July 08, 2008
on the family grapevine
the family grapevine is carried over the telephone wires.
now that my mom has moved away, she calls to chat every few weeks. we never did that before.
i'm now on the family grapevine, for reals.
i can tell you what's happening with everyone. some of it is pretty amazing. some of it is pretty sad.
i can tell you... but i'm not going to. because, you know. it's family stuff.
Posted by spacegrrl at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
Category: familyJune 04, 2008
Engaged.
J and I got engaged a month ago.
I've been meaning to tell you all.
First, I had to tell certain people in person.
Then I was very busy.
Now I am telling you.
There's no date, no plan. We're discussing possible locations, but nothing has been decided.
He's actively seeking a job in this area. Know of a position in IT auditing? Please let us know.
The beautiful ring? J designed it, and then he carved the wax it was cast from. I will let him tell you more. It's amazing. So is he.
Posted by spacegrrl at 12:03 AM | Comments (4)
Category: familyJanuary 31, 2008
Logging out and getting on
In 1982, my mom landed this awesome job with a local software company. She was working on an English degree at the local state university, and as part of her technical writing course she had to interview someone working in the field.
Somehow it was that she wound up interviewing a woman named Alice who worked at this local software company. Once she was done interviewing Alice, Alice then started interviewing my mom-- for a job. Which she gave her.
So my mom has worked there for 26 years. In 1985 or so, she arranged for me to have a summer job there. I went on to have one or two more summer jobs at this company, then wound up being hired full time in January of 1990.
So for the last 18 years, I've worked full time at the same place, and my mom has always been there, too. We almost never interacted professionally, but we had conversations online and saw each other from time to time. When I wound up in the company health care center with a broken arm, and couldn't raise any of my co-workers on the phone, I called my mom and she was there.
This morning I pulled into the parking lot of a building I don't normally visit. I had to go into a meeting of colleagues from around the globe and stand up in front of them and be introduced. As I was parking, my iPod tossed up the following song lyric:
"...no one knows you better..."
and I burst into tears. Then I pulled it together, drank my coffee, stood up in front of those people and did my bit.
4:30pm was her retirement party. As I hoped, it was a jolly affair. People were happy to see each other, some who had not seen my brother Daniel since he was a baby. Everyone was there and it was a nice time.
After it all dispersed, I helped mom clear out some things from her office. "You're about to watch me log off for the last time!" she said, dramatically. "Do you think I should set an Out Of Office message?" I provided some amusing ideas for what the message should say. "I'm out of the office and won't be checking my mail. EVER."
Me, mom and Wayne went to the fancypants hotel on campus for a drink. It was nice. It was just like always. I think it is easier for me than for some of her co-workers who have known her since the beginning. I know I'll be seeing her regularly. They don't know when they'll see her again.
So there it is. After almost two decades, my mom won't be there at work. And eventually, after she moves to the beach, she won't be in town, either. As Wayne said, "Logging out, and getting on!"
Posted by spacegrrl at 08:26 PM | Comments (2)
Category: familyMay 22, 2007
The Graduate
I woke up at 5am (an hour earlier than I intended).
We arrived on campus at 8am, too late to get good seats.
We left at 1:30pm after hearing the names of over a thousand people read out loud, plus two prayers, an amusing speech by New York Times columnist David Brooks, and assorted other information.
"Well, mom," I said, "You've finally produced a college graduate."
Click the thumbs up photo to see more pictures.
Posted by spacegrrl at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
Category: familyDecember 25, 2006
dry and ready
that doesn't only describe a dredel, but also the spacepod, who remained dry inside during today's inhospitable downpour. that may be one of the best christmas presents i could have given myself. a dry and ready spacepod.
i'm home now, pending round 2 of today's cat care duties, watching a local hand cat cora's ass to her on a plate. since i can't stand cat cora anyway, this makes me happy. perhaps the next time j is in town, i will take him to the angus barn.
i received many nice things, including a new santoku knife. dan seemed to be quite fascinated with his new ipod, which mom and i went in on together. i have to admit that the starflucks card that the boys gave me is actually one of my favorite presents.
