Ireland/China 2025, continuing (54)

[aadler]

Forty-fourth day in China – August 3 Sunday

I got up just after 8:00AM, but it was nearer 10:00 before Susan woke. I made noodles for my own breakfast, went over to Baker & Spice to get some pastries for her.

Kevin got in touch with us in the later morning, and met us downstairs about noon for lunch at McDonald’s. It started raining while we were there; even though we had umbrellas, he called a cab to come get us so we’d have cover while we went back to his apartment complex to pick up Amber.

All of us to St. Thérèse of Lisieux for Sunday Mass. Susan and I said a Rosary together before the service; Amber kept to herself somewhere I couldn’t see till Mass actually began — and then sat with Kevin — so I didn’t get the opportunity to speak with her. When we went downstairs, however, and he was calling a cab for our return trip, I was able to grab a couple of seconds with her … and established that, no, he hadn’t brought up the birthday fic I’d done for her, so she still hadn’t quite finished reading it.

(I was not happy. I had planned this for months, okayed it with him in advance, turned out a short fic especially for my granddaughter’s birthday; and, at every point thereafter, there was always something else that had to be done instead. No, my fanfic endeavors are NOT the most important thing in any universe anywhere, but it did not please me to see those efforts relegated to no importance at all.)

Kevin had the cab go to our apartment building, and he and Amber walked back home from there. I got Susan upstairs, she went immediately to lie down (back hurting again), and I settled in to grumble and read and watch random video.

(The maid came by to do one of our twice-weekly cleanings. If there’s a schedule in that routine, I haven’t been able to discern it.)

At 6:00PM Susan and I went downstairs to start over to the Yins’ for dinner … and right outside the front door of our building, Kevin was waiting to walk us there, we’d stepped out of the apartment just ahead of the text he’d sent to notify us he was on his way. We got to their place just before 6:20, and Logan already had dinner on the table and ready to go.

It was the four grandparents, plus Kevin, plus Amber. We all ate enough to satisfy us, and almost immediately Amber retired to her room to work on her Legos. It hadn’t rained any on our way from our apartment, but Kevin and Susan began to discuss whether we should head back early to beat any rain that might be coming …

… and I said I didn’t want to leave before my granddaughter had finished reading the gift fic I had done for her, so that I could give her a follow-up gift.

Neither of them took it well, and I think there’s some likelihood that I had let into my voice some of the resentment that had been growing for the last several days. I expressed my feelings, they opined that the way I had expressed my feelings wasn’t particularly productive, this went through a round or two and I pointed out that we were still talking about HOW I had said what I wanted, but ‘what I wanted’ wasn’t being addressed at all.

This could have gone on for a while, but the fact is that, however much we may have been on edge and bristling, none of us were actually looking for a fight. Kevin went to check with Amber, came back to tell me she was finishing the story in her reading nook. Presently she came out and hugged me and told me it was wonderful (very probably prompted by her father); since the story — “the Precocious Harmony of Little Jade” — was not only for but about her, I gave her a little jade bracelet I’d picked up at the airport in Paris, and that pretty much settled the entire issue.

We hung around for a while longer, as I’d noted that the last weather forecast I’d seen made it look like there would be a lull in predicted rain at just about the time we would normally be leaving; all the same, we were on our way around 7:15 or 7:20PM. Kevin walked with us as far as our building, and there was only the mildest sprinkling of rain along the way, not enough to make me open either of our umbrellas.

Since my granddaughter had finally finished reading her birthday fic, I went ahead and posted it on LiveJournal (and updated the Dreamwidth mirror of my LJ site).

As Susan’s request, I went to 7‑Eleven and got some cookies for her, and she went to bed shortly after that. About 9:30PM, Kevin sent an apology by text, and I apologized right back.

I read some, and caught up with a few things, but was ready for bed as soon as I posted today’s LJ update. Which is … now.