In Memoriam

Today at work, I received a text message from my sister.

“I’m sorry, this is a sucky way to do this, but grandpa passed….”

This would be my father’s father. His mother had passed many years ago when I was much younger.  He has been very ill for most of the summer. In and out of the hospital with heart problems, cancer and pneumonia at one point. He hasn’t lived at home alone in ages. We all knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when.

My grandpa was a great man. He married his wife long before I was around despite the fact that she had two children from another marriage.  While they were married, they met my father. A sad, sickly, malnourished and under-loved child who desperately needed a good home. Of course, they adopted him despite the fact that the other two children were well into their teens and about to strike out on their own. Simply for saving my father, I owe them my life.

My grandfather worked at a gas station when I remember him working. I’m sure he had other jobs through out his life, it’s just the one I remember from childhood. Every year for my birthday, he and my grandmother would take me out to buy school shoes. Not tennis shoes mind you, school shoes. Usually loafers of some sort. I despised the shoes. I wanted toys. I wanted tennis shoes so the other kids wouldn’t make fun of me. I wanted them to be cool and not so helplessly old fashion like I thought they were.

I never really appreciated how wonderful grandma and grandpa were as a child. Their coolness was such that it could only be recognized by an adult.  Now I see that they spent a lot of money buying me something of quality rather than some piece of junk I’d probably break in a month anyway. 

When I graduated high school, my grandpa drove my brother and I to Florida to visit my father. This man made the drive from Ohio to Daytona in about 20 hours. Straight. We had to beg for restroom breaks. “You kid’s wouldn’t have to go so often if you wouldn’t drink so much of that Mountain Dew.”  We were far to weak and soft to travel with such a hardcore man.  And even in the end, that man fought. Death had to work over time to catch him. No matter how many times He would try to stop grandpa’s heart and grandpa gave Death the middle finger and said “Do your worst asshole” at least four times before Death could finally take him.

During the trip, I was staring out the window when I spotted some deer. “Oh! Look!! How cute!”  I yell, as I am wont to do when I get excited about something. My grandpa never takes his eyes off the road. He just chuckles and says, “You’re just like Mary. She used to try to make me look at stuff all the time when I was driving.” It may have been the nicest thing he ever said to me.

After my grandma died, he became *very* involved with our local VFW group. He volunteered for all their fundraisers, kept an eye on the girls working, kept the old guys that came in talking. He was good for business and it gave him something to do to fill his time. He dated other women eventually. He liked them in their 40’s. He was well loved and popular. In truth, I would go to the VFW to see him more than I would his own home. Everyone loved “Uncle Dean.”  On more than one occasion, I would be out and about at some bar and meet a stranger, get to talking, and hear “You’re Uncle Dean’s granddaughter?? I love him!”

The thing I’m going to miss though is his sense of humor. He was so wickedly funny. Once, I went to see him at the VFW> He took a break from kitchen duty to sit down and have coffee with me.  We are chatting and some guy comes up to him. They exchange news about the passing of another member. My grandfather takes a sip of coffee, looks the man in the eyes and says “That’s just a miserable way to go. You know how I want to go? I want to get shot by some guy because I’m crawling out his bedroom window after having sex with his 21 year old wife. Now *that’s* a way to die.”  All I could do was laugh. If anyone would have been able to do it, it would have been him. He was quite the charmer of ladies.

I feel badly that I wasn’t as close to him as I am my mother’s parents. Our relationship was full of love to be sure, but it was a more distant and cool love than the loud and boisterous Italian family my mother hails from. There was always this buffer of my shyness around my father’s family that kept them at arms length from me. But I can be comforted by knowing that I know he knew how much I loved him even if I had a difficult time showing it. He just accepted me and loved me as I was.  I will miss him. His laugh. His smile. The way his eyes would light up just before he made some smart ass joke.

Good bye grandpa. Thank you for being so wonderful. I hope you and grandma find each other. I imagine you have lots to tell her.

Tags: family, goodbye

The Teaching Story.

Right around my freshman year of high school, I decided that my favorite place in the world (after the library) was school and that maybe I should look into becoming a teacher.  I volunteered as an aid through out high school for my church’s CCD program.  I was the 3rd grade aid. Sometimes I got to actually teach the class.  I was hooked.

I thought for a long time that I wanted to be a music teacher as my school’s music program was very dear to me, but during my senior year decided to explore becoming an English teacher because my music skills are not as good as my music passion.

And off to college I go.  There are several times I question whether or not I should become an English teacher.  Let’s face it, I need at least 2 full time spell checkers just to get my name down on paper no matter how good I am with literature, essays, structure, grammar and analysis.  But I’m talked out of it by my English professor/mentor (surprisingly not the Education one) with “we need good high school English teachers and you’ll be a good one.”  So on my course I stay. 

Warning: This happy little story goes south. Quickly.  Proceed at your own risk.

