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So Long, Farewell!

YoursTrulyYoursTruly
edited June 2012
I'm off to Coloraddy where a man can walk a mile high!
Who here has a family reunion this summer?
Family reunions! they can be really awkward, really stressful, or really fun.

I shall have neither phone nor internet til Monday

This time tomorrow I shall be betwixt a rushing river and a raging Smello-esque fire, playing movie trivia! I shall sleep with the scent of evergreens and river rocks inside my nose!

Poor snoopy will be in boarding school. Pray for him.

SEE YA

Comments

  • LelandLeland
    edited June 2012
    Ambling toward a conjunction like this at the silk screen ranch tomorrow. J dawg, her grandmother, her great-gran, her father, two uncles and two big highschool-aged cousins. Because we are well-behaved (and skilled self-distractors) we can easily put off showing our irritation with each other for at least a day. Also, really: love.
  • LelandLeland
    edited June 2012
    The scene: I'm on this machine. Idling with you. Across the table, brother number 2 is tapping at a burbling iPad as he plays the intentionality of a global disease in a strategy game called Pandemic. There is another machine chirping on the breadbox, a 2X2 video display monitoring Mother's progress preparing grandmother for a transfer from her bed to the chair. Mother is narrating all of her nursing moves to her grand-daughter, J dawg. Mother is in total control freak mode, not just about her mother's care, but about every possible detail of every interaction or activity among the family members that might occur today. I have found it safest just to find a place to sit and idle. My ideas about pancakes this morning were apparently insane and terroristic, as was my suggestion to marinate the salmon that is intended for our supper. Quiet, here they come! Keep your head down....


    Photobucket
  • LelandLeland
    JSYK: My irritation wave ebbed into compassion somewhere about midway through our 10pm dinner. "No, you cannot go to the store for me. No, you cannot make the salad. No, you cannot cook the salmon. No, you cannot assist with the roast beef, mashed potatoes, or stuffing. Just sit. Dinner is almost ready." This from a person who had risen around 5:30 am after maybe three hours sleep, then prepared three meals for, bathed, and pulled shit from the ass of, her mother's fragile fading body.

    Today I won a round by diplomatically (I thought) insisting on washing up last night's dishes.

    It was difficult but after the struggle this morning, I think the spell was broken. Hoping to see the lady sit and relax before I go. Looking for the reset button.
  • Dr_William_HaywardDr_William_Hayward
    Colo is a cool place. It's Oregon-like. But they say, be careful not to fall into any abandoned mineshafts. It's also a clean energy mecca in the Boulder. Check the Anasazi ruins in the South if you like.
  • LelandLeland
    Closing the loop. My grandmother at my mom's today.

    image

  • Cherry_PieCherry_Pie
    You are a good son/grandson/dad, Dr J.

    So long, farewell! I'm headed to Maui bright and early for 8 days of being a beach/volcano bum! I am nervous about mosquitoes eating me up the two nights we camp in Hana, and I'm nervous about spending too much money AND about being so frugal we miss out on cool stuff like snorkeling at the special place or whatever. I'm hoping we find that sweet in between place where we are careful about money but not stressed.

    As soon as we get on the plane I will be very excited! Tonight though it's all about mosquitoes and money and house chores and packing lists, i.e. anxiety. Who gets anxious about going to MAUI?!? Me.

    Ah well. See you on the other side!
  • LelandLeland
    Remember aloha means hello AND goodbye!
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    That cycle of familial irritation/compassion is so familiar to me. Probably to a lot of people. Also, the intense control-needs of a certain kind of mom, it's so interesting how they ramp up significantly in face of stress. I guess actually it makes sense. If they can control every element maybe they won't feel like they are spinning out of control with the terrible elder-grandma-care and all that. Heavy duty.

