Dear Gentle Reader

My Trip to Indiana

Those that are continuous readers here know that my father suffered a slight stroke on Christmas Eve. Assured that his health was in no real danger, I put off a more immediate trip and planned for a time when I didn't have to be at work for major events like New Years. I never dreamed that the ensuing family drama would unfold. My parents are divorced and have been for some 20 years. My mother has maintained an unhealthy hatred of my father all these years. In hindsight I suppose this was a mistake, but because of her hatred of my father, my sister and I have kept our relationship with our dad on the DL. I use the term relationship loosely as there really isn't much of a relationship. I see my Dad occasionally when I come through town, and there have been several visits to Indy when I haven't seen him at all. We used to talk online occasionally but even that has been a long time ago. He usually manages to call me sometime around my birthday (though this last year he was in the hospital for a heart scare. Oh yeah, he's had a major heart attack, quad-by-pass surgery, throat cancer and a car accident that would have killed any normal mortal. Amazing he's alive and he's only 54.) Those of you who know enough of my family history probably understand why I don't have much of a relationship with him. He was, at his worst, a horribly mean alcoholic who was abusive in every single way that he could be. At best he was an absent father. Get the picture? I do not blame my mother for her opinion of him but I just don't have the energy to sustain a hatred of him for all these years. Ask me about his second wife, Carol, I have the capacity and strength to hate her for the rest of her sluttish, whorish, cuntish life. I digress.

My mother was furious that my sister and I did anything closely resembling caring about our father. I knew that my visit was going to be an experiment in riding a fence between the two camps, waving a white flag and hoping that I didn't have a breakdown myself.

There is a wrinkle to add to this whole situation. The Sunday before I left my wallet was lost/stolen, whatever. I had no I.D., no credit cards no anything. I spent the day Monday at the DMV which is always a fun experience. I usually go to the west bank branch because it seems to move the fastest. It was there that I found out about a Louisiana law I didn't know anything about. Let's say, for example, that you own a truck which is registered and insured in this state. Again, for shits and giggles, let's say that you have a lot of built up unpaid parking tickets on this vehicle. Now let's say that this vehicle was towed for parking in a street cleaning area. If you didn't have the money to pay for the vehicles fines plus the tow you might leave it there for a few days and then realize that you now owed another 15 bucks a day for "Storage" fees. Then perhaps you might decide that since you have another vehicle anyway, you may as well just abandon the truck as the cost of all these fines is waaayyy more than the worth of the truck. So you cancel your insurance and forget about the whole thing. WELL. If you cancel your insurance and don't' return your license plate to the state, they get upset. This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, but alas, this is the law. So when I showed up to get a new drivers license I discovered that I had to pay a VERY LARGE fine to the state. Hundreds of dollars. Those who are regular readers here will remember the large amounts of money I have paid out to the city in parking fees and tows. It's expensive to drive in New Orleans. After paying my 300 some dollars in fines I was able to get a new drivers license and an ID card.

Given that I spent most of my day at the DMV, I accomplished little else that day. I did manage to have my credit cards cancelled and start doing laundry for my trip. I washed the clothes and threw them into the dryer, planning to get up early the next morning to pack the now dry clothes. (Hint, this is foreshadowing) I had already called my mother to tell her of my wallet situation which only effected her in that she was going to have to put my rental car on her credit card. She wasn't happy about it but I assured her I had the cash to pay for this when I left town. The next morning I woke up to the alarm but went RIGHT back to sleep. When I did get up for good I realized my clothes were still wet. Yes, still wet. So I packed what dry clothes I had and raced for the airport. I got there with 20 minutes to spare before my flight departed and thank god there wasn't any kind of a line at the check in. I rushed to the security gate to find it, thankfully, empty as well. "This will be a breeze," I thought, not realizing that I was about to come very close to being arrested. The TSA agent was not a friendly woman. Let's put that extreme understatement out there now. When she informed me, in her oh-so-friendly manner that I had been "pre-selected" by the airline, I was not happy. I was down to about 9 minutes to get on the plane. Full Disclosure, I said "God-damnit, I don't have this kind of time." I'm going to call her Laquicha, she cobra necked me and said "Oh you wanna take an attitude 'wit me and I'll call officer Joe over here and he'll take you to 'da jail." She motioned me to the side and continued her tirade until I said "Look, I'm standing where you want me to stand, let's just get on with this, I have a flight in a few minutes! Whatever you need to do, just do it!" Now for those of you who are thinking that it's not her fault that I was running late, you are absolutely correct. Some of you may be thinking that this woman has a tough job and I should do everything I can to make it a smooth operation as possible by co-operating fully. You'd be (mostly) right again. New Orleans airport is not that busy of a place and so I doubt it's that tough of a job. Still, the safety of the skies is a serious job and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. It's also expensive to fly and that does give me the right to have a little bit of an attitude. Pardon me if I am not the happiest traveler ONE time in my life. I am always friendly and co-operative with airline people, determined not to be "that guy." That day I was that guy. Laquicha is still berating me under her breath when her male co-worker comes over to, and let me get the emphasis right, Waaaand me. He was very nice and efficient but was suggesting in low tones that I didn't want to mess with Laquicha. That she was "mean." Laquicha, at the time, was not doing anything but glaring at me and waiting to launch her ample hips my direction to drag me over to Officer Joe, a quite elderly Jefferson Parish officer who really looked like he wasn't up to dragging anything but his feet. I informed my new male TSA agent friend that Laquicha didn't know "mean," that I could show her "mean." It might have been a fun death match but frankly I was in a hurry. After my waaanding I moved on to the third agent who emptied my carry on, quickly I might add, and relinquished my belongings after running my bag through two or three more times through the screening machine. I FINALLY get to my gate and discover that my flight is 15 minutes late. So I had plenty of time to go back to the security gate and find Laquicha's supervisor and let him know about my experience with his uber friendly employees. He himself did chide me for using "curse words" but my explanation that I cursed in general, and not specifically AT Laquicha seemed to satisfy him. I did suggest that Laquicha be transferred to some other area in the airport where she wouldn't have to deal with customers, such as baggage handle. When I left he was having a discussion with my fat little nemesis. I'm sure the conversation went something like "hey talk to me and look serious while the little white queer walks away and then we'll go on break together and laugh about this," but I was at least satisfied that Laquicha hadn't gotten her way and dragged me to the jail. I calmed down by Memphis and of course was pre-selected by the airline again to have an additional screening, one I could have avoided by not going outside to smoke, but alas. Memphis is a very busy airport with very efficient employees. My entire screening took about two minutes and was conducted with great professional courtesy (and yes I realize my attitude probably did help facilitate that speed) and for those who think some of my comments racist, the gentlemen who moved me through the process in Memphis was also black, very nice and when I intimated that my process in New Orleans was very bad he chuckled and said "Well some people don't like their jobs very much, now do they." That seemed to sum it all up.

