Aloha!
The first and second day have gone well thus far.
Teaching is a lot easier than I suspected originally, despite all the tales of woe and chaos relayed to me by the other teachers. I seem to have remarkable control over the kids. Of course, it remains to be seen how the rest of the semester goes, but I could not ask for a better start.
The weekend.
A couple of you are probably looking at the previous entry and are wondering what the devil happened.
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. 😛
We left late Saturday after Tamika got out of work. She called me as she was riding home. She said she was going to change and get ready, and then tell me when she left the house on her way to my place. She forgot, and then rang when she arrived in front of my house.
I sat in the back of Vinny’s car; flip flopping between trying to follow the conversation over the roar of the music and trying to doze off. Either way, I didn’t say much.
We got to the Pinkney’s house quite late, but decided to watch Dirty Dancing Havana Nights before we went to bed.
The next day we woke up quite late.
I was up first, so I decided to make them some omelette’s at Mrs. Pinkney’s suggestion. I made the best ham & cheese omelette’s I had ever made for each of them, and then joined them on the couch.
Afterwards we went over to Aunt Michelle’s for a barbecue. Momom (Tamika’s grandmother) was there, and made the best ribs. I sat by myself most of the time, and the only actual conversation I had was with Alexandre, Talisha’s new male friend (whom both Tamika and Vinny were ogling over). He seems like a nice guy, but there is something that makes me uncertain about him. I’m not sure what it was…
Probably just petty jealousy. 😛
Aunt Faye showed up later with her friend Gail (Gale?) and escorted us to a Hilton right outside Philly for the Jazz concert.
We got there and the ladies went upstairs for a bit to change and freshen up. The silence of the ride over was slowly wearing me down, and as much as I wanted to play my heart out on the beautiful baby grand in the lobby, I was daunted by all the musicians milling around and instead sat down to draw. There was a giant mirror opposite me, and I was able to bang our a pretty good self-portrait. I might scan it later.
Aunt Faye came down, and chatted with me for a bit, and then introduced me to her good friend John who was the star fiddler for the show we were about to see.
The rest of them came down, and we went in (Tamika covered the 20$ it was to get in).
The show was just incredible. The dueling fiddles they had in there created such harmonies than it nearly drove me wild. And that was nothing against the power the piano, upright bass and drums displayed. It was incredible. The light was too low to get any good pictures, but I just pulled out my sketchbook and started drawing, letting the music flow around me. Aunt Faye was in ecstasy, bobbing her head and clapping to the music. It was phenomenal.
Without realizing it, I began drawing Tamika and I dancing. The dance floor in front of the band was empty, and as I drew an imaginary couple on it. I didn’t realize it until much later, when I noticed Tamika was looking over my shoulder, that I had slowly turned the couple into Tamika and I. I worked on it some more and added more detail, and then wrote on the bottom. “If I knew how, I’d ask you.”
She laughed. Impossible to read.
It was dumb anyways. 😛
She ordered some kind of pink alcoholic drink. She couldn’t finish it, and asked if I wanted it. I downed it. It was pretty good.
Aunt Faye took us to dinner next. Tamika and I shared a chicken alfredo and mushroom dish, which was delicious. She and Vinny paid for me, which was really nice.
The girls went back up the change, but I walked around with Aunt Faye. We talked a while, and I told her I wanted to learn how to dance to that kind of music. She said she thought it that was cool. She mentioned she really enjoyed being around us, with music uniting such a gap in age. She called me something like an “old soul.”
Later on, we all met up in the lobby, and I was describing what Aunt Faye and I had seen when we peeked in. This lady was really getting into it on stage and I mimicked her getting all wound up, and Vinny said something like “don’t ever do that in public again.” I bushed it off and ignored her, and Aunt Faye told her to leave me alone, and that I was going to learn how to dance. Vinny laughed at me and said “That’s only because we watched Dirty Dancing last night.”
I’m not sure why, but it really hurt. I mean it wasn’t much, but… I don’t know. It stung. What makes it worse is that she does really dumb and comical stuff all the time trying to be funny, but she had the audacity to shoot me down; the one time where I actually was getting along not to bad in a conversation.
I rode home completely in silence, feigning sleep in the back. I tried to get involved in the conversation a couple of times, but it didn’t work too well.
I’m over it now, but I just don’t understand why she does it. I suppose I should practice smart comebacks again and put my guard way up when it comes to being around her. I used to have a really smart mouth, but I’ve slowly gotten rid of it, … just because it wasn’t nice and I didn’t like it when people did it to me.
Maybe that’s why it hurts so much. Since my guard is so far down with Tamika, I have no defense against Vinny’s sarcasm.