So, I called my Mom this evening because today was such a weird, tense day for me and I wanted to vent some of my election stress. And just out of curiosity, I asked if my Grandpa had voted. She told me, yes, they filled out an absentee ballot for him and mailed it in to Georgia. I figured he would vote for McCain, because he usually votes Republican, being an older Southern Baptist conservative WWII vet. He and I even had an argument about gay marriage last year when he asked me whether I thought homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and all I said was, "I don't really care if gays and lesbians get married to each other, if they are in love." I didn't even state my entirely true feelings on the subject because I didn't want to make him too mad, but he got mad at even me saying I didn't care. So, imagine my surprise when my Mom told me he asked her to fill in the bubble for Obama. (He's blind, so she had to do the bubbling for him.) She didn't ask him his reasons, which I assume are largely finance-related. But, if my almost lifelong Republican Grandpa is voting for Obama, I feel very reassured about the world and about people's willingness to be open-minded. I love my Grandpa very much, and I've always been proud of his service to the country and the amount of love he has showered on me and my Mom, and this just makes me prouder. It's nice to know that, when pretty much everyone else on his side of the family is a vocal McCain supporter, he decided he isn't too old or indoctrinated to make his own decision. I don't feel so isolated anymore when it comes to that side of my family. Maybe it even helps me understand a little better why my Mom and I turned out to be so liberal.
The other thing I found out today is that Obama is a Leo. So is Bill Clinton. Not that I really think it matters, of course, but, being a Leo myself, it does make me feel a little more kinship with the guy.
Anyway, I hope these are good signs, and I hope there aren't too many shenanigans on this Election Day.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Monday, November 3, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Stuff
Last night I had one of those stressful dreams where I am waiting tables and I can't do anything right, not even remember a drink order. Fun! It was kind of weird, though, because I was waiting tables at the restaurant where I currently work (but I'm a bookkeeper here, not a waitress) and yet all of my co-workers were people from my days at the Olive Garden. Silly smooshed-up brain!
I feel bad because I haven't written anything on here in a while, but I don't really have much of anything to say. It's been a boring month, with just work and watching the debates and reading celeb gossip blogs. I did buy a new laptop because my old one, well, basically it was a POS and nothing worked on it anymore, and now I can't even get it to stay on long enough to get all of my old files off of it. So I've kind of lost about 3000 songs that I had purchased and/or downloaded and I have started over from scratch with the importing and the downloading. Exciting stuff! I knew I didn't want that stupid computer, but for some reason my Dad and Stepmom really wanted me to have a laptop. IDGI! LOLZ. Ok, sorry, i've been reading too much Dlisted/BestWeekEver/LiveJournal lately.
It is nice that the new tv season has begun, so that has been pretty distracting, along with all of the political and economic stuff. I mean, the whole economic issue hasn't really affected me in any way (yet), but my grandfather did lose about half of his money. So that sucks.
I feel bad because I haven't written anything on here in a while, but I don't really have much of anything to say. It's been a boring month, with just work and watching the debates and reading celeb gossip blogs. I did buy a new laptop because my old one, well, basically it was a POS and nothing worked on it anymore, and now I can't even get it to stay on long enough to get all of my old files off of it. So I've kind of lost about 3000 songs that I had purchased and/or downloaded and I have started over from scratch with the importing and the downloading. Exciting stuff! I knew I didn't want that stupid computer, but for some reason my Dad and Stepmom really wanted me to have a laptop. IDGI! LOLZ. Ok, sorry, i've been reading too much Dlisted/BestWeekEver/LiveJournal lately.
It is nice that the new tv season has begun, so that has been pretty distracting, along with all of the political and economic stuff. I mean, the whole economic issue hasn't really affected me in any way (yet), but my grandfather did lose about half of his money. So that sucks.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Life, Death, Family, Blah
Yesterday I received the news that my grandmother has terminal cancer. She hasn't seen an oncologist yet, so we are not sure how long she has left. My guess would be a few months, maybe a year? She has been in the hospital for a couple of weeks now because she couldn't keep any food down and was having stomach pain. They found some tumors in her colon, removed them, and did a biopsy, which showed them to be cancerous. Afterwards, they tested her lymph nodes and found that the cancer had spread to them. Apparently, there is no surgical option at this point. I don't know about any chemotherapy or radiation, but the woman is 87 years old, so I don't think they will very highly recommend those, either. My mother says they are going to let her recover from the surgery she just had, then send her home and start the hospice nursing process.
