I spent far too much time trying to figure out what sort of a toy a 1-year-old might like, and what would be safe (no parts to chew off), and what would be cuddly. I finally settled on a quite lifelike stuffed lemur, thanks to ana:
ana, holding lemur: I got one like this for $younger_neice a few years ago. $brother sent me a picture of $y_n holding it, the tail hanging almost to the ground.
toxicfur, melting: Awwww.
ana: $brother said thanks -- she hasn't let go of it since she opened it!
toxicfur: Awwww.
I carried the lemur around for a while, checking out every other animal in the store before deciding that yes, the lemur is what I wanted to get.
Ana and I still made it to Port City Java before B and P did, though. P smiled sleepily at me, and B poked at her mouth, trying to get her to show me her teeth.
"She doesn't like it when I do this," said B. I was curious about P's teeth, though -- B had said she looks like she has fangs, like a little vampire. It was true. The teeth on either side of her front two teeth were distinctly pointed. They were adorable.
"We're going to have to get those fixed before she goes to school," said B. "Kids can be cruel." And it's true -- these teeth are cute now, but probably not so much when she's five. Or even two, when she learns how to use those teeth to get what she wants. For now, though, P is adorable. She's happy and giggles like a panting dog. She hugged the lemur and gave it an open-mouthed kiss, then flung it to the floor, grinning. I picked it up for her, and she repeated. She threw her book on the floor, she threw her organic "cheerios" on the floor, and she tried to throw my glasses on the floor.
Even though I've only seen her now three times in her life, P warmed up to me and to ana immediately, handing us bread and cheerios and opening her mouth like a little bird for us to feed her. The she'd grin again. She only got fussy when we got ready to leave, and B buckled her into her car seat. She was getting tired, and she also wanted to keep playing, I think. I adore that kid. And yeah, when she grins and clings to my shirt, my biological clock ticks a bit louder.
P provided most of the entertainment for the evening, but it was incredibly good to see B as well. She's been my best friend since I met her in 2002? 2003? I can't remember exactly when. We were both teaching at a local community college, and we had the same schedule -- Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8am and 1pm, or something like that. We had enough time between our classes that sitting in the horrid adjunct instructor room, with the peeling, green institutional paint, and the smell of moldering paper.
"Do you want to go get a cup of coffee?" I asked her one day, and thus a friendship was born. She's the oldest of 7 kids, the younger 6 of whom are adopted from a variety of cultures and situations. She's at least as liberal as I am, and we once tried to have fake arguments, since the people we were dating at the time (she married the one she was dating -- I eventually got mine to leave) would not or could not argue. Unfortunately, we agreed too closely to be able to argue in anything approaching good faith. It was silly, and we had fun together. We spent almost every Thursday night smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap beer at the Blue Post ($1.50 PBR and Miller High Life on Thursday nights -- it was awesome). I almost always kicked her ass in air hockey, too, on those nights when we could scrape enough quarters together to play.
B was with me during some of the more heartrending parts of my life, and she was the first to encourage me to move to Boston after I met ana -- she said she could tell it was the right thing for me to do, and though she would miss me, she wanted more than anything for me to be happy. She was actually the first real-life person I talked to about ana, before I even knew who ana really was, and she didn't think it was odd at all that I had an imaginary internet friend who seemed really cool. She was my bridesmaid only a couple of months after her dad finally died of brain tumors. I read at her wedding on the beach in 95 degree weather, when she was just a few months pregnant. Even though we sometimes go months without talking to each other, when we see each other again, it's like no time has passed at all.
She emailed me about 2 weeks ago, after getting the Christmas card/update that ana sent out. "I just got the news from ana," she said. "I just want you to know that I'm here for anything you need. I love you."
I wrote back, and she almost immediately called me on the phone -- something we both tend to avoid -- just offering companionship, and talking about her experiences with her dad. She told me the guilt is normal. She told me that all the issues my mom and I have ever had will get dragged up again. And then we talked about politics -- Obama for president!
Last night, we only talked a bit about my mom's illness, and about what it's like to watch a parent die. Mostly, we talked about P and about her classes, and the wacko kid who came up to our table at the coffee shop and wanted to know how P is doing. "That kid," she told me, after he left the shop, "was in my class when I was very pregnant. We'd found out she was a girl, and when someone in the class asked if we knew what we were having, I said yes, it was a girl. 'Oh, no,' he said. 'I'll pray that test is wrong, because you need a boy. You don't need no girl.'"
"What the fuck..." I said.
"Yeah!" she said. "And he would go off on these weird tangents in his papers. Like, he was supposed to write something about 'A Rose for Emily' and he wrote all about the sacrifice of men in World War II. I failed him, and he came to me wanting to know why. I was like, you didn't answer the question -- you didn't follow the assignment, and he nodded, and I was all 'Great! This is going really well!'" She took a swallow of her coffee and sat out another pile of hippie cheerios for P to alternately eat and throw and share with me. "It turns out he went to the first male teacher he could find, Ted, and Ted spent an hour with him explaining the same stuff I said to him about why he failed. 'Okay, that's good,' the guy said. 'I just wanted to get the male perspective -- you can't usually believe a woman.'"
Sometimes Often, I'm very glad not to be teaching.
We walked through the rain to a restaurant that's usually pretty good -- but not great -- and not that expensive. Fortunately, the lemur fit into B's enormous mom-purse. I offered to carry something for her at one point -- "I'll even sacrifice my masculinity, such as it is, and carry that purse," I told her. She laughed and threatened to take me up on it. We had reasonable food and P grinned at the waitstaff (and nailed one waiter in the knee with her book -- that kid will play ultimate frisbee one day), and we tried not to wonder what the rather awful smell hovering around our booth was about. We walked with B back to her car and I hugged P and gave her a kiss and ached at the fact that it will probably be a while before I see her again. B gave me a big hug and told me she loves me, and that she's just a phone call or an email away. She gave ana a hug, and I got a bit teary, and she drove away. I'm very lucky to have her as a friend, and I wish she lived closer to me.
Ana and I walked down to the Blue Post, and I got a PBR in a can and played air hockey with ana for old time's sake.
Then we came home, and it was almost physically painful to come back in the house. K and K were sweeping the kitchen floor and wiping down the counters. Shortly after I got home, they announced they were driving back home -- 2.5 or 3 hours away -- this at 9:00 last night. Apparently, the weather was deteriorating in their part of the state, and SiL K's mom wasn't convinced she'd be able to get to their house to care for the horses, goat, and pig, so they needed to get home.
Today, my mom is visibly weaker. She sleeps almost all the time now, and when she isn't sleeping, she's either nauseated or vomiting. Her breathing is kind of rough, and her hands and feet twitch spasmodically. Occasionally, the twitches or the snoring wake her and she blinks at me, trying to focus.
"Do you need anything?" I ask.
She shakes her head.
"Do you need more ice?"
She nods.
"Do you need another Diet Sundrop?"
She nods. I try not to get irritated. I try to understand that she can't answer open-ended questions about what she wants or needs -- she doesn't want to be a bother, but she won't lie when I ask her direct questions. Most of the time. Later, during football, I'll strip her bed and wash the sheets and spread. As long as I don't ask if that's what she wants, she'll let me.
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