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[Editor's note: I started this at 9:30 this morning, and it's taken me all day to get this down. Apologies for any editorial errors - I just don't feel like reading through it all again.]
I just remembered, sitting here at my desk, that  called and left a message last night to have me call him today. Why? Well,  also called last night and left a message (I left my phone at home for date night). Our cousin had called her and said that our aunt has a prognosis of 1-2 weeks. Weeks. Last week they were talking months. The week before that  had said “hope she makes it through the weekend [of the wedding].”
So I am heartbroken for and just want to hug him, but it’s a little hard with Wisconsin in the way. I hope  is good to him in that way – I don’t really know anything about their relationship as far as that is concerned, but I hope that she comforts him and gets him to talk about things.
And I am sad for my cousins, four of them ages 27-40ish. I can’t imagine trying to deal with losing a parent at 27. How do you prepare for that? My 30-year-old cousin just got married mid-July. His older sister has 4 kids, and the oldest cousin has three(ish), all under the age of 10.
And then there’s my Grandpa who, at 94, has already had to deal with losing most if not all of his siblings (I think he’s the oldest of many, but I don’t remember the details right now), his wife’s death 30 years ago, and now his 60-year-old daughter. That’s not right.
emailed me and nearly made me cry. But I’m at work, so I pulled it together. Cuz that’s what you do. Or at least it’s what I do. Then emailed me and said that after she called me, called her and they talked. She asked him how he’s doing and he cried. Of course, I would if I was in that situation, but it is kind of a shocker for to express that much emotion. While I was out for coffee, called me and filled me in. He said my uncle was supposed to call him later today with more information, and I firmly told him that if he called me with more details and I didn’t pick up, he was to leave a detailed message and I’d call him back if I needed to / when I could (because I’ll never hear my phone at the Twins game tonight, and even if I do, I won’t be able to talk on it, nor will I really want to). said a few weeks, maybe a month. They are bringing her home from the hospital today and setting up Hospice. She can’t even get out of bed right now
I asked him how he was doing and he said something along the lines of, “as good as could be expected.” He did that thing that I do (OK, I probably got it from him, not the other way round) where he talked about how he felt without actually having the feelings because it wasn’t the right time or place (he was at work, I was in a large rotunda in the Skyway). Sometimes that’s what you have to do, or what I have to do at least. Like last night – I was enjoying date night and didn’t really want to let it get me down, so just pushed it away for the moment. And you know what, I don’t think that was wrong. I enjoyed date night and really needed a night off from the rest of life.
But I am quite sad. It means the next time I go home won’t be to visit her one last time, but will be for her funeral. And I haven’t seen her in almost two years. She’s been a really wonderful aunt – totally unlike ‘s sisters who are also great aunts, but in her own special way. She gives and I a Christmas ornament each year, even last year when neither of us went home. And growing up, they lived in the next town over and we all went to church together (my grandparents too). She sent me a really nice letter explaining why they couldn’t come to the wedding and told me I was one of her favorites and she really wanted to be there.
It’s really hard wishing for it to be fast and painless when it’s someone I’m close to (since I’ve been quite glad a few times in the past for someone’s illness to end quickly, because I wasn’t all that close to them or hadn’t been close with them for a while, and that wasn’t too hard). But I really don’t want her to be in pain. Last I’d heard she wasn’t letting people visit and was sending cards home without reading them because she didn’t want people to be saying goodbye. I hope that she has time to make her peace with the situation, and that there’s enough time for those around her to do so as well.
Anyways, that’s enough for me today. There’s probably more, but I keep having to stop to collect myself, and it’s just too hard to do at work. So… yeah.
I have restless legs. Bad, man. Right now. And this is unacceptable. Why? Because it’s 12:30 in the afternoon, that’s why! Restless legs are supposed to be an affliction I only have to suffer from at night. Which is why the OTC homeopathic remedy I picked up the other day at CVS is at home and not with me. But maybe they have it at Walgreens. I should check. Because if at 1 when I’m rescued from phones I still feel this way, I won’t be able to cope any longer. I will have to rip them off and beat them against the nearest hard surface to alleviate the feeling (it’s kinda like having too much caffeine in your system, and it’s all been concentrated in your leg muscles). And that would probably not be workplace-appropriate.
Wah. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a big whiner. You know what? I don’t care. I’m very tired today and feel like complaining and it’s my blog, so I can do that.
On the plus side, I ate half of my egg-sausage-cheese bagel this morning, took my multivitamin, and then ate the other half, all in relatively quick succession (for me, that is, known to be the slowest eater on the planet), and no nausea. So that’s something.
It has been a hard week. A long week. Last night  and I looked at each other and said, “Who are you?” (I jest, but you get the point.) Married life is great. It’s been all the other stuff, primarily school. Thankfully, while this semester starts out busy, after looking at my syllabuses, things should get a lot easier in a few weeks. A lot less homework, that is, which would be nice. I haven’t picked up my stuff all week – it’s gradually accumulating on random surfaces. And as I just realized while looking on Etsy, I haven’t pursued any of my hobbies in white a while. No knitting since before the wedding – the tendinitis flare-up put the kabosh on that, so I didn’t even bring anything to occupy myself with on the honeymoon. I’d bought some new stuff to make jewelry with and have several ideas, but I haven’t had the time to put them into motion. Nor have I unpacked a single box that wasn’t a gift. Now, granted, last night we could have just lazed around the house reveling in the nothing-ness, but instead we chose to go shopping and get some much-needed work clothes for both of us.
