Caterwauling

“There’s no one in town I know
You gave us someplace to go.
I never said thank you for that.
I thought I might get one more chance.”

— Jimmy Eat World, “Hear You Me”

Today would have been my grandfather’s birthday. It’s his first one away from us. I’m fine now but I anticipate going slightly berserk later in the day because, well, I do that every day when I start to miss him, anyway.

I would no doubt have driven up to Pennsylvania to see him. I probably would have done it unannounced, pretending I was busy down here but then meeting him and Mom at a restaurant. Last year, I sat down beside him in a booth and scared the hell out of him. But he was thrilled. He always hugged me so hard, he called it “squeezing the stuffing” out of me.

I miss those hugs.

“What would you think of me now,
So lucky, so strong, so proud?
I never said thank you for that,
Now I’ll never have a chance.”

Mom and I always feel like we stopped missing my grandmother as much, once my grandfather was gone. His loss is fresher, and he was it, you know? Everything that resembled our life died with him. Everything has changed — nothing feels sacred or even right anymore.

But when I was in New York last weekend, I was telling my mom about going to Junior’s, which I did every day of my trip (incidentally, I watched the Food Network tape an episode of “Good Eats” there on Tuesday), and I was swooning over chocolate and vanilla egg creams. I’d never had one in my life and I didn’t even look for it on the menu, but I asked for it on a whim and absolutely loved it.

Mom told me that it astounds her sometimes, how much my grandmother comes through me. That was one of her favorite things in the world when she was younger, and I guess she used to get them in all kinds of flavors. Anyway, I cried a whole bunch after Mom told me that — it made me happy to have some connection to my grandmother, and sad that all we have left are these little, random moments and memories that we cobble together.

“And if you were with me tonight,
I’d sing to you just one more time.
A song for a heart so big,
God wouldn’t let it live.”

I know I’m just an ordinary girl who’s facing the same losses that the rest of the world does, too, but other people get to grieve and move on with their lives. And we can’t seem to master that last part.

Maybe I’m selfish, but I’m always looking for signs that he’s crossed over successfully, that he’s OK where he is. But my psychic vibes fail me now when I need them most. Mom still thinks he’s going to come back to us — not just as a spirit, but that time is going to rewind itself and this is all going to be such a huge mistake that can be undone. God, how I wish.

In going through his things, Mom found a note he had written her, in case anything happened to him — we’re not sure when it was from, but given that those incompetents at the VA Hospital have been screwing him over for 50 years, I guess he was being realistic.

The letter was addressed to her and said, very simply, “You and (Goddess) need to go on to have a good life. Show ’em all how it’s done.” We just wish he was able to have a good life of his own.

OK, what I said about going berserk later on? That time has now come. *sob*

Happy Birthday, Grampy. Love you bunches.

Why does Fergie feel the need to spell out the words in her songs? She’s not fuckin’ Akeelah and her damn spelling bee. I am not going to buy her CD, but if ever someone offers a mix full of all her outtakes as she spelled all the words wrong while reading the dictionary out loud, I’d be GLAD to pay for that!

OK, “Grey’s Anatomy” — LOVED IT. But I’m not going to talk about the obvious. (Denny. *swoon*) I am, however, going to say how hot McDreamy was in his sweater (as he was out of his scrubs. *swoon*). But the thing I want to talk about is Izzie, because I SO get her malice toward George’s beard wife.

I personally love Callie O’Malley — I like people who are a bit colorful but who also rock socks at the core — but the situation reminds me of when people I adore seem to be enchanted by the most-offensive assholes they could have found within a 400-mile radius. I am the friend who you don’t introduce your significant other to, if you don’t want to hear the truth. I may not outright say, “Dude. For reals, yo?” but when asked, well, I will gladly answer.

I give the litmus test to see whether their new ball-and-chain will fit into the circle of friends. I’m nice (honest! OK, well, sometimes …) so if I think that you were smoking crack when you decided to add that person to your life, that’s probably what everyone else thinks, too. I might just try to phrase it a little more creatively because I want to provide a reality check, not a bat over the head.

This is where I give Izzie credit. It’s hard to stifle yourself when you think that it’s time to burn the rose-colored glasses, because the second you open your mouth to the contrary, you immediately become the bad guy. It’s like telling someone you just don’t trust their judgment, if they can’t pick the right person to be with. Like with George and Callie, it was either her or the Syph Nurse, so she was technically the only available choice for him. And not only does she work his friends’ nerves (and he KNOWS it), but then he went and MARRIED her, to boot.

