10 posts tagged “family”
Given the vagaries of traffic around here, when you get in the car, you never know what you'll find yourself caught up in. So I usually leave early to pick the wife up from work and today, I arrived about 20 minutes before she was scheduled to get off.
Stood in the large aisle that passes by her dept., the pastry dept., for what it's worth, and waited until she came out. Now the store arrangement is open, customers can watch as pastries are prepared and of course the employees can see who is outside in the aisles . I slowly walked back and forth, aware, but ignoring that the other people working in her dept., could see me; I mean hey, I don't give a rat's ass if they are watching me or what they may think. But not so the wife.
She comes out and,
ね、おねがいだから、店のまえで立てないでよ。格好いいおとこならいいけど。
？？！！！！？？？？！！！、ええ！いまいったことはなにを！？
そうよ、人相がわるいからみなが「変」と思ってる。
私の顔は普通だよう。
自分がそうおもってば。
Niiiice.
Had a small mystery to solve, and has been solved. On Friday, 3 back issues of the National Geographic Magazine were delivered with the mail, addressed to my son, with his named spelt wrong, a 's' where there should have been a 'z'. Now things being what they are for us now, magazine subscriptions are out, so it wasn't me or my wife.
Thought next of my mother and called, but nope, twasn't she either. Mentally casting about, I discounted relatives on my father's side of the family, it's just not their style, they are party makers and hell raisers for the most part. The post-war generation has moved away from god old boy, earthy down home type agricultural stuff to the professions. My mother's side of the family is quite different,. They count among them, doctors, CEO's, engineers, nurses, nearly all play or have played an instrument of some sort, read a lot and are also not the most interesting of people you'll meet. Which is why I once jokingly said to the Auto Gal, I am so confused and messed up. :-)
So on a hunch, I called up my aunt on my mother's side, the pushing 90 doctor, and 当たり, it was she who had given son a gift subscription, she had just not gotten around to sending the 'You've been given a gift subscription to,_____ by_______ ' card.
As for the game today, at the risk of heresy, it's just a frickin game to me. I am looking forward to the ads more than the game. Not so my son. He has a clear preference for a winner which I'll leave it to you to guess after looking at the picture below.
Can't believe I actually drove for 3 hours, stayed at a party for another 3 and then drove back for another 3 hours. Arrived home late and needless to say, dropped off to sleep very quickly. Son did not go, and it was a good thing he didn't; he would have been absolutely bored out of his mind and I wouldn't have heard the end of it for months.
For me, while it was a good chance to reconnect with members of my family there, the rest of the people I did not know and frankly, were people I just would not connect with either. Not out of egotism or snootiness, just different folks. But now that I am awake and rested......
Son mentioned he wanted to go paintballing again today (he got new gear which he wants to use -paid for BTW, out of his own pocket) but its gotten bitterly cold again and being outside for long periods of time = hypothermia/frostbite, which he doesn't understand of course, but the answer is 'no'.
Had an e-mail exchange with a man I met through work, a kindred spirit so to speak, and he is still having a rough time. Sat down and wrote the following (edited a bit) to him. Am posting it here as there may be another person out there, floundering a bit and to whom a bit of light in the darkness might be of help.
"I can't speak for your experience and how you were treated, if you were treated or went through worse that what I was put through. That said, I can appreciate you feeling depressed, I was too, but you really need to try and move on. Otherwise you are letting whoever it is specifically who was your tormentor there still live rent free in your head and do you want that?
For me, my tormentor doesn't even have a name now. To me this person is nothing to me other than a sterile, non-human descriptor. Sure I'd like someday to return the 'favor' and sure I am sure there's more about what happened to me than I know, but I've got a son to raise and a wife to support as she works to help support us. Perhaps the day will come when I'll find out more about what happened and perhaps be able to return the 'favor', but I have learned there are other things that come first.
First is that my time with my son is becoming more and more limited as he grows older. There's a girl out there, who when he meets, will mean we'll see very little of him again. In spending the most time with him since he was born, I've been able to connect with him much better than I otherwise would have had I continued on with what I was. I've learned to see beyond the narrow scope of what I have done too. Sure, it'd be a relatively easy slide into another similar job, but after being out for so long, I'm not sure whether my heart would be in the work anymore. Don't know if you know of X, who works for ------, but he lives nearby where my wife works, and I've bumped into him a couple of times while waiting for her. He knows my situation and told me I have not missed a thing.
I've learned to take stock of what I see as my true core skills and I think I am pretty versatile and can work outside of where I have been in the field of government affairs- government relations. Ok, I have not yet found a prospective employer who agrees with me, but I continue to look to see what is out there.
I've learned to be a bit more creative and a few months ago, started my own blog. Its not the center of the internet universe, but some read it, comment and for me, its an outlet and a device to keep myself mentally sharp and exchange thoughts with people who I otherwise would not have 'met'.
My wife thanks to this, has done what she had thought about for many years, joining the workforce. She's not paid a whole lot, but she's getting her foot in the door, will be able to pay into her own 401k soon, and finally working towards being SS eligible, which may all be a big fat zero when she (and I) can collect, but.....