dinner was fabulous although i'll admit to a little guilty disappointment that neither ham nor macaroni and cheese were involved. in fact, i believe i will make these things for myself in the next few days since i was hoping to eat them today. the standing rib roast was some of the best beef i've ever eaten, however.
upon arrival at gran's we encountered my stepbrother who left quickly after we arrived. he was still in scrubs and was no doubt not lying when he claimed to be tired from working all day, but i'm pretty sure he also didn't want to deal with the whole lot of us. oh well; it was good to see him, however briefly.
i helped mom cast on a scarf while we had a nice visit with gran who is still pretty damn sharp at 97, although physically quite miserable.
throughout the day as i drove here and there i listened to sarah's annual divaville xmas show which was one of the highlights of the day.
Posted by spacegrrl at 08:16 PM | Comments (2)
Category: familyNovember 24, 2005
townie
there's a lot to be said for having family in town.
in fact, due to spacepod's sudden decision to go to lonnie's auto spa for the holiday, i got curbside pickup and drop off from various family members. i didn't even have to drive to get to dinner.
i get to watch the bond-a-thon in my own living room, with a nice fire, instead of in "the cave" with my brothers down in the basement.
i don't have to cook (much) or do dishes.
yay!
Posted by spacegrrl at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)
Category: familySeptember 27, 2005
my mom is awesome, episode #512
mom: here, do you want to pick the wine? (hands me the wine list)
me: i probably shouldn't have any wine.
mom: why?
me: because i'm trying to lose weight.
mom: well, i think that you should ALWAYS have wine.
:|:
in other family news, one of my brothers "kind of actually" has a girlfriend and wants the 'rents to meet her. aww.
Posted by spacegrrl at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
Category: familyJune 05, 2005
the kitchen at night
the kitchen at night. this is where family occurs. you travel to emerald isle/ithaca ny/bundick va. various aunts uncles grandmas grandpas cousins etc are there. the configurations change but they are always your family. maybe it is just you and one other. mom or grandma. a glass of wine or these days a mojito. the ticking of a clock. the conversation. "well i always thought this [surprising thing about you or someone else in the family]." "wow, really? that's interesting."
i remember once on the porch at bundick the aunts and uncles there, somehow the conversation turned to me. flattered at the attention but uncomfortable with it all at once, i talked about wanting to work in video and movies. gosh, this must have been in my early 20's. we talked about my problems with school. "is this a fear of failure, or a fear of success?" asked my aunt martha. "what is your five-year goal?" challenged uncle bill. i think i met it, except instead of video, it was the web. within five years i was working professionally, earning money, working on the web, which was better than film or video as it turned out.
familiar as this scenario is, i find being around family makes me sad now. the people who are gone, i guess. the big wall of old photos wayne has put up is affecting. there's a portrait of grandma, it looks like a graduation photo. she's young, and smiling. another of her as a cheerleader at maryvale college with two friends. it's wonderful and sad all at once.
walking down the beach watching lee ann with lainey. two girls being silly, mother and daughter. it was so happy and sad all at once.
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Category: familyJune 04, 2005
to be filed under...
why did i never think of this before?
fine time today. after breakfast, a tour of the garden, and a little work on the BRSP, mom and i went to the diner for lunch and wandering through cheesy gift shops and antique shopping. awesome onion rings at the diner. consensus is that old metal lawn furniture (which i want for my back porch) is too pricey and too rusty here at the beach and i should look elsewhere for it.
family came over for dinner-- my step-sister lee ann and her husband david (a fellow diesel geek), daughter lainey, and mother in law. lainey, age four, decided i was her new best friend, which is odd because usually children don't really take to me. mom's theory is it's because she's used to everyone fawning over her, which i was not. so she was intrigued and wanted to win me over.
big dinner of frogmore stew and cake and a nice walk on the beach after (cool and almost dark).
then after they left, mojitoes.
