One thing that really bothers me is when I tell people about my earliest memories, and they tell me that I couldn't possibly remember that far back. It infuriates me! Everybody says that I only think I remember things, because I've heard people talking about these certain events. I don't buy it, though. I really really remember this stuff!
Scientists say that kids first memories come at an average age of three years old. The key word here is "average." To have an average, you need some numbers above and some below to make the average. In my case, I believe I come in on the lower end of this curve. Then childhood amnesia sets in. As kids develop cognitively, they tend to forget much of what happened between the ages of 3 and 7 years. Some memories persist, but most are lost.
The very first thing I can remember in my life is climbing on a sawhorse that used to be behind our house. I think it was a sawhorse, anyway. It was shaped like a walker. I'll post a picture here if I ever find one. Anyhow, it sat under the trees that used to line our backyard. I can distinctly remember climbing on it, in front of all the trees. And I can't imagine why anyone would have talked about that with me. A few years ago I was telling my parents about this memory and they both said, "Oh yeah. We did have that back there. I don't know why we had it, but we did." This memory has to have been from the summer or fall after I turned 2 years old in April. That winter, in 1982-1983, there was a huge ice storm that brought down all of the trees behind our house. I also remember a little of the aftermath from the storm. I remember looking back behind our house, seeing several of my father's friends cutting up the trees with chainsaws. And I remember asking my mother what Lanny was wearing over his ears. He had on ear protectors, which I'd never seen before. And I remember my mother telling me that he wore them because the chainsaw was so loud that it hurt his ears. Again, I don't know why anyone would have told me about this conversation.
Another early memory I have is of sitting on a stool in the living room of my great-grandparents' house and seeing my great-grandmother(GGM), Frances, come into the room with a smile that stretched from ear-to-ear. She died shortly before my third birthday, so I must have been two years old when this happened. There is another memory to go along with this. After she died, I must have gone to their house and, not seeing her there, wondered where my GGM was. At the age of three, death and mortality are difficult to understand. Months later, perhaps, I remember meeting my GGM, Alma, from the other side of the family. When I was introduced to her, having only known one GGM in my life, my reply was "Oh! So this is where great-grandma has been staying all this time!" When I told my mother about this as a teenager, she said she'd forgotten about it happening.
One other fun memory-and I'm not even sure how old I was, but probably 3 or 4-is of riding on the back of my mom's bike, in those big old plastic kids' seats. I would get bored staring at the back of my mom's head, so I always wanted to lean to the side to look ahead at what was coming up. This would usually throw us off balance and scare my mom half-to-death. :)
One last memory, which I find bizarre to have held onto all these years, happened during the summer when I was probably 3 or 4. I can remember being outside playing and becoming thirsty. I went up the stairs and through the outside door to the back porch, then into the kitchen where I found my mother. I asked for a drink and she poured some kool-aid into a cup. I was chewing gum, so I asked if I could keep it in my mouth while I drank. My mother told me it would be okay if I was extra careful, so I was and I drank the whole thing without swallowing the gum. I was so proud of myself!
So, for anyone who might happen to read this, let me know what you think about memories. Do you have any from your early childhood?
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Monday, August 15, 2005
My dad
My dad's a weird dude. Maybe it helps to know a little bit about his upbringing. He grew up on the Shutts Road, named after our family for being the first to permanently move there around 1815 (my dad swears it's named after him for being the first person from the road to go to college). He was in the 7th of 9 generations so far who have lived within a space of about 2 acres. Think about that...2 acres and everyone from your great-great-great-great grandparents on down has lived there. They didn't have any running water until the 1960's. That might not be a problem if you live in the South. But imagine it here in Upstate NY - it's 25 degrees below zero, there's 3 feet of snow on the ground, and the wind is blowing 30 miles an hour. Now imagine that you've got diarrhea and you have to run outside to the outhouse every 20 minutes. Not only that, but you've got to fight off the 9 other people who live in your home just to get to that outhouse.
Eight brothers and sisters. My dad's job was to peel potatoes. My mom says that when they first got married, she once asked him to peel potatoes for the two of them, and he had already stripped about 6 before she could stop him.
And speaking of outhouses...one of the great traditions on the Shutts Road took place every year on Halloween night. The neighborhood kids would go around and tip over as many outhouses as they could get away with. Unfortunately, sometimes they'd play hide-and-seek that same night. Dad told me about this time when one kid, either chasing or being chased by someone else, came flying around the corner of a neighbor's home and fell right into the hole that was no longer covered by one of the overturned outhouses.
But my dad, yeah, he has always been Mr. Baseball. He graduated from the Shutts Road and went off to college to play baseball. I guess you could say he majored in Phys. Ed., but whatever. He was the stereotypical dumb jock. Pulling pranks on campus, getting kicked out of sporting events, proud of his C+ GPA because it meant he could stay on the baseball team. One of my favorite stories he tells from his college days was when his roommate was being a douchebag to everyone else. So, to get back at him, they all went in after him one night while he was asleep. He was wearing just his tighty whities, so they stripped all the covers off him, tied him to the mattress so tight he couldn't move, then dragged the bed with him attached to it down to the campus quad. It was a warm night, so he didn't get hypothermia. But the next morning when all the other students were headed to class and found him still there, he got more than a few sarcastic comments.
