¡Such Edrama!

And tea and reading

My telenovela brain has been intruding on me lately - the one where the male narrator says in a husky Spanish accent, but speaking in English because my Spanish sucks, “The last time she wore that bracelet she had no way of knowing she’d never feel the same way about brisket again.”

Ok, or maybe not brisket, but something that I’ve taken for granted, or that was every day, that will now be different.

“As she told the Task Rabbit guy to put the boxes from her father’s condo into her son’s old bedroom, she realized that her son would probably never stay in his room again, and that her father would never sit below those lithographs eating his dinner again.”

My regular brain was thinking shit, what am I going to do with all this crap? Why am I stuck with my parents’ good china that nobody wants but that nobody can stand to give away, and why is that my problem?

I mean, yes, my regular brain is a little whiny right now, but also, why is this my problem? Also, I could just go nail those lithographs above my father in his new apartment - it’s not like I’ve killed him yet. So why all the drama? And isn’t hearing voices, kind of… bad?

My telenovela brain went too far this morning when I tried to put on sneakers and it made me choose a different pair.

“After an exhausting week of managing many other people’s agendas, moving her father, dealing with stressful financial issues, and a sick beagle, she wore the sneakers that had - NO, NOT THOSE - she wore the sneakers that had gone with her through Europe and Africa and had stood by her side, in a “below and on her feet” by her side kind of way. She knew the next few days checking in on the work being done at the Cape house would be tiring, without heat, and uncomfortable.”

I meant to wear the purple ones. They’re newer. Better insoles. I had them all the way on.

“Never knowing what lay in store, she chose the comfort of what had come before.“

Oh fer god’s sake. I took the purple ones off and put on the green ones.

“She could never have guessed that the worn-down treads would lead to her demise at the construction site.”

Would you make up your mind?

There are a lot of changes to get used to around here right now. The close family structure I loved and depended on seems to have left the building. I’m on my own, without backup, but dealing with the many layers and vestiges of abandoned or aging family expectations. I’m tending to everyone else’s memories, needs, and by-and-bys as they do other things, expecting everything to be there if and when they return for them. There are a lot of decisions to be made. But they don’t all have to be made today.

“She watched the beagle run ahead as she threw the Molotov cocktail over her shoulder. Who could say she hadn’t just dropped it? It’s not like anyone was there to witness it.”

Maybe cut back on the coffee a little. Yeah. That might help.

“Even as she typed, she knew she wouldn’t be cutting back on her coffee.”

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Morning Teaistisms

Reading without tea is technically possible but - OK, no, not really. 

I was waiting to have my tire checked yesterday because there’s a chunk of rubber hanging off of it, and that doesn't seem good. It was cold and raw outside, and whoever specializes in griming garage chairs does an excellent job. But I was sitting on the grimy chair, glasses slightly foggy from my mask, and reading from the Kindle app on my phone. I’d been there about ten minutes when I reached out and grabbed a man’s knee. I didn’t mean to grab his knee. I didn’t mean to grab anything at all. It was just my hand doing what it does when I’m reading. It was reaching for tea.

I said, “Oh” just as the garage guy came out to tell me he didn’t have time to even look at my tire til Monday, so I skedaddled without further incident or charges being filed. The guy never said a word. He was about 100 years old and may or may not have been fused to the grimy chair.

Sometimes it’s not just tea that’s required, it’s mood tea. Tonight I started a book, couldn’t settle, realized I needed tea, found my cup (because I always have one lying around somewhere), grabbed it, sat down, and then got up because it wasn’t the right tea. It was the wrong tea. For this book, which I’ve been meaning to read for a long time, I needed mint tea, because it’s a difficult book, and mint tea helps with that.

When reading, mint tea is my emotional support tea. Chai is my, “I can’t wait to dig into this dirt” tea. Black tea is my “Get ‘er done” tea. Herbal tea is my “Who’m I kidding, I’ll be asleep before the end of the page” tea.

All this to say that if you ever come over you’ll find several books open, either Kindle or paper, and next to them will be different cups of tea. Yes, I want them all there. Of course I do.