I think everyone who stops by here knows by now. Amy is pregnant with our first child. It hasn’t been a cakewalk for her these first two and half months. We’ve read quite a bit since we’ve known about the pregnancy, and we know the average answers to many normal pregnancy questions. Nevertheless, we were really looking forward to our first visit with our obstetrician today to ask questions about our specific issues, not to mention getting another look at how our little dot is growing.
But, they cancelled! We’ve waited three weeks for this and they cancelled three hours before our appointment! I don’t know about you, but most medical offices I visit threaten me with a monetary fee if I cancel 24 to 48 hours before the appointment. Where’s my fee? Where’s my fifty bucks? My time is just as valuable as the doctors’ time. Isn’t it? (crickets) Blood, devastation, death, war, and horror. Grrr.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Home Again
I spent a good portion of the past week helping my dad clean out my grandmother's apartment. It was a lot of work but it was therapeutic and a good way to say goodbye. As I said in my earlier post, one of her qualities that I admired was her sense of humor and I found a lot of things over the past few days that reminded me of that. There were a lot of dirty jokes handwritten on yellowed scraps of paper, pins that said things (in very small print) like "Come any closer and I'll scream, you dirty sex maniac," two pairs of Groucho glasses that she wore to parties with a friend. That's definitely how I'll remember her.
Amy flew home after the funeral on Monday, so I was left with the task of driving back to Chicago yesterday. When I'm alone, I always try to make the trip nonstop and this time was no different. This time I confirmed that I can drive the whole way on one tank of gas although the low fuel light blipped on as I turned onto our street. Also, I almost made the trip in 6.5 hours but the Skyway was down to one lane inbound from three. That added 45 minutes to the trip, but I was still home by 10:15 CST.
Amy flew home after the funeral on Monday, so I was left with the task of driving back to Chicago yesterday. When I'm alone, I always try to make the trip nonstop and this time was no different. This time I confirmed that I can drive the whole way on one tank of gas although the low fuel light blipped on as I turned onto our street. Also, I almost made the trip in 6.5 hours but the Skyway was down to one lane inbound from three. That added 45 minutes to the trip, but I was still home by 10:15 CST.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Goodbye Grandma, 1918-2007
I've always looked up to her, one of my few constants in a world swirling with change. She taught me many things implicitly: how to laugh at everything, that nothing is worth taking too seriously, not to let anyone tell me what I couldn't do, the quiet power of a simple life.
Most importantly, she taught me one aspect of being a strong person. She endured. Knowing that she lived through the Great Depression, that she was a female mill worker during World War II, that she was a single mother when the title would still earn one a scarlet letter, sent me a clear message. Nothing can stop you if you don't let fear get in your way. She did not teach me that we should have no fear, but that the fear we possess can be contained if we see it for what it is.
I don't know what happens when we die, but if we get to see our whole lives stretched out before us to the horizon, I'm glad that she has seen her friends again. I'm glad that she has seen the family that she has long survived. I will miss her, but I have had her long enough.
Most importantly, she taught me one aspect of being a strong person. She endured. Knowing that she lived through the Great Depression, that she was a female mill worker during World War II, that she was a single mother when the title would still earn one a scarlet letter, sent me a clear message. Nothing can stop you if you don't let fear get in your way. She did not teach me that we should have no fear, but that the fear we possess can be contained if we see it for what it is.
I don't know what happens when we die, but if we get to see our whole lives stretched out before us to the horizon, I'm glad that she has seen her friends again. I'm glad that she has seen the family that she has long survived. I will miss her, but I have had her long enough.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Things Go Boom! Part 2: The Explosioning
I hate the 4th of July. I don't usually take any time off so both Amy and I go to bed at the regular time in order to get up at six o'clock. However, every year since we've moved here, a bunch of kids set off lots of large and loud fireworks in the intersection right near our house until two or three in the morning. The police usually show up, but they only do a drive-by while the kids are hiding, in our yard of course, shine a light around, and leave.
Anyway, this year in preparation for the noise, I even wore some earplugs to bed, which is something I used to do in undergraduate school when my neighbors would come home drunk and screaming at 4am on a Thursday morning. Unfortunately it didn't help enough. Instead of the usual bottle rockets, roman candles, and saturn missles, they had purchased quite a few M100s and began setting them off. At least I'm guessing that's what they were because the explosions were huge, enough to wake me from a deep sleep with earplugs in. This was around 11pm.
After the first one, I got up and looked out the window just in time to see the next one go off. It blinded me and shook the house enough to knock one of our pictures off the wall. We called the police at that point because I didn't want to put up with all of that noise until they ran out of supplies. While we were waiting for the drive-by, I went downstairs and watched the proceedings from our living room window. Over the next hour, the police drove by twice, each time waving their light around for a couple of minutes before departing while the kids hid in bushes around the neighborhood. After each pass, the kids would just come right back and start all over again.
Now, I don't like to be a complete hard nose on holidays but after three years of this annual activity plus the M100s this year, this was getting pretty old. Not to mention that I saw a lot of reckless behavior in a highly populated area that's been pretty dry for the last couple of weeks. There were umbrella rockets exploding right next to houses both occupied and unoccupied, various earth-bound devices thrown near cars, and generally just a lot of unsafe usage of the fireworks.
