The missing May 6 post there in the calendar reminds me of a missing tooth. Which segues nicely into today’s activities – I’m just about to hop in the car and drive off to Front Royal, Virginia to visit my aunt. She and I, along with my grandfather, are the creative and smart black sheep of the family, all born within a week of each other in August (not in the same year, of course) and all roaring Leos.
The thing is, she fell into a little bit of family manipulation and gave up a life in San Francisco surrounded by fun and sometimes avant garde friends, an admittedly boring (but lucrative and possibly upward) job in escrow, and a life with culture… to come to Northern Virginia and take care of my grandparents, whom my mother had relocated here. In the end, my grandparents moved back to southern Illinois, but my aunt, without familiar people and places surrounding her, ended up marrying a guy who… I won’t go into it. Much. He has in the past dealt drugs, he has committed adultery in their own house then became violent, written bad checks, etc. etc. etc… and now he’s in prison. She’s left him then come back several times, so it’s helpful that the state is forcing the separation now.
Life takes some difficult turns sometimes. Anyway, now my aunt lives in a rundown house in Front Royal about 90 minutes away, and works as a receptionist for a state agency that helps poor and underprivileged kids with developmental disabilities. I think she finds it much more fulfilling than being an escrow officer, but the pay is so bad that she teeters on insolvency. So, when I visit her I do a little grocery shopping before I go – especially to get food for her three dogs and two cats. I don’t really know how to broach the subject of charity to one’s own family member. And she’s somewhat stubborn. If only she could give up the three HUGE dogs and the cats, I would be happy for her to move in with me and start a new life in a more liberal, tooth-filled, metropolitan area. But I don’t think she is at the point yet where she makes a drastic change. And I just don’t have room for 4 dogs and 4 cats. So, to cheer her up, I bought her a new VCR to replace her broken one. And that’s my Saturday story.
Oh, and speaking of teeth: for some reason, whenever I send a FedEx package from my office, the shipping label says “8555 Sixteeth Street”. Is this what FedEx thinks of Silver Spring, Maryland? I’m afraid I somewhat agree.