They haven't told her yet, either, because they're afraid she'll just give up immediately and we'll never get her home. She is on some heavy pain medication right now, too, and doing a lot of moaning and groaning. I am going down to Georgia on Friday and will be spending the weekend there, coming back on Monday night. It's strange to think it could be the last time I see her before she passes away. I hope that isn't the case.
Most people know that she isn't my biological grandmother. But she is the only grandmother I have ever known on that side of the family. My feelings for her are very complicated because of the way she treated my mother when she was growing up. My real grandmother died in 1956, when my Mom was three. My grandfather re-married to Minner (as we call her, her real name is Mildred) five years later. She was a widow with two children who were older, and I guess she didn't really want to raise some other woman's daughter. I'm sure she did her best, but my Mom always felt the difference. Other kids would have their school art projects hung up on the fridge, she never did. When she asked for help in her Home Ec. class, she was told she had to learn it herself. She had to do a lot of chores that her stepbrother never did, meanwhile, he was drinking and flunking out of school--she was an A student. On the day of my Mom's marriage to my Dad, Minner cried and admitted she had never done right by her. How sad that she couldn't reach out to a little girl who was yearning terribly for a mother.
Anyway, she was always good to me when I was growing up. She always made a chocolate cake for me when I visited, always bought me nice gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I won't lie and say it was the same way my real grandmother on my Dad's side made me feel. There just wasn't the same sort of connection. But I can't in good conscience say that no effort was made when it came to me. So, as I said, it's complicated.
It's probably not a good idea to revisit the bad feelings when she is about to die, but it can't really be avoided. I feel the worst for my Grandpa, who how has to go through the death of a second wife. He is blind, so after she is gone, he will probably have to move down to Florida and live with my parents, or perhaps in one of those assisted living communities. He might enjoy that, he has always been active and sociable. Who knows?
It's very sad how quickly life really does go by. Eighty-seven years sounds like a long time, and I'm sure at points it feels like a long time. But it isn't really. When I think of how fast thirty years seems to have gone, and the fact that after my grandparents have gone, it will be my parents who are next in line (theoretically), it does seem quite small and fleeting.
As for me, I kind of hope I die very quickly around age 75. I have considered just killing myself if I reach 80, because, while you might be robbing yourself of something, what are you really robbing from the rest of the world? Not that life isn't valuable, but the progress of society requires death. Is it more selfish to cling to something you know will end soon, or is it more selfish to end things before it gets too troublesome? I don't know.
They haven't told her yet, either, because they're afraid she'll just give up immediately and we'll never get her home. She is on some heavy pain medication right now, too, and doing a lot of moaning and groaning. I am going down to Georgia on Friday and will be spending the weekend there, coming back on Monday night. It's strange to think it could be the last time I see her before she passes away. I hope that isn't the case.
Most people know that she isn't my biological grandmother. But she is the only grandmother I have ever known on that side of the family. My feelings for her are very complicated because of the way she treated my mother when she was growing up. My real grandmother died in 1956, when my Mom was three. My grandfather re-married to Minner (as we call her, her real name is Mildred) five years later. She was a widow with two children who were older, and I guess she didn't really want to raise some other woman's daughter. I'm sure she did her best, but my Mom always felt the difference. Other kids would have their school art projects hung up on the fridge, she never did. When she asked for help in her Home Ec. class, she was told she had to learn it herself. She had to do a lot of chores that her stepbrother never did, meanwhile, he was drinking and flunking out of school--she was an A student. On the day of my Mom's marriage to my Dad, Minner cried and admitted she had never done right by her. How sad that she couldn't reach out to a little girl who was yearning terribly for a mother.
Anyway, she was always good to me when I was growing up. She always made a chocolate cake for me when I visited, always bought me nice gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I won't lie and say it was the same way my real grandmother on my Dad's side made me feel. There just wasn't the same sort of connection. But I can't in good conscience say that no effort was made when it came to me. So, as I said, it's complicated.
It's probably not a good idea to revisit the bad feelings when she is about to die, but it can't really be avoided. I feel the worst for my Grandpa, who how has to go through the death of a second wife. He is blind, so after she is gone, he will probably have to move down to Florida and live with my parents, or perhaps in one of those assisted living communities. He might enjoy that, he has always been active and sociable. Who knows?
