Epiphany in Baltimore

2001-10-22

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

I got a few nice guestbook entries and a couple of e-mails from folks after my venty/whiny entry from Friday. I think Phantom called it when he said it would have seemed like I was fishin for sympathy if I had read it, so I'm glad I didn't. Not that I was ever actually considering it, mind you.

It's odd, but after I wrote that, I had the busiest weekend ever here in B-more. My little sister and my dad drove down with a bunch of my stuff, and our house has taken on a much different (and better) shape. We now have a matching couch/loveseat and a pingpong table on the main floor, and I got a bed and a dresser for my room. Things look great. The pingpong table doesn't have a net yet, but that didn't stop me and Jason from playing about ten games straight on Saturday and Sunday nights.

The weekend was decent with my whole family down here except for my mom. Heidi and Dad left Michigan at around 3pm, and didn't arrive until 5:30am. With the really old van carrying a trailer, it was a much longer trip than usual; besides, they were coming from the west coast of the state rather than the middle or east side of it, which meant adding a few hours to the trip right there.

Before they came up, my two roommates (Mike and Jason) and I went out to the bar with Patty from work - she had invited me on Friday. We saw a couple of bands I thought were pretty mediocre before leaving at around 1 - we each had three beers each in the span of a couple hours or so, then headed home. It was sort of boring and we couldn't really talk with Patty or her friends because of the loud bands, but at least we got out of the house a bit.

We then headed home, where I began to wait for Heidi and Dad to arrive. I had expected them at around 2 or 3, so I waited on the couch in the living room; I ended up falling asleep there. They finally arrived, and had to park down the street a ways because the Baltimore Marathon headed right in front of our house on Saturday and there was no parking on the opposite side of the street. (By the way, on Saturday morning when they were all running, I got the epiphany that I will complete that marathon next year - whether it's all running or just mostly running).

Heidi and Dad immediately fell asleep and I went back to bed when they arrived. When we awoke at around 11am the next day, we enjoyed this egg souffle stuff that I had prepared the day before. My mom's been making it my whole life - it's basically a mixture of egg, bread, and ham cooked to perfection. I was glad I was able to replicate a vegetarian version of it, with vegetarian Canadian bacon, mushrooms, and peppers in it. It was wonderful, and both Heidi and Dad enjoyed it. I think I'm going to make it when Erin and Gale come down in November.

We checked out the Fell's Point and Inner Harbor areas on Saturday. Heidi and dad were fighting, as usual - they're incredibly similar people and just seem to butt heads often - so Heidi and I went off on our own at dad's suggestion and checked out the area. It was fun. We stopped at a bunch of bars and shops, and while Heidi couldn't enjoy the bars as much as she would have liked (she's still ten days from being 21), I think she had a good time. We tried getting tickets to the Aquarium at the end of the day, but it was all sold out.

Saturday night, I celebrated Heidi's b-day with her. I had baked her a chocolate cake, and asked dad to distract her for a bit outside while I got the cake, her presents, and the candles out. Dad's way of distracting her was to get in an argument with her, so when Heidi came in she was all pissy and it wasn't necessarily a good time. She ended up cooling off with a walk outside and came back to open up the gifts and have the cake, but there was still tension in the air.

I got Heidi a framed print from Ikea, a couple of shirts from Old Navy, a couple of candles, and a wall clock. The cake was kind of a bomb. I spent a lot of time on it - chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, then I got M&M's, Rolos, and Hershey's bars and spread them all around the top to decorate it. It was just too rich. I was even complaining about it - "It's just too rich," I said, to which Jason always responded, "Hmmm... I wonder how that could have happened, if it could have been the Rolos, the M&M's, the tons of frosting, or the Hershey's bars? Hmmm...". Oh well, the egg stuff was really good, and so was my spaghetti on Sunday night.

On Sunday, we all went to the aquarium, Jason included. It was great - a lot of fun and definitely worth the price of admission ($16). The dolphin show was incredible, and I fell in love with one of the dolphin handlers.

