“I’m tired of hearing about your whores Robin.
p.s. you need to get your stuff out of my apartment or I’m going to throw it all out. And you need to get your cat.”
This was part of an e-mail sent to me by my last American girlfriend Aelyssa. Given that she is in San Francisco, and I am in Europe, there isn't much I can do.
Weeks before that, she told me to check my storage space. My rent check was accidentally delivered to her sister, and she forwarded it to them.
The whole time I have been in France, we have stayed in touch with no fights. We sort of kept each other updated with what we are doing. Before I came here, it was she who broke up with me. She let me leave some of my belongings in her apartment, and she has been watching my two cats Mister Bradley and Walter Kitteh.
She had already moved on romantically and started seeing other people. I assumed it was safe to ask her for dating advice which I did a few times, but only in a very general way. I don’t know what made her turn.
Family trip
Aelyssa loves Disney. She likes the amusement parks, the films, the Disney-themed merchandise, and even the Disney-branded food. Each year, her family goes to the sprawling Disneyland amusement park near Los Angeles, California. This family event is like a summer version of a Christmas gathering, but it’s bigger. Aelyssa, her parents, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend_at_the_time with her sister’s toddler Colton, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, a few of her half-sisters, and half-brothers including the two Bubbas (Bubba W. Jones and Bubba C. Jones) attend.
Trump City, California
Most of this is to vent. I don’t complain about her family to her, but I need to complain somewhere. The people I’m complaining about chose to be the way they are despite being surrounded by good examples of how not to be that way and having plenty of chances to stop it.
1Bubba
I’ve mentioned the Bubbas before. Their names really are Bubba, and they are brothers. They are her half-brothers by her father Archie and a mother from a previous marriage. I was disgusted with the behavior of one of the Bubbas and shocked that she stays in contact with him.
One of her half brothers, I will refer to him as 1Bubba, made the front page of the local paper soon after Aelyssa and I moved in together.
One summer, 1Bubba was caring for a house where he lives in the Central Valley region of California while the owners were on vacation. It was a typical hot summer day in Fresno, California with a temperature around 120 degrees.There was a severe drought too. Because of the drought and water shortage, watering lawns was forbidden. Every plant including the trees, shrubs, weeds, and every blade of grass was dry tinder and would explode into flames upon contact with the tiniest spark. A tossed cigarette, a backfiring muffler, or a bullet ricocheting off a rock are all sufficient to spark a wildfire.
1Bubba has lived in that hot and dry region all his life. He has seen many droughts and wildfires. One day when 1Bubba went to check on his neighbor’s house, on his way out, he threw his cigarette in the bushes next to the house and drove away in his pickup truck. Predictably, the bushes burst into flames as soon as he was out of sight. The fire spread and burned down the house and some of the surrounding scrub land. Luckily, the fire department put it out before it burned more than a few acres.
Aunt Nidia and Uncle Bob
Aelyssa’s Aunt Nidia and Uncle Bob go on these trips too. Aunt Nidia, her Mother’s sister, is very warm and kindly. She reads. She has social skills, but her Uncle Bob is distant. Of everyone who goes to the vacation with Aelyssa’s family, Uncle Bob and Aunt Nidia are the only ones with an education except for Aelyssa and her sister. Both have not only completed high school but have been to college. Uncle Bob graduated from a university in Walla Walla, Washington with a degree in math and another in education, the same as Aunt Nidia. Uncle Bob likes to point that out whenever there is a family gathering. They now both teach school in the Central Valley in California and are near retirement age.
Uncle Bob is pedantic. He has a frowning little Hitler/cop mustache, weighs 350 pounds, and smells like sour cheese. He starts arguments, insults everyone at the family gatherings, and indirectly tells the rest of the family that he is better than them. Midway through any function, he starts tapping his watch and elbows Aunt Nidia and tells her it’s time to go.
Aelyssa, her sister, and parents have always complained about his behaviour since I met them. Aelyssa goes further and refers to him as a “Change Jangler.” They have observed that he puts one hand in his pockets and moves it around in a way that causes his pocket change to jangle loudly. As if it is not enough that his hand movements are disturbing, he “jangles his change” while leering at Aelyssa, her sister, or any other female old enough to have gone through puberty who happens to be within sight.
Aelyssa’s grandparents hated Uncle Bob so much that they cut their daughter Aunt Nidia out of their will when she married Uncle Bob. Before and after any family even that he attends, Aelyssa’s own parents grumble about him and threaten to never invite him to a family function or dinner after the last one. This happens several times a year. They keep inviting him because in their words, it is the “Christian thing to do.” They love Aunt Nidia, and want to see her, but they must invite both to maintain contact with her.
Uncle Bob’s hobby is playing with toy trains and programming computers in his basement. Of the entire clan, besides Aelyssa, he and Nidia are the only ones who read and who ever have read a book. That is only a slight exaggeration. Actually, her father read a few Louis Lamour Westerns novels when she was little, but he gave up reading long ago.