 And I got cute new shoes. And then we got home and were exhausted, because the MOA will do that to ya.
All I’m sayin’ is, I’m tired, and I’m glad the weekend is here and I get to sleep in tomorrow and that I don’t have a ton of homework to do, so that I might feel vaguely productive in the rest of my life. All summer long things got set aside for the higher priority of moving and wedding, and now things are getting set aside for the higher priority of schoolwork. It’s exhausting, I tell ya. I’ll work on getting that fixed though.
- Do you live near your immediate (like, your mom & dad, siblings, grandparents, etc) family? How close/far away are you? Yes and no. It depends what you consider “immediate family,” and gets especially tricky if you consider and me the immediate family. But whatever. and live here (the latter with my brother-in-law and adorable nephew). lives back home in Chicago with his wife and my grandparents. ‘s mom lives in Florida. My aunts and uncles live in Illinois and Michigan. ‘s dad lives nearby, as does his brother, and his mom and her husband. And his mom’s mom. And some random aunts and uncles and cousins.
- If you don’t live near your immediate family, how often do you get a chance to see them? If you do live near, how often do you see them? I don’t get to see very often anymore, because the Twin Cities hold more appeal for holiday get-togethers than Illinois does (all of ‘s family, my adorable nephew, etc). In the next six months, however, I’m guessing I’ll see him more than usual (hopefully going home for Christmas, and probably for my aunt’s funeral – we’ve been told “months”). I see and fairly often, but different times of the year are more difficult, like right now ( is a school teacher and the beginning of the school year is crazy busy for her and her husband). We see ‘s dad the most, probably.
- Do you like having your family close/far away? Why/why not? Yes, I do. It’s why I moved to Minnesota, after all (to be near ). I’m glad moved here (after all the initial panic and fear that struck my heart). I wish would too, but he really doesn’t like the cold weather and talks about retiring in North Carolina or Florida (arguably not the best plan, because they are places where has family and exactly how long will she continue to live with cancer? My guess would be “not into retirement.” But what do I know? You think he’d stay in the Chicago area to be near his parents and sister, though by the time retires they’ll all probably be dead too. Man, that’s depressing. Let me rephrase: considering he will probably have no one else, you think he’d want to move to Minnesota to spend his retirement years spoiling his grandson.).
to my new schedule, that is. Every day this week so far I have tried to get it right, but with no success so far. To recap:
Monday:
6am wake up
7am eat breakfast (yogurt & granola)
7:19 miss bus, get Starbucks
7:51 take bus, discover there is no eating or drinking on bus
9:30 finish most of Starbucks, which is now cold
1:30 starving (duh), eat lunch (cup of Ramen)
5pm go home, realize on bus that I am starving, nauseous, and have a headache
5:45 complain to husband who quickly attempts to remedy situation with food (which works)
9pm hungry and munchy, trip to CVS, several Twizzlers consumed
Tuesday
6am wakeup
7am grab breakfast bar on way out door to catch bus
7:19 on bus (yay!)
9am get Starbucks
11:45 plan to get Chipotle for lunch
12:00 thwarted by co-worker’s absence, must now work until 12:30 and skip lunch
12:30 chew gum
1:45 falling asleep in class, on break find Wheat Thins which keep me awake through rest of class
4:30 bus home
5:30 consume soup and salad with husband at table (whoa)
8pm find bag of cookies that the Mike-arita I had with dinner requested to keep it company and consume
Wednesday
6am wakeup
6:30 drink juice and take vitamins
6:45 overwhelmingly nauseous, blame multivitamin-empty stomach combination
7:20 drive to work
7:55 no longer nauseous, eat breakfast (granola & yogurt) in college parking lot
8:20 pick up Starbucks before getting to work
11:30 discard Starbucks mainly undrunk
12pm starving, munch a few Wheat Thins (so as to not ruin my appetite), can’t leave desk due to phone duty (daily from 12-1)
1:30 get Chipotle that I was denied yesterday
2:30 finish consuming lunch, very full
5pm realize still full, plan to get Jimmy John’s for dinner gets tossed, grab Propel and bag of peanuts
5:30 bus to college
6:00 class
6:45 break, eat a few peanuts, find Wheat Thins in bag
8:20 class over, Wheat Thins nearly gone
8:30 drive home
8:55 stop by Taco Bell for dinner
9:30 again overwhelmingly full, consume Pepto-Bismol as a precautionary measure
Today:
6am wakeup (boo, quite difficult this morning)
6:30 eat All-Bran granola-ish bar (they’re yummy!)
