Plan B

I thought I had it all planned out.  And if I didn't have a written plan, I certainly had a screen play that ran through my mind with occasional updates and changes.

I was going to be gay, you see.  Handsome and gay.  I was going to keep working in the gaming industry making more money than I knew how to throw away.  I would spend Saturday nights in bars with other handsome gays and doing the pretty things that gay guys do.  I would live in a cute home in Midtown and have some of my closest, but superficial, friends help me to decorate it so that it was gorgeous.

And I would have the time of my life.

I traded it all.

I spent the morning cleaning horse poop out of a barn and riding in the back of a pick up truck.

I couldn't be happier.

She didn't come home that day.

She didn’t come home that day.

Almost three weeks ago, my roommate called, clearly upset about a phone call he had received to “come over, right now” before even 8a.m.  Within a little while I received a text, “She’s dead.” And that was it, the life of a friend was over.  She and her partner had gone to a resort area over the weekend with friends, and one of them simply did not come home.

I’ve heard small pieces about what happened – a panic attack, anxiety, etc. and I think we suspect some type of heart attack was brought on.  The autopsy report isn’t back yet.  But one simple truth remains, she did not come home.

The days that followed were a bit odd.  Flip flops discarded on the porch where she had left them gave the impression she would be home any minute.  Friends calling upon her surviving partner, neighbors walking up to the porch with dishes.* I asked the partner, “Are you keeping a list of who brings what?” She said, “Am I supposed to? See, she would have known that. I didn’t.”  I said, “You can. It’s O.K.”

In the case of my friends, death was fairly quick.  No hospital stay, no agonizing illness.  No hard decisions to be made.  And likewise, no one to argue over any decisions. There simply wasn’t time to argue over life saving measures.  She was happy and enjoying life.  And then she was gone.

I did not, and do not, know the particulars of her choices in the way of a will. Nor do I have any reason to know them.  I know she had a partner who loved her.  I know she had more than one grown child and small grandchildren she adored.

And I know that the last 3 weeks I have stressed over getting my own house in order.  I’ve called a friend of mine who is an attorney and annoyed her to no end. I’ve researched laws in my state of residence.  I’ve calculated.  I’ve considered.

 I’ve walked through my home and tried to take inventory of everything MyFella has given me, or we bought together as “ours.” I’ve called or emailed my contacts where I have my modest financial holdings to remember how I’ve set up accounts. I’m making a list.  I’m checking it twice. In short, I’m doing my homework to help my attorney help me get my affairs in order.**

And I am committed to the idea that MyFella and My Family will not wonder.  They will not argue. They will not be left without an idea of what I want to happen. 

Some of the questions put before a person making decisions such as this can be uncomfortable.  It’s fine to say, “I want you to have the power to make my healthcare decisions if I become unable.” It’s another to go through the form and decide how long you want to be on life support, on oxygen, if you do or not want to be brought back.  The medical mysteries of the body are too enormous – who is to know if I would come back a vegetable or perfectly fine? Who is to say if one more day would have made the difference?  And honestly, who wants to be the decision maker,  put to the test for another person?

So I’ll do the best I can.  I’ll make of it what I can.I'll try my best to decide what should happen to me.  I’ll make an inventory of my endless collection of stuff that might make for one good day of a yard sale. And I’ll hope no one ever has to worry about it.

 

Fall, Winter, Spring & Summer

Some people call it football weather.  School age children think of it as the start to school.  It's that first snap of a morning that promises cool weather to come.  It's the slant the sunlight takes in the afternoon, when it fools you into thinking it's not so warm.  But still it is.

It is those things, yes.  But for me it always means Birthday Season.  I love my birthday, I love to celebrate my birthday.  And I have no problem planning multiple events. 

With a birthday at the end of September, the start of the new school year always heralded a new birthday.  Kid's birthdays were no different than probably any other kid in my neighborhood.  A party in the yard with punch and cake.  There are photos in an album at home of childhood birthdays. I think from the gleam in my eye, my love of birthdays has been with me a long time.

And it's no different as this 42nd year draws to a close.  I look at it only as the opportunity to celebrate the 43rd beginning.

Even as we speak, I'm planning the evening's events.  But I've got in the works what I want for both breakfast and lunch.  And I may just take a day off work to ring in the year right!

It's going to be a great year.  I can just feel it!

Lost Hope

. . . she must have had hope that day in the drug store, hope that the peroxide would work.  The blonde hid the grey, but not the fact that it was there. The pony tail pulled up too high on her head tried to convince her there was still youth left in her. She stretched her arm in what she thought was a sexy movement as she flicked the ashes out the window, then drove off in a car that once, a long time ago, may have cost someone else a lot of money. . . at the corner on the way home from work.

The Prince

If "my people" in this city have had a prince, then his name was Billy.