When I got to Indy my mother was there to meet me and we went to rent a car. I would have reserved one but without that good old credit card, it's impossible. To no-ones surprise probably, there were no rental cars. So finally one car company said they would have a car the next afternoon at their Greenwood (my hometown) office. I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with my mother and tell her that I was expected to take both my grandmother and my father to the doctor the next morning so I kept quiet. Sharon (my mother) and I went to her house and me up with my sister and then we all went out to dinner. Now let me say that when the three of us are together we really have a wonderful time. My sister and I feed off each other and Sharon (or Cher as I call her most often) is there with her own dry wit and little jabs, usually doubled over laughing at the Lawrence and Julie show.

The next few days were decent, Julie took me to my dads and I drove his truck to take everyone to the doctors office and then Julie picked me back up and I went to get my rental car with Cher. Unfortunately the company was mistaken about their car availability and it took us a couple more hours to get another car from another company. My mother was furious and bitchy through that experience but it was very frustrating. The attendant, whose name was either Paris or Parish, he wasn't very good at enunciation, was a complete moron. While it was humerous to watch him fumble over words and try to answer the phone at the same time, it was annoying. While we waited I went to the mall and bought some new clothes since I had not had any dry clothes to bring with me.

Thursday I took my dad to another doctors appointment and then spent the rest of the day with my mom. In the conversation with my dad he said that he wanted to talk to my mother. It seems that his work in AA (don't get me started) has gotten him to a point where he wants to make amends with my mother. I told him I would tell her of his wishes but I have serious issues with this entire thing. Making amends through AA usually only helps the Alcoholic. I don't agree at all that my mother would be soothed in any way by my fathers 23rd hour pleas for forgiveness. I had promised him however that I would mention it to her, and I kept my word, which opened up a whole can of worms. First and foremost her answer to my fathers desire to apologize was met with something between a polite "no thank you," to a resounding raging "fuck no." Then we went through the reasons she was upset with my decisions to visit my father. I'm not going to go through all of that here, but I don't think either one of us came away any happier. The rest of the trip was somewhat strained and the last day my mother was angry because of a mix up in phone messages led me to eating lunch with my grandmother instead of her and she was sullen and bitchy the rest of the day. So I left a little early and went to the airport, bought a trashy Jackie Collins novel and sank into a world of fake disfunctional relationships all the way home.

I had not seen my friend Jason while I was in Indy but he and his boyfriend Travis came for a visit a few days later. Jason and I have been friends for a long time, since junior high, and so we have quite a history together. I had to work a lot but we did get to spend some time together and have quite a few guffaws and laughs and a couple cocktails here and there.

Now it's almost Mardi Gras and the rain has been pouring for days on end it seems. Right now we are having a lull, so I'm going to take the stir crazy doggies for a walk before I go off to my employee meeting. Tomorrow starts my 7 days of work, then a day off, then four more days. That's not too bad, 11 out of 12 days. Some people are working 14 days non-stop.

So if I don't blog again before, HAPPY MARDI GRAS!