My parents went to the same college, all 4 years. They knew all the same people, and one of my dad's roommates even dated and ended up marrying one of my mom's roommates. But they never met until the last semester of senior year. They were both education majors, though my mom was more of the typical bookworm. She was still dating her fireman-grapefarmer-turned-politician from back home. My dad was single and looking. Just at the end of the first semester of senior year, the college made it mandatory for all education majors to take a Drug Education Class in order to graduate. So now, all of a sudden, there are 600 or so students who need to take this one class at the same time in order to get their diplomas. My mom shows up to class on the first day and sees her friend's boyfriend and decides to sit next to him. Then my dad comes to class and sees the same guy, who he also knew, and sits on the other side of him. All through the lecture my dad and this other guy are checking out and commenting on all the girls in the room. As the class lets out, feeling pretty good about himself, my dad decides it's time to make his move on his future wife. Keeping in mind the stark contrast between their upbringings and personalities, i.e., my mom was the 95-lb nerdy girl who claims her sport growing up was skee-ball...my dad decides to go with what he knows best. He asks her if she wants to go see the minor league hockey team play that weekend. She counters with a polite, yet firm, 'no' and makes her way out of the lecture hall. Shot down. The next week, he decides to take a different approach.
Somehow, in some strange twist of fate that I have given up on trying to figure out, it works and he's got his foot in the door. It blossoms into a relationship, and she ends up dumping her boyfriend from home, with whom she'd spent the past 5 or 6 years. To be funny, my parents like to tell people they met taking drugs, as in the Drug Education Course. My grandparents didn't see the humor at first.
The first time my mom went to meet the rest of my dad's family at the family compound on the Shutts Road, she discovered the North Country accent. One of the brothers asked her politely to "Pass the 'buh-DAY-duhs". Not wanting to seem rude for having no idea what he was talking about, she pretended not to hear him. When he asked again, she really panicked, and froze out of fear of passing the wrong thing. Finally another of her future brothers-in-law motioned toward the POTATOES, and she was relieved to hand them over.
So back to my dad being a weird dude. He's always been a baseball coach. And if you've ever known a baseball coach, or any coach for that matter, you know how colorful their language can be. And by colorful, I mean they can make a drunken truck driver hopped up on speed and meth-amphetamines blush. But my mom, being the "perfect one," as she's been dubbed by her siblings, wouldn't allow such language in the house where her children were to be raised. So my dad was forced to resort to other expressions. For example:
He also liked to kid around with us when we were little. I remember several times asking my dad where he was going, and having the following conversation:
By this point, I'd given up and left him alone to go wherever the heck he wanted. I thought for the longest time that Timbuktu was a fictitious place. I would later find out that it is a city in the west-African nation of Mali. I also believed, through the same reasoning, that Tupper Lake (which was often referred to as Upper Tupper Puddle) was a made-up destination. So when I was perhaps 5 years old and riding in the car with my parents, and saw the roadsign saying something like "Now Entering Tupper Lake," I thought I'd entered the Twilight Zone. Not only was it a real place, but it was within driving distance of my house!
As we grew up, I guess my mom started to relax her control of Dad and his behavior, because we started to hear the unfiltered words come from his mouth. For example:
So yeah, that's my dad. And he sometimes doesn't recognize me when he sees me. A few years ago, the college baseball team he coached for was playing near where I was in college. I talked to him on the phone the day before the game telling him I would be there. When I got to the game, I went up behind the bench, tapped him on the shoulder, and gave him a quick "Hey" and a smile. He stood up, looking at me with an expression on his face that was half confusion and half annoyance. A few seconds later he realized that this was his own son, you know, the kid who'd lived in the same house for 18 years, who was making him poor in order to attend college, and who shared half the same genes as his. I hoped he felt stupid, but I'm not sure he did. Later in the game, he came over between innings for a quick chat with my girlfriend and I. In those 30 seconds, he decided to tell us about the abscess he'd just had lanced from the back of his throat, which had been giving him bad breath for weeks. He felt the need to tell us about how much of it drained into his mouth, and how awful it tasted. Then, with a quick, "Man that abscess was wicked," he was off to his duty as third base coach.
Shortly after that was my grandmother's 75th birthday get-together. This was maybe the 3rd time that Michaelene, now my fiancee, had met my parents. We drove an hour from college to meet up with the rest of the fam. Our first stop was my parents' hotel room. We were there a few minutes early, so my father hadn't had time to fully primp for the occasion. As we were talking to my mother, I noticed my father walking toward the other side of the bed and pulling his pants down. He had to tuck his shirt in, but instead of going behind the closed door of the bathroom he felt that in this 10 foot by 10 foot room he'd be invisible if he were on the opposite side from us. My mother didn't see him, which was fortunate for everyone. A look of panic made its way to my face. When Michaelene first saw me, she didn't know what was wrong, not yet having seen his black boxer briefs which have so painfully burned their image into my memory. Then she looked and saw him doing his thing, and managed to keep a straight face long enough for us to regroup in my car. I had to explain to her a lot of what I've just written about my father. Then things seemed to make more sense. But yeah, my dad's a weird dude. You're frickin' A right, he is.
