Mary Fuckin' Poppin's
I’ve been in this escapist mood lately. I’ve just really needed a release from the pressures of city living and a retreat to life where things are simpler. Last weekend my friend Caron called and asked if Monica and I would like to fly a kite. This event screamed of the simplicity that I was looking for. I thought about it, and realized that given the right amount of alcohol I might actually enjoy such an event. Come to think of it, given the right amount of alcohol, I could endure almost any event. This would remain an apparent theme throughout the Thanksgiving holiday.
Caron arrived with a jovial “honk” of the horn. Monica and I pulled our sunglasses down from our hair, gave each other a “fuck, here we go” look and headed down to the car where an excited Caron waited below. I couldn’t quite figure out why Caron had so much energy. Just then I realized that she held true to my request and didn’t smoke pot for today’s outing. I appreciated her care for my feelings. I shut off the shit music that she was listening to and we were on our way.
We headed to the notorious singles Safeway where we would by our deli sandwiches. Three Asian people mulled about behind the counter. Three exact replica’s of Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I was bewildered. Soon enough we had our sandwiches and off we went. We left the car in the Safeway parking lot per Caron’s request. I thought for sure it would be towed but figured that Caron had read my last posting. Had she not, she would have to suffer the consequences on her own.
Monica held Caron’s dragon fly kite against her like wings as we walked toward the marina green. We landed on a grassy knoll, spread a lap blanket on the ground and proceeded to eat our food. It was a quaint picnic at a wintry 2 degrees. Before I knew it Caron was up, and her dragon fly kite was in the air. Monica was somewhere running about in excitement while I tried to assemble a five hundred piece kite of my own, given to me by Caron. Was it Caron’s trickery at work, or my own stupidly against me? You'll have to ask Caron witch, one it was.
After an honest 10 minute attempt at assembly the girls realized that I couldn’t go at it alone. They ran to my rescue. 45 minutes later we erected a 4x4 monster truck kite that was ready to take flight. By this point I had gotten a hold of the much less complicated dragon fly kite and had taken to the sky. For some reason the dragon fly liked to soar in direct line with the sun. After five minutes of staring at the kite I blindly looked over at Caron and Monica who had just launched their 4x4 into the air. The kite was getting smaller by leaps and bounds and hoards of string was being released from Monica’s handle. And then, a look of puzzlement struck Monica’s face as she looked at the handle that once held so much string. I looked in the air and realized that the 4x4 was now sailing freely through the mid-afternoon sky.
As Caron, Monica and I bent over in laugher, we watched the 4x4 kite sail across the highway where it finally took it’s landing on a roof top over yonder. Was this the result of our calm afternoon? A lost kite? A kite that almost caused a ten car pile up as it sailed across the highway? Perhaps.
It was at this point that I realized I needed a stiff drink. I also realized that the chaos of San Francisco was becoming too much for me. I wanted to have a quite day, and even a quite day had too much drama. I decided to escape from the city for a while and take exile at my Grandparents home in Granite Bay. This is a city on the outskirts of Sacramento where I would spend the days that hugged Thanksgiving. It was here that I realized that drama follows me and there is no possible way to escape it.
My Grandparents arrived on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I took them to a quite lunch downtown, met up with Toby for a coffee and then we headed for Granite Bay. My Grandparents liked Toby, calling him gentle. We jumped in the car and took off! Ah, finally I would have some time to relax and catch up on quieter times. We arrived that night and I set up shop in the guest bedroom. We watched some TV and then I retreated to the bedroom where I would find escape in my writing.
The next day my Grandparents awarded me with the great pleasure of seeing the new casino at the Indian reservation just ten miles from their house. Swell. At least in a casino I could get some free drinks. Drinks, however, where the farthest thing from my mind at eleven a.m., and I headed for a cappuccino at Starubucks. Just an FYI, Starbucks on Indian reservation’s charge $3.60 for a cappuccino, a far cry from the $3.00 we pay in San Francisco. Rapped of my finances I took residence at a quarter machine per the request of my grandma. We just had to play the quarter machines where the top prize was a red sports car that sat above the slot machines. I looked up. “I don’t want to win that car grandma, that’s a Pontiac.” The corners of my grandmothers mouth turned as she smiled, “I know, but it’s red.” Bright colors and shinny objects would soon be all I had to look forward to in Granite Bay. My Grandpa played the slots with a serious look, "I want to win some money so that I can buy that coctail waitress some clothes."
