Grown Up Life: January 2006

Monday, January 30, 2006

flopsey

i decided that i was bored this weekend and made some use of my drawing materials that haven't been used since spring semester last year. this is a drawing of flopsey, which my mom made for me when i was about six. i also thought it would be interesting to take pictures at some incriments to show the drawing's progression.

Monday, January 23, 2006

in memory of g-pops

world traveler. enthusiastic story teller. avid sports fan. aviation lover. grandpa.

in his prime, stanley was a strapping young man. but i only knew him after his youth had faded into wrinkles, a balding gray head, and a hunched posture. grandpa was the cutest old man. so adorable that i affectionately dubbed him the name g-pops.

the top of grandpa's head was bald except for the few wisps he could still manage to comb over. i remember sitting on grandpa's lap when i was little, becca and i at the age when we didn't quite understand the concept of aging, asking grandpa what happened to his hair. the story was always the same: he had been sitting in the barber's shop, reading his newspaper, nodding off as the barber cut his hair. when he woke up, the barber had cut off his hair and it never grew back! honestly, his story always made me a little nervous when i went for a haircut. it wasn't until i was about 10 when i realized that it wasn't true.

grandpa's wrinkles evidenced years of expressive storytelling on his round face. he certainly had plenty of stories to share from his travels abroad. it probably wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that grandpa has been everywhere. he'd go on trips and send us a manila envelope full of pictures of obscure sites he visited that really didn't hold much interest to a kid with paragraph-long explanations on the back of what it was, accompanied with pages and pages about his travels. his big, loopy handwriting was a little difficult to interpret (but "love, grandpa" was always clearly written on my pink, sparkly birthday cards).

when we visited his little apartment in trenton, he'd re-tell the stories from his most recent travels and break out his scrapbooks with even more pictures and brochures. all the while, he'd have a huge grin on his face, his story broken by short bursts of chuckles as he relived the moments in his mind. when grandpa smiled, his mouth would drop open and stretch all the way across his face. grandpa had a fantastic memory. of course, he did have his favorite stories that he seemed to tell us every time the thought came to him...such as the one about kenny rogers' plane flying overhead. he loved that one.

i think what made g-pops so irresistibly cute (aside from the stu

tter he'd get when he was so excited about telling a story) was the way he wore his pants. he always had his belt fastened so high on his waist that his pant cuffs hovered above his shoelaces. old people shrink. i'm not exactly sure why. back when grandpa was just simply stanley, i believe he was about the same height as my brother, karl (far right in the picture). but as time wore on, the shrink factor took over. such a cute old man.

i saw the g-pops i've described for the last time back in june (when this picture was taken). with his failing health, we had visited under the assumption that would be the case. with that, i had the chance to savor the last time i would be able to listen to his stories and laugh, see that huge smile come across his round face, and give him a hug.

i've been trying to write this post for a few months now. in september, grandpa got sick and eventually checked into a hospice, where my parents spent weeks at his bedside. they transcribed letters he wanted to send to certain people and played orchestra music for him because it reminded him of his father. i would call up to see how he was doing. some days he would be doing great, on others we assumed the worst.

the last time i got to see my 89-year-old grandpa was the day before thanksgiving. we visited him in the hospice right after arriving to the airport. at first, i didn't really recognize him as he lay in the hospital bed, wrapped in white bed sheets. his wrinkles had almost disappeared along with his round cheeks after a month and a half without eating. i noticed a small tear gather in the corner of his right eye when we came in. he couldn't talk or open his eyes, but he could hear us talk to him. of all the things we told him about, his biggest reaction came when we told him that penn state was ranked number three...he raised his eyebrows in excitement. what i'm thankful for is that i had the chance to hold his hand and tell him that i loved him. as we said goodbye, g-pops found enough strength to lift his hand a little to wave goodbye. grandpa died two days later.