Eight brothers and sisters. My dad's job was to peel potatoes. My mom says that when they first got married, she once asked him to peel potatoes for the two of them, and he had already stripped about 6 before she could stop him.
And speaking of outhouses...one of the great traditions on the Shutts Road took place every year on Halloween night. The neighborhood kids would go around and tip over as many outhouses as they could get away with. Unfortunately, sometimes they'd play hide-and-seek that same night. Dad told me about this time when one kid, either chasing or being chased by someone else, came flying around the corner of a neighbor's home and fell right into the hole that was no longer covered by one of the overturned outhouses.
But my dad, yeah, he has always been Mr. Baseball. He graduated from the Shutts Road and went off to college to play baseball. I guess you could say he majored in Phys. Ed., but whatever. He was the stereotypical dumb jock. Pulling pranks on campus, getting kicked out of sporting events, proud of his C+ GPA because it meant he could stay on the baseball team. One of my favorite stories he tells from his college days was when his roommate was being a douchebag to everyone else. So, to get back at him, they all went in after him one night while he was asleep. He was wearing just his tighty whities, so they stripped all the covers off him, tied him to the mattress so tight he couldn't move, then dragged the bed with him attached to it down to the campus quad. It was a warm night, so he didn't get hypothermia. But the next morning when all the other students were headed to class and found him still there, he got more than a few sarcastic comments.
My parents went to the same college, all 4 years. They knew all the same people, and one of my dad's roommates even dated and ended up marrying one of my mom's roommates. But they never met until the last semester of senior year. They were both education majors, though my mom was more of the typical bookworm. She was still dating her fireman-grapefarmer-turned-politician from back home. My dad was single and looking. Just at the end of the first semester of senior year, the college made it mandatory for all education majors to take a Drug Education Class in order to graduate. So now, all of a sudden, there are 600 or so students who need to take this one class at the same time in order to get their diplomas. My mom shows up to class on the first day and sees her friend's boyfriend and decides to sit next to him. Then my dad comes to class and sees the same guy, who he also knew, and sits on the other side of him. All through the lecture my dad and this other guy are checking out and commenting on all the girls in the room. As the class lets out, feeling pretty good about himself, my dad decides it's time to make his move on his future wife. Keeping in mind the stark contrast between their upbringings and personalities, i.e., my mom was the 95-lb nerdy girl who claims her sport growing up was skee-ball...my dad decides to go with what he knows best. He asks her if she wants to go see the minor league hockey team play that weekend. She counters with a polite, yet firm, 'no' and makes her way out of the lecture hall. Shot down. The next week, he decides to take a different approach.
"So what are you doing this weekend?"
"I don't know, why?"
"Wanna go watch the indoor lacrosse game?"
"Sure."
Somehow, in some strange twist of fate that I have given up on trying to figure out, it works and he's got his foot in the door. It blossoms into a relationship, and she ends up dumping her boyfriend from home, with whom she'd spent the past 5 or 6 years. To be funny, my parents like to tell people they met taking drugs, as in the Drug Education Course. My grandparents didn't see the humor at first.
The first time my mom went to meet the rest of my dad's family at the family compound on the Shutts Road, she discovered the North Country accent. One of the brothers asked her politely to "Pass the 'buh-DAY-duhs". Not wanting to seem rude for having no idea what he was talking about, she pretended not to hear him. When he asked again, she really panicked, and froze out of fear of passing the wrong thing. Finally another of her future brothers-in-law motioned toward the POTATOES, and she was relieved to hand them over.
So back to my dad being a weird dude. He's always been a baseball coach. And if you've ever known a baseball coach, or any coach for that matter, you know how colorful their language can be. And by colorful, I mean they can make a drunken truck driver hopped up on speed and meth-amphetamines blush. But my mom, being the "perfect one," as she's been dubbed by her siblings, wouldn't allow such language in the house where her children were to be raised. So my dad was forced to resort to other expressions. For example:
"Holy ever-lovin' cow!" = Why surely you can't be telling the truth.
"I'll tell you what, Mr. Jack!" = You will find this hard to believe, but it is the truth.
"You snake in the grass!" = You have done something that I'm not fond of.
He also liked to kid around with us when we were little. I remember several times asking my dad where he was going, and having the following conversation:
"Where ya goin', dad?"
"Crazy!"
"No, where ya goin', dad?"
"Timbuktu!"
"No, where ya goin'?"
"I'm goin' to Tupper Lake."
By this point, I'd given up and left him alone to go wherever the heck he wanted. I thought for the longest time that Timbuktu was a fictitious place. I would later find out that it is a city in the west-African nation of Mali. I also believed, through the same reasoning, that Tupper Lake (which was often referred to as Upper Tupper Puddle) was a made-up destination. So when I was perhaps 5 years old and riding in the car with my parents, and saw the roadsign saying something like "Now Entering Tupper Lake," I thought I'd entered the Twilight Zone. Not only was it a real place, but it was within driving distance of my house!