We headed to P.F. Chang’s for lunch per my request. “I hear this place is quite good,” I said, repeating a recommendation that had been given to me from a trusted friend of mine. I received a good six phone calls in the restaurant. “You sure are popular,” my grandma whispered to me as she leaned in. “Great” I said. I looked around and realized that I was the only one using chop sticks. I thought that said something about the place that my grandparents called home. I refused to remove my sunglasses while in the restaurant even though it was quite dark. Most of the patrons starred gratuitously at me like I was some kind of freak. I realized that someone of such prestige, like myself, might come across in such a fashion, and so I wrote it off to bad debts.
We left the restaurant and headed home where I began to tackle a bottle of two buck chuck. As I poured the last glass of wine with concern for my relatives bad drinking habits, “did we finish this whole bottle?” My grandma looked at me and said, “sweetheart, we're drinking white, you drank the entire bottle by yourself.” She’s obviously gone crazy in her old age! There’s no possible way I drank an entire bottle of wine. Cheap wine at that. I was drunk at this point, and retreated to my bedroom for about twenty minutes where I continued to journal. Then I snuck back out to the kitchen to finish off the rest of the sweet and sour pork that we had brought back from Mr. Chang’s BBQ. I have no idea what the fuck the restaurant was called at this point, all I knew is that I was horny, lonely, and drunk. I headed back to my room to masturbate and passed out before I could.
I woke with a smile on my face and a tinge of a headache in my head. No matter, it was Thanksgiving, and soon enough my mom and step dad would be here to break up the monotony of non city living. They arrived and shortly after, so did my aunt and uncle. As did their children who at this point have not understood the benefits of quiet time. These are the kind of children that stand at the end of the hallway and scream at the top of their lungs just to make themselves known in the house. I sat on the toilet in the back bathroom and crafted a very strong rope by which to strangle myself out of some two ply toilet paper. Just as I was climbing out of the bathroom window, ready to jump, my mother knocked on the door. “Honey, the kids are leaving.” Finally, I wouldn’t have to share anymore of the alcohol! I came back into the kitchen where we exchanged our hugs, promised to keep better in touch this year, and said our goodbyes. Ah, I love the holidays. This wonderful time of year where total strangers come into my life and I’m supposed to pretend I’m closer to them then the friends I spend my every last day with. Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.
Today was my last day in Granite Bay. After some extensive research in the periodicals that were dropped on my grandparent’s porch I realized that Target was the home of the perfect gift for my roommates St. Nicholas gift. I cannot disclose what the gift is at this time, but what I can tell you about is the stubborn clerk who tired to encourage me to open a target card. “Sir,” (already to a bad start) “Sir, would you like to save 10% and open a Target card today?” “No thanks,” I said politely hoping that I would have to engage in anymore fake conversation. I was wrong. “Are you sure?” She insisted with this statement like she was going miles out of her way to do me a favor. “Positive,” I said. “Sir, it’s 10%.” “Bitch, I’m about to shit on 90% of you, then tell me how much the 10% is worth to you, ok?” Ok, I didn’t say that, but I was thinking it. It was then that I realized how far an eighth grade education would get you. Can someone please post a response to tell me why the fuck I would open a Target card to save 10% on an eight dollar purchase? Let us not forget the 8.25% in tax I would be charged on said purchase. Disgusted, I grabbed my purchase and headed for the car.
I should have known better when I requested a hamburger for lunch in front of my grandparents. With more excitement than a four year old on Christmas they suggest McDonalds for our hamburger filled lunch. I requested that we get drive though known how they like to eat in the “restaurant.” We ordered and headed home. When we arrived, we realized that the college grads at McDonald’s had forgotten two of our large french fries. This is when my grandma shit a cow.
It has come to my attention in the last few days that once you have lived through the depression the smallest deal will bring you a ridiculous amount of happiness. That said, imagine the amount of dissatisfaction when someone robs you of the .39 cents for french fries that you are supposed to get with your Big Mac extra value meal. The value is less than extra at this point. My grandma had the following conversations with the management at McDonalds.
“My grandson is visiting all the way from San Francisco. So we bring him here to get a big mac, a place where we have been coming for 15 years, and what happens? You forget to give us the french fries!”
At this point I was in the back of the house, embarassed and alone.
She continued.
“No I will not drive back down there.”
“No, I want two free meals!”
“No, I want two free meals!”
“Please send the coupons for the free meals to my house, I’m not driving down there.”
To me:
“Can’t you believe that, they can hardly speak English, all these years and never a problem, that’s what happens when you start braggin’ up a place! I know it’s only a few cents but it’s really the point.”
This conversation just came from the same woman who hours earlier took me to Trader Joe’s where she forced a case of “two buck chuck on me.” My grandparents insisted that I take a case home with me. “Can you believe it’s only two dollars and tastes so good?
If case X of two buck chuck sits in front of me for Y amount of days, how many days will it take before I finish off the case?
At this rate, three days is all it will take for me to finish the case.
