Well, this is my last week at work, the place where I have spent my time for the last 12 years.

I was just a green 23 year old, new graduate student and in the time I've been here, so much has happened to shape me as a person.

Dealing with my boss has never been easy, but somehow working with the people I work with has made the insanity bearable.

I love my lab not just because I'm surrounded with smart, funny people, but because we're such a mish-mash of people from different countries, races and backgrounds. The times we've spent together chatting at work, outside of work, over yummy food and drinks have been a total blast.

I've learned most of what I know about far away places not from going there (though I'd like to do that someday), but by listening to stories and philosophies of my labmates.

As a matter of fact, I kind of feel less like they're colleagues that I'm friendly with than friends I just happen to spend the day working with. =)

Sorry for the sap, but I'm really gonna miss these guys.

It's not often you find a group of people who really like you and are willing to put up with your shit (and vice versa). That rocks.

..you know you're gonna take it, but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow...

Well -
here's the update since yesterday.

Apparently, my sister made a bet with my mom that if she called my grandmother, my mom has to buy her drinks at the tiki bar down the shore.

How did I not get in on that??

I spoke with my sister - she said that the only reason she was going to call was for my dad bcz it would have made him happy.

• sigh*

How to argue with that?

And goddammit, I don't want to be the ONLY asshole who didn't call - so after talking with my sister (who said it wasn't all that bad talking to my grandmother) and thanking her a lot for calling grandma (F-you is actually what I said - we laughed really hard), I called.

It was a short chat - she was already in bed at 8:15 it seems. But it was pleasant enough - she thanked me for calling and told me to be good and to be nice.

So I did the deed - hopefully my dad is happy.
I know my mother is - she won't catch heat because we didn't call.

In the words of John Hyatt - "Thank God the tiki bar is open."

Methinks somebody done owes me some drinks......

Talk about "make like a tree and LEAF"....

So last night when I got home from work/gym, I pulled my chariot into the garage like I always do and on the way down the driveway to go inside, I found this GIANT maple leaf. I mean, we're talking bigger than my FACE here, people.

It was sitting on the ground, so randomly and I thought, "how cool!". So I picked it up and brought it inside to show chico. I made him close his eyes first, 'cause , you know, it IS a leaf, so I had to try to build the suspense a little. When he opened them, he was like, "Holy shit! It's bigger than your face!" (see? told ya.)

Here is a pic of Monsieur Maple Leaf...


The leaf is very green and very maple-y. It had a white fuzzy bug on it, which I thought was fuzz or a spider web or something, until it started walking. yikes! It also had a little red bug on it - those little red bugs you find crawling all over concrete (what the heck ARE those things?!). Also, there was some bird poop on it, but I think that gives it character, so I left it. =)

I can't tell you why I'm totally amazed by this little piece of nature in suburban NJ (or with the funny squirrels that skitter across our roof and hang out in the tree outside our bedroom eating nuts). With everything that has been going on lately in my life, maybe I am trying to find something enjoyable in the simplest things. Or maybe I'm just simply losing my mind - THIS (!) is a distinct possibility.

I work in a high pressure, high stress job with a high stress boss who controls and manipulates us through fear and demoralization. Whoop-dee-fuckin-do!!

Now you see why I picked up the leaf?

Hey again -
Been a while since I blogged. Been busy with job and moving issues, shared, of course, with (e:chico). (xoxo)

The major reason i'm here today is because i need to vent/tell a story. Reading (e:ladycroft)'s journal about her grandmother's passing kind of prompted me to tell you guys about this: FAIR WARNING!! It's long - total vent-age posting....

Today is my paternal grandmother's 98th birthday.

Normally, a cause for celebration. Not so much for me.

Here is some of the story:

When I was a child, my paternal grandmother and grandfather (straight off the boat from Italy) took care of me because my parents both worked (we never had a lot of money - even in the 70's my mom and dad both worked and they did until my second sister was born).

