The Homecoming Part II: Existential And AestheticDespair

Once I got home, I was immediately struck by how old and tired my dad looked. I have to say that it was a little depressing.
With all of the really deep bruising leaving him a dark shade of purple in a bunch of different areas he looked like someone had kicked the crap out of him.
The major incision in his chest wasn’t as bad as my grandpa’s had been, though, and given that they sealed the incisions with something like super glue rather than stitches should minimize the scarring.
In any case, I should look so good after effectively dying and having pieces of me moved from one spot to another inside of me, and the fact of the matter is that after a good night’s sleep he looked liked his usual self on Wednesday morning.
No random person looking at him would be able to tell that he was 70 and had just had quadruple bypass surgery less than two weeks earlier.
Speaking of Wednesday, I spent it not doing much of anything. I helped my mom open up the gazebo, which my dad had sealed up with a tarp for the winter, and that was pretty much it.
On Thursday my brother Brad came in, so I drove us up to the airport to pick him up. We stopped and had lunch, then went over to Kim’s to visit for a while before doing some shopping on the way home.
Friday we had to head to town again, as my dad had a doctor’s appointment. While my dad was at the doctor’s I went to the nearly-deserted mall to get a haircut.
(On the topic of the mall, it’s just sad. It was never much of a mall to begin with, but now it’s about 95% empty.)
It was a strange change of pace to get a haircut from someone who spoke more English than just “How you want?” and “Fourteen dollar.”
More significantly, it was a very nice change of pace to have the person understand “how I want” and actually cut it that way.
Also, this haircut was only ten dollar.
While he was waiting for me my brother randomly bumped into one of his best friends from high school, who actually had a daughter graduating that weekend.
After that we picked up my dad and went out to eat again. This time it was at a restaurant that used to be bar. It wasn’t a bar I went to often, but I drank there a time or two.
While we were there my mother began to more fully realize just how difficult it is for my dad to dine out on his low-sodium diet.
The sodium thing is insane. He has to try to stay below 2400 mg of sodium every day. Do you realize how little that is? There’s sodium in everything. As my dad jokingly told his doctor, there’s 200 mg of sodium in a toothpick.
Really, the only option available to my dad is to just eat very small portions and accept the fact that there are certain things he’s never going to be able to eat again.
After that we headed home, where my dad eventually suggested that we take my mom to the casino to give her a chance to get out of the house and blow off some steam.
Of course my mom wasn’t about to leave my dad (who had nearly made her blow her top on Wednesday by walking down the stairs into the basement) home alone, and since I’m not that big a fan of gambling (Or as I call it, losing, as there’s no real “gamble” involved; I’m just flat-out going to lose), that left me with dadsitting duty.
A little after 8, though, my dad decided to go to bed, and I couldn’t help but think that I must be lousy company. After all, my brother and mother ditched me, and my dad went to bed while the sun was still relatively high in the sky in order to get away…
Most of Saturday was spent helping my mom make food for the party, but that night my brother asked me if I wanted to go to the casino. I didn’t, really, but I did want to get out of the house, so he and I went for a little while.
I lost about $15 in short order, but I put $20 into an “Amazing Spider-Man” game and took out $30 (prior to hitting that bonus I was beginnig to think that maybe J. Jonah Jameson is right ant that Spiey really is a public menace), bringing my total losses down to $5, and ending my desire to do any more losing.
My brother soon lost interest as well, and so we headed home.
Ever since I began going home for regular visits after a 2+ year absence back in 2003 I have begun noticing just how ugly the people there are. I mean, not everyone is ugly, but there are enough ugly people that you begin to suspect that someone set off an ugly bomb or something.
Beyond that, the guy who made that “Super Size Me” documentary should check the place out. I’ve come to suspect that, along with fluoride and chlorine, someone is putting fat in the water supply.
The casino provided quite a cross-sampling of these fugly people (though there was one pretty little thing in a short skirt…with her big goon of a boyfriend), and given that the median age was even higher than the flight of the Geritol Brigade that I was on out of Dulles, I began to suspect that the U.P. may, in fact, be where ugly people go to die.
I know, I know, this is an extremely harsh way to talk about the land of my birth, but you have to consider that it is, necessarily, the place that serves as the source of most of my memories, and it should come as no surprise that most of my memories aren’t good.
The U.P. (U.P. stands for Upper Peninsula, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, the other part of Michigan above the oven mitt-looking peninsula.) is, in terms of its landscape, a beautiful place. Even in winter, when the months and months of darkness and unending snowfall crush your soul in despair, there are moments when you’re struck by the beauty of the blanket of white that serves as a contrast to the iron-gray sky, and in the summer and fall…well, like I said, it’s a beautiful place.
But there’s nothing there. As long as I can remember the entire area has been economically (and intellectually and spiritually) depressed and every attempt at bringing real industry and economic stimulus to the area has failed. Miserably.
And so it remains in a state of almost perpetual decay. Decaying buildings, decaying people, decaying hopes.
And this is where I go on vacation...
Anyway, on a (much) more positive note, Sunday brought us Jourdan’s graduation.
Brad and I were seated in the nosebleed section, with my mom and dad, my sister Kristy and her husband Ken seated slightly lower in the balcony, but we were able to see Jourdan from there pretty clearly.
The ceremony lasted just under an hour, which was good, as it was pretty hot in that auditorium and our noses were assaulted by that scent that’s vaguely akin to that of institutional-grade chicken noodle soup that invariably develops in close quarters.
In fact, the quarters were so close that it seemed rather like one of my visions of Hell in there, with sweaty, smelly people pressed up against me on all sides.
