to tell people what to do with their lives, but an errand I’m on anyway.
What I said to my mom is that I’m afraid of what will happen if they go down there. Yes, because I care about them and I don’t want do see them pissing their retirement away trying to save my brother from himself. But moreso because I am afraid of the headache and heartache I have coming if they get to a point where they can’t take care of themselves, or even if they just need more help taking care of themselves, and they’re six hours away from me.
If they want my help when they get old, they’ve got to move close enough for me to give it.
Of course, they may not want my help when they get old. That would suck, too, I guess.
Sometimes, when I hang out with Mack’s kids and their friends, it breaks my heart, I feel so much like I’m missing out on something important not having kids of my own. And then other times I look at my family and I think it’s for the best.
It’s funny, the older I get the more sure I am that I never, ever want to get married. No offense to the few of you I know who are happily making it work, but I’ve never seen a marriage that made me think, “Aw, rats, I’m missing out on that.” I’ve seen loves like that, but never marriages. I do, though, often feel that way about kids.
I don’t know. I just don’t understand my brother. Both his kids are so terrific, once they’ve let their guards down, once they feel okay and safe. And they’re so cool and so much fun. I just don’t understand how you could hang out with them all the time and not want to protect and provide for them. I just don’t get that.
My one nephew almost didn’t pass last year and my mom was all “Well, you know, he had a rough start to the year. His great grandpa died and he missed school for that whole week and…” I forget, a couple of other things.
And I was like “And his dad was in jail?!”
Start out the year with that kind of shit on you and see how it goes for you, I say.
I’m afraid that my parents think they have no one they can count on. Often, I’m afraid they might be right. But, what can you do, you know?
All the time we were growing up, my dad would say to us OFST, which stood for “Our family sticks together.” I’m such a dumbass; I totally believed that shit. When, clearly, he said it all the time because it wasn’t true; he just wished it was. I’m sorry I didn’t figure that all out a lot sooner.
Anyway, I wish they’d retire to Huntsville, not so close we’d have to see them all the time, but close enough that we could.
It’s just so unseemly when the speaker at a fundraising event for the folks who like to parade around in the mantle of religious rightness is in danger of being put under citizen’s arrest by religious folks acting on their consciences.
Since he took a picture of it, he knows where this place is. If he has any inkling of how bad most of us want to utilize that place, he’s going to trade maps to there for wealth and power.
It does not surprise me to see that this place seems to be some place sketchy. You know if they can do what they claim to do and the end result is comfortable and not sliding down your shoulders all day, you probably have to sell your soul to the Devil in order to get one, so no surprises that the place is on the outskirts of Hell.
Tiny Cat Pants 