Which Reminds Me

Yes, I am sort of aware that the high school Red team, which was captained by Tom, won. I sort of know that he likes to think that his team is the U.S. team in contrast to other teams that did not win, such as the Blue team, captained by Carmen's boyfriend Ulysses, of which I was a member. Unlucky me. I was assigned to be on the Blue team, and that is the breaks. There is no going back to high school now to pretend that something else happened. Even so, that does not affect my citizenship. There were four teams, maybe Green or Yellow or Orange. I don't remember.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, we are appalled at the "Mickey Mouse" nature of your current operational strategy. There is nothing that I would need to discuss with "Mickey Mouse." How dare you call "Mickey Mouse" in to gum up the works and nickel-and-dime my personal life. Just because Minnie Mouse was having dinner with a married man, no not with Mickey, with Mr. Coffee of San Diego, and then my parents said something about how that did not look good. I also heard Mr. Coffee's family throwing Minnie Mouse out of the window. So now Mickey has to defend his wife's honor by killing me. Even though it really wasn't our generation that made a huge mess of choir. What reasonable conversation could I possibly have with those dreary bores Becky and Bonnie? So there is no reason, it makes no sense for us to be negotiating over nothing much with those dreary bores.

No money = No walkie-talkie

Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, why are these weird little yappy dogs Kathy and Joan always screaming at me? If anyone needs a very serious attitude adjustment, that would be them. How can I have any conversation? I have to be very careful to never say anything to anyone because anything that I might say would certainly get twisted around into some weird configuration and then they will blame me for not speaking to them, instead of it actually being them who never speak to me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, why all this yapping of silly bimbos, while no one has yet thought to call the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, which is located in Spain, to ask whether they might have some sort of official position or thought or opinion about that. That might sort of help to stop the mouths of babies who don't really know what they are talking about. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I am tired of everything being "my" fault. What is this story that your forgot to tell me about? I really don't have the foggiest idea why I should be required to fight with someone of whose existence I am actually not aware. I really don't care that much about your boring life, actually, that I should be required to assume responsibility for your bad behavior. The sin is conceived in your own mind and carried out by your own wrong ideas and selfish desires, as the Bible says, not because of anything that I said.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, does make you wonder what is this other more wicked evil thing that Carol or Rhina did, that their family should feel themselves compelled to vindicate their honor by killing me, even though I wasn't there at the time and don't know anything about it. White people such as myself are so easily expendable.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, part of me agrees that I should have been friendlier during high school. And also another part of me does not want to encourage them too much, not wanting to come home to the U.S. to find my backyard full of all their Spanish junk. I am really not so fond of them that I would want to find them inside my house rearranging the furniture.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do remember seeing a photo of Ida in the family photo collection box, and also there was Arthur in his China suit and a few other disparate items that I cannot explain. I really have not heard the story of Ida that I should be expected to say anything about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is amazing, the amount of national interest bestowed on these naive and simple-minded devotees of Rosanne, especially Carmen. Rosanne lives in Costa Rica now so we have not heard much about her since fourth grade, the year that she was our teacher. All we know about Rosanne is that she chided me for staring out the window too much and also she taught us about planting carrots in a little garden behind the school building. That is all that we can remember about Rosanne in high school, at least until the last few months of our senior year Yet Carmen is fascinated with the topic of Rosanne, continually attempting to expand this topic way beyond the capacity of a 9-year-old. Only about two months or so before my graduation did Rosanne reappear with her many complications of which I would prefer not to have to say more.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how well I remember the miseries of high school, those years of adolescent angst. If I do not care to get reacquainted with those haughty arrogant snobs who sat on my left and right hand sides during 10th grade English, Carmen and maybe Patty, although I really don't remember, thus to snub me throughout high school, how is that a national crisis? I am not such a party animal that I would care to reconnect to such dreary bores with all of the personality of a cardboard box. How is this personal opinion a test of my U.S. citizenship? Where is the law requiring me to like them? How is this a normal experience of high school? Now that I am home in the United States, I would finally now be entirely free of those dreary boring snobs, if only you would just shut up.

But you say that you want drama. You want some action for a play or movie. Are you crazy?

I like to think that I have reached a level of maturity wherein I can no longer be expected to pitch a knee-jerk-reaction fit on demand, just because you are pushing some interesting buttons.

