Suna, She Gots Issues

Just Some Pansies
Originally uploaded by sunasak

(The reader needing cheery perky stuff may wish to skip this, because below I try to figure out why I had a hard time coping with things that weren’t all THAT bad, really.)

Stress-a-Rama

This weekend we got up extra bright and early and went to a workshop to fill out Tuba Boy’s financial aid forms, without having filled out our tax forms because Lee does them via a guy in south Texas and does not do them early like I always have. Trying to guess all the numbers was an interesting experience. But at least we got the form filled out by the deadline for his first school.

The yarn shop was also more challenging than usual, which led straight into going home at 5 pm and finding out house guests were on the way. Turns out Lee’s family just gets in the car and shows up, unlike mine, who tell you months in advance if they are visiting. It’s just one of those different ways of doing things that frequently occur, but I was sorta ill prepared for this, since Lee’s step-son from the previous marriage had said he was coming a half dozen times before and not made it. I hadn’t even met him until he showed up after our wedding ceremony. I’d gotten ready the previous times when nothing happened, so I got lax and forgot which weekend it even was. (I thought last weekend was Valentine’s weekend, not Son of Lee birthday weekend.) And I had no idea they’d be spending the night (he brought the very well dressed fiancée too), so I had not made sure there were clean sheets and towels, plus there was an immense television on the guest bed. Son of Lee moved it. Now it’s on the old entertainment center that also needs to go somewhere other than the dining room (it seems to be the staging area for extra stuff and I can’t keep it the way I’d like it to be). Back to topic, it was good to meet another person from Lee’s family, of course, and I realize having the room ready, food available for visitors’ breakfasts, and the rooms made livable is not as important to others as it is to me (it’s a woman thing or something like that). As it was, they arrived at 10 pm, talked for two hours, went to sleep, went to church with us and left. I hope it was worth the drive from Houston! At least it was an interesting enough church service, and Lee seemed quite ecstatic about the time together, so it probably was worth it!

Stress Continues

Things didn’t really improve for me after church, though I had a nice time talking to Tuba Boy while waiting for a rehearsal for a church service band. I couldn’t even manage to sing “When the Saints Go Marching In,” a song I certainly know HOW to sing. They, accidentally written words on the wrong parts of the sheet music, so I kept trying to sing the chorus as the band played the verse. I am sure the choir director, who was just hanging out, thought I was nuts because I was having so much trouble on a simple song. At least she realized it when she looked at the music. And poor Tuba Boy had no tuba, so tried to play bass instead. He still has not learned the notes on guitar. That is amusing, since he is so good at reading music on the tuba. So, that was unpleasant and stressful.

Stress Tightens Its Grip

Sunday afternoon we decided to do something fun and different, which was go spend our wedding gift certificate to Ten Thousand Villages, one of those stores that sells fair trade doo-dads from around the world. I was counting my knitting and realized Lee had missed the only useful exit for getting to South Congress, which got us off on the wrong foot. Then it became difficult to find a parking space. And then on the way out, I didn’t look up in time to see that Lee was going straight into a road that was really a very crowded parking lot. It ceased to be fun, though it continued to be different. Suddenly we were in the car with someone we thought had moved out two years ago! Since one of the hardest parts about living with Jeff was when he (invariably) got angry in traffic, poor Beccano and I probably had post traumatic stress kick in, so we tried to just be quiet. We all did live through the journey and even had an OK time at Things Celtic, where I got Beccano a silver necklace that reminded him of his band’s name. I had not intended to get myself anything, but a similar necklace with a moonstone in it, which the owner of the shop had bought in Glastonbury made me feel a lot calmer, so I got it.

Love in the Air

That’s enough of me being grumpy about my weekend. The good news is both boys now have girlfriends. That’s a new one! I’ve always liked Scrabble Queen, the one who’s been hanging around with Tuba Boy a lot recently, and it is weird to see them dating only because they met in first grade. And wow, she is an amazing Scrabble player (we’ve been playing on Facebook, which is loads of fun). I don’t really know Parker’s Friend, who is the object of Beccano’s affection, but she seems just fine and cute, and Parker can vouch for her. The three of them spent Saturday together and it sounds like they, at least, had a great time. I must say having BOTH boys with girlfriends makes me feel old, but I am glad Becanno has started communicating with the opposite sex more.

Uh-Oh, More Self Analysis

I do know why it was so hard for me to get through the weekend, though. For the past week or two I have been even more sensitive to the mental states of other people around me than usual. That’s quite unfortunate timing, since I’ve been running into double and triple whammies of very strong, very scattered states of being. Nearly everyone I spent a lot of time with for the past few days has been overwhelming to me. I put on my bear necklace and it helped some. Even if it’s just psychologically helpful, that’s fine with me! It is no wonder I had more trouble than usual coping with various things—at times I felt like I was in a completely unfamiliar world, where the people around me understood what was going on and I was coming from some other culture and was just clueless as to how things work in the new world. (That’s how I felt when I had that unfortunately inappropriate job last year.) At least in the end I was kind, a good hostess, patient and more patient.

Spring Is Also in the Air!

But, all is not lost. At least time is marching on in a good way, and signs of spring are popping up all over the area. In fact, I looked up at the redbud tree Saturday morning and was really surprised to see some early pinkness. Woo! All the really early plants are saying hello, so I’ve enjoyed the “tulip trees,” some flowering pears, a shrub with very pink blossoms whose name I can never remember, and of course, my pansies. They are leftover from the wedding, but they are looking a lot better now that the really cold snap is over, and when I sit on the new porch, I am delighted by their fragrance. The yellow ones really smell good.

Everybody has a rough weekend occasionally, so I’m not too worried.