I like math and reading, and sometimes I write scientific software for work. I thought we might have something in common. Despite his off-putting outward appearance and bad reputation, I tried to connect with him. When first met him, I said I was a biologist without going into any detail. Simply saying “biologist” is less likely to sound pompous. He asked for details, so I explained that I’m a biophysicist and I research ion channels. I was studying the molecules that were responsible for night blindness. He looked confused and then became aggressive and seemed angry. The next day, he emailed Aelyssa and told her he had tried to find some papers I published on the subject, but could not find them. He wanted Aelyssa to ask me for them. I showed her where they were in Pubmed, the national medical research database and had her send him links. He wasn’t able to figure out how to click on the hyperlinks. They are also visible with a Google search using the same keywords. It went back and forth like this, for a couple of weeks but he never found them. He accused me of lying. Eventually Aelyssa emailed a few to him.
I felt like he was my mother accusing me of putting viruses on her computer after I had repaired her computer and put a firewall and antivirus software on it 20 years ago. I never spoke to him after that.
Uncle Zeek
I met Uncle Zeek once before his accident, but he doesn’t travel to family functions any more. Zeek is in his sixties and retired. He lives in the country somewhere in the Central Valley. Like 1Bubba, Zeek is famous because of a fire emergency he caused. Like many country people, he disposes of his trash by burning it. One day, he decided to burn his old Lay-Z Boy reclining chair. It would not catch fire so he poured gasoline on it, soaking it with gas from a jerrycan. He had spilled gas everywhere including all over his jeans. He walked away carrying the dripping jerry can with him; and set down the can at his feet. He then tossed a lit match on the chair. It burst into flame. As any twelve year old boy in his Pyromaniac stage would predict, the flame followed the trail of drips of gas to the can at Uncle Zeek’s feet. The can caught fire, and so did he. Specifically, his legs, groin, and his penis were burnt to a crisp. With third degree burns covering 70 percent of his body. He nearly died and spent several months in a hospital.
After the accident, I don’t know what I felt. Yes, he’s an old man. He will probably be in pain and bedridden for the rest of his life. How much sympathy does a knucklehead deserve? At some point, the empathy runs out. What I’m really sorry about is that he already had 6 kids by the time he burned off his testicles. Each of those six kids have their own children and, sadly, grandchildren. Most dropped out of school, few have jobs, none went to college, and some are in and out of jail. How stupid do you have to be to remove yourself from the gene pool this way? If he had roasted those nuts before he bred, he would have qualified for a Darwin Award.
p.s. you need to get your stuff out of my apartment or I’m going to throw it all out. And you need to get your cat.”
This was part of an e-mail sent to me by my last American girlfriend Aelyssa. Given that she is in San Francisco, and I am in Europe, there isn't much I can do.
Weeks before that, she told me to check my storage space. My rent check was accidentally delivered to her sister, and she forwarded it to them.
The whole time I have been in France, we have stayed in touch with no fights. We sort of kept each other updated with what we are doing. Before I came here, it was she who broke up with me. She let me leave some of my belongings in her apartment, and she has been watching my two cats Mister Bradley and Walter Kitteh.
She had already moved on romantically and started seeing other people. I assumed it was safe to ask her for dating advice which I did a few times, but only in a very general way. I don’t know what made her turn.
Family trip
Aelyssa loves Disney. She likes the amusement parks, the films, the Disney-themed merchandise, and even the Disney-branded food. Each year, her family goes to the sprawling Disneyland amusement park near Los Angeles, California. This family event is like a summer version of a Christmas gathering, but it’s bigger. Aelyssa, her parents, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend_at_the_time with her sister’s toddler Colton, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, a few of her half-sisters, and half-brothers including the two Bubbas (Bubba W. Jones and Bubba C. Jones) attend.
Trump City, California
Most of this is to vent. I don’t complain about her family to her, but I need to complain somewhere. The people I’m complaining about chose to be the way they are despite being surrounded by good examples of how not to be that way and having plenty of chances to stop it.
1Bubba
I’ve mentioned the Bubbas before. Their names really are Bubba, and they are brothers. They are her half-brothers by her father Archie and a mother from a previous marriage. I was disgusted with the behavior of one of the Bubbas and shocked that she stays in contact with him.
One of her half brothers, I will refer to him as 1Bubba, made the front page of the local paper soon after Aelyssa and I moved in together.
One summer, 1Bubba was caring for a house where he lives in the Central Valley region of California while the owners were on vacation. It was a typical hot summer day in Fresno, California with a temperature around 120 degrees.There was a severe drought too. Because of the drought and water shortage, watering lawns was forbidden. Every plant including the trees, shrubs, weeds, and every blade of grass was dry tinder and would explode into flames upon contact with the tiniest spark. A tossed cigarette, a backfiring muffler, or a bullet ricocheting off a rock are all sufficient to spark a wildfire.
