Well, looks like I’m finally socializing again…
(apologies for the length)
I spent time catching up with a male platonic friend who was in my original circle for most of the 80s, 90s, and the early part of this century. We lost touch when his wife was diagnosed with cancer in 2013; she wanted to be closer to her family (of origin) and so they and their three daughters moved out of state. She passed away in 2019 and he reached out when he and the youngest daughter had returned to California.
His other two daughters are married, and he has three grandchildren, which blew me away.
"Larry" is rather unique in that he’s always said outrageous things with the potential to hurt feelings if you don’t know him. Example: first thing he said upon seeing me—
"Woah, you’ve still got that great hair, but it’s all white now ! How did THAT happen ?"
"Chalk it up to me no longer dyeing it, and the passage of time…" I replied.
"Yeah," he said, "I bet you expected me to be bald, but no—I think I even have hair in my ears too, but I’m not sure…"
I expressed condolences again for the loss of his wife. He had heard about my mother, whom he’d met, and told me how sorry he was. He’d lost his parents years ago and we commiserated about that sadness. Then we changed the subject and talked about his daughters ("nothing turns a guy into total guard and attack dog mode like having daughters") and he showed me pictures of his grandchildren. The mother of two of them has a black husband.
"I bet you didn’t see THAT coming," I teased him.
"Are you kidding ?" he replied. "It’s purely chance that their [b]mother[/b] wasn’t black, because she could’ve been. You know what my dating history was like."
He’s always been one of the few people who could make even racial jokes without pissing me off, because they were never mean, and I’ve always been comfortable they weren’t coming from an ugly place. He’s of Swiss-German descent, and the friends talk about the time Lawrence Welk was on tv and he told us (a room full of people of color) that these were the songs of his people’s "struggle". There were groans, someone threw a cushion at him, and he was satisfied.
It was awesome spending time with him. He told me his youngest daughter graduated from high school and was planning to attend college here in the Bay Area.
We went across the street to the cafe for lunch.
"This was not here last time I visited !"
"No, it wasn’t" I told him. "And they have live music on Saturday nights."
"Oh, lucky you !" he grimaced.
"Yeah, there was a time when I would’ve been happier to see that," I said.
"But often, on Saturdays when it gets late I’m waiting for them to wrap things up."
We hugged, promised to stay in touch, and he left.
In other news, my friends who are parents of my godson invited me to spend next week with them, and the godson will be coming home to see me. I haven’t visited since before the pandemic.
I spent time catching up with a male platonic friend who was in my original circle for most of the 80s, 90s, and the early part of this century. We lost touch when his wife was diagnosed with cancer in 2013; she wanted to be closer to her family (of origin) and so they and their three daughters moved out of state. She passed away in 2019 and he reached out when he and the youngest daughter had returned to California.
His other two daughters are married, and he has three grandchildren, which blew me away.
"Larry" is rather unique in that he’s always said outrageous things with the potential to hurt feelings if you don’t know him. Example: first thing he said upon seeing me—
"Woah, you’ve still got that great hair, but it’s all white now ! How did THAT happen ?"
"Chalk it up to me no longer dyeing it, and the passage of time…" I replied.
"Yeah," he said, "I bet you expected me to be bald, but no—I think I even have hair in my ears too, but I’m not sure…"
I expressed condolences again for the loss of his wife. He had heard about my mother, whom he’d met, and told me how sorry he was. He’d lost his parents years ago and we commiserated about that sadness. Then we changed the subject and talked about his daughters ("nothing turns a guy into total guard and attack dog mode like having daughters") and he showed me pictures of his grandchildren. The mother of two of them has a black husband.
"I bet you didn’t see THAT coming," I teased him.
"Are you kidding ?" he replied. "It’s purely chance that their [b]mother[/b] wasn’t black, because she could’ve been. You know what my dating history was like."
He’s always been one of the few people who could make even racial jokes without pissing me off, because they were never mean, and I’ve always been comfortable they weren’t coming from an ugly place. He’s of Swiss-German descent, and the friends talk about the time Lawrence Welk was on tv and he told us (a room full of people of color) that these were the songs of his people’s "struggle". There were groans, someone threw a cushion at him, and he was satisfied.
It was awesome spending time with him. He told me his youngest daughter graduated from high school and was planning to attend college here in the Bay Area.
We went across the street to the cafe for lunch.
"This was not here last time I visited !"
"No, it wasn’t" I told him. "And they have live music on Saturday nights."
"Oh, lucky you !" he grimaced.
"Yeah, there was a time when I would’ve been happier to see that," I said.
"But often, on Saturdays when it gets late I’m waiting for them to wrap things up."
We hugged, promised to stay in touch, and he left.
In other news, my friends who are parents of my godson invited me to spend next week with them, and the godson will be coming home to see me. I haven’t visited since before the pandemic.