The valedictorian of the class (whom Jourdan doesn’t like, apparently) was something of a Junior Republican. In her speech, which provided sort of a timelines of the lives of the class of 2005, she mentioned that Reagan was President when they were born, and then she mentioned Bush…then there was a gap of eight years before she mentioned Dubya, closing on how in 2004 she got to see him give a speech on the election trail.
I imagine she was fuming when the commencement speaker (a fairly nice guy I used to know back in my PR days, as he was a member of the Board of Trustees at the college I worked for who managed to keep his speech short) not only relayed a positive story about former President Jimmy Carter, but also made a humorously disparaging comment about Dubya…
And then it was over and it was party time!
…
There are a lot of people who claim that you don’t have to drink to have a good time.
Those people are full of shit.
Okay, okay, that was harsh and untrue.
It’s just that it’s so much easier to have a good time when you’re drinking, especially when you’re at a party with my family…
On that point, it was actually the first time in almost six years that the whole family had been together, so it was nice that we were all able to get together.
Overall, it was a nice party, but being one of the very few people there not drinking put kind of a damper on things.
Not that I wanted to drink, but it’s never fun to be the odd man out.
My mom and dad don’t drink either, but even if I wanted to I wouldn’t have been able to hang out with them, as they had lots of other people to talk to.
Jourdan’s friends all hid off to the side of the house so that Jourdan could smuggle beer to them away from my mother’s line of sight.
On the topic of my mother’s watchful eye, she actually carded one girl who was drinking a beer.
Said girl, the older sister of one of Jourdan’s friends, was 24. After seeing the two of us talking, briefly, wheels began turning in Jourdan’s head and she apparently thought that the girl and I would be a good match (despite the fact that said girl lives in Florida and I live in Virginia).
She was actually kind of cute, and we had been finding that we had things in common as we talked, but abruptly, mid-conversation, she just stopped talking to me and walked away.
If Jourdan had any matchmaking aspirations they didn’t get the chance to see fruition, though, as the girl left not long after.
Eventually my dad got tired, so I drove us all (me, my parents, and Brad) home (ah, the joys of being the designated driver). My sister-in-law Shannon hadn’t been drinking either, so she drove my brother Stuart and their kids home, but my sister Kristy and Ken ended up crashing at Kim’s for the night.
In the end, in addition to the gifts with less monetary, but more sentimental value (the chest from my dad and the stethoscope from her dad), Jourdan made out like a bandit, especially considering that they hadn’t really sent out that many announcements.
On Monday Brad and I headed to town to eat at the Chinese buffet place, then were off to the movies with Kim, Dean, and the kids to see “Revenge of the Sith.”
Brad’s flight back to Rhode Island left at 7:15 on Tuesday morning, so I had to get up really damn early to drop him off.
If I had realized that he was taking that early flight I probably would have as well, but when I bought my tickets I had opted for a later flight.
So I had to drive back to my mom and dad’s where I squeezed in a couple of hours more of sleep.
At the end of the day I headed to Kim’s, said my goodbyes to the kids, and then Kim and Dean brought me up to the airport.
Jeremy, who has a learner’s permit, wanted to drive, but I told him that I didn’t want him on the road until I was safely in the air...
Because my dad can’t drive for so long, the van is being left at Kim’s so as to remove any temptation.
My flight to Minneapolis was largely uneventful, though once again (as I did on all of my flights) I found myself on a fully-booked flight.
Along the way I actually managed to spot my parents’ house from the air, the first time I’d done so.
Earlier that day my mom had taken two of the “Get Well Soon” balloons my dad had gotten, which were running low on helium, and set them loose to see how high they would go. It turned out to be pretty high, and it wasn’t long before we totally lost sight of them as they drifted up and away. My dad made a joking comment about how I might find one of them on a trail out here on one of my walks, but as I flew over the house I considered the slightly more statistically plausible possibility that one of the balloons might get caught in one of the propellers…
I hadn’t been hungry prior to leaving, and thought that I’d have a chance to grab a quick bite in Minneapolis, but by the time I got to my gate the flight was already boarding.
Later, I tried to buy one of their “Smart Snacks,” but because she couldn’t break a twenty, which was all I had on me, the flight attendant wouldn’t sell me one.
Once I finally deplaned I found that my suitcase had apparently been the first one loaded on the plane, as it was the absolute last one to come out onto the carousel.
I finally made it outside where Brian, after making 31 laps around the airport, picked me up and brought me home.
And so here I am.
Am I glad I went? Of course, but I have to say that visiting the U.P. always leaves me feeling a little depressed (and glad that I was only there for a visit).
In a typically Jon-like bit of lousy planning I signed up for a two-day training class at headquarters which starts tomorrow.
When I signed up I failed to notice that it was right after I got back from vacation, meaning that I only have one day to recover from my travels, and also that I only get paid straight time rather than time and a half.
Ah well.
It also means that on Friday morning I go in to work for a couple of hours, drive to headquarters for the class for eight hours, then head back to work to round out the day.
And of course on Monday I get to go to the oral surgeon and have teeth pulled.
By the time my post-vacation travails are over I’m going to need another vacation, though ideally it would be to someplace that engenders a little less despair in the pit of my soul…and that has hot chicks in bikinis.
I really don’t mean to make it sound like going home was horrible. Obviously I needed to see my dad, and was relieved to see how well he’s recovered, and I was very proud of Jourdan and happy to see the rest of my family.
In any case, that’s the semi-condensed tale of my travels. I’m sure I’ll have more things to bring up in future entries, but that will do it for now.
Given the timing of my training class I may not be able to post anything tomorrow, so for you Threshold junkies who were hoping for more of a fix after such a long dry spell all I can say is tough sh…umm, I mean, “sorry.”

