Thomas Wictor

Archive for the ‘Tim Wictor’ Category

Tim’s alluvial shanty

I used to love Tim’s house. Now it has to be demolished because of flood damage. The flooding is the result of the climate, the neighbors, and the idiotic plumbers who didn’t notice that the blueprints were upside down. Mom grew up in this house, the front part and garage of which were built in…

 

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Lookee here! More threats.

Got this message today. I’ve edited it slightly to conceal the person’s identity. we are both very upset at what you have done, and what you are about to do. you are playing hardball. i’m a lot better at it than you are. there is no free ride. you get back what you put out….

 

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Ceilings want me dead

In my senior year at Lewis and Clark College, in Portland, Oregon—alma mater of Monica Lewinsky!—I moved into the second floor of an apartment complex off campus. A friendly Turk and his Iranian wife were the owners. He told us to call him Bob. Though he spoke perfectly colloquial American English, he had a thick…

 

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Of course you know this means war.

The U.S. Postal Service has stolen another irreplaceable postcard. As my Aussie pal Butters told me, that was a real show stopper. Probably a grenadier of Assault Battalion No. 5 (Rohr). The sleeve badge is remarkable. The card was stolen in New York. This means war. I spent the morning changing all my bills to…

 

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An unexpected un-ghosting

After Mom’s funeral and the reception, I heard car doors slam in the driveway of what I should start calling Tim’s house. Since I wasn’t able to attend the service, I went over to talk with Tim, Paul, and Eric to find out how it went. There was a very expensive imported car parked in…

 

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A note to prospective burglars

One of the cute little tricks burglars use is to read obituaries and then hit the house when the owners are attending the funeral and reception. Couple of points I’d like to make. One: I can’t attend Mom’s funeral and reception. I’m going to be home. The Meniere’s is getting worse, either permanently or situationally,…

 

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God did a little dance

Tim likes to say about people who’ve had happy, successful, fulfilling lives, “God did a little dance around him (her).” Like me, he doesn’t actually believe that the Creator singles out individuals for blessings. It’s just Tim’s shorthand for, “It’s great that someone has had such good fortune. I’m glad for them.” A little more…

 

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Mom, I’m really pissed off at you

I’m very angry at you for killing yourself, Mom. Sad-angry, not I’ll-smash-your-face angry. So I’m going to do what you always said when you got upset: “I want to write a letter to somebody!” Here’s my letter to you. Dear CeeCee: You died on October 13, 2013, after nine months of refusing to eat. Since…

 

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Sure, it could just be a coincidence. So what?

When Tim and I cleared out the storage room at his house in preparation for the demolition that was put off after our parents got sick, we found hundreds of ancient books, some from the eighteenth century. Most were in towering barrister bookcases with ninety years of stuff piled in front of them. Mom had…

 

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One size does not fit all

What I am about to write is not an attack on the Catholic Church or my maternal grandparents. My only point is that one size does not fit all. Everyone is different. Temperamentally, my mother was not a good fit with the Catholic Church. She tried to make herself be a good Catholic, but doing…

 

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