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Winning the Game of Life
May. 18th, 2021 09:53 amI don’t actually know why I was so busy yesterday except that I was so busy yesterday.
Here’s the latest iteration of the garden:
I’ve actually started harvesting the lettuces.
Which means I have to plant some more.
###
In the afternoon, I had a phone conversation with Cousin Alicia, precipitated by my terse text bowing out of Family Zoom.
Confronted by the demand for explanation, I was gonna make up some excuse.
Like, You would not believe how filthy my hair is! I must wash it!
Or: My cat is going through a very needy phase right now.
But in the end, I decided to go with honesty. Honesty packaged inside a Trojan Horse-sized charm offensive, of course.
“Ever since you and your mother had that fight a couple of months ago, there seems to be an undercurrent of tension, at least to me, and what that translates into is what feels like very stilted communication. It makes me very uncomfortable. I’m one of those people who gets very bitchy when I’m uncomfortable. And I don’t like being bitchy.”
Translation: I don’t give a fuck about Haley’s mullet haircut.
###
Somehow this metamorphosed into a conversation about Alicia’s relationship with her mother.
As the survivor of another toxic Vogel Sister mother/daughter relationship, I am sympathetic here—although not as sympathetic as Alicia might wish because I think Alicia’s a control freak.
“I don’t have time to deal with my mother!” Alicia complained. “I’m teaching fulltime—more than fulltime—I have Brendan”—Alicia’s 12-year-old son—“and I’m trying to manage Haley—”
Alicia’s daughter Haley is 23 years old. Why Alicia should be “managing” her adult daughter is beyond me.
###
The conversation took an even more fascinating turn when Alicia began talking about her father, Rik.
“I choose only to focus on what was positive about my relationship with my father!” she declared.
“Yes, of course, but what wasn’t positive about your relationship with your father?” I asked. Eagerly because Hot, Juicy Gossip!!!
Alas! Alicia would not be deterred from her noble resolve, leaving me to piece together bits of family scandal.
1. Janet and Rik’s marriage: Terrible!
Well, yes. One has only to see how Janet has blossomed in the years following Rik’s death to see how oppressive that marriage had been for Janet. I recalled, once more, that walk and talk with Janet that I’ve never been able to anchor to a specific point in time though I remember the place quite clearly: We were walking down Spruce Street in Berkeley.
Janet iterated a passionate list of grudges.
Till, finally, I blurted out, “You should leave him, you know,”
At which point Janet gave me A Look, and I thought, Oh, dear. You have put your foot in it this time.
2. Alicia’s sister, Katherine: Fucked up!
I actually like Katherine better than I like Alicia. Katherine’s much smarter, more sophisticated. And, of course, if there were ever a time to let bygones be bygones—or at least to put bygones on hold—that time would be now when Katherine is in the grips of long-haul Covid, grappling with the ruins of a career, of a life…
“What a pity you and Katherine aren’t speaking,” I said. “Do you think you’ll ever speak to her again?”
“Not until she divorces Tom!” Alicia hurled bitterly.
It would have had to have been over money, I mused. They would have to have gotten into a fight over the disbursement of Rik’s estate.
Alicia is quite money-mad. It’s not greed in the traditional sense. It’s more like playing poker: Money is the way the score is determined, so if Alicia manages to accumulate a lot it, that means she wins at the Game of Life.
###
Of course, I already know the negatives in Alicia’s relationship with Rik.
Alicia bored the shit out of him.
And Katherine didn’t.
###
In the late afternoon, I met Lola for tutoring.
Lola is quite the fashion plate in that edgy, eastern European way.
Yesterday she was wearing aquamarine, lace-up Doc Martins, skintight pants either made from leather or from a material designed to look like leather, and a sleeveless, dark maroon, crushed velvet tunic. Her fingernails were coral, her lipstick a red so dark it was almost black.
She finished Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You, at least a week before schedule. “I must read again,” she told me. “I don’t get—” She made a grasping motion at the air.
On Wednesday, I’m going to take her down to the Adriance and have her sign up for a library card. She needs to begin listening to English audiobooks.
At the very end of the hour and the half, she said to me, “You know, you are very different from here—” she spread her arms to indicate the suburban mall where the Starbucks we meet at is located. “How do you stand it?”
