Come on, January 2008…. for real!?!?!?!?

So, no lie, the day after I post my last blog, Daddy calls me about my grandmother.  She’s been in and out of the hospital since The Wedding and on Monday the doctors finally diagnosed her. She has bone cancer and they’ve given her six months to live. When I hear this… I just have no idea what to think or how to feel.

Now, mind you, The Siblings and I never had a good relationship with my Grandmother.  I mean, she came to town every year and always stayed on the other side of town with my Dad’s sister and her three sons.  She always lavished so much attention (and gifts) upon them.  They spent weeks during the summer at her home in Arkansas.  For us?  We may as well not have existed, which sucked, especially considering the fact that my maternal Grandmother died 3 months before my big brother was born, so we pretty much never got to know her.

Anyway, I digress.  Over the past couple years the relationship has improved… slightly; but not to the point where the thought of her not around shakes me to my core.  I don’t want to sound like I’m disrespecting her, because I’m not.  I love my Grandmother.  The point I’m trying to make is that I feel that there will be some pressure to be more broken up about this news (and the coming passing), than I may show in the end.  When I learned back in September that a woman from my Church that I knew and loved dearly had passed away from Breast Cancer after a couple years of a tough struggle, I was speechless and at the viewing and funeral I cried.  I just don’t know if I will react the same way about my close blood relative.

In any case, I’m there for my Dad.  I’m there for my Grandmother (who has not been told yet, btw.  That will happen this week).  I’m there for my family.  The Sibs and I visited her tonight at my Aunt’s house… (they’re not going to send her back to Arkansas because 4 of her 7 children live here in the Bay Area and she was already out here anyway) She looked like the same grandmother.  We didn’t breathe a word about her diagnosis.  We made conversation and enjoyed the time.

I have absolutely no idea of how hard the coming months will be for her and for my family.

The only thing remotely close that I can relate to is that nine years ago my Great Aunt (Big Sis to my maternal Grandmother) succumbed to ALS after battling it for several years.  She was the only real Grandmother figure I had growing up and I watched her condition slowly from a spunky, independent, fast-talking, 70-something woman to a bed-ridden, nursing cared-for woman who was grieved knowing that she couldn’t even speak to her family members in her last days of life because the disease had prohibited the use of the former singer’s vocal chords.

My last memory of her is Easter Sunday, 1999.  We escorted her to a room big enough to hold 3 generations of extended family and we sang for her until she cried.  We cried as we sang for her and she smiled.  Looking around the room, everyone sort of knew that these would be our last moments with her.  Two weeks later she died and that was the hardest loss I have ever experienced.  I was fourteen.

I will just have to pray peace and strength for my family in the coming months… I don’t know what else to do. 

Super Funky

You ever get in a bit of a funk and you’re not really sure why? You know you just feel like crap and you spend a lot of time trying to mentally sort out all of your emotional rubbish? Yeah… that’s me right now.

Well, I’m not completely at a loss for what may be causing my current state of funk; I mean, 2008 is starting out with a bang, for sure. Talked to Daddy yesterday and turns out he might be splitting from his current wife. Mom is house-hunting so that means it’s time to move. I’m still waiting to hear back about an internship I interviewed for a couple weeks ago. I pretty much have no job at this point. Oh, and some other emotional confusion too. So I guess I was wrong… the source of this funk isn’t so ambiguous.

The whole thing with Dad is not official yet. Don’t get me wrong, my siblings and I absolutely can’t stand his wife. It’s been drama from day one and even though they’ve only been married for, what, 2.5 years(?), I wouldn’t even be able to sum up all the drama in this entry. Let’s just say she’s super rude/disrespectful/immature/jealous. She doesn’t understand that the relationship between Father and Children is supposed to be different than that of Husband and Wife, and for good reasons; but she has always been jealous of our relationship with our Dad. But I’ll tell you one thing, it has taken every single day of the past 12.5 years since my parents split to rebuild our relationship with my Dad and it will surely be a cold day in hell with demons ice skating on the Lake of Fire before some chick comes in thinking she can take that away from us.

And even though we didn’t like her, we never even tried to sabotage the relationship. I mean, had that been our plan, the four of us would have succeeded even before they got married. My siblings and I can naturally be very intimidating, but we’re an unstoppable force when we’re on a mission, so she should consider herself lucky… well, sort of. Her fatal move was last year when she made some sideways crack about us telling my mom her business and then my mom telling other people when that was not even the truth because my mom could care less about her. Big Sis almost jumped over the couch and beat her in the kitchen. Only her Fiancee (now husband) and Brother could hold her back but the wrath that was in her voice was pretty much unabated. Oh, aaaand Big Sis humbled herself and called her after we left and APOLOGIZED to try and make amends and wife-lady would not take that as an opportunity to squash the beef.

So needless to say, the Sibs and I are happy that she will soon be gone, but we are sad that Daddy will now be twice divorced and a bit discouraged.

Then over on the Mom side, for several reasons, we shall soon be moving. We’re staying in the area, just changing homes. Personally, I’ve been urging a move for the past 2 years but people are only just now agreeing with me. >.< But I hate moving. Honest to God, my family has moved about every 3 years since my parents split in ‘95… so this’ll be *counting* the fifth time we’ve moved collectively since the split. And if you include my moving for college, that brings my personal total (only counting residences, not moving in plus moving out) up to 10 times.

I just can’t say it anymore plainly. I hate moving. The boxes, the packing, the organizing, the cleaning (the old and new places), the searching once you’ve moved, the settling in…. urggg.

I contacted the company I interviewed with a little while ago… they were STILL conducting interviews… at this point, I’m just like: Hire ME already! I’m the coolest one who most deserves the position!!!! Hopefully I’ll hear back from them by the end of the week because apparently I was a seasonal employee at Ye Olde Fabric Chain… even though I had been there for more than 6 months… o.O Go figure.

I think I’ve taken all I can stand from the customers anyway… swear, I love crafting and all that jive, but some of the people that come into crafting/fabric stores are straight up JERKS! And I’m talking about the regular Crafty ladies. Probably 40% of them are rude, nitpicky, impatient people. And you’d be AMAZED at how many people steal!!! I’m talking $40-$50 Gingher scissors, beads, notions, they rip the stuff right out of the package and leave it on the floor! They rip the wrapper off the remnants and shove it in their purses. They steal the red-tag stickers, stick them on regular-priced stuff and try to demand the red-tag price. It’s ridiculous.

So anyway… I think I will be starting a Vlog on YouTube soon… I’m trying to wait until I upgrade my computer in a couple weeks because I need a much faster processor to do the editing and other things I’m planning… so I’ll keep people updated… it would be a little different from this blog because I feel I’m much better at telling stories and conveying ideas visually than I am at typing stuff out… it’s a really different style. Visually is always more “*Stina”… so yeah….

Hopefully the rest of the month plays out more mellow…..