I will never understand women. Not that understanding them has ever really been a goal-merely securing their daily cooperation will suffice for me.
However, trying to understand how their twisted little minds work, is beyond any normal comprehension.
Backing up. On Easter Sunday, the S.O. went to Mass with me. On the way out, she picked up a bulletin and the only thing that she noticed in it was the fact that the church was going to be having a “yard sale” in the school gym today. ( Now some of that is not surprising-having been raised in a Shinto-Buddhist culture, the order of the Mass is confusing enough for her. I’ve explained it -but I don’t think it registered). So yesterday she informs me that she wants to get up at 6 AM so we can be there when they opened at 7am.
“You get up at 6am-unless you are going to make it worth my while, I’m sleeping in. You know where the church is-and the car keys are on the dresser.”
Suffice it so say she was not pleased with that answer. After some negotiation I agreed to drive her there-but only if we went out to breakfast afterwards.
And no-she did not make it worth my while.
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One man’s junk may be another man’s treasure-but sometimes one man’s junk is just another man’s junk. So it seemed in the church gym today. They had lots of stuff-especially piles and piles of clothes. But to get through those clothes required a great deal of patience-and the occasional hip check. One thing about being at a Catholic Church yard sale, you will find yourself face to face with groups of Filipinas. Who don’t want to yield ground at the table without a fight.
Accordingly, I spent a lot of time at the book table. Eventually the S.O. found me and said she agreed, the stuff here was not that great. We could leave whenever I was ready.
Tell me again why I was up at 6am?
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One of the oddest things of the crowd at the church though was the sight of several, and I do mean a fair amount, of Muslim women in and among the shoppers. I am assuming they were Muslims-why else would one wear a scarf in 87 degree weather? One woman present was obviously Indonesian, dressed in Busana Muslima, the term used for female
Muslim dress in Indonesian, and she was with a non- descript, middle aged African American guy. There has to be a story there-and the journey from Indonesia to Shopping Mall had to be a long one.
Now, I’m sure Muslims like getting bargains as much as the next person-however the idea of hordes of Muslims shopping in a Catholic Church-well, it just seems a little out of place. Somehow I don’t think you will find hordes of Christians shopping at the local mosque gym. ( In Shopping Mall, I somehow think a mosque would have to keep a low profile anyway-lest it find itself being put to the torch).
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I thought we were going to be able to make a straight shot to breakfast. All I had to do was head up the main road the church was on, make a right at University, and I-Hop should have been just a couple of miles down the road. I did not reckon with the fact that garage sale signs were on this road like flies on dog poop. When she say the “neighborhood yard sale” sign in one particular group of McMansions-breakfast ended up being postponed. After about four stops, and it now being 8:45am or so, when she got back in the car I told her we where going to breakfast-now. “We can always come back here-but the crowd at the I-Hop will be forming. And I’m hungry!”
As it turned out, I was right-30 more minutes we would have been waiting in line.
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The S.O. wanted to go to her favorite thrift shop after breakfast. I desperately needed a haircut. 30 years of military cuts make having my hair touch my ears bothersome for some reason. I could go to the exchange on post-but there are always a lot of Soldiers waiting in line and their time is more valuable than mine. So I decided to stick my head into the next door ladies hair salon.
” Do you cut men’s hair? The sign says walk-ins welcome.”
“Sure we do honey, come on in.”
The S.O. has used this shop, so she suggested it to me. The lady used to work at a military barbershop it seems. After explaining that I wanted a hair cut-but not a really short haircut like the Soldiers get, she set away to work.
She was one of those conversant barbers. And somehow she got it in her head that she should ask me about politics:
“Did you hear Hannity wants to get himself waterboarded? What do you think about that?”
Uh-oh. She’s probably not going to want to hear the response that was on the tip of my tongue, ” Oh really? I hope he fucking drowns”.
Discretion being the better part of valor, I changed the subject. “So how long have you lived in Shopping Mall”
Trailer parks and an ex-husband who slept with her sister then ensued. Whoo-boy!
However-she knew her trade though. It’s a good haircut and I have to admit-I’ll probably be back.
To a women’s beauty shop.
How low have I fallen?
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The S.O. has a doctors appointment this week. It is out in the nether regions of Shopping Mall-to get her thyroid checked. Now getting there is really not that hard-for someone who can read a map. The S.O. seems never to have learned that particular skill. ( Even the Tokyo subways sometimes threw her for a loop-something I never really understood). So I suggested I take her for a “test run” to find the place and give her some landmarks to find. I’m glad I did. Its out in the North County-and knowing her-she would have turned back long before she got anywhere near it. I will probably draw her a map with land marks anyway.
Sigh…-and she thinks she is so smart.
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This weekend is Shopping Mall’s Arts festival-known as Panoply. It is held in the center city park and so after we had figured out where the doctors office was, made the obligatory Costco stop, and got gas- I suggested we go down there. It was Ok. Nothing like some of the festivals I have been to in Asia-but the weather was nice. After walking around to all the exhibits we stumbled onto a lady named Yuri Ozaki. The S.O. , upon seeing the name, ventured forth with a tentative, ” Nihonjin desu ka?”
“Hai-so desu”.
And off the conversation went. It did my ego good to realize that I still understood the language, the rolls of ripples of Nihongo tripped off my ears like a welcome tonic. The S.O. talked with her for about 20 minutes and she seemed more than a little surprised when I joined the conversation in Japanese. Seems her American husband does not speak the language. She asked which language we use at home. Now truth be told-since coming here, we use more English. Although we still have a mish- mosh of her asking a question in Japanese and me responding in English and vice versa.
Her art of Shopping Mall is quite good-but it was interesting to here her say that she could never sell it in Japan. ” Its not good enough for there”.
Hmmm. $700 for a watercolor of Washington Square seems a little steep if you ask me. maybe its not the quality of the art-but the prices.
We then meandered to the tent where the fiddle competition was going on-mostly so we could sit down for a while. The Youth Division was competing. These kids were good! The S.O. asked me what a fiddle was-and what was difference between it and a violin.
“Nothing-except how you play it. The country grew up on this kind of music in its early years”, I pointed out to her.
The boy I was rooting for got beat by a girl. She was pretty good too, but she was not from around her. A Kentucky import.
We did not stay around for the masters.
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By now it was 3:30 and we were both feeling the effects of that 6AM wake up. Home we went. I took in a run-and then fell asleep. I’m just now waking up.
Just another weekend in dullsville Shopping Mall, USA.
And I still don’t understand how the S.O.’s mind works.