I lost my grandfather yesterday. I saw him last week and it was just awful to see him sick and uncomfortable and so damn old. But that's what happens when you're 95.
I was lucky to have him around for 30 years. To him I was the smartest, prettiest, nicest girl in the whole wide world and no one will ever love me as much as he did. Not Dave, not Jake, not my parents, not my friends, not no one, not no where, and that's just the way I want it.
When I was in the fifth grade all the coolgirls had autograph books. I don't remember exactly what he wrote, but I know that on his page tucked between a bunch of words he wrote that I can melt his heart with a mere glance. When I'm ready I'll dig out that old autograph book and let you know exactly what was in there, but that's the part that stuck. I decided at the age of ten that I wouldn't give anyone else the privilege of one of those glances unless there was some serious heart melting going on. I was clearly in possession of some pretty powerful stuff and it wasn't going to waste on just anyone.
Now if I could have only come face-to-face with the IRS yesterday maybe my bank account wouldn't have been sucked dry. I would have thawed their icy hearts and they would have spared the pain of chopping off my arm and Dave's leg. Thankfully they left Jake intact, and his magical tax deduction trick helped a little bit. A very little bit. I hope Jake likes Ramen.
4.16.2007
alternative therapy
I lifted this from my brother's MySpace blog. Enjoy.
Decades of Learning Lessons Without Ever Knowing Class Was in Session
I've never been one for school. I actually really enjoyed school, just not the sitting still and learning part. Mark Twain once said that we should never let our schooling get in the way of our education. I think this simply means that the best things we learn are never through a textbook. This past weekend my grandfather passed away. I've never read a scholarly paper on the subject or researched it myself, but I'm pretty certain grandfathers exist for two purposes: one, to adore their granddaughters more than any person in the world ever has or will and two, to give their grandsons someone to idolize, pal around with, and learn from. Some random lessons and advice my grandfather has said to me over the years:
"Listening to my nonsense on flirting with and loving women will only take you so far. In order to learn all of it you're just going to need to go ahead and fall in love with one woman and she'll fill you in on the rest. You can tell when you've fallen if love with the right woman because you'll never want to stop learning."
"Companies pay people a lot of money to advertise for them. The fact that you've decided to pay that particular clothing company a lot of money for that shirt because it has that company's name and logo on it is interesting to me as it seems you're not understanding the concept of advertising . . . or, for that matter, making money."
"Even if you're not a sailor you should still learn to tie knots in things. You'll probably never need to know how to tie one in real life, but you also don't really need to know the proper spelling of 'Albuquerque' or 'Czechoslovakia' either but that won't stop your teachers from drilling that into your head. If you have to learn how to do stuff that you don't need to know it might as well be stuff you learn in a backyard with your grandpa rather than in a classroom where you're not paying close attention anyway."
"Make sure you study hard because it makes your grandmother proud. I'll make sure I tell her I told you that because it makes her proud of me."
"There are only two reasons a man should ever be in public without a cleanly-shaven face. One, he's been camping or two, his grandchildren are coming over and he's going to hug them and then tickle their faces with his whiskers. We're at dinner, in a public restaurant, our waitress is attractive, and you don't have grandchildren. I hope you just got back from camping."
"Music without lyrics is easier to listen to because you don't have to pay attention to what the song says only what the song means."
"Working with tools and making nothing in particular is always more fun than working with tools to create something you need. When you're done making nothing in particular and no one can tell what you've made, you can tell them that you did a perfect job. When you're done making a bookshelf, people can generally tell that you aren't good with tools to begin with."
"Always have scrap-wood lying around."
"Love your wife; hopefully she's the only one you'll ever get, but also don't be in such a hurry to meet her."
"You always want to be proud of yourself just don't be arrogant about it. I see you have a problem with arrogance at times. You get that from me, and it's one of my very best qualities. We should still keep it to ourselves, unless we try to impress pretty girls. For some reason they like a guy who's sure of himself."
"Baseball is fun because you don't need energy to watch it or play it."
"If we did as well in life as we do on Jeopardy we'd probably not be eating cereal for dinner, but then again eating cereal with your grandson isn't bad either, remember that when it's your turn."
