Tag: family

A little bit of this

meisajDaily Life

08292011AJCI go throw these streaks where I have pretty vivid dreams for a month or so and then they stop.  So last night I had a pretty vivid dream, and being that all I did yesterday was work, buy new shoes, and watch the Sabres lose… well a vivid dream is a lot more interesting to write about than any of those.

It begins with me stealing something from a skyscraper.  Not just any skyscraper, but one of the World Trade Center Towers. Only its after it had fallen down, but was intake.  No rubble, no broken windows, nothing.  Its like someone had grabbed it, snapped off the top 20 floors and laid it on its side.  However, despite it being on its side gravity inside the building worked as normal.  I knew it was on its side, but I still walked down stair cases, jumped railings, and even used a fire pole inside the building to get out.

And I walked out the bottom into a rocky landscape.  My whole family was there, but it was when I was a teenager.  It was some rocky British coastline beach.  There were all the dragonfly looking bugs.  When they landed on you they didn’t bite you, but burrowed under your skin.  I looked at my arm and saw the impression of a whole bunch of bugs there.  I pinched the impression of a bug and had to rip it out from under my skin.  It didn’t hurt, but was kind of bloody.  I didn’t think much of it.

The beach had a shallow wading pool in it.  Just an area where fish were getting trapped.  I sat by it watching them swim around until I realized the water level had rose and some were nibbling my toes.  At this point someone on the beach had just realized that the bugs had burrowed themselves into peoples arms and started screaming.  I tried to tell people it wasn’t a big deal but, understandable, people where freaked out.

That’s when I woke up. I never did figure out what I was stealing.  The whole thing looked a little dystopian with the broken skyscraper in the background the whole time.  Weird…  But interesting at least.

Homecoming / Kenny Loggins Day

meisajDaily Life

It’s my birthday.  34!!!!

Crazy.  Not really.   34 has been coming for a long time.  Ever since 33 really.

But aside from my birthday this a normal day.  Work.  Come Home.  Exercise probably.  Maybe, since its Tuesday, hang out with a friend and Vegan Mac n Cheese.  Maybe.

Sam has class till late, so we’ll see.  Maybe I’ll just watch the Sabres game.

Anyways, Sam and I drove home this weekend (well my home) to Queensbury.  We’ve been dating for over two years and she’s never seen my home town.  So we drove on out there for my father’s 65th birthday and a weekend surrounded by family.  Massive amounts of nephews and niece time.  It was great.

If it hadn’t been so cold I would have liked to show Sam some more of Queensbury.  She saw my parents house, my sister’s house, a few restaurants, and part of Saratoga.  There’s more to be seen there.  Hiking in the mountains, Lake George, the hunting camp, the Hudson River, small museums and art galleries in Glens Falls, small diners and locally owned restaurants, and some speciality shops.  Just lots of little things to do.  That’ll we’ll get to when it gets above freezing and we’re in Queensbury.

But its good to be home.  Angelo is loving having us back.  And it’s my birthday.  Wooo.  Time to go to work and celebrate “KENNY LOGGINS’ DAY!!”  It just so happens that Kenny Loggins Day fell on a weekend, and as a hardworking american I need to celebrate my holidays during the week to get the most out of them, so today is the observed celebration of Kenny Loggins Day.  It consists of only listening to Kenny Loggins and explaining his awesomeness to all who will listen.

Time to blast some Footloose.

Christmas Awesomeness

meisajDaily Life

I made it home for several days for Christmas this year.  It was awesome.  I don’t know if its just my perception of previous Christmas trips home (to my parents) but this one seemed so much less hectic.  I came away from it very relaxed.

I spent considerable amounts of time with my nephews and my niece.  Considering I only see them twice a year its important for me to get as much time with them as I can.  Rider definitely remembers who I am, and Wyatt spent several hours playing hiding go seek around the house with me.  He also has this weird noise he makes instead of words.  Something of an “aaaaeeeee.” Its pretty adorable.  ‘Wyatt, say uncle A.”  “aaaaaaeeeeeee”  It rocks.  I also played downstairs (in the play area) with Takara.  She insisted on going down the kiddie slide over and over again as I set up two giant teddy bears at the bottom for her to run into.  I was done after about ten times, but Takara kept it up for 30+ times, laughing the whole time.

As usual my family sat down for multiple board and card games.  It is the expected precedent at family gathers, that at some point we’ll sit down for hours of games.

I also saw Reg, Shane, and Kevin (not bad, 3 out of the 5 friends I hung out with regularly in high school).  Reg rocked the Karaoke.  He even came close to hitting the high notes singing songs by the Darkness.

I don’t know what specifically made this trip so relaxing compared to others, but I think, maybe, it was because I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to.  Not that I did much, but there wasn’t any running around, wasn’t any rushed feeling.  There weren’t things I “had to do.”  I came home, played it all by ear, had a particularly relaxing christmas morning and some good times with friends and family.

What more could I ask of in a Christmas Break.

Delaware Vacation in Review

meisajDaily Life

Just a quick review of vacation.

