Don't follow the shadows

Late as usual, here are some shots from the Ducks tour I went on with my parents in the Wisconsin Dells a few weeks ago. (For those of you who don’t know, Ducks are amphibious vehicles used in WWII and the Korean War that now give scenic tours of the area.) We were also supposed to go to Devil’s Lake, but the steady rain prevented that. I’ve been there before and on several Duck rides in the past, so it’s really not that big of a deal. After all, we found an outlet mall on the way home with a Coach store, so the day turned out just fine. ;)



( + 17 photos )

I’ve been keeping up with my friends page, too. I have just spent the past week using my free (and not-so-free) time keeping inventory of all the activities I did each hour as part of a tedious anthropology assignment about time. Now I get to spend the rest of my Spring Break taking field notes for another week, reading roughly 150 pages, and writing a paper on top of all my other classes’ homework. That, and I really haven’t had much to say. (Do I ever?) ;)

I’ve been making the time over break to pick up the flute and guitar again, and I’m glad I haven’t lost my chops after not playing for months. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I played a bunch of traditional Irish tunes on flute and Pogues songs on guitar. Nothing else was really out of the ordinary, since I listen to Celtic music regularly anyway. I’ve also been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather outside with my cat, despite constantly having to chase her out of the dirt. This was also my last sober St. Patrick’s Day at home. Next year, it’ll be me and a pint of Guinness, granted I’m still alive of course. On a side note, is it weird that whenever I consider a future event, I bring up my mortality? I guess I don’t want to jinx anything, since it seems that whenever I’m hopeful about something happening, it doesn’t, and vice versa. I mean, accidents do happen.

I’ve been waiting to see Coraline over break, but it’s no longer playing at the theater in town. For the past several months, I feel like I’ve been missing out on everything that happens, only to experience it well after the fact, after everyone is done caring or wanting to hear about it. Such is life in the Midwest outside of the metropolises, I suppose. However, I did see The Reader with Catherine today. ( Read more... )

I have also been dealing with a few irresponsible people lately, and it’s really starting to get on my nerves. They think because they have very involved social lives and I don’t, it’s expected for me to get back to them in a timely manner, but they don’t bother getting back to me until the last minute or simply not at all. I think it will end up being the latter of the two come Friday, so I’m expecting those half-made plans to completely fall through. (The few previous entries allude to what that’s all about.) I’m just sick of these people putting everything and everyone before me, after I’ve made contact with them repeatedly, trying to arrange things. It’s not just that one person, either. Just because I don’t have a bunch of friends or have a job right now doesn’t mean I don’t have a life too.

My dad also recently announced that he wants to move back in, after leaving us a year and three months ago. Long story short, he’s not going to, since he just wants to do it because he’s sick of paying rent for his apartment and is lonely. He’s never apologized to us, says he still loves us, or makes any kind of an effort to do things or talk. Until he does these things, agrees to go to counseling, and gets on medication for his depression, we’re moving on without him, and it’s really for the best.

Lunch with my mother’s side of the family on Christmas Eve was a three-ring circus. Everyone on that side of the family is beyond social retardation – even the ones who don’t have Aspberger’s. In a nutshell:

• My grandpa complained about nearly every gift he got. Before my aunt even began to explain that the granola bars had blackberry in them (his favorite fruit), he was like, "Mary eats those," and threw them across the sofa.
• My cousin has scarred me for life by farting directly in front of me. His stack of presents were next to mine, so I was sitting on the floor behind