It's very sad how quickly life really does go by. Eighty-seven years sounds like a long time, and I'm sure at points it feels like a long time. But it isn't really. When I think of how fast thirty years seems to have gone, and the fact that after my grandparents have gone, it will be my parents who are next in line (theoretically), it does seem quite small and fleeting.
As for me, I kind of hope I die very quickly around age 75. I have considered just killing myself if I reach 80, because, while you might be robbing yourself of something, what are you really robbing from the rest of the world? Not that life isn't valuable, but the progress of society requires death. Is it more selfish to cling to something you know will end soon, or is it more selfish to end things before it gets too troublesome? I don't know.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
My Pedigree
I took a genetics class with Carrie in college, and our professor was this short, skinny, nerdy old Southern man who would always refer to family trees as "pedigrees." She and I had a lot of fun creating a pedigree for the white trash family we used to make up stories about. Let's just say, there were a lot crossed branches and twigs indicating learning disabilities.
Genealogy fascinates me, not that I have any really cool ancestors or anything--I just like to have an idea of where I come from, what life was like for the people before me, why they came to America, and what they would think of it nowadays. Why I am the way I am, I guess. It's really all about me, let's be honest here. So, I joined ancestry.com for a free trial of their like, deluxe package, where you have access to all sorts of records and other people's family trees to see if you have any matching information. It's pretty cool, and I've been able (if the information is accurate) to trace one line of my tree all the way back to France in the twelfth century! A lot of ancestors had Norman-English names, which is to be expected, since the conquest was so complete. Most of the tree dead-ends in various parts of England or Wales, which was cool because I didn't know I was at all Welsh. There were some people from Devon and Cornwall, too, which is kind of neat because supposedly they are from an entirely different tribe than the Anglo-Saxons. Although at this point they've all inter-married so much I suppose it hardly matters. There were some pretty crazy names, one being a guy called Oger Fitz Oger. There was also a woman named Amicia. That line of the family eventually moved to the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, then to North Carolina, and then to Georgia around 1800 or so. I had always assumed that because Georgia had been a debtor's prison colony when it was British that I was descended from some poor people who couldn't pay their bills! Looks like we're not such deadbeats after all! At least on that branch.
Unfortunately, I completely dead-ended on my Dad's branch after my great-grandparents. His mother was Irish and she was raised in Atlanta, but we aren't sure where she was actually born--she would say either Connecticut or Florida, but I don't know her mother's maiden name, and her father was one of about a hundred men named Jeremiah Joseph Sullivan that lived around the same time period. And while the site does have death certificates on file, they don't seem to have access to birth certificates, so that's a lot of missing information. There are no records from Mexico or Spain on the site, either, so nothing on his father's side.
My great-aunt did a lot of genealogy on my Mom's mother's side of the family, so I might give her a call and see if she can give me some more information there. Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week for the most part. The free trial is going to end soon, though! Maybe I should just print out all the stuff so that I have it. I think I will do that.
Genealogy fascinates me, not that I have any really cool ancestors or anything--I just like to have an idea of where I come from, what life was like for the people before me, why they came to America, and what they would think of it nowadays. Why I am the way I am, I guess. It's really all about me, let's be honest here. So, I joined ancestry.com for a free trial of their like, deluxe package, where you have access to all sorts of records and other people's family trees to see if you have any matching information. It's pretty cool, and I've been able (if the information is accurate) to trace one line of my tree all the way back to France in the twelfth century! A lot of ancestors had Norman-English names, which is to be expected, since the conquest was so complete. Most of the tree dead-ends in various parts of England or Wales, which was cool because I didn't know I was at all Welsh. There were some people from Devon and Cornwall, too, which is kind of neat because supposedly they are from an entirely different tribe than the Anglo-Saxons. Although at this point they've all inter-married so much I suppose it hardly matters. There were some pretty crazy names, one being a guy called Oger Fitz Oger. There was also a woman named Amicia. That line of the family eventually moved to the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, then to North Carolina, and then to Georgia around 1800 or so. I had always assumed that because Georgia had been a debtor's prison colony when it was British that I was descended from some poor people who couldn't pay their bills! Looks like we're not such deadbeats after all! At least on that branch.