I laughed and shrugged. “I’m old,” I said.
Here’s the latest iteration of the garden:
I’ve actually started harvesting the lettuces.
Which means I have to plant some more.
###
In the afternoon, I had a phone conversation with Cousin Alicia, precipitated by my terse text bowing out of Family Zoom.
Confronted by the demand for explanation, I was gonna make up some excuse.
Like, You would not believe how filthy my hair is! I must wash it!
Or: My cat is going through a very needy phase right now.
But in the end, I decided to go with honesty. Honesty packaged inside a Trojan Horse-sized charm offensive, of course.
“Ever since you and your mother had that fight a couple of months ago, there seems to be an undercurrent of tension, at least to me, and what that translates into is what feels like very stilted communication. It makes me very uncomfortable. I’m one of those people who gets very bitchy when I’m uncomfortable. And I don’t like being bitchy.”
Translation: I don’t give a fuck about Haley’s mullet haircut.
###
Somehow this metamorphosed into a conversation about Alicia’s relationship with her mother.
As the survivor of another toxic Vogel Sister mother/daughter relationship, I am sympathetic here—although not as sympathetic as Alicia might wish because I think Alicia’s a control freak.
“I don’t have time to deal with my mother!” Alicia complained. “I’m teaching fulltime—more than fulltime—I have Brendan”—Alicia’s 12-year-old son—“and I’m trying to manage Haley—”
Alicia’s daughter Haley is 23 years old. Why Alicia should be “managing” her adult daughter is beyond me.
###
The conversation took an even more fascinating turn when Alicia began talking about her father, Rik.
“I choose only to focus on what was positive about my relationship with my father!” she declared.
“Yes, of course, but what wasn’t positive about your relationship with your father?” I asked. Eagerly because Hot, Juicy Gossip!!!
Alas! Alicia would not be deterred from her noble resolve, leaving me to piece together bits of family scandal.
1. Janet and Rik’s marriage: Terrible!
Well, yes. One has only to see how Janet has blossomed in the years following Rik’s death to see how oppressive that marriage had been for Janet. I recalled, once more, that walk and talk with Janet that I’ve never been able to anchor to a specific point in time though I remember the place quite clearly: We were walking down Spruce Street in Berkeley.
Janet iterated a passionate list of grudges.
Till, finally, I blurted out, “You should leave him, you know,”
At which point Janet gave me A Look, and I thought, Oh, dear. You have put your foot in it this time.
2. Alicia’s sister, Katherine: Fucked up!
I actually like Katherine better than I like Alicia. Katherine’s much smarter, more sophisticated. And, of course, if there were ever a time to let bygones be bygones—or at least to put bygones on hold—that time would be now when Katherine is in the grips of long-haul Covid, grappling with the ruins of a career, of a life…
“What a pity you and Katherine aren’t speaking,” I said. “Do you think you’ll ever speak to her again?”
“Not until she divorces Tom!” Alicia hurled bitterly.
It would have had to have been over money, I mused. They would have to have gotten into a fight over the disbursement of Rik’s estate.
Alicia is quite money-mad. It’s not greed in the traditional sense. It’s more like playing poker: Money is the way the score is determined, so if Alicia manages to accumulate a lot it, that means she wins at the Game of Life.
###
Of course, I already know the negatives in Alicia’s relationship with Rik.
Alicia bored the shit out of him.
And Katherine didn’t.
###
In the late afternoon, I met Lola for tutoring.
Lola is quite the fashion plate in that edgy, eastern European way.
Yesterday she was wearing aquamarine, lace-up Doc Martins, skintight pants either made from leather or from a material designed to look like leather, and a sleeveless, dark maroon, crushed velvet tunic. Her fingernails were coral, her lipstick a red so dark it was almost black.
She finished Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You, at least a week before schedule. “I must read again,” she told me. “I don’t get—” She made a grasping motion at the air.
On Wednesday, I’m going to take her down to the Adriance and have her sign up for a library card. She needs to begin listening to English audiobooks.
At the very end of the hour and the half, she said to me, “You know, you are very different from here—” she spread her arms to indicate the suburban mall where the Starbucks we meet at is located. “How do you stand it?”
I laughed and shrugged. “I’m old,” I said.
