Empty Nest

When I posted my last entry, I was hoping that one form of childish magical thinking actually was true: If I did not talk about it, it would not happen.  The events of this past week have proven me wrong.  I avoided the subject in my blog, in my emails to friends, and in my diary, but feel that I should pass along the news to the people who follow this blog.

Susie will be living in Florida for the foreseeable future.  This came about because, despite her stellar grades at The Charles School, and being one of 20 students admitted to Ohio Dominican University's Early College program, she was quite unhappy at Charles, and said she would have a nervous breakdown if she returned there in the fall.  Steph emailed me to tell me that Susie had been asking about what the schools are like in Merritt Island.

And (just my luck!), Steph happens to live in one of the few places in Florida where the schools are actually half decent.  We did not force Susie to make a decision one way or the other, mainly because it would cast a pall over her entire time in Romania, and prevent her from enjoying the trip.  Steph and Mike came to Columbus the Saturday night after Susie's return from Eastern Europe, and we reached the decision in an emotional session at Susie's counselor's office--Steph, Susie, and me, with a Kleenex box very handy.

Susie informed her friends that evening, when the parents and kids who went on the Romania trip gathered at the Unitarian Universalist church for a pálinka tasting (a fruit brandy indigenous to the Carpathian Basin).  This was sad news, especially as they were reeling from the taste of the brandy (I drank Sprite, and was glad I did, judging from the reactions of people who drank).

Susie's last hurrah in Columbus was the Saturday before she left.  She marched in the Gay Pride Parade with her friends from the Kaleidoscope Youth Center.  I went downtown with her, and we wandered back and forth among the floats and the banners on Front St. before she found some Kaleidoscope kids, so I left her with them and went back to find a place to shoot some pictures.

I had plenty of pride (lower-case p) when they came marching up Broad St. and turned the corner onto N. High.  Not only was Susie with the Kaleidoscope contingent, she was proudly carrying a Pride flag.

She told me later that she wished it had been the Bisexual Pride Flag, much like the one she had designed for herself for the Pride parade two years earlier.  Also, she showed the usual teenage embarrassment when she saw Dad there on the curb with his camera out.  She must not have minded all that much, because by evening, it was her Profile picture on Facebook.

Susie carrying the Pride flag on W. Broad St. during the Columbus Gay Pride parade, June 22, 2013.

Susie left for Florida (by way of upstate New York, where many of Steph's family still lives) a week ago today, early Wednesday morning.  The night before, we went to Steph's live reading at Kafé Kerouac.  The reading was only a little successful in diverting my mind from her departure.

This is a picture of her and me after the reading:

Susie and me at Kafé Kerouac, June 26, 2013.

I have managed to stay busy and diverted since Susie's departure.  My old Ohio University friend Ivan has been here since Wednesday night, visiting from Vermont.  (He lived in Columbus after graduating from Ohio University, but moved back to Vermont in '08 when his father became terminally ill.  He has stayed there since, including during the recent death of his mother.)

Comfest took up much of my weekend, the annual Community Festival (the "party with a purpose") in Goodale Park from Friday night (June 29) until Sunday evening, the 30th.  There were vendors' booths, topless women, blocks-long lines for beer and wine, discreet but rather open pot-smoking, overheated dogs, families with SUV-sized strollers and complaining children, teenage Juggalos trying to sell moonshine from Big K cola bottles, and bands.

Saturday night's festivities closed early, because of a massive thunderstorm with lightning, high winds, and pelting rain.  The musicians on the Gazebo and Bozo Stages did not want to use their microphones and amplifiers during an electrical storm, so the music shut down before dark (the storm began sometime around 7:15 or 7:30).  Some of the vendors (food and otherwise) stayed open, but by 9 p.m., police were trying to shoo people out of the park, saying that it was closed.

My major purchase was only a semi-Comfest purchase.  My favorite booth is from One Man's Treasure, a small electronics and retro technology store in Millersport.  All weekend, I lusted after a Panasonic RQ-320S cassette recorder, a model from the 1970s.  Its main attraction was that it had a combination hand-held and condenser microphone, something I had never seen before.  I did not decide that I had to own it until Sunday night, after Comfest ended for another year.  I emailed the proprietor of One Man's Treasure, and asked if I could send him a money order (including shipping and handling).  Ivan offered to drive me to Millersport on Monday evening, so we made the 66-mile (round trip) journey after work Monday.  I have only tested the tape recorder for a few seconds, but the sound quality, based on the "Testing... one... two... three" that I recorded, is quite crisp, especially for a machine that old.  The model seems to be in mint condition.

I think that it will be awhile before it totally sinks in that Susie will not be back for awhile.  I am used to spending the summers on my own, but when school starts again, and I come home to an empty house every evening, then I think I will finally grasp it.