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Jul. 21st, 2008 11:01 amCordelia and I didn't get to Art Fair until Saturday. Thursday, we got downtown for errands but could get a ride home if we didn't take time for Art Fair. Cordelia wanted the playdate that went with that, so she didn't protest. Friday, I set getting her room clean as a prerequisite with a rider that I wasn't willing to leave after 10 a.m. She cleaned her room (after much fuss) at 3:30 and was hugely disappointed that I didn't immediately reward her with time at Art Fair.
Saturday, we put off going for a little while. The #2 bus is once an hour until just before 1:00, and it was raining off and on. As it turned out the delays were perfect, not because of the bus schedule or because of the weather but because of who we ran into at the bus stop.
When we got to the bus stop, there was no one there, but another mother and her son arrived fairly soon. The little boy was about Cordelia's size but acted a bit younger. The kids played a bit while the mother and I eyed each other. I thought that she looked really, really familiar and was trying to figure out where I knew her from. Recognizing people with kids near Cordelia's age isn't rare. It can be anything from going to the same kids events to having passed each other a few times at the library.
Finally, she said, "Are you [my mother's name]'s daughter?" When I said yes, she told me who she is. She's a friend of my mother's from my high school days. (I think, in age, she's mid-way between the two of us.) They'd lost touch over the last couple of years because my mother's been busy dealing with her father and her own health difficulties and so didn't know this woman, C., had moved.
Basically, C. adopted a little boy four plus years ago. She's white, and he's black. She discovered pretty fast that the town where she lived had a lot more racism than she'd previously realized, so when she saw a good job down here, she jumped at it. She wanted to get out of there before he started school.
She and her son have been living two blocks from us for two years now, and we didn't know. The kids are about eight months apart in age. That's enough that they won't be in kindergarten together (pity that) without being enough to keep them from having fun playing together.
C. is kind of family. She was more or less my mother's best friend for a while, I think. She stayed with us for a little while when I was in high school, after having a serious falling out with her mother.
This is kind of like discovering that one of my cousins has been living nearby for years. I've no idea how much we'll have in common, but we'll try. I suspect that she doesn't have a lot to her life right now outside of her son and her fulltime job. If I'm remembering correctly, she split up with her partner of many years over the question of adopting a child. (I rather hope that I'm remembering wrong. Being a single parent is damned hard. Rewarding, too, but... And moving to a strange place on top of being a single parent. Yeah. Hard is about the only word for it.)
I'm very excited but also apprehensive. I hope this turns out to be a good thing all around. It could be.
Saturday, we put off going for a little while. The #2 bus is once an hour until just before 1:00, and it was raining off and on. As it turned out the delays were perfect, not because of the bus schedule or because of the weather but because of who we ran into at the bus stop.
When we got to the bus stop, there was no one there, but another mother and her son arrived fairly soon. The little boy was about Cordelia's size but acted a bit younger. The kids played a bit while the mother and I eyed each other. I thought that she looked really, really familiar and was trying to figure out where I knew her from. Recognizing people with kids near Cordelia's age isn't rare. It can be anything from going to the same kids events to having passed each other a few times at the library.
Finally, she said, "Are you [my mother's name]'s daughter?" When I said yes, she told me who she is. She's a friend of my mother's from my high school days. (I think, in age, she's mid-way between the two of us.) They'd lost touch over the last couple of years because my mother's been busy dealing with her father and her own health difficulties and so didn't know this woman, C., had moved.
Basically, C. adopted a little boy four plus years ago. She's white, and he's black. She discovered pretty fast that the town where she lived had a lot more racism than she'd previously realized, so when she saw a good job down here, she jumped at it. She wanted to get out of there before he started school.
She and her son have been living two blocks from us for two years now, and we didn't know. The kids are about eight months apart in age. That's enough that they won't be in kindergarten together (pity that) without being enough to keep them from having fun playing together.
C. is kind of family. She was more or less my mother's best friend for a while, I think. She stayed with us for a little while when I was in high school, after having a serious falling out with her mother.
This is kind of like discovering that one of my cousins has been living nearby for years. I've no idea how much we'll have in common, but we'll try. I suspect that she doesn't have a lot to her life right now outside of her son and her fulltime job. If I'm remembering correctly, she split up with her partner of many years over the question of adopting a child. (I rather hope that I'm remembering wrong. Being a single parent is damned hard. Rewarding, too, but... And moving to a strange place on top of being a single parent. Yeah. Hard is about the only word for it.)
I'm very excited but also apprehensive. I hope this turns out to be a good thing all around. It could be.
