It's a Grab Bag Friday
There were so many things I wanted to rant about that I may just have to take up a bit of bandwidth here today.

Meet the Aunts
So N's family from across the sea came over to visit the family members that live on this side of the pond, and that included the obligatory dinner with N to meet me the 'new fiance'. I wasn't as nervous about meeting these 'distant relatives' as I was about meeting the 'rents' and the 'big sis' but I was... unsettled. They were nice. That is, if you can truely form an opinion of someone after 3 hours. The 'rents' and the big sis drove the aunt and the cousin to our house and they were all there waiting when I pulled into the driveway after work. So, I brought them inside and settled them in. Nothing like meeting the family of your beloved without your actual beloved there to 'buffer' a bit. I made polite conversation and while settling everyone in had to intervene when 'the aunt' tried to 'knee' the ottoman out of the way to get more comfortable in the 'big overstuffed chair with ottoman combo'. You see, my ottoman is hollow and I use it to store my dumbbells and all the plates. The damn thing weighs over 80 pounds and is VERY un-keeable. So I scoot it out a bit and explain to the room that it's heavy because of aforementioned weights. 'The cousin' seems impressed and says "ooo! Does N lift dumbbells?"

You know, in movies, when someone asks a question and the whole room goes quiet and everyone turns to stare at the person who's the target of the question? I swear that's what happened. I wanted to just slink away, but instead had to say. "Ah, no, they're mine."

I think it took a moment or two for those words to sink into her head. And she tried, very hard to come up with an appropriate answer but to no avail. It was like the idea of a woman lifting weights wouldn't pass through the filters in her brain. It was just too... AMERICAN. And it brought to light one of my biggest fears around N's family. Being TOO American.

Apparently I made up for my Americaness later though because as 'the family' was leaving and the hugs goodbye were being passed, 'the cousin' gave me a squeeze and whispered in my ear 'I have a feeling we are going to be related very soon!' And she managed to sounded HAPPY about it.

Buddy can you spare a dime
As you may have deduced we live very near a large city. As a matter of fact before my financial situation deemed otherwise I used to live in said large city. Don't get me wrong, we don't live close enough to be considered 'the suburbs' but we are close enough to consider 'the city' a viable evening destination point. My job often takes me there for various meetings as well.

As is true in most large cities we have a homeless population. A very LARGE homeless population. And to my chagrin, yours truly seems to be a homeless person magnet. I cannot walk through the streets without being approached. Even when walking with a large group of people I'm the one who gets singled out every time. I don't know why. One of my friends said it was because "You look like Fifty cents". Before I could get in a snit about being told I look like a two bit whore he went on to explain that I looked like I was an easy mark, good for at least 'fifty cents'.

I have no idea what I do wrong. I don't make eye contact. I walk briskly and with purpose and try to appear as 'unapproachable' as possible, but still, they come. And I don't hand out money either! When approached I usually try desperately to shrink into myself and murmur a quiet. "No, I'm sorry" or "No thank you". Of course my friends try to tell me that this is exactly the problem. That instead I should fly into a rage and start screaming obscenities at them. But I couldn't even do that in practice. It's just not in me to be rude to someone I don't know well enough to be rude to.

But the strangest thing is that MOST of the time I'm not approached for money. At least that's not what they say directly. Once a lady stopped me to tell me she loved my glasses and she wanted to find out where I bought them. I've been followed for blocks by men telling me how amazingly blue my eyes are, or how much they like my legs. One lady though it her duty to tell me "GIRL! That outfit just doesn't go right, I'm sorry girl! But that just doesn't go right". This from the lady in pee stained jeans, a pink sweater and lime green scarf.

Yesterday, coming back from lunch I was doing my best to not look like fifty cents when it happened again. I hear this voice, and it came from the man walking toward me with hair and a beard that you would swear nested birds and probably a mouse or two. He shouted at me as we passed..."I like your shoes!"