As we grew up, I guess my mom started to relax her control of Dad and his behavior, because we started to hear the unfiltered words come from his mouth. For example:
"You're frickin' A right!" = I whole-heartedly agree with you.
"Yeah, that and a rat's ass, buddy!" = I whole-heartedly disagree with you.
"Shit and a rat's ass!" = ??????? (I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but it has been used in all sorts of contexts.)
"Well frick me runnin'!" = I am quite pleasantly surprised.
So yeah, that's my dad. And he sometimes doesn't recognize me when he sees me. A few years ago, the college baseball team he coached for was playing near where I was in college. I talked to him on the phone the day before the game telling him I would be there. When I got to the game, I went up behind the bench, tapped him on the shoulder, and gave him a quick "Hey" and a smile. He stood up, looking at me with an expression on his face that was half confusion and half annoyance. A few seconds later he realized that this was his own son, you know, the kid who'd lived in the same house for 18 years, who was making him poor in order to attend college, and who shared half the same genes as his. I hoped he felt stupid, but I'm not sure he did. Later in the game, he came over between innings for a quick chat with my girlfriend and I. In those 30 seconds, he decided to tell us about the abscess he'd just had lanced from the back of his throat, which had been giving him bad breath for weeks. He felt the need to tell us about how much of it drained into his mouth, and how awful it tasted. Then, with a quick, "Man that abscess was wicked," he was off to his duty as third base coach.
Shortly after that was my grandmother's 75th birthday get-together. This was maybe the 3rd time that Michaelene, now my fiancee, had met my parents. We drove an hour from college to meet up with the rest of the fam. Our first stop was my parents' hotel room. We were there a few minutes early, so my father hadn't had time to fully primp for the occasion. As we were talking to my mother, I noticed my father walking toward the other side of the bed and pulling his pants down. He had to tuck his shirt in, but instead of going behind the closed door of the bathroom he felt that in this 10 foot by 10 foot room he'd be invisible if he were on the opposite side from us. My mother didn't see him, which was fortunate for everyone. A look of panic made its way to my face. When Michaelene first saw me, she didn't know what was wrong, not yet having seen his black boxer briefs which have so painfully burned their image into my memory. Then she looked and saw him doing his thing, and managed to keep a straight face long enough for us to regroup in my car. I had to explain to her a lot of what I've just written about my father. Then things seemed to make more sense. But yeah, my dad's a weird dude. You're frickin' A right, he is.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
New Idea
Well I've obviously not done a great job of keeping this up-to-date, as far as a journal goes. So I've decided that from now on, it'll be less of a what's-going-on-with-Adam blog, and more of a collection of "random musings." So here's the first entry, as far as that's concerned.
I was in Wegman's today and saw that they now sell pre-packaged cotton candy. Of all the awful crap I've ever eaten, that may be the worst. I used to enjoy it, though, in the context of a toy, rather than food. My favorite thing to do with cotton candy is to spit on it. If you get a decent amount of any liquid (saliva has just always been the most readily-available for me) on cotton candy, it eats through it. I like trying to spit enough on that it goes all the way from one side to the other. Try it sometime.
Also...as I was watching Secondhand Lions (good movie), I discovered something rather peculiar about my living room electronics. My TV is an RCA, and the stereo I bought last week is a Sharp. On the stereo remote, there is an "X-Bass" button, to boost the bass. When I hit that button, it turns the TV off. How random that, with all the possible frequencies, these two functions are the same. I thought it was kind of fun, but Michaelene seemed less amused. Oh well...
I was in Wegman's today and saw that they now sell pre-packaged cotton candy. Of all the awful crap I've ever eaten, that may be the worst. I used to enjoy it, though, in the context of a toy, rather than food. My favorite thing to do with cotton candy is to spit on it. If you get a decent amount of any liquid (saliva has just always been the most readily-available for me) on cotton candy, it eats through it. I like trying to spit enough on that it goes all the way from one side to the other. Try it sometime.
Also...as I was watching Secondhand Lions (good movie), I discovered something rather peculiar about my living room electronics. My TV is an RCA, and the stereo I bought last week is a Sharp. On the stereo remote, there is an "X-Bass" button, to boost the bass. When I hit that button, it turns the TV off. How random that, with all the possible frequencies, these two functions are the same. I thought it was kind of fun, but Michaelene seemed less amused. Oh well...
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Picture above
The picture above is one I took while at home in Ellenburg last December. On the way to a family Christmas party, the day after a good snowfall, I decided to stop on the Narrows Bridge of Chateaugay Lake. Looking north, this is the view that greeted me. The evergreens covered in snow prompted Michaelene to sing out, with a smile on her face, "Christmas town!" We agreed that, if there ever were such thing as a Santa Claus, he'd surely live somewhere like this. With as much travelling as I've done, I'm hard-pressed to name a place with a natural beauty as diverse as the Adirondacks. Summer, fall, and winter are all filled with breath-taking images like this one. No matter how far away I am, this is where my soul is at home.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Back for a bit
Well it's been a good 4 1/2 months since my last post, so I figured it was high time for another one. Maybe this one will last through the summer, who knows? Life in Rochester is great. I'm enjoying it much more than in PA. Knowing people here has been a great help, but we've also met a lot of really cool people thru work, who get together socially as well. We're settled in now and it feels like we live here, no longer a "we-just-moved-in" kind of thing.