"You don't need to pay attention all the time. Sometimes it's best to sink into your own thoughts and head. Just make sure you nod along and agree. People won't care you're not paying attention to them so long as you're agreeing with them."
"Sleep tight."
My grandfather was an amazing grandfather to me but an even better friend, and I'm fully aware and content with that fact that I probably won't ever have a better one as long as I live.
I gotta go shave.
Decades of Learning Lessons Without Ever Knowing Class Was in Session
I've never been one for school. I actually really enjoyed school, just not the sitting still and learning part. Mark Twain once said that we should never let our schooling get in the way of our education. I think this simply means that the best things we learn are never through a textbook. This past weekend my grandfather passed away. I've never read a scholarly paper on the subject or researched it myself, but I'm pretty certain grandfathers exist for two purposes: one, to adore their granddaughters more than any person in the world ever has or will and two, to give their grandsons someone to idolize, pal around with, and learn from. Some random lessons and advice my grandfather has said to me over the years:
"Listening to my nonsense on flirting with and loving women will only take you so far. In order to learn all of it you're just going to need to go ahead and fall in love with one woman and she'll fill you in on the rest. You can tell when you've fallen if love with the right woman because you'll never want to stop learning."
"Companies pay people a lot of money to advertise for them. The fact that you've decided to pay that particular clothing company a lot of money for that shirt because it has that company's name and logo on it is interesting to me as it seems you're not understanding the concept of advertising . . . or, for that matter, making money."
"Even if you're not a sailor you should still learn to tie knots in things. You'll probably never need to know how to tie one in real life, but you also don't really need to know the proper spelling of 'Albuquerque' or 'Czechoslovakia' either but that won't stop your teachers from drilling that into your head. If you have to learn how to do stuff that you don't need to know it might as well be stuff you learn in a backyard with your grandpa rather than in a classroom where you're not paying close attention anyway."
"Make sure you study hard because it makes your grandmother proud. I'll make sure I tell her I told you that because it makes her proud of me."
"There are only two reasons a man should ever be in public without a cleanly-shaven face. One, he's been camping or two, his grandchildren are coming over and he's going to hug them and then tickle their faces with his whiskers. We're at dinner, in a public restaurant, our waitress is attractive, and you don't have grandchildren. I hope you just got back from camping."
"Music without lyrics is easier to listen to because you don't have to pay attention to what the song says only what the song means."
"Working with tools and making nothing in particular is always more fun than working with tools to create something you need. When you're done making nothing in particular and no one can tell what you've made, you can tell them that you did a perfect job. When you're done making a bookshelf, people can generally tell that you aren't good with tools to begin with."
"Always have scrap-wood lying around."
"Love your wife; hopefully she's the only one you'll ever get, but also don't be in such a hurry to meet her."
"You always want to be proud of yourself just don't be arrogant about it. I see you have a problem with arrogance at times. You get that from me, and it's one of my very best qualities. We should still keep it to ourselves, unless we try to impress pretty girls. For some reason they like a guy who's sure of himself."
"Baseball is fun because you don't need energy to watch it or play it."
"If we did as well in life as we do on Jeopardy we'd probably not be eating cereal for dinner, but then again eating cereal with your grandson isn't bad either, remember that when it's your turn."
"You don't need to pay attention all the time. Sometimes it's best to sink into your own thoughts and head. Just make sure you nod along and agree. People won't care you're not paying attention to them so long as you're agreeing with them."
"Sleep tight."
My grandfather was an amazing grandfather to me but an even better friend, and I'm fully aware and content with that fact that I probably won't ever have a better one as long as I live.
I gotta go shave.
4.09.2007
five questions
I have endless blog topics rolling around in my head, but when it comes down to go-time I choke. It's awful. So, I turn to Amy for a good swift kick in the pants. Again. Someone somewhere asked her five questions and I asked her to ask me five questions and if you'd like, I'll come up with five questions for you too. Just ask.