Tomorrow I head home for San Francisco, maybe it’s better for me to relax in the comfortability of my own city. Perhaps a spoon full of sugar is all I need to make the medicine go down.
In the most delightful way! (ok, I'm drunk again).
Caron arrived with a jovial “honk” of the horn. Monica and I pulled our sunglasses down from our hair, gave each other a “fuck, here we go” look and headed down to the car where an excited Caron waited below. I couldn’t quite figure out why Caron had so much energy. Just then I realized that she held true to my request and didn’t smoke pot for today’s outing. I appreciated her care for my feelings. I shut off the shit music that she was listening to and we were on our way.
We headed to the notorious singles Safeway where we would by our deli sandwiches. Three Asian people mulled about behind the counter. Three exact replica’s of Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I was bewildered. Soon enough we had our sandwiches and off we went. We left the car in the Safeway parking lot per Caron’s request. I thought for sure it would be towed but figured that Caron had read my last posting. Had she not, she would have to suffer the consequences on her own.
Monica held Caron’s dragon fly kite against her like wings as we walked toward the marina green. We landed on a grassy knoll, spread a lap blanket on the ground and proceeded to eat our food. It was a quaint picnic at a wintry 2 degrees. Before I knew it Caron was up, and her dragon fly kite was in the air. Monica was somewhere running about in excitement while I tried to assemble a five hundred piece kite of my own, given to me by Caron. Was it Caron’s trickery at work, or my own stupidly against me? You'll have to ask Caron witch, one it was.
After an honest 10 minute attempt at assembly the girls realized that I couldn’t go at it alone. They ran to my rescue. 45 minutes later we erected a 4x4 monster truck kite that was ready to take flight. By this point I had gotten a hold of the much less complicated dragon fly kite and had taken to the sky. For some reason the dragon fly liked to soar in direct line with the sun. After five minutes of staring at the kite I blindly looked over at Caron and Monica who had just launched their 4x4 into the air. The kite was getting smaller by leaps and bounds and hoards of string was being released from Monica’s handle. And then, a look of puzzlement struck Monica’s face as she looked at the handle that once held so much string. I looked in the air and realized that the 4x4 was now sailing freely through the mid-afternoon sky.
As Caron, Monica and I bent over in laugher, we watched the 4x4 kite sail across the highway where it finally took it’s landing on a roof top over yonder. Was this the result of our calm afternoon? A lost kite? A kite that almost caused a ten car pile up as it sailed across the highway? Perhaps.
It was at this point that I realized I needed a stiff drink. I also realized that the chaos of San Francisco was becoming too much for me. I wanted to have a quite day, and even a quite day had too much drama. I decided to escape from the city for a while and take exile at my Grandparents home in Granite Bay. This is a city on the outskirts of Sacramento where I would spend the days that hugged Thanksgiving. It was here that I realized that drama follows me and there is no possible way to escape it.
My Grandparents arrived on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I took them to a quite lunch downtown, met up with Toby for a coffee and then we headed for Granite Bay. My Grandparents liked Toby, calling him gentle. We jumped in the car and took off! Ah, finally I would have some time to relax and catch up on quieter times. We arrived that night and I set up shop in the guest bedroom. We watched some TV and then I retreated to the bedroom where I would find escape in my writing.
The next day my Grandparents awarded me with the great pleasure of seeing the new casino at the Indian reservation just ten miles from their house. Swell. At least in a casino I could get some free drinks. Drinks, however, where the farthest thing from my mind at eleven a.m., and I headed for a cappuccino at Starubucks. Just an FYI, Starbucks on Indian reservation’s charge $3.60 for a cappuccino, a far cry from the $3.00 we pay in San Francisco. Rapped of my finances I took residence at a quarter machine per the request of my grandma. We just had to play the quarter machines where the top prize was a red sports car that sat above the slot machines. I looked up. “I don’t want to win that car grandma, that’s a Pontiac.” The corners of my grandmothers mouth turned as she smiled, “I know, but it’s red.” Bright colors and shinny objects would soon be all I had to look forward to in Granite Bay. My Grandpa played the slots with a serious look, "I want to win some money so that I can buy that coctail waitress some clothes."
We headed to P.F. Chang’s for lunch per my request. “I hear this place is quite good,” I said, repeating a recommendation that had been given to me from a trusted friend of mine. I received a good six phone calls in the restaurant. “You sure are popular,” my grandma whispered to me as she leaned in. “Great” I said. I looked around and realized that I was the only one using chop sticks. I thought that said something about the place that my grandparents called home. I refused to remove my sunglasses while in the restaurant even though it was quite dark. Most of the patrons starred gratuitously at me like I was some kind of freak. I realized that someone of such prestige, like myself, might come across in such a fashion, and so I wrote it off to bad debts.