Work's okay, it's a job. I've always known that I wanted to do something with my life where I can help people. I'm feeling lately that I don't have a great passion for PT, but knowing that I am helping people has been getting me through it. So in the meantime, while I try to sort things out and decide what I want to do with my life, I'm trying to find new hobbies.
I still enjoy playing guitar, and want to get back into taking lessons up here. I'm slowing down on my genealogy research for the time being, with the hope of getting caught up on the website, trying to get what I already have up there first. I don't care what people say, you know, that only 50 year old men do genealogy. I've always been big into family and big into history, so it only makes sense that I get into family history. Why should I wait 30 years to get started? Oh yeah, since I mentioned it, the website is http://www.shutts.net/ . Check it out. My cousin, Casey, did all the design for it. I've put a little bit of it up, but he's done most of the work for the site. I give him credit for all the parts that look good, and take the blame for everything that looks like crap. We just got a new PC and I plan to get Dreamweaver, so I'll be taking it over permanently soon.
I also want to get into digital photography. It's been a very minor interest for a long time, but I feel like it's something I'm decent at and will enjoy doing. It's also a hobby that leaves you with an end product, something tangible to show for your efforts. I'll be putting up some of my current pictures on my photobucket page: http://photobucket.com/albums/v127/veddie10/
And I might try to get into a soccer team in the Rochester league. It's pretty big around here, so I'm not sure if I'm ready for it yet. Maybe I'll just start with some indoor to get my feet wet again. We'll see.
So anyway, that's a quick update on what I'll be working at this summer. Stay tuned for more.
Work's okay, it's a job. I've always known that I wanted to do something with my life where I can help people. I'm feeling lately that I don't have a great passion for PT, but knowing that I am helping people has been getting me through it. So in the meantime, while I try to sort things out and decide what I want to do with my life, I'm trying to find new hobbies.
I still enjoy playing guitar, and want to get back into taking lessons up here. I'm slowing down on my genealogy research for the time being, with the hope of getting caught up on the website, trying to get what I already have up there first. I don't care what people say, you know, that only 50 year old men do genealogy. I've always been big into family and big into history, so it only makes sense that I get into family history. Why should I wait 30 years to get started? Oh yeah, since I mentioned it, the website is http://www.shutts.net/ . Check it out. My cousin, Casey, did all the design for it. I've put a little bit of it up, but he's done most of the work for the site. I give him credit for all the parts that look good, and take the blame for everything that looks like crap. We just got a new PC and I plan to get Dreamweaver, so I'll be taking it over permanently soon.
I also want to get into digital photography. It's been a very minor interest for a long time, but I feel like it's something I'm decent at and will enjoy doing. It's also a hobby that leaves you with an end product, something tangible to show for your efforts. I'll be putting up some of my current pictures on my photobucket page: http://photobucket.com/albums/v127/veddie10/
And I might try to get into a soccer team in the Rochester league. It's pretty big around here, so I'm not sure if I'm ready for it yet. Maybe I'll just start with some indoor to get my feet wet again. We'll see.
So anyway, that's a quick update on what I'll be working at this summer. Stay tuned for more.
Monday, December 06, 2004
What a long week...
It's been a while since I've been here. We just got our internet connection established at the new place in Rochester. It's been quite a stressful week since moving in. The drive from PA took place with only minor complications. We had to stop 20 miles into the trip because both lights on the car trailer behind the truck had popped out and were dragging on the road, only holding on by a wire. Thanks to a friendly trucker and his duct tape, we were quickly back en route. At about Syracuse, the car being towed stopped flashing its hazards. The battery died, and needed to be jumped before we could get it off the trailer. Otherwise, the trip was pretty smooth. We unloaded the truck at lightning speed, but about halfway through Michaelene's mother called, saying that Michaelene's grandfather had passed away earlier in the day. It was tough to swallow. We'd seen him only a few days before at Thanksgiving. He had a cold, but ended up being admitted to the hospital that Friday.
We managed to finish all our unloading and to return the Uhaul by Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday we left for Michaelene's family in NJ. It was at the same time really painful and really comforting to be around everyone at the wake and the funeral. Everything was very nicely done, though. On a positive note, I got to meet the rest of Michaelene's extended family. They're all as crazy as the ones I'd already met. Good crazy, that is.
We made it back here Friday evening and finished our unpacking on the weekend. The apartment is coming together nicely. We're still getting used to things, where everything goes and how to get to different spots in town. Oscar, too, is getting used to things here. Today he learned about sliding glass doors. He found out that even though he can see what's on the other side, he can't run right through them. Poor little guy, he leapt from the ground over the 2 steps and hit the glass head on. He didn't seem hurt, but perhaps a bit ashamed. He required a little extra cuddle time on the floor after that one.
