Some surprises

Looking at the tags for this post, one might think that I had a very busy weekend. Not really.

Let's start with the truly depressing stuff. I promise that it will be uphill from here. Friday morning my mom asked if I would be willing to give up a kidney. (My mom would get tested but years ago she discovered that she had a cyst on one of her kidneys. Not life-threatening but it precludes her from donating.) Apparently it has become that time yet again for her younger brother. Because after two or so years of not speaking to my grandmother, my uncle decided to call up my grandmother for Mother's Day. Or maybe it was her birthday. They were a week apart so it's kind of confusing.

Anywho. It seems that his kidney is failing once more. If he can find a kidney, this will be his third transplant. He partied his way through the first one. The second transplant he was a little more serious about the whole thing. Well, he was after his daughter was born -- third child, third woman. Did I mention that my uncle is a player? Well, he was until his daughter was born. Then he found Jesus and likes to sit in judgment of the rest of us. Except me. Because I am the keeper of all of his secrets. Well, until he blabs them. Like when he impregnated a coworker at the same time that his fiance was pregnant. The coworker had an abortion. When the rest of the family found out about the other woman, I had known about her for months. (I guess it helped that I lived in the town in which he worked. It's hard to hide stuff in a town of 10,000 folks. Although I did threaten his co-workers with great bodily harm if they ever revealed my bar activity to my uncle. I assume they didn't because no guys suddenly died in town.) He always liked how I didn't blab to the rest of the family about "his business." I have mentioned before that I grew up in a very dysfunctional family, didn't I? Just call me "The Enabler." Of course, I also learned how to kick game from my uncle. I know how to spot his type at a thousand paces -- just how he'd like it. Because my uncle would kick the ass of any guy who I dated if the guy turned out to be like him. And he always told me to avoid men like him. Seems his type was OK for other women's families but not his own. Funny how that works. I love my uncle but I don't think that he can have one of my kidneys. I'm using both to full capacity currently.

But back to me. Thursday night was the spring concert at school. Since at least half of my students are involved in either band or dance, I felt obligated to show up. After the concert, I was talking to a couple of parents. Believe it or not, we were talking about places that are not too ghetto. That's one of the problems in Oakland. A nice African American place will open and then those folks find out about it and ruin it all. I have developed serious issues with places that insist on searching my purse before I enter. Who else are they expecting in the place? This only seems to happen in the places in which the crowd is predominantly African American. I know places in the Excelsior that could benefit from this policy.

And I was going somewhere with this. Oh yeah. The one dad who was a part of the conversation, who is apparently a professional musician, -- There was talk of taking the kids on tour with him in the summer in Europe. Why couldn't I have had a dad like that? -- was trying to place my face. I get that a lot. Folks are always saying that I remind them of someone. Lately my stepmom and my uncle's wife have been trying to convince me that I look like Condaleeza. Ewwwww!!! But this dad scored points. Sure his second comment was one I've heard before -- Whitney Houston (I like to think that this is Whitney without Bobby.) -- but his first guess? Totally original. Marilyn McCoo. Loved her as a kid. Because who didn't just love The Fifth Dimension? Of course, I loved "Up, Up, and Away" but my absolute favorite song of theirs is the Laura Nyro song, "Stoned Soul Picnic." I played it over and over on my portable phonograph. (I kind of permanently borrowed the album from my parents around age four or so. Along with some Supremes and Johnny Mathis. My parents never seemed to miss the LPs.) Oh, and let's not forget "Solid Gold." That is some classic TV.

Friday night for the first time in a long time, I headed out. Ran into a freak I met last summer. Too bad his friends are so cool. They were heading to the Greek for a concert so didn't get to spend much time with them. I was ready to write off the evening but then one of my fave bands showed up and I knew the evening was going to be OK.

There was a little hitch in the evening. Sports Guy had the audacity to show up. And tried to talk to me like we were friends or something. I think he got the hint the second time he showed up trying to talk to me and I said something along the lines of, "Get the fuck away from me! What part of 'I don't want to talk to you ever again' did you not understand?" There may have also been threats of telling to bouncers to permanently ban him from the place. Because it's my bar, damnit!

So I had another cocktail and met a group of boys. Who were wonderful fun. Especially since they were happy to get things started on the dance floor with me. Later, the lead singer said that he appreciated my dancing efforts. I aim to please.

Saturday I was not feeling that well. There was lots of rehydrating involved. And then there was the mandatory greasy food. In this case it was calamari rings and fries.

By Sunday, the hormones had kicked in and I was feeling fully lethargic. Then Boris was kind enough to remind me that he was out of food. As in the cats were licking crumbs off the floor. If it had not been for that, I would not have left home on Sunday. But I had visions of being killed in my sleep.

Since I was going out, I figured that I may as continue the fried food thing. This time I took some cod out of the freezer and used that Budweiser that Grasshopper left in my fridge -- I was never going to drink it -- to make a beer batter. That's right. Beer-battered fish again. Yep, a weekend of repeats. And now I'll let you in on something. I suck at making fries so I have recently taken to using a childhood standby -- OreIda. Imagine my hormonal joy today when I went to pick up a fresh bag of fries and noticed the onion rings. I could never talk my mom into buying them when I was a kid. But I'm a grown-up now -- sort of. And if I want onion rings, I can have them. So I had the fish with fries and onion rings. Oh, and some coleslaw. Washed it all down with a mojito. I felt completely satisfied.

Oh, and to get your week started right, here's the video for the kids' new fave song. Yep, I get to hear it at least a couple of times a day. I must admit that I was rather surprised that they like it. Probably because it kind of grew on me the first time I saw it on MTV -- at least a week before the kids started singing it.



And just in time for summer, there's this song. I haven't heard the kids singing it yet. I think it just hit MTV during this past week. Nah. I'm thinking more like summer theme song.



Only two more weeks to go...