We all went home then and Dad took a nap, while Jason, Heidi, and I went to Old Navy to return one of the gifts I got her that was the wrong size. Heidi just wears me out. I was exhausted by the end of the day. After homemade spaghetti dinner, Heidi and Dad headed out at around 8pm to go back to Michigan, preferring to travel at night and beat the rush hour traffic. They wanted to time it so they could be in Detroit in the morning, where Heidi was planning on perming Grandma's hair.

It's looking like Heidi is going to move to B-more in July. She loves the area, as most do upon visiting. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't both excited and tentative about it. I think it will do her good to get out of Michigan for a bit, specifically the area that she is in. I'm a much better influence on her than most of her friends, and I'm not just saying that because I'm an overly protective big brother - I really am. Still, Heidi is sometimes hard to get along with - she is the opposite of me in many ways. I'm tolerant, she's demanding. I'm stoic, she's moody. I'm confident it'll work out, though. When Mike moves out, it looks like Heidi may be moving in.

I do have a good relationship with her, for the most part. We are argumentative in a funny, childish way. At the aquarium, for example, we were picking out fish and saying things like, "If you were a fish, you'd be that one!", and then point to a particularly weird-looking or annoying sort of fish.

Mike's parents also came this weekend, and his mom made curtains for our living room that look great. We now have a blue motif to our house. I'm excited by how it looks. I'm really excited about going back to Ikea on Friday and spending some of my paycheck on new stuff.

Mike is wearing on my nerves. Jason told me that when his parents came, he was bashing me and my dog. The parents were commenting on how well-behaved and friendly Holden is, and immediately Mike started talking about how dumb the dog is, and about how I'm a poor owner because I refuse to hit him and blame myself when he does things wrong. Now, that's happened once. Holden was whining in front of the door on like the 2nd day we had him and I was on the phone and just ignored him, thinking he could wait. Instead, he peed on the wall. But he did what he was supposed to do - whine at the door. I'm supposed to beat him because I was too lazy to get up and let him out? Whatever. Unless you catch a dog directly in the act of doing something, it won't work if you hit it. That's why rubbing a dog's snout in their pee or poop won't do any good - you need to catch them in the act, say "No!", and then let them out immediately - dragging them if necessary. But you don't beat them a half hour later, especially when they did what they are supposed to do - ask to be let out. That's the only "accident" Holden has ever had.

Mike was also criticizing my name choice to his parents, rolling his eyes and tsk-ing it. Whatever. Holden was well-behaved this weekend with all the guests, but every now and then he jumps on people and tries to play that way - and I blame Mike for that. He always plays really rough with him. He'll do things like call him, bonk him in the head with a rolled up poster, then call him again and repeat and then say how dumb he is. Or he'll offer him something to play tug-of-war with, then scream, "I'm not playing with you" when he tries to get it back from him. Or he'll tease him by making him jump up and get his socks in the air, then yell at him when he jumps high enough to get them. Now that I know he's being an asshole and speaking behind my back about things, I won't hold my tongue anymore when I see him doing things to/with my dog that I don't like. I want Holden to play, but not rough. I want him to remain as nice a dog as he is now.

I basically like Mike, and am glad we found him. Not only is he saving us a lot of money, he seems to be a decent guy FOR THE MOST PART. But Jason and I definitely have some issues with him - he's very lazy, rarely cleans up after himself, has never touched the vaccuum, won't take the initiative to write the checks himself to pay bills, never deletes his voice-mail messages so we all have to check it because the dial tone beeps, etc. After seeing his parents come this weekend and his mom clean/vaccuum/dust his room, clean his kitchen (we have two kitchens, and Mike alone uses the upstairs one), and the whole time laugh about it, we think we know why he is how he is. He never went away to college, rather staying at home while he took classes, and this is his first time away from home. I've been cleaning my own room since I was about 9, but apparently not him. Maybe it's me and Jason's job to teach him. His fiance is going to have a lot to put up with otherwise, so perhaps it's our duty to do so.

I didn't get much of the necessary planning/grading done this weekend, and my kids are going to have my hide today. But that's okay. I'm going to impress them with my full memorization of "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe, and that'll make up for it. Yeah right.