randomness

Memorial Day Weekend So Far

Productive weekend so far. Saturday, we went to Fort Meigs in Perrysburg to watch the Siege of 1813 re-enactment, where I easily burned off two rolls of film. (I’ll post photos when they come back from Dale Labs.) Afterward, we went thrifting and I picked up some candle containers (pint-sized mason jars) and a super-8 projector that looks like a little TV. Very cool.

Today, Aaron mowed the grass while I mopped the kitchen and bathroom and swept the garage; then we went to Wal-Mart and bought car-washing implements and batteries for my projector; then we washed both cars; then we trimmed some tree branches away from the house; then Aaron went shopping while I did laundry. For dinner, we attempted something new: Low-carb pizza. It actually turned out to be fairly good—we plan to try it again, after we invest in some real pizza pans.

Tomorrow morning, I head up to Novi to march in their Memorial Day parade with the Lakeshormen. I’ll be leaving the house around 7am, if not earlier, arriving at Novi around 8:15, warmups at 8:30, parade starts at 10, two-mile parade (yeeks), lunch at Pizza Hut afterward (salad for me), then another hour-plus to get home. Heck of a holiday.

family 2 Comments

Long-lost Relatives

Not long ago, I contacted my great-uncle’s case worker in Florida to see how he was doing in the nursing home there. I’m not technically his next-of-kin (my Memaw was his sister), but I’ve been told by my family that I’m his sole inheritor (if he had anything left to inherit). So, I feel obligated to check on him every now and again, to make sure he’s still hanging in there. He doesn’t write much, and he could never hear well, and he was never really all that mentally cohesive, for that matter. But his case manager, Patrick, said he’s doing OK. I told him that, if he ever felt the time was right and that Uncle Charlie could take the news, to go ahead and let him know that his sister died. Last year.

Man, do I feel like a dick.

Anyway, there’s one other relative to inform yet: my Uncle Donnie. Yep, that’s him on the left there. He’s my mother’s older brother—and he’s only 50, though he looks pretty bad these days. Uncle Donnie is a carney: a basically homeless vagrant who works for the carnivals as they come around. Ever since I was a very small child, I’ve known that Uncle Donnie is a carney and sleeps under overpasses and hitchhikes to get where he wants to go. It seemed perfectly OK to me then, and only in ensuing years have I come to realize that no one else even knows a carney. This is not a normal career move.

Anyway, after thinking and thinking, I finally Googled the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department in Hillsborough County, Florida. That’s where Donnie prefers to spend his time, for the most part, having grown up there. And, whaddaya know, I found him in the online arrests database. That’s where the mugshot came from. And, surprisingly enough, the most recent arrest report (from February of this year) gave a P.O. Box in Ruskin where he could be reached. I’ll be damned. We can contact my homeless vagrant uncle!

I e-mailed the link to Mom and told her that it’s her responsibility to tell her brother that their mother’s dead. I’m not taking that on, too. I found him—the rest is up to her.

randomness

Feeling ungroovy

Didn’t get much done this evening. Ate dinner (leftover prime rib… mmm…), played on the computer, watched the last two episodes of Colonial House.

I feel kind of yicky, like I’m trying to get sick. My eyes are dry, my throat is almost-sore, and I feel generally rundown. I should really go to bed. But I also feel kind of… lonely? Is that it? I feel like one of those nights living in Anderson, when I just wanted human contact. Where I’d walk upstairs to Donna’s room to see if she was there, or see if Tim was on IM (even though he was only two floors up), or call Beth from across campus. Though I’d usually end up on IM talking to Dan about some great new programming thing he’d learned or about his poor confused love life or what have you.

Maybe I’m just tired and unwell and need to take a shower and go to bed.

Comments on my previous entries would be welcomed, too, especially considering my current feeling of disconnectedness. Snore and let me know you’re out there. 🙂

otaku, sewing

Totoro Cosplay: The Saga Continues

The pattern arrived today. And all I’ve got to say is… it’s a good thing I’m starting in May/June to make a costume for January. I haven’t sewn from a pattern since 8th grade, and never on a sewing machine.

Once we get the sewing machine from Aaron’s Dad’s house, it’ll be time to go buy several yards of muslin and make a few mistakes—er, that is, a few test suits. 🙂