You were trying to throw me out of the classroom, into the hallway, so that some other person could occupy my chair. Yes, I did not notice that, but, whatever. I cannot quite see where that is coming from or why I should care to fulfill your outlandish expectations of a rewrite of history. Well, that is a two-street. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, who are you, Spanish Travelers, to lecture me on matters of book preservation, you who burned the entire Mayan Codex during your rampage of murder and pillage, only about two known Mayan books remaining extant in the world of today. Who can say what might have been learned if those strange hieroglyphic books had not been consigned to an ash heap? Only two books remaining from which to deduce an entire corpus of literature that might have contained who knows what interesting things about the New World, or was it an Old World. Adjust your attitude, Spanish travelers.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, who has not heard the stories about the biblical David and all of the things that he did, both good and bad, and how God protected him against his enemies and made him the king of Israel?

I am also aware of various other individuals who go by the name of David, of whose deeds I am not so fully aware that I would be able to quote chapter and verse of any explanation that was never officially given and also I probably wasn't there at the time so I probably would have no idea what actually happened, or what that was all about. One tends to assume that the proper authorities are well informed. I am not sure that I would be the appropriate person to comment. One tends to want let the proper authorities do their jobs in that regard.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, thankfully I somehow managed to learn Spanish well enough to figure this out for myself, not being dependent on the "goods" and also not being dependent on that hateful nasty witch Carmen.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, thanks for reminding me that COGIC is an organization devoted exclusively to black people, one in which white people are not welcomed into leadership and where there is no place for white people for the most part. Not wanting to pick a fight with my distant cousins of the third degree, I thus will agree that there was a brief moment of time in ancient history in which we all met on the steps of the house on Bonnie Brae Street, but more than 100 years have come and gone since that time. There is much water under the bridge now. Good luck with your COGIC literacy project, but I cannot go back there to be dragged down to the level of persons who are not able to translate from Spanish to English. You are perhaps at the mercy of some very bad translators and thus I pity you.

Fortunately for me, I have had the luck to be under some good translators, at least sometimes, part of the time. If the "goods" do make a mistake, at least I am able to independently verify and do my own research and thus am not entirely dependent and at the mercy of whatever "they" say, at least for my own peace of mind, even if no one else will get this. Ultimately, I pity the half-wits of "special" Spanish. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, where did I put that funny joke about the deployment of lawyers? Something about the computer age. I do miss being on the circulation list for receiving copies of all those funny jokes but, anyway, I have been sort of preoccupied about other things. Sometimes jokes are funny and sometimes not. The trick is to know the difference because sometimes those things have other meanings that we plebeians cannot quite understand. Sometimes it is better to just not say anything about that.

Which Reminds Me

It does blur the picture, having this pagan trash Linda pretending to represent our Christian family. There is no nastier, more vicious horrible person in our family than screaming hateful Linda. We would charge her with littering but we are not so litigious as to even imagine that sort of thing.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I too heard Linda online screaming and screeching and making a huge mess of everything. I hope you didn't think that was me. I would never do that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is a bit scary to think that the Barbarian stinky skunks of Seattle are running the show now. I don't even know who those people are and there they are flipping switches to seize control of all of my assets, and I don't even know what happened. Why do they hate us so much? Weird.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I too think that it would be interesting to see all of those documents. But why are you asking me? I don't have access to any secret documents that are not already freely available to the general public in some form. I do not have any secret documents that you cannot get from someone else anyway. Yes, I too think that it would be very interesting to see all of those documents.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely recall that during college I went on a double date, arranged by my third-degree cousin, in which my blind date was some Spanish guy from San Diego. Nice but no chemistry. We attended a concert night at an amusement park. What was his name? I really don't remember him. That might have been the only time I ever saw him, although maybe someone is talking about him. 

Which Reminds Me

I don't know how you expect us to clean out the swamp, when actually Wisconsin is the swamp. There is a layer of Wisconsin filth and scum all over everything. Yes, wouldn't it be fun to have Terry's empty head skewered, roasted and served on a platter? But I digress. Revenge belongs to the Lord, not to me.

Which Reminds Me

...Oh, do I remember my French uncle saying something about Spanish travel books? They are well prepared for counteracting the travelers, it would seem. Huh? Whatever that meant.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember during the one summer that I worked as a cashier at a Publix store, how surprised I was sometimes when people would produce all of these food stamps to pay for their staple food items. They don't look like they are starving to death so where do they get all of this paperwork. They don't look like they need any special assistance of the sort, and yet there they are, with the spare money they don't have to spend on food, buying cigarettes with which to commit suicide by lung cancer. Hmmm....