You know, if your friends hate your girl, wouldn’t you want to diffuse the situation before it escalates into permanency? George, you’re gay and we know you have a crush on Karev. Why bring Callie into this mess? 😉

Some friends and I were having this discussion recently, about someone else’s new significant other, and it’s weird. We worship our friend and if there were anyone else on this earth with better judgment about everything else, we haven’t met them yet. So when they decide to shack up with the trailer trash, well shit, WTF?

You either distance yourself from that mess so that you don’t have to be continually bruised by the new person’s offensive aura (but you lose your friend) or you have to be honest and say, “They suck.” Because, really, you can only be offended so many times before you start eyeballing that baseball bat. 😉 Or, and this is what usually happens, you just shut the fuck up and wait for the new addition to show their true colors. Because they always do. You can’t pray for someone’s downfall, but is it wrong if you instead wait for it?

I guess the latter is what has to happen in life. And that’s what Izzie is going to have to do, to keep George as her friend. She doesn’t have to agree with his choice, insofar as the relationship doesn’t affect her. But when it does — it feels like the room isn’t big enough for everyone to fit into it. And if she’s wrong, she’s got to admit it, but if she’s right, she can’t say, “Told you so.”

Anyway, I don’t have anything profound to add to that situation — I’ll just be watching closely to see how it resolves itself. Maybe I’ll learn something. 😉

In any event, how sad that Ellis died just as Meredith was coming back. And that Denny wasn’t wearing his sweater that Izzie lived in after he died. It was an interesting take on death, with the girl who kept bleeding out, every five minutes. And that they really can’t see or hear us, but they can feel us — and we can feel them. I guess I just wish my loved ones could have had the chance to come back to life.

Anyway, re: McDreamy — does a girl have to die to get a man’s attention? 😉

Ah, wrap shirts. A joy to wear if you have the cleavage to fill them up; but bad to wear if they don’t stay put.

Ahem.

So yesterday, I stopped at the bagel shop for java, breakfast and a salad to go. They’re usually indifferent at best toward me — they don’t even try to be polite. But yesterday, hoo BOY were all the men behind the counter killing themselves to wait on me! From the bagel dude to the cashier to others just loafing around, they were all chatty and flirty. I figured either something had to be amiss or maybe I’d gotten popular overnight.

As I was stirring my brew, I looked down and saw WHY I was a hit. The shirt had unraveled itself and I looked like one of those slimy guys who unbuttons his shirt to the waist and wears gold chains around his neck. (Only I just have a simple black cord with a silver Celtic love knot, but still.) Yep, the girls had been out the whole time!

The good news is that I’d just donned a brand-new bra, so it was all shiny and pristine and shit. *whew* You know, when your mother tells you to wear clean underwear because someone may see it, she isn’t kidding!

A conversation that took place at Joe Allen’s restaurant in New York City:

Me: Holy shit with all these actor/waiters. Old ones, too. At what age do you finally just give up already when you haven’t yet made it?
Friend: That one should’ve given up when he looked in the mirror. Is it any wonder he’s still a waiter?

And one from right here at home:

Me: We just solved some technical issues but that doesn’t mean we’re actually progressing.
Friend: Grate.
Me: Grate? CHEESE!
Friend: Hungry?
Me: So many cheesy types ’round here, it’s no wonder!
Friend: Oh my!
Me: The cheesiest of the cheesy sure do ‘grate’ on us, eh?
Friend: Stop it — they’re ‘gouda’ guys!

I haven’t driven in more than a week, but boy, have I covered the miles in a whole bunch of unpleasant ways. …

SPOILED

I’ve typically taken Amtrak’s Acela Express for my roundtrip jaunts between D.C. and Manhattan. And last night, in the interest of time, I hopped aboard the Regional Service car and paid the $35 to upgrade to business class. And you know what? It sucked in comparison! All they did for biz class was take a coach car and tape a sign over “Coach Class” to read “Business Class.” The seats were so much less comfy than the Acela’s, and the ride took 45 minutes longer.

The neat thing about the Acela is that it only makes about six stops: BWI Airport, Baltimore, Philly, Wilmington, Del., Newark and Penn Station in New York. But the Regional Service only added Trenton and a couple of others, and I swear, the ride felt like it took forever. Next time, just for the happiness factor of my ass alone, I’m just going to pay the extra $100 and ride the Acela, which is all biz class and is comfy as hell. (And, it only takes a little less than three hours in a nicer car.)

