Category Archives: Family

Books, Daily Life, Family

Collecting together non-controversial books for family time

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Tonight or tomorrow morning, I’m headed back to my parents’ house for the Thanksgiving holiday. Saturday, my father and I will drive down to York to have dinner with much of the extended family. It’s a four hour or so drive, so I hope to do some reading on the trip. Of course, I suspect other members of the extended family will be joining us, so I need to be judicious in my selection of reading material.

For those who may not know, I am the religious oddity in my family. While I am a practicing witch, just about everyone else (at least on my father’s side of the family) is a conservative, evangelical, and even fundamentalist Christian. This means that sitting with them while reading such selections as Witch in the Bedroom or Anything But Straight would probably lead to all sorts of unpleasantness. And while part of me feels like I’m reaching a point where I need to assert myself around my family regardless of how they may react, the holiday season just doesn’t seem like a good time to do so. (Too bad it’s about the only time I seem to see most of them.) So I’ve started thinking through some choices that may be safe.

The first obvious choice is my new copy of Beowulf. (Special thanks to Pisco for bringing this particular translation to my attention.) I figure that no one can complain about me reading classic literature. And hey, they don’t need to know that I’m reading it for spiritual reasons in addition to literary ones.

As another option (because I always have to have multiple books available to read) is American Gods. Because even if it’s fiction that my family may not care for, fiction is still a relatively safe choice. As long as it’s not erotic fiction, of course.

In many ways I’m looking forward to the trip, too. Melissa’s wedding reminded me that I don’t spend nearly enough time with my extended family, and I need to change that to some extent. Of course, that means putting aside some of my own biases, as I’ve unfortunately come to expect time with my family to be unpleasant. (In reality, the unpleasantness only comes from one or two people, who often aren’t even there.) But in the end, I’m hoping it’ll be worth it.

In the meantime, I’ll be looking over my shelves for a third and possibly fourth choice in “safe” reading material.

Family, Love

Another wedding

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This Saturday, I rode with my parents, an aunt and uncle, and two cousins down to the Philadelphia area. There, we all attended my cousin Melissa’s wedding to Brian. It was a pleasant day and an enjoyable weekend.

My parents and I left their house around 8:05 that morning. Our first stop was to pick up Uncle Roger, Aunt Marlene, Rhonda, and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is Rhonda’s daughter, who was not actually going to the wedding. We were just taking her to meet the family she would be spending the night with while her mother was away. After that, we swung by Sandrra’s house to pick her up, thereby completing our little entourage. After that, the meat of our four hour trip began.

The trip itself went quite well, the worst part being the horrendous traffic on Route 309 when we hit Quakerstown. Of course, there was also the minor issue where we missed our turn onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike from I-80, but we recovered from that quickly. Fortunately, no cop was around to notice our illegal U-Turn just a couple hundred yards from the exit.

I have to admit that I was a bit concerned about spending that much time with family in the van. I was particularly worried that the discussions would focus on religion and politics, two subjects in which I hold radically different views from 99% of the rest of my family, which means I either have to remain silent or risk starting a confrontation. This is certainly something I would’ve wanted to avoid, as it would’ve certainly affected everyone’s disposition at Melissa’s wedding. And I adore Melissa.

Fortunately, my concerns proved unfounded. I failed to consider that the lively religious and political discussions are mainly initiated and continued by the men in my family (particularly the husbands of a couple cousins). My aunt and two cousins (Uncle Roger was mostly silent or talked with my father) were much more interested in discussing the studies, extracurricular activities, and general well-being of their children and other family members. Of course, this also made me painfully aware of just how out-of-touch I have become with most of my family. After this weekend, I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. It’s something I will have to ponder later.

Sandra did inquire about my work, and quickly rediscovered why most of the family doesn’t inquire. As a software engineer, my job is quite technical and discussion of it in any detail tends to quickly go over most people’s heads. But it was certainly nice of her to ask.