When I was 10, my father, the dutiful son, took his elderly parents as his responsibility and moved us all into a 2 family house (duplex to you WNY'ers *wink*).

My grandfather was a tough guy, but he was gentle with us as kids - always in the garden or in the garage, working with his hands, or playing mandolin and singing. He died in 2001 at the ripe old age of 95. In many ways, I still miss him.

My grandmother is fatalistic, old fashioned (which isn't always a bad thing, but in her case...), guilt trip laying and sometimes, flat out mean. She lectured my mother for HOURS about what a horrible mother she was -she made my parents feel GUILTY for going on vacation and "leaving me here in this house by myself like a dog". Oh - good stuff, good stuff....

After 24 years of taking care of my grandparents and dealing with their BS (and I mean SERIOUS BS), in 2003, my grandmother and my aunt (father's sister) more or less gave my parents a Hobson's choice - sell the house and split with grandmother or buy out her half. My parents could never afford to buy her out, so they were forced to sell - I'm sure auntie knew this, btw. (g-ma went to live with auntie in her big cold house. How fitting.)

My parents move into a townhouse which, any of you who follow real estate in this area know, was WAY overpriced because of the market. So -there they are - age 57 and 63 with a >$150K mortgage and hardly any savings. Nice.
________________________________
In June 2005, one year to the day, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

To make a very long story short(er), my dad had surgery to de-bulk the tumor and had some radiation, but the tumor was very aggressive. He died 3 days before Christmas 2005.

Dad's family's behavior throughout the trauma has been abhorrent. They are all control freaks, first of all, and they did not like the fact that my father and mother and my sisters and I made decisions "as a family". To this day, they blame US for "killing him" by "letting him" have the surgery. My grandmother leads the charge, by the way, fed by propaganda from my aunts.

During the time that my father was sick and dying, they abused my mother - called her to yell at her, tell her they disagreed with what she was doing, spit some shit about me and my sisters and then hang up. They would do this on a regular basis. No one from that side of the family brought my mother food or invited her over for lunch or dinner (save for my aunt once or twice). No one bothered to call to ask how SHE was doing.

Is THIS what they call support? Sticking together as a family? What family? Self-serving assholes, every last one of them. How DARE they call and harass a woman who is watching her husband of 36 years die before her very eyes?!

Of course, none of those bitches called ME. 'Cause I would have told them JUST what I thought. And they KNOW it. 'nuff said.

_______________________
So, now it's 6 months since my father died. I struggle with this every...single....day. I am still dealing with my grief and all of the life changes I have to adjust to. That I am not bowing down to the queens of Sheba after they treated us with SUCH repulsive behavior (of which I'm SURE I only know a fraction) should not be a suprise. I need to take care of myself, my mother and my sisters. THEY are my family.

I have not spoken to my grandmother or my aunt since the funeral. Why should I have to deal with their guilt trips and their holier than thou attitutdes when I have my OWN grieving process to muck through.

(though my mom still calls them even today - and still gets abused because "no one TALKED to us at the funeral" or because "you killed my son" or because "no one calls me - i used to take care of them when they were kids.") Seems to me that, with everything that has transpired with the house, with my mom, with my dad, I'd say I have no other cheek to turn to them for them to SMACK.

If I was unrelated to these people and met them on the street, knowing how they've treated my mom and my family, would I want to be associated with them?

Am I the only one whose family unit seems to get smaller and smaller as they get older? What is WRONG with people?

________________________
So my mom is trying to guilt me into calling my grandmother on her birthday and/or calling my aunt, "just to say hello". Last time I called her, she hung up on me pretending she didn't know who I was (she is NOT senile, btw). That was even before my dad was sick...


Call grandmother on her birthday -Hmmm.....let me think about it.....


Maybe not this year.



Here is a photo of my dad playing his clarinet. He taught himself to play by ear since his family never had money for lessons:


Play on, daddy-o....

Got this from someone at work...


Nice to know that global warming is EVERYONE'S problem...