My Gay Pride Weekend, Part 2

I was asleep on my sister’s couch, and she and couple of the kids got up early in the morning.  I was in a light sleep, so I could hear her trying to find the new kittens. From the moment we brought them back to the house the day before, everyone was getting in the habit of obsessively ensuring the doors to the house were closed so they couldn’t sneak out and run off or get eaten. They were looking for them to make sure they were still in the house, but the house is pretty big and the cats are very small, and being introduced into a new environment, were doing their best to hide away. I could hear all this, but since I was still asleep, during moments of silence I would go back into a dreaming state. As a result, I was hearing my sister asking about the cats and trying to find them, but was also dreaming that I was up and awake, and that she was asking me all sorts of questions about computers and why things weren’t working and how to fix them. 

Once I was actually awake, I got started on my project: cleaning kitchen. I spent the morning and some of the afternoon scrubbing – walls, cabinets, the works. The rest of the day was kind of a blur.  We went out and ran some errands, picked up groceries…the only real thing that stood out was burning my copy of “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story” onto a DVD and getting everyone to watch it. They all enjoyed it a lot.  Other than that, it was a standard day with the family at the house.

 

This is what my days were mostly filled with

Monday morning, my sister stepped out in the morning to go drop the girls off at church for their volunteer service. While she was out, Daniel woke up and started crying since there was no one in the bedroom. I went in and got him, and he surprised me again. The last time I went up, I went to run and errand at Home Depot for my sister and he cried the whole time I was gone. When I got him from the bedroom, I expected him to keep crying since his mom wasn’t home, and he was satisfied with me. The rest of the day went by, just hanging out with the sister and the kids. I was planning on heading home that night, but ended up spending another night.  Tuesday rolled through, another day enjoyed with the family, and that night I did end up coming home. 

So I went up for the weekend, and didn’t get home until the midnight hours of Wednesday morning.  It was a good getaway, and something I really needed.  Since then, I feel A LOT better all around.

My Gay Pride Weekend, Part 1

July 17th, 2010: My niece Almary’s 21st birthday, and also my nephew Joshua’s 19th birthday. After waking up and getting myself in an alert state, I tried calling them to wish them happy birthday. Josh didn’t answer since he’d been at work until 3 or 4 am and was still sleeping, Almary didn’t answer at all. So I fired off text messages and made Facebook posts instead. I waited a few hours to see if either of them would get back to me to find out if and what they were doing to celebrate their birthday’s, but never got an answer. 

 
 

So strange that they’re all grown up and I see them both as adults, and as babies still

Now, despite what the title of this entry implies, I decided earlier in the week that I was going to skip the pride festivities this year. I just haven’t been feeling the spirit in the days leading up to this weekend, and that sadly hadn’t changed. I talked with my sister Elsa the day before, and told her that I was going to stay in town in case there was something going on for birthday celebrations. If nothing presented itself, then I would probably head up to her house for the weekend. I’ve been visiting over the past couple weeks for a day, and each time the kids try to talk me into staying, which I don’t do because I don’t bring my essentials (read: my laptop and a change of clean clothes). Since I heard nothing from no one, when the afternoon rolled around, I packed up and shipped off for Oceanside
.

I stopped along the way to pick up some tortillas for my sister, since there’s no good tortilla places up in North County and the she’s a super fan of the ones right down the street from my place. On my drive up, I ended up listening to a radio rip of Gackt’s upcoming single “Ever”, which I’m greatly looking forward to rocking in a high quality format. When I got to the house, I got my usual wave of greetings from everyone in the family. I hadn’t eaten anything and wasn’t thinking about it, up until I walked in and Elsa told me they had just finished grilling the meat, as is usual virtually every Saturday. Then the realization that I was fucking starving sunk in, and I tended to it promptly.

 

Above: Carne con Chile & beans she made as per my request last time I came up on the 7th
Below: Carne Asada she had waiting for me today.  My sister loves me ^.^

So, after eating, I started looking around trying to find something to do. In my head, I was going to detail clean her entire kitchen for the rest of the day, but she’d already done that since my last visit when I scrubbed her stove & oven clean. So I started hanging with the kids while she and my niece Martha scoured ads on craigslist.  Turns out they’ve both been wanting to get new cats for awhile, and have been checking craigslist postings to see if the breed they had in mind was available.  This is where things get eerily coincidental.  Martha found a post, and they called the poster to inquire about it.  The poster was located in San Diego, and she had an appointment of sorts later today; Elsa had too many things to do the next day, so the poster said that she would be a little late to her thing so that Elsa could go pick up the cats. Elsa then asked me to make the drive, which I agreed to do, even though I had JUST come from there.

We drove down to San Diego, encountering light traffic along the way.  Throughout the drive, Elsa was in a stressed out mood, because she really wanted to get the cats and was worried that we wouldn’t be able to pick them up today.  After following the directions that were given to us, along with a bit of help from Google Maps on my phone, we found the residence.  It was in a narrow alley, so I had to back out to find a parking spot.  As we got out of the car, there was a guy walking past us who stopped and looked at me like he knew me from somewhere. I looked him over and realized that I knew him from somewhere too.  Turns out it was Tim, an old co-worker from the Corvette Diner. He told me that I just missed Ceci, who he’d just finished walking to her car.  As we chatted, we walked down the alley and Tim then noticed the pet carrier Martha had in her hands, and said “oh, are you guys here for the cats?”  Turns out Tim and his roommate were the ones that made the post!

While Martha and Elsa talked to the girl about the cats, getting all the information and such,Tim and I caught up.  I asked him if Ceci’s phone number was still the same, since last time I’d sent a text to it I got no response.  He told me it was, so I said I was going to go ahead and call her when Tim suggested that I call her from HIS phone.  I gave Ceci a ring, and she didn’t know it was me at first, as one would expect. When she finally asked who she was speaking to, I said “think ‘bowtie’”, and without skipping a beat, she went “JIMMIE!!!” So I chatted on the phone with Ceci for a bit while the cat business was settled.

 KITTEH!!!

Once back in the car, since I was a hop and a skip away from home, I decided to stop by to pick up my Xbox 360, so that the kids could play with it over the weekend.  From there, we came back to Oceanside, making a pit stop at Walmart to grab some essentials for the new kittens. The rest of the night was relatively uneventful. We ate dinner, the kids played on the Xbox, I played with my baby nephew Daniel, and the sis & bro-in-law watched 2012. Now it’s late at night and everyone’s asleep.

This only one day of the weekend, and already I’m glad I chose a nice weekend with the family over a drunk weekend in the park