On Princesses and Baby Girl Lemonade — B.G.
July 26th 2022:
I texted Etienne a selfie today from the waist down, my legs all bared like in one of those Facebook posts where you’re on a beach chair by the sea. Except instead of the sand in the background you can see a slice of my purple-themed living room.
He wrote back: Haha aww literally butterflies and unicorns!
I love that I have a boy who appreciates me for being an absolute princess even though technically I’m way too old for it.
I’m leaving for the family reunion tomorrow. I’ve decided to put off packing until the absolute last minute, just to give me an extra dose of anxiety for the day.
Speaking of anxiety. Today I biked to Canal Lachine. On my way home, I almost went out of my way to go up the backstairs entrance because I was afraid I might run into my downstairs neighbor if I went in the front. You know the neighbor I mean. The one who owns the daycare. You know. The one that somebody had to call the police on last Saturday night.
Anyway, we ended up running into each other in the vestibule, and we are friends now.
Hehe well, not friends exactly, but she had gotten the note that I left on her door and apologized profusely.
We ended up talking for half an hour. I told her how scared I’d been that night and she apologized more than once, explaining how normally the parents wouldn’t come at that time and when they do, they call. How Rogers had a network failure at the exact same time, and her doorbell has also decided to stop working. How her bedroom is on the other side of the house, in the basement, so she didn’t hear the banging on the door.
Once we’d pieced her side of the puzzle with mine, the “perfect storm” actually made sense. I mean, she still could have done a way better job planning shit with the parents and telling them not to fricking ring my doorbell again and again in the middle of the night. But I was able to say that and she listened.
It was something special to actually feel heard and to have her take responsibility for what had gone wrong. I felt any residual anger dissipating, replaced by relief that I don’t live upstairs from a buttface.
We chatted for a little while afterward. It turns out she has been in Montreal for more than two decades. She is originally Chinese, but she’s married to a Quebecker, which explains why she speaks such good French.
The best part is, I figured out the perfect way for her to make it up to me: I have been wading through the aisles of our local Chinese grocery store as an ignorant white person for weeks, buying random things in random packages like a game of Chinese Grocery Store Roulette. I desperately need a tour guide who can read the packaging and tell me what to do with the contents!!
As soon as she understood my request, she laughed.
“Of course I’ll do that. Any time.”
Neighbor field trip here we go!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call “Baby Girl Lemonade.”
Love,
Baby Girl
