home alone

johnny left on sunday for new york. he got a new job as the regional sales manager for a big printing company and they sent him to new york to take a training class. so, we bought him some new clothes, new shoes, new glasses, and a new laptop messenger bag. he's all white collar now. i'm really happy for him and wish him the best. he deserves it. unfortunately, his father has fallen ill and needed to have a triple bypass on monday - just days after we left them in beaufort. i can imagine the pressure johnny must feel right now, but there is little i can do to ease it for him, he's totally on his own in new york. meanwhile, i'm here at the house, taking care of the animals and trying not to get sucked into the couch. it's really weird how lazy i can get with a man around the house who does most of the daily cleaning. it's a good lesson for me.

the weather here is so stifling hot with nothing but a moist hot breeze occasionally. it's been stormy all week, but very little rain. the dogs are completely bored out of their minds and louie has regressed into his puppy teething habit, so i took them to the lake today. with my banging headache, it wasn't all that fun (for me, anyways). in general, life's a little boring and dismal right now. i miss my friends terribly and even though i don't really miss johnny yet (he's only been gone for 3 days, afterall) i know i will really start missing him soon.

to top things off, i am stuck in this twilight zone of a city with nobody to talk to but my mother. horror of horrors. this woman tortures me. i sucessfully ignored her for 3 days but had no choice but to answer her call yesterday evening. any longer and she would have likely barged her way into my house when i least expect it. i wish i had some kind of alarm that notified me as soon as she entered the neighborhood. something that sounds like a submarine alarm so i can't sleep through it.

so the funny thing is, when i answered the phone she laughed because she thought i might have been mad at her. oh, haha haha haha.... ya think? you brutalized my chickens, you insane woman. of course i'm mad at you. she told me she was glad i wasn't mad at her, and that i shouldn't throw such a fit like that. did i get a word in edgewise? no. i just had to bite my tongue as usual. she has fallen in love with her new charity case - she likes to pick up strays and call them her "friends" while she finds some profitable way to take advantage of them while they thank her all the while. it makes me sick. she thinks its so admirable and endearing that this woman hates being a lawyer so she runs her own locksmithing business. well, what about me? i hate architecture and wanted to start my own business, but did she find that endearing? hell no! she insists that i can't stop being an architect - not because it's my calling, but because she has plans for her own future business dealings. why do i even care what she thinks? oh, trust me - i stopped caring the moment i graduated from college. i just thought it would make life a little easier if we could just get along. if SHE could just stop trying to take over the world and be normal. oh yes, i forgot - that's all part of her charm, being totally nuts is cute these days.

as you can see, me being alone in the same city as my mom without a buffer is a potentially explosive situation. the last time that happened, i think we disowned each other at the marta station. my stepfather is not an ideal buffer, he's more of a bollard. hopefully, everything will be ok by the time johnny gets back. but it's only been 4 days and he's gone for 2 1/2 weeks. someone may just go completely batshit and it's anybody's guess who it will be this time.