Amy asks,
1. So since we have the Eastern/Western PA dichotomy in common, I have to ask: Soda or Pop? Explain yourself!
I really stuck to my guns about this one for at least two or three years when I moved to Eastern PA. Sodas come in chocolate, cherry, strawberry, and vanilla. They have ice cream in them. You'll need a straw and a spoon to finish it, and they actually have the power to make you way more thirsty than you ever were when you ordered it upon finishing one.
Pop is carbonated and sugary and bad for your teeth, without the benefit of calcium that the soda gets from the ice cream. How do I know all these facts, you ask? Simply because I am a professional. I worked at Baskin Robbins in high school and I learned more there than I did in college and graduate school put together. About life and love and friendship and beverages, at least.
Because people from Philadelphia tend to act like you aren't speaking English if you use a different word than they use for something, I'll ask if someone would like a soda when that someone comes to my house, and if we are having a party I ask Dave to get a few cases of soda. I use the same logic when I ask for or offer a glass of wooder. Say it any different and who knows what will be in that glass.
Until last weekend, whenever I went home I slipped right back into using the word pop. But Saturday afternoon, travesty of all travesties, I asked my mom if I should pick up a bottle of soda for the ham. A little part of me died that day.
There are few things I love more than variations on the English language (read: by this I mean hate more than people who create variations on the English language. Think Fran Dresher and Rocky Balboa. The bunch of retards that they are) including dialects and colloquialisms. I've spent hours here searching for and usually finding all the proof I need to know that I am "right". Enjoy.
2. Take us back to your wedding. Tell us about your favorite moment from the day.
Getting that goddam dress off, taking out my goddam contacts, removing seventy-eight goddam bobby pins from my goddam lacquered head, scraping the goddam makeup off my face, and going to bed. Going to bed to go to sleep. I was tired and cranky and neither one of us really felt like putting forth the effort of consummating a marriage. If you think I wasn't one for having a baby you should know that I certainly wasn't one for all that wedding garbage. But here I am: Lora, wife and mother.
It was really something else to see all of my friends and family and my friend's families and my family's friends all in one place to celebrate what was really just two dumb kids getting hitched. We all had a great time at the reception and the service was less than twenty minutes long, by order of the bride who had a friend with a stopwatch in the pews and an impending frog in the throat at that twenty minute mark. Upon hearing said frog, the bride was kissing her groom and marching him down the aisle to get the fun started.
Wedding schmedding, it is all about the marriage. My favorite day of marriage is the day that Dave and I spent in a sailboat with friends, circling Capri. I fall in love over and over again with Dave when I think of him on that boat. There is also a day a few years ago that sticks in my head because we had our first real growed up conversation about what we want from each other and from life. It was tough stuff to get through but we did it, from the safety of Rittenhouse Square and the surrounding Richie Rich neighborhood where we couldn't get all bicker-y and loud if we wanted to be responsible and classy about things.
3. Describe your perfect sandwich.
This is a tough one. I'm going to say peanut butter and jelly on whole grain, but sometimes when no one is watching I sneak in a peanut butter, mayo, and dill pickle on a potato hot dog roll. Or an iceberg, mayo, and Velveeta on white. And when the mood strikes nothing will do but a big glob of tuna, mayo, grated cheddar, diced apples, sliced grapes, and lots of black pepper between two tortilla chips. And when I venture west of our state capital my heart yearns for a Primanti Brother's (or a cheap knock-off) or a Valerio's pizza sub (no knock-offs). I will cut off my pinky finger for a Nick's if I'm feeling meaty. But only the real Nick's on 20th and Jackson. And something about anything from Wawa at 3am gets me in a good way, especially if I put Doritos on it.
4. What is the best part about parenthood, aside from the cute little babe? Worst?
Because I created and sustained human life I can do anything in the world I put my mind to. I made milk, for godsake. I stayed awake for three months. Did I mention that my body made milk? And a boy. I made love and ate food and grew a child. All by myself kind of, after the sexy part was done. In jest I often say that I have joined a sorority, but I really do mean that. Mothers of the world, unite, and continue to conquer. I know what you are going through and we are all going to get through this together if we work at it. The whole thing makes me miss my mom a whole lot, and gives me a huge appreciation of what my parents went through to raise my brother and me.
