Just a friendly reminder and to get a quick post up before I go catch up in a flurry of writing tonight. Make sure you have the time post in 2013 since I owe some of you a wedding.
Nature does abhor a vacuum. One, the bags need to be changed too often on our Dirt Devil. Two, every time I get a local stray fixed and adopted, a new feline moves into the turf to taunt Molly.
This cute little guy has been hanging around frequently. I think he gets the tiny, yippy dogs going by climbing the fences. The nice family who moved into Jennifer and Ken’s house says he belongs to the people on their West side (we are on their East). I have my doubts: no collar or tag, he’s quite small and I did see a cat behind their front porch door…it wasn’t him.
Currently, I have his trust through treats. He likes to be petted on the head, back and tummy. He hates being picked up. I’ve nicknamed him “handsome,” but now his working title is Tybalt. Then I came to the realization today that we have named all the strays we got attached to after characters from Shakespeare. There’s Caliban who lives with my mother-in-law (he’s an only child now and loves his life in Georgetown) and Petruchio who was trying to woo Molly (she is rather shrewish). The latter turned out to have owners behind us and his real name is Lookie.
If you can come up with something better, tell me. I’ll give you some iTunes. However, I may stick with Tybalt. He is skinny, small and maybe part Hispanic like John Leguizamo, this is Texas.
Here he is being all pensive. OK, a passing truck startled him.
In addition to the whipping my Stars gave the Griffins (or as I jokingly call them, Griffindor because they have this dorky Harry Potter-like emblem on their shoulders), I got to be a passenger on the rink’s Zamboni® during the first intermission! I got an opportunity thousands of Canadians and specific Northerners covet. You think I’m kidding? I’ve seen TV commercials on the CBC, Rogers Sportsnet and TSN (their ESPN) for a hardware chain saying, have your kid come in for a drawing to ride the Zamboni at an NHL game intermission. They probably do it for the AHL and CHL (aka Juniors) teams too.
I must take some of the credit for the 5-1 victory too as you can see I was helping the staff resurface the rink in our favor.
Anyway, the Stars started executing this little hockey tradition recently (they didn’t last season) and I had been bugging my account exec (Chris, a great dude) for a turn. Being a season-ticket holder helped get me in queue.
What was it like? In short, Icesome! The memories of riding on my grandpa’s tractor came to mind although I don’t think I ever sat perpendicular to the driver before. Coworkers teased me about the helmet element. It’s mandatory in the waiver you have to sign yet what could go wrong.
I did learn more than I anticipated. First, it’s harder to get on board and I’m six feet tall. Second, Zambonis can really move when on concrete. Third, they’re not automatic, the driver would shift gears manually as we sped up on the straight sections. Fourth and last, you get sprayed because the seat is next to where the intake pipe suck up the surface water, the flap doesn’t stay shut.
As you can see in the photo I am seriously geeking out, waving to all the fans. Our announcer even said my surname correctly! I bet Chris wrote it out phonetically since few people learn Italian. It was a fantastic experience to add to my CV. Chew on this. How many folks have you (my friends/readers) met that have had a ride in a DeLorean, a Porchse 920 and this?
I did want to capture of a movie from my perspective but the driver explained why I couldn’t. If I dropped my iPhone, it would probably break from that height and hard surface below. Besides, I didn’t have $80,000 on me to replace the Zamboni should it get sucked in. I may have some movies from Somara and a co-worker’s perspective later.
Here I am after my ride with the skilled and courageous Zamboni crew.
The memory of receiving the news from my father in tears remains a rather detailed incident. I was at work, supporting a customer with some basic questions about AppleWorks and when I saw the North Carolina-based phone number on the other line, I knew it was urgent. The customer generously let me put him on hold to answer what I was hoping would be information regarding Grandma’s current condition; I had just seen her a week earlier, the doctors’ recent prognosis gave her at least a few months to live. Instead at was the news of her demise. How my stomach and heart sank. I hurriedly told Dad I would be on a plane tomorrow, hung up; I didn’t want to think about it. The customer had no idea what occurred as I calmly solved his issue, closed the call, then asked my boss Scott about how bereavement time worked. He just sent me home, said not to worry as he would cover everything because I needed to start juggling all the travel arrangements.
So began my final journey to the Midwest, namely to Central Illinois which is where I grew up for 14 years and spent another three as a young adult.
When I left for Austin in 1994, contact with my grandparents had declined greatly. There were birthday cards, some letters and occasional phone calls. It didn’t seem too different than my college years. I just didn’t take into account they were approaching their nineties while I was trying to get my act together.