At any rate, the trip down passed without any major mishaps or strife, and we made it to the church about seventy minutes before the wedding would start. As we hadn’t eaten, we decided to go look for someplace to eat. After wandering around lost for about five minutes, we found a helpful police officer who was able to give us directions to a plaza that had a McDonald’s, a Subway, and a few other options. We decided to go with McDonald’s.

After eating, I decided to change into my clothes for the wedding. I had worn my dress pants on the drive down, but chose to wear a nice tee shirt with it, figuring it would prevent the chance of me getting something on it (like ketchup or barbecue sauce) when eating lunch. So I put on my undershirt and the blue dress shirt I had chosen for the wedding (I’ll have to see if anyone has a picture of me in the outfit and get a copy) and exchanged my sneakers for dress shoes. Sandra told me I looked nice, which made me smile. Then we made our way back to the church.

The wedding itself was simple, yet beautiful. There were certain elements in the wedding ceremony that I have only seen in one other weddings — James’s. I found myself wondering if they were specific to Methodist Weddings, as James is also a methodist. (Though I should note that he and Michelle got married in a Wesleyan church.) And Melissa looked fantastic in her wedding gown.

After the wedding was over, we had some time to kill before the reception, so a large number of us (including a few more aunts, uncles, and cousins who came by themselves) decided to go to Dairy Queen. This is the point where I also got to see my cousin, Robin. I haven’t seen her in over a decade, so it was a pleasant surprise. We both commented that we hope we see each other sooner next time.

After finishing our ice cream and chatting for a while, we decided to go to the fire hall where the reception was to be held (after running back to the church to pick up those who wanted to stick around and take photographs, of course). The reception itself consisted of a dinner served family style. The chicken was absolutely delicious. The DJ they got for entertainment played some great music (though we left before the dancing got started, so we didn’t hear much of it). At about 7:30, everyone in our group decided it was getting time to head home, so we all piled into the van for the four hour or so trip back to northern PA.

Overall, it was a fantastic day.

Family, Memories, Pets

A Memory: Trixie

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While going through my computer, I found a file in which I wrote about my old dog, Trixie. According to the comptuer, I originally created the file back on 27 December 2005. I don’t remember why I wrote it, but I decided I liked it well enough to publish it here.

I can’t remember exactly how old I was when my sister and I used to play with Trixie at my grandparents’ trailer. All I know for sure is that it was back when my paternal grandmother was alive, back when Trixie was still her dog rather than ours. I had to be either in preschool or the first couple years of elementary school. My family would go to visit her and my grandfather every week. Each visit would require that one of the adults take my sister and me down to the pen where they kept Trixie.

She was an adorably plain dog. To this day, I don’t think I could even begin to guess at the breeds that made up her muttly heritage. She was about the size of a Pomeranian, with brown and white fur and a curly tail. Her lower jaw stuck out just enough so that her four front-most lower teeth were visible when she closed her mouth. Under other circumstances, this would have made her look constantly ferocious. But to me, it just made her all that more adorable.

Being small children, we loved to play with Trixie. Often, we would pester my grandfather (often, with the help of our grandmother, who loved nothing more than to see her grandchildren having fun) to let us let the dog loose. Then she would run around with us and we’d have a great time.

On some occasions, we’d even convince the adults (again, usually with Grandma helping us to persuade the others) to let us bring Trixie into the trailer with us for a half hour or so. On these occasions, we got to play our favorite game. My sister and I would lie on our stomachs and bury our faces in our arms. Trixie would run around us excitedly, trying to get at our faces and lick us. We’d laugh and giggle.

Every now and then, Trixie would start to wander off. My sister or I would immediately raise our heads up and call to her with a little chant. “Trixie, Trixie, try and kiss me.” At hearing this, the dog would become excited again and the game would start all over, making both my sister and I squeal with laughter. Grandma would watch all of this with a smile on her face. Grandpa wasn’t always as impressed, but she managed to keep him from getting too upset.

