Random Bits

I feel like sometime soon I will be all stockholm syndromed into Hockey fandom.  Between my BFF's sudden decent into loving hockey two or three years ago and being ... well, not forced, but encouraged to listen to her babble... I found out today that when work takes me to Toronto in July the social event for the meeting will be held at the Hockey Hall of Fame.  Which... doesn't exactly make *sense* but whatever the host wants...

So I will be the first to admit my family doesn't have a whole lot of traditions.  And we are pretty okay with changing our minds at the drop of the hat (too tired to do a big spread for Thanksgiving? No problem).

I was raised - nominally, mind you, Unitarian.  In a Unitarian church in New England, which admittedly has the most pomp and circumstance of any Unitarian church I've ever been in or heard of.  Sunday school we learned a whole lot about other religions of the world.  For example, in fifth grade we learned all about Passover and even had a mock-Passover luncheon where we set the table and asked the questions and tasted the traditional foods and tried to understand how it all fit together in the Bigger Picture of Religions of the World.  We did stuff like that throughout my years of Sunday school - that was the one that I can most vividly remember, even if some of the details are fuzzy (and yes, we substituted grape juice for the wine - we were TEN).

I sort of left that all behind when I graduated high school, and don't really do anything church-like in my life.  So Easter doesn't mean that much to me, personally.  I'll probably go have lunch with my folks, because that is what I try to do on Sundays when I am not doing anything else.  Easter was my paternal grandfather's main religious holiday.  He did traditional lamb dishes and had the family together and it was as foreign to me as anything.  I still can remember the one Easter we made it to join with them, they had no idea what to do with the two vegetarians in my family.  My mother and my brother did not get to eat a lot while there (honestly, neither did I, because the lamb/egg/peas dish did not look at all appetizing, and the roasted half-a-lamb - well, I wasn't sure it was fully cooked).

Anyway, traditions.  We don't really do them.  So I don't understand this Easter egg bread I have started seeing in the grocery store.  WHY do people bake whole in-the-shell eggs into bread?  What do you DO with them when you go to eat the bread?  What happens to the eggshell?  I mean, I get the Easter/Ishtar/Ostara connection to rebirth and spring and fertility.  Bunnies, eggs - all of that.  But how did baking raw eggs into bread become part of the traditions?  And do folks color the raw eggs first just for fun, or is there a purpose to that?

Anyone?

I wanted a specific thing.  This is not a NEED but a WANT, I am well aware.  But I knew it would be too much $.  I've been saving (and the $ from my xmas bonus at work was earmarked for this thing).  At best, I thought I might get a check with $ toward the purchase of this specific thing.

My parents splurged big time and got the specific thing for me.

I have some new tech to play with (omg - I got *exactly* the specific thing I wanted!).

Plus my 5.5 y.o. nephew was extremely excited that he got to pick out gifts to give everyone, and was SUPER EXCITED to give me earrings (which probably sparked the whole family debate of whether or not I have my ears pierced.  My brother thought I did not, my s-i-l insisted I did.  For the record, they are double pierced - and have been at least single pierced for the last twenty-five years.).

I have never seen a little girl SO EXCITED to get a pair of boots (exactly the UGGS she wanted) as my almost ten y.o. niece.

It has been a super exhausting, but super good day.

So I recently started receiving Graze boxes (www.graze.com/).  Which, if you don't know what that is is a healthy snacking service where you make a whole bunch of choices of things you like, love, or are willing to try (unless something completely turns you off or can't eat X, you should at least put all snacks in the try category - then you can rate them after you've had them).  And every two weeks (or four weeks, or every week) you will receive a box with four snack packs.

I've had two boxes and only one of my trys was a complete dud.  And since I despise apples in anything but the fresh-off-the-tree-preferrably-still-on-the-core-not-skinned state, I immediately trashed anything with (dried, whatever) apples in it.  I also can't stand bananas, so for the same reason anything with dried banana went into the trash. I went through the entire list trashing anything where even one of the ingredients turned me completely off - but left things that could go either way, So everything left on my try list is everything else.  Which comes down to about half the possible snacks (they have over 90 snack boxes listed, so thats still a lot!) and I've now tried about 6% of my possible list.

Each box is $6.  Which is $1.5 per snack box.  And you can end the service (or suspend it if you're going to be traveling) at any time.

Which is really a kinda long winded way of saying I've got codes if anyone (in the US) wants to try Graze. 

Putting up easels in the foyer spaces at the hotel In pinched part of my left palm in the easel.  I have two oval shaped blood blisters that I have been icing on and off all day.  I haven't had blood blisters since I was a kid.  I forgot how much they hurt.

I could totally use a nap.  And not have injured myself in wildly weird ways.

Vancouver could use more sunshine and less rain.