Read more…

Then there’s my grandparents

Also on the list of things I did today was stop in to see my grandparents. When my car was still running, I did this a few times a week because they are elderly, they need help, and I generally enjoy their company. That said, I should enjoy it lots while it’s still hear to enjoy right?

So, I go over today and there is something cooking in the oven. It smells bbqish. My grandpa doesn’t hear me come in as I go in the living room and he is intently counting money in his wallet and trying to figure out  how much he has vs. how much the bank says he has. Grandma is asleep in her chair. It’s 4:45 pm and they usually eat dinner no later than 4:30.

I announce myself and they are both happy to see me. Grandma looks slightly confused as she tells me “your mother said I have to cook tonight. I guess I put something in the oven before my nap. I’m afraid to look at it.” I ask what time she put the food in. She doesn’t remeber.

Luckily the food was ok. The sausages and bbq beef leftovers were warm and not burned. I look over and she is microwaving mashed potatoes and corn in two plastic dishes. (I now want to shoot my mother for not putting food to be cooked in the microwave in microwave safe containers for them as in they are in their late 80’s and early 90’s – really mom. No. Really.) My poor grandma is trying to reheat this food by setting the microwave to defrost for 11 minutes. I fixed that problem too.

*sighs* It’s rough watching them get older. They were more my parents than my parents were.

I’m just glad I happened to pop in on a day that I could be really helpful to them. And nothing caught fire. I think I need to have a talk with my mother about how she preps their food.

My day off

I’ve been put in charge of spearheading the children’s halloween party at work.

In the past, I’ve done some light shopping and decorating for my fnb manager as she is a Witness and doesn’t do the whole “holiday” thing. This year I’m to work hand in hand with the new GM to plan and execute said party.

I saw an opportunity today to borrow a friends car and do some window shopping. I found all kinds of kick butt decorations.  Like this cool spider shaped tea-light holder that would make a killer centerpiece. Some glass jack-o-lantern votive holders, different strings of halloween themed lights etc, etc, etc. One of my favorite things included a plastic tablecloth that was white and had “blood” dripping off the sides. Would fit my banquet tables Perfectly and was under 2 dollars.

While I was out running around, I popped into work quick to let the new GM have a rough idea of what I was out doing, what I found and all that. She has made a note to “set up a meeting” with me. I stressed the importance of working fairly quickly as the party is on the 23rd and halloween supplies at those prices sell out quickly. Here’s hoping this thing gets moving as fast as I hope it will. I really want to knock my first party out of the ball park and will be super cranky if I don’t get stuff because of buracratic bs.

(In the past, I was just given the company credit card and told to go shopping. Of course, in the past, I was never given advance prep time so my supplies were always weak as everything good had been sold already.)

I’m now taking advantage of a local college’s internets while said friend does some programing homework before taking me home. I am already spoiled by the tweeking and formating and things I can do on this computer that are impossible from my crackberry.

I also loooooooooove the password protected entries. OMG. What an awesome feature now that I know how to use it.

(if anyone is curious about my first password protected entry – the password is “plating is fun.” – I suspect the passwords may change depending on the entry subject. )

Tags: halloween, party planing, Work

Protected: Testing.

Exhibit A.

Some of you may or may not know a few weird facts about me. One of them is that I have *very* limited cable access. The other is that my dvd player took a crap on me like a month or so ago.

So, a few days ago, I finally break down and justify the purchase of a new dvd player as a *need* more than a *want.* I have not regreted my decision in the least as it has made life soooo much more bearable now that I have access to my dvd collection again when regular tv is the suck. (Which, in my world, is more often than not.)

So – *today* it occurs to ma that I have a *pile* of cool stuff that my best friend ripped for me *ages* ago, but I could never watch cuz my old dvd player hates me. I had a sneeking suspition that season 1 of lost. I found disks 456 and 7. Just tested disk 7 and it works. I am fairly sure further digging into the box will yeild disks 1,2, and 3.

*facepalm*

Tags: general idiotcy, lost

The universe works in mysterious ways.

So, I just tried to use the “visit a random blog” button and it sent me to my own blog.  I think the great giant dinasaur hed in the sky was trying to tell me to get off my butt and post something here.  Unfortunately, I don’t have much going on that’s blog worthy.

In theory I’m supposed to be working on a letter to the editor for our local paper. I have a brief outline done but am lazy. So very lazy. I have tomorrow off from work so hopefully I can get something on paper and then get a draft of it posted here.

Also, I just ran spell check.  Can you customize the spellings too like on a word processing program?  Or am I just stuck ignoring dinasaur and hed everytime I run spell check? :p

Greetings friends!

Ok, so see….this is why I was always on about da live journal. I lurvs me some blogging. I kept a livejournal blog since like 2000 or something.

Anyway – I’m not sure what direction this new one will take, so I’m looking for suggestions. Also – thinking of starting a book lovers group, but not sure what the details on that would be. Read more…

Hello world!

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