    Colorado was great. I grew up there, so the air just feels like home, even as it is drying and cracking my skin. The fires are bad this year. Like California, it's just the new reality that half the state burns down every summer. We saw the ash in the air and smelled the smoke. It was dry as a bone there, everyone praying for rain that won't come. When I was a kid it never got above 85 degrees and the nights were ALWAYS cold, even in August. Now you go around at night in a t-shirt and the days are regularly in the mid 90s. I keep forgetting, and so I pack my parka and then don't need it. Emo times.


  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    All those droughty/burny states make me appreciate our lush, green Cascadia more, even if it does rain 3/4 of the year. And if you need the desert, you can always go east across the Cascades.

    July and August will be nice, I bet. #stillraining
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    I know. Stepping back into portland off the airplane I feel my skin like opening up and blooming, sucking in the moisture. Feels amazing.

    I do like the dry air, but I appreciate the contrast when I return. And the burny vibe is so horrible, the fires and the ash and smoke all summer long. Awful!!
  • NickNick
    Leaving for a wedding in Lincoln, Nebraska tomorrow.
    Stressing about being gone for 4 days being the best man for a person I haven't really talked to since high school... and also being in Lincoln, NE.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    best man for a person you haven't really talked to since high school!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!??

    is it sad? that to him you are his best friend, whereas to you it's like "?!"
    Or am I assuming too much?
    Intense, regardless.
    Also Nebraska is terrible
    My grandpa grew up there and I hope my DNA shall never return
  • NickNick
    you're not assuming too much.
    i was shocked when i got the call.
    it's not like i don't still like the guy. but it makes me feel like a shitty person if i've not kept in touch for the last several years and i'm the dude's best friend!
    intense, indeed. i'm expecting a completely high-school-related crowd, too... (even though we went to school in Chicago). going to be strange.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    I know of a couple people who have had this experience. Getting the bridesmaid call from an old high school friend they hardly ever even think about anymore. I know one lady who got asked to be a bridesmaid by some random person she knew FROM WORK. And she did it! Because it's so weird to say no! Yours at least is an actual friend, but still, it's so intense that all this time he's thought you were besties!! Totally nothing to feel shitty about. Nothing you have done! Just the way of the world. I think this is probably way more common for people who stay in the town where they went to high school, is this the case for this guy? They create elaborate nostalgia-fantasies based on past glories.

    Emo! Do you have to buy a tux

    do boys have to buy tuxes or do they rent them? This seems like an economic disparity betwixt bridesmaids and groomsmen. Bridesmaids spend so much fucking money on ugly dresses!!! UNFAIR = PATRIARCHY

  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    I had the reverse: My deepest best friend from childhood invited me to his wedding, but didn't ask me to be a groomsman. He kept telling everyone how long we had been friends and I just couldn't stop wondering why I didn't get to put on a fancy suit! I think it had to do with me not living there any more.
  • freddyfreddy
    1. I have never had to be a bridesmaid in my life (not counting reading a poem at my sister's wedding), and I hope never to have to do it. What an expensive pain in the butt.

    2. My aunt used to be the LA Times entertainment editor, so she would cover the Oscars. The paper would pay for tux rental for the men but not dress rental for women...so she rented a tux. (Photo coming soon.)
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    Like!
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    LOL!!! That is amazing!!!!!! Good call Freddy's mom!

    I have been a bridesmaid once and it was okay. We were allowed to pick any dress we wanted from this one J Crew collection and I found mine on ebay for cheap, then of course immediately spilled red wine all over it.

    if the bride isn't a crazy person I think it can be okay, you don't get stuck with a $300 dress or whatever. You do work at the wedding but that part is fun, enlisting funny uncles to help you move chairs around and stuff. Then you stand up in front of everybody crying, the time-honored duty of all bridesmaids. I got to be walked down the aisle by a professor I have a crush on, so it all worked out.
  • MatthewMatthew
    I have never been a bridesmaid. I am going to be a groomsman soon. I will probably cry a lot.

    They want a color palette but are pretty casual about the execution.
  • 12341234
    edited June 2012
    Here is the photo from @freddy

    image
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    WHAT A BABE
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