The last time I saw Grandma, it was the during time of Grandpa’s funeral in the Fall of 1997. Her health appeared to be the same after I moved out. I figured she would outlive Grandpa by a few years for numerous reasons; spite readily come to mind. Then she broke her hip in 1999 on the same Thanksgiving week I drove out from Austin to retrieve my crap in North Carolina. The tragedy prevented the probable rude, awkward exchange Somara would have received from my parents (namely with Grand Inquisitor Torquemama) as they rushed out to Bloomington to handle the crisis.
Afterwards, the final couple years of her life became pretty unpleasant. Despite surgery in the Eighties to slow the progression of cataracts, she still went blind. Her broken hip also led to her being bed-ridden. I doubt she any insurance (private or public) would cover a replacement joint for a person over 90. This then made her longer capable of living alone in the house she inherited. Mom took over all of Grandma’s affairs and put her under managed care, aka retirement home. First it was one near them in Cary, NC but they moved her back to one in LeRoy, IL so she would have more familiar visitors.
From then on, I heard snippets but I never bothered to visit. The whole thing depressed me, I couldn’t stand the weather and I hated Central Illinois along with Raleigh, NC. Again, I didn’t calculate how long this untenable situation would continue. Grandma wasn’t dying from anything quickly, thus, I’d get around to seeing her once matters in Austin, Apple and my upcoming house settled.
By mid March 2001 I received a nasty e-mail from my brother Brian wanting to know where I was. The following day was his birthday so I wondered if he was pissed over a gift. Seems he and my parents had been calling the apartment while I was away working at the coffee shop. Maybe they were calling the wrong number or we lacked an answering machine; it didn’t matter with them, I was given the Antichrist title in the Eighties which made everything automatically my fault. Once I made contact and endured Brian’s disparaging language, I was informed of Grandma’s ill health which got her moved to the hospital. The diagnosis was probably cancer.
Fearing this would be the end, my Apple bosses let me take a week of vacation to fly North to say goodbye. I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of showing medical paperwork to receive discounted airfare, I think I used Priceline to score a flight from Austin to Chicago’s Midway for $300. I just had to deal with changing planes in northern Kentucky, picking up the rental car, cajoling Brian into let me spend the night at his house when I arrived (very late) and figuring out a dozen other things. The Bryants’ generosity was a great surprise. While I was in Bloomington-Normal, IL I got to couch surf in Steve’s studio. Those two saved me a bundle from the gouging I’d get from the local hotels; State Farm’s worldwide HQ is there; and my mother kept Grandma’s house to herself.
Brian was a lot cooler to me once I arrived. We stayed up for a couple hours to catch up while his wife and son slept. It was nice to have an adult conversation with my younger brother after 20-some years of fighting.
The next morning I hauled ass to Bloomington-Normal through the icy rain. How I quickly remembered hating Illinois weather around March. I should’ve packed mix tapes or CDs too. Midwestern radio remained equally atrocious and the limited rotation formed unpleasant emotions tied to this period, namely hearing “Yellow” by Coldplay; it does capture the sadness well. It was better than hearing the non-stop, going-nowhere coverage of the US spy plane the Chinese captured. How I wish that were the only international blunder of the Bush II administration in 2001.
I spent the following few days around Bloomington-Normal juggling my presence between the Bryants’, hospital visits with Grandma, talking to my parents, finally meeting my nephew Nick and taking in old haunts which provided the good times. I laughed at the local Republicans bragging about the economic growth they brought to McLean County…more crappy eight dollar-an-hour jobs which used to pay six when I left. Adventureland had moved to Normal, Garcia’s Pizza folded, Apple Tree Records disappeared, the North Street arcade was gone and the worst development was the original Steak n’ Shake that started it all in the Thirties was sold off to become a pizza place. Overall I wasn’t distraught. Austin’s restaurants and locally-owned stores became my preferred hangouts. I still took in the unhealthy delights I couldn’t find down South anyway: White Castle, Hardees/Carl’s Jr. (we have those now), Steak n’ Shake (this too) and Monical’s Pizza.
Grandma’s disposition and revelations were the biggest disappointment of my trek. I don’t blame her if she was pissed at me. I was a horrible person toward her, especially by the time I became a teenager, and quite ungrateful for all she had done. Without Grandma and Grandpa, attending university would’ve been a nightmare of loans no matter where I chose to go. Hell, I might not have gone at all since I was incredibly intimidated by the costs at age 17; today they’d be a walk in the park. I wasn’t much better in my twenties. The unwise decision to take the position with GDW ended disastrously and it evolved into financial dependence upon her through the my underemployment. How I regret my lack of patience with them too. I had no empathy for the elderly.
