People still think they are me

Or am I actually the wrong person? I am not sure anymore. My secret disposable Gmail account keeps getting appropriated by others with similar names, and it’s like having a window into arcane and hideous secrets of existence. I live in my own head, first and foremost, and some of my scariest moments as a child involved seeing myself in a mirror and realizing “I am a person! I am three-dimensional! I am ME!” But in my old age, I have realized that it is far worse to be other people.

January 29
Heidi to Alan, Nina, Lisa, me, Eric, Maggie
not sure if you guys have seen this..but i love this audition. I’ve seen the video many times. haha…
the beginning part made me laugh so hard because Nick does that a lot also.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HifybwoujTk

January 29
Y. Lisa to Heidi, Alan, Nina, me, Eric, Maggie
Hehe, Alan and I saw that last week on American Idol. They were awesome!

Which part exactly does Nick do all of the time? I’m curious….

January 29
Heidi to Lisa, Alan, Nina, me, Eric, Maggie
the “chicka bow wow” part.

It’s from axe deodorant comerical. Of course Nick doesn’t do it with such skill.

January 30
Y. Lisa to Heidi, Alan, Nina, me, Eric
Oh, haha…do you chime in with your “ow wow”? Hehe! A duet!

November 14, 2007
Hello [my first name],

I was talking with Louise the other day and she mentioned that you were curious about me and what I looked like.

Jody and I have a Wedding website you are more then welcome to check out. You probably haven’t seen Jody in a while either. We have our engagement photo on the site.

http://www.weddingbells.ca

If you can’t get it to work just let me know and I can email the photograph.

Take care,

Kate C–

P.S. Louise said she had told you I was of a German background. Actually, my Dad was in the military and I was born in Germany because he was posted there. My family name is actually Old English, the first part Cowper ( should be Cooper, the ancestors couldn’t spell) means a barrel maker and Waite means a clearing. We have done some genealogy and we can trace back 14 generations in England, which is kind of cool, though, both sides of my family have been in Canada for several generations.

September 26, 2007
Someone in Australia named Marena requested that someone named Janet forward this along to me!
FW: no 83 [I am itching to read numbers 1 through 82, let me assure you]

“….
While all this was happening Gordon was in South Africa. We always give him a list of stuff to buy there, and he is very good about it. So on 26 July he arrived back, armed with a suitcase filled with drugs: Sudafed, Codis, Bezerol, Rohypnol (stuff we can’t buy here), his own medication, and lots more. As he approached Quarantine he noticed a big sign: “Channel 7 is filming ‘Border Patrol’ today”. He almost had a heart attack – what if they find all those pills and he is filmed on national television for the whole world to see him as a drug dealer! Fortunately he seemed small fry and he shot through without a hitch.
….
We joined John and Carol for an evening of Peruvian singing by one of that country’s famous singers. Not my cup of tea. It was a long evening, everything in Spanish (she did not have one word of English) and the music was pretty much the same – uninteresting and loud. Pity to waste so much time and money and not enjoy the evening.
….
The Ski Saga

Before Gordon knew that he had to go to Chicago, we had planned a trip to the snow fields. (We haven’t been for a few years, due to knee ops and such.) We booked our usual Adaminaby cottage and to make it a bit more reasonable, we invited several people to join us. One after another they fell by the wayside, and then Gordon got summoned to Chicago. I was willing to cancel the whole trip but he insisted that I still went. In the end only John (40, unmarried) was still able and keen to go, and then I managed to cajole and bribe Maria and Eric to join us for the weekend. John and I were leaving on the Thursday and coming back the Monday. Then, the day before departure, the owners of the cottage phoned to say the sudden warm weather had the snow melting and did we still want to do it. I consulted John and my children and all of them said they’d still like to go, whether they ski or not. So the trip went ahead. I bought the food, packed the car, made the padkos, locked up the house and when John arrived we were on the road within five minutes. We had a few hitches along the road with wrong directions and ended up driving the last hour in the dark through a kangaroo infested national park on a dirt road. But we got there in the end, had our liquid refreshments and psyched ourselves up for the morrow.

We woke to a rather miserable day, with rain hovering on the mountains tops. John had never ski-ed before and booked in for a lesson straight away. I tried out my ski legs on my own and found that the few years of absence and the increasing years have not been kind to me. In addition, by the time we got to the slopes, it was raining quite hard, also sleeting and snowing at intervals. We were sopping, dripping wet, but determined to persevere. I had about an hour of braving the elements when I decided to take a brief break. I took off my skis, put them in the ski racks that are all over the place and went to the loo. By the time I got back, about 2 minutes later, some low life had nicked my skis!! I was devastated, and there was absolutely nothing I could do. My lift pass, a whopping $70 for the half day, was useless and a waste of all that money. I was not happy. Not at all. After John’s lesson (by then he was a wreck – he is not very fit) we went home, calling in at the ski hire place. They were very kind and I only had to pay TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS instead of $600+ for new skis, and then I had to hire more for the rest of the time. There was a bit of ranting and raving that night, and I still get viciously angry when I think about it.

Maria et al arrived that night, but well after midnight. We had a brief visit together in the morning but John had booked another lesson, so off he and I went, leaving the young ones to amuse themselves. In the end they didn’t even attempt to ski and just had a lazy weekend, showing Becky the farm animals and chilling out together.

That night we had a lovely braai outside around a big fire with the Murrumbidgee River flowing a few metres away. By then it had turned cold again and every morning we woke to heavy frost.

Sunday morning we left for the ski fields again, and Maria and family went home. John was getting on quite nicely, but unfortunately my enthusiasm had disappeared and I found it quite a struggle to go to the toilet and everywhere else with my skis glued to my body. There was no way I was leaving them anywhere again. So I had a few runs, a few hard falls, and started wondering if I was not getting too old for the game.

Monday morning we left for home. What a to-do about almost nothing, as far as I’m concerned.

Well, the rest of my letter contains just a few incidental snippets, like

Eventually getting the cleaners in again every fortnight (Gordon: “So I don’t have to feel guilty about not helping”.)
…. [and then the incidental snippets continued for another 2 pages]

Life is a miracle. What a to-do about almost nothing.

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