Thursday, March 19, 2009

Parents By Proxy:

It's Thursday night y'all. The night of which we've spent the day excitedly anticipating the newest Survivor episode . . . and it didn't air, no thanks to Basketball. BOOOOO on Basketball! I think it was College Basketball, which is even more of an insult. The only way I will ever find basketball interesting is if they paint gridlines on the court, erect goal posts at each end, use a ball made out of pigskin that has pointy ends and call it football. Not a moment sooner.

We lucked into some pork ribs on sale at the grocery store the other day, and knowing our current house-guest and his son love them some meat on the bone (as does The Mike. Me? I have an almost freakish disgust of meat being eaten off bones. The concept is so barbaric I would probably starve to death if that was the only way to gain sustenance. For reals.) we had the big plan of bbq-ing this evening.

As we're starting the grill, our house-guest comes home from work and proceeds to tell The Mike that he's off to stay in a motel in Morro Bay with his girlfriend (who is on her way from Fresno to MB that very moment)and oh yeah . . . his son will be staying the night with us thankyouverymuch.


Here's the deal.

Wanna stay here for a week or three? No problem
Wanna bring your well-behaved and all-around good kid with ya? No problem
Wanna have your kid stay with us overnight while you have "a night" with your gf? No problem
Do not communicate these desires until the last freak'n minute. Big problem

My sneaking suspicion is that he didn't want to give us any wiggle room to say no, which seriously chaps my hide. That's not a real friend, in my book. The Mike though, he'll put up with shit like this even though he isn't impressed either (and I know this because he tells me but no one else, grrrrr).

The bottom line in this latest scenario, for me, is that I feel bad for the kid, J. He's well aware that his dad left him here so said dad can have "time" (wink wink nudge nudge) with the gf. Dad hasn't taken the kid anywhere or done anything with him for the last four days they've been on the Central Coast, but now he's off hanging with someone else. I had a single mom at one point, and maybe this is bringing up my own feelings, projected onto J. He's had a single dad for a long time, and really crappy mom for even longer, so maybe he's more okay with the situation than I am. He's definitely a nicer and less-bratty kid than I was at that age, for sure. 'Course, back then, I didn't have an iPod and a cell phone to keep me occupied . . . just my own inner thoughts and books to escape into, lol.

Lest I make this blog a diary of all my "gloom and doom" musings, here's something I really like:

Knitting.

I love it so very much. It makes me happier than reading books for pleasure and I never thought I'd utter those words. Ever. One of my earliest memories is reading my own book alongside my mom as she read (and who is an avid reader and instilled that love in me). She loved crochet though, and I just can't wrap my head around that craft. Go figure!

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