and it's tuesday...

...and MOVING DAY!!

 yes, my darlings, as i type,  (at 06h37) mr cta has put a load of laundry in the washer and already placed their dirty linen in the laundry room hamper. but, i'm jumping ahead of the story.

sunday morning it was sort of business as usual around here with us up having coffee and watching news. mr & mrs cta woke and for a change, started making breakfast early for their children. no discussion about saturday or the words exchanged between the 2 men. the MITM told him that we were going to a father's day party at 16h00 and if they would be back before then (as they have been every sunday since they got here)?  the MITM offered a key, but it was declined. mr cta assured him they'd be back here before we left.

and then, the atmosphere changed...

mr cta received a call and went outside. there were  a couple more calls and suddenly, he couldn't or wouldn't meet our eye, speak directly or get this, even cross paths with us. he got dressed for church quickly and went outside.  we could hear mrs cta hustling the kids to finish dressing. without a word  of goodbye (which has been a big ceremony with them) they were all outside waiting. a few minutes later, a cab drove up and off they went.

fast forward to 15h30 (because what we did while they were gone isn't germane to this story.)

the MITM mobile rings and it's mr cta saying that won't be back in time and would we be home by 18h00? with a very calm voice the MITM said that no, since the party started at 16h00, we wouldn't be, but mr cta should call before he got to the house and we'd make arrangements accordingly. so, onward and upward and party on, garth.... we're sitting at our BFF's dinner table and in nowhere near done when the MITM's mobile rings at 19h00. blah, blah, blah and he hangs up and says, they're in front of our house waiting. there was much said, as we pondered over the correct course of action, but i'll just leave it at i said i'd go let them in the house and come back. remember the time, 19h00 and they are now inside the house.

we came home a couple of hours later, yep, 20h30, only to find the a pot on the stove with some sort chicken melange boiling away and no one in the kitchen. we could only assume that during the time i dropped them off and the time we got home, the family was in conference because mr&mrs cta did not feed their children and themselves until almost 23h00!! (and this i can not forgive, bad parenting) we were watching tv. at one point, mr cta came over and asked if we'd seen the show before and humbling about what was it, etc. now, the MITM knows him, so he got up and said, what do you need to tell me so you can stop disturbing savannah (which already had happened and yes, i had already given mr cta a snarky answer about the show...). blah, blah, blah and the MITM returns to the living room shaking his head. he leans over and says, "mr cta wants to say something, but doesn't know how to say it, i can tell. my guess, is they will be out of here sooner than we thought."

and then it was monday...

mr cta started a discussion with the MITM (while he and i were working, of course) about what he needed to do now about employment and housing. the leads he had been waiting for from his friend in jacksonville turned out to be an temp agency the man had used while HE was in savannah! sweet mary sunshine, at that point i got up and left the room! i mean, we had given him good solid leads on jobs that he ignored, in fact, dismissed out of hand BECAUSE a friend of his was waiting to give him job leads...(wtf, right?) anyway, much talking and slightly raised voices later, it seems mrs cta didn't have to work on monday and since the MITM was going to take mr cta to print out some documents and look at some apartments, she was going, along with the children and she wanted to go to the park as a family and would the MITM kindly drop them there.

we did not see or hear from them until 21h30 last night when they rang the front doorbell and i let them in. mrs cta hustled the children off to bed, so we figured they'd eaten while they were out. and then the drama began, we're watching a movie and mr cta comes out and sits on the sofa, obviously too chickenshit (yeah, i said it) to speak in a manly fashion to us. i mean, come on, it's just tv, if you have something you want to say, fucking say it! you know as in hey, sorry to disturb you, but i need to talk to you both. it was as if he thought that by his just being we would KNOW that he needed to speak to us. finally, the MITM just paused the movie and asked him point blank what is it you want to say. and like that proverbial middle button on a fat man's shirt yearning to be free, he spoke. it seems he had finally found his manhood and was going to leave us in the morning. he kept going on about how he didn't want us to be angry with them, that they were grateful for all we'd done, that please do not close our hearts to them...blah, blah, blah. the MITM assured mr cta that his anger was with the rest of his coreligionists and not he and mrs cta. that it was THEM who had offended us and that his BRETHREN were not welcome in our home. and then it began...the apartment they want won't be ready until next week, so they're going to go to a residential suites hotel. but they have no pots or dishes...my response, go to target or wal-mart. would "mr. MITM still honor his promise (passive aggressive speak again) about giving them the bed..." and could they have some linen, etc. the MITM, said yes, to the bed and no to anything else. end of discussion.

there's more, but it's done. i know that the fear they have isn't about us being angry with them. it's a reaction to coming from a police state and not really understanding that we have nothing to do with their immigration status. we can't cause them to be deported, we can't revoke their green cards. america doesn't work that way (on our level anyway...). what mr&mrs cta don't understand yet is that, we can disagree on religion, disagree on politics, even disagree on what's the best food to eat, but it doesn't make us enemies and it doesn't change a relationship, unless you want it to!