Tag: Family

Happy Valentines Day

I am in the office today and Jen is working from home. I was able to wish her a Happy Valentines Day before I left the house though, so that makes me happy.

Yes I know that Valentines Day is a hallmark holiday and not a real thing, but I was alone for so very long before I met Jen that I never got to celebrate and I just want to make up for lost time.

We used to do anti-valentines celebrations. A bunch of friends would get together and go bowling and eat pizza and make fun of the happy couples. Now I am in one of those couples and I do so love every second of it. Make fun of me all you want, being with Jen is totally worth it.

Happy Valentines Day, Jen. I love you with all my heart. Smooch.

My Parents at My Age

Daily writing prompt
What were your parents doing at your age?
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I’m 52 years old. I’ll be 53 in May and suddenly that seems immensely older than 52. Weird, this aging thing, isn’t it?

When my mother was 52 my father was 50 and I was about 22. That was 1992. At that time I think my sister was still teaching 1st grade in Long Beach, CA and my brother was still in high school. I had dropped out of college (music school) and was either working at UPS loading tractor trailor trucks, or I was starting to attend Northeast Broadcasting School in their eight month audio recording certificate program. 

I’m not sure of the timeline for my parents. My father was running an accounting department. I think he was still at the scrap metal company in Tewksbury. That wasn’t the happiest time in his professional life, but it was better than the last days with the restaurant company. My mother… I think my mother was working as a bookkeeper at the electronics place in Chelmsford. My father would eventually work there as well. He ran the accounting department and my mother worked for him. My brother interned there as well, and when I went back to school for real a few years later I worked there as an overnight cleaning guy. Things seemed good for my parents in those days.

Apart from that, I have to expect that my parents spent a lot of time worrying about what a fuck up I was turning into after first deciding to go to music school, then dropping out, then going to a useless tech school to study a useless field, and then turning into a warehouse flunky for a few years. It was 1997 when I went back to school for real. I hope that eased their worries.

1992 was a long way away from my mother’s brain tumor and the dementia it lead to, and my father’s heart attack and all the trouble that lead to. 1992 was a pretty happy year for me, personally, even if I was turning into a professional fuck up. I wouldn’t change a thing as it all lead me to where I am today. If I had to change anything though, that brain tumor and the heart attack would be high on the list. Hell… they would pretty much be the list.

Hey AI Thing, generate an image of a Jedi Knight visiting his parents.

One Year

We lost my mother one year ago today. After years and years of dementia she was finally free of all of her physical pain and mental confusion. Would she see it as release the way we hope she would? I have no idea.

I got to spend a little time with my father tonight. He was mostly okay, but he’s having an annoying, persistent health issue of his own that flared up quite a bit yesterday and sent him briefly to the ER. He’s fine, he just needs to do what the doctors tell him to do. When he does, he improves. He just doesn’t do it enough. Insert the frustrated sigh here. 

Now that I am home I have spent the last 15-20 minutes asking Google Bard to generate images of Jedi Knights in goofy situations like being a contestant on The Bachelor, riding a tiger, or watching a baseball game. I feel like I’ve found my new favorite internet hobby.

No music progress today. It’s getting close to bed time and I haven’t accomplished anything. Well… I picked off a few things at work today, which was nice. Just no musical accomplishments, that’s all. There is also a zombie movie that I want to watch tonight so that I can listen to a podcast discussing it on the drive to work tomorrow. 

So many things to do.

Burlington, VT Yesterday

I told my wife that I will eventually photograph all of the city of Burlington, Vermont but it will take years as I am sort of doing it one little street at a time. Here are a few random views from yesterday’s visit to celebrate my step son’s 21st birthday.

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Bertha Redux

Bellana has a plant that she named Burt. It grew from a clipping taken from her step mother’s mother’s plant. During the pandemic lockdown Burt ended up at our house for a short time. Bellana cut off a clipping and Jen and I grew a new plant with it. We named it Bertha.

Bertha was a frequent source of blog posts for a while, but I haven’t been sharing any updates lately. She’s still alive and kicking, but she’s definitely having a rough go these days. A bunch of her leaves have died, while new ones are still sprouting. If I keep her watered she does okay, but she’s so big now that we don’t really have any place to put her and I fear she’s close to the live/die tipping point.

With the goal of keeping some form of the original plant alive forever, I took two new clippings this morning. They are in Harry’s room in a glass of water sitting next to the window. Unfortunately the weather is so gloomy and awful there isn’t a lot of sunlight to be found. It should get better over the weekend. Here’s hoping the two clippings grow some new roots and I can pot them both and have two more chances of keeping the original plant alive for all time.

Wish Bertha’s kids luck.

Fear

Bloganuary writing prompt
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
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I have to admit that I am struggling to find an answer to this one. I have a couple of thoughts, but nothing I would ever share publicly. The difficulty is the second question. There are a lot of things I am scared to do, but none of them are things that I would ever consider actually doing, you know what I mean?

There is one thing that comes to mind that fits the spirit of this daily prompt. One thing that I am scared to do that I will do if the circumstances require it… or at least I would consider doing it in the right situation. What is it? Move out of the United States.

In 2016 the prospect of a nazi winning the US presidency led to a lot of discussion about possibly emigrating to a new country. Jen and I discussed it a little and agreed we could not leave our family behind even if we did find ourselves in a fascist dictatorship. We talked in general terms about where we could go. Some place where English is the first language and (hopefully) had a warm climate. In the end we didn’t leave even though the nazi did win the white house. 

Unfortunately for American Democracy and for civilization, that same nazi is running for president again. His rhetoric was bad in 2016 but it is already so much worse now. He is openly talking about dictatorship and half of the registered voters in the United States are still supporting him. He may be in jail by the time the election rolls around (he should be in jail now, but he will never see the inside of a cell because that’s how corruption works, right?) but he’s still going to win the republican nomination and he still could win the general election in November. 

If he wins again, do we consider leaving the United States again? Maybe. I think we will at the very least need to revisit the discussion. The topic is a little terrifying in terms of figuring out where to go, figuring out how to get there, figuring out the legal issues, and not to mention the implications for the US itself. It’s pretty scary, all right. Would I do it? No, I don’t think so, but I would have to think about it. We’ll see what happens. 

Would we move to Canada? That would be easiest but it’s cold there. England? Scotland? Ireland? Australia? I think Scotland would be the favorite for us, though it’s cold there too, isn’t it? If it were just me it would probably be Ireland, but for my family as a whole it would be Scotland. I doubt it will ever come to that, and the prospect is very scary to me, but if it does… I guess we’ll see.