A Busy Week

I’m writing this a few minutes before it’s due to go out, having just returned from a wildly busy week.

The week started with me driving to the Cape Friday before last to deal with some construction and repair issues. That segued into a work get-together with a couple of friends/work friends. I feel the need to classify them because yes, they’re friends, one of whom I’ve known for more than a decade I believe, but also yes, they’re work colleagues, and we gathered to work, and actually did. We got a lot done, and met with yet another friend/work friend via zoom. We did all this on the Cape, taking walks on the beach and doing necessary shopping during breaks.

Thursday we parted ways, with the newer friend/work friend leaving to attend a wedding somewhere, and my good-old friend/work friend joining me at my city home for a night, where we ordered some make-up food. The options for quality vegan food on the Outer Cape in the off-season are fairly dismal, and he’s a strong animal rights advocate and therefore has these pesky ethics that limit choices.

I, on the other hand, think ethics are for sissies and am a Yummitarian, eating whatever seems right to me in the moment.

While we were enjoying our dinner, I also had delivered the groceries needed to prepare Friday’s meal for my father’s 94th birthday party. In years past I’d have cooked everything, but the state of my arthritic hands means balancing what I want to do with what the cost will be. Typing, playing guitar, cooking, and worst of all those miserable plastic clips on everything, especially dog harnesses, the ones that require you to squeeze from both sides to release them, which at times I literally cannot do, all of it adds up. So I ordered the bulk of the food, and made the Molokhia, a Lebanese stew that is his favorite food. He tells the tale of how, when he first started dating my Lebanese mother, he didn’t know the names of all the different foods, but whenever he heard one word he’d start to salivate. He still does.

The birthday boys and company after the celebration

We all gathered at his residence in the private dining room, family and chosen family, and had a grand meal, ending with Thing 2 gifting his grandfather edible gummies. Dad, who can barely unwrap a stick of gum, managed to open those containers in under two seconds, and off he went to stoner slumber.

The kids, one Dog Thing (the other stayed in Maine) and Alice and I then jumped in our cars and drove back down to the Cape, arriving around 11:00 pm.

We had a wonderful weekend of just hanging around together, something we haven’t done in a very long time. Something I’ve been missing very much.

Dog Thing is not a deep thinker. He’s not a thinker at all, in fact, nor is he particularly dog-social. What he likes is attention from humans, and he’s completely ball-obsessed.

Alice, on the other hand is completely dog-social, likes attention from people fine but whatever, and doesn’t care much about balls at all. We found a perfect solution to occupy them both.

Only after Thing 1 left did Thing 2 say, “Mom, he’s definitely your son.”

Do tell.

Apparently, he and a relative who’s trans were walking with his dog by a lake in New Hampshire this summer. The relative, who was at that point some feet away and in the water, was wearing only “trans tape” nipple covering as a top. A cop walked up to my son and said, “You’re going to have to put a shirt on her.”

Thing 1 said, “OK,” took his shirt off and put it on his dog.

“What are you doing?” said the cop.

“You said to put a shirt on her.”

“Not her,” said the cop, “her,” he said, pointing at the relative.’

“Oh,” said Thing 1, “That’s not a her, that’s ___” and he used their new name.

The cop buffered, said something along the lines of, “Whatever,” and walked away.

I’m not sure I’d have taken my shirt off. This old grey mare, she ain’t what she used to be. But I can see the family resemblance. Well done.

Also, the fact that this took place in New Hampshire tracks perfectly, but for those of you unfamiliar with New England’s particulars, here’s a video explaining it all.