ennierda | Entries tagged with family

I spent most of this week on Long Island, where I made liberal use of my relatives' pool. My aunt only works part-time, and so I went in the pool in the morning and then in the afternoon we went out. In the evening, my cousins came over and we watched movies, went mini-golfing, and played board games. I discovered that I really suck at Scrabble. I already knew that I sucked at mini-golf, but I was surprised to learn that there is more to Scrabble than having a decent vocabulary.

I have come to the conclusion that, like the city, Long Island is really very nice for the fabulously wealthy. Everyone else lives in the shit part of town and has to fight the crowds for the affordable things to do. Long Island has beautiful historic villages and peaceful beaches where I would love to live, or even just rent a vacation home. My aunt and I spent one afternoon walking around the shops near the ferry dock in Port Jefferson. The town also has a community theater where my aunt and my uncle like to go.

Sadly, I am not fabulously wealthy, and I hate traffic. I therefore would not want to live on Long Island.

Well. I'd consider it if I got a teaching job out there - Long Island teachers can make bank!

I am giving serious thought to what it would take to move again. I always come back to the same conclusion, which is that I need to either switch careers, or become best friends with a high school principal. In the meantime, I hope that my English experience will help my resume, and keep watching the news for word on an economic recovery.

Wow, I've done a whole lot of nothing lately. Maybe I should post goals, under the theory that I shall suffer public ridicule if I don't live up to the expectations established by more efficient LJ-users.

1. My goal tomorrow is to actually give my principal the letter I wrote in which I resign from the yearbook. Four years is far too long.

2. My goal for Friday is to begin to job hunt for a part-time job that will fill all the hours I spent working on the yearbook but will pay better.

3. My goals for this evening are to write an email to my brother and send out an email to the writing group.

4. And my summer goal (other than sitting around by my aunt's pool finishing off the Dark Tower series) is to come up with a plan to achieve some of the long term plans that I've had sitting on the back burner for far too long.

My father, who works for Pratt and Whitney, may be laid off due to Department of Defense budget cuts. All family members who voted for McCain turned and gave me an accusing stare when this was announced. Just in case I was not clear on why he was being laid off, my mom felt the need to reiterate today that it was because of Obama's budget.

Saying, "Now don't be retarded" to a bunch of relatives didn't seem like a diplomatic response. Neither did "I still think infrastructure construction is a better use of our tax dollars than bombing the shit out of third world countries."

... and the bank shuts off the heat but not the water?

This:

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I finally saw Avenue Q yesterday with my sister and co, and it was just as fabulous as everyone says it is :)

Sister and friends don't like brother's girlfriend. Siiiiiiiiigh ...

So Thanksgiving was not the massive horror-show that I thought it would be. The only really annoying part was people asking repeatedly, "So, when are you getting rid of that cat?" which only made me want to try to keep her. Not the best plan, considering the roommates. I'm going to try a couple of things, and if the situation does not improve THEN she's out.

The other bit of annoyance is all the work I have to do now, but that wasn't really Thanksgiving's fault. I went through some boxes that have been sitting at my grandpa's house for two+ years and got rid of a bunch of stuff, and am going to integrate some. Yay for getting rid of two boxes of stuff I don't need, boo to having to clean and find space to put a bag or two of stuff that I wanted to keep.

I want a bigger place to live. That will go on my Christmas meme.

Another bit of work involves the cat. I've decided I need to rearrange my room so that I can keep the cat in my room whilst I clean the living room and possibly re-train her to use a litter box. Like I needed more projects.

Now that I'm done with the minutae of my boring life, I'm going to get on that list o'things to do.

I feel like a mess. I had a nice Friday and Saturday, but going home means that I have to see my family, which always depresses me, and means I don't get any chores or grading done. Thus - mess.

Saturday was Amy and Janet Go To the Movies: For your own enjoyment of the show, always separate us. We laughed and giggled our way through Spiderman 3 and then went to Starbucks afterwards to thoroughly mock it. I'm sure that if there was anyone in that theater who was trying to enjoy the movie, they were unable and will have to go again.

I also saw a friend I haven't seen in four years. She's exactly the same, only engaged, and she was as bad as Amy and I at Spiderman 3, only dirtier.

It was a good time. I need more time with friends.

So if you read

sxia's journal, you know that I made a surprise visit to California for girly times and it was fabulous, darling! We did massages, manicures, etc. and went to Disneyland and happiness abounded until I got The Phone Call. I caught an early flight back.

Did you know that American Air will charge $100 to change a flight even for bereavement? Should I have screamed and shouted on the phone? Would that have made a difference? I'm going to write them a pissy letter, but I'm not sure it will make me feel better.

Anyway, we're having a two day wake, because grandma liked to party and had lots of friends back before the Alzheimers set in. I'm glad I got out to see her before going to California.

Current Location: Plainview, NY

I don't think I mentioned that the yelling, alzheimer-y grandma is in the hospital, but they're sending her home for hospice care on Monday. Assuming she lives that long, anyway.

I went out to visit today for possibly the last time. I've got a full weekend ahead and my parents are encouraging me not to break my plans for this coming weekend, since we don't have any idea of knowing how long she'll hold out. She's bloody stubborn.

I feel guilty for saying I would rather go out, too. I did the deathbed sitting thing with my other grandmother, who died two years ago, and I find now that waiting for death doesn't get any easier. If anything, its even harder.

Current Location: Kensington, Brooklyn

I'm more or less back in my grandfather's house, which is odd because not only is he not here, but my uncle has moved in and has his boxes everywhere. There's no place to really keep all of them, and I'm not sure that the family wants him changing the house in significant ways just yet, so there are piles of them in all the bedrooms. My mother, I think, wants to get started on going through stuff and getting rid of it. My uncle has this delusion of buying the house but that's not going to happen with this huge equity loan on it that my other uncle seems to have no intention of paying back, since no one has heard from him in several months.

Its beautiful out today. Not too hot, no humidity, sunny . . . I'm going to be spending most of it on errands, but I should really do something outdoors at some point.

Last night when I got here, I decided to watch some of the news programs my grandpa and I used to watch together last summer. I figured they would all be talking about what I saw as the biggest story of the day, the Supreme Court rulings, especially the one against Bush. I turned it on in time to catch the #1 story on Countdown, which was . . .

Britney Spears posing naked on the cover of Harpers Bazaar.

I don't know which I was more appalled at: Olberman making this his #1 story, or the actual content of the segment. (You know what they say about train wrecks . . .)

A great-uncle just died, and so I have another funeral to go to this week.

I don't know if I said it before, but my family was very lucky in that very few people died young. The down side of that is that this is the fifth family death in two years, because the old generation are all in their eighties. At least one great-aunt has cancer and is not doing well, and my remaining grandmother has alzheimers and congestive heart failure.

Everyone involved in my family needs to fear because I am the oldest grandchild on one side and the second oldest on the other. I feel great responsibility in that.

Current Mood: somber

We got in at FIVE AM last night. This trip was fairly horrible. Note to self: don't ever let someone who you believe is an idiot plan the trip, even if he is your uncle. (ESPECIALLY if he is your uncle.)

Live and learn.