Unfortunately, I completely dead-ended on my Dad's branch after my great-grandparents. His mother was Irish and she was raised in Atlanta, but we aren't sure where she was actually born--she would say either Connecticut or Florida, but I don't know her mother's maiden name, and her father was one of about a hundred men named Jeremiah Joseph Sullivan that lived around the same time period. And while the site does have death certificates on file, they don't seem to have access to birth certificates, so that's a lot of missing information. There are no records from Mexico or Spain on the site, either, so nothing on his father's side.
My great-aunt did a lot of genealogy on my Mom's mother's side of the family, so I might give her a call and see if she can give me some more information there. Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week for the most part. The free trial is going to end soon, though! Maybe I should just print out all the stuff so that I have it. I think I will do that.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
California
Last weekend I visited my stepsister and her boyfriend out in Los Angeles. They have a six month old named Jake, whose birthday is the day before mine. He's very cute, very good-natured. It was a lot of fun to play with him and make silly faces and watch him be fascinated by all sorts of things.
It was also fun to go see Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Rodeo Drive,. I actually bought some jeans there, so even though they were only like $40 I can still say I got them in Beverly Hills should it ever come up in conversation (doubtful). We also went out to Santa Monica Pier and my Mom and I rode the ferris wheel. It was gorgeous, and so unusual for me to see such a wide beach surrounded by mountains. Not like the beaches in Florida, where everything is flat. After that we drove up to Malibu and watched the sunset, then drove back through Topanga Canyon, stopping at a lookout point where you could see the San Fernando Valley all lit up in the early darkness.
I have been to California in the past, but it has been about fourteen years since I was there last. Back then I was a teenager and even though it seemed fun and cool to be there, I was very interested in doing things like seeing where the stars lived and buying keychains everywhere we stopped. It was nice to go back with a more mature perspective (although I still kept my eye out for any celebs--no luck). Hopefully one day I will make it back to Northern California, which I preferred over L.A.
The only thing I wish we had done more of was eat out at nice restaurants. Honestly, I flew 3000 miles from New York to Los Angeles only to eat at El Pollo Loco and a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. There was one really cool Cuban bakery called Portos that we went to on my last day there, actually. It was in Burbank, and it's the kind of place where you walk up and place your order and then they bring it out to your table. The food was very good there, though, and they had an amazing selection of desserts (chocolate mousse!).
Anyway, I can understand a little better now why people want to live there. The mountains are lovely and the ocean seems so much bigger than here on the East Coast, and let's not even get in to the weather. But it's not for me. Too much driving on "free"ways and mountains for my comfort. And no connectedness--if you're not working in the film/tv industry and don't manage to get to the beach very often it's probably easy to forget you even live there (like every other place in America).
Next stop: England!
It was also fun to go see Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Rodeo Drive,. I actually bought some jeans there, so even though they were only like $40 I can still say I got them in Beverly Hills should it ever come up in conversation (doubtful). We also went out to Santa Monica Pier and my Mom and I rode the ferris wheel. It was gorgeous, and so unusual for me to see such a wide beach surrounded by mountains. Not like the beaches in Florida, where everything is flat. After that we drove up to Malibu and watched the sunset, then drove back through Topanga Canyon, stopping at a lookout point where you could see the San Fernando Valley all lit up in the early darkness.
I have been to California in the past, but it has been about fourteen years since I was there last. Back then I was a teenager and even though it seemed fun and cool to be there, I was very interested in doing things like seeing where the stars lived and buying keychains everywhere we stopped. It was nice to go back with a more mature perspective (although I still kept my eye out for any celebs--no luck). Hopefully one day I will make it back to Northern California, which I preferred over L.A.
The only thing I wish we had done more of was eat out at nice restaurants. Honestly, I flew 3000 miles from New York to Los Angeles only to eat at El Pollo Loco and a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. There was one really cool Cuban bakery called Portos that we went to on my last day there, actually. It was in Burbank, and it's the kind of place where you walk up and place your order and then they bring it out to your table. The food was very good there, though, and they had an amazing selection of desserts (chocolate mousse!).
Anyway, I can understand a little better now why people want to live there. The mountains are lovely and the ocean seems so much bigger than here on the East Coast, and let's not even get in to the weather. But it's not for me. Too much driving on "free"ways and mountains for my comfort. And no connectedness--if you're not working in the film/tv industry and don't manage to get to the beach very often it's probably easy to forget you even live there (like every other place in America).
Next stop: England!
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