Eventually, Grandma succumbed to the cancer that had been trying to claim her life ever since I knew her. Just before she went into the hospital the final time, she asked my sister and me to take care of Trixie for her. That’s how that adorable little dog with the constantly bared teeth eventually came to be my dog. We had her until my second year in college. And while I never plaid the “try and kiss me” game with her after Grandma died, I loved her that entire time. Some days, I still miss her.

Family, Friends, Going Out, In and Around Rochester, Zoo

Fantastic Saturday

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I had a rather busy and active weekend. Saturday morning, I got a call from my mother at 8:30. My parents were on their way to the Rochester area. They had my brother’s daughters with them, and they were all coming up to spend part of the day at Seneca Park Zoo. So I got up, showered, shaved, and grabbed a quick breakfast before they got to my apartment. Once they arrived, I jumped in the van, and we were off.

I haven’t seen Terry’s girls for at least seven years, when they made their last trip out to visit my parents. Since that time, Christine and Val have both graduated from high school and grown into a couple of great young women. It was nice to be able to spend some time with them.

We had a great day at the zoo, too. Due to the relatively low temperatures of the day, many of the animals were out and about. We even managed to get there while the one zoo keeper was putting the arctic wolves’ food in their exhibit. So we waited until she was done and were rewarded with watching the wolves search around the exhibit for their food.

Val and Christine were both impressed with the tiger triplets, which are now just over two years old. They were quite shocked when they learned this as I pointed out that the cubs (already considerable in size) get bigger. I made a point of taking them over to the Sasha’s cage so they could meet the triplets’ father. Needless to say, while they were already impressed with the size of the young tigers, seeing how much bigger a full-grown adult can be was quite an eye-opener for them.

I think everyone’s favorite exhibit on Saturday was the polar bear exhibit. The big white furballs were quite active. They had pulled their blue plastic barrels into the water and were playing with them there. At one point, the one bear was hanging onto his barrel with all four paws, floating underneath it. I’m hoping my father got a picture so that I can post it later. Sadly, I ran out of the house without my own camera.

On a sad note, I was quite disappointed to hear that Ariel, one of the zoo’s sea lions, died sometime this past winter. I originally saw Ariel and Flounder (who is still at the zoo) doing tricks last summer. We attended the same show (which has been renamed a “feeding”) Saturday, where we met the exhibit’s new addition, the year old Puff. The zoo is working on training Puff to do some of the tricks Ariel used to do (Flounder simply has never show interest in doing so), and I look forward to seeing what he learns in the future.

After we left the zoo, we headed over to Pittsford to try and find the new Cheesecake Factory store that’s opening soon. Val works as a trainer for the chain and thought one of her coworkers might be there training people for the store opening, so she wanted to stop in and say hi. Unfortunately, said coworker wasn’t there, but Val got to see the new store anyway. Apparently, she has a goal to see all of the stores the chain has.

After that, I had my parents drop me off at Psychic’s Thyme so I could hang out with Michele, Belinda, and Char, who were all working. We had a pretty good time, though it was a slow business day. Afterwards, Belinda, Michele and I went out for dinner (where I was rewarded with the perfect view of one of the waiter’s butts as he cleaned off the table next to us) and followed up with ice cream.

Originally, I had planned on going to the Pride Festival over at Village Gate. But by the time we were done with ice cream, I decided that I was tired from a long day and decided to go home.

On Sunday, I went to the Pride Picnic, which I will talk about in a future post.

Family, Going Out, Pets

A Pleasant Weekend With the Parents

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This weekend was absolutely fantastic. I managed to get out of work at 2:30 on Friday. I drove home, finished putting things in the car, and went to put Precious in her carrier. Unfortunately, she had figured out what was going on and had already hid under the guest bed. I actually had to tear the bed apart to get her — which stressed her out more. I’ve decided that in the future, I’m waiting at least an hour after I get home before I try to cage her for a trip. She was rather worked up the entire trip because of everything. And then she was moody towards Kisa when we got to my parents’ home.