We May Not All Be Pretty But Here We Are

The character limits at Snapfish prevented me from placing a complete caption for the picture of my family. Here are their names and relationship to me:

Starting on the extreme left in the blue shirt is my brother Brad, slight behind him is my nephew Jacob (unhappy about having his picture taken) being held by his father (my brother-in-law) Dean; to his left is me; to my left and slightly in front of me is my sister Kristy; behind her is her husband Ken; to his left is my brother Stuart; to his left is his wife Shannon; in front of her is my niece Jourdan; to her right is my dad; to his right is my mom; the boy with the glasses behind her is my nephew Jeremy; to his right is Stuart's step-daughter Brittani; in front of her and to the right of my mom is my sister Kim (wife of Dean, mother of Jourdan, Jeremy, Jenni, and Jacob); in front of her is my niece Jenni; and finally we have my nephew Todd (Stuart and Shannon's son).

If you're wondering about birth order for me and my siblings, it's Kristy, Brad, Stuart, Kim, me.

Photo Interlude

Before I get on with my travelogue I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took.
I'm really bad about taking pictures, so I really don't have that many. Some people take pictures of everything. Me, not so much.
Anyway, there were enough that I thought the easiest way to share them was via an online photo album.
Because I have an HP digital camera (though why I bothered buying one is beyond me, given how seldom I use it), I opted to use HP's online photo service, Snapfish.
Click here to view the album.
Sorry about the hassle of having to log in, but if you don't want to create a login you can try this login info from www.bugmenot.com:

nayhoema@yahoo.com
photos

Enjoy!

Home Again, Home Again...But No Jigging Involved

So another visit to the place that had been home for most of my life is over and I’m once again returned to my new home…or at least the place where I live.
Is it really home? I’m not sure. I don’t really know that I even have a home anymore.
But I’m not going to get bogged down into that particular existential rumination, and so I’ll suffice to say that, as mentioned last night, I’m back.
Of course that brings us to the obvious question: how was my trip?
...
It was very nice to see Jourdan graduate, and it was extremely good to see my dad looking amazingly hale and hearty after his all-too-close call, but overall it was about as exciting as…well, not doing anything.
Which is pretty much what I did while I was there.
I didn’t manage to hook up with any of my friends in the area. I made some calls, but only got voice-mail and/or spouses who were, presumably, going to pass along messages, but no responses. I suppose I could have tried a little harder to contact them, and maybe I should have, but honestly, what for? Did I want to see them? Of course, but once we got together it would have been a question of “Now what?”
I did invite them to Jourdan’s graduation party, which would have taken care of some of the “now what” issues.
Ah well.
In any case, here’s a mini-travelogue that I call “Journey to the Butthole of the Earth (AKA Michigan)”

