Category: Family

Random Thursday Thoughts

Just jotting down some smallish, random thoughts on a Thursday afternoon.

My stomach is being a jerk today. Gas. Bad gas. Lots of bad gas. My stomach is a bit upset. A little bit of pain. Nothing bad, just gassy. Super gassy. Pardon the T.M.I. of it all. I just felt the need to share.

In the interest of daily creative behavior like the photo a day challenge and my current 1400+ day posting streak on this little bloggie, I was wondering if I should post a daily haiku. What do you think?

One haiku each day
You know, to keep the brain loose
Could be worth a shot

I have watched a lot of Doctor Who today. Like, an alarming amount of Doctor Who. A frightening amount of Doctor Who. Both the original series and the new series. So much Doctor Who. I may have a Who problem.

We brought Harry’s car to the shop today. Here’s hoping they get the work finished before he has to go back to work next week. I may have to drive him back to Burlington after I finish work one night, and then turn around and drive home right away. That could be a long night. I will do it with a smile on my face, but… yeah, that would be a long night.

The cats have been super affectionate today. I am not sure why. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it is definitely a welcome development.

Services

I am working in the office today. I’ve had a few meetings and I just wrapped up my lunch. I have another meeting booked for 45 minutes from now but I will be leaving for the day shortly after it starts. Today is my Uncle Jim’s wake. It’s actually a lot closer to my office building than it is to home so working from here actually makes getting there a ton easier. Otherwise I probably would have taken the whole day off. I took tomorrow off as I will be going to the funeral in the morning.

It’s so sad the way my mother’s family has fallen apart over the last year. Three of the four siblings passed away within nine months of each other. Only the baby in the family is left and she has some health concerns of her own. It’s been a tough year for the extended family. I am one of 22 first cousins and most of us are on a facebook messenger chat together. Anytime I get a notification of an update to that chat I get scared. It shouldn’t be like that, but it is. Hopefully we can all find a way to generate some happy news in the next year. I don’t know how, but maybe we can figure it out.

Speaking of happier news, Harry is coming home tonight. He needs to have some work done on his car and he is taking it to a shop near us because he couldn’t find a shop near Burlington, VT that could schedule him any time soon. We’re not sure how long he’ll be home. It will be at least as long as the car fix takes. Hopefully he’ll watch a Doctor Who or two with me. I bet I can talk him into it.

Okay, lunch break is over. Time to go back to work for the shortened afternoon.

Home at Last

Jen and I left Bar Harbor this morning after having breakfast with Bellana. She’s staying for one more day. We took a scenic route home so that we could have a few views of the ocean in Southern Maine. It was beautiful.

I had a great time on this long weekend, but I am seriously happy to be home.

I’d rather not have to work tomorrow, but them’s the breaks, right?

Welcome home.

Weather and Wedding

The reason we’ve traveled up to Bar Harbor, ME is to go to a wedding. The wedding is late this afternoon. Right now it’s 8:40am and I’ve been up for three hours. Jen and Bellana are still asleep. I showered, had my morning vitamins, had my breakfast protein bars, and have watched a couple of Doctor Who episodes (new series, season eight, episodes nine and 10, and 11 is running as I type this).

We’re more or less shit out of luck for touristy things today. It’s raining out. Lots of rain. Serious rain. No Acadia National Park sight seeing today. No wandering around downtown today. I’m not sure what we’re going to do, apart from getting ready for the wedding and all that fun. It’s going to be a good time tonight, but until then it might be a little on the extra low-key side.

weather be damned, it’s going to be a good day.

Uncle Jim

My mother’s brother passed away yesterday. Her sister passed in November, and she passed in February. Over the course of nine awful months, three of the four siblings died.

He had nine children. His wife and the kids were all there at the end. My heart goes out to all of them and their families. It’s only been six months since we lost my mother. I know how they feel.

Rest in peace, Uncle Jim.

Off to an Exciting Start

Well, the four day weekend is off to a fun and exciting start, he said sarcastically.

I’m having myself a minor migraine. Isn’t that a treat? It’s not too bad but it is wiping me out a bit. I still need to clean out the car a bit, and I still need to put the clothes I put out for the weekend into a suitcase. Other than that and maybe putting my laptop and some various Apple product chargers into a backpack I think I am all set.

Hopefully I will be able to get some quality sleep tonight. Fingers crossed.

Happy four day weekend, everyone!

Four Day Weekend

3.5 hours left in the work day. I started lunch late today so I am still on break. Just throwing out a lunch time post while I still can.

My wife’s friend and former co-worker is getting married this weekend and we, along with my step daughter, are going. The wedding is in Bar Harbor, ME, which is about five hours from home. That means we’re going for the weekend. We took tomorrow (Friday) and Monday off for the drive there and back, and then we’re spending Saturday sight seeing and going to the wedding on Sunday.

One thing on Saturday’s agenda is Acadia National Park. Expect lots of photos. My mirrorless camera is going on the trip, and so are both film cameras. One is loaded with color film right now, the other with black and white. Variety, right?

I am super looking forward to this little get away. Jen and I visited Bar Harbor once many years ago and it was beautiful and I have always wanted to go back. Now we’re finally going.

Three hours and 28 minutes to go until I can sign out of work. That’s 208 minutes. That’s 12,480 seconds. So close, yet so far. I still need to pack tonight, including charging camera batteries and grabbing some extra film. I can’t wait, gentle readers. I can’t wait.

Veggie Dinner

My wife is amazing.

Was it yesterday or the day before that I wrote something about being curious about vegetarianism and how that would work in a post-gastric bypass world.

My beloved bride saw that post and hit Google looking for some vegetarian recipes. Tonight we had one. It was a fried potato and eggs dish and it was excellent. The clear take away for both of us is, “yup, I’d have that again.” Now while it will never make sense to me that chicken eggs are considered vegetarian friendly, it was a really good dinner.

She also shared a couple more recipes with me. We might have those later in the week, or maybe wait until next week. Neither of us has any intention of going full veggie. Consider us veggie curious. Let’s see what happens next.

Graduation

There was one photo from Bellana’s graduation that I was really hoping would come out. It was the only picture I took with Dad’s Pentax K1000 that I had sincerely wished was taken with my Z5. I wanted to see the results immediately. Instead, I had to wait.

It came out fine…

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I knew it was going to require a huge crop to get what I was after, but I got it. Grainy goodness and all. I am really happy it worked out.

More Bad Family News

We lost my mother’s older sister late last year. We lost my mother early this year. Today we found out that my mother’s older brother is going into hospice. He has kidney and heart issues and his fight is coming to an end.

Nine months ago there were four siblings in my mother’s family. Now we have to prepare ourselves to lose a third. This sucks.