New Friends, pretty sure…

Txted Norm today to see if he was home. I wanted to take my sketch books over to show him what I want for the big tattoo. When I got there, PG was also there (no big surprise) and Paulette was inside with a very sore back that had been bugging her since at least Saturday. Norm asked if I’d like to stay for supper (this was around 3:30 in the afternoon), and was super happy that the deal had closed on his house and was going crazy waiting for the money to turn up in his bank account. PG was happy because he had just bought Norm’s old truck, and when the money cleared, Norm was going to go pick up another truck for himself. Boys and their toys.

I showed him my sketches and we talked about how to make it work around the turtle, and they showed me that the rims on the truck PG had bought had turned out to be chrome, so he was busy shining them up. Then Norm asked if I would go look at Paulette. I went in, checked her out a little bit and got Norm to set up his massage table that he sometimes uses for tattooing, and gave her a little treatment and showed her the proper way to stretch side to side — you have to support the side you’re leaning toward so the muscles you’re trying to stretch aren’t shortening up to keep you from falling over; I demonstrated after her treatment — and when I was done, she felt a LOT better and could take a deep breath without it hurting. I LOVE when what I do works.

Then Paulette and her daughter and I went out to KFC to pick up supper. KFC is one of those things that we both eat about once a year. The boys went off to the bank to get money and to go get Norm’s new truck. We got home first, had supper, then waited for them to eat. M, the daughter, was antsy to go get a new Blackberry that Norm gave her money for, so we all piled into the new truck which has a back seat. PG sat between me and the daughter, and Paulette got to drive it to the mall. It’s a nice truck. Don’t know what year, but it’s in pretty decent shape and is strong enough to haul the trailer that they’re getting, so Norm is pretty happy. PG and I went to Canadian Tire, where he bought me a steering wheel cover and a new windshield wiper for the passenger side of my car. I was going to pay for those things myself, but he said he’d get them for me. He even installed the wiper when we got back to Norm’s.

Then Norm got to drive and we went through the car wash (we’re a bunch of kids), and while PG was tormenting Paulette by putting a finger on a strand of hair hanging over the headrest so it pulled when she moved, I played with Norm’s neck hair so he’d blame PG (it worked and PG and I laughed our asses off). And we got coffee from Tim Horton’s and went back to their place for a bit, and then I came home.

While we were in Canadian Tire, PG asked me about the motorcycle thing, and so I told him the story. It turns out I don’t need to worry about him thinking that I’m stalking him. He made sure to let me know several times that he has no problems with me txting or calling or whatever. He thinks I’m pretty great, which is nice. When he said that, I told him I thought it was good that he noticed that, and he said it was hard to miss. Made me feel good. He’s been very good for my ego, which took more of a beating from A, in more subtle ways than I had realized until after I ended the relationship and moved to being just friends. I told PG he’s a good guy, and again, he denied it (he denied it one time on the massage table during his therapy for the Worker’s Comp injury), and said he was mean and so on. I told him again that that might be true, but he’s still a really good person. That time he said "Thank you."

Apparently, a woman friend of his is stressing him out big time. I met her once when I bumped into them at the mall. I don’t know if I posted that here or not, but it was right around his last therapy session and I went to the bookstore and saw him with her looking at the books on display just at the entrance. I asked if he was stalking me, and we chit chatted a bit. I introduced myself to Y, the friend. Now, I already knew that he was not in any relationship–nothing serious, anyway–since he and I had had the conversation about not wanting to be in one, so I knew she was a friend. Could have been FWB–didn’t matter; none of my business. So I went about my business, went to the dollar store, puttered around, and kept running into them. Finally, PG offered to buy coffee all ’round, so off we went to the far end of the mall, got coffee and then Y wanted to sit down to drink it.

This is where I became hugely entertained, and I told PG about my internal reaction today. He laughed. We wandered back along the mall, looking for an empty bench. So there was a double bench with an armrest about halfway down. Room for three or four people on each side of that middle rest. I sat down right beside the armrest so there was lots of room for both of them and waited to see how things developed. See, at one point in our meanderings, Y had gone into a store front where there was a display of high school art (quite good, really), and PG and I stood out front. He had put his arm around me, kissed my temple and thanked me for everything I had done to help him get back to work. I don’t know if Y saw this, but I suspect she did. Back to the bench. She sat down about two seats over, and proceeded to fill the space on the bench between us with her purchases, which, to me, was clearly telling PG not to sit there. My internal reaction was, "Really? What are you; 12?" He just stayed standing there. And now, she’s trying to change his way of living his life and trying to own him, and it’s stressing him out.

That’s all he told me–he asked if I knew the whole story, assuming that I might have gotten it from Norm or Paulette, but I told him I didn’t know any of it, which I didn’t. I didn’t ask them anything about Y, figuring anything that he wanted me to know, he would tell me. Norm said last night that PG was stressed and heading to his place, so I sent him a hug in a txt, saying that Norm had told me he was having a bad day. I asked him today if he had got the txt and he said yes, thanked me for it, and asked how I knew what was going on and gave me a hug all at the same time. I told him all I knew was that he was having a bad day and I was just being a good friend. I still maintain that a friendship is the best thing to have with him–he has so many issues and stuff–and I’ve suspected that he and I can be very good for each other in that role, with or without benefits. There’s just something about him that I like–and it’s that same something that Norm and Paulette see as well. And Paulette’s daughter; she’s now calling him "Uncle PG".

I also told Paulette how much I enjoyed hanging out with them, and she told me how much they like me and that I "shoot from the hip" and so on. I think I really have found some super good friends. Real friends which I haven’t had nearby for a few years now. I had such a good afternoon and evening. And the next time there’s a barbecue, I’m on the guest list. Life is good.