Category Archives: Friends & Family

Hot-lanta, here I come

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The latest on my cousin Teresa is that she’s doing significantly worse, and it’s definitely getting very near to the end for her. So, my brother, sister & I (plus my cousin Catherine) are all flying to Atlanta this weekend. I’m using my mom’s frequent flyer miles to get there, which means that I have the worst itinerary ever: I leave Seattle at 9 a.m., have a layover at LAX, have another layover in Memphis (only 1/2 an hour, not long enough to see my friends), and finally get to Atlanta at 9:15 at night. Ugh. Then I fly back on Sunday morning. It’s going to be rough.

Last night, when I was calling relatives to figure out everyone’s plans, I called my uncle Brian, who is Teresa’s father. He was at the hospital when I called him, and Teresa happened to be awake (she’s on a morphine drip now, so she’s out of it most of the time), so I got to talk to her for a minute. I asked her what she thought of us coming to see her, and she said that was cool. She asked me to bring her a shot glass from Seattle, and I told her I would. [Side note: I’m now also trying to get my sister to get her a NYC shot glass, a Cincinnati one from my brother, and a Raleigh/Durham one from my cousin Catherine, just so we’ll have a complete theme.]

I know this is going to be really hard, but I feel like it’s something I should do. I have several other cousins who won’t be there, for various reasons — one has a fear of flying, one is a med school resident and is working 7 days a week (although he visited her last week), and a couple of them just “don’t feel comfortable with it”, although they’re ok with going to her funeral, which I don’t quite understand. The thing is, I don’t know what I’m going to say to her when I walk in the ICU room, and I especially don’t know how I’m going to say good-bye to her when I leave. I just know that this is important, and I hope that when the time comes, I have the grace to say something meaningful, so she knows how much she’s loved.

Anyway, that’s the story. Oh, and while I’m in town, I’ll also get to meet my lesbian new age psychologist aunt’s new partner, so that’s bound to be interesting. Wish me luck.

modes of transport

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Yesterday I did something that I haven’t done since I got my driver’s license 13 years ago: I rode a bike. Dave and I both feel the need to be more active, and he already has a bike, so it sounded like something fun that we could do together. Krissy is thinking about selling her bike & getting a new one, so I asked if I could borrow hers to see if I wanted to buy it from her. She said ok and we set up a time for me to come get the bike. And of course, this being Krissy that we’re dealing with, when I went to pick it up, it had a flat tire. (Not just flat, blown-out flat. As in, needs a replacement.) So her roommate Judy lent me her bike for a while, even though it’s not for sale. It’s just an experiment to see if I enjoyed bike riding.

So, we went to REI so I could buy a helmet (safety first, kids), then headed over to Marymoor Park and rode around for about an hour. And that saying about once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget how? That actually is true. But it doesn’t mean that you’ll be very graceful at it if you haven’t done it for over a decade. I was pretty wobbly at first, and the concept of braking with the handlebars was completely alien to me. My instinct was to take my feet off the pedals and put them on the ground (which I’m sure amused plenty of bystanders). I got a little steadier as time went on, and by the end of the hour, I think I was doing pretty well.

And as it turns out, I really like bike riding! It was a lot of fun, and I only sustained very minor injuries. One was when I was pedaling too fast and my foot slipped off the pedal, and it came around and hit the back of my calf. And it’s one of those pedals with the cleat-type spokes on it for traction. So that hurt. The other was when I was first starting off, and in my wobbliness, I accidentally swerved into some blackberry bushes (which have thorns, for those of you who don’t know) and my right arm got scratched. But otherwise, I thought it was a lot of fun and it was a really good workout. An hour is probably not much for an experienced cyclist, but neither Dave nor I are exactly in stellar shape at the moment – although Dave seemed to be suffering less than me afterward. But it was fun.

Other stuff:
* I might have a new project at work, which I’m waiting to hear more about.
* Kris had a 2nd job interview today that went really well, and she’s hopefully going to have an offer in the near future.
* My cousin is now in ICU and on a ventilator, but we’re still trying to figure out how/when we’re going to meet up in Atlanta. Hopefully we’ll all make it there in time.

bad day

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(A) I flunked my test. This is really not that big a deal, as it has happened with well over half of the certification exams that I have taken in my life. I usually get nervous & choke the first time, then I pass it on the re-take. So, it’s annoying that I have to continue studying and take the exam again (probably next week), but it’s not exactly the end of the world. And my company pays for the re-take exam, so all the better.