So around midnight or shortly after, one of the guys that had been lighting the fuses was walking past our house. I stepped onto the porch and asked him if he and his friends could cut it out. He lied and said that he didn't know what I was talking about so I explained how I'd been watching them for the last hour and that lying wasn't going to make me stop asking if they would quit. He started walking away and I thought that I'd like to see which way he went, but as I followed a bit, he wised up, called a friend for back up, and stopped walking. At that point, to shorten this story just a bit, he started to get a little aggressive and kept trying to provoke me to fight him or something. I would just roll my eyes at him as his friend tried to feed me more crap about how it wasn't them but some other people setting off the fireworks.
While we were having our friendly neighborhood chat, the police happened to roll by again, so when DJ Suburban Thug decided to say, "What are you gonna do about, little bitch," I only responded that perhaps he would like to speak to the gentlemen that just arrived. As I went to speak to the police, they must have found another hiding spot because when one of the officers asked me where they were, they had disappeared. I told him that they probably went into the alley on the east side of my house and he said they'd check it out.
As the officers were talking with each other, I went back to sit on my porch. But before I had even sat down again, DJ Suburban Thug was too stupid to keep his mouth shut. All he said was, "I feel sorry for you, man." Apparently, I have sold out to the man. Anyway, his failure to keep his stupid mouth shut was enough to give away his location so I immediately returned to the police and told them that they were very nearby and speaking to me from the proximity of my porch.
After another fifteen or twenty minutes I saw the group, about seven or ten of them, shamble down the street, get in their cars, and leave. Magically, all the noise left with them. Either that or those other people who had been doing it ran out of fireworks and went inside. I guess we'll never know.
The frustrating part of it for me is that I know that other people in the neighborhood don't like it either, but nobody ever actually does anything about it. I see them out in the street raising their arms in frustration the morning after when they see all the trash left in the street. I've even spoken with a couple of people the next day who also don't like their behavior. But, I sure didn't see those people out there with me that night asking for anyone stop and generally trying to take a little control of the situation. I'm sure they're afraid of some kind of retaliation, petty vandalism more than likely. But honestly, what does it matter that you keep your stuff protected when you can't even stand up for yourself when it counts?
Anyway, this year in preparation for the noise, I even wore some earplugs to bed, which is something I used to do in undergraduate school when my neighbors would come home drunk and screaming at 4am on a Thursday morning. Unfortunately it didn't help enough. Instead of the usual bottle rockets, roman candles, and saturn missles, they had purchased quite a few M100s and began setting them off. At least I'm guessing that's what they were because the explosions were huge, enough to wake me from a deep sleep with earplugs in. This was around 11pm.
After the first one, I got up and looked out the window just in time to see the next one go off. It blinded me and shook the house enough to knock one of our pictures off the wall. We called the police at that point because I didn't want to put up with all of that noise until they ran out of supplies. While we were waiting for the drive-by, I went downstairs and watched the proceedings from our living room window. Over the next hour, the police drove by twice, each time waving their light around for a couple of minutes before departing while the kids hid in bushes around the neighborhood. After each pass, the kids would just come right back and start all over again.
Now, I don't like to be a complete hard nose on holidays but after three years of this annual activity plus the M100s this year, this was getting pretty old. Not to mention that I saw a lot of reckless behavior in a highly populated area that's been pretty dry for the last couple of weeks. There were umbrella rockets exploding right next to houses both occupied and unoccupied, various earth-bound devices thrown near cars, and generally just a lot of unsafe usage of the fireworks.
So around midnight or shortly after, one of the guys that had been lighting the fuses was walking past our house. I stepped onto the porch and asked him if he and his friends could cut it out. He lied and said that he didn't know what I was talking about so I explained how I'd been watching them for the last hour and that lying wasn't going to make me stop asking if they would quit. He started walking away and I thought that I'd like to see which way he went, but as I followed a bit, he wised up, called a friend for back up, and stopped walking. At that point, to shorten this story just a bit, he started to get a little aggressive and kept trying to provoke me to fight him or something. I would just roll my eyes at him as his friend tried to feed me more crap about how it wasn't them but some other people setting off the fireworks.
While we were having our friendly neighborhood chat, the police happened to roll by again, so when DJ Suburban Thug decided to say, "What are you gonna do about, little bitch," I only responded that perhaps he would like to speak to the gentlemen that just arrived. As I went to speak to the police, they must have found another hiding spot because when one of the officers asked me where they were, they had disappeared. I told him that they probably went into the alley on the east side of my house and he said they'd check it out.
As the officers were talking with each other, I went back to sit on my porch. But before I had even sat down again, DJ Suburban Thug was too stupid to keep his mouth shut. All he said was, "I feel sorry for you, man." Apparently, I have sold out to the man. Anyway, his failure to keep his stupid mouth shut was enough to give away his location so I immediately returned to the police and told them that they were very nearby and speaking to me from the proximity of my porch.
After another fifteen or twenty minutes I saw the group, about seven or ten of them, shamble down the street, get in their cars, and leave. Magically, all the noise left with them. Either that or those other people who had been doing it ran out of fireworks and went inside. I guess we'll never know.
The frustrating part of it for me is that I know that other people in the neighborhood don't like it either, but nobody ever actually does anything about it. I see them out in the street raising their arms in frustration the morning after when they see all the trash left in the street. I've even spoken with a couple of people the next day who also don't like their behavior. But, I sure didn't see those people out there with me that night asking for anyone stop and generally trying to take a little control of the situation. I'm sure they're afraid of some kind of retaliation, petty vandalism more than likely. But honestly, what does it matter that you keep your stuff protected when you can't even stand up for yourself when it counts?
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