family, roadtrips

The Obligatory Thanksgiving Narrative

9:00am: The Schnuth/almost-Schnuth one-car caravan headed to Lakewood (the northwest side of Cleveland, that is). Arrived at Aaron’s grandparents’ place in roughly two hours.

11:15am: First to arrive on-location. Chatted with Poppa and Grammie. Had quality time talking about plants and wedding plans and the Thanksgiving schedule. Also had quality time with the cat, Sid.

12:00pm: Aaron’s dad arrived, sans Aaron’s brother. (sans means without, for all you non-Latin-speaking types.) Seems Matt stayed home, puking and feeling generally ungood. Had more quality time talking about wedding plans and rib restaurants and the Thanksgiving schedule.

1:00pm: The Eschbach minivan arrives, bearing Aunt Elaine, cousin Nathan, and Nathan’s 21-month-old daughter Caitlin. Cute as a proverbial button — she started chasing the cat as soon as she saw it. Had even more quality time talking about Caitie, antiques, jobs, wedding plans, and the Thanksgiving schedule.

1:30pm: The slated time for dinner. Uncle Pete called to let everyone know that he and his clan would be a little late (surprise). The turkey came out of the oven right on time, despite dripping juices and much smoke. The table was set, and 15 chairs were somehow located and brought to the dining room. All that was left was for Pete and the clan to arrive and bring the green bean casserole.

2:15pm: Pete and his new wife Deanna finally arrived, with Pete’s four kids and one of Dee’s two kids. (The other of Dee’s kids was at his dad’s place for the holiday.) About half a dozen people crammed into the kitchen to finish preparing food. Had yet more quality time talking about choir, Lord of the Rings, Caitie, and wedding plans. Studiously avoided mentioning the Thanksgiving schedule.

3:00pm: Food was ready. Aaron and I sat down promptly, while the rest of the clan milled about wondering where to sit.

3:15pm: Dinner started. Finally.

4:00pm: We excused ourselves to go visit my family, as mentioned to his family multiple times while discussing the Thanksgiving schedule. Drove about two miles to the nursing home where my grandmother has recently been admitted.

4:10pm: Located my Memaw in the Aristocrat nursing home in Lakewood. The chemo thinned her hair, and she looked ten or fifteen years older than her actual age of 70, and she went off on bizarre, almost-senile tangents a few times, but she’s still my Memaw, and it was still good to see her. Shocking, but good. Gave her the birthday presents I forgot to send three weeks prior, and showed her a picture of her grandfather that I found online. Lots of hugs. Promised to write more often.

4:30pm: Left Lakewood for Parma. Ended up combining Mom’s set of directions with my step-Gary’s set, and got there just fine.

4:45pm: Arrived at my folks’ place. Ate another dinner. Watched the Cowboys play the Redskins. Ate sweet-potato pie. Had quality time with my cat. Talked about how big my step-brother Philip has grown, about wedding plans, about weird commercials on TV, about my long-ass hours at work, and about crap in general.

9:00pm: Gary walked Philip back to his mother’s house down the street. Mom packed us a bag full of Thanksgiving leftovers (especially appreciated since we had to bail from Aaron’s family so fast we didn’t get any there). Once Gary got back, Aaron and I got our stuff together, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Bowling Green.

11:15pm: Home again, home again, jiggity-jig. Off to bed for Diana — I had to be at work by 9:00am the next day. No four-day weekend for me. Overall: a fun day, a good day, but a busy day.

the ongoing saga of my job

Worker Revolt Imminent at Sky Service Center

Ok, dudes. If I have to work one more 50-hour-plus week, I think I’m going to flip. I worked 14 hours today. Hell, I even took this past Friday off as a paid vacation day, and still racked up 40 hours before I left Thursday evening. Too bad a vacation day can’t count for time-and-a-half.

My co-worker Mary, a woman about a year or two older than my Mom, agrees that this is bullshit. (Not in so many words, of course.) We’re planning to talk to our "real" boss this week. Yes, our "real" boss, as opposed to our co-worker / boss who mainly just has seniority over us and knows more about how the Lockbox department runs.

