Ok, so maybe I stole the title of this post from a strokes song, but still, it seems fitting to the situation. I am leaving Paris tomorrow, and I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone by. It seems so surreal and weird that APA is over, mom's visit is over (well, they're leaving tomorrow also), Paris is over, France is over. Of course, the city and country continue to exist, but my time here is over. it's strange because the abstract, mental notion of time, the hours, the days, weeks and months, is certainly over, that i cannot contest. but, my sense of time, the piece of my life i had allocated to this experience, that does not feel done or over at all. i doubt it ever really will, it's similar to how i feel at the end of camp each summer but more exagerrated because i've been here for 5 months. It makes me nervous about graduating next year, even though that's still a year away! Normally I would say a year is a long time, but since the last 5 months took place in 3 hours, I'm not so sure anymore.
Anyways, I don't feel ready to leave, even though; a) i'm super excited for my grande voyage europeenne with amandatron, b) i do miss america and my family c) i was ready to let to academic semester fall peacefully into the night, ride off into the sunset, etc etc, actually i was pretty glad to kick this academic semester in the ass until it surrendered, defeated and wimpering, d) i'm really excited about being in LA for the little chunk of summer I will be there, and e) this was the most amazing experience and I'm so grateful i was able to have such a truly dream-like and wonderful opportunity.
Mom and Aunt Judy's visit has been mixed, to be honest. I think we all drove each other a little crazy, as Noah said, what happens when you put 3 breslers in to a 2 person apartment for 10 days? Add humidity to that equation and the answer you get is MADNESS! Not really, nothing insane happened, but first I was mad at my mom and then both my mom and i got fed up with my aunt. I was mad at my mom cause the morning my aunt got here, when my mom had already been here for 2 days, she told me my cats "had disappeared." We got these cats when I was 8, making them 13 years old, and they have been with my family as cherished pets for these last 13 years, except for recently they've been driving my parents insane with their nasty habit of peeing and shitting in random places around our house. Ok so I admit, this is disgusting and very bad of the cats, but a) i think they do it partially because they're old and incontinent, and b) partially because they can sense that my parents hate them/harbor resentment to them and want to punish my parents in some weird way. So, a few months ago, my parents told me they were going to start keeping the cats outdoors more, when they had always been indoor cats up till that point. I said ok as long as the cats always came home and were always fed and safe. Well, turns out, first Lucy ran away for a FEW WEEKS, then came back, then Fidget, my baby, my kitten, the one I picked out myself when i was 8 one summer day in the adoption fair at Petco because he was sitting in the water dish which I thought was funny, disappeared and did not come back. Then a little while later, like 10 days, Lucy ran away and also didn't come back. My mom says this to me in a nonchalent, these are the facts voice, no passion or emotion, it did not seem like she was affected at all. What's more this happened over a month ago, and she waited to tell me until she could tell me in person in Paris, then she decided to tell me in front of my aunt as we're having breakfast?!?!?!!! yeah, good plan mom, that'll lessen the blow that my beloved cats are gone, good thinking. Ugh!!! I asked her what they did to try to find them, and long story short, not much. No posters around the neighborhood, no midnight drives to see if they're around, they called the pound a few times and checked the lost animal registry. My brother said it seemed almost like they were glad, like their prayers had been answered and the stupid cats who shit on the floors were off their hands. Obviously I was incredibly incredibly upset, yelled at my mom about not doing more to find them, discussed everything with my brother to get his opinion, he agreed that our parents weren't proactive enough to find them, then i cried on skype to annie, sent a few passionate and angry and sad emails (ie hysteric rantings) to some people, and cried for most of the morning. It is so so so upsetting to me to think that they're gone, I can't stop wondering what kind of animal ripped them apart and ate them or what kind of car hit them in the road. It's just terrible! And I was SOOO looking forward to coming home and seeing them again, I have really missed them these last months. I feel very betrayed by my parents about this, I don't know why they thought elderly cats who had been indoor all their lives could suddenly transition to being outdoor cats, and i REALLY REALLY don't understand why they didn't do anything sooner, didn't put them back inside after lucy ran away the first time, and most importantly, why they didn't do more to try to find them once they were gone. Even if they were a bit glad to be rid of the burden, which i do have a problem with if they did feel that, they should have thought, gee our kids are super attached to these cats adn they will be crushed if the cats are never seen again, we should do more to try to get them back. you don't just shrug your shoulders and say oh well when your pets of 13 years run off, you do something about it and put in an honest effort. Obviously I'm still really angry, upset, and very very sad about the whole situation, but also it hasn't even really hit me because I haven't gone home to my house and seen it cat-less. It's a pretty traumatic way to lose a pet if you ask me, and I also lost a lot of respect for my parents.
I didn't continue to act mad at my mom because she's in Paris and I didn't want to ruin the visit, but I'm still deeply hurt. I didn't want to blog about it until now because it's still very fresh and raw and writing about it is upsetting. Makes it seem more real. Also, my aunt began getting on my nerves, taking the attention off how upset with my mom I was. Aunt Judy just has some quirks and personality traits that wore down my nerves, nothing noteworthy really, just a general lack of consideration because she lives alone and isn't used to thinking of others when for example, getting the groceries. When all you come home with is loquats, whole milk, stinky cheese and cheese danish, there will be a problem. And she is very set in her ways, likes to be right, enjoys feeling superior as the winner of an argument, and will continue to argue on ridiculous premises that she has zero knowledge base for even when she is being proved wrong by many many people/sources. (example, she STILL thinks that the euro is less than the dollar, after having it explained to her 10000 times and being in France for a week, she insists still that 20 euros is like 15 dollars, when really its more like 30 dollars.)
Anyways, despite those details and the news of my cats, my last week in paris has been fun, we've seen a lot, been to many museums, adn the weather hasn't been terrible, and i ate two different croque provencales from different places that were scrumptious, not to mention, we ate lots of good dinners out. we didn't see all i wanted to, but it was a good week nonetheless, and i bought a sundress for 20 euro!!
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