Posted by spacegrrl at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyJune 02, 2005
beach
i am not a beach person. a hot, sandy, salty plain crowded with preening people spilling out of their bathing suits is not my idea of a good time.
however, my family owns a beach house, so for a cheap vacation, i can go down there for a weekend in the summer and let them feed me and sit on the breezy screened porch. as i am about to do.
it is likely that i won't actually set foot on the beach all weekend, unless it's cool and rainy.
it's awful to say, but i wish i were going to stay home and sand the van, work in the yard and all that good stuff. but my thumb and now my elbow are both hurting and it's probably just as well that i give them a rest.
Posted by spacegrrl at 11:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyMay 15, 2005
home again, home again
Posted by spacegrrl at 06:50 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyApril 06, 2005
that's better
towards the end of the day i pretty much signed off on the high-profile work project. when it goes live monday around 10-11am, y'all will get to see it. i'm iffy on linking to it from my blog, but let's just say that if you know who my employer is-- ya ain't gonna have too hard of a time finding it. unfortunately, unless you're an html/css geek, it won't seem very impressive or mean much. view the source, and look at the css to see my work on the page.
a former co-worker's husband died earlier this week-- he was only ten years older than i am. heart attack. the visitation was tonight and i considered going, but i already had plans to see mom for dinner, the visitation was out in garner, and i was dressed wildly inappropriately in a pink t-shirt and jeans. so i will show support in another way.
mom wanted to see me because, after a year of work, she has finished her first knitting project! not only was the yarn she used difficult to work with (eyelash), but the kneedles were very large, and of course it being her first project, it was slow going anyway. she got frustrated many times, and even left the first attempt in a plane in italy! but i swear she is the definition of determination and she finished that dang thing, and now she's like, "what will i knit next!!!" anyway, i had to teach her how to cast off. here she is wearing it for the first time.
we had a nice dinner at neo china and i brought home a ton of yummy leftovers. they've got wireless in the house now, and i had my laptop with me, so i was able to show them my work projects. wayne liked the interface i did for my other big work project and said, "hm, i might have to steal some code from you..."
i have to say that it's always very nice and relaxing to hang out with them. i'm very lucky to have a family that i enjoy, since so many people seem to find their families stressful.
Posted by spacegrrl at 10:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyMarch 12, 2005
apple spice cake!
thanks to everyone for the suggestions!
i decided that the lemon custard would be too complicated... this week, i need simple.
flipped through joy of cooking... decided apple spice cake looked easy enough and sounded like just the sort of thing she'd like. it's supposed to be done as a single 8×8 square cake, but i doubled it and made three round layers. a simple square cake isn't a proper birthday cake! they recommended white frosting but i thought cream cheese sounded better. oh, but i had to modify the frosting recipe; it needed waayyyy more cream cheese.
what can i say? somewhere along the line, i learned how to bake :) it's ironic. at least i can make nice birthday cakes for other people. the cake turned out extremely well, incredibly moist and yummy, and cream cheese frosting was just the right choice.
both of my brothers were there and conversation was, of course, lively. wayne made homemade pasta with sambuca sauce, and homemade bread. it was supercarbalicious!
in case you can't tell, i'm in a good mood. the weather was warm today and i had a good time with the fam.
Posted by spacegrrl at 11:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyFebruary 15, 2005
i guess i know where i get the killer immune system
So yesterday my grandmother went into the hospital with pneumonia. Reports were that she was very sick, dangerously low blood pressure, high heart rate, looked terrible... everyone was figuring that this was it.
And this morning, she's pretty much fine. Looks good, ate breakfast, chatting with the nurses. Go grandma.
This is the grandma up in Maryland (my mom's mom) for whom I made the little comic book about Moses at Christmas. As you may recall, she's not exactly all there in the memory department anymore. My aunt m. reported to mom this morning that she told the nurses in the hospital that she has 14 children (she has four). I told mom that I think I need to meet the ten aunts and uncles I didn't know I had!
Posted by spacegrrl at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyNovember 26, 2004
archie macphee is my pottery barn.
seriously, check out their new catalog. it's not just rubber chickens and devil duckies any more.
