Memorial Day

I wasn’t ready, today came too soon, so the day was off to a slow start.

So slow that, by the time I stepped out of the tub, the clock was showing 10:32 AM already.

Holy Smokes! Where did the morning go?, thought I.

Needing to leave for the Pain Cave by 11:15, I had to rush painting my face and getting dressed in workout clothes.

Returning from the morning workout, I would have liked nothing better than to lay down on the couch, take a long nap but, detouring to pick up yesterday’s mail before I headed upstairs, I saw residents already setting up for the 3:00 barbeque.

No way, tired though I was, would I have missed a moment of the barbeque for multiple reasons.

One, I wanted to capture photos, start to finish, to post to the residents’ facebook page.

Two, I heard our Karen character had been invited and would be coming, bringing a dish.

Three and Four, I knew Karen’s Dream Lover — the guy she used to chase and send love notes to until he complained to the office about her stalking and harassing him, would be manning the grill so, I wanted to see how the two would interact. Would she chase after him again? Would he walk out when she walked in?

Five, I wanted to see how management would sabotage the event.

Today is management’s holiday off, which meant we had no access to the kitchen, would have to depend on the patio’s grill and what residents cooked up in their own kitchens, but I just had a feeling management would do something to make the grill unavailable to us — like once they didn’t clean the grill and another time the propane tank had been removed.

It was still early, so I went back/forth from my unit to check on progress of preparations, take photos as folks arrived.

Dream Lover didn’t appear to be having any problems with the grill, as the patio area began rapidly filling up and I snapped away capturing photos of attendees as they arrived.

I saw our former mean manager’s (Nurse Ratched) mom arrive.

That was a novelty as I’ve never seen her participate in any of our events before, not even when her horrible terrible daughter was managing the place. Seeing her up close, I was amazed at how much her daughter looks like her.

She probably didn’t feel it safe for her to join us back in the day, as so many hated her daughter. The two looking so much alike, she might have gotten caught up in a mistaken identity incident.

Even so, there was an incident I believe I blogged about.

She had to be moved from her downstairs unit to an upstairs after someone shattered her patio glass door by throwing a brick through it because, no doubt, it was revenge for something her daughter had done.

Once Corporate got rid of her daughter — not because she was terrible awful to us, but because they caught her embezzling, things cooled off, her mom moved back to that same downstairs unit and has been happily residing here ever since with no problems as no one has or had a beef with her, it was just her daughter.

Karen arrived. I thought I heard her say she’d brought a "stew". I wanted a photo of it, but didn’t see anything that looked like a stew when I took photos of the spread.

Once our Karen walked in, my head was on swivel from her to Dream Lover to capture the when Sally met Harry moment.

To add more drama, Dream Lover’s former girlfriend, now just a friend, was in attendance, sitting next to me and I’m sure she had her eyes on Karen as well.

Karen has been out and about lately, getting to know other residents so, she worked the patio, greeting those she knew and eventually made her way close to Dream Lover.

With his back to everyone, facing the grill, I don’t believe he noticed she’d entered the patio area until she positioned herself to stand at a table next to where he was.

She looked at him. He looked over, saw her, the grill spatula froze in midair.

If some bozo hadn’t stepped into the frame, I could have captured the moment, but I did see her smile at him give him a little wave, he waved back at her whereupon she took her hand and coyly flipped back some of her hair before turning away.

Is that a flirt movement? I’m not sure.

I later saw she had worked her way over to behind him at the grill. Then I caught them face to face.

Does Dream Lover look awkward to you, as though he’s puzzled or not much interested in what Karen has to say?

Dream Lover’s former girlfriend, now just a friend, must have seen the face-to-face interaction as well because, shortly after Karen walked away, the two of them (former girlfriend and Dream Lover) had their heads together.

My guess is former girlfriend was asking what Karen said. I couldn’t really read Dream Lover’s body language as to whether Karen had aggravated him or not, but former girlfriend was grinning the kind of grin I’ve seen when someone is being discussed and laughed at behind their back.

So, all the side dishes were on the table, people were just waiting for the burgers and hotdogs, THEN it happened.

The grill went out.

After Dream Lover and another guy inspected the grill, they declared it no longer functioning.

I read Dream Lover’s body language just fine that time … he was exasperated, fed up.

I don’t know if Karen started his exasperation and the grill going out was the last straw, but he sat down next to me and said "People are awful! People are just awful".

Story is, he'd asked management to fill up the tank in preparation for the event. Management said they would, but evidently lied, because the tank went dry.

"SABOTAGE! Just like when they tell us they’ve fixed a problem in our units, but then it’s still not fixed" said I.

That made him smile. He nodded affirmative on my take of SABOTAGE and high-fived me. His former girlfriend nodded and said, "Yes. I think so too".

No grill to finish the cook didn’t stop anything. A resident went to her unit, brought down the grill from her patio.

By then it was close to 4:00, my Judge Judy time, so I didn’t stay to see when hamburgers and hot dogs were served, but folks were already eating side dishes, so it was all good.

Long time reader Dkzody will remember these leggings I stitched up back in 2014, to wear at a 5K. Sadly/obviously, you can tell from today's photo that none of the inches I’ve lost has had a much-needed lessening of what I'm carrying north of the equator.