The worst part, the absolute most painful, horrible, gut wrenching, worst part of being a mother is understanding what it must feel like to lose a child to something. Somewhere between empathy and sympathy lies this terrible aching hollow choking feeling that is the sorrow I carry for the mothers who have lost their baby to disease, war, drugs, violence, and death. It is a very dark and lonely place to visit, so I try to avoid the evening news and daily papers. There seems to be an awful lot of it going around these days.
5. How did you get into social work?
I wasn't so young and I really needed the money. I really really wanted to get a job mapping crime and doing urban safety planning in some hippy dippy community development center. I wanted to wear jeans with holes in them and Adidas Gazelles and sit between a white girl with dreadlocks and a computer geek with GIS codes embedded in his corneas and I was going to get tattoos and drink whiskey every day after work and never buy a house or a car and Dave and I were going to use all of our money to travel the world and we weren't going to have kids because they are such a burden on the earth- and their parents- and we would leave casserole dishes of food and water for Tyler and Bailey when we skipped town and I was going to keep everyone safe and blissful and secure in their little yuppie/d.i.n.k.-y paths from the office to the restaurant to the townhouse and around the well-lit block with the dogs who had hemp sweaters on and Coach leather collars and leashes and everyone was going to be happy.
Then 9-11 happened and suddenly I wasn't pulling in $700- 900 a week at the bar and my shifts were getting cut and my student loan payments were due and I owed money to the hospital that fixed my hand all better because I didn't have insurance so I applied for a Research Associate job at what was soon to be my company. They only had Research Assistant jobs open, so the lady that interviewed me sent my resume downstairs to Aftercare because she thought that I was "compassionate and driven" (sucker) and I took a job as a Case Manager. I figured I'd do that for a few months until I got a real job but I kinda liked the job and the flexibility and the benefits and the flexibility so I stuck with it. Five months and six months later (as of tomorrow) I am almost ready to admit that I am a social worker. Almost. I tell people that I work in non-profit public health.
Which reminds me, I owe this blog some parenting secrets, don't I? Soon. I promise.
Amy asks,
1. So since we have the Eastern/Western PA dichotomy in common, I have to ask: Soda or Pop? Explain yourself!
I really stuck to my guns about this one for at least two or three years when I moved to Eastern PA. Sodas come in chocolate, cherry, strawberry, and vanilla. They have ice cream in them. You'll need a straw and a spoon to finish it, and they actually have the power to make you way more thirsty than you ever were when you ordered it upon finishing one.
Pop is carbonated and sugary and bad for your teeth, without the benefit of calcium that the soda gets from the ice cream. How do I know all these facts, you ask? Simply because I am a professional. I worked at Baskin Robbins in high school and I learned more there than I did in college and graduate school put together. About life and love and friendship and beverages, at least.
Because people from Philadelphia tend to act like you aren't speaking English if you use a different word than they use for something, I'll ask if someone would like a soda when that someone comes to my house, and if we are having a party I ask Dave to get a few cases of soda. I use the same logic when I ask for or offer a glass of wooder. Say it any different and who knows what will be in that glass.
Until last weekend, whenever I went home I slipped right back into using the word pop. But Saturday afternoon, travesty of all travesties, I asked my mom if I should pick up a bottle of soda for the ham. A little part of me died that day.
There are few things I love more than variations on the English language (read: by this I mean hate more than people who create variations on the English language. Think Fran Dresher and Rocky Balboa. The bunch of retards that they are) including dialects and colloquialisms. I've spent hours here searching for and usually finding all the proof I need to know that I am "right". Enjoy.
2. Take us back to your wedding. Tell us about your favorite moment from the day.
Getting that goddam dress off, taking out my goddam contacts, removing seventy-eight goddam bobby pins from my goddam lacquered head, scraping the goddam makeup off my face, and going to bed. Going to bed to go to sleep. I was tired and cranky and neither one of us really felt like putting forth the effort of consummating a marriage. If you think I wasn't one for having a baby you should know that I certainly wasn't one for all that wedding garbage. But here I am: Lora, wife and mother.