:|:
thanksgiving went nicely. my applesauce, mashed potatoes and pumpkin cheesecake all turned out well. mom and i cut the burned bits off the top of the cheesecake before putting on the topping and it was just fine. everyone had a piece and seemed to like it. mom also made this chocolate pecan pie that was completely deadly-- i got halfway through a small piece and had to stop. i proclaimed, "i've hit the carb wall." and it was true.
got gran there and back ok, but she is really having a lot of trouble now getting in and out of the spacepod because it is so low. the next time i take her i might need to find someone with a slightly higher car who could trade cars for the day-- or beg someone to come out from raleigh in wayne's tahoe. i think she can get in and out of it ok.
she is also slowing down a lot. she always makes herself walk as much as she can, to the point of pain, because she doesn't want to become a vegetable. i can definitely respect that and it makes me proud of her, although i wish she would cut herself a little break-- she's 95, she's allowed to sit down, you know? anyway, getting down the hall to the elevator with her walker wears her out now, which is a big change over the last year. mentally, though, she's still completely on top of things. and i can still make her bust a gut laughing, so i think that's a good sign.
i definitely over-carbed and didn't feel so great when i went to bed. today when i got hungry for lunch, i felt a little shaky-- like i was about to crash. so i need to play it a little safer for a while.
:|:
today i tore into a lot of tasks that have been waiting around the house and did manage to be highly productive. i got the eyeball collection cleaned out of the van and refilled the oil so i could drive it around for a few errands. i did try to drain the current oil so i wouldn't be mixing two kinds of oil, but i can't find my 13mm crescent wrench, and i broke my ratchet while trying to loosen the oil drain bolt while using an extender for leverage. and didn't loosen the bolt at all. what goliath tightened that thing? uh, that would be me. with a crescent wrench. guess i got it tight enough. (unless mark secretly torqued it or something-- but i doubt it.)
i've decided to start something new-- rather than always eating on the sofa in the living room while watching tv, i am going to try also eating at my kitchen passthru while reading and maybe listening to the radio. this means i need to keep that area clean a little more religiously, which would be a good thing. it also means the cat and i don't have to tussel over his behavior so much-- the line between eating area and living area will be a little more clear.
that is all.
Posted by spacegrrl at 05:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyNovember 20, 2004
my family
pictures from gran's 95th birthday
featuring my many half- and step-brothers.
Posted by spacegrrl at 06:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyAugust 12, 2004
sleepguilt
it's funny but i think in the deeper recesses of my mind, i feel guilty about sleeping.
whenever i am awakened by the phone, i try to hide the fact that i've been awakened from sleep. i try to make my voice sound normal. i always think i've succeeded, but i am sure that i never do.
this phone thing goes back to the really bad insomnia days, when i was living out in the woods and doing a 2-5am shift friday nights at the station, working 9-5 during the week.
jonathan would call me on saturday in the late morning or early afternoon. i'd almost always still be dead asleep. he'd be annoyed that i was asleep. so i started trying to hide that fact.
when i was in high school, i'd often stay in bed until afternoon on the weekends, if i could. i'd actually be awake for much of the time, and just laying in bed, listening to my mom talk on the phone to her sisters, listening to the family, and daydreaming.
we have this thing in my family where you don't wake up sleeping people. unless there's like a fire or something. no matter how badly you need that person to get up, no matter how inconvenient their late sleeping is, you don't wake them up. well, except if it's a school morning and mom suspects you're not going to get up on your own.
but... making them feel guilty about it is perfectly acceptable. hello, welcome to my passive-agressive family! my late afternoon "sleeping" habit didn't pass unnoticed. it was commented upon liberally. it was regarded as sort of slovenly behavior, akin to never cleaning up my room or watching tv during daylight hours.
hence, sleepguilt.
btw, i was noticing last night that my mom's house has little piles of crap all over the place. i never noticed it before. it's not as bad as my place, but it was kind of a revelation, since i've always regarded my mom as a very neat and tidy person.
