Hi, Grandma

Feb 22 was the anniversary of my grandmother's passing. I guess this year we had a lot of stuff going on, so it went by unnoticed. (Sorry, Grandma.)

That was 6 years ago, but here are some of the things I remember ....

I remember coming home from [elementary] school and having food on the table.

I remember watered down Campbell's cream of mushroom soup (because that's how my cousins had it at their place) - ew.

I remember Grandma teaching me how to cook (back in the day when it was okay to add MSG to anything and everything).

I remember her coughing in the middle of the night when I just got home from SFU, and I'd have to help her sit up in bed to drink water because she didn't have enough strength herself.

I remember how my room smelled of old people (c'mon now, y'all know what I mean!), plus the smell of fruit (sometimes gone bad) because she liked to keep it in the room.

I remember coming home and being horrified to find her on the [tile] floor of the foyer at the bottom of the stairs, cane knocked over, in a puddle of urine. I still don't know how long she'd been lying there, though she claimed that she didn't fall and was "just resting".

And mostly, I remember being in bed, on the phone, the week after she died. I was telling my friend about missing her, and all of a sudden, a wave of emotion passed through me, and I sat bolt upright, bawling and looking around, because I felt her there. Interestingly enough, she appeared in my brother's dream that night as well, so she was probably making the rounds before leaving the world.

Winter Wonderland

Contrary to what my dad thinks, our house is freezing cold. My dad sets "room temperature" at 15 degrees Celsius. While turning down the heat has an advantage (just one - saving on the gas bill), the drawbacks are many:

1. it's frickin' freezing;
   
2. it's so cold that your body goes into hibernation mode;
   
3. freezing cold -> hibernation -> can't do any work;
   
4. people stay outside to keep warm;
   
5. falling asleep when it's cold is not fun;
   
6. waking up to the cold makes you want to stay in bed longer;
   
7. it's frickin' FREEZING!
   

Why is it that we can't digest corn? It's one of the few foods I know of that passes through our system virtually untouched. It's considered a cereal, so how come we totally disregard it? What other foods get overlooked by the digestive system, as evidenced at the other end?

Okay, so there is a bit of geek in me, but you have to admit, a star being swallowed by a black hole is pretty cool!

Saint Valentine's Day is such a Hallmark holiday. I mean, seriously. Shouldn't you be telling your loved one that you love them a little more often than once a year? Or is it just for the lame-o's who need to be obligated to do so? And then, of course, there's excluding the singles. That just ain't nice.

S and I don't really celebrate V Day. We don't get each other Christmas nor birthday gifts. We don't need any of that. I don't tire of seeing him and talking to him everyday (or more than once a day). Our "gifts" to each other are found in the little things: doing research on the web at 3am, getting that DVD they'd been talking about, running a gas can up to SFU at midnight because someone (me) didn't have enough gas to even start the car! Little things. :)

I don't need a commercial holiday to know he cares. Nor to tell him that I do.

There's something to be said about being steered when you're 27. In the last couple of years (and maybe longer), I've had a lot of questions/doubts in the direction of my life, and I finally resolved to do something about it. I don't want to leave this to escalate into a mid-life crisis.

I haven't even made any minor changes, yet; just looking into possibilities and some planning, but it's already very evident that this will not go over well with the parents. Instead of even considering what I want, they are clamping down even more and trying to steer me "back on course". They apparently think that calling me (when I'm out) at 12:30am and telling me that I should really come home now will exert more control over me.

For fvcking crying out loud, I'm almost 27!

Maybe it's because I notice things now, but everything is starting to add up now, and I'm getting really close to apartment-hunting.

Sorry to B and K if they don't feel the same way, but somehow, I don't think they go through quite the same stuff.

Have you ever been so mad that you're just seething and you're past that productive zone? You're so angry that you can't even cry to let it out. Then the one weekly destressing outlet you always look forward to (volleyball for me) goes so badly that you're even angrier afterward. And it's worse when the person/people have no idea that they make you so mad because they're "not doing anything wrong".

That was my weekend.

Be careful what you say to your pet. It just might come back at you.