Transplanted Life
Saturday, December 24, 2005
 
What you might call a good reason to change plans
Not much time - Gertie and I just got back from finally seeing Peter Jackson's King Kong to find a message on the answering machine from Telly.

"Michelle came home for Christmas."

So, yeah, I'm checking the bus schedules and heading to South Station. Last trip of the day is at 6:30 and won't get me to Montpelier until 10:30, and then I gather it's going to be another hour after Telly picks me up before... Well, before I don't know what.

Gotta get moving. Crazy holiday ahead.

-Marti
Friday, December 23, 2005
 
Christmas Shopping - FINISHED!
Carter is a big, giant old hypocrite.

See, I've been running myself ragged the last week or so. I found out Monday that I did, in fact, get the new job (yay me!). Even though my current job is mostly being a receptionist, it's not entirely that, so as I gave my two weeks' notice, I also had to finish plugging some holes in the inventory application that I'd kind of slacked off on - stuff that could be worked around, or that I could recover from easily, but which the next receptionist who probably wouldn't double as a database developer would have no clue how to fix. So I've actually been staying late some nights, and for all the things that suck about hourly-wage jobs, the being able to bolt at five sharp is something I already miss.

So, while all that's going on, I've got Telly going on about how I should come up to Vermont with him; that I probably wouldn't like my biological mother, but that I should at least meet her, because we are family. And he's got a point; I'm going to have to do it sometime. But I don't know as Christmas is the right time; maybe some less emotional date. If knowing me was important to her, I figure she would have hauled her butt down here sometime in the past year, since Telly showed up. She's had two Christmases without her daughter, and one more won't hurt. And, besides, I'm a city girl, and stuck in Vermont for a long weekend without a car? No. Thank. You.

Besides, Gertie and I are actually going to hang out - her parents are divorced, with her mother and her new husband living in the Midwest somewhere, and her Dad's not just Jewish but fairly serious about his religion, so after an early-morning shift, she's pretty much free. We figure this will be a fun way to do more than just remind each other to pay bills, since we had figured we'd become pretty good friends instead of just roommates, but instead we only see each other in passing. A bunch of movies always come out Christmas Day, so we'll have plenty to do. And I'm still giving her a small present, because I do see the whole exercise as being about giving and sharing one's good fortune.

Thankfully, I'm not getting much static from my friends on this, this year. It is, I think, a sign of having great friends that they worry about me spending the holidays alone; knowing that I'll be hanging out with Gertie sort of absolves them of a layer of guilt or any obligation to invite me to spend it with their family. It's nice that they would, but who wants to be an object of pity, even if it's totally well-meaning?

Anyway, I've gotten all my shopping done, gotten the bits that need to be shipped out mostly on time (do you know how hard it is to shop for a one-year-old whose welathy mother and grandparents spoil him? I wound up getting Marty a hardcover copy of Make Way for Ducklings, figuring that that book isn't the childhood essential outside of New England that it is here), and everything else wrapped and handed off. I was really looking forward to plopping down and just zoning out in front of the TV tonight, maybe making a dent in the pile of DVDs I sickly buy every week even though I know I won't have time to watch them.

But what happens when I get home today? I get a call from Mom, telling me that her package arrived safely, because she wouldn't want me to worry about that. I should hope it would, since I paid $15 for Priority Mail earlier in the week, but the Postal Service gets slammed around the holidays, so who knows. We chat a while; she says the birdbath was frozen this morning but it got up to sixty quickly enough (because people who live in warmer climates just can't resist doing that). Oh, and she asks me to thank Carter for the gifts he sent down, and make her apologies that she didn't think to send one herself.

I say I will, but what the heck? Most of the time, Carter's all "oh, I'm really a black man trapped in a white body" and "I wouldn't dream of making your relationship with the woman who raised you uncomfortable", but he does this? I know it's petty as all heck to feel defensive about people being in the Christmas spirit, but it's just weird. He hasn't actually met his current biological mother, and he told me that not heading up to Vermont was totally the right thing to do when I ran into him and Kate the other day, but...

So, I'm still going to take it easy and do stuff I want to do this weekend, but now Carter's got me feeling a teensy bit guilty about not spending it with the Garbers. And he's probably got no idea.

-Marti

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Note: This blog is a work of fantasy; all characters are either ficticious or used ficticiously. The author may be contacted at JaySeaver@comcast.net