Where Soul Meets Body

My Grandpa ended up passing away this morning, shortly after I posted last. I'm told it was peaceful. My Grandma hasn't changed her mind so there will be no service. He will be cremated and Grandma is going to sprinkle him in the backyard! Nae took the afternoon off of work and we went to a movie and out to dinner and we're having family time this next Sunday when Mom and Dad come back home. I'm sad if I think about it so I'm trying not to think about it.

I Hope You Sleep In a Perfect Memory

Yesterday my Mom got a call that she should head down to Orange County. I mentioned in my last post that Boyfriend and I had gone to see my Grandpa in the hospital when we were down on Monday and since then he's taken a turn for the worse. He's sedated and Mom says he looks awful. She said there is probably enough time if we want to drive down and see him one last time, but she wouldn't recommend it because she doesn't want us remembering Grandpa in this way. Once he dies, she and my Dad will stay there for a few days and try and get my grandparent's finances in order and also take my Grandma in to the doctor because it seems like her dementia is getting really bad.

All I'm feeling right now is angry, really, really angry. 1) I'm angry that my Grandpa did this to himself. He always told us he was going to live to be 140 because I think he was afraid to die and when he realized he was getting old he decided to drink his way out so he wouldn't know death was coming. 2) I'm angry at my Grandma for a few different reasons: a) for turning my Grandpa's death in to all about her b) for going back and forth about wanting to live in Stockton near her brothers and away from the unhealthy situation of living with my Uncle c) for not wanting to hold a service for my Grandpa. So what if he doesn't want one? Services are for those left behind, not the dead, anyway. And so what if it's only us there? Funerals are not popularity contests. We will miss him and he is Catholic...doesn't he deserve a mass? d) Even though it's not her fault, I'm mad at my Grandma for losing her mind. I know that is an awful thing to say, but she acts so helpless and is so dramatic and she calls us with these hospital updates and gets all the facts wrong so we never really know what is going on. 3) I'm mad at my Uncle. He is miserable living with my grandparents and all they do is fight and yell and talk over each other all day long, but he won't move out. He won't give my Grandma his blessing, so to speak, to move up to Stockton because he doesn't want the gravy train to leave him behind. He also wants my Grandma to stay in the house because she and my Grandpa told him, in an act of total stupidity, that when they were both gone that he would get their house so now I think he's banking on that, which won't happen if Grandma sells the house and then lives in the assisted care apartments. 4) I'm mad at all three of them for the way they've allowed this situation to play out. Boyfriend's grandparents all seem to possess this quiet dignity that my extended family members must have missed out on when God was handing it out. Why do they have to be so weird and dramatic and stubborn? Why can't we rely on them to give us accurate hospital updates? Why can't we have a funeral like normal people? Why does everything have to be so difficult?

Ok, well enough with my dramatics or I'm just as bad as the people I'm bitching about! Since there isn't going to be a funeral, I will share with you all what I would have shared about my Grandpa if there had been one:

My Grandpa is/was a pretty reserved kind of guy. He wasn't the hugging, heart-to-heart kind of grandpa, but he did take us fishing a few times, which was cool because it was something he really enjoyed doing and he did take us rock collecting at the beach, which we really loved, especially when he would polish them in his machine for us, and he did on a few occasions let us put makeup on him and do his hair, which looking back on, I can't ever believe he let us do, especially when we would twist up his hair and put it in barrettes and comment about how his hair was the texture and consistency of Troll hair! And that's what I would've shared and it's what I got to tell him one last time this Christmas, and for that I am thankful.

Hope you all are having a good weekend. Once we get things figured out around here, Boyfriend and I are taking off to walk the Golden Gate Bridge hopefully and then up for two days in to Oregon and then back down the Northern California coast. After that, we will only have about two weeks left in California, before we head back out to Australia.

There's a Baby, Yes, There's a Baby About to be Born

This picture really has nothing to do with this post (Boyfriend took it on our trip to Yosemite the first year he was here) but it's a great shot and looks wintery and it's Christmas, damnit, so it kind of works, right?

