Visit the Kelpforest (pt. 2)

Bleah. Four emails with viruses waiting for me at work this morning. One of them from my home computer, supposedly. I have scanned and checked several times and I'm sure both my work and home computers are clean. I bugged my brother about checking his machine, and making sure his definitions are up to date, but I don't know if he has yet.

I put the last of the dimes in the ashtray into the gas tank, and it barely got me 3/4 of a gallon. Not enough to even turn off the "You'd better get gas pronto!" light. Yep, I'm submitting that bus pass form today. I can't afford to drive that gas hog to work if gas is going to get up to $3/gallon this summer. I'd love to get a Sparrow or a hybrid at some point, but John is holding out for a fuel cell vehicle, if they ever start mass marketing them. Not that we can afford one, right now anyway.

Mother's Day was a little bit blah. I wasn't expecting anything, since I know we're broke. I had wanted to go to a craft fair in Sunset Beach, if only to window shop, but I just could not work up the motivation. I wound up doing four loads of laundry in the new machine - darned if I could only find four pairs of Angus's underwear - what the heck is that kid doing with them? And I actually got them folded and put away - that's a big step for me, since they often get folded, but never quite in dresser drawers. And I got started on the swamp that is the kids room - I about kill myself every time I go in there, and that's got to change. I didn't get very far, but that'll continue - the rack of bins I got for them is starting to get filled up, and later it will get sorted.

The kids brought me a bunch of Candy Cane roses from my bush in the backyard, and a solitary calla lily was stuck in the middle of them. John had put them in a white glass vase that had been a wedding present to my parents. I stupidly set it on the computer desk (not the most intelligent place in the world) and it got knocked over by the spinning chair - twice. Luckily the vase did not break, but the poor flowers were the worse for wear.

At one point, I was just sitting on the bed, watching cartoons without them really registering. John had come in from the garage - he's still working the box for my friend because it needs to be done by Thursday - and asked what was the matter. I made a non-committal noise. He looked at me for a few minutes, and then asked gently, "Do you miss your mom?"

I swallowed, and suddenly I felt a pang, and felt tears well up in my eyes. Of course. I hadn't really thought about it, but this is the 9th Mother's Day since she's been gone. My eyes sting even now as I'm typing this, and my stomach hurts.

John picked up the remote, flipped channels for a minute or two, then looked at me, and said, "She still comes around, you know."

I looked back at him.

"Yep, she has to check every once in a while. She likes to stand at the corner of the hallway, and look in the kids' room. I think my brother's been coming by too, but I'm not so sure about that one."

I'm never quite sure what to say when he comes up with these things. He's third generation Irish, pretty much on both sides of his family, while he's not religious, he takes ghosts and such very seriously. He swears his grandmother's house in Michigan was haunted. Shortly after Ben, my brother's Italian greyhound, was hit by a car, John said he saw him in the living room, curled up next to his box, looking up at him. He said it was the first time he'd seen an animal, after it was gone. He tells me usually when he feels presences, he tells them forcefully to go away, because you can't be to sure exactly what it is. It may be something you don't want. He must feel fairly sure about my mom.

It's comforting to think that my mom might be checking in, but myscience training only reinforced my native skepticism. Too skeptical, my brother would say. He's talked to psychics about her on more than one occasion. People who do that kind of stuff for money just seem to smack of The National Enquirer, and it seems to me they're very good at telling people what they want to hear. However, I can't completely give up on the idea that there may be an afterlife. It's too intriguing, and too much of my fantasy life is tied up in it to say I completely disbelieve. The truth is, I don't know, and I won't know until it happens to me. In any case, my mother is probably coming back to gripe about the state we've let her house decline to.

Ah well.

John's mom and grandmother came over to visit, and John decided to barbecue. I hadn't planned on anyone coming over for dinner, but it was not too bad. John's mom gave me a little heart-shaped china box with shamrocks on it, and I gave them some pretty notecards and a notepad, that I'd bought at her birthday in February, but set aside. I'm glad I did.

I let the kids stay up way too late, and fiddled around with the timer on my camera. I showed it to John, and he joked, "I'm never in them," to which I replied, "Bull, I'm usually the photographer."


Why is my face so red? Maybe because I was trying to jump over the side of the chair and get in behind them before the camera went off. I think Avalon was hypnotized by the blinking red light or something.