nice long break is over...

My grandfather passed away a day or two after my last post. It was way more difficult than I realized it would be. Those people who I was griping about before did not come to the funeral. I suppose it may have been for the best.

However, my husband did something absolutely amazing. He spent considerable money and time working up a slideshow for my grandfather's funeral. It's amazing. I watch it even now, and I'm doing ok until I see pictures of him holding me as a baby, then I just lose it. It was such an amazing thing to do, and other members of my family who never got to meet Eric before were amazed that he would take the time to do such a thing when 'he isn't a member of the family'. Of course, they just meant that he's not a blood relation, so they were surprised. My great uncle 'Chick' immediately requested a copy of the slideshow, and I was amazed at how many people stood around staring at the screen just watching the photos. Things like this that Eric pulls out of nowhere just serve to remind me of how much I love him and how incredible he is sometimes.

I took a nice long break from blogging because I was too full of emotion. I was physically and mentally exhausted. However, in the interest of getting back in the swing of things, here's my little story from the past two months...

I am now the mother of a teenager. He's only 9.

I was searching for images online of a specific stretch so I could email it to a client to show how to properly do it. I found a hilarious site that uses an articulated Spiderman figure to show how to do stretches. I called my son over to look.

"Shawn, you gotta see this!"

Shawn comes running over and looks at the page, getting a confused look on his face.

"What? The girl in the bikini?"

My turn to get confused. I scanned the page and way off to the side, was a weight loss ad with a girl in a bikini. Apparently women have suddenly become more interesting than superheroes, the travesty that was Spiderman 3 aside.

Poor kid has no idea why I was laughing so hard.

For Whom The Bell Tolls...

My grandfather is dying. He is doing very badly right now, and it's been touch-and-go for the last week. Just when things started to look better for him, it all failed again. He is 95 years old, so he's had a long life, but it's still kind of stressful. I remember the way he used to take me into his garden and show me how to weed his strawberries, and the koi tanks in his yard, the willow tree where I used to play. (To my cousins: I don't care what you remember, I DID get to help with his strawberries at least once!) Some of my family harbors only resentment toward him, and I understand they had a very different relationship with him.

The reason I even mention this is because a couple of years ago my grandmother on the other side of the family died, and I refused to go to her funeral. She made my life miserable by saying mean things to me, telling me I was just like my mother (whom she hated), and generally being a pain in my ass. She yelled at me a lot. Other people in my family grew up with her. Literally. Lived with her for a while. Me, on the other hand, she refused to speak to for several years prior to her death.

I was the target of a lot of angst when she died. I made a lot of people mad by not going.
Does that mean I get to return the bitchiness when they don't come to Grandpa's funeral? I suppose I would be entitled, but I'm trying very hard to be a little bigger than that. I guarantee though, that if one more word is ever said to me about my family loyalties, I am likely to explode and perhaps turn into a chainsaw-wielding crazy person.

Of course, if some of them show up, it will only make things more stressful, and I hope they don't. Honestly, I know each person will have to make a decision, but I wish they wouldn't say things to me about the old man 'croaking'. He may not know it's being said, but I do. I always had a good relationship with him when I was a kid, and no one should step on that.

All alone with my thoughts

There is nothing like sitting somewhere with nothing to do and no one to talk to when the person you’re with has plugs in his ears listening to his goddess Paula Abdul. Then it dawned on me, I could pull out my computer and start writing.

Nope, still bored.

Maybe this is why the electronic gadget-imposed isolation happened so rapidly. Everywhere you look, someone is playing electronic Sudoku, or poker, or reading e-books, or texting…does anyone talk to anyone else anymore?

I’m stuffy, I’ll admit. I said a few posts ago how I sounded like an old fart, and realized a few days later that’s because I AM. I’m only 30, but somehow teenagers annoy the crap out of me.

(OMG, he started headbanging. Must not be Paula anymore. Oh, Metallica. *rolls eyes*)

Anyway, teenagers. Most are okay. The ones that bug me are the ones who travel in packs like their survival depends on it, and their self-esteem actually does. The ones who give everyone else dark and threatening looks because you walked into a McDonald’s on a Friday night at 10.30 pm with your spouse, ordered chocolate shakes and fries, and then sat down. Nothing more than that.