7:19 bus to work
9:00 take vitamins
9:30 overwhelmingly nauseous, contemplate alternatives to throwing up while trying to find some food that might settle stomach, consume remaining Wheat Thins
9:45 no longer nauseous, would like to get coffee
Now, arguably there are many factors at work here. But this is what I’ve concluded so far:
- Waking up at 6am sucks (but is the grown-up thing to do, blah blah blah – got a notice from the Post Office saying drugs from Canada have come in, so hopefully that will help the situation)
- There is no breakfast that will keep me sated until 1 or 1:30 when I used to go to lunch
- There is no breakfast that will keep me from feeling nauseous when it is time to take my vitamins etc at 9am (the only solution may be taking them with food)
- There are no acceptable lunch options downtown St Paul at 11:30
- I have no idea when I should get coffee now that will result in it actually being drank
- I have trained my co-workers to expect my coffee break around 11 and lunch break around 1:30, so they take their breaks at times when I probably would like to take mine now that my schedule is different
- Cup-o-Ramen, while my easiest workplace lunchtime option, is wholly unsatisfying and not even worth the effort if there’s nothing to add to it
- Regardless of when I eat lunch, I’m going to be starving by dinnertime
- I will remain tired all day long until about 9:30 or 10pm, at which point I no longer want to go to bed (when will my body adjust to the new sleep schedule? will it ever? I’ve always been a night owl, and while I might be able to train my body to get up at 6am, I’m not sure I can train it to be tired at 10pm)
- I am very good at making bad food choices (but we all knew that)
This is why honeymoons exist, of course. Because and I had one whole blissful week of sleeping in and lazing about and enjoying each other’s company without feeling the pressures of work and school. And now, well, I just haven’t been that fun to live with this week. There was complaining yesterday morning about getting out of bed, and this morning I was downright belligerent (almost had a flashback to high school with my parents, which sadly wasn’t enough motivation to get me out of bed). has been remarkably good-natured about getting me out of bed, though he knew what he was getting into on the not-a-morning-person front when he married me. And after work, I have been some combination of grumpy, cranky, tired, and busy with homework. There hasn’t been much time for anything else (I haven’t talked to or since the wedding, and I still haven’t finished unpacking from our honeymoon). So I am looking forward to “date night” tonight, when someone else will hopefully prepare the food (we discussed going “out”), and we can spend some quality time together, even if it is just watching television and addressing thank-yous.
Some recent search terms that brought people to my blog:
- sexy afrogirl
- is it dorky to wear nylons these days
- trigger scents
Just proof that people are weird, that’s all.
I just checked my school email and there was one from our visiting lecturer for today’s class (he is teaching for three weeks starting last week, the basics of economics). The PowerPoint slides for today are posted. I didn’t know this was going to be done, so I checked out the link. There are slides from last week up too. So I downloaded them, pulled them up and checked them out. Last week’s lesson? 53 slides. Oh, but it gets better! Today’s lesson? 81! My hand hurts just thinking about taking notes. How is it even possible that we’re going to get through 81 slides? It’s only a three hour class. That’s… one slide every 2 minutes, with one break in the middle and no dilly-dallying around.
I think I’m going to do something before class that I try to never do. I’m going to Chipotle for lunch. At noon. Clearly, this is not the best plan in the world, but class starts at 1 and I need food in me. Guaranteed good and filling food. Downtown, this is one of my few options. And I need it today. I woke up starving. And I’m tired. Nearly fell asleep on the bus to work. I think an 81-slide 3-hour lecture on the basics of economics could put me to sleep easily. Must have food in me to prevent this.
Alright, I know that if I don’t post something soon, certain people might get a little snarky and pester me over email about that, even if I have talked to them during my hiatus. I’ll keep this short, because my pictures are currently trapped on my home computer and they’d make a better post anyways.
Short story:
- Wedding went off without a hitch. Or rather we got hitched. Or… huh. The day was a success, since all that needed to happen was for us to actually get married. Everything else was gravy, and there was a lot of gravy.
- Honeymoon was awesome. We did nothing, absolutely nothing, and reveled in it. The weather was good, and we basically did the stuff we did last time, only more relaxedly.
- When we got home,
 was a freak. We opened all our gifts and got them all situated away, or at least mostly. And Sunday after church we went to the Pottery Barn and bought some backup dishes.
- Sunday we went to church and received the “souvenir tickets” that are our marriage license, uncertified. Basically worth nothing. But we learned that the parties involved (bride and groom, that is) don’t actually sign the marriage license. Who knew?
- I am behind on homework, but that’s probably to be expected. I’ve had a hard time getting back into the mindset of a student, which is important when papers need to be written. If it was just reading, I’d be done. I’ll get on that tonight though.
- Commuting from Eagan is not so much fun, but not the worst form of torture ever invented. Sorry, but that’s about as excited as I can get about that.
- A co-worker gave me the Wyoming state quarter as a wedding gift. And he talked to our barista at Starbucks who was shocked and amazed that we didn’t want gifts, and that I didn’t want co-workers at the celebration. To each his own, right?
- And now I’m back at work. I only had 89 emails, which is pretty amazing for being gone two weeks. And about 15 of them were spam. So I’m mostly caught up, in the sense that I currently have a normal workload (when I have stuff to do, that is).
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thankful
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