It was really something else to see all of my friends and family and my friend's families and my family's friends all in one place to celebrate what was really just two dumb kids getting hitched. We all had a great time at the reception and the service was less than twenty minutes long, by order of the bride who had a friend with a stopwatch in the pews and an impending frog in the throat at that twenty minute mark. Upon hearing said frog, the bride was kissing her groom and marching him down the aisle to get the fun started.
Wedding schmedding, it is all about the marriage. My favorite day of marriage is the day that Dave and I spent in a sailboat with friends, circling Capri. I fall in love over and over again with Dave when I think of him on that boat. There is also a day a few years ago that sticks in my head because we had our first real growed up conversation about what we want from each other and from life. It was tough stuff to get through but we did it, from the safety of Rittenhouse Square and the surrounding Richie Rich neighborhood where we couldn't get all bicker-y and loud if we wanted to be responsible and classy about things.
3. Describe your perfect sandwich.
This is a tough one. I'm going to say peanut butter and jelly on whole grain, but sometimes when no one is watching I sneak in a peanut butter, mayo, and dill pickle on a potato hot dog roll. Or an iceberg, mayo, and Velveeta on white. And when the mood strikes nothing will do but a big glob of tuna, mayo, grated cheddar, diced apples, sliced grapes, and lots of black pepper between two tortilla chips. And when I venture west of our state capital my heart yearns for a Primanti Brother's (or a cheap knock-off) or a Valerio's pizza sub (no knock-offs). I will cut off my pinky finger for a Nick's if I'm feeling meaty. But only the real Nick's on 20th and Jackson. And something about anything from Wawa at 3am gets me in a good way, especially if I put Doritos on it.
4. What is the best part about parenthood, aside from the cute little babe? Worst?
Because I created and sustained human life I can do anything in the world I put my mind to. I made milk, for godsake. I stayed awake for three months. Did I mention that my body made milk? And a boy. I made love and ate food and grew a child. All by myself kind of, after the sexy part was done. In jest I often say that I have joined a sorority, but I really do mean that. Mothers of the world, unite, and continue to conquer. I know what you are going through and we are all going to get through this together if we work at it. The whole thing makes me miss my mom a whole lot, and gives me a huge appreciation of what my parents went through to raise my brother and me.
The worst part, the absolute most painful, horrible, gut wrenching, worst part of being a mother is understanding what it must feel like to lose a child to something. Somewhere between empathy and sympathy lies this terrible aching hollow choking feeling that is the sorrow I carry for the mothers who have lost their baby to disease, war, drugs, violence, and death. It is a very dark and lonely place to visit, so I try to avoid the evening news and daily papers. There seems to be an awful lot of it going around these days.
5. How did you get into social work?
I wasn't so young and I really needed the money. I really really wanted to get a job mapping crime and doing urban safety planning in some hippy dippy community development center. I wanted to wear jeans with holes in them and Adidas Gazelles and sit between a white girl with dreadlocks and a computer geek with GIS codes embedded in his corneas and I was going to get tattoos and drink whiskey every day after work and never buy a house or a car and Dave and I were going to use all of our money to travel the world and we weren't going to have kids because they are such a burden on the earth- and their parents- and we would leave casserole dishes of food and water for Tyler and Bailey when we skipped town and I was going to keep everyone safe and blissful and secure in their little yuppie/d.i.n.k.-y paths from the office to the restaurant to the townhouse and around the well-lit block with the dogs who had hemp sweaters on and Coach leather collars and leashes and everyone was going to be happy.
Then 9-11 happened and suddenly I wasn't pulling in $700- 900 a week at the bar and my shifts were getting cut and my student loan payments were due and I owed money to the hospital that fixed my hand all better because I didn't have insurance so I applied for a Research Associate job at what was soon to be my company. They only had Research Assistant jobs open, so the lady that interviewed me sent my resume downstairs to Aftercare because she thought that I was "compassionate and driven" (sucker) and I took a job as a Case Manager. I figured I'd do that for a few months until I got a real job but I kinda liked the job and the flexibility and the benefits and the flexibility so I stuck with it. Five months and six months later (as of tomorrow) I am almost ready to admit that I am a social worker. Almost. I tell people that I work in non-profit public health.
Which reminds me, I owe this blog some parenting secrets, don't I? Soon. I promise.
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