That used to be the full title of this thing, actually. Abeyance: A Journal of Random Blathering. It fits, n'est-ce pas?
However, I really have been extremely busy. And, the truth is, I'll have to neglect the journal a little while longer. I have to take half a bar exam on the 24th, and then Elise's wedding is the 28th, so for the next three weeks, I'm going to be more or less out of commission. In the meantime, I'll try to catch you up on the highlights of the last couple of weeks.
Friday, June 29th, 11:20 a.m.: My mother gets off the plane at the Kansas City airport. I hug her and cry, and she as yet has no idea why I'm so happy to see her.
We collect her luggage (a suitcase which weighed a metric ton and a box full of cookies from the Stauffer's outlet in York for her best friend who lives here) and climb into the car to head to my apartment.
While we're driving along, I lean towards her a little and say, "Seventeen."
"Seventeen what?" she asks.
"Pounds," I reply. She says she noticed as soon as she got off the plane, but didn't want to say anything, because I'm usually quite sensitive about it and she was afraid I'd be hurt.
So I told her everything, everything I told you at the end of May, and she was wonderful about it, as I knew she would be. When we got home, I showed her the Weight Watchers plan and how it all works, and some information about phentermine I had printed off for her, and she was so happy for me, and then said the best thing she could have possibly said: "You are going to do it this time. You really are. I can't tell you how certain I am of that."
Which is, I must admit, exactly how I feel. I don't know why, exactly-- could be that I'm older, that I'm more responsible, or a combination of many things--but I do know I'm going to do it.
It was just really, really nice to hear her say it and to feel her confidence in me. If I had seen even the tiniest smidgen of doubt, I would have felt it like a stake through my heart.
I got up the next morning and went to my meeting, and I hit 21. I think most of that came from off my shoulders -- I was dying to tell my mother about everything, but I wanted to do it in person, so I had been waiting just about a month. Finally being able to share it with her -- and seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction from her -- really was like a weight being lifted.
Sunday, July 1, 2:00 p.m.: Elise's shower. Almost everyone I talk to on a regular basis knows what a complete wreck I had been for the last three weeks, trying to throw my first ever bridal shower. I have spent more time in Hobby Lobby getting things for the shower than I had ever spent in that store in my life up to that point. I bought yards and yards of tulle, spools and spools of ribbon, pounds and pounds of pot pourri, trying to figure out how to make favors -- sachets -- that didn't look like a five-year-old was in charge. (They turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. Potpourri, wrapped in sparkly tulle, tied with three different kinds of ribbon with two silver rings in the middle of the knot and a small white rose glued above it. Oh, for the want of a digital camera.)
The shower was supposed to have a seasonal theme; every guest was given a season in their invitation as a guideline for their gifts. I wanted to get decorations from all four seasons and really go to town, but I just couldn't get it done. What I did instead was visit the scrapbooking store up the street from my apartment, bought some paper and stickers and stamps and funky scissors and a metallic and blue gel pen, and wrote cards with different wedding traditions from around the world. We posted them on the walls around the food table, hung a string of paper wedding bells on the door to help people identify the house, and that was pretty much the extent of the decorating. We had it at Tara's house, in her backyard, which was the only place we could have possibly fit everyone, so we rented some chairs and prayed for no rain.
My mother, bless her soul, spent her first full day in Kansas City riding around in the car while I went hither and yon to take care of the last minute details. Not only did she know what to do to make everything look nice (like getting parsley to sprinkle around the outside of the quiche platter -- I never think of things like that, but those little touches add so much), but during the actual shower, she took care of everything in the kitchen while I hostessed. Gillian was also there to greet people, making sure they signed the book and got what they needed for the games, and to give me encouraging and reassuring smiles every time I looked her way. If I hadn't had the two of them around, the whole thing would have been a certain disaster.
However, at the end of the day, it was a success. We did two very short games, which I think most people enjoyed. It didn't get too hot until just at the very end of the gift-opening, and then we all went back inside and mingled for a bit. When all the guests were gone and we got Elise's loot loaded into her car, I took my mother to her best friend's house for the evening, went back and helped Tara finish cleaning up, then went to my apartment and collapsed, relieved that it was over and that it had gone so well.