Yes, things are tough; I'd love to pick up a bottle of wine or a six-pack of a micro brew, or some nice cheese when I go shopping, and now I am facing the very real possibility of losing the house. But even if this should happen, while a blow its would not be the end of the world- we would go on, for not doing so would let a certain person still live in my head.
Not to criticize, I just would like to see you move on too."
The husband of one of my first cousins (she's on the right in the picture w/the SUV) has his 60th coming up (never realized my cousin was a 姉女房) and a surprise party is planned for tonight. A nice loving gestture to be sure, but.....Its on the Shore, which means a 3 hour drive with 3 of us sardined into the Quaalude (the dog stays home- find a dog sitter for the night) drive down to an event where we will probably know no one else but our family, who will be in the minority. And if we do a uey, we won't be able to stay but for an hour or 2, I won't be able to drink very much if at all as to and from, there is a high, long bridge to cross which both my wife and son quake at the thought of being the one behind the wheel when crossing it.
Yeah a stay at a hotel is an option, but the price of a night could also be put to use with groceries right now.
In the interests of 家族つき合い, I guess we'll go down, but think this is above and beyond the Call of Duty.
Had a running montage of dreams shortly before I woke. A couple of scenes at my last place of employment in which The Auto Gal figured in. Then a switch to home and its morning, just before my son's school bus arrives. He's got me up about a question for something he could have asked me the previous night. I look at the quickly at the clock, which shows he's got less than 3 minutes to get out the door. Look at the question, which makes absolutely no sense, meanwhile his school bus passes by with him not on it.
Go to shower and dress and see my wife has placed a very tacky bed, like one you'd see in a second-hand store,in the bathroom blocking access, grab my equally tacky wool robe, put it on, go searching for the car, get in, drive and find myself going in the completely opposite way to son's school.
Give up trying to get him to school, go back home, find there are dishes piled up in the sink and a couple of big cockroaches crawling in and out from the pile (I am not afraid of the things BTW), there's also some sort of sandwich from McDonald's lying on the counter.
Wake up, throw off the sheets and as I get the bedroom door, there is my son, standing ready to head out the door, who when he sees me says, "Oh you're up. I was about to come and wake you up.'
????????????????????????
Had a bit of restless sleep last night, ending with a very clear dream of me visiting my Japanese homestay family and carrying on a conversation in Japanese. Odd, as I never felt that close to them. Haven't had one of those dreams in quite a while.
Rented a bunch of videos to tide us over the holidays. The one we watched last night, the last of the Indiana Jones series was simply awful, from storyline to scripting. Frankly, Harrision Ford had better stuff to use in the Kirin(?) beer commercials he did in Japan, now perhaps 11 or so years back. Christ, Bill Murray even looked better doing those ersatz Suntory commercials in 'Lost in Translation"! It really sucks when Hollywood takes a good movie and runs the concept 50 meters into the ground with sequel after banal sequel (Alien, Terminator, et. al)
Have drug up from the basement, the roaster we use annually to cook our turkey. The turkey is the smallest one we get that still is too much for the 3 of us.
What am I thankful for?
Still having a roof over our heads and food to eat, despite me being unemployed for a long period of time.
For not having any major health issues or my son or wife having any either since we have by me not working, no health insurance.
Learning from being unemployed that there is more than being a blinkered, driven American version of a sarariman and connected better with my son, even if it does at times drive him up the wall
The privilege of interacting with those I do on the net and through e-mail: you don't know how much that keeps me away from the intellectual horror that passes for daytime TV programming :-)
For living the country and society that I live in, that while by no means perfect, I appreciate it when I think of where else I have lived.
Last, for my family, who also are not perfect are what I've got, or as The Auto Gal once said to me, "You can pick your nose but you can't pick your family'.
Time to start the turkey.
This day, like the same days in other years is a different day. Schools for one thing, perhaps recognizing family travel plans and the futility of keeping kids in for a full day of school on this day, are on a half day schedule.
Traffic in the morning is noticeably lighter too as some, wisely, head out to wherever they are going to early. This is particularly so of Washington, DC as some many who live in and around the area have come from different parts of the country (like us) and thus, grandmother's house, as the song goes may not just be through the woods, but perhaps over the Mississippi as well.
Around 15:00 the main roads North South and West will clog up- becoming parking lots, as the entire eastern seaboard (it seems) is on the move somewhere. Its on this day the main North-South route here, I-95 truly earns its other name: I Hate 95.
Still there are those who will of course stay and my wife's store was very busy yesterday and today it will probably be a madhouse. But my wife has the day off and is thus spared.
It will be a quiet Thanksgiving for us. We had planned to travel to The Shore to have dinner with my cousin, as her Thanksgiving will be a smaller affair than in the past. Her now grown sons and daughter and other family members have their own Thanksgiving Day obligations. I could go to my mother's house, which is relatively close by, but going there is always depressing and just not worth the expended gas so that'll be skipped too.