Posted by spacegrrl at 09:00 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyMarch 19, 2004
meeting the canadians
tomorrow, i travel to the exalted destination of myrtle beach with my mom and stepfather to meet my mom's cousins from nova scotia and from tenessee.
i've never met these folks, so it's kind of exciting.
but why the heck are we going to myrtle beach in march?
well, the story is that my great aunt dede, my maternal grandmother's sister, is the matriarch of the canadian branch of the family, and she would go to myrtle beach every year in march. to her, this weather was warm, and she would apparently swim in the ocean while there. it was her summer vacation!
now, my memory of myrtle beach is that it's pretty much a hellhole. but we're staying where dede used to stay, and from the web site it looks pretty nice. and it should be fun to hang with the fam.
so anyway. that's what's going on for the next few days.
Posted by spacegrrl at 12:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyMarch 14, 2004
can you say "vanity blog"?
ok, i'll admit it. i'm totally fascinated with pictures of myself from when i was a kid. actually, i'm totally fascinated with pictures of my friends and family from when they were kids, too. i'm sure i'm not the only one. a long time ago, when my brothers were little kids, i showed them a picture of mom as a baby. it blew their minds! they ran around saying, "baby mommy! baby mommy!" for an hour afterward.
but i'm not going to pretend that my posting pictures of myself to my blog is anything but vanity.
i was a total dork. still am. it might be slightly less obvious most of the time, though.
my princess di phase. still a total dork.
yep. i was a horse girl.
probably my first time wearing vintage clothes. you can tell it's halloween because my little brother is dressed up like superman.
Posted by spacegrrl at 01:20 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyMarch 12, 2004
another friday with the fam
today was mom's birthday, so i went into raleigh to have dinner with the folks. since we're all going to myrtle beach next weekend to meet the canadians, we'll wind up having dinner together three fridays in a row. unprecedented!
after dinner, back at the house, i dug out some old photo albums to see if i could find a prom pic with both george and i, or any other useful pics. turns out the prom pics are at the beach house for some unknown reason, but mom and i both got really engrossed in the photo albums which we had not looked at in years. i showed my brothers some very early pictures of their dad, who they don't really remember (he died when they were six). when i showed them one of his very early pictures-- he looked to be maybe 8 or 9-- i said, "do you know who that is?" and daniel said, "is that me?"
i also found the class picture from my montessori pre-school-- but it turns out it's of not my class! my mom was a teaching assistant in the other class, and it's a picture of her with her class. it does have the names of all the students on the back, but no indicator of which school it was. however, mom realized that her old friend pat folk, who we met through that school, and who still lives in the area, may well remember the name of the school. so hopefully we'll find out for sure if sarah and i were in pre-school together!
we also made the interesting discovery that my first stepfather, richard (stuart and daniel's father) may have owned a VW beetle when he was young. we do know that he had a close friend in college who owned a beetle, and wrecked it and was killed in it. i have what looks to be a photo of that beetle now. that's significant to me because it was one of the primary reasons i wasn't allowed to have a beetle as my first car. i also have a photo of richard at the house with a very new-looking black beetle-- possibly his. we can ask gran if he did indeed have one.
finally, i saw a project that wayne has been working on with old, old photos of his family. he's scanned them, enhanced them, printed them and is matting and framing them for display at the beach house. one is a priceless shot of his mother as a young woman holding a sign that says "WE WANT BEER". for those who have visited my house, she's the one who collected all the crazy salt and pepper shakers. wayned printed a copy for me and i'll frame it and hang it next to the shaker collection.
Posted by spacegrrl at 10:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyMarch 06, 2004
hanging out with the fam
|
my aunt joan is visiting, on her way home from her yearly sojourn to sarasota, so i went to dinner with my mom, wayne, and joan tonight. we went to the... uh, i think it's called the duck and dumpling. it's a trendy chinese restaurant in downtown raleigh. actually, it was quite yummy and we had a nice time. we walked around after at artspace, it being first friday.
