New Year's Day started out tolerably well. I made coffee and we read the paper. I did chores while Kris baked a pecan pie for Ken and Crystal's traditional New Year's Day waffle party brunch.
Kris noticed our money ball was broken. It falls down sometimes when someone opens the curtains carelessly, and a couple of the coins have shattered. I don't believe in all that woo-woo stuff, but it was a fun little token and the first time we put it up, a check arrived in the mail, which was a happy thing to think about. Now we are facing disaster; perhaps the broken token is to blame.
I put happy little notes on about 10 jars of our homemade tomato sauce, to gift our neighbors, and we walked the block distributing them together. The notes read:
"Happy New Year from Michelle Kowkittycat McCord, Shadow "The Hugger" McCord, Impromptu Damkat (Underfoot) McCord, Kris McCord & Randy Winn!
We love our neighborhood and hope you enjoy the canned sunshine from 9018 13th.'
I really do love my neighborhood, and I have worked for years to make this the place where I am planted, to do my work and create my creations as long as I breath. I grieves me more than I can express that this may all fall apart because Kris decided not even to try to make our marriage work.
The party and Ken and Crystal's went pretty much as usual - lots of food, lots of chat - but with the extra sauce of Kris' angry depression emerging as she went about the task of getting drunk. We were latecomers but the waffles were available on demand and I took two, for this was to be my carbohydrate Last Hurrah. I am going on the serious diet thereafter, both for my blood pressure and also generally in service of developing my future.
There are people at that party who I see only at that party; their children grow year by year and what once were infants are now precocious schoolchildren. This is quite amusing. I had a long chat with one guy who is an IT professional and his wife, whose profession I forget, and their daughter who was the only girl present ... she was quite happy playing outside with the boys but ultimately they left her behind so she came in and played guessing games with us. This was fun.
I also had a long chat with a chiropractor named something like Chip and a little bit with his wife, also a chiro. The noteworthy thing about these conversations is that they were not monologues, but actual conversations, which was a noteworthy contrast to the general run of talk there and, for that matter, at too many parties.
Eventually the other guests drifted off. Kris had brought an expensive bottle of Amerone and with either that or some beer Ken found, went into the basement to discuss the marital difficulties everyone was having. She got literally stinking drunk - that is, I could smell her pores exuding that odor I would sometimes get from Eric when he had had way too much. She had difficulty walking and processing conversation; there was a noticeable pause when she took in what one had said and formulated a reply. Her facial expression was generally angry, and it was very interesting to see the way her eyebrows moved up and down as she reacted. I heard her talking to Ken and weeping as she told the story of Larry, not for the first time. She had told that story over and over, in much the same time, many times this year and to many people.
I was grateful that she had appeared to hold it together while most of the guests were present, although the chiropractors who were last to leave must have noticed something; they did not strike me as stupid.
Eventually Kris literally tottered into the living room, quite drunk and sat, peering at me and muttering darkly; when I asked if she would like something, that she would like to do something all right. For a moment it seemed she was thinking about hitting me with a cup of tea, but she then set it down untasted; I never did see her take a sip of anything without alcohol in it. From time to time she glared at me, and then looked at someone else and made a remark that may or may not have been relevant. She sure as hell wasn't talking to me even though I seated myself next to her on the couch and addressed her.
When it got to be 10 o'clock Ken and Crystal started their usual ineffectual attempts to get Karl to go to bed. He has their measure as parent fairly well, and played them for about 10 minutes, but was about to leave when Kris expressed interest in the Minecraft game he had been playing. He obligingly showed her some features while the parents watched helplessly; after all, their poor drunk friend wanted to see how a videogame worked so what could they do - they are only the parents, after all. It was disgusting. I can only hope that Karl didn't especially notice that the strange lady embracing him was drunk and decide that this was normal.
When Ken and Kris went into the kitchen to have another weepy conference, Crystal continued talking to me about something meaningless, like Minecraft of something. I had finally had enough; they were using my friendship and my good manners to pretend that nothing was going on, and the result was that Kris was getting drunk late (for her) at night before she had to go to work and I was being used for transportation and general entertainment. How long would I play my part?