(B) My cousin Teresa, who has cystic fibrosis, is very, very sick. Obviously, CF is a terminal illness so she’s been sick all of her life, but it’s looking like this might be close to the end for her. Her lung capacity is only about 20% of what normal person’s should be, she’s on morphine every 4 hours, taking tylenol with codeine in between the morphine doses, plus some other painkiller. My uncle is thinking of calling in hospice to take care of her at home so she doesn’t have to stay in the hospital. It’s a shit deal. She’s 19 years old, she’s the youngest of my generation, and she’s (most likely) going to be the first to go. It sucks. I wish I could say that more eloquently, but it just flat-out sucks.

So today, right before I went in to take my exam, I got a call from my other cousin Catherine, because she wants to organize a weekend in the near future where we all (meaning all 10 of my first cousins) meet up in Atlanta to say good-bye to Teresa. I think it’s a great idea – probably more meaningful than going to her funeral, whenever that may be – but I can’t afford it. I talked to my mom about it, and she offered me frequent flyer miles, so maybe I’ll be able to go after all. It’s just a grim situation, and thinking about it has left me utterly depressed. I’ve had a lump in my throat for the past 3 hours, but I can’t seem to cry.

Sorry for this bummer of a post, but that’s the story.

happy 4th

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I made an attempt at throwing a party last night for the 4th. The roof of my building has an amazing view of the fireworks over Puget Sound, so I thought I would take advantage of that and have a few folks over to take in the sights with me. It turned out to be a pretty low-key event – just me, Dave, Carl, and Krissy (who was so well-behaved that I almost didn’t recognize her) – but I think everyone had a reasonably good time. I personally had a lot of fun, it’s nice to just sit and talk about nothing in particular for hours. And I’ve never watched fireworks with a boyfriend before, I was surprised at just how romantic it is. (Who knew?) I also drank waaaaay beyond my limit, which I suppose is fine since I was at home, and if you can’t get sloppy drunk in the comfort of your own surroundings, where can you? Surprisingly, I feel fine today, which is probably due to all of the water and vitamins I downed before I fell asleep last night. I’m a bit sleepy, but no nausea or headache or anything. So that’s cool. I guess I’m a pretty efficient lush after all. (Ha!)

This afternoon, I’m heading out to Duvall with Teenie to get her settled in for another week at Dave’s house while I’m in California. I think she’s starting to like it there, she has much more space to run around than she does here. She seems to have a bit of cabin fever in this tiny apartment, there’s been lots of pacing and meowing over the weekend. Now if we can just get her to stop bitchslapping Dave’s cats whenever they come within 10 feet of her…

word, yo

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Happy 27th birthday to a guy who….

* is at least partially responsible for inspiring me to move downtown.
* gives girls flowers for no reason whatsoever.
* once tried to teach me how to salsa dance in my kitchen.
* has introduced me to a whole world of awesome people who regularly read/comment on my blog, and whose blogs I also love to read/comment on.
* can make a mean chocolate chip cookie.
* is just an overall sweetheart of a guy.

Happy birthday, Scott!

no international travel for now

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Yesterday, Dave & I were supposed to go to Victoria, BC, for the wedding of a friend of his. I’m not allowed to tell the full story of exactly why we couldn’t go, but let’s just say that he & I are apparently both far too irresponsible to be trusted to leave the country without adult supervision. So instead, we went to Alki and lay on the beach for a couple of hours. That was great, except it didn’t occur to me to bring sunscreen, and I got burned pretty badly. Ow.

One funny moment at the beach: At one point I was lying on my stomach and sort of surveying the people walking on the beach between us (at the shore) and the street. I saw this guy, thought “gee, that looks like… [insert double take]… I mean that REALLY looks like…. [insert triple take]… hey, I think that’s Scott!” And sure enough, it was. Very random to just spot him walking along the beach like that. He sat & chatted with us for a while, then went off to explore the tent where the scientologists were trying to cultivate new members. (I’m not making that up – they really did have a tent set up at the beach.)

After the beach, Dave & I went to Artcore Studios to talk to Bishop about the tattoo that I want. He roughly sketched out his idea for my tattoo based on what I had told him I wanted (sort of a repeat of the conversation we had a couple of months ago, but a bit more elaborate), and I think it’s going to be really awesome. And I set an appointment, which will be on Saturday, July 10th, at 2:30 p.m. I can’t wait. There will be photos when it happens, don’t worry.

Oh, also, Dave & I met up with my cousin Catherine for dinner on Friday night. That was a smashing success, if I do say so myself. It was great to see her & catch up on family stuff, dinner was great (mmmm… Flying Fish), and Dave & Cat seemed to like each other. So for an initial family member meeting, I think it went really well. I’m still waiting to get the pictures that Cat took on her digital camera, but I’ll post them as soon as I get them.

Actually, thinking of photos, I have a lot that still need to be added to this site. I suppose I should work on that today while I’m just slacking around the house doing laundry and cleaning. Hmmm… We’ll see.

I’m going back to California tomorrow morning. Yippee.