Unless we've missed the text with the birth announcement, Soccer Player and the Hairdresser are still awaiting the birth of their baby. I'm hoping now that the Hairdresser has gone over her due date, she won't have to go camping with the newborn on Boxing Day (or as soon as it's born if it's after that day), as was previously planned. All of our friends who have had babies so far have tried to tell her that camping with a brand new baby is not where you want to be when you've just gotten out of the hospital and are trying to figure out how to be a mom still, but the Hairdresser is a trooper and up til now has said she is going. I can't wait to hear what they've had and what they've named it and I can't wait to buy it a "Welcome to the World" outfit here to bring back with me. I wonder if she's in labor, as I write this, and is having a Christmas baby? That'd be pretty neat, but probably not the most fun Christmas the Hairdresser would ever have! Anyway, I'm sending my love and my prayers down to you guys. I hope that it is a quick and painless delivery and recovery and Boyfriend and I can't wait to meet the new little guy or girl when we are back.

In other news, Mom and Dad both got sick last week and are still getting knocked around by it. We're pretty sure that Mom has come down with the Swine, while Dad's cold or flu seems to be different. They had a not so successful, but very stressful, trip down to Orange County last weekend to see my grandparents. If you read the last post (Runaway Train) about the situation, the update is nothing has changed and it has actually gotten a lot worse. Not only is my Grandpa on a quick downhill slope, to the point where my Mom thinks we'll be having a funeral before I go back in February, but now my Grandma is falling apart, too. She's gotten in two accidents in two different cars, side swiping a total of 5 cars, in two consecutive Wednesday nights! My Mom is understandably upset by what is going on, but on both trips she's taken to see them my grandparents have ignored the help she's offered so there's not much for her to do. The light at the end of the tunnel is that my Mom has found an assisted living place in Stockton that has apartments on site that allow the tennants to keep a small animal. My Grandma's brothers all live in Stockton and we've been saying for a few years now that she and my Grandpa should move of up there so they have more people to hang out with so once he passes away we think Grandma should take her dog and move to this facility. It's a good option because she is still capable of living mostly on her own for now and she can still keep her dog, but if and when she declines, she can then move in to the main part of the facility that offers more round-the-clock care. I think she really misses her brothers and this way she can see them more often, too.

Happy Holidays, right?

Other than that, our little 5some of me, Boyfriend, Mom, Dad, and Nae are looking forward to spending Christmas together. I've had all my Christmas shopping done for a few days now and only have a few things left to wrap. Boyfriend is stressed because lots of his online ordered presents haven't arrived yet. Nae is at work now (Trader Joe's) and has a taco eating contest with her coworkers and then she's coming over to make Christmas cookies and spend the night. Boyfriend and I said way back in October that we'd like to try and make gnocchi for Christmas Eve dinner so we'll get that under way this afternoon and hopefully take some good pictures for you guys and I'll post up the recipes. Nae's in charge of the food tomorrow and she's making some kind of roast beast, yorkshire pudding, homemade ice cream, and other stuff so I probably won't fit in to any of my new Christmas clothes after the 24 hours of eating I'm about to undertake! The weather here is bright and sunny and the air is crisp so I think we'll probably get up and do presents tomorrow morning and then go for a family walk and then just hang out for the rest of the day. I like having a mellow Christmas like that.

What about you? Is all your shopping and wrapping done? Are you having a mellow or a stressful Christmas Eve/Day?

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Hope you get everything you've asked for and more!

It's Gettin Hot in Here

It's Saturday about noon here. I've been up since about 7am since Boyfriend had to be ready for Bob to pick him up at 7:30 for their one night trip to Queensland. I've been very productive and have called my Mom for our weekly chat, done laundry, and laid out for about 10 minutes. I couldn't stay out there any longer, it was too hot and I was sweating already! Boyfriend sat out for about 30 on Thursday and he got burnt enough so that it is still red two days later.

It has been beautiful summer weather through the day here, but at night it gets cold and it gets cold fast. On Thursday night I went out back to try and see a huge possum that had just jumped between the roof of our house and our laundry room roof and I could see my breath and it was only 6:30!