When first I met Billy, he was at the same favorite, local restaurant on the same night every week as my group.  He reigned at a table of pretty boys and always seemed to have a beauty on his arm.  He was friendly, but at "their" table.  Looking back, I know that some of my high school insecurities creeped in and I was somewhat jealous of a table of such pretty people.  But Billy was always very nice.

A friend of mine that I had met through work belonged in his crowd.  And for some of Billy's annual Christmas parties would invite me.  They were top notch social affairs at the grandest rental hall in the city.  Social events thrown by a group of people, they were parties like grown-up proms complete with bands, booze & de-bauchery, all thrown for a good cause.

And one night, quite a few years into it, Billy asked me out for dinner.  No romantic interludes, no subtlety, just two friends going to dinner together.  And I learned more that night about the man than I had learned in years of sitting one table across from him.  He came to life as a real and genuine person. And my ideas of him existing as one of the "pretty ones" just fell to the side.

We never developed the kind of friendship to call each other, and have never been to each others homes.  And in the last couple of years seemed to be not in the same places at the same time. I never even realized that I wasn't seeing him, because I guess I always assumed he was right around the corner somewhere.

And last night I found out that he died.  Suddenly.  Early heart failure.

I've spent today feeling like our Prince has died. He knew and had friends from every walk of life.  He could hold court in a crowd of few or hundreds.  And he always did so with a trademark smile and attitude that life was to be lived.

Posts on social sites are replete with comments about his friendship and his personality.  I don't know his surviving family, and don't think I could convey in a few words on a funeral home's website what I learned from him or how I feel.

The Prince has died. 

Kindred, The Embraced

A favorite show of mine was a short-lived series based on different vampire clans living in the city, with each clan having a leader, and all clans showing fealty to the Prince of the city. The prince ruled and kept peace between the clans, as well as ensuring everyone existed under the rules that kept them hidden from centuries.

It was a short lived series, but I thought it had promise, as the story lines were not just merely about vampire this and vampire that, but seemed to be evolving around common themes of life, love, angst, jealousy, etc.  And I found the evolving back stories of the different clans interesting as well.

Kindred, The Embraced.

Wedding Invitations

On the radio this morning, the dj’s were doing one of those bits with a letter for advice.  In the letter, a bride to be noticed that her fiancé has a friend-girl on the list, a long time friend who has not been romantic with the fiancé, but has been jealous and non-supportive.  Especially with comments like, “You never have time for me anymore.”  The bride wondered if she could just “lose” the invitation before it went out in the mail.

No other information was given. We don’t know if the bride has discussed this with the groom, we don’t know if the groom has discussed this with the friend.  We only know what was in the letter.

And I only know what happened to me twenty five years ago. 

In this mini play, I was starring in the role of “unsupportive friend.”  There were two sisters, both beautiful in my eyes and both shining stars in my life.  I would argue their faces were identical twins, the rest of them were as opposite as night and day. Like Danny Devito and Arnold Schw, one blonde, one brunette, one tall, one short, and both wild as a mad hatter.

The older one went off to college in what I considered at the time the greatest emotional valley of my short life – I had to use both hands to count all the friends who had graduated a year ahead of me and left me to finish high school without them.  Now, I was hardly friendless.  But focusing on the positive would not have played well with the melodrama in my head.

Or the real life drama that would enfold when I took my first look at him. 

She brought him home from college and I met him at her parent’s house.  I won’t go into detail about how I behaved, because to this day I am so embarrassed by my behavior. Words like rude, juvenile, condescending barely begin to explain how I treated him.  And why?  Because I knew the moment that I looked at him that she was in love with him, that she would marry him, and that she would spend her life with him.

It had nothing to do with his appearance, his build or attractiveness, nothing to do with his behavior.  But in what must have been my one life moment of being psychic, “I knew.”  And knowing somehow just rolled over me in waves.

I would receive an invitation to the wedding, and I went.  And discreetly left without attending the reception.  After all, I knew I’d been horrible to him, I had no right to be there. 

My friendship with her suffered for years due to my behavior.  And to my punishment, rightly should have.  We’re friends now, and probably always were. He graciously doesn’t care if she plans a route near me and we have lunch. I’ve met her children on multiple occasions.  By now, probably I think more about it than he does.  After all, he’s the man she still loves and with whom they have a family.

And I’m the guy that received a wedding invitation I never deserved.

"That was a Good Friday"

It was ninth grade, which was . . . 1983.

We must have gotten off school for Good Friday.  I don't remember it, I didn't, in fact, remember the date at all for years, just the circumstances.

I had gone with my church youth group to a big one day youth convention in Little Rock.  My memory tells me it was in some type of convention hall, the kind that I'm so familiar with today and strike me as variations on the same theme.