1Bubba has lived in that hot and dry region all his life. He has seen many droughts and wildfires. One day when 1Bubba went to check on his neighbor’s house, on his way out, he threw his cigarette in the bushes next to the house and drove away in his pickup truck. Predictably, the bushes burst into flames as soon as he was out of sight. The fire spread and burned down the house and some of the surrounding scrub land. Luckily, the fire department put it out before it burned more than a few acres.
Aunt Nidia and Uncle Bob
Aelyssa’s Aunt Nidia and Uncle Bob go on these trips too. Aunt Nidia, her Mother’s sister, is very warm and kindly. She reads. She has social skills, but her Uncle Bob is distant. Of everyone who goes to the vacation with Aelyssa’s family, Uncle Bob and Aunt Nidia are the only ones with an education except for Aelyssa and her sister. Both have not only completed high school but have been to college. Uncle Bob graduated from a university in Walla Walla, Washington with a degree in math and another in education, the same as Aunt Nidia. Uncle Bob likes to point that out whenever there is a family gathering. They now both teach school in the Central Valley in California and are near retirement age.
Uncle Bob is pedantic. He has a frowning little Hitler/cop mustache, weighs 350 pounds, and smells like sour cheese. He starts arguments, insults everyone at the family gatherings, and indirectly tells the rest of the family that he is better than them. Midway through any function, he starts tapping his watch and elbows Aunt Nidia and tells her it’s time to go.
Aelyssa, her sister, and parents have always complained about his behaviour since I met them. Aelyssa goes further and refers to him as a “Change Jangler.” They have observed that he puts one hand in his pockets and moves it around in a way that causes his pocket change to jangle loudly. As if it is not enough that his hand movements are disturbing, he “jangles his change” while leering at Aelyssa, her sister, or any other female old enough to have gone through puberty who happens to be within sight.
Aelyssa’s grandparents hated Uncle Bob so much that they cut their daughter Aunt Nidia out of their will when she married Uncle Bob. Before and after any family even that he attends, Aelyssa’s own parents grumble about him and threaten to never invite him to a family function or dinner after the last one. This happens several times a year. They keep inviting him because in their words, it is the “Christian thing to do.” They love Aunt Nidia, and want to see her, but they must invite both to maintain contact with her.
Uncle Bob’s hobby is playing with toy trains and programming computers in his basement. Of the entire clan, besides Aelyssa, he and Nidia are the only ones who read and who ever have read a book. That is only a slight exaggeration. Actually, her father read a few Louis Lamour Westerns novels when she was little, but he gave up reading long ago.
I like math and reading, and sometimes I write scientific software for work. I thought we might have something in common. Despite his off-putting outward appearance and bad reputation, I tried to connect with him. When first met him, I said I was a biologist without going into any detail. Simply saying “biologist” is less likely to sound pompous. He asked for details, so I explained that I’m a biophysicist and I research ion channels. I was studying the molecules that were responsible for night blindness. He looked confused and then became aggressive and seemed angry. The next day, he emailed Aelyssa and told her he had tried to find some papers I published on the subject, but could not find them. He wanted Aelyssa to ask me for them. I showed her where they were in Pubmed, the national medical research database and had her send him links. He wasn’t able to figure out how to click on the hyperlinks. They are also visible with a Google search using the same keywords. It went back and forth like this, for a couple of weeks but he never found them. He accused me of lying. Eventually Aelyssa emailed a few to him.
I felt like he was my mother accusing me of putting viruses on her computer after I had repaired her computer and put a firewall and antivirus software on it 20 years ago. I never spoke to him after that.
Uncle Zeek
I met Uncle Zeek once before his accident, but he doesn’t travel to family functions any more. Zeek is in his sixties and retired. He lives in the country somewhere in the Central Valley. Like 1Bubba, Zeek is famous because of a fire emergency he caused. Like many country people, he disposes of his trash by burning it. One day, he decided to burn his old Lay-Z Boy reclining chair. It would not catch fire so he poured gasoline on it, soaking it with gas from a jerrycan. He had spilled gas everywhere including all over his jeans. He walked away carrying the dripping jerry can with him; and set down the can at his feet. He then tossed a lit match on the chair. It burst into flame. As any twelve year old boy in his Pyromaniac stage would predict, the flame followed the trail of drips of gas to the can at Uncle Zeek’s feet. The can caught fire, and so did he. Specifically, his legs, groin, and his penis were burnt to a crisp. With third degree burns covering 70 percent of his body. He nearly died and spent several months in a hospital.
After the accident, I don’t know what I felt. Yes, he’s an old man. He will probably be in pain and bedridden for the rest of his life. How much sympathy does a knucklehead deserve? At some point, the empathy runs out. What I’m really sorry about is that he already had 6 kids by the time he burned off his testicles. Each of those six kids have their own children and, sadly, grandchildren. Most dropped out of school, few have jobs, none went to college, and some are in and out of jail. How stupid do you have to be to remove yourself from the gene pool this way? If he had roasted those nuts before he bred, he would have qualified for a Darwin Award.