The two cats didn’t get along the best this weekend, though they were both starting to mellow by Sunday afternoon. Of course, it doesn’t help that Precious is such a domineering bully and Kisa isn’t one fifth her size. Things were exacerbated on Friday night when Precious decided to divebomb the little runt. From then on, Kisa was afraid of Precious and would hiss and spit any time she came near. Of course, this didn’t keep the pipsqueak from being downright fascinated by Precious. Of course, the bigger cat had to remind Kisa who was the real boss whenever Kisa started to hiss and spit. I figure that when I go on retreat in August, things should be slightly better. By then, Kisa will be considerably larger and hopefully able to stand her ground better. Of course, I’m not sure if that will be an improvement or just a recipe for further confrontations.

On a side note, I have a one minute video of Kisa. I hope to eventually put it on YouTube. However, it’s currently huge (30MB) and I first need to see what I can to do shrink the file size. This should be interesting, as I’m no expert when it comes to video. In fact, I’m rather out of my element.

Friday night, I took my parents’ out to Chili’s. I don’t think I’ve taken them out to dinner since I moved up here to Rochester. That’s someowhat troubling to me, as I used to take them out regularly. In fact, while I lived at home, every birthday, anniversary, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day involved a dinner on me. So I figured I was well overdue. We had a great time, though the music was a bit loud for our tastes. Mom and Dad had never eaten at Chili’s before, and they felt their first experience was quite well. And I had a great time admiring our waiter’s aesthetic qualities.

Saturday, Mom and I wandered over to the Laurel Festival in Wellsboro. We wandered the craft fair and had a great time. I ended up picking up a gorgeous throw pillow with a black bear on it. I also picked up the Brat Queen a pillow filled with catnip, which she adores. (I figured it’d give her something besides the kitten to beat up on.) I also checked out a gorgeous stone fountain and a framed painting of a cougar sitting next to a cliff. I loved both items, but decided they each cost more than I was prepared to spend that day. (Besides, getting the car to that part of town to pick up the rather heavy fountain would’ve been a headache.)

Beyond that, I just had a pleasant visit with my parents. It was a fantastic weekend.

Deep Thoughts, Family, Friends, Introspection, Society

It’s all about how you use it

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I have to admit that I have a strange relationship with money. I’m not going to sit here and try to tell anyone — or even myself — that I don’t like having money. If my boss was to stop by my desk tomorrow and ask me if I’d like a raise, I’m not going to say no. After all, I like being able to spend money on various things.

However, I don’t feel like a slave to money, either. I do understand that ultimately, the only money I really need is the money to buy the necessities for staying alive. Anything after that is gravy. And I love my gravy.

However, I’ve also realized that how I spend my excess money is extremely important to me. I’m not the kind to become obsessed with buying the latest gadget or must have thing. Nor am I obssessed with keeping up with the latest fashion (not that men’s fashions change nearly as drastically as women’s fashions, anyway). That’s not my style at all.

Granted, I like to shop for quality when I do buy things. So when I go out shopping for new work clothes, I’m as liable to hit something a bit more expensive than Wal-Mart or even Target. (Besids, those stores often stop carrying clothes at one size below what I need, or only carry clothes my size that are horribly tacky.) And when I bought a laptop a couple months ago, I spent the extra money to get one I’d really like.

But at the same time, I don’t care to buy a lot of “stuff” just to have “stuff.” For example, a couple of years ago, I began to re-evaluate my attitude towards computer games. At the time, I was buying a new computer game every other week. I’d play each game I bought for about two weeks (often never mastering them or beating them if they had a quest mode of play), then get bored with it and never touched it again. As I noticed this pattern, I really asked if the time I spent playing each game was really worth the $40 a title I was paying. I decided that it wasn’t, so I’ve changed my game buying habits. I still buy the occasional computer game (and still often play them for a couple of weeks), but it’s something I only do every couple months or so. I found it hasn’t detracted from my life at all, and I’ve certainly found more enjoyable uses for the money I’m saving.