I didn’t naively think we’d have a reconciliation, I just figured we could talk politely, frankly and enjoy some time together. There were some areas I declared off limits, namely my relationships in Austin (it was part of a pact I made with Somara too). Dad suggested reading a book to Grandma, he and Mom had been taking turns doing this. I thought, why not, sounds like a great idea. He should’ve told me what to buy as I stupidly purchased a copy of The Great Gatsby from a nearby Barnes & Noble. It remains a personal favorite for me, I wanted to share it with her. Besides, Grandma was born in 1906 which meant she was a young adult when it was first published in its entirety (late Twenties). Maybe she could give me some insight on how Fitzgerald’s best work was initially received, what were her impressions, etc. Tell me what the zeitgeist was like then! Grandma was an English teacher until the late Sixties, she had to have an opinion, experience and/or anecdote around this. By the reaction I received, I might as well have chosen to read “Letters to Penthouse” instead. She just demanded a synopsis (I gave the best I could from memory, I hadn’t read it since high school), claimed she had never read it nor cared to and came the whopper…she didn’t care for literature such as novels. Baffled by this I brought up her career of 40-plus years. Grandma responded that her focus was grammar, punctuation and other nit-picky crap. This explained her prickly bad habit of correcting others (yes, I inherited this too, mine is weaker than hers).
To this day, I don’t know if Grandma was telling the truth or suffering from dementia. She did teach Shakespearean plays because Mom ridiculed her decades earlier when she was about to tell an anecdote we had heard many times before, “Yes, yes. When you taught Shakespeare back in Marseilles…” (a small town in Illinois, not France and they pronounce it MAHR-sales) “…the Earth stood still. We know, we know.” It did make me reassess her intellect as my memory jogged for recollections of Grandma reading anything other than letters, gossips rags, the local paper and TV Guide. I had nothing. Still, I give her the benefit of the doubt. Grandma did leave for university at 16 and had a master’s degree in Latin or English, Brian may know which. The latter fact about her always drew a chuckle when she uttered a four-letter word. You’d expect something more elegant or colorful from such an educated pallet. It’s similar to catching a suave, fashionable actor picking his nose (James Cagney caught Humphrey Bogart doing this).
The weekend in Bloomington-Normal passed and on Monday morning Grandma had some tests done. The results wouldn’t be known for a couple days. Her doctors’ educated guesses were telling us the recent symptoms probably meant cancer in her digestive areas, this would just confirm it.
With the vacation period winding down, I drove back to Midway to catch my flight home. Dad hitched a ride with me so Mom could keep the car. The trip North was understandably tense. At least he was over his Urban Cowboy musical phase.
The following week in Austin was a blur thanks to the release of Mac OS X. My group was spared the fuss since the server version didn’t debut for another couple months. I went back to my routine: work at Apple, work at Kenny’s, C++ class on Saturday morning, living with Somara, pondering if buying my under-construction house was a good idea (Mom gave me a check out of Grandma’s account to help, it’s OK, we followed the law on what the IRS allows and it was an advance on my inheritance), etc.
It was short lived as the opening stated. According to Mom, Grandma decided to give up on living because the prospect of spending any more time in the retirement home over the hospital was unacceptable. Even in death, this woman got to have the last word which is rather tragic.
At least I learned my lesson from the first journey. This time I flew to O’Hare which was closer to Brian’s house if I needed to make a detour there. The Bryants had the couch ready again (they’re saints!). I also weaseled a ride to Bergstrom through a co-worker so Somara didn’t need to take off from her job. There was a small flaw, I had to change planes in Minneapolis instead and I think the NCAA tournament was involved. O’Hare was a smart choice too, finding a White Castle for lunch was easier.
Grandma’s wake was a nice gathering. The funeral home let us immediate family members have time alone with her for about an hour before opening it to guests. It’s also the only instance I’ve encountered this odd tradition because we didn’t do it for Grandpa (Maier) or Grandma Maggi. We were allowed to write a final letter to her and have it placed in the coffin. I later read about this in a Douglas Coupland novel (allegedly, some thieves stole the letter Prince William wrote to his deceased mother Lady Diana, just to get the Royal Family’s DNA via the saliva on the envelope). Maybe it’s an Irish-English thing because Tony Curtis was buried with the contents of a small college dorm room. I wrote mine in broken French (I had the vocabulary, my grammar is weak, namely word order) to keep anyone else from reading it; Brian knows Spanish adequately, maybe he could piece it together. I mainly thanked her for my education and apologized for bolting to Austin (she thought I was bluffing up to the day I actually left) yet explained it worked out for the best.
