Way back in the begining of December, Michele and I went to a Hibachi steakhouse for Wah-Kee's birthday. It was pretty cool; I'd never been to one of those before. The best part was one the chef cut up a bunch of onion slices and stacked them on top of each other to make a little ant-hill-looking thing, and then he squirted some stuff from a bottle into it an lit it on freaking FIRE! Boom! Onion volcano!
The people that had had been to a hibachi before said this guy wasn't as good as some of the others they've seen. Aparently, the best hibachi chefs are more than a little insane. But I was still impressed. I think it's safe to say that onion volcanoes are the coolest thing since Sterno. And that's saying something, considering Nick got me a case of the stuff for Christmas one year. It was after we'd gone to a Chinese food place and the pupu platter had this crazy purple flame under it. I was enthralled. "I will
never get tired of this."
And I never have.
Anyway, the whole experience was typical blog fodder, but I never got around to writting it, or much else, for quite a while. See, at the time, we were living in my grandmother's house, all cramped up together in the guest room. Brianna slept on the floor next to the bed, which was, well...awkward.
I spent most of my weekends and free time cleaning out her basement; throwing out junk, reorganinzing things, getting rid of all the cobwebs. She has four big rooms down there, so I thought we could at least put some of our stuff down there. Every once in a while she'd hobble down the stairs (even though she's not supposed to because she could hurt herself) and say "Are you
still down here?"
For about three straight weekends I worked down there, and it looked pretty good. We had about six boxes of canned food left over from the apartment that had been sitting down there, and once I'd cleaned the room they were in, I decided it was time to bring them up to the kitchen. So I carried a few handfuls at a time up the stairs and put everything into the proper drawers and cabinets. I was just about done when I heard my mom screaming at me from upstairs.
"John! You and Michele take your things right now! You're moving back next door!!"
Wha?
While I was downstairs, my mom and 'Olly got in this HUGE fight. My mom had come over to take 'Olly to the store ot buy a new TV, because my uncle said he'd get her one but he never did. In fact, he
did get her a TV, but since it was so close to Christmas, he was waiting until then to give it to her. Anyway, my mom, Ryan and 'Olly were in the car, and I don't know what exactly was said, but 'Olly started talking about us, how the guest room had clothes all over it. There are three bureaus in that room, and they're all filled with her clothes. The closet is filled with her clothes. The little table and closet in the TV room are filled with her clothes. Or to be more accurate, filled with jackets that her friend Mable brought over to her one time. Lord knows why. She probably just wanted to get rid of them. The point is, every available storage space in the "guest" room was full, and there was no place for our clothes. We had clothes in garbage bags, piled up on top of a dresser. We had to bring an old dresser from my mom's house into the basement to keep our clothes in there. I guess she brough that up in the car, too. She said "That's no way to live." Are you kidding me?
My mom reminded her that the whole reason we were there was to help her after her accident. She went over the
whole story all over again, to which 'Olly responded "I never said that. You're crazy."
She turned to Ryan and asked if he remembered it. He said he did, then walked out of the car. He came back and told me and Michele what was happening. It was quite a while ago now, so I might have missed a few details, and some things I know she said I just don't want to write. But my mom told her to get out of her car, and when she didn't, she dropped her off at Mable's house and left her there. It was...surreal.
So we spent most of that Sunday packing up all our stuff (including the six boxes of food that I had
just finished putting away) and bringing it down the hill to my parents' house. And all this just before Christmas. I still get that weird feeling in my stomach just thinking about that day.
My mom and her mother barely talk now, and I haven't seen or spoken to 'Olly since that day, not even on Christmas or New Year's. She said some really horrible things that I just can't ever imagine her saying, but I'm not mad at her. I know it's just her mind, but I can't go over there again. I absolutely do not want her talking to Michele or Brianna. I just can't deal with it anymore.
So it's been a little rough the past few weeks, kids. Since I'd spent all that time cleaning 'Olly's basement for nothing (although you could just say it was a nice thing to do) I started from scratch and started on my parents'. I had the week after Christmas off, so I spent it cleaning up down there and putting together some cheap-ass Wal-Mart furniture. There's still clutter all over the house that just doesn't have a place yet, but we've got a nice little setup downstairs, with a TV, DVD player, a leather chair I got from work, and an air matress that I have to pump up every night. Brianna sleeps on the couch upstairs. It's nice to have a little privacy, but there's not much heat down there and it tends to flood in the Spring. We had a bit of water come in last week, but it wasn't too bad.
On the bright side, look what we got Saturday!
And now, I'd just like to ask for a moment of silence for Michele's old car, who fell ill back in October of heating coil failure and sat idly in my grandmothers' driveway, where it apparently served as a toliet for mice and other rodents for several months. After getting a flat tire changed and having all the poop cleaned out of the glove compartment, it did survive long enough to drive over to the Hundai dealership in Quincy. When we pulled in, there was smoke pouring out of dashboard and hood. Everyone at the dealership came out and just stared at the car. It's in a better place now.
Michele's crappy old car
1995-2006