...the Christian Conservatives on my FaceBook feed post a ton of Christian Religious Right Crap all at once.  I don't mind the stuff that is political - everyone has their political views.  It is the social stuff that annoys the hell out of me - the "boycott the Muslim-themed post office stamp!" the "put God back into the holidays by saying 'merry Christmas' instead of 'happy holidays!'"  Its the exclusionary tone of this crap that gets me.

Unfortunately, most of the folks that post and repost and REPOST this stuff are mostly relatives.  So I can't just remove them from my facebook feed.  And I don't mind the posts about their animals and all the horsey-themed homilies and such.

The best I can do is hold my tongue and not post snarky socially liberal shit back to them.

I am done travel for the next two months, woo hoo!  The CRAB ATTACK injury is still healing, but I finished the antibiotics.  I also now have the rest of a tube of prescription-strength antibiotic creme to add to my travel kit (personal note to self - must refill my bandaids).

This summer has been a good one, though, even with the extreme high temperatures throughout most of June, July, and August.

On another note - Anybody know anything about KudosCon?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/565819342/kudoscon

I mean, other than they are putting together an event in less than six months...

The last few days have been not quite a haze of jet lag, but I certainly know I've hopped time zones.

Germany was fantastic - I hope we go back!  I got to see the Victory Column (totally near the hotel - we were on that end of the Tiergarten) along with random men-killing-things statues (they used to hunt wild boar on the lands of the Tiergarten, so it really isn't a surprise). And the Deutches Technikmuseum (social event for the win with train cars!) and the Checkpoint Charlie museum - right at Checkpoint Charlie - the guardhouse is still there with taxis and buses whizzing by it.

Lots of things I didn't get a chance to see - like the Brandenburg Gates - they were on the opposite end of the Tiergarten from where we were and I just didn't have that much free time to try to go see them.  I went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum instead.

I am gearing up to go on vacation - which is my next big ADVENTUR!  Hopefully a ton of relaxation and driving around the area dorking about small history bits with friends.  Low key.  And maybe there will be enough breezes to fly a kite or two.

I find as I get older I care less and less about what "people" think.  Introvert that I am people wear me out, but it used to be paired with social anxiety where I would push to do something even knowing I would maybe have a good time doing it, but would pay for it later with exhaustion because people tend to suck my energy dry (except for when I am on stage, where, oddly, the exchange works the other way).  I have less anxiety about saying no.  Maybe it is age.

Whether it is a wake or sitting shiva or something else where family and friends gather to mourn the beloved dead, before or after the formal funeral or memorial services, they all have things in common.  People gather to talk and grieve and laugh and love.  To eat and drink and support each other.

I've been to many, and I am certain sure going to be going to many more.  As family, as friend, as supporter, as mourner, to pay my respects and laugh and cry.

I've buried all my grandparents, and most of my great uncles and aunts.  I've buried cousins and friends and neighbors.  This is not surprising.  Everyone is always moving forward toward a certain end point - the only surprise is if it comes sooner rather than later.  My first memory of death is from when I was a junior in high school.  One of the young men in my brother's class died the weekend before he was to graduate from high school.  It was a heck of a beginning to the summer.  I had a graduating class of 147 - three of which I know for certain have passed away - two from cancer, one unclear.

Tonight's grieving ritual was not unexpected - he'd been battling cancer for three and half years, and had been declining slowly but steadily. His daughters and their families were here for at least his last week, and they are there to support their mother now as she tries to navigate life after.  After she lost her partner and lover and husband for the last forty years.

Of the two of them, I knew her first.  But he was always her biggest supporter and fan, and he was always there in the background, a quiet man with a wonderful sense of humor and they turned to each other as if in the other they found their sun.

I will miss him.

RIP JLG 1945-2013

When I was a small child, my maternal grandparents (both now gone - each lived into their nineties, but they are at rest) lived in a charming little house on Cape Cod.  The "Orleans" house.  The one on Harbor Hill.  It was a charming little Cape - I remember they had red walls in the living room.

This past weekend my mom and I were going through family letters and photos (her cousin is looking for photos and now I have a few to scan and send to her).  Mom made a comment about the space my grandmother made for me.  My brother got the bedroom, and I got the bed shoved in an upstairs alcove dormer area.  The hallway between the two bedrooms.

It has *never* occurred to me that that was a weird set up.  That me sleeping on a cot in what amounts to a hallway was in any way strange.  My mom's perspective was that I was (possibly purposefully) shafted because my grandmother did not want to put me in an actual room (and as I recall they did have another room - a little sewing room the cot could have just as easily been put in there).

At the time I thought it was kind of cool - my grandmother had set up a cozy little corner with a table and lamp and she always left a book for me to read.  Although looking back it was kind of odd that people were always traipsing through my "room" because it was in all actuality a hallway.

Then came the two years my grandparents refused to talk to my mother - or any of the rest of us (family Drama with a capital D) and after that time my brother and I never stayed overnight with them anymore.

Then my grandparents started to move around the cape - every couple of years they bought a new house.  Until my grandfather sold his last house to my dad.