Which Reminds Me

Yes, there is something very weird about the way that they are clamorously expecting me to rush in there like a bull in a china shop, to discover all of the facts that they are deliberately refusing to tell me about and/or hiding from me, not having invited me to join them in the first place. I cannot read their minds. Needless to say. Yes, I can take a hint. Obviously, I am not welcome there. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Of course you know that we always ignore these idiotic rantings from that annoying little dog Ann Soupcan, one of the nastiest pieces of garbage in our entire high school. Oh, I did not know that she was actually the identical twin sister of that other stupid tramp who came later, Terry Bannerbrat, who together prove that rich girls are sometimes pathetically stupid and worthless in terms of serving as role models, which is why the money is sometime granted to poor people whose brilliant minds have proven their worth independent of the parental purse strings. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I know that you are double-edging your sword with Acts of War, thus nullifying the Acts-Septed thing, so nothing can ever happen. Personally, I am not interested in engaging in Acts of War. War Games was a cool movie to watch on TV, but I already know that I cannot win that type of game. No reason to try. As I have said many times, I might as well not exist. If I had understood then the depth of your bellicosity I might have never gone there, but it is too late now for second chances. Personally, I do not care to be reminded of those boring people, whatever that meant. You are not the only game in town. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how well I remember when we were in El Salvador, one day Lois Bueno made a big show of reading to us all from a letter that they had received from someone who was making a somewhat sarcastic comment about, oh how nice to be living in paradise there, because apparently some people in other countries were jealous of those working in El Salvador, where the work is growing so much faster than elsewhere. It seemed funny at the time, the way that she explained it, but later someone went to great pains to make known to us that we are not included in that paradise category, that it only applies to the Bueno family, obviously. Needless to say. So why are you interested in parroting someone else's Panama or South America letterhead? We get it, even if you don't. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

The little MK school moved away from its roots and went somewhere else and their teacher's name was Hazel, but I never met those people. Personally, I really couldn't care less about reconnecting to Hazel's clueless children.

I suppose that you are going to try to make some points about clueless little baby Jackie adopted-Saword, and what would she know about anything when she was never really there when we were there. Only once or twice did I see them carrying the adopted baby around at school special events. You cannot be expecting us to adopt all these big babies and take them home with us. I really don't know the details of that adoption to comment on that one way or another.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I know, you don't have to tell me that, we already know that Mrs. Grace Richardson was a very good teacher as schoolteachers go, giving us all a pretty good foundation by starting the schooldays with Bible class at 8 a.m. at MK school, plus memory verses on Friday usually, and also surprisingly athletic, able to stand on her head during P.E. class, unlike myself, she tried to teach us how to do that. But if you are looking for a Pentecostal specimen, you are not going to want to ask Mrs. Richardson anything. She is Grace Brethren, a split-off from the Sawords' Plymouth Brethren, similar but apparently they have some points of disagreement between themselves even if they all wear their hair in those little buns, although not the little white bonnets of the Mennonites who did not attend our school.

One day when the pastors of the AG Bible school next door to our school were praying very loudly, Mrs. Richardson made some derogatory remark about Pentecostals, thus eliminating all doubt of where she might stand on that point. Probably the Sawords are similar on that point, as they denigrate the Tom Squared phenomenon for their own Anderson family Anti-Pentecostal reasons, (we might have other things to say about Tom Squared but we are not in concurrence with anything that the Anti-Pentecostal Anderson/Sawords might be saying), and we can only asume that the Bells and Reeses, being the Southern Baptists in the group, would ditto what Grace said if they dared to. But the school was located on AG property so mostly we did not talk about that with them. The school later moved elsewhere in the city and had other teachers, although it still went by the same school name, but that was after we were long gone from there.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I know, I am not your crazy weird stepmother, Maria Luisa Jeter, who wrote that horrible history hack job masquerading as the definitive history book for all time. I wouldn't think of putting my name on that pile of garbage. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

What further dialogue could be possible with these rich merchants of no interest? Not really a merchant marine, only a department store merchant, so no family complications there. Nothing worth saying about that.

You were saying something about "The Man of La Mancha," the movie, based on the musical, and why would a glamorous Italian actress, Sophia Loren, be called on to play the role of lowly Spanish barmaid Dulcinea? Was that a matter of miscasting, or a matter of box office chemistry? Yes, these questions are not high on my priority list of things to think deeply about. Your mind is a useless place full of trivialities not worth pondering.

