Thorn in My Side

Before I left here Saturday morning there were some incoming calls, and I answered none of them. One of them, as you've already guessed, was from Jennifer. This time she asked that I call that same number, this time specifying that it was in fact the other Jen (from the ass-hopping adventure), and I could get ahold of her through her, because she "might" be in town Sunday and yadda yadda.

So I figured what the hell. I'll bite the bullet and get this over with. I called Jen II and told her to tell Jen that I'd be out of town and back Sunday night. This call totally caught her by surprise, too. Original Jen apparently hadn't warned Other Jen that I might be calling. Somehow, I'm not surprised.

Then, before I left, my phone rang twice more. Both times it was the Private Name/Private Number. I didn't pick up and there were no messages.

And I left.

*****

Andover was fun, and it was good to get out of here for a while. We popped down to Boston for a while, walked around, ate some, and then hung around back at their house until bedtime. Then this morning we had breakfast, hung around, walked into town, hung around more, my folks showed up on their way back from Maine, and I went home.

While there the three of us discussed baby names, taking a lot of info out of that book of baby names I bought for Colleen some while back, and that was fun. It's kinda hard finding a good name that'll fit just right with Ian's last name, and plus they're taking the option of not knowing the sex of the baby until the time comes (I totally could not do that; it would drive me batty). So much brainstorming abounded. I tend to be a bigger fan of the more exotic names, so I was focusing that way. Besides, aren't there a few too many Jens and Amys around already? *cough*

I came up with a few thoughts for my own future offspring (if that's ever to happen, and I'm starting to get concerned).

If it's twin girls, as my dreams have kinda prophesized (if you can take that seriously) -- Paris and London. Yes. I even have a contingency in case it's triplets: the third girl will be named Berlin. If there are any boys in the mix, though, I'll have to improvise.

We got onto state and city names that have gotten popular, ala Dakota and Dallas. I really think the name 'Sunapee' for a little girl would be *tremendous*. If I don't do that for real, there will definitely be a character in a book someday with that name.

But if it's a boy, 'Ruger'.

Ha HA.

What? There are worse names.

*****

So I got home and checked the caller ID. Alternate Jen had called just before I got here, but no message. But then the phone rang around 8:30, and I thought about it and thought about it ... and picked it up.

It was Jennifer. It was going to happen sooner or later, so I may as well just get it over with. We talked for a little while. She asked what I'd been up to, but I was really much more interested in her activities. She tried to sell me on the world traveller thing, as in she actually went anywhere. I countered by pointing out that I'd seen her in and around Newport four times across as many months. She said that I couldn't have because she wasn't around.

So then I detailed exactly when and where each of those times were. And she still denied it, even going so far as to hypothesize that she has a 'twin' in the area that some how ended up with her same exact car, which she sold to "some guy" way back not long after I last saw her. How exactly then she was travelling around the country is a detail I don't remember her explaining away. Wait. Wait. Let me say it before you do.

LIAR.

Yes. She was telling me flat out bold-faced lies, and I know it. She knows I know it, too, and I kept a healthy and noticeable skepticism throughout the rest of the conversation. I didn't come right out and call her a dirty dirty liar, because what's the use? She'll never admit it anyway.

I also tried to pin her down on the telephone thing. She insists that the first time she left a message was the first time she called, and that she didn't even know my number before that. This is despite what my called ID function seems to indicate (that there were six previous attempts). She says that she tried to call me in Lebanon, and that the voice thingie gave her the wrong number (what she quoted was a hybrid of the first three numbers of this one and the last three of my previous number).

I dunno. That's within the realm of possibility, meaning either 1) Verizon screwed it up, or 2) she wrote it down wrong. I could go either way.

However, Starr called me around last Thanksgiving at my new number, having got this new number from that same Verizon service, so color me skeptical yet again.

Then when I called her on the caller ID tally, she swore up and down that the message call was the first call. She says that the caller ID must add up every different private name/number call that comes in into the same tally. I hate to say this, but .... that might be correct.

She says she has no phone, which is why I didn't get her number and why she went through the Other Jen the way she did, and that she's calling from a motel phone. She didn't specify which motel and I didn't inquire. Apparently she's without a car right now also. But goddess knows how much of that is accurate. I already need my boots to wade through the other bullshit.

Sheesh.

*****

Oh, and guess what's going on upstairs as I write this. You only get one guess.