Aunt Letty and Uncle Cliff came by to comfort Mom. There were other obscure relatives. Obscure? Mom is an only child whose parents were over 37 when she was born, therefore, most cousins are much older except with the Uncle Marty faction represented by Cousin Sheila (we attended her wedding in 1982). Nobody involved with the family farm showed because Mom fired those idiots as soon as she had power of attorney. The biggest surprise for me was Brenda. Her last name used to be Koontz but she had divorced years ago and remarried. Brian and I used play with her son Robbie while we lived in Champaign; more funny stuff surrounding her later.
Grandma’s funeral was the next day. I chose to do one of the readings in her memory. Dad and I had a huge fight before with my refusal on Grandpa’s. I didn’t do it to be difficult, I declined since I knew he wasn’t very religious; he was pretty critical of the Roman Catholic church in our conversations, namely the Irish-run parishes. Grandma on the other hand was different. Catholicism was a huge part of her identity just as much as being Irish and a high school teacher. Here I put my grievances aside to honor her memory.
Things wrapped up in Wapella which where my grandparents are buried. It’s south of Bloomington-Normal and considered part of Clinton, IL; the primary community Grandma’s family and its extensions settled during the Irish Diaspora of the 1840s. The more unnerving thing was seeing my parents’ burial plots next to Grandma and Grandpa’s graves again. They bought all four back in 1997 and it was so weird hearing Dad talk about them so matter-of-factly like they were a used car.
Everybody dispersed yet agreed to meet later at a chain restaurant in a few hours.
Due to time constraints today, namely having to get ready for this evening’s Devo concert in the new Austin City Limits facility, I will stop here, flaws and all, label this part one since there’s more, amusing stuff to follow. Some involving Apple’s (no longer) secret retail stores, a bit with Brenda (nothing Mrs. Robinsonesque) and my last visit to Chicago.
Ignoring this special occasion while the Shat gets all the attention would be illogical!
I do envy him a tad. In the horrible Star Trek reboot, Leonard’s Spock had a better successor actor than Kirk received. So did McCoy, Scotty and Uhuru.
The Grande Dame of Broadway graced Austin for the first time in 15 years at the Paramount Theater last night; same place we saw Weird Al. How I was so looking forward to see her perform live again. After catching Bernadette on Broadway for the Annie Get Your Gun Revival, I’ve been addicted to her material. She’s on our wedding mix covering a Billy Joel song. I developed a crush as a boy for Bernadette back when she appeared in The Jerk, The Martian Chronicles and numerous appearances on The Carol Burnett Show. This might explain why my Dad feared I was gay or how the rumor spread amongst my cousins when I “disappeared” (I just fell off the family radar when I moved to Austin).
Bernadette’s set list was a mix of show tunes, namely Sondheim because she has starred in many of his musicals (Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, oddly not Sweeney Todd) but there Rogers & Hammerstein. I did like her cover of “Fever” which was Peggy Lee’s trademark. It would’ve been cool if she sang Lyle Lovett’s tune from I’ll be Your Baby Tonight.
Accompanying her was Cubby O’Brien on the drums. Our parents or grandparents would recognize him as one of the original Mousekateers. He was also in Carol Burnett’s (show) band and the Carpenters. Bernadette’s music director for the last 30 years was present (totally forgot his name); I thought he looked familiar from my Broadway evening. The remainder was Parmount’s very own orchestra, they’re quite good.
Beyond the singing, she was very funny. Bernadette told jokes, teased the audience (“It’s great to be here in Tucson!”), tried to sell her Florida vacation home, commented on her signature hair (someone gave her a ton of Paul Mitchell products this week) and made light of flubs during a couple songs. It’s no wonder Bernadette continues to be a star after five decades. The lady is amazingly talented. I even sat through the stinkburger Heartbeeps on Netflix for her; I loved how makeup legend Stan Winston integrated the hair in the robot design.
Lastly, Bernadette brought the crowd to its feet by announcing that she was donating all the profit from the evening to Austin’s animal shelter. She and Mary Tyler Moore are huge dog lovers (yet she was the voice of Rita the Cat on Animaniacs) so this wasn’t much of a surprise. OK, giving all the money was, I don’t blame the lady for trying to make a living if she kept some.
Sorry about the lack of pictures. I haven’t had any luck finding some to get permission for re-use from any other attendees.