All in all, though, everything is going pretty smoothly with our move. Now, hopefully, we can find a job or 2.
We managed to finish all our unloading and to return the Uhaul by Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday we left for Michaelene's family in NJ. It was at the same time really painful and really comforting to be around everyone at the wake and the funeral. Everything was very nicely done, though. On a positive note, I got to meet the rest of Michaelene's extended family. They're all as crazy as the ones I'd already met. Good crazy, that is.
We made it back here Friday evening and finished our unpacking on the weekend. The apartment is coming together nicely. We're still getting used to things, where everything goes and how to get to different spots in town. Oscar, too, is getting used to things here. Today he learned about sliding glass doors. He found out that even though he can see what's on the other side, he can't run right through them. Poor little guy, he leapt from the ground over the 2 steps and hit the glass head on. He didn't seem hurt, but perhaps a bit ashamed. He required a little extra cuddle time on the floor after that one.
All in all, though, everything is going pretty smoothly with our move. Now, hopefully, we can find a job or 2.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Lots of food and even more driving...
Well Thanksgiving was fun, as is any day when Michaelene's family gets together in large numbers. There was her grandmother and her 2 sisters, who are as different as 3 sisters can be. One is loud because she's always yelling, one is loud because she is so happy, and one is the quiet voice of reason. There was her brother, who at one point ran out to the garage, .22 in hand, set on killing the mice who'd gotten into his car. There was her two little cousins, 6 and 8, riding her brother around like a horse. There was her mother whose job was to stress out over making everything perfect. There was her father, whose job was to make sure everyone's wine glass was full (as a wise woman once told me, "There's always enough alcohol to make family tolerable.") There were the arguments about which traditions came from which country, accompanied by angry accusations that the Lithuanians stole everything from the Polish anyway. It was like a dinner show, Medieval Times-esque. When everyone finally left around 7 pm, the silence that filled the house was like an auditory massage.
On Friday we went to Michaelene's brother's new house in Hopatcong, NJ. We started the night eating dinner sitting on the floor and using a large trunk as a table. We finished the night eating dessert on a full living room set. In between, a quick trip to Wal-Mart turned into Michaelene's brother talking a furniture salesman into selling him an entire living room set for less than half price. It was really a thing of beauty, the way he haggled. On top of the clearance prices, he talked the guy down another $1000. And as impressive as that was, getting the couch through his door was even more impressive. It was an elaborate combination of tilting, twisting, turning, and shoving that finally got it in, and I'm not sure I could do it again.
Back at the ranch here in PA, we've got just about everything boxed up and ready to go. I can't even believe the amount of crap we've accumulated in just over a year. I'd have to say the highlight of our packing was when we took apart the dining room table. Being as unmechanically-inclined as we are...we decided it was best to take the legs off with the table standing up, instead of upside down. So Michaelene unscrewed them as I held the top of the table up in the air. How could we be so stupid, you ask? Who knows. It just goes to show that 5 years and $150,000 worth of college education can't buy common sense.
Ok, one more random piece of information. I just heard on the radio that David Lee Roth is training to become a paramedic. That's the most disturbing thing I've heard in a long time. And on that note...
On Friday we went to Michaelene's brother's new house in Hopatcong, NJ. We started the night eating dinner sitting on the floor and using a large trunk as a table. We finished the night eating dessert on a full living room set. In between, a quick trip to Wal-Mart turned into Michaelene's brother talking a furniture salesman into selling him an entire living room set for less than half price. It was really a thing of beauty, the way he haggled. On top of the clearance prices, he talked the guy down another $1000. And as impressive as that was, getting the couch through his door was even more impressive. It was an elaborate combination of tilting, twisting, turning, and shoving that finally got it in, and I'm not sure I could do it again.
Back at the ranch here in PA, we've got just about everything boxed up and ready to go. I can't even believe the amount of crap we've accumulated in just over a year. I'd have to say the highlight of our packing was when we took apart the dining room table. Being as unmechanically-inclined as we are...we decided it was best to take the legs off with the table standing up, instead of upside down. So Michaelene unscrewed them as I held the top of the table up in the air. How could we be so stupid, you ask? Who knows. It just goes to show that 5 years and $150,000 worth of college education can't buy common sense.
Ok, one more random piece of information. I just heard on the radio that David Lee Roth is training to become a paramedic. That's the most disturbing thing I've heard in a long time. And on that note...
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Last day at work
Yesterday was my last day at work here in PA. My head was filled with mixed emotions: excited to be one step closer to Rochester, sad about leaving some great people in PT, admittedly a bit nervous about not having a job or health insurance yet. I'm so bad at goodbyes. I'm always incredibly awkward and feel like I never say or do the right things. And yesterday being the last workday before a holiday, everyone was rushing to get out as soon as possible. So I didn't get to say goodbye to some of the people I'd wanted to see. Some people I kept running into, though, and said goodbye several times to them. Does that mean it evens out? Probably not. There are a couple of the PT's with family in Rochester, who I'll hopefully get to see when they come for a visit.
