miscellanea

First of all, I've asked my mom about this one thing that happened in my childhood many, many times. My mom, who takes being the family historian very seriously, who can further provide documentation for those things that happened before she was born, i.e., letters, photographs, ancient bank statements, one hundred year old grocery lists, you name it (and all of it very carefully cataloged by her, in archival quality, acid free paper portfolios), who's done her research, and is the most detail oriented person I've ever known, who remembers everything, like all of our illnesses, and every single article of clothing we've ever worn.. DOES NOT remember the day that she and I watched Rhoda and ate Swiss Miss pudding.

Or, more specifically, the day we went to the grocery store, bought the Swiss Miss and a box of instant cup-o-noodle soup (which, admittedly, was my idea. Cup-o-noodles seemed incredibly fast and fun to me in those days), then came home, then watched Rhoda. And it was the episode where Rhoda got married (with her riding the subway in her wedding dress, and everything) NO. She does not remember this. She even bothered to wrack her brain to remember this. She concedes, though, that she does in fact remember watching Rhoda in general, and furthermore, that she was disappointed in how quickly Rhoda got married to Joe, as my mom felt, it was a much funnier show before she did. But as for the day with the Swiss Miss, and the cup-o-noodles, no, she's sorry, and admits that she doesn't remember every single moment of our lives.

Next item: I have not yet started my Christmas shopping. I have sort of done it on paper, where I've figured out what I'm getting everyone. But for whatever reason, it's just not natural for me to get started with my shopping any earlier than on Christmas eve's eve's eve (and sometimes as late as eve's eve). I work better under pressure. Besides, there is definitely something in the air during the last minute shopping. And I'm not talking about the pure hatred on the part of everyone that's happening in and around the stores right now. I mean the thing at the very last minute. By then there's almost a solidarity: We are all late. Very, very late. You can see it on everyone's faces, as they stand in line to buy the impersonal gift certificates. Everyone is talking to each other if not to themselves, saying, ..yes, yes, I suck, so-and-so is going to kill me.. And there's nothing you can do but get it over with, buy the gift certificates (because there is nothing left in the stores) write the check, or god forbid, hand over the cash. Me? I like receiving gift certificates and I really like receiving the cash. But I digress..

A couple of times over the years, during my last minute shopping, I ran into my brother, J, (who at the time lived a million neighborhoods away from where I live). Both times were at Cost Plus. This is weird because the chances of running into someone in Chicago (especially as far apart as we lived) are kind of slim, let alone twice, let alone both times being at Cost Plus, which is located in neither of our neighborhoods. The first time we were both like, Hey, now how crazy is this, bla-di-bla.. But the second time, which I think was the following year, I had already been at Cost Plus for a while, when I looked up and saw J (looking kind of serious) walking right towards me. I was like, J! No way! What are the chances.. when he immediately stopped this nonsense with saying, Yeah, yeah, I need to talk to you right now. And, behaving as though he thoroughly expected to find me there, he started telling me about some horrendous thing that had just happened to him. At some point we sat down at one of their displays of tables and chairs. No one at Cost Plus seemed to care or notice that we were sitting on their merchandise for half an hour to have a conversation. And I think we both had Starbucks coffees, which made us even bigger pigs, sitting there in the middlle of the store, talking seriously about something, drinking coffees.. I can't remember what his deal was that day. Anyway, J lives in Los Angeles now, so the chances of me running into him at Cost plus in the next couple of days are practically nil. We'll see..