On the other hand, I think one of the best spenditures of money I’ve ever made was back when my niece, Alyssa, was two years old. Disney had re-released “The Little Mermaid” just before Christmas, so there was a merchandizing craze going on at the time. During my Christmas shopping, I had found a four foot long stuffed Flounder (the character from the movie, not a real flounder). I decided to buy it for Alyssa for Christmas.

Christmas Eve, my sister and her family had dinner with my parents and I at my parents’ home (I was living at home at the time). My sister decided to let Alyssa open one gift that evening after dinner. Because of an incident that had happened when my sister and her family were heading up from New Jersey, we all agreed she should unwrap Flounder.

I cannot begin to do justice to the experience of watching Alyssa open her gift. When she finally got the wrapping paper off and looked into the eyes of a Flounder almost as big as she was, she let out a shrill screech. The next five minutes, all this little girl could do was hug her new friend tight and screech, “He’s so cute!” It was a beautiful sight, and I can’t think of a time where I got so much joy out of $40 I had spent.

In many ways, money is more about making my life comfortable. It’s about creating moments like that, where I get to add to and share in other people’s pleasure. Whether I’m buying presents for my nieces and nephews, treating my friends to a meal, or giving an overworked and underpaid server an outrageously generous tip, I enjoy seeing the smiles it can bring to people’s faces.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can certainly be used to create situations that encourage happiness.

Family, Friends, Going Out, Memories, Movies

The magic of drive-in theaters

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Saturday night, a group of friends went to the Silver Lake Drive-In. We ended up watching Spiderman 3 and Ghost Rider, both of which were excellent movies. I ended up sitting in Belinda’s car watching the shows with her. The experience that night brought back a few memories.

Of course, any trip to a drive-in theater always brings back childhood memories. My parents, being frugal people, never took my sister or I to the movie theater. However, they were perfectly happy to take my sister and I to the drive-in theater a couple times each summer. Each time we’d go, they’d bundle the two of us into our pajamas before taking us out to the small drive-in (I was amazed when I learned that some places had more than one screen and offered a selection of movies to watch). I don’t remember many of the movies we saw, the only two that stick out vividly are The Fox and the Hound (which I cried at because of the ending) and Herbie Goes Bananas. I also remember that the one time we went, the second movie they showed was Canonball Run. I particularly my mother mentioning the next day that she was glad that my sister fell asleep during that movie. (We often fell asleep during the second movie, which is why we were always bundled in our pajamas.)

Back then, going to the Drive-In was a special treat. We didn’t go often, but Mom and Dad always made sure we saw at least one movie each summer. They would usually tell my sister and me a couple days in advance, and we’d look forward to the “big night” from that moment on. I suppose that’s why going to a drive-in is still a magical event to me over two decades later. There’s a certain sense to the experience that I doubt even seeing a movie at an I-Max theater could compare to in my mind.

The other memory that Saturday night brought back to me was the last time I went to a drive-in. That was during college. A group of us went to see Pocahontas with our friends Dennis and Mary and their three small children. There was a second movie we saw that night, but I forget what it was. I do remember that neither James nor I were impressed with it and spent most of the movie whispering snide comments about it between ourselves.

That was the night that I learned that some of the larger drive-in theaters have more than one screen, a fact that totally surprised me. I also remember my surprise at discovering that some drive-in theaters also broadcast the sound for their movies using a very small range FM radio transmitter. During my childhood, the theater we went to only had the small speakers that you hung on the edge of your car window.

That was also the first time that I didn’t stay in the car. Dennis backed his mini van up into the spot so that the rear of the van was facing the screen. We then all climbed out and opened the back doors on the van. Some sat in the back of the van while the rest of us lined up in front in our lawn chairs. It was a different experience for me, and quite a pleasant one.