I finally left around 4:00, having to stop home before my final guitar lesson with Eric at 5:00. I only live 3 miles from work, which is usually an 8 minute drive. But of course, with my luck, I got stuck behind 2 trains on the way home, and it ended up taking over a half hour. The first train just passed through. The second one came by, stopped at the station, went in reverse to switch tracks, pulled forward again, then repeated the maneuver. Unfortunately trains take a bit longer than a car doing a 3-point turn. I am usually able to suppress my roadrage, but I did find myself yelling at the #*@&! train. So I got home at 4:30, still enough time to drive the mile-and-a-half to my guitar lesson at 5:00...or so I thought. Here's the problem with Harrisburg's roads. There's only one main road going in each different direction. And when there's an accident on one of them (which there is just about every day), the re-directed traffic backs up for miles. So yesterday morning, before 6:00, there was an accident involving a propane truck on I-83. At 5:00 pm they were still working on cleaning up, and traffic was backed up everywhere. When I left for my guitar lesson, it ended up taking me 45 minutes to go about a mile. I turned around at 5:30, when my lesson was supposed to finish. That was one person I'd really wanted to see one more time before leaving, but now I won't be able to. Damn you PA! Just let me leave as I want to!
Getting back home around 6:00, we finally left for Michaelene's parents in NJ. This proved to be yet another source of frustration. An hour later, we'd only made it 20 miles. Once away from Harrisburg, though, it was fine. Symbolically so, everything was good once we got away. And so one of the worst travel days of the year was made exponentially worse by living in Central PA. Starting with my drive home from work, I essentially spent over 6 hours in the car, instead of just 3. Ugh...
So now we're finally here for Thanksgiving. It's always interesting when this family gathers in large numbers. This should be fun.
I finally left around 4:00, having to stop home before my final guitar lesson with Eric at 5:00. I only live 3 miles from work, which is usually an 8 minute drive. But of course, with my luck, I got stuck behind 2 trains on the way home, and it ended up taking over a half hour. The first train just passed through. The second one came by, stopped at the station, went in reverse to switch tracks, pulled forward again, then repeated the maneuver. Unfortunately trains take a bit longer than a car doing a 3-point turn. I am usually able to suppress my roadrage, but I did find myself yelling at the #*@&! train. So I got home at 4:30, still enough time to drive the mile-and-a-half to my guitar lesson at 5:00...or so I thought. Here's the problem with Harrisburg's roads. There's only one main road going in each different direction. And when there's an accident on one of them (which there is just about every day), the re-directed traffic backs up for miles. So yesterday morning, before 6:00, there was an accident involving a propane truck on I-83. At 5:00 pm they were still working on cleaning up, and traffic was backed up everywhere. When I left for my guitar lesson, it ended up taking me 45 minutes to go about a mile. I turned around at 5:30, when my lesson was supposed to finish. That was one person I'd really wanted to see one more time before leaving, but now I won't be able to. Damn you PA! Just let me leave as I want to!
Getting back home around 6:00, we finally left for Michaelene's parents in NJ. This proved to be yet another source of frustration. An hour later, we'd only made it 20 miles. Once away from Harrisburg, though, it was fine. Symbolically so, everything was good once we got away. And so one of the worst travel days of the year was made exponentially worse by living in Central PA. Starting with my drive home from work, I essentially spent over 6 hours in the car, instead of just 3. Ugh...
So now we're finally here for Thanksgiving. It's always interesting when this family gathers in large numbers. This should be fun.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
C'mon Mom, hurry up and take the stupid picture!
With a lack of anything interesting or thought-provoking to write about, here's the most recent picture of Oscar I have. He fully enjoyed playing in all the fallen leaves during our recent trip to Michaelene's parents' house in NJ.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Moving is no fun
So we're moving in about a week to Rochester. I'm slowly realizing how much more I hate packing up a whole apartment, as opposed to just the college dorm room. We've been going at it for about a week off and on now. Oscar has been helping by licking the boxes as I put things into them. There's just so much crap to go through. The living room floor is covered in boxes and a collection of things waiting to be put in boxes. We left about 50 lbs. of clothes at Goodwill. I'm finding things from college that I had to hang on to, that haven't been touched in over a year. We're keeping the garbage men in shape. Ugh...
I just keep telling myself that once we get moved in up there it'll all be worth it. Our new place is a 3-story townhouse with a finished basement. It's nicer (and bigger) than where we are now in Pennsyltucky. It's not as much of a retirement community as this place either. I'm excited to be moved in, just not to do the moving. Michaelene's parents are helping us move out, but I have the feeling that we're pretty much on our own to do the unloading once we're up there. So if anyone in Rochester is free Monday, November 29, let me know.
I can't wait to get back to Rochester. I never knew how much I'd miss it. It feels much more like home to me than here in Central PA. It really feels like I live in part of the Bible Belt sometimes. Penn State, NASCAR, the Eagles, church groups, and how wonderful President Bush is are the most common topics of discussion around here. I hate feeling like I can't be part of any conversation without people thinking I'm some sort of weirdo. It's not that I have to be surrounded by people that think and act just like me all the time. That would drive me crazy. But every once in a while I'd like to have someone to agree with.
