Betsy

Betsy is a new friend—Flavia's long-time BFF, actually.

We met for the first time shortly after Brian's death. Brian & Betsy actively loathed each other.

Still, when Brian died, Betsy drove straight down to Flavia's summer place on the Jersey shore and spent four days nursing Flavia through the throes of sudden tragedy and then drove her up to the Catskills to attend to all those things that must be done immediately—like clearing perishables from the fridge & rooting around in drawers to locate the will.

I drove up there to help, too—but found once I was there, I was virtually incapable of entering Brian's house. It made me too sad.

So instead, I sat on the porch & listened to Betsy—she is a prodigious talker!—occasionally prodding her with well-aimed questions so that she would not stop talking, and I could continue not feeling.

I liked Betsy!

She struck me as being a little bit on the spectrum, & I tend to find people on the spectrum generally more interesting & entertaining than other folks. Plus I envy their disregard of social mores.

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Initially, Betsy wanted to acquire Brian's house. She desperately wants to quit her job as a safety site inspector for the City of New York and establish the Peaceable Kingdom with chickens & llamas & a donkey & her cats, a place where she can pursue her one true passion, which is astrophysics and night-time space photography.

For any number of reasons, this was not a great idea—Brian's house, I mean, not the Peaceable Kingdom or astrophysics.

Our friendship gelled through a series of phone conversations during which I tried to disabuse her of this idea.

Betsy talks a lot about her opinions of other people. It's not gossip! It's analysis. I have this thing where I always feel weird talking about my opinions of other people because one ought never to judge, right?, since there but for the grace of God, go I, etc, etc, etc, so it's refreshing to be around someone who disregards this social inhibition—it gives me permission to do so as well.

Anyway, I am looking forward to our visit.

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Of course, I am in a Mood, and will be until the most recent client invoice is processed. Omelette the cat nearly finished me off this morning. It is absolutely insane that I react the way I do to this.