Sustaining Friendships.

I left quite a few friends behind me in Ontario when I moved here. And yesterday was some sort of record day in my life because three of them called and thanks to my Bluetooth, I can wander around and talk for hours.

These particular friends never demand anything of me so it is simply warmth and love and connection in our conversations.

I am often surprised at the friends I do have who always seem to want something and only call when this agenda is on their minds. I find my barriers go up, I keep waiting for the axe to fall in the conversation. They need a reason to call perhaps and can't seem to make a call of care, concern or compassion without lurking behind a request for me to do something for them.

Apart from business calls, I don't think I've ever requested anything of a friend apart from the pleasure of their company and the art of their conversation. I may be wrong in this but I do hope not.

And the reaching out of these three yesterday? I hadn't realized how very much they mean to me.

It was lovely knitting our stories together yet again, and completing another piece of the tapestry together. And not losing the rhythm of each others' years. As that can happen. And it is so sad.

And making plans of meeting in the realz before too long.

And yes, I do tell them I love them.

Thank you my darlings - Pad, Linda, Dianne (and not forgetting Claire from last weekend).

Gasoline Alley

You can see Ansa in the back, begging the question what fresh hell has ol' Two Legs wrought?

 

I'm one who lets the small stuff get to her. The big stuff can go fly a kite. But the small stuff drives me around the twist as it slowly masses itself into global proportions.

I felt like an idiot today. Trouble with my second car (Strawbella) which I should never, ever, have kept. I got into the habit of ignoring her in spite of my good friend B's advice to drive her every third day or so.

So today B starts her for me, after inflating one of her tires, and then I go drive her off and next thing I'm without any kind of power at the crossroads with no winter gear on and the leashless dog in the back of it. And no cell phone with me. (You're beginning to see I should never be let out without a minder, right?).

So nice young man stops, and sits with me and sympathizes and says he doesn't know a piston from a battery but would drive me home. Sans dog, as he was driving girlfriend's car, he had taken her car and had snow tires put on it. My dream man.  So Ansa, my dog, watches me pitifully from the back of my car as I drive off with a stranger and leave her at the crossroads.

My friend B comes to the rescue again, picks me up, we drive to the crossroads and he charges up the car and we drive in tandem to my house. I let the car run for 30 minutes, and then shut her off and try and start her again. Fizzle. Nothing.

At this point my knickers are in a knot and the real fretting starts. I would be the neighbour from hell if I troubled B again. The CAA would come but it could be all hours by the time they got here and I didn't like their rep. the last time, a shyster. My brain rambles all around me, picking up fluff here, dropping it there. So I direct message B on FB, confessing to moronic/imbecilic/cretinous status for stopping the car and could he boost me again tomorrow?

B calls. Tells me he is on his way. He will keep my car overnight in his shed and charge up the battery over 14 hours. Then we will know if the battery needs replacing. Or not. No problem. No big deal. Nothing.

But an absolutely staggeringly big deal to me. I was about to be crushed by this one tiny piece of small stuff.

Worries, like I said before, never happen.

Going Off Half-Cocked.

Going off half-cocked

Idiomatic, colloqial

"To take a premature or ill-considered action."

So you thought I was perfect, didn't you?

Well, surprise!  I'm not.

One of my defects of character is running off with some hare-brained scheme and being forced (usually by others) to come up short, in terror and a kind of awe to think I nearly got away with it.

I think I've been this way since I was around three and a half when I tried to smother my brother with a pillow. I was Queen of the Home and his arrival destroyed my royal life. He was very sick, had a nurse in attendance, was not a girl, cried all the time and I thought if I could rid us all of this defective baby, life would be simpler for everyone concerned.   I was banished to the grandparents for what seemed like an eternity of paradise. But all ends badly as started badly when I was returned to my parents and forced to attend school on a daily basis away from the scene of my attempted fratricide. Low Babies Class was how we began school in Ireland then -  for any of you older and familiar with this particular Irish terminology. You would graduate at the age of four to High Babies. The visuals are awesome for those unfamiliar with the term. But they bear nothing to the reality of nuns with rulers in damp and dreary stone convent classrooms where a good day was when you were allowed to wear your woolly coat in class to keep the chills at bay and didn't have to extend your palms for blistering from the above mentioned rulers.

Anyways, as I was saying.  I've been blessed in my life by staunch and trusted friends who prevent me from half-cocking myself. One time it was a seedy motel in Nova Scotia, another time it was a house in the back of beyond that would have involved an hour and half's commute to work. Yet another was where I was clinging to the marital home, completely overwhelmed.  I've lost track of most of them. But a few nights ago, another Staunch sat me down and said seriously to me:

"WWW - this two car business in your driveway has got to stop."

"But I use the second car for my camper. And my daughter can drive it when she's here. It's got the hitch, it's...."

"No. The car is only used once a week, if that. Its value decreases the longer you leave it and the rust can get at it while your newer car is in the garage. And how many offers have you had on it - fifty?"

"Yeah, but..."

"I can't see any buts in this.  You sell the older car. You install a new trailer hitch on the newer car and you pocket several thousand dollars in the bank even after you pay for that."

And as soon as he said it, I just knew.

Another half-cock averted.

I am so bloody lucky with the friends in my life.