Howzit?

Just a quick posting from Cape Town, South Africa where Bryan and I are spending the holiday with Bryan's folks.

The trip so far (halfway through) has been great fun, mostly. Bryan nearly got us thrown off the flight on the way down. First, there was a group of jabbery old ladies from Holon/Tel Aviv sitting behind us on the way down. While everyone was finding their seats, Bryan found one of those blow-up neck-pillow things that wrap around one's neck to support their head whilst sleeping. Bryan promptly picked up the "found" one from the floor and put it on his neck. I told him to take it off, as it was obviously someone's, and when they came looking for it, it would seem pretty bad that Bryan had already appropriated it for homself. But did he listen? No. Sure enough, two minutes later one of the jabbery old ladies started freaking out that Bryan had stolen her neck pillow (I have no idea how she knew it was hers, half the plane had them). Then, every time someone in our vicinity couldn't find something (their passport, the yoghurt from their in-flight tray, the love of their life), they would point to Bryan and say loudly, "Why don't you ask him? Maybe he stole it!"

Then, as if sitting in the screaming baby section of the plane wasn't bad enough, the kid across the aisle from us started looking a bit green as we neared landing. His mom had a barf bag over his face and he looked like he was going to blow any minute. Bryan and I thought we could make it all a bit more interesting by taking bets as to during which 5-minute interval on the clock the little kid would actually puke. I had the 7:55 to 8:00 time zone, and bryan had 8:00-8:05. As soon as we got to 8:00, Bryan decided to increase his odds by making gagging noises and talking loudly about eating camel turds and monkey poo. The mother then leaned across the aisle and rightfully shouted - at me! (Because I was closer, and because when given a choice in a confrontation, women will always choose to confront another woman). So when the kid actually threw up at 8:07, guess who had to assist with the clean-up in order to make-up for my fiance's obnoxious behavior!!!

The moral of the story - Never travel on a plane with Bryan unless there are multiple diversion tactics. If you board the plane, and the plane is lacking those mini-tv screens on the back of each seat, and the stewardess announces that the VCR is broken and there will be no in-flight movies, and the flight is 9 hours long, get off the plane.

Chag sameach - I'll post when I get back as it is too frustrating working off of my in-laws dialup connection and Commodore 64!

The inevitable

Friday night Bryan and I enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Gilly home. We also got to meet another lurker on this blog (shout-out to him). As inevitably happens when I meet lurkers, they want to know the inside scoop on the denoument of the D. situation, and why my blog has gotten so pareve recently. [Because I only have good things to report, or alternatively, things so bad I cnanot blog them]. Unfortunately, I had nothing exciting to tell this lurker, because I have not run into D. since we broke up, which is surprising, but not a bad thing.

D. actually sent me an email a few weeks ago wishing me mazal tov on my engagement. It was mildly snide, and I'm not sure if it was supposed to elicit a response from me, or if it was simply a nice gesture, but I did something I had never done before in my life. I read the email from D., then deleted it. No response. That chapter is over in my book.

Then, yesterday, out of the blue, I ran into D.

Yesterday was the Shabbat Chattan (can only be described as a religious bachelor party) of my previously dear friend Daniel. Bryan and I were supposed to walk to the synagogue where it would be held, and I knew Bryan would never wake up on time to get there, as he often oversleeps accidentally on purpose on Shabbat. For some reason, I wake up without an alarm clock at like 6 am every day.

So Bryan never met me at my place to walk to shul, and I warned him if he was more than 1/2 an hour late I was leaving without him, and he'd have to meet me at the shul. It was kind of pathetic seeing my dad turn around every few seconds, hoping that Bryan would walk through the synagogue doors. Have I mentioned that my parents love Bryan? A lot? More than me? (take that either way, they are probably both true).

Anyway, to make a long story short, Bryan never turned up to shul. And who should I bump into at the kiddush (party) after services? D. It was a mildly awkward moment, and I recovered nicely from the surprise, but I was so furious at Bryan for not being there, as my armor, when I needed him. I haven't seen D. in a long time, and when I finally do run into him, my fiance is in absnetia. I know this is petty of me. I know it. But it doesn't mean I didn't want Bryan there. Because D. always made me feel like I was asking for the impossible, someone to love me unconditionally, and when I finally ran into him, with the impossible a reality, I could not have the impossible there to see the priceless reaction on D.'s face.

My mother, who was also there, quickly summed up the situation, and said, "Uh-oh, Bryan's in deep sh*t, isn't he?" Yes, friends, he is. I just felt like he let me down. Now, obviously neither of us could have known this would happen. Had he known, you can be sure he would have been there on time. Had I known, I would have threatened him with a catheter insertion (his current biggest fear borne out of my nursing school experiences) had he not turned up. But I didn't know.

When we got to my folks house, Bryan was waiting on the stairs for us. I just looked at him and sad, "You are way in the doghouse buddy". He had no idea why, but when I explained to him, he clearly felt really bad. But I made him feel worse. All throughout the meal, I kept making snide little comments as to Bryan's perpetual lateness problem. And it is perpetual. My dad, (who it must be said, again, loves Bryan more than he loves me) kept sticking up for Bryan. Eventually my mom changed the topic to interesting jobs we've all had as youngsters. My worst was probably when I started working at a local (kosher) ice cream parlor, only to discover it was a front for a debt-collection agency, and in between scoops, I was supposed to harass people into paying back their debts.

Bryan said his worst job was when he was a pizza delivery boy. I just looked at him and said, "I'm guessing you never made it in 30 minutes or less?"

Poor boy. I think he learned his lesson.

PS- My mom called after shabbat to make sure I had forgiven Bryan. She was really worried I wasn't going to. Again, my parents love Bryan more than they love me :)