The next shower I throw will be a snap, although I hope that we don't have too many cross-over guests, because I plan to do the exact same things, right down to the food selections and favors.
Saturday, July 7, 11:45 a.m.: I am pulling out of a parking lot in Lee's Summit, Missouri, heading towards my apartment.
And I am driving my new car.
The last three days have been a whirlwind. It started with my mother, riding around in my Sentra, disgraced at its condition, both interior and exterior.
General deterioration of paint job (Los Angeles air quality), 1994-1997. No external lock mechanism on passenger side door (vandalism), 1995. Two frisbee-size dents on driver's side (mother's inability to park in assigned space at Los Angeles apartment building), 1996. Left taillight broken (contact with utility pole in parking lot), 1999. Mold growing in several places in trunk (water seepage through broken left taillight), 2000-2001.
Not only that, but the radio didn't work, and it made noises of unknown origin on a fairly regular basis.
So. Once my father got in town and experienced the Sentra firsthand, he was inclined to agree with my mother that something had to be done. Obviously, you are all aware of my level of financial independence, which falls somewhere around "barely" on the index. The fact is, if the Sentra did die on me at any point in the near future, my parents would have to help me out anyway. So they decided that as long as they were already in town, we might as well go ahead and get me a new car now.
(I am paying for it, by the way. I'm not quite that lucky. I did need the down payment cash and their spotless credit rating to help get me the loan, but the payment book is coming to me.)
It was a boon to my father, because he is incapable of just sitting around reading or watching movies, something my mother and I can do for hours at a time. He has to putz non-stop. So the car decision was great, because it gave him something to do, going online and figuring out what I should get and how much I should pay for it.
One of my father's oldest friends owned a Honda dealership here in KC until very recently, so we gave him a call and he hooked us up with the right people. My dad and I went out there on Friday and test drove a couple of used cars, and during one of those drives, he said, "How would you feel about something that's brand new?"
To which I replied: "Well, gee, I'm not sure. Twist my arm."
So we went back in and negotiated a bit about a new car. The sales guy made an offer, we said we were going to go home and think about it and work out some numbers, which we did. Then we went back at 9:30 on Saturday morning, negotiated some more, and I had a rather embarrassing discussion with the F&I guy, unfortunately in my father's presence. But after a total of less than two hours, I was on my way home in a car that was not the one I have been driving for the last eight years.
The new ride is a 2001 Honda Civic LX, 4-door, black with grey interior. It's a manual transmission, which I actually wanted -- call me crazy, but when we test-drove the automatic on Friday, I really missed having something to do. I dealt with Los Angeles traffic in my 5-speed Sentra and I never once longed for an automatic. I figured I was being enough of an adult by getting a "sedan" (read: 4-door) instead of a "coupe" (2-door), so I held on to a part of my youth and chose the stick shift.
No doubt about it, this car is sweet. The LX is the middle one, not the way basic DX, but not the full bells-and-whistles EX. The three things not present in the Sentra that I really cared about having were power windows, power door locks, and a CD player. I got the first two with the LX, but no CD, which is only in the EX. However, I can get one installed pretty easily and inexpensively, and the rest of the EX features -- sun roof, power seats, nifty little sunglasses holder -- were things I could live without.
I thought I was going to have to go through a little bit of a mourning period for my Sentra. When it became clear that I was going to leave the dealership on Saturday without it, I went to go clean it out while they finished up the paperwork. (Thank goodness for the big-ass Rubbermaid storage bin I kept in the trunk, because I filled it to capacity with all the non-trash crap from that car.) I was sad while I was untangling the Mardi Gras beads from around the gear shift, I really was.
And when I was on my way out of the parking lot in the new car and I saw the Sentra being driven around the back (I'm surprised they didn't ask me to park it back there in the first place), I felt a definite pang.
That car saw me graduate college. It drove me from Kansas to Texas to California, and three years later drove me from California to Texas to Kansas to Pennsylvania. After another three years, it saw me graduate law school, and the very next day, it drove me right back to Kansas. I was in that car, for crying out loud, when I found out I passed the bar.
And then I looked down and watched the digital odometer in the new car turn to '0000010.'
Suddenly, I was fine.
