713 uncle Jonny�s in town Memorial Day week end

05/25/2015

713 uncle Jonny’s in town Memorial Day week end05 25 15

My college roommate invited me to come over this weekend. His wife was going out of town Saturday early early morning, on a work conference in San Antonio. So it would just be me, him and his twin girls, who are in 3rd grade.

I was unsure about going because I know that whenever I go, he always has others to join us. I only see him twice a year while these other friends see him weekly. Most of the time I’m just left in the corner and every once in a while he’ll come over to me, ask how I’m doing and refill my cup-plate. BUT, I wanted to see him and the girls so I would just go with the flow like I always do.

The day before we were talking, Thursday, and he tells me that the girls have a concert at the school. I could stay at their house or go with them to the school concert. It starts at 2. I said I would love to go…so long as I’m not taking a ticket from someone else. His wife said no, I wouldn’t be taking a ticket from anyone.

They picked me up about 10:30 AM. Their 4 year old hmm niece-cousin? (She calls them Uncle and Aunty, but I believe it’s Alicen’s cousin’s daughter.) We got back to their house and I dropped my stuff off in the girl’s room. (My room for the time being lol) and Jeff was cooking up lunch while Alicen was still getting ready for her business trip. She tried on a few shirt-skirt sets to see what Jeffrey thought of them. She would ask me and I would respond “you look beautiful” or “that looks great on you” She always loves when I say that stuff to her. Savana (the 4 year old)’s mom came in at some point and Savana said “what are you doing here?” “What am I doing here? I came to surprise you and, to have lunch with you, is that ok?” lol
Sheena, the 20 something year old cousin, along with Alicen both have these little girl voices. Alicen hates her voice. She has told me on a few occasions that she has called places and people asks to talk to her parents. Sheena’s voice is a bit worse as she also has a squeaky voice. So to hear them gabbing away for hours, drove my ears nuts lol.

At 1:30 we had to leave to go to the concert.

The girls had a Memorial Day school concert at 2P
It was very very nice. Their class sang all the traditional patriotic songs, “God bless America” “You’re a grand old flag” “America the Beautiful” “my country Tis of Thee” “Yankee Doodly”

and in between, students took turns reading, telling different stories about America and the Army, navy etc and the men-women who fought for our country.
At one point I said to Jeffrey, “I remember when I was on that side of the crowd”. Meaning, I remember being a kid, doing the various school “concerts”.

All the songs was accompanied by a teacher playing the piano. It was very beautiful.

After the concert, Alicen took the girls to go to stores so she could find an outfit…because she didn’t have exactly what she wanted to wear. Jeff and I went to the grocery store to pick up stuff for our BBQ dinner. He went all out, getting burgers, dogs and steak tips. He also got pancake mix and breakfast sausages.

When we got back, he put the stuff away then we went outside. A neighbor asked him if he could help him move a few boxes. He got me a chair to sit on and set it up outback. … I just sat there, no radio in hand or anything, no one to talk to, nothing. … sometime later, he came over to me, asked how I was doing, and said “just a few more minutes” altogether, I was sitting there myself for about an hour.
Alicen and the kids came home. We had dinner, Sheena and Savana were still there so they ate without. Jeffrey made me a dish with steak tips, a hotdog, a baked potato and some broccoli.
It was all so very good. I said I was done. Jeffrey said “What? I made you another hotdog and a burger. You’re not going to eat it?” I somehow finished those too but I was uncomfortably full.

After dinner, we were all going to go outside because the neighborhood kids were out playing. Alicen said something about her bringing a blanket out to cuddle up because it’s cold outside. So Jeff got me a chair and set it up out front. I heard the kids playing “cops and robbers” and other games, just like I did when a kid, running through everyone’s yard. Alicen never came out, I didn’t know where Jeff was at first, but he came over and said that his neighbor wants him to help move some more things. I said “ok?” Just like earlier, he left me there by myself with nothing to do. When he was done helping his friend move what it was, he came over to me and asked if I was ready to go inside? I said sure. So we went in, at some point, the kids came in. We sat around for a bit and the kids wanted play monopoly. It’s my fav game too. One of them didn’t want to help clean off the table, she’d rather play games on her Ipad. Eventually Jeffrey yelled at her after she said “you can do it. I don’t feel like it” Eventually the game was all set up. Jeff said to the girls “Ok, it’s 10 P M. We will play till midnight then everyone goes to bed.
The sister who didn’t want to help set up, after about 20 minutes into the game, she said that she didn’t want to play. She went upstairs and just played on her Ipad.
The other one was winning… She had a monopoly first and Jeffrey was being a jerk, he didn’t mention to her about putting a house on. I had two cards that said I could force trades (We were playing million dollar Monopoly) I had a red and she had 2 so I took her two, giving me a monopoly. I cruised from there. I put houses on, and I won the game. Shortly after midnight. Win-lose-or draw, Monopoly is my favorite game. We all said good night and parted to our rooms.
I didn’t get to sleep till after 4AM. … 7:50 came all too soon…

Jeffrey woke me up, telling me that he was going to make pancakes, come on down when you are awake. I went down stairs and as promised, Jeffrey was making breakfast with the girls helping out.
Although, being 10, they weren’t the best of listeners and Jeffrey had to yell at them a few times to be careful, to focus on what they were doing and not to worry what the other was doing. I was still full from the night before and so when he put a stack of pancakes in front of me with two sausages, I told him that I wont be able to eat it all. I did eat it all though somehow and then as I went to take a shower, Jeffrey was cleaning up and put a load of laundry in the wash while the girls, did what ever they did. Probably watched TV.