Which Reminds Me

During the 10th grade we were all taken on a field trip, to watch a showing of the movie 'Man of La Mancha' at the Teatro El Presidente. Later, back at school, Mr. Kicky thought it was funny to make some joke about my name sort of being translatable to Dulcinea, the bar maid of "Don Quijote," which actually was played in the movie by actress Sophia Loren. He would serenade me with the song from the movie, and although it might have been funny once or twice, later on it got very annoying when he does not seem to get any hints about how this is not funny anymore and enough of that. He would also launch into some nonsensical speech about wanting to be my Latin lover and saying some other gibberish and blah blah blah. Someone was telling me that they have analyzed his speech and they know what that was about, but I really don't remember the details of that. I have mostly blocked that out of my mind and just want to forget about that nonsense and go home to the U.S. because I have plans other than reliving high school over and over again for the rest of my life. I really don't care to be reminded of that. Yes, I tend to think that if I did pause to analyze that I would probably have a better understanding of the depth of the insult, probably junk from some old movie, so it is probably better that I not think further about that. I have other things to worry about than that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how do I politely tell this Kicky guy that I am not interested and to go away and stop harassing me throughout high school? I really could not care less if I never see his boring face ever again. He seems to be having some white girl fantasy about me, but the interest is not mutual. Needless to say. I do not find the translation of "sounds like candy" to the serenading of Dulcinea of Cervantes' "Don Quixote" fiction flattering. Needless to say. And yet I am not allowed to just knock these people off in so many words. I must first smile and be nice and then shrug off that nonsense and hope that he gets the clue that I am realy not interested in continuing this not-very-funny joke on me. Needless to say. What did Joan and some other people do behind my back to encourage that? I wasn't sure what that was about.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I suppose that I could also post some other silly songs by the band Toto with titles such as "Pamela" and "Roseanne." However, that wouldn't really make any sense. The sentiments of some rock band people would not necessarily reflect anything that I would be thinking about. Even if a line or two here and there might strike an interesting note, some of the other dissonant notes might only worsen the haze surrounding the events of the past, so that all in all it might make the situation actually worse rather than better in the long run, adding layers of confusion to what was originally a simple matter of my decision that I do not need to further discuss any personal matters with them. After all, they don't own me. Needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Gina who? I don't think that I know anyone named Gina.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely remember one time years ago when a bunch of people in the young adults group at Oakland Park church were at someone's house for a meeting, and Rosanne accused me of giving her the evil eye, which was a weird thing for a Christian to say. Who thinks that way unless you are a witch? How easy to dismiss someone you personally dislike by making these bizarre accusations for no particular reason. Ok, so I don't like you either. When we all get to heaven one imagines that we will all get along well there, but in the meantime....

Which Reminds Me

Yes, and who are to interfere with my all-American right to call for pizza, pickup or delivery matters not, whenever I want to? How dare you? So go bleep yourself, Sicilian fig trees.

Which Reminds Me

Thump thump thump! Once again you are reminding me of the story of Suzette who works for the IRS and at one time used her government position to rat on her Italian mafia cousins. You were telling me that she perhaps suffered a severe backlash because her mafia relatives were angry at the way that their financial records got flipped around by Suzette. Yes, I do remember hearing them talking about that online, although I cannot comment separately out loud because I did not understand the specifics of what she was saying. I am fortunately not even slightly related to Suzette and her sister Rene. Also, I am not a trained CPA accountant such as Craig and Pam are, who were seen to be closely interrogating her one evening at church, so fascinated as they are with that subject for some reason, but all that stuff just flew over my head. I am really not interested in learning more about that.

Rosanne was another close friend of theirs before she ran away with a group of church splitters. Most of those church splitters, after their effort at suing the pastor failed. I cannot remember who most of them were, some of those Italian whiners, went off to Abundant Life church where they are pastored by Thomas. I never went there so I really cannot say what I really think about that.

I really am not interested in reconnecting  to those horrid Italian whiners. I might as well not exist if I have to owe my existence to them. Needless to say. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, you were saying that I should not exist. I should never say anything about myself. I should never talk about anything of a personal nature. Everything is just all about them and nothing about me. I should have no separate identity apart from them. Which gets tiresome. It is true that I perhaps cannot trust them to not twist anything I say about myself into some strange configuration. Even so, alternatively, I cannot pretend to be someone else who I am not. This becomes a problem when I am not allowed to be who I am. I have no identity. I can't be me without offending somebody. And why is it that they are so offended that I might have a different opinion and not really agree with that? Where is this law that says that I am not allowed to exist? I am not allowed to criticize them in any way, that I have to pretend to like them even if I really don't. I am getting very tired of this one-way street.