Saturday night, we stayed in our cars (though one of the girls did go sit outside in a chair). We hadn’t brought chairs or blankets (well, the others hadn’t brought blankets, but I had one). As it was quite chilly this weekend, we decided to stay in the cars for the most part. However, a great many people did choose to go sit or lay out on the lawn in front of all of the cars. We particularly admired the family who had the foresight to bring not only sleeping bags, but bean bags to lay on and a tarp to put down and keep everything else dry with.

It was a truly magical evening, and I look forward to repeating it again. Who knows, with any luck, I might get a chance to share the experience with someone special before the summer is out.

Family, Friends, Going Out, Introspection, Personal Development

Time with the parents

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I had a relatively good Easter. I made it home at around 5 yesterday evening. Mom made meatloaf for supper. That’s a meal I haven’t had in some time, and I certainly appreciated it last night. After supper, I took a four hour nap. Of course, that meant that when I got back up, I spent most of the night either watching a movie or chatting with people online. I didn’t get to bed until almost 7am. Fortunately, I was able to sleep in until 10am that morning.

I spent part of today playing around with RocWiki. I ended up creating a page on there for the POC, as well as doing some other minor editing. And I created my user profile page, of course. I’m starting to become enamored with the whole Wiki concept, to be honest with you.

Mom served the traditional Easter dinner with ham, potatoes, gravy, and stuffing at a little after two in the afternoon. Because I wanted to get home to take care of Precious (I left her here in Rochester as I didn’t want to stress her out with the traveling for an overnight trip) and do some other odds and ends, I left shortly after lunc. I did wait around long enough to get a cooler and a tupperware dish filled with a few hunks of ham, however.

Let me just say as an aside that I absolutely despise Easter. Not the holiday itself, but the fact that just about everything is closed all day because of the holiday. When I got home, I was in the mood to get out in the public for a while. So I decided to try running to a couple of the coffeehouses in the area to get a nice drink and do some writing. But alas, they were both closed. After the second one, I decided to just give up.

It’s a shame that everything was closed. One of the reasons that I went out was that I was really craving social interaction. Actually, going home for even twenty four hours drove home just how much I really am craving that right now. (Of course, the lengthy, deeply personal and somewhat discomforting IM conversation I had with Brian didn’t help that, either.) In some ways, I felt trapped there at my parents’ house.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents very much and I like spending time with them. But there’s a reason I left that area. It’s not a good place for a liberally-minded gay guy to try building friendship and build a social network. And going back there, even for an overnight visit, tends to remind me of that. Especially right now since I’m working on trying to break that lack of human interaction and learning to release the social butterfly that really does appear to be hiding somewhere inside of me.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the Wednesday night game night all the more. And I plan on getting out to do some writing on Tuesday, too.

Daily Life, Family, Friends

My friends are mean

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I figured since I wasn’t heading home for the holiday until today, I’d head out a little later in the day so that I could go visit friends at Psychic’s Thyme. Michele was working today, and Belinda came up with her for the day, as they planned on spending the evening in the city after the store closed. Char was there, too, which made for a pleasant visit.

Apparently, Michele and Belinda had decided to go to Macaroni Grill. Char decided to join them, and they also invited their friend, Jim. I was also invited, but I figured my mother would kill me if I didn’t come home. So I yelled at my friends for picking a day to do something like that when I couldn’t join them. Of course, they offered to call my parents that I wouldn’t make it home because they’d tied me up, but I didn’t figure Mom would buy that. So I came home and missed out on all the fun. Hopefully, it won’t be more than a month (and hopefully less) before we have another outing like that.

This coming Wednesday is another COAP game night. I’m already looking forward to it. I’ve enjoyed the last two game nights I’ve been to. I especially enjoyed the one two weeks ago because after the games were put away, a few of us stuck around and chatted for a bit. In many ways, that was even more enjoyable than the game playing. Of course, playing the games together helped create an atmosphere where conversation could flow more freely. I’m finding that it’s a lot easier to talk once you’ve spent an hour stealing cards out of each other’s hands or screwing each other out of points and talking about getting even the entire time. When you stop and think about it, though, that’s rather messed up. The games get rather cutthroat, and yet we’re able to set it all aside in the end and act like great friends. But then, I suppose my friends at college had a similar sort of dynamic going in our relationships.