We left the restaurant and headed home where I began to tackle a bottle of two buck chuck. As I poured the last glass of wine with concern for my relatives bad drinking habits, “did we finish this whole bottle?” My grandma looked at me and said, “sweetheart, we're drinking white, you drank the entire bottle by yourself.” She’s obviously gone crazy in her old age! There’s no possible way I drank an entire bottle of wine. Cheap wine at that. I was drunk at this point, and retreated to my bedroom for about twenty minutes where I continued to journal. Then I snuck back out to the kitchen to finish off the rest of the sweet and sour pork that we had brought back from Mr. Chang’s BBQ. I have no idea what the fuck the restaurant was called at this point, all I knew is that I was horny, lonely, and drunk. I headed back to my room to masturbate and passed out before I could.
I woke with a smile on my face and a tinge of a headache in my head. No matter, it was Thanksgiving, and soon enough my mom and step dad would be here to break up the monotony of non city living. They arrived and shortly after, so did my aunt and uncle. As did their children who at this point have not understood the benefits of quiet time. These are the kind of children that stand at the end of the hallway and scream at the top of their lungs just to make themselves known in the house. I sat on the toilet in the back bathroom and crafted a very strong rope by which to strangle myself out of some two ply toilet paper. Just as I was climbing out of the bathroom window, ready to jump, my mother knocked on the door. “Honey, the kids are leaving.” Finally, I wouldn’t have to share anymore of the alcohol! I came back into the kitchen where we exchanged our hugs, promised to keep better in touch this year, and said our goodbyes. Ah, I love the holidays. This wonderful time of year where total strangers come into my life and I’m supposed to pretend I’m closer to them then the friends I spend my every last day with. Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.
Today was my last day in Granite Bay. After some extensive research in the periodicals that were dropped on my grandparent’s porch I realized that Target was the home of the perfect gift for my roommates St. Nicholas gift. I cannot disclose what the gift is at this time, but what I can tell you about is the stubborn clerk who tired to encourage me to open a target card. “Sir,” (already to a bad start) “Sir, would you like to save 10% and open a Target card today?” “No thanks,” I said politely hoping that I would have to engage in anymore fake conversation. I was wrong. “Are you sure?” She insisted with this statement like she was going miles out of her way to do me a favor. “Positive,” I said. “Sir, it’s 10%.” “Bitch, I’m about to shit on 90% of you, then tell me how much the 10% is worth to you, ok?” Ok, I didn’t say that, but I was thinking it. It was then that I realized how far an eighth grade education would get you. Can someone please post a response to tell me why the fuck I would open a Target card to save 10% on an eight dollar purchase? Let us not forget the 8.25% in tax I would be charged on said purchase. Disgusted, I grabbed my purchase and headed for the car.
I should have known better when I requested a hamburger for lunch in front of my grandparents. With more excitement than a four year old on Christmas they suggest McDonalds for our hamburger filled lunch. I requested that we get drive though known how they like to eat in the “restaurant.” We ordered and headed home. When we arrived, we realized that the college grads at McDonald’s had forgotten two of our large french fries. This is when my grandma shit a cow.
It has come to my attention in the last few days that once you have lived through the depression the smallest deal will bring you a ridiculous amount of happiness. That said, imagine the amount of dissatisfaction when someone robs you of the .39 cents for french fries that you are supposed to get with your Big Mac extra value meal. The value is less than extra at this point. My grandma had the following conversations with the management at McDonalds.
“My grandson is visiting all the way from San Francisco. So we bring him here to get a big mac, a place where we have been coming for 15 years, and what happens? You forget to give us the french fries!”
At this point I was in the back of the house, embarassed and alone.
She continued.
“No I will not drive back down there.”
“No, I want two free meals!”
“No, I want two free meals!”
“Please send the coupons for the free meals to my house, I’m not driving down there.”
To me:
“Can’t you believe that, they can hardly speak English, all these years and never a problem, that’s what happens when you start braggin’ up a place! I know it’s only a few cents but it’s really the point.”
This conversation just came from the same woman who hours earlier took me to Trader Joe’s where she forced a case of “two buck chuck on me.” My grandparents insisted that I take a case home with me. “Can you believe it’s only two dollars and tastes so good?
If case X of two buck chuck sits in front of me for Y amount of days, how many days will it take before I finish off the case?
At this rate, three days is all it will take for me to finish the case.
Tomorrow I head home for San Francisco, maybe it’s better for me to relax in the comfortability of my own city. Perhaps a spoon full of sugar is all I need to make the medicine go down.
In the most delightful way! (ok, I'm drunk again).