aren't they cute? almost like twins now, although they are a few years apart. i've always liked joan a lot. when i was a little kid, she had long, perfectly straight blonde hair, down to her waist, which i greatly admired. she also had a poison ring which i enjoyed opening and closing (she later gave it to me). and she was always very nice to me, even when the rest of the family treated me like a kind of pariah. |
Posted by spacegrrl at 12:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyFebruary 19, 2004
dan @ home
went to mom's house to drop off the applesauce and visit at lunch. dan has been confronting the situation with school and is feeling really discouraged. (i was startled to discover that his intro to programming course is taught in fortran. what the??)
he's also still very weak and has no energy. ncsu engineering isn't exactly a cakewalk, and dan has always had to work hard to do well in school. he doesn't want to drop out, and engineering seems like the right place for him-- mom told me a story about how a piece of equipment in his hospital room broke and he fixed it making creative use of other objects in the room. but this is a pretty tough situation.
i wish i could help him with fortran-- but i think at best we'd be learning together, or more likely, he'd be teaching me!
Posted by spacegrrl at 12:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyFebruary 09, 2004
still good...
mom reports that grandma got a pacemaker this weekend, which required only local anesthetic. she is now back at the retirement home, but in the nursing section until she regains her strength. now hopefully she'll return to normal and be able to go back to her apartment, but sometimes people do have trouble recovering and get stuck in the nursing section, which would be bad.
in slightly more cheerful news, mom reports that the canada branch of the family are upholding my great-aunt de-de's tradition of vacationing in myrtle beach in march! i met de-de many years ago and was very impressed by her. mom and wayne went up for her funeral and a family reuinion last summer. i desperately wanted to go-- i've never been to canada or met any of the canadians besides de-de-- but i couldn't work out the timing. so this could be very cool.
mom showed me pics of nova scotia when they came back-- it looks just like the Isle of Skye in Scotland, which I visited many years ago. I remember having this strange feeling when I was on Skye that the unusual landscape felt very... resonant, somehow. On my grandmother's side (also de-de's side) everyone is MacDonald and MacLeod, which both have their clan castles on Skye. The section of Nova Scotia that my family lives in is extremely remote; it could not have been easy to forge a living there. I have to wonder if they chose that area because of similarities to what they were used to on Skye.
Posted by spacegrrl at 09:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyFebruary 05, 2004
so far so good.
mom reports that grandma was tested up, down, and sideways and they couldn't find anything. her GP wants her to have a pacemaker anyway; the cardiologist does not, but wants her to have a horrible invasive test which can cause serious/deadly side effects (blood clots).
mom says, get a second opinion. we don't much like either of those.
Posted by spacegrrl at 11:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyFebruary 04, 2004
grandma
mom told me this morning that my grandmother is in the hospital. it sounds like it may not be too big of a deal, but the last time i heard one of my grandmothers was in the hospital with something that shouldn't be too bad, the next thing i heard was that she was dead. still, i am strangely not freaked out. maybe i've reached a point where i've had enough people die on me that i've learned not to freak out about it in advance. or maybe the sleep deprivation is just numbing my responses.
at least my mom remebered to tell me.
Posted by spacegrrl at 09:42 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyJanuary 27, 2004
memories of my father
(and about three people in the world will get the music reference in the title...)
the ikea thing (specifically, the maze of twisty little passages) made me remember when my dad was working at cherry point, managing the install of a new mainframe there. of course, they had adventure installed and when my dad would take me in to work with him (because when you see your daughter just four days a month, you should be sure to spend at least part of that time at work), he'd sit me down in front of adventure for entertainment.
i wasn't really old enough to play very successfully, but i would try. the guys in the lab had drawn a map of the game, which helped a little.
that's it, that's the memory. geek training at an early age.
Posted by spacegrrl at 04:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Category: familyDecember 10, 2003
marf
my aunt martha slays me. i drew her name for a christmas gift this year, so i was asking her what she wants. she said:
"I also want a cookbook- 'Smart Cook', or it might be 'Cook Smart', anyway I know it has those 2 words in it, the order is up in the air. It's by Pam Anderson. I couldn't find it on Amazon.com, I did however find more about Pamela Anderson then I ever wanted to know. Who would've guessed her boobs weren't real?"
Posted by spacegrrl at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)