Family, Friends, Gender and Sexuality, Humor, Memories

The mark Darcy left

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I think everyone has those people who came into their lives for the briefest of moments, yet touched them in a profound way despite how temporary their presense may have been. Darcy was one such person for me. I spoke with her a total of three times in my entire life, and I doubt I’ll ever see her again. And yet, the first night we met, she left an impression I doubt I will ever forget.

That night took place several years ago. It was the night that I agreed to go out to a movie with my older brother — the first and only time I ever went someplace with him since I became an adult. Terry wanted to go see a movie, but didn’t have his license due to legal issues at the time. As such, he needed someone to go with him. Being the generous, if foolish, person I am, I agreed to go with him when he asked me. Both before and after the movie, we decided to hang out at the bar in Ruby Tuesday’s, which was located in the same mall as the cinema complex we went to.

When we returned to the bar after the movie, I was seething. The entire outting had been a real eye opener to just what kind of person — and let me just say that I’m being polite in using that word — my brother was. At one point, I was sure he was going to get himself thrown out of the theater during the movie. (I had decided I was going to sit there pretending I didn’t know him if that happened.) But I allowed him to convince me to return to the bar with him. By that time, Darcy was working behind the bar alone. Things had slowed down enough that Darcy had a lot of idle time, and she and Terry got talking.

Darcy was a sweet girl, a few years older than me at most. She was on the short side with long, blonde hair, but a real spitfire. She was the type of person that could say some incredibly cutting things, yet smile the entire time. I suspect that many of her customers were too drunk to realize she had actually said something biting until after the fact. Her personality struck me as admirable, and entirely conducive to the line of work she was in. And I have to admit that I was enjoying the process of watching her spar with my brother, who was too dumb to recognize all the jabs she got in despite the fact that he was perfectly sober at the time.

The incident that truly earned her my admiration, however, was when the topic turned to that of gay people. I forget what exactly came on the television to spark the conversation, but Terry made some sort of nasty remark on the topic. As I felt my heart sink and my stomach lurch, Darcy turns to Terry and asks him in a friendly, yet pointed manner, “What? Do you have something against gay people?” As soon as she asked the question, she gave me a quick wink. I’m not sure how she had managed to pick me out, but it was clear that like many other people in my life, she had immediately known I was gay. (Fortunately, my brother was clueless, and still is to the best of my knowledge.)

Terry stammered a bit and tried to make excuses. Of course, the first thing he did was played the typical male double standard, pointing out he had no problem with two women being “like that” — and even found it somewhat alluring. However, he pointed out that he just didn’t want any gay guys to hit on him, because that would not be okay.

Darcy’s reaction was incredible in that she didn’t pause, take a breath, or even blink. As soon as Terry said what he did, she just looked at him, smiled, and said in an even if somewhat patronizing voice, “Oh, hon, don’t flatter yourself.” And before either Terry or I had time to register what she said, she was off to serve another customer at the other end of the bar. I just about fell off my bar stool. (And for the record, I was sober, too!) Terry could only respond with a hurt and shocked “Hey!”

I was just totally amazed at how easily, gracefully, and politely Darcy had shot him down. Every time I find myself in a similar situation, I find myself thinking of her response that night. I can only hope I handle things half as well.

I went back two weeks later just to thank Darcy. I also left her a very big tip on my second trip, as an expression of my gratitude. We had a nice conversation, and she was shocked to discover that Terry was my brother. She couldn’t believe we came from the same family.

I only returned one more time after the night I went in to thank Darcy. I’m not the bar type, and even hanging out with such a great gal as Darcy was sufficient reason for me to keep returning. As a result, she disappeared from my life as quickly as she entered it. But that brief encounter is something I still like telling people about several years later. I think I always will.