For the Amusement of Strangers

My sister Margie and I grabbed a quick bite at Taco Cabana today, over by Burnet and 183. It was midafternoon, and not many other people were in the restaurant. And we were talking very frank girl talk, and I did notice after a while that the two guys a couple of tables over from us were being completely silent.

Well, it's good to bring a little happiness into the life of a stranger.

Margie was telling me how she was just at Mount Bonnell the other night with this guy she really likes, but he has a girlfriend. Still, apparently he's willing to hang out with her in a city park at 3am, so who knows how long that's going to last.

"We found some guy's cell phone there," she said. "Just lying on the ground. We used it to make a bunch of crank calls."

She's actually my half sister.

I reminded her of the time she lost her cell phone near the hike and bike, and a jogger found it, and called the first person in her address book - Beth. And he waited there until I arrived to pick it up. And as he handed me the phone, I noticed that her tagline at the top of the screen was "Chicken Fucker," which he didn't comment on, and neither did I, because what can you really say about that?

So wouldn't karma dictate, I asked, that she track down the guy whose phone she had found and give it back to him?

"Oh, we got it to him," she said, picking idly at a scab on her palm. "He was really happy! We just crank-called a bunch of people in his address book first."

"What happened to your hand?" I asked her.

"Oh," she said, "I scraped it up on Mount Bonnell, trying to get loose when I caught my foot in a crack in a rock. I was like this," and she demonstrated, lifting one leg above her, "and as if that weren't bad enough I was wearing a skirt..."

If the guys at the next table were laughing, I couldn't hear them over myself. "And you were with this guy you have a big crush on?!"

"Plus I was having my period," she went on. "So I'm there with my foot over my head and my skirt around my waist and a big pad saying, 'Turn around! Turn around!'"

We're different, Margie and I. I'm pretty sure that if that happened to me, I would just write off the crush and never see him again. True love isn't everything. But she seems okay with it.

I expect the guys at the next table were impressed.

Housesitting

Margie is housesitting at her ex-boyfriend's place.

It is, oh my God, y'all, SO totally cool. It's on Holly Street, and is an art-house do-over of one of the modest little 1920s bungalows there, all of two minutes away from downtown. Some dense shrubbery conceals most of the front, so all you can see is a glimpse of a small, ordinary house with a nice front porch. Margie leads me through the front yard, past the facade, when I arrive, through an attractive garden at the side of the property.

The original house is on a gigantic lot, easily a full acre or more. It's been divided into a duplex, front and back, with a common laundry room and bathroom between. Behind is another two-story structure - Margie's ex's place, a loft apartment with stained concrete and mosaic floors and a Mediterranean, mirror-tiled stairway leading to the second story balcony. A fountain plays outside.

Across the courtyard from this and the original house is the building housing the common kitchen, with an immense covered patio at the back. The faint gas smell and lofty ceilings inside remind me of the coop where I lived in college. Renters take turns maintaining the yard, cooking, and cleaning, and their cats and dogs have free play of the property, none seeming to mind each other; though Margie's ex's dog has a few loudly vocal altercations with either some raccoons in the woods, or perhaps a familly of laryngitic banshees. It's hard to tell.

Behind that is a yard with a fireplace, lawn chairs, and cement-block benches. Further back still is what Margie tells me is a "guest trailer," plus another small building serving as a communal restroom, and a further area, screened off by bamboo, with some more structures where she tells me other people live, so we don't venture there. Another building in the back houses a garage and studio space. I can't see it very well in the dark.

Margie and I talk about anything and everything, It leads around eventually to Mom, and how I dream about her frequently and about how in my dreams I always know she is dead, and even talk to her about this, yet never really seem to resolve anything. Margie says she dreams about Mom every single night, but often they are fighting. By the end of this part of the conversation we are both in tears.

We talk about men, and about life, and about all the other things that generally plague human beings (specificailly women) on this planet. We look at some pictures of David Bowie. We hug. Margie is the closest person to me on the face of this earth.

Let's have a party before her ex comes home!