Another church in town had also taken their youth group, and two of the guys were new, or soon to be, friends of mine.  One was in the high school fraternity to which I was pledging, the other his younger brother.  Both handsome.  One shorter than the other, but both cut from the same handsome brown haired, athletic cloth.  One had the reputation of being a bit wild, and it was probably well earned.  And both as nice as they could be.

Somehow, out of the crowd, they spotted me.  Came to my youth group and took me, one by each hand, and dragged me over to their church group and sat me down.

Beside her.

For the next 10 years she would be my close friend and constant companion. Weekends would go without discussion as being reserved for the other, at least one night per weekend.

She took me to her Senior prom at her private school. Any trips in subsequent years, for graduations and football games, have me walking through a sort of mist in my mind of magical prom nights with her. I catch myself looking to find a glimpse of us on the dance floor or coming through the gym doors in our dress up clothes.

On Good Friday, I sent her a text for our anniversary.  She replied simply, "That was a Good Friday."

Sawdust

He smelled of sawdust. Always did, that I can recall. For years he and his father owned a sawmeal business. And a gravel hauling business. He would be up in the morning with the sun and come back as it set.

His wife would bake biscuits in the morning, and what was left uneaten she would leave under a metal cake cover (much like the glass cake plates so popular today, but this was a type of tin metal).  So if you came in during the afternoon and needed a snack, there were biscuits there.

He drank tea, unsweetened, out of a Folgers coffee can.  He was just so thirsty that a glass wouldn't do.

Not long ago in their home, I asked her, "Do we have any tea?" and she said, "You're just like your uncle." 

The Recipe

Mom has always made a delicious chicken spaghetti.  Sissy has asked me for the recipe a few times, remarking how good it was, and I would try to coax from Mom some semblance of a recipe.  Like so many things she cooks, there's no guarantee it's ever made the same way twice, unless it's a baked good like a pie.  Because, well, pies and cakes just take a recipe.  Fried foods may even take a recipe.  But crock pot dishes?  Not so much. Many times I've heard her say something like, "Well, that's what the recipe calls for, but I use whatever I have on hand."

Knowing that MyFella and I were attempting to make chicken spaghetti this weekend, I called her, the expert on this dish.  She could recall most items, and the steps, but finally referred me to her sister, stating, "I haven't made it in so long, and it was her recipe anyway."

I remember she distinctly told me before that she didn't use very much Rotel because she didn't want the dish too spicy. Her goal is not to have Mexicany spaghetti, it's to have flavorful spaghetti.  So it's no surprise that she would use just half a can of Rotel. But I dutifully called my aunt, and confirmed the recipe. And most importantly, I confirmed the super secret boiling the noodles step that makes all the difference to the recipe.

For the traditionalist, here it is, a quite tasty version of Chicken Spaghetti with Velveeta.

- Chicken.  Whole, boiled, de-boned. Or in my case, not boiled, but slow cooked overnight in the crockpot.
- Broth.  All of it from the above chicken, saved.  Reserve about 3 cups into a separate container to be used later, if necessary, to thin the dish down.  The bulk of the broth (preferably skimmed or strained, in my opinion) in a large pot.
-Noodles. Boil your noodles in the large pot, in the chicken broth.  This step is essential.  It infuses flavor into the noodles which will carry over into every bite.  Boil the noodles to al dente, because remember they will keep cooking in the dish.

For the cheesy sauce part:
- Big block of Velveeta cheese
- Can cream of chicken soup
- Jar of pimentos
- Rotel

Here's where the "whatever I have on hand" part comes in.  Mom will use only half a can of Rotel, and will often skip pimentos anyway. Mom often said her dish is not supposed to be spicy, just flavorful. My aunt, while telling the recipe, stated that she doesn't use Rotel at all, though all of her daughters do, and they mostly make the dish now, not her. As for pimentos, I don't know anyone who knows what a pimento even is, just that it's red and comes in a jar.  So for this, I'd go with "to taste."*

As an example, in today's dish, we used a very big crock pot and a whole lot of noodles.  So we went with two cans of Rotel and no pimentos.  No pimentos were on hand.  We also didn't have any cream of chicken soup, but using my Mom's advice, we used the cream of onion in the cabinet.

To me, when I would occasionally stir and mix the whole concoction in the crock pot, I couldn't help but think it was way too thick.  So I added back in the reserve chicken broth, and I think the end result of the whole dish was a nice and flavorful chickeny, cheesy, noodley dish.

And at least one of MyFella's cousins was overheard calling it "great."

So that's a win-win. 

P.S.  In all fairness to all parties involved, I did not cook nor debone a chicken.  Or as a friend of mine said today, "We could say you did it." There was the implied, "But no one who knows you will believe it."

*I've since discovered that pimentos are just mild peppers.  So you can go with one or the other - pimentos or Rotel.