Saturday I visited Pat in Danville Pennsylvania.  It was a fun trip, I met his girlfriend of the last decade for the second time (at least that I recall).  She was nice.  We all (Sarah was there) went out to eat and then walked down by the river.  After some relaxing at his place (and some really really filling rhubarb pie Shannon had made from scratch) Pat, Sarah, and I went out to the Pub II where we kicked BDGirl’s ass in trivia (although we absolutely sucked at the British Music Section).  This was then followed up by late night trip to the Old Forge Brewing Company for some delicious hand made soft pretzels.  Pat had raved about them earlier and he was right for doing so.

Sarah and I got up early on Sunday and finished out drive to Bethany Beach.  This was by far the hottest year in a while.  We didn’t got an hour on the beach without jumping in the water (usual Delaware trip is a swim, followed by an hour or two of reading and relaxing on the beach, some more swimming, relaxing, etc.).  This year you had to continually get in the water, it was just that hot.  We saw dolphins, sand critters, Ghost Crabs, seagulls, pelicans, and other animals.  We even saw a ghost crab eating a sand critters (pretty cool site).  We swam and got sunburned and played with my niece and nephews (soooo much fun).  Anyways, it was a lot of fun seeing my family, Sarah got her fill of crab at the Blue Crab (all you can eat = 7 crabs… at least for Sarah), and I got my donuts from Fractured Prune.

Random Pictures (I know there’s a Pat and me picture out there that I need to get ahold of):

An unsent letter to my brother

meisajDaily Life

I don’t have much going on tonight, I’ve been cleaning and going through old mail I never threw out.  I came across a letter my mom sent me full of letters from PJ.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t read all the letter PJ sends my mom, she forwards them in batches, and half the time I’m not sure I’m particularly interested in what they say.  But I sat down and read the ones I came across tonight, and decided to write this.  I don’t have PJ’s address (I’m sure I could find it), so as it stands this is unsent.

____________________________

PJ,

I’m not sure where to start.  I mean we really haven’t talked in almost a year.  For reasons that are obvious.  And yes, I’m still disappointed.  It lingers, what can I say.  I’ve read some of your letters.  Not all.  There was a lot.  And mom sends them a ton at a time.  I hope you’re doing well in the army.

Things here go on as always.  Up, down and back and forth.  Its been a long year full of problems and also fulls of joy and fun.  Cleveland is still a little lonely, but I’m getting more and more used to the city every week.……..

So I don’t know.  I don’t know what to write or how to talk to you.  I still think of how all I really wanted to do is get to know you.  I mean I’m 31 and know jack shit about by brother.  That’s all I wanted last summer.
So where does that leave us.  I’m not sure.  I don’t hate you, I love you, you’re my brother.  But at the same time I don’t know anything about you, how to approach writing or talking to you, or even if I really want to.  Its strange, but when I think about writing all that comes to mind is vagueness and generalities.  I have nothing in detail that I really feel like sharing.   You know so little about me and my life that I’m not sure that it matters what I write.

I guess I just want to write to say I do think of you.  I do wish we had more memories as brothers, but really we don’t.  For the last decade every time I feel like I reached out to you I feel like you shied away from it.  Maybe everyone else in the family is fine, but I just don’t know how to approach you yet.  I do look forward to someday getting to know you, one of my favorite memories of you is going out to that bar here in Cleveland for beers and playing the trivia and just relaxing together.  23 years you’ve been on this planet, and those two hours together are the highlight of my memories with you.  And really that’s all I wanted.  To shoot the shit, relax and get to know each other.  There isn’t another member of our family that I wanted as a bigger part of my life than you, and there isn’t another member of our family I feel further apart from than you.  You’re my only brother.

So again, I’m not sure where this leaves us.  I really sat here and tried to think of a what to write to you.    You’re my brother.  If you needed anything, anything at all, I’d come running.  And I mean that.  At the same time I feel like I spent my whole life waiting for you to be at a place where our age difference didn’t matter and we could be friends as well as brothers, that we could have experiences together that mattered and build a good friendship around those experiences that could lead to us being closer brothers, and I had thought we’d reached that point; but I guess I was wrong.

When I was 18 and left for college you were 10, and we barely saw each other.  When I was 22 and spent a year at home after college you were 14, and we had our own lives.  When I was 28, and you were 20, you finally took me up on the offer to come live out in Buffalo with me.  But that fell through after a month where we didn’t see much of each other even when living together.  When I was 30, you were 22, and I was never more excited than the prospect of us spending the summer together getting to know each other, but that never happened.  Now I’m 31, and you’re 23, and you’re enlisted for what I’ve been told is 6 years and I feel like I don’t know you at all, that other than our family connections I’ve got so little to go on. I’ve never had long talks with you about life like I have with everyone else in our family, never talked about shortcoming or triumphs with you.  Again, I don’t know,  I hope next time around, next time we have more than a day or two together get a chance to build those connections.

I guess, what it comes down to is that, I’m over being disappointed.  Despite how I opened this letter, I am.  It doesn’t matter what your reasons were; you looked up to me, you were afraid of letting me down, you didn’t like expectations, whatever.  It doesn’t matter.  I am sad that I didn’t have the time and experiences I really wanted with you to get to know you.  You’re my brother.  I want nothing but the best for you.

~AJ