Caterwauling

I’d say I forgot that Mom and I used to go to Delmonico on Dec. 9, but I don’t forget much. And I hope I never forget.

I haven’t posted much in the past six (holy hell) months since she passed.

You can either find me on the couch or out of state. There are no in-betweens. I’m either in a pit of depression or else trying to outrun it.

At least my step count gets averaged out. 20 or 20,000, take your pick.

In any event, I spent the days leading up to THIS Dec. 9 on Wall Street.

Long story, but a good one.

I also spent four days walking past Delmonico on Beaver Street. And my tears freezing to my cheeks every damn time.

The whole being located on Beaver Street was hilarious. Mom always called us “Twin Beaves” when we dressed alike — completely unaware of what the other was doing, mind you.

Twin Beaves used to make me cringe so hard. Now I would give anything to hear her say that.

I already got to the Orlando location this year for Mom’s birthday. Still the hardest I’ve cried all year. And that’s saying something.

As it is a time for thinking about the less fortunate, I just took a swing over to Cindy’s twitter, since I know she loves it so much.

Her “last post” (as if she ever goes away, hah) is a repost of her getting to Delmonico’s in 2019. Looking down her nose at it, actually.

What a petty, vile piece of shit you have to be to continually shit on something because it was special to me and my family.

I’m not going to die on the hill that she could have been the victim/hero of the whole five years ago mess. (Instead she chose to be the villain.) But she’s welcome to.

I will, however, Luigi her or anyone on the hill that the absolute best person to ever grace any Delmonico (and this world) will never get to do that again.

I am what a loved, proud daughter looks like. In case anyone was curious.

Minus the Sahara part ofc.

Interesting how, once again, people who don’t show up for our scheduled meetings feel the need to call and message me on vacation.

If you remind me of Brad, seek therapy or Sky Daddy or whatever it takes to get right.

My cousin asked how my day was.

I told her about someone who had ruined it.

Her guess is the title of this tome.

I guess it’s less a psychic vibe than an educated guess.

Also, she’s not wrong.

The Book of Faces’ Memories feature is enough to make me crazy.

The memories it sends of Mom are really puzzling. Never vacations or happy moments. More like snarky shit from Messenger — photos of people we hate or screenshots we captured but didn’t want to be public.

Then there was the Thanksgiving memory from last year of some dumb meme … and me saying I bought turkey for nine cats.

Nine.

Cocoa, Belly and Magic, of course. Meatball, Fancy, Whiskers, Amelia, Smalls, Poppins and the gray kitty I called Harry (as he was kind of a “Spare” who showed up inconsistently).

I miss those kids.

It’s been since April that I fed them. Mostly they don’t even look up when I drive by anymore.

Mostly.

The other night, I was coming home late and saw a brand-new kitty out there. Super pretty. Gorgeous coat.

A part of me felt happy that this beautiful creature was here.

Another part was sadder than ever. Like, why come here where no one is allowed to love you.

Rita had a big blue storage tub out there with a hole cut in it. I would guess something to protect them from the rain. Or maybe to house food. I don’t know.

What I do know is it was out there for three days before one of these dinglberries complained about it.

I keep reading that all the MAGAT assholes are moving to Palm Beach en masse to be around their roach king.

I’m also reading that <a href=”https://www.newsweek.com/florida-home-sales-plunge-1991806″>people are fleeing this area in droves</a>.

You say correlation; I say causation. Tomato, tomatohe.

Just what we need. More illiterate fuckheads who vote for dictators and tyrants.

I was checking out real estate in (redacted). Honestly it’s not that much more or less than around here.

Most people who come here are snowbirds. And look at me, about to go into reverse snowbird mode.

Thanks, America. You really couldn’t stand having a Black woman as president, could you.

I broke my bridge.

Stupid stress eating.

This is going to be a $5,000 adventure, but that’s not the point of this madness installment.

My dentist moved. Right across from the last hospital I put Mom in.

As I made that all-too-familiar turn from Don Ross onto Militree, “Thank U” came on.

It was well before work hours. I planned to get the initial exam out of the way (as they like to jab you for three to four visits, because they make more money that way) and go work at the place with the good breakfast margaritas.

Which I did. For a while.

I was feeling a way about being up in Joopiter again. Seeing all the restaurants Mom loved and the medical supply store that was such a pain in the ass to drive to. And now here I was … with no one to buy for.

How ’bout me enjoying the moment for once.

Two days ago would have been my grandparents’ 74th wedding anniversary.

Yesterday was the 18th anniversary of Grampy’s death.

Today is Thanksgiving Eve. A day I have ALWAYS worked too late and driven my mother NUTS because all the shopping and the prepping had to wait till the last minute.

Not today.

I mean, I should have done this when she was alive and well. But I said fuck it, mental health afternoon ahoy.