When it got to be 10:30 PM I really had my doubts whether Kris intended ever to stop. I therefore asked Kris if she was working tomorrow; when she said yes, I said then it was time to go. She glared at me, but started to get up and figure out how to get her sweatshirt on (she hadn't worn a coat) when Crystal asked a question about CLE credit. Kris, who when sober has a great deal of experience helping lawyers with things like this, made a stern drunken gesture shushing us and proceeded to start helping her. This might have actually been useful, but in her inebriated state Kris could not absorb the information on the web pages which pretty clearly showed the problem - Crystal didn't know how to look up the WSBA MCLE ID of courses she had taken or to fill out a Form 1 for those that had no such ID. Kris was in no condition to help her which, considering her more than a decade of doing just that, is a testament to the amount of incapacity she had poured into her brain.
I looked over their shoulders and started giving directions; after a glare or two, Kris drifted off. It was, incidentally, quite interesting to see someone actually use some of the free CLE information I had posted, although I was somewhat disappointed to note that while one of the recordings was "expired" in Washington State; no-one had bothered to tell me so I could take it off the list for WA. Eventually I got Crystal set up; it was mostly just a question of following the directions on the website and it was quite discouraging to see how difficult that was for the user. It was also necessary to fill out a Form 1 for a couple of the courses, which should not have been either difficult or a surprise.
This ate up another half hour, which I didn't resent because it was an actual problem and could be solved, although the timing was highly inconsiderate. It was evident that Kris was not going to make a move toward going home and I was getting more than a little tired of dancing around the subject, so I came straight out and said that I was working tomorrow and was therefore going home, and asked if Kris was coming or staying. She seemed puzzled and angry but got her sweatshirt, and then another conversation broke out about what to do with the leftovers. Finally we got to the door and Ken and Crystal, who after all have been our friends for a long time and generally speaking good friends, gave the ritual thanks for our coming and hope that we would come again. I gave the ritual thanks, sincerely enough, and added that I expected our future visits to be dry, because alcoholism is a serious medical condition. They seemed vaguely puzzled at the non-ritual reply.
As I drove off carefully, for although I had had only one drink and that hours before, I was pretty sure others on the road might not have been so moderate, we said little at first but gradually turned to the usual topics. Kris seemed to express some sort of gratitude that I was being helpful, took my hand and used the line that we would somehow get through this; I suppose it's a real enough sentiment, but with a drunk who knows? it's also a way of avoiding taking responsibility.
Kris and I had a little conversation on the ride home. She was drunk, sad and confused but I am getting a little tired of her using that as a reason for not accepting that her problems are entirely of her own making. I asked her if she would set up an appointment with the Employee Assistance Program and, as before, she said that she would. This of course was just more drunk talk for "leave me alone".
Since the plan for tomorrow is to meet at the Y as usual, I asked how she wanted to keep paying for the Y. I had just switched it to the Amex and she wanted to close that down, so how should we continue it? (She had revealed to me that the Amex had been a source of worry to her. She seemed genuinely unaware that I had no access to that card's statement, since it came in her name, I avoided opening her mail, and when I asked about it, got annoyed. This seems to have been behind part of her professed surprise that I had thought it was an account that she used; I had always thought that it was her account since she never showed me the statement and when I asked about it, resisted showing me the statement and even expressed anger. She now claims that she never used it and seems to have resented paying for it. This entire source of friction between us was due to me not demanding forcefully enough to see the statement of a card which she refused to show me, and her not figuring out that I had concluded from this that it was a card that she used. That entire mess could have been avoided.)
So what am I to do? What is my duty to her? What is my duty to myself?
- I have to take care of my client who depend on me to handle their cases. None of this is their fault; if I can't give them 100% service then I need to hand them off in a timely way.
- I have to take care of my personal and financial well-being. This includes being entirely non-compromising as to my rights in my life savings and retirement plans, as invested in my home.
- If I can do the above and have bandwidth left over, I owe it to Kris to help her. I did love her, but I can't afford to do that anymore. Also, if she won't help herself, I'm also wasting my time. I had to cut Eric loose, I suppose I will have to cut Kris loose too. I am sad about this.
