Long and lost

I am facebook stalking my brother and sister. Yes, I have another set of two siblings - twins - that I don't talk to. I remember when they were born. You have no idea how happy I was not to be the baby anymore, even if I was 15 at the time (my dad and my step-mom had an oopsie).

Anyway, as luck would have it, my dad has shitty taste in wives (my mom excluded, of course). His second wife was insane and ran away one day, though that lady made fabulous blueberry pancakes. She left him for a handyman, he said, but later admitted that he couldn't throw stones because she used to be his secretary.

His third wife - my brother and sister's (and step-brother and step-sister's) mom - had bipolar disorder and, over the course of 5-7 years, poured a steady stream of verbal poison into my brother and sister's ears until they refused to speak to any of us. They talk to my dad now. He's no prince, either. He had a temper on him, which is why my mom left in the first place.

Anyway, I'm hitting another milestone birthday this year and I wish I knew my siblings better. Or at all. I wish my kids wouldn't their their extra family. I love my sister - she is wonderful. It just freaks me out that there are two more siblings, even if they're half siblings, out there in the world somewhere who couldn't pick me out in a lineup. And when they have kids, those kids, my children's cousins and my nieces or nephews, won't be able to pick my kids out of a lineup either.

I could do what a normal person would do - e-mail, call. Dad frequently texts or e-mails us in a group, presumably so we have each other's numbers. We never respond to the group. None of us. I wonder what they think of me. I wonder if they care that they have two sisters somewhere, out there in the world that they never talk to.

Run, rabbit, run!

I went to the gym on Saturday afternoon. It was awesome - I got a decent run in and lifted weights. As I was tossing my towel into the bin, however, things took a turn for the strange.

I made a mistake: I made eye contact with someone and smiled. The older gentleman on the bike in front of me smiled back and asked, "How are you?"

"Great," I said. Everything's going swimmingly. Then it took a turn.

"Who are you voting for?"

"What?" was my response.

"Tell me - if you're a Democrat, you're probably a socialist. If you're a Republican, I'll find a reason to fight with you anyway. But I'm a Christian. Those Dems are baby killers - I'm anti-abortion. No abortions. Ever." At this point I considered mentioning that in 2011 I was faced with the choice of terminating a pregnancy or a 95% change of dying (it was ectopic and causing internal bleeding), but I decided that that was a discussion I really didn't want to have with a stranger.

Because I'm either way too stupid or too polite or a combination of the two, I decided to play along. We chatted, I answered honestly. He told me my choices were socialist. We argued back and forth for a while. Then he looked at his bike and said, "There we go. Done! You were my rabbit."

Uhhh, WTH? "Rabbit?" says I.

"Yeah, I find a pretty young thing every time I go to the gym to argue with so I can finish my workout."

For the record, I'm 39. At one point in my life I was pretty enough, but I would hardly describe myself as a pretty young anything. Anyway, he went on to say that he finds some woman he finds attractive to talk to anytime he goes to the gym and that I ought to take that as a compliment. Who the heck does something like that (other than this guy)?

Anyway, it's not like he catcalled me and told me I should have sex with him or told me what he wanted to do to me (after all, he is a Christian - yes, sarcasm intended), but still... Rabbit? Ick, ick, ick.

Home again, home again

It's back to the grind. I've been on vacation with my family in South Carolina. It was wonderful and I'm still shaking the sand from my flip flops. Of course, today we all went back to our day jobs: my kids to school, my husband to work and me to my kitchen table to work, too. I could do without it. Well, not financially, but I'm not quite mentally ready. Is anyone mentally ready to go back to real life after vacation?

I'm sitting on a conference call all day today - it's a webinar put on by the federal government. I hate these. They're spun far in advance and involve carefully scripted talking points, much like you'd expect of the government. After all, you can't reveal too much but you can't be perceived to be deflecting questions, right? Even though that's exactly what happens - "we'll get back to you." "The right people aren't here to answer those questions." "That'll be posted later." Dude, if the right people aren't "here to answer those questions," why the hell would you present on the topic in the first place?

Oh, well - what do I know? Darned logic. It never works.