Now, granted, the area I was in is generally crawling with Goths. These kids weren’t Goth, because what self-respecting Goth (oxymoron?) would be caught dead (haha, another pun) in McDonald’s of all places. These kids were more punk than anything, and a couple of the most outlandish were the most polite. Their appearance didn’t bother me, but I did decide that I’m planning to avoid places where I see groups of teenagers hanging out. Their vacuous babble and girly giggles make my head hurt.

Why do teens lose IQ points when around other teens? Is this why we send our kids to public school, so they can socialize with others their own age, and forget how to relate to anyone else? Forget relate, just behave politely around others.

Between the constant gadget attached the the hands of the yuppie kids, the murderous looks from the punk kids, and the grumbling and ‘poor me’s’ from the Goths and Emos, our entire societal norms of polite behavior are gone. It’s tough to change my thinking about acceptable behavior. But should I? Which norm should be the acceptable one? I guess it’s not for me to say. Old polite behavior is going by the wayside quickly.

I guess us old fuddy duddys have to learn to accept some of the new norms, but the younger generation should learn to accept some of the old norms as well. We all have to share breathing air, and just because they are the up and coming generation, doesn’t give them the right to dictate. Wait until we’re in nursing homes, at least.

My brother once told me that Madonna should get out of the music biz. Stop making any kind of music whatsoever. Why? Because she’s too old. He was 17 at the time, but that’s no excuse for giving such a crappy reason. I might have understood it more if he’d said he didn’t like her or her music, or some other reason, but only that she’s too old?

This is what I’m talking about. Someone who is older has not outlived their usefulness. The world doesn’t belong only to those 25 and under. The older people are the ones who’ve paved the way for the younger generations to enjoy some of the freedom of expression they take for granted. And where would music be without those who came before paving the way? Madonna broke new ground with her music, like her or not. Just like Chuck Berry, and many others before them.

So this old fart is happy to be an old fart as long as she has other old farts for company. At least the ones who are courteous enough to chat with you instead of burying themselves in their own electronic gadgets.

Wonder what he’s listening to now and if his ears are burning?

Damn you for stealing my sign

We used to live in an apartment building which had two apartments on each floor. My husband and I, with our son, lived across the hall from three young women who were very sweet. It was a fairly quiet apartment building, and we never heard our neighbors. There must have been some kind of soundproof firewall, because my DH loves to turn the volume on the television up so far it would rattle the dishes in the kitchen cabinet. Apparently there was no soundproofing between our bedroom and the bedroom of the couple who lived upstairs though. Loud and quick, thank goodness. I would have started banging on the ceiling a la Heckles from Friends otherwise.

When we lived in this place, I had this cute little sign on my door. It was very appropriate for any place I lived. My mother gave it to me. It said "My house was clean yesterday. Sorry you missed it!"

I went home one day, went inside, and stayed for a while. When I left, my sign was gone. My prettily lettered, small, cute sign was gone. I was firstly amazed at the sense of loss I felt, and then the anger hit. I seethed about it for days.

Eric came to my rescue, like the night in shining armor he so seldom channels. When I came home next I found a new, printed sign on the door.

"Thanks for stealing our sign. You can have this one, too."

City kids are seriously deprived

I almost hate to do this, but I'm about to write about someone else's kids. I love this person dearly, and her kids are good kids. This is nothing personal. Now that I've backtracked before I've even written anything, maybe I have room to move forward with my thoughts!

This family, who will remain nameless, lives in suburbia. They run around in a minivan to school, church, and grandma's. OK, I know minivans aren't designed to go off-road like SUVs, so no complaints there. However, this family went to visit friends who lived out of the city. They had to *gasp* drive down a dirt road. The kids got really upset and were nearly crying, freaking out, asking if they were supposed to be there. They are currently 5 and 7 years old.

This is how you know you've been in the city too long. This is how we get kids and adults who don't know where milk or eggs come from. To be fair, these kids do. But many others don't and never learn.

I'm always amazed at the world in which we live now. Kids intuitively know much of our technology, because they are raised around it. But get some of these same kids around animals and they haven't got a clue which ones are likely to hurt them and which are useful. Get them on a farm and they can't figure out how to entertain themselves without video games.

I know I sound like an old fart. I'm just nostalgic. I miss the simple life without the chaos of the city. Of course, when I'm away from the city too far, I miss being two seconds from entertainment. When I put them on a balance, however, my desire for country living far outweighs my need to be passively entertained.