If you can come up with a better punchline than I could, please do in my Comments. The other captions I thought of were:
Pretty difficult since the absurdity of this picture isn’t too far off from the reality which inspired it.
This cool little game (only 99 cents) was being played on the iPad demo unit at Best Buy last month. The colors, the sounds and the movement were too hard to resist so I scored it for mine. Now it’s the primary app draining the battery when I’m not reading my eMags or The Science of Battlestar Galactica. Fear not, I completed an eBook recently (Kindle sadly, not iBooks) which will be reviewed in the near future.
I also thought this was a nice, appropriate game to keep small children distracted while the grown-ups jibber jabber. Don’t get me started on Angry Birds or Farmville.
Despite the movie, I wouldn’t recommend it on an iPhone or iPod Touch since their small displays don’t do the game’s details justice.
He’s here in Austin a couple more days but I managed to have dinner with him and his older daughter Evie. The young lady was quite entertaining because she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. While the two of us were waiting in the car as Ethan dropped off his grandfather, I tried to strike up a conversation since I have that je ne sais quoi affinity with children:
Me: So how’s it going Evie? Having a good time in Texas?
Evie: Steve, we’re just having lunch.
Pretty funny and sassy at three going on four. She’s definitely Ethan and Kelly’s child.
Wish the Big E a happy birthday and may his flight home be uneventful.
Seems I’m totally spacing on the music part of my site and life by not mentioning something from MTV that didn’t suck big time. It’s not a complete victory for good taste, the show will be appearing on MTV2 which tends to be extra with most cable packages. We’re not giving up our (TV) minimalism neither.
However, when MTV began its slide into the craptacular channel it completed by the late Eighties, 120 Minutes was the only reliable program to catch until Liquid Television and Beavis & Butt-Head; a precursor to what would become Adult Swim! During my brief stint as WMUR’s Summer program director (in plain English, it’s the director who picks the songs for a radio station), getting a friend to videotape the show for me to catch was mandatory viewing. Through 120 I got hooked on Sarah McLachlan (before she was liked by a larger audience), Primitives, S-Express, Rainmakers, Catherine Wheel and Alphaville. Wish I could remember more, I’m confident there were others. It was also the only opportunity to catch videos from Camper Van Beethoven, Siouxsie & the Banshees and Kate Bush.
Somedays…I do miss the world that existed before the (contemporary) Internet.
Not a ka-jillion details other than voice actor Maurice (The Brain) LaMarche squeezing it in during his tribute to William Shatner.
Last Friday, there was a minor panic with the mortgage. I stupidly misplaced it in the bathroom at work and didn’t realize it until later on. Being a fan of transparency whenever possible, I informed Somara immediately when my search was a bust. She was was more concerned but I said I was already putting a Plan B together if necessary.
As I said earlier, it was a minor thing. The envelope was sealed, it had the proper postage and nobody could cash the check unless the crook’s name was Wells Fargo. I pitched this battle plan: the mortgage may have been mailed by the person who found it; the check goes to Dallas (takes one to two days) so I’d wait a week to see if it clears. If nothing happened by next Friday, I’d pay the $25 stop fee out of my own pocket and use Wells Fargo’s downloadable statement, mail it in again. The critical matters were covered in my proposal: we had enough money in the credit union and we would just be paying the mortgage two weeks earlier than planned.
The weekend passed. Nothing.
Monday passed and I check online at this new hang out I’m sticking with before I see Dr. Custer next time, the Lion & Rose Pub.
Tuesday morning arrived…boom, payment accepted by Wells Faro! What a relief.
It was nice to know somebody at work was nice enough to just mail it in. Somebody else is plagued with a conscience besides me!
The best original, hand-drawn cartoon…OK, it’s just the plain best show on Adult Swim, The Venture Brothers, has been renewed for two more seasons with a 60-90 minute special. I have a strong spot in my heart with many other shows they’ve had even if they’re stop-motion stuff (Robot Chicken, Moral Orel), reruns from failed networks (Home Movies, Oblongs) or 11-minute demonstrations of Flash software (Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force).
No idea when Season Five gets under way. I’ll just have to be satisfied with the DVD containing the second half and then finish the overdue post about it.
Star Trek and Futurama wouldn’t be the same without him. I definitely need to make the time to catch the uncensored version of his roast on Netflix.
With the wave of ignorance and hatred against the educated, I found this gag from The Onion to be painfully funny. Thankfully I don’t feel the need to censor my vocabulary on my site to my tiny audience. I also look up words I’m not sure about on Webster.com.