Some point the night before, Jeffrey’s mother in law had said that the girls can stay with us Friday and then she would take them all day Saturday-Saturday night so “You and Jon can do whatever you want.” Sounded good to me.
The other thing that I didn’t know till some point Friday, his Father in law told Jeffrey that they would be fixing the house this weekend. (his father was in the army, he’s a very loud and demanding person, doesn’t know how to ask people things without yelling and with his big powerful voice, makes it scary. He’s constantly picking on-yelling at Jeff. Jeffrey told me that he’s just a bunch of hot air. He fought with him the first two years of marriage, now he just picks his battles.)

At one point, Jeffrey said to his father in law “You know, you could say thank you every once in a while” his response “I could but I’m not going to, now hurry up. I don’t got all day.”
I had a pound of pasta myself. (he made 2 13 ounce bags, I ate 60 % of them)

I had saw on here someone posted a list of concerts they had gone to. I had started writing a list about 4 years ago. I went back to the list to update-organize them. Researching dates, locations and adding where my list was missing. So at some point, I’ll post that embarrassingly impressive list of concerts I have attended.
So this very harsh winter did some damage to the house. His Father in Law decided that this would be the weekend to do it since Alicen wasn’t around and the kids would be with their grandmother for most of the weekend.

Jeffrey felt bad for me. Not as bad as I felt. I spent most of the day on my computer while they were hammering, sawing and yelling at each other. I went to home Depoe with Jeffrey when he went. At some point he made baby Ravs for us for lunch.

When they were done for the night it was about 7P. Jeff and I were planning on going for Chinese food so we invited –told the father in law that he would be coming for dinner with us.

We went for dinner. The food was just ok. We played keno. I was the only winner and won $3. Alicen had called her father and they chat for a bit. I found it a bit strange that Jeff’s father in law orders just for himself while Jeff and I split what we ordered. Jeff said it’s from serving in the army.
Jeff picked up my tab. So when we dropped of his father in law, he wanted ice cream so I paid for that. When we got back to the house, I was watching the Red Sox game and he was in the room, on his computer doing homework.

After the game, I went up to my room and Jeff had fell asleep. When he finally went to bed, he said good night to me first.

I had once again, didn’t fall asleep till close to 4AM and was pretty surprised when I woke up wide awake and when I checked the time, it was only 8AM. So I didn’t get much sleep.

I was on my computer till I heard Jeffrey moving around. I got up and he was down stairs. He said his father in law was coming over in a few minutes. Jeff finished a load of laundry before his father in law came over.

I sat at the kitchen table, Jeff made me a hot cup of tea which I slowly sipped on. When his father in law came over, it was back to work for them. They were measuring, cutting, hammering etc.

They took a break about 10AM so Jeffrey could get some bagels. I asked and Jeffrey made me another cup of tea to go with my bagel. I had an everything bagel. Then I went back to my room, organized my bag, called my dad to make some final arrangements and at 1PM they took a break so Jeffrey could drive me to meet my father and that was my weekend with my college roommate.

Being at the girl’s concert was nice. Playing monopoly was fun, eating Chinese food with Jeffrey was yummy but a lot of waiting-alone time. He said next time he’ll try to make sure there’s nothing else is going on. I said that would be good but you needed to do this for your house.

Sunday night I went out with my best friend and his kids.
He said that we’re going to Polcari’s. I wasn’t going to say anything. I had it the night before but didn’t know what I wanted anyways. I ended up having the exact same thing as I did not 24 hours prior, in fact, I had the leftovers for lunch so I had the same thing for 3 meals in a row. I had a pizza with jalapenos and onions. Mmm good. They also give you warm bread with the Italian dipping oil.

He took the kids (3 and 5) to see the avengers. I didn’t think it was appropriate but what do I know. I’m not a parent. Holden (John’s son) said his favorite part was when they were fighting. He said that he didn’t like when they were just talking, it was boring. He wasn’t really following what was happening. (maybe you should take your kids to a kid’s movie?)

John asked what was going on with the grant writing. I told him, which wasn’t much. I told him how I told my supervisor that I took a class on grant writing. He asked me if I told the upper management. I told her no. John asked me “why not? What are you? stupid?” I said that they never did anything for me in 10 years, why should I do something for them?” He said if they can offer you a job? Why not? I reiterated about them not helping me in the last 10 years. I said, they’re not going to hire me anyways. I still don’t have a driver’s license and everyone in the company needs a driver’s license to work fulltime. He disagreed with that. I said it’s on the general application. If you mark “no” your application goes in the trash. He said ok, fine, but what will it hurt?

I know that it’s more of an emotional thing for me but they had all the chance in the world to make an exception for me for all these years and I could have been working fulltime as a licensed counselor, making 50K a year but they couldn’t oversee that I don’t have a driver’s license.

I asked about his work, when his next trip is. He said not till late August when he goes to Los Vagus.

The kids got ice cream and I picked up this tab and we were off to drop the kids off with their mother.

So now I’m sitting here, Sunday night, listening to game 4 of the NBA western final between Houston and Golden State. Houston is up big time but I’m sure GS will close in and if not, they will win Wednesday in front of their home croud.

On that note, I hope everyone had a safe and fun Memmorial Day weekend.

P.S. my only interaction with Karen over the last week plus has been my texting her every morning “good morning” or some thing like that. Ocationally she’s send me back a “morning” or even a “good morning” No phone call. No extended conversations but I’m trying not to be pushy or anything. She works crazy hours so I never know if she’s sleeping or not. Some days she works the evening shift and other times she’s working the morning shift so I’m not going to call her or try to have any real conversation. She cant have her phone with her at work so she may not respond because of that.