Monday, January 16, 2006

closed for mlk

i love holidays. its really nice to get a day off when we're only a week into the semester so that we have time to exchange gifts or whatever it is we do on mlk. but, of course, on the day that everything is closed i have to wake up with my eyes almost swollen shut.

i felt it coming on all day yesterday. i had that "almost" headache feeling, my glands were swollen, and i felt exhausted. aside from all that, i don't feel sick at all (as in my throat not hurting and my sinuses clear). but even so, just one look at my baggy, puffy eyes made me want to get to the health center asap. but its mlk. the one rare instance where i would like to go to the health center, it has to be closed. i guess i'll just have to wait and see what its like tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

hammering out a schedule

after dropping and adding and switching and requesting and pleading and so forth, i think i've finally got a schedule worked out for the semester. its not the schedule i want, but nonetheless, its a schedule with classes i have to take, darn it. and, can you believe it, at the moment i'm taking on 16 hours this semester. overachiever perhaps? nope. you can't really be an overachiever with simply one extra hour, although for some reason it sure looks like a lot more. i'm going to have a great time trying to remember when and where i'm supposed to be...every day i have a different schedule. but they say variety is the spice of life and all that. those of you who know me know how much i love spice.

looking at the key (the student's cheat sheet to selecting professors based on percentage of a's, b's, c's, and so on they give out), only one class really worries me. its not because all the other ones are guaranteed a's (though that’s not the case, either). its because out of the dozen or so professors that teach family economics, the highest percentage of a's given out is 7%. that’s the highest...and its only one professor. that means for every 13 people, only one person ends up with an a. if that doesn't say yikes, i don't know what does.

and now begins the semester that will mark the halfway point.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

pains at the pump

i hate making trips to the gas station. its not so much the 2 to 3 dollars-a-gallon that i'm talking about, though it does take a toll on the wallet. its pumping the gas that gets me. i don't think anyone really looks forward to it. my cousin has never actually pumped her own gas...she goes to a full service place every time. maybe those places are only up north, but i just might need to look into that.

for one, it seems like every gas station has a different order to do things. most of the time, you stick your credit card in and have to go through a whole menu: pay outside, no, i don't speak spanish, yes, i want a receipt, regular please, and so on. but sometimes, you have to flip some kind of switch thing up first on the pump, or the regular is on the far right instead of left, or they throw in the car wash screen hoping you'll push "yes" accidentally.

but the worst part isn't even over. once you've finally gotten through the payment quiz, you have to put the nozzle in the gas tank. sometimes its stuck...or just heavy...or drips excess gas on the short trip from the pump to the tank all over your shoes. then, if you think about it, those handles are probably absolutely disgusting. thank God for the clips that hold the trigger for the gas until it clicks off when the tank is full. if theres one thing to be optimistic about while pumping gas, thats it.

then, of course, theres the perfect pump game that we all like to play. its an art, pumping just enough gas so that the price is rounded up to a whole dollar. but then you pump just a penny over.

anyway, all this serves as a segway into my last visit to the pump. it was new years eve. i was finally on my way to jonathan's. but of course, someone had run the tank down to the "e". i was all dressed for the evening...a cute white cami complete with new jeans and new boots. when i got out of the car, i had a set price at what i wanted to spend. the perfect pump was set at $15. i went through the motions and soon enough, gas at $2.15 a gallon was flowing into my tank. of course, that wonderful clip was doing all the work for me as i stood there and watched the numbers roll. but then, that wonderful invention became my new years eve outfit's downfall.

as the price sped toward my $15 dollar limit, i got ready to de-clickify the clip. however, when i tried to turn it off, it was stuck. unwanted gas surged into my tank as i desperately tried to stop it. i wanted to stop it so much that i actually ended up pulling the entire nozzle out of the tank while gas sprayed like old faithful everywhere. precious gas poured all down my right arm and all over my new jeans and boots. i’m so glad my white cami was spared. everything was a blur, but i'm guessing the clerk saw my state of disarray and shut down the pump because the gas suddenly slowed to a drip.

needless to say, i wasn't too happy. i walked in the mini-mart. "where the atm sign is," the clerk said...i was a bit confused because i didn't need cash. but then i realized that i didn't even need to ask where the bathrooms were...it was obvious by my gasoline-soaked jeans what i was looking for. it was actually kind of embarrassing. by the time i reached the sink, most of it had evaporated, but the smell could knock anyone in the store out. i rinsed off as best i could, but there was no way i could smell like gas all evening, let alone sit in a car for an hour and marinate in the smell. i went home and showered off in something much less pungent...water. and lots of soap.