she who keeps this diary


2003-07-07 - 6:49 p.m.

Filial Piety

I keep reminding myself that Maman has always been there for me, always been supportive of my endeavours even if she's never personally given a rodent's posterior about them, and that I have a duty to do the same for her. And then there's the guilt. Oh, the guilt. If I didn't carry through with the filial piety, the guilt alone could kill me.

So what was I doing at 10:30 this morning? Hiking down Mass Ave from the Dupont Circle Metro with a huge bucket of unarranged flowers for table arrangements for the Big Luncheon (i.e., a major stop in the last days of her campaign for the ONO -- Organisational National Office) in the 95-degree heat while Sis hauled the bud vases and table assignments.

Got to the (snooty) club, found the room, started setting up the tickets and such, did not kill the well-meaning but pushy Sash who, having once been married to a nurseryman, takes over all flower-arranging duties everywhere and cannot possibly imagine that anyone else knows anything about the aesthetics of sticking flowers into bud vases.

And then there's all the rest of it -- not killing the other Sashes who arrive and are obnoxious and patronising, not killing the smiling damned villains who are somehow too thick to understand why I do not wish to play their silly mind games and pull hair and scratch and fight like a group of bitch cats in the name of winning the privilege of being a slave to a particularly important Sash. I didn't even stab the woman who asked "when the kids were coming" with my dessert fork, or scream, "I haven't even been married a full thirteen months! And God forbid I should have started having children right away, because then you would all have had your calendars out, counting back from the due date to the wedding, trying to find a scandal!"

I was so good. So polite. I smiled nonstop from 11:30 until 2:15. I have to go back and do it again on Saturday, which is the date of the election. I hope Maman gets the ONO, I really do, it means a lot to her. But I hate that organisation.

So, there is this chair. I have chairs. I have comfortable chairs. It is not as though there is no furniture in my house suitable for extended sitting. But yesterday the Viking had the itch to go walkabout, so we meandered over to one of our local antique places. And there was this chair. It's a platform rocker, beautiful wood (maybe cherry -- for some who is pretty good at tree identification, I am really bad at wood), lovely carving, comfortable. The upholstery is in good shape but is hideous (some kind of red and gold velvet nightmare). Upholstery can always been changed, however. And I want it. The price is not totally beyond the budget, but it's not the sort of thing I could rationalise as an impulse, I-want-it purchase. I have chairs. Even some comfortable ones. But I want this chair. I know where I would put it. I know how I would reupholster it. The Viking knows I want it; I think if I brought it home he would not complain or argue.

I am trying to talk myself out of this chair. I don't need it. I am almost afraid to decide to get it and go back for fear someone else will have dithered less and bought it. I think too much.

verso - recto

The WeatherPixie

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