Tomorrow I've been invited to go 4 Wheel Driving at Stockton (or as we all call it now thanks to Croc's nephew: The Big Sand) with Croc, the Teacher, the Soccer Player and the Hairdresser. We are leaving here before 8 and then will pick Boyfriend up at around 12:30 from one of the parking lots because he is flying in to the Newcastle airport and it is only about a 10 minute drive from there out to the sand dunes. It should be another fun day, but it's supposed to maybe get in to the 80s tomorrow so that sand is going to be hot, hot, hot! I'm bringing hats, sunscreen, and plenty of water. Hopefully going tomorrow will motivate Boyfriend to finally upload those pictures from our last trip there so that I can finally post them for you guys here.

Hope you guys have a great weekend!

As a sidenote: I didn't hear one mention of Sept. 11 here yesterday which seems kind of sad, like the whole world has forgotten already, but I guess life goes on and if it's not your own country that was effected maybe it's easy to forget? Do we, as Americans, do anything to remember the Boxing Day Tsunami? Or China's Earthquake? Or the anniversary of the start of the Genocide in Rwanda? When put in that context, I understand why yesterday was just another day here; there are enough tragedies that have happened in our world that we would probably have to have a rememberance day for some event every day of the year. But as an American yesterday/today home time is one of those days out of the year where I was personally effected in some way by the event so I take time out to remember and reflect on that tragedy. On the anniversary of the tsunami, earthquake, and start of the genocide people in other countries are remembering how they were effected then, and in a sense, even if it's not on the same day, we are all connected by our loss and by our hope for peace.

Sad Story

I know that I still need to finish the Costa Rica adventure, but I thought I'd give everyone an update on what's going on around here these days...

I still don't have a job, though I put in resumes for two jobs in schools last week so I hope I get a call for interviews for them soon.

My Mom officially got a job offer from where she has been doing consulting work and so she and Dad are bidding on condos in San Francisco.

My Dad went out and got himself a new Audi TT a few weekends ago. Talk about living the good life!

He and Mom are on an Alaskan cruise this week and I talked to Mom for a minute today and she was so excited because they had been to a glacier and had seen a porcupine up in a tree!

Nae is trying to work out an internship on a shark cage diving boat at the Farallone Islands for September.

Boyfriend and I had a relaxed weekend: we went and saw Angels and Demons on Saturday and grocery shopped and bought something for Junior's 1st Birthday, which is coming up in a few weekends. I was craving those Animal Style Fries from In-N-Out so we made our own In-N-Out at home-the fries, chicken burgers with cheese, and Oreo shakes. Sunday LC came over for a hang out and then Boyfriend and I went for a walk to the lake to feed the ducks and fish. We are a little bit worried about what they put in Jatz (like American Ritz) crackers because neither the fish nor the ducks would touch them!

When we got back from the walk, Boyfriend had gotten a text from his Mom about his Nan (grandma). She had been in the hospital for awhile and had just been recently moved to a nursing home. Boyfriend's Mom got the terrible news while on vacation in Queensland that it looked like Nan might not make it much longer. Boyfriend, understandably, was pretty upset. Bob called and asked if Boyfriend would like to go visit her and so they did and Boyfriend said it was a pretty sad time, but nice because a lot of the family was there with her visiting.

Boyfriend got the call yesterday morning that his Nan had passed away so I am really glad they all got that one last chance to go visit her. Everyone is pretty broken up about it. She was a really nice lady- from the moment I started dating Boyfriend I became a part of her family...she sent me Christmas cards in California and made me birthday presents. From the stories I've heard she was also a pretty feisty lady in her time, too. She was a big partier, loved the pokies (slot machines) and was a true country girl...Boyfriend said she was pretty handy on a ride-on mower and used to mow her whole huge property back in the day. She won't soon be forgotten by anyone who knew her.

Boyfriend and I have often talked about this and my Mom and I have also talked about it, too...his Nan and my Grandma on my Dad's side were like the same person...They were both partiers, they both had lost a child, they both took in "stray" children and made them part of their families, they both could meet a person once and become life long friends with that person, and they both smoked and died from complications due to their smoking. It is really incredible to us how much they had in common.

Boyfriend said the other day that he is glad that we got together when we did because he had the opportunity to meet my Grandma once before she passed away and because I got to know his Nan pretty well and my parents got to meet her and know her on their last trip out here, too. Our grandmothers will never just be people in stories to each other; we both knew and loved them and it just feels like an extra bond that we now share between us.

The world lost a good person yesterday...