This whole week has been cooler, so it’s been a different bike every day. Tammy commented on it and asked how many I had, and I had to explain that it’s really a math problem of n-1, where n is the number of motorcycles that I want. Otherwise, it’s that time of year when I don’t really even remember what I worked on. I did have to go to the middle school to scan some Chromebooks because Josh didn’t have a list of serial numbers for me. I’m just now remembering that I never actually got those imported into the library system.
Lunch was a treat, because Gary, Greg, Zach, and I went to Brangus to eat, and the guy that always greets us took care of our meals on our way out. We rummaged for some cash to leave for a tip, and we were all fat and happy. Gary and Greg had to run some food I ordered for Brody over to him at the high school during their handout, and it was a mostly quiet afternoon for me back at the shop.
After work, Julie called as I was just getting home to change. Then Mom called to tell me the same thing – that Bác Vân thought I slapped Julie, even though Julie came over to pick up Dad’s phone from me while we were standing in the driveway talking. We all kind of laughed about it, and as Mom left the call, I continued to retell the whole story to Julie.
It didn’t take long for her to psychoanalyze my actions and start pointing fingers about our childhood, and I just stressed to keep cool for the hour as our conversation degraded into personal attacks about mistakes that I’ve made in my life. I try to live pretty openly, blog and all, and I’ve done what I can to make peace with the past, but I really don’t know what I can do for her to let things go. At some point you have to just move on, but instead we always end up in an argument in which she’s constantly moving the target so that we can never get anywhere. I’ve tried responding, I’ve tried just shutting up, and the whole conversation is designed for me to fail.
I make it a point to surround myself with people that think very differently so that I can learn about their viewpoints and make my own assessments, but there’s never any ground given with Julie. It basically always devolves into something akin to name-calling, where she insists that I’m an arrogant piece of shit that thinks he’s always right, and she’s irrefutable because she only speaks in facts. It’s the most maddening waste of time, but I put up with it because for some reason I think maybe she’ll eventually find whatever the hell she’s looking for.
When she finally gave up screaming at me, I went in to Summer’s house to find that neither of the girls were there. Eaddie was at band late, and their grandmother was slow to pick her up, so Summer just met them at the gym and brought them home to gather their things. Then we went to my parents’ house for shrimp noodle soup and a swim.
The water was pretty cool after Dad used the fountains overnight, so we didn’t stay in the water too late. Eventually we made it home and the girls all went to bed while I aired up some bicycle tires for them.
Not keeping a list is not the same as remembering everything but never writing it down.