I can be cheap about a lot of things — I won’t pay retail for designer bags/shoes/clothes, I shop the grocery store specials, etc. — but I am one unhappy goddess when my ass hurts. Oh well — I guess it still beats sitting on it all day in an office in a suit. 😉

JUNK IN THE TRUNK

When I left, my car had been buried in an ice avalanche for days … I am looking forward to actually driving — these cabbies are NUTS!

Speaking of cabbies, N.Y. cabs have a “Customer Bill of Rights” that pretty much every driver I had managed to violate. First of all, half of these guys had no idea where to go when I gave them addresses. I’m not going to obscure places — I’m tossing out hotel and restaurant names and telling THEM which direction to go in, which is odd. How can you be a New York cabbie and not know where to go? GAH.

But the worst took me from the train station to the hotel in Chelsea — a $4 ride, really. (I was being lazy and hailed a cab anyway.) So, $20 later (yeah, I know!), I was infuriated because not only did I have to put my own bags into the car, but I had to get them out. I got dropped at the hotel, and after (unfortunately) tipping the asshole with the turban, the B.O. and the cell phone plot done in Arabic to blow up the city (seriously, I don’t know — they’re not supposed to sit on the phone for the whole ride!), I got dragged away while I was still in the trunk.

It’s funny now, I suppose, but it took me so long to get my big, honkin’ suitcase out of the trunk myself that he thought I was done. (I still had a small bag with a laptop in the trunk to fetch.) Anyway, Terrorist-in-Training decided I must have been done (even though I never closed the trunk) — which I wasn’t because the trunk was so DEEP that I had to practically crawl IN to get my second bag — and started driving away. HAH!

He didn’t speak a word of English, but he sure as hell recognized, “HEY ASSHOLE!” because he stopped and I was able to put my FEET ON THE GROUND AGAIN.

Two obnoxious gay men stopped to laugh at me. Which, they reminded me of someone I dislike anyway, and I immediately shot them a big, fat, “FUCK YOU” while I was at it. *kick* No wonder people think I’m a native — my trash-mouth fits right in!

I really do love New York, though. I love that people think I’m coming home when I go there, and I can put up with the assholitry because I have stories to tell when I come home. Because really, how funny is the image of me riding in a cab with my feet sticking out of someone’s trunk? I suppose that’s NOT an unusual occurrence up there! 😉

I could have blogged all weekend, but alas, what do you say when “whatever happens in (insert city here),” in fact, stays in that city?

We’ve been on a work adventure trip in my favorite city, where all we have really managed to do is work, eat and drink, and probably not in that particular order. 😉 I’m exhausted and stuffed and ready to be done with work but I don’t really want to go home. I volunteered to work the holiday weekend just because it’s a change of pace. I mean, where in D.C. can you get a decent pastrami sammich and a chocolate egg cream? We went to one of Michael Jordan’s restaurants and Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grille, to name a few, and it’s just nice to feel a little bit spoiled and a whole lot appreciated.

What I will say is that we always know when B. hits town, as the next morning? EVERYONE is wrecked. It was the Sidecar drink that derailed me — Hennessy and lord only knows what else. All I know is that I walked the streets of Midtown Manhattan for hours, froze my ass off and still came back drunk … and I don’t remember a minute of it!

Funny how we don’t have the memories of the best times in our heads, but we know they happened … usually when you pull out all your receipts and faint when you see your signature and don’t remember pulling out your credit card. … 😉

No matter how challenging some of my days can be, most of my stupid mistakes aren’t done in the public eye … unlike this e-mail I got this morning:

“if you (are attending this conference) don’t forget to miss (my) class this Saturday”

I won’t forget to miss it — that’s one class I assure you I WON’T want to make time for!

Did you see “Grey’s Anatomy”? Holy shit, holy shit, HOLY SHIT!!!

No spoilers — I know two-thirds of you haven’t seen it yet. But, wow. Just, wow.

I could write about people who piss me off and who act busy whenever I need them but who expect me to revolve my life around them (*slap*) but instead I want to give a big THANK YOU to S. who drove me to work, D. who took me to deposit my paycheck and buy cat food/litter, and C. who drove me home and tried to help me carry my plethora o’ shit over the mound o’ ice that is my sidewalk.

It’s a metaphor for my life — three fabulous people to one useless one. Three friends to each oxygen thief/obliviot. I am blessed … and I didn’t even sneeze. 😉