L'esprit de l'escalier is that remark you think of making, only too late to make it. How often in life do we think of just the perfect retort five minutes or an hour too late, as we walk down the stairs away from the scene of our humiliation.
Kris texted me about moving our Zeek's meeting to this evening. We had previously agreed to meet there when we had serious topics to discuss, and she requested a meeting soon to discuss something. I said I was available any evening; she said the only evening free was Friday. Fine with me.
But tonight she texted that she was late to class at the Y and so wanted to meet at Zeek's. Also fine; I stopped what I was doing and drove over.
Pizza and drinks were $67 including tip; she gave me $40 cash so I'm out only about $27 but a meal of moderate quality. Our discussion centered on her desire to move out of the house but not be burdened by the mortgage. I said that surely her lawyers could come up with paperwork to effectuate that intent. She said it had been over a year and I had done nothing on this; I said that I'd cooperated with whatever was required and asked what might be my motivation for hurrying things along. She answered by asking some other question I don't recall, and I pointed out that she had not provided me with any motivation. She is, to the surprise of no-one, able to conceptualize or perhaps only to verbalize the desires or interest of another. I explained, as I had several times before, the advantages of filing taxes jointly instead of individually; she declined to accept that that was any advantage at all. She said that she wanted to buy her own house and couldn't while she was attached to this one. I allowed how that might be true and went into the math of how making me whole didn't really pencil out. However since each of us was entitled to half the value to pensions accumulated during the marriage we might take the easy path, leave me the house, leave each of us our pensions, and walk away. It would have been better to put things on paper and so on, but she's not that way.
After a while, Kris became more interested in what was going on on her phone; distracted even as I talked. The occasional glance is no big deal but as I paid the check she had her head down, and then asked for a ride home. Normally I would give a ride; it's basic manners, but it seemed very odd that she was abandoning her second beer half drunk. I have never seen that before in her.
I asked if Hope was ok, and she said it wasn't Hope. She said Ken was having serious problems. I commiserated. Karma is indeed paying him in full, and regrettably it is washing over his son as well.
As I drove home, Kris did as she has before as said in an off hand way that she had a date on Friday. It was her distant cousin McCord, which I find funny and pathetic; I observed that some people just have to find their father. She objected that she never knew her father, and I agreed. But it is so.
She objected that she just wanted to go out and have a good time, and I agreed.
Kris was texting as I drove; I am glad that we had settled and split our phone accounts because this behavior would have otherwise been unsupportable. She said she wanted to shut the door, and I said what if for the sake of the cats I reopened it at 1am; she was fine with that. So now she is texting with her latest infatuation and planning how best to piss her life away, which is no business of mine except where it threatens my haven.
I really have more important things to do. The meeting at TPI yesterday was awesome, and when I dropped by with Cyril today to drop off some thank-you cookies, I shook hands with Jorge who thanked me for my email. Poor Kris! had she more vision or at least more patience, she would have the high life she desires and about which I care not at all.
Karma is indeed a bitch. But I have work to do. I don't think I will waste any more money or time at restaurant merely for the sake of being told someone else is having a date; surely this could have been handled in a text. But that is a remark I thought of only on the stair.