Post Thanksgving, there'll be changes. My wife got a promotion of sorts in getting full-time employment at her store starting the day after. It will mean much for earlier hours (like starting at 04:00) which will make my juggling of who needs to be taken where & when much more interesting, but it is a good thing. For years I have told her that while we are the same age (our birthdays are but a day apart), statistcally I will check out before she does, so she needs to get her Social Security card punched (yeah, like there'll be money left in it when she can draw upon it), she'll be now able to start contributing to her own 401k and at least she'll have health insurance coverage for herself and our son. Its also a step up as she can then rotate after another year. Think she may be on a career path finally: she has very good customer skills, skills she honed from working at the small busness her family ran.
Its a pretty dead time for job-hunting too, though the traffic flow has increased somewhat, which may when I least expect it, lead to something.
My cousin, who is the little girl holding me in the picture, married a man who started a pool business and expanded to hot tubs. He's worked hard, built up a respectable business and done well for himself and his family.
He has a large boat which he sails to Florida about this time of the year, and keeps it there for the winter. Later in the year, about a day or two after Christmas, my cousin and her husband fly to Florida and spend a few weeks there, living on the boat and thinking how glad they are where they are.
This year I am told is different. The boat will remain in the mid-Atlantic over the winter and they have decided this year's trip and stay in Florida will not happen.
The person staring out at you from in this old photograph, actually a copy of a tintype, is that of a distant ancestor, my great, great grandfather if I have counted correctly, taken in 1862. Born and raised in northwestern North Carolina, where my family originates from, he joined the Confederate Army and served as what we would now call a ‘grunt’ in The Army of Northern Virginia until captured at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. There he was captured and made prisoner, sent first to a Union POW camp at Point Lookout Maryland, then transferred to another Union prison camp in Elmira, NY, dubbed ‘Helmira by its inmates, many of whom died from calculated neglect- including him.
I had known a bit about him, but did not know about the photograph. Had questioned whether it is actually of him since the hat looks like a prop and the firearm, because of its uniqueness, ( a Civil War buff could shed more light on this) I strongly suspected was not his. But I am told the original, which a relative out in California has, is signed by him. This tells me a couple of things. One he was literate and two; he wasn’t as poor as family lore had me believe since he had money to spend on this.
It is interesting to me how some physical traits have been passed down through the generations. He has the same square face my father had and many of my relatives also have.
There are also copies of letters written by him from the field to his wife in North Carolina. Dates are sporadic, but they span from 1862 to January 1, 1865 while in the Elmira prison of war camp, just 30 days before he died and just 3 months before the Confederate surrender on April 9th.
The letters speak of a deep, aching loneliness from being away from home and family, a man of string religious fervor, of deprivation, constant hunger, of men walking barefoot in winter, and short, sparse reports of being in battle. And while he was literate, the document now makes for hard reading as spelling was not a skill he had.
How does it feel to have, as the title of a book goes, ‘A Confederate in The Attic’? Mixed. I have never thought about hanging out a Stars and Bars flag out and shouting ‘The South Shall Rise Again’, or re-tuning my car’s horn so that it plays ‘Dixie’. But in the same breath, when I do see the Confederate flag on a car or outside a home, I smugly wonder ‘Are they really?’
Nor am I ashamed. He fought and died for what he believed in, even though it was the wrong thing. And you can’t judge family for how they were shaped by the times they lived in. To put in another way, from the lines of an old Bruce Springsteen song, “..Man turns his back on his family, he ain’t no good.”.
Finally there is respect. You have to remember fighting in this war was still done Napoleonic style: lines of men walking should-to-shoulder to the enemy lines shouldering extremely heavy rifles and then at close range, firing volleys of very large bullets, larger than those used in firearms today. These bullets if they did not kill you outright, could create horrible wounds, leaving you at the mercies of field doctors who did not fully understand, through no fault of their own, severe trauma and how to treat it (ironically though, it was the Civil War which started the study of severe trauma and methods of treatment). To suffer deprivation and mortal danger bespeaks of a core of inner courage and perseverance, no matter if the solider wore blue or gray.
The wife and to a degree, my son have the very annoying habit of putting something down in the house at random and then wonder why they can't find it again when they need it. It so bad I've long given up on trying to help look for whatever it is they are looking for du jour. Its so bad I wonder if this is an inherited trait and there is a psychological term for this.
Me on the other hand, I put something of mine in the same place in the house about 99.9% of the time. So much so that I could be called a bit anal. But then I do not waste my time hunting around the house for something I need either.
The other day was an exception. Couldn't find the wallet. Its usually in the back pocket of whatever pair of pants I wear or on a particular shelve in the house. But no this time. Mentally retraced my steps and though, "Oh Christ could I have..."
A load of washing was done, went down to pull it out and hang up to dry. In the load were the pants I had worn and was initially relieved to find there was no wallet in the back pocket. But as they say, 喜びは早い and the wallet was at the bottom of the wash tub and soaked.
Not too much damage, though the Shinto 名札 my wife has me carry on me is now a bit worse for wear. Hmmmmmmm. Should I look over my shoulder now? :-)