I haven’t had a 40-hour week for literally three months, at least. As much as I’m liking the overtime, this is just getting ridiculous. I might not have social functions to attend after work like some people, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy my off-work time any less. There’s a new schedule in the works that could either save us all, or save everybody else and fuck me bad. I know what I’m guessing…

I didn’t really want to leave Sky yet, but if my hours don’t get more reasonable by next year (read: give it another month), I’m going to start actively job-hunting again. This is bullshit.

wedding

Wedding Dress Purchased!

For only $99 + shipping, I have purchased a wedding dress on eBay. (I’d tell you all about it, but Aaron isn’t allowed to see. So, you can look at it on eBay — that is, if you’re not Aaron.)

The University was supposed to get back to me by today about reserving the Union, but (surprise of surprises) I haven’t heard from them.

So, my invitation stationery is en route via UPS, scheduled for delivery on Wednesday, and my wedding dress is in the UPS tracking system, although it has not necessarily started its actual journey.

Happy Happy Joy Joy, Happy Happy Joy Joy…

drumcorps, memories

Bands Of America vs. Drum Corps International

One activity I look back on with nostalgia and remembered excitement. One activity I look back on with passion, longing, and tears.

I think it’s the difference between a high-school crush and a lifetime soulmate. They’re both desirable. They’re both positive experiences. And, until you experience the latter, the former seems to be the most amazing experience possible.

In High School band, we had a tradition. As we stood at attention, ready to dismiss, our band director would call out the various facets of our posture that we should remember. He would call, “feet!” We would answer, together! “Back!” Straight! “Shoulders!” Up! Back! Down! And the final call was, “Eyes!” Louder than any reply, we would shout, With Pride! It meant the beginning of an era, of a legend: our band hadn’t been worth anything two years before, and now we were winning competitions and making State Finals. We had pride in what we had become, and what future generations of Buckeye Bands would accomplish by building on our meager 30-member foundation.

I recall that being the most powerful experience in “oneness” with an ensemble… up until that point. In the Northern Aurora Drum and Bugle Corps, we had another tradition, one that transcended “Eyes With Pride” for me. At every corps dismissal, be it at camps, circled up after a show, or following rehearsal, the drum major or corps manager would call us up: “Corps — Ten-Hut!” We would snap to attention, horns snapping to shoulder-level, flags snapping straight, drumsticks snapping into position. The drum major would then call into the silence: “Corps! Dismissed!” and we would answer, “One!”

During every winter camp at NA, when potential new members would be attending, the corps manager would explain that this word referred not to a placement or a ranking, but a feeling of unity with our corpsmates. I refused to join in the response until the camp when I was officially signed as a member of Northern Aurora. At the dismissal of that camp, I answered the call as one member of a team, of a family. It was just as powerful then as it was through the two years I marched in NA, all the way through until our last dismissal at Division III Finals in Orlando, Florida in 1996.

My point? I don’t know. I cherish my time spent both in marching band and in drumcorps. But what still brings me passion, what stirs the fire, what makes me long to relive each and every moment, is drumcorps.

wedding, weight loss

Wedding Obsession — er, Planning — Continues

This evening, on WeddingChannel.com, I discovered something that disturbed me as I had not been disturbed since discovering the Tony Hawk Pro Skater Create-A-Skater mode.

The link said, “try on gowns on a model that looks like you!” I shrugged and clicked like the trained internet monkey that I am. After a few minutes of clicking and thinking, thinking and clicking, then a little gasping and rethinking and clicking again, I created VirtuaDiana. Fortunately or not, the gown sizes available required me to downsize VirtuaDiana from current actual size to projected wedding-day size. This will require a weight loss of 1.4 lbs per week from this week until the wedding day. It could happen.

(As a side note… I’ve noticed that VirtuaDiana’s breasteses are severely lacking. Her only choices, unfortunately, were small-med and med-large. The Create-A-Model designers failed to take into account those of us with a large build who count on our enormous hooters to balance us out.)

In related news, today I played Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix for 15 minutes in Diet Mode, and also discovered that pomegranate seeds a.) are a good snack, and b.) are a good carpet dye.