Still preoccupied….. though I shouldn’t let that keep me from at least checking in.

So last Friday…. I drove to Tennessee… and back….

Here’s the typically “Jim’s life is weird” part of it… “To pick up my dad’s girlfriend”

He met her on the internet. She sells rare rock minerals and geodes… Pop buys such things…. (along with WWII weaponry, ancient coin restoration kits, paint pigment powders, furniture dollies, engraving machines, life-size wooden drawing models, pocket knives (400 of them), Afghanistani pajamas, markers, rare earth magnets, touch-tone telephone shells, high-intensity flashlights, trebuchet kits, Saint Bernard strap-on barrels, *gasp*… well.. you get the idea.

He also insists that they share little more than warm platonic companionship.

I don’t care of course… Hell – I think his head would benefit from a little schnogle… but that’s about as far as I can think about it because of that little psychological bear trap in our minds that prevents us thinking about our parents and sex.

Ahhneeway..

Dad’s disability (back injury) – magnified by his brain and natural penchant for defeat prevents him from driving down and fetching Mary himself.

Mary, a germanic blocky woman of sixty and some change, is soft spoken and from what I can tell – a chronic care giver…. She cares for her 92 year old mother and financially coddles three of her four middle-aged children. (*Coddle is an awkward word-choice… Some would perceive it as parasitic… I really don’t have enough information to evaluate / judge… as if it was my place anyway…)…. wait – yeah… it is my place…

I feel a certain obligation to “screen” my parent’s companions…. In hopes to at least steer them from danger…. Though I realize I can’t keep them from learning all those little interpersonal relational lessons the rest of us learned in our 20’s while DATING. (Babyboomers had this horrible tendency to get married and start families way too young).

The last couple of times Mary was in town, one of her kids drove her up here…. So – naturally – I guess it was “my” turn. I’m certain she could do the trek by herself – but she’s convinced herself otherwise.

If this long distance thing continues – I’ll be working on that.

The drive was an adventure – and while trying to find her house, (about an hour outside of Nashville), I got slightly lost.

It’s another planet down there… A land of great beauty and thanks to American monoculture and factory / mine closings, nearly bankrupt culturally…. I still passed what you’d call “pockets of unique regional culture”: Like the general store I stopped in to ask directions at… The town “elders” sat around a folding table drinking coffee and discussing (?).. The best spoken one, (the one with the buggy, out of register eyes), took a peek at my map and got me back onto the right trek.

The trip back was cordially awkward… Here we were, essentially two strangers, sitting in a car for six hours.

She had a hard time understanding my “fast northern speech”…. I had a hard time understanding her “slower, creative southern dialect”.

Nonetheless – we were able to pass the time chatting and I had her delivered to dad’s doorstep before 10pm.

I take her back next Friday… at least the next time I won’t get lost.

That started the weekend – which was also busy… but I’ll have to get to that later today or something…. Eeeeg… I gotta get outa here – it’s getting late.

(insert clever serial ending here)