Soirée

When we got to the house, Em claimed to have a headache. She does get migraines that make her puke, but I smelled bullshit.

Plus, we'd been driving behind a truck on the highway, so I figured there was a chance it was diesel fumes that came in because when I don't put my car heater on outside air, the windows fog up no matter what else I do.



She tried to sit in the car, refusing to come in. Refused all logic: here there will be a toilet you can puke in if you're going to puke. In my car, you'll make a disgusting mess for me to clean up. Here, there'd probably be a bed you can lie down on if you need to.



Ten seconds after we were through the front door, the headache was gone. She realized she knew everyone here except the host, who's the significant other of someone she does know. Plus, there were good things to eat, cookies to decorate, punch to drink.



I'm struck at how far Mo has come. She'd have taken the joint apart piece by piece at one time. She did go about blowing out every candle she could get to, a compulsion she developed a few years back from an unfortunate combination of Blues Clues and the OCD component of autism. She doesn't dislike candles, but she can't suffer a lit one. She's happy to have you re-light it, just so she can immediately blow it back out.

She rocked in the corner for a bit, maiming one of my friend's kiddos when he stuck a toe under the runner of the rocking chair, but otherwise doing no damage. After awhile, she took off her shoes and socks, and I don't know if this makes her a hillbilly, but I knew she'd decided she was comfortable with the place.



Mo wouldn't try the punch, though. I'm sure she would have liked it, but she was looking for conventional soda. By the time I thought to call the punch 'soda' (it was effervescent after all), she'd already heard me call it punch. So obviously I was trying to poison her.



This post, by the way, goes with a shout out to an old high school classmate who got ahold of me via this blog. When people ask me why the hell I do this, or who the hell would care, I never have a very good answer. Then I get this sort of random positive reinforcement. So hey, Roger, good to hear from you. I'll work on that getting-Julie-to-the-reunion thing. And no, you're not mistaken about who all is in these pictures.