Other than a select few of the people here, what I think I'll miss the most about PA are my guitar lessons with Eric. I've been taking lessons from him for almost a year and I can really see a world of difference in my playing. It's still a goal of mine to get into a band to play the local bar scene. Hopefully in Rochester I can hook up with someone who's patient enough to want to play with me. Until then, I'll be headlining in my bedroom.
I just keep telling myself that once we get moved in up there it'll all be worth it. Our new place is a 3-story townhouse with a finished basement. It's nicer (and bigger) than where we are now in Pennsyltucky. It's not as much of a retirement community as this place either. I'm excited to be moved in, just not to do the moving. Michaelene's parents are helping us move out, but I have the feeling that we're pretty much on our own to do the unloading once we're up there. So if anyone in Rochester is free Monday, November 29, let me know.
I can't wait to get back to Rochester. I never knew how much I'd miss it. It feels much more like home to me than here in Central PA. It really feels like I live in part of the Bible Belt sometimes. Penn State, NASCAR, the Eagles, church groups, and how wonderful President Bush is are the most common topics of discussion around here. I hate feeling like I can't be part of any conversation without people thinking I'm some sort of weirdo. It's not that I have to be surrounded by people that think and act just like me all the time. That would drive me crazy. But every once in a while I'd like to have someone to agree with.
Other than a select few of the people here, what I think I'll miss the most about PA are my guitar lessons with Eric. I've been taking lessons from him for almost a year and I can really see a world of difference in my playing. It's still a goal of mine to get into a band to play the local bar scene. Hopefully in Rochester I can hook up with someone who's patient enough to want to play with me. Until then, I'll be headlining in my bedroom.
Friday, November 19, 2004
# 1
Hi, I'm Adam. This is my blog.
I've been considering keeping an online journal for a few months now. So, being the hop-on-the-bandwagon kind of person that I am (riiiiight), when Jim started his blog a couple weeks ago (http://jtourville.blogspot.com/) the motivation came to me to start mine. Not that anything happening in my life is nearly as important to share as what's going on in yours, Jim. But here it is anyway. Even if no one else ever reads this, I think it'll be somewhat cathartic for me to write it. And so, for my first post, here are the song lyrics for which this site is named:
In My Tree
from Pearl Jam's No Code
Up here in my tree. Yeah.
Newspapers matter not to me. Yeah.
No, no more crowbars to my head. Yeah.
I'm trading stories with the leaves instead. Yeah.
I wave to all my friends. Yeah.
They don't seem to notice me. No.
Ah, their eyes strait on the street. Yo! Oh...
Sidewalks cigarettes and seams. Yeah. Yeah...
Up here so high I start to shake.
Up here so high the sky I scrape.
I'm so high I hold just one breath deep within my chest just like innocence.
(Eddie's down in his home)
(Oh, the blue sky it's his home)
(Eddie's blue sky home)
(Oh, the blue sky it's his home)
I remember when, yeah
I swore I knew everything. Oh, yeah.
They say knowledge is a tree. Yeah.
It's growing up just like me. Yeah.
I'm so light the wind me shakes.
I'm so high the sky I scrape.
Yea, I'm so high I hold just one breath, to go back to my nest, to sleep with innocence.
Up here so high the boughs they break.
Up here so high the sky I scrape.
And my eyes feel both wide open.
And I got a glimpse of my inner sense.
Got back my innocence. Still got it. Still got it.
I've been considering keeping an online journal for a few months now. So, being the hop-on-the-bandwagon kind of person that I am (riiiiight), when Jim started his blog a couple weeks ago (http://jtourville.blogspot.com/) the motivation came to me to start mine. Not that anything happening in my life is nearly as important to share as what's going on in yours, Jim. But here it is anyway. Even if no one else ever reads this, I think it'll be somewhat cathartic for me to write it. And so, for my first post, here are the song lyrics for which this site is named:
In My Tree
from Pearl Jam's No Code
Up here in my tree. Yeah.
Newspapers matter not to me. Yeah.
No, no more crowbars to my head. Yeah.
I'm trading stories with the leaves instead. Yeah.
I wave to all my friends. Yeah.
They don't seem to notice me. No.
Ah, their eyes strait on the street. Yo! Oh...
Sidewalks cigarettes and seams. Yeah. Yeah...
Up here so high I start to shake.
Up here so high the sky I scrape.
I'm so high I hold just one breath deep within my chest just like innocence.
(Eddie's down in his home)
(Oh, the blue sky it's his home)
(Eddie's blue sky home)
(Oh, the blue sky it's his home)
I remember when, yeah
I swore I knew everything. Oh, yeah.
They say knowledge is a tree. Yeah.
It's growing up just like me. Yeah.
I'm so light the wind me shakes.
I'm so high the sky I scrape.
Yea, I'm so high I hold just one breath, to go back to my nest, to sleep with innocence.
Up here so high the boughs they break.
Up here so high the sky I scrape.
And my eyes feel both wide open.
And I got a glimpse of my inner sense.
Got back my innocence. Still got it. Still got it.
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