How ’bout them transparent dangling carrots.

I’ve worked in this industry 21-ish years now. I’ve always worked late into and over the holidays.

I hate myself that it took my mother dying to get a fucking grip.

Like, somewhere she’s probably saying why didn’t you give ME some of that time.

How ’bout grieving it all one at a time.

Even if we got the shopping done over the weekend, she had to do all the cleaning and prepping.

I mean, that was our partnership. I drove and paid. She made everything magical.

Her end of the deal was MUCH more laborious.

Anyway, I have to miss a meeting monday for Dentist Visit No. 2. And oh, hahahah, I am going away the next day. OOPS.

How ’bout me enjoying the moment for once.

I used all my vacation days in October and November. ALL of them.

That’s been my custom the last couple years. Previously I lost them. Glad to have ended THAT tradition.

There’s never really a good time to take time off. But by the end of the year, I’m burnt out and worn out.

And this year — the year my Mom and my Cocoa died … and the populace elected motherfucking fascist ass tRump again, JFC — I’m done. I’m cooked. I hate EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.

I’m not sad I have to miss this Monday meeting. Though it occurs to me that I’ve missed five out of the last six weeks’ worth of meetings with my boss. This will be 6/6.

How ’bout that ever elusive kudo.

I finished writing my performance reviews. HR was happy with them. Now to deliver them. And to wait for the inevitable follow-up question that I can’t answer.

In any event, as I drove around my old work neighborhood, I thought of all the people in our industry who have died.

Our beloved receptionist Susan … our beloved copywriter Jesse … my beloved Chip (from Phillips) … the legend Myles (though he promoted Erika way too many times to the top of that company) … the truly legendary copywriters Clayton and Dan … etc.

And then there are the ones who’ve gotten sick. I’m thinking of L. in particular. Who kept us all organized, sane and on track … and now, who’s there to take care of her? (Also, who the hell is supposed to take care of us now?!)

One day they were all busting their asses … and the next day, they weren’t at the office and/or on this mortal plane.

I don’t know that I’ll see L. again. And that makes me sad.

She sent me a ginormous bouquet when my mom passed. And I don’t even know what to do for her when I’m not even supposed to know what I know.

Anyway. She sure as hell didn’t fuck off the day before Thanksgiving. Even though she had a million personal details to attend to. You never heard about those.

My intention for this coming year is to have the social life to match the amazing wardrobe I’ve amassed.

I think a secondary intention should be to be known for having the time of my life.

Not just for all the sadness that will never leave my body.

How ’bout no longer being masochistic
How ’bout remembering your divinity
How ’bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How ’bout not equating death with stopping.

I gotta say, it was nice not going to a single grocery store in the last week. I went to Victoria’s Secret and Altar’d State and several TJ Maxx stores to buy a winter wardrobe. And saw “Wicked.” And ate sushi and cake in the parking lot.

I miss Momma’s stuffing balls something awful. But maybe I’ll try to make them next year. Too freaking painful right now to even think about it.

My day started with me offering an olive branch to someone I should have just beaten with it.

My day ended with me trying to figure out the easiest way to fill out paperwork that’s 14 days overdue.

I had plenty of time today to figure out how I could use smaller words for the first one.

And to figure out how to make the second one useful if it can’t be spiritually fulfilling.

I admit it — I chose not to.

And I continue to sit immobilized by it.

What was I saying yesterday, that I don’t want to have an unlived life?

I know you gotta do shit you don’t want to do.

But, putting it off yet another day is more satisfying than it should be.

It’s not that it’s an unlivable life. Not always. But the days between trips and treats could be just a little bit more exciting.

Now and then, she rereads the manuscript
Of the entire torrid affair.

I really don’t.

Not only do I not go through old text messages, I will admit to deleting most of them.

But I do have a million journals. And even those are collecting dust right now.

If I did read them, I’d either remember why I loved them … or why I didn’t.

And neither of those is good for me.

In the age of him, she wished she was thirty
And made coffee every morning in a French press.

30-ish. Right, Wildebeest?

Afterward, she only ate kids’ cereal
And couldn’t sleep unless it was in her mother’s bed

Literally everything makes me miss my mother.

Like, Nov. 25 is my grandparents’ wedding anniversary. 1950. 74 years ago.

And my grandfather died in the wee hours of Nov. 26. Killed by the Veterans Administration hospital in Aspinwall (Pittsburgh). I hope Dr. Trang killed herself because she was so incompetent.

Anyway. I would normally be sad with mom right now. Now I’m sad without her.

The years passed like scenes of a show
The professor said to write what you know.

I spend my life worried I’m not good enough for/at my job. Then I spend five seconds with Howler.