It started out on Tuesday, May 24, a rainy morning, when Brian picked me up and brought me to Dulles International Airport.
Upon arriving and checking in, I made my way, uneventfully, through security and headed to my gate.
Somehow, and I’m still not clear on how I did this, I made a wrong turn on my way to the shuttle that brings passengers to their gates and ended up hoofing it all the way over.
It wasn’t really that far, and wasn’t a big deal, but I just can’t figure out how I did that.
In any case, once there I had plenty of time to kill, so I wandered around the various shops that boldly proclaim that their prices are “comparable” to local, non-airport-based shops. I think that they mean that they’re comparable in that they all have decimal points.
I impatiently paced in the area around my gate waiting for the announcement informing us that we could begin boarding, as it was getting to be close to that time. While pacing I noticed that the crowd of people waiting to board the flight at the gate next to mine contained a disproportionately high number of hot chicks.
My flight, however, seemed to consist largely of escapees from the Island of Misfit Toys, and so many members of AARP that I was beginning to wonder if I had inadvertently gotten on a flight to Branson.
Eventually it was announced that the flight was going to be about forty minutes late. I had a two+ hour wait ahead of me in Minneapolis anyway, so it was largely irrelevant, as there was no danger of missing my flight and one airport is just as good to hang out in as another.
While boarding the plane, one of the Gray Panthers ahead of me turned around and informed me, with an amused, yet disapproving, shake of his head that no one in the airport ever asked to see his ID. I mentioned that I had to show mine twice in a polite tone that I hoped would convey my complete lack of interest in engaging in any further discussion with him.
I wanted to tell him, “Of course they didn’t check your ID; you’re a hundred years old! Nobody’s afraid of old white guys.”
I didn’t have any additional contact with him after boarding.
The flight itself was largely uneventful, and I contented myself to listen to my MP3 player and read my book.
Upon arriving in Minneapolis it took us quite some time to deplane. This always takes a long time, but imagine how much longer it takes when 90% of the passengers are over the age of 55.
I don’t understand what the deal was with all the old people on the plane. They seemed to be in a group, and were headed somewhere beyond Minneapolis, so I suppose the Branson thing is a definite possibility.
Once off the plane I had to make my way to the BFE gates, the ones that have flights to places like Fargo, North Dakota, Nome, Alaska, and, of course, Hancock, Michigan.
You know, the places that sane people would never go.
I made my way to the gate at a leisurely pace, as I still had an hour and a half or so to kill.
In the morning before I left I’d thought, “I should take some headache medicine with me” and considered that to be a very good idea. It was, unfortunately, yet another in a long line of good ideas that I didn’t follow through with, and so, as a headache started to kick in during my walk through the airport, I had to stop to pay the “comparable” price of $1.69 for two Alleves.
The short flight on the single-engine puddle-jumper from Minneapolis to Hancock was largely uneventful up until we were making our initial descent. I was seated behind the wing and noticed that the landing gear had been pulled back up just as I noticed that we appeared to be ascending again.
After a bit the pilot announced that there were two bald eagles on the landing strip, and that we were going to have to circle around to give the ground crew a chance to scare them away.
It seemed to me that a plane heading straight toward them at high speed would be pretty likely to scare the eagles away, but whatever.
During the approach, the kid behind me began crying about having to wear a seat belt, and, following the dictum of kids’ logic that states that saying the same thing over and over, if done in the whiniest voice possible, will change the nature of reality and get you your way, began chanting “I don’t want to go to Michigan, mama.”
While in many ways I could appreciate the sentiment he was expressing, having not developed his mother’s ability to completely tune out the sound of his voice, it began to get a little irritating after ten minutes, but I did manage to restrain myself and keep from turning around and screaming “We’re already in fucking Michigan and nobody gives a shit what you want!”
Still, the kid kept it up the whole time, and I got to hear it all the way into the airport, as he continued to not want to go to Michigan even after we got off the plane in Michigan.
Once in the airport I was immediately greeted by my niece Jenni, then by the rest of my sister’s family, sans my sister, who was getting a haircut.
My mom and dad couldn’t make it, as they had no ride (my mom doesn’t drive and my dad can’t for six weeks). After visiting with my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces and nephews for a little while, I headed toward my old home.
I think I’m going to go for a walk right now, so I’ll be back later with part two of the story of my travels.

I'm Back, Bitches!

I have returned to NoVA from the U.P.
I'll be back (most likely tomorrow) with more substantial entries (and pictures), but in the meantime I just wanted to let you know that I'm back.