But then I get out and about — on vacation, with other Wall Street types, in jury duty — and I realize I’M FUNNY AS HELL. First of all. And second, that people LISTEN to me. And LOOK TO ME for leadership.

And I think about Taylor Swift. (Shut up if you have a problem.) Like, if there was never an Eras Tour, she never would have broken up with Joe … dated Ratty … and met Travis.

Also, I remember the Tampa show. She was so serious. So sad. I mean, hell of a show. But seeing her a year and a half later in Miami, she’s all giddy and giggles and just GLOWING and shit.

And Travis — he was already a phenomenal player. But he’s gotten even BETTER. His track record, already near impeccable, has gotten even closer to perfect.

Travis’ signature arrow in Miami, a year and a half after the Tampa show.

Iron sharpens iron, the bible thumper types say.

What if my iron struck someone else’s iron? Would there be alchemy there, too?

Meanwhile I am sitting around all dull and shit. I don’t want to end up like (redacted).

Forget the unexamined life. I’ve examined it plenty.

I don’t want an UNLIVED life.

Lately I alternate between living hard for a few days and then sitting on my uncomfortable couch for weeks at a time.

Like, even last week I felt alive. Hell even today I did about 10 loads of laundry of unused shit I can’t wait to donate. But it’s all done in procrastination of shit I find so tedious. Nothing like a painful work project to ensure I have a clean house.

And at last, she knew what the agony had been for.

Nothing happens to/for you while you’re sitting in your apartment.

And I’m not going to find what the agony has been for inside these walls.

Maybe I’ll never have my own Eras Tour level of success. Or my own Travis.

Or maybe I would, if I just set out to find both.

Now and then, I reread the manuscript
But the story isn’t mine anymore

Time to write a whole new story. Let (redacted) stay right where I left them.

So, after I penned my eponymous “Fuck VITAS Hospice in Boynton Beach, Florida” tome, I didn’t expect it to go anywhere.

I mean, other than Cindy, Scott and two Chrises, and maaaaybe Psychofag on occasion, who the hell reads this thing, right?

Anyway, VITAS sent me a survey. Which I thought was hilarious. So I created a Bit.ly link and said you can read the blog.

So, a month goes by. Finally someone calls me and says so what do you want us to do with this.

I said are you people for real. You swoop in every four to six weeks to reopen my very raw wounds.

I reminded them YOU asked ME to fill out the survey.

What do I want you to do? Provide better service to the terminally ill.

What do you want me to say — to please keep providing substandard care? STOP CALLING ME is what I want you to do.

I hung up after that.

Jesus Fuck All CHRIST what is WRONG with people.

I can’t leave well enough alone.

The legal case, I haven’t stopped Googling.

The incident happened right at the same time Mom took a turn for the worst.

I remember her telling me about it from the news. And it went right out of my head as fast as it entered.

Even though I knew the location very well at the time of the trial, I drove around the area yesterday.

There is no possible way the defendant wouldn’t have known (redacted). NO WAY.

It’s also unforgivable that the defendant (redacted). Like, we got tripped up on “willfully” in the jury room. Fuck that shit. Everything had to be willful, including ignorance. You know, like tRump voters.

(He and his ex-wife are independent non-voters. Yes I looked up that shit, too.)

What really fries my chitlins is the legal charge that was either thrown out or given to another jury. What the fuck else did they keep from us?

Like, I feel like my time was wasted. WASTED.

I am very glad we the jury arrived at our collective conclusion.

For a while I felt like ass that the lone holdout thanked ME of all people in the end. For explaining the law to her. For her to see why we all said guilty.

Like, what if she was one of the “Twelve Angry Men” who saw something we didn’t?

I had even asked my fellow jurors, OK, this is it. Before we turn in the paperwork, what are we missing? What if we can end up being “Twelve Angry Men?”

We didn’t. We were just six humans who knew that our job was simply to listen and to give the judge the piece of information she couldn’t legally determine on her own.

Anyway. I just have to bleed out the wound here so I don’t carry it with me.

I still can’t figure out what the victim was thinking when he (redacted). But in no way, shape or form did he deserve what happened to him. And if (redacted) didn’t happen, he’d still be living his life.

One last thing and I’ll shut up about it forever (or until tomorrow) …

I am truly shocked at how many prospective jurors also said they are single. Just like the defendant and the decedent.

Like, how many of us are alone (or lonely, or both) while more than half the room is also unattached?

And this shit was said under oath. It’s not like all these married guys I meet who either have a hope or a plan for getting out of their relationship/marriage.

In any event, maybe that’s my takeaway. Have prospective partners say under oath whether they are single or have some attachment that could complicate matters.

I don’t mean to make light out of any of this. I just need to figure out what I need to take away from this other than yanking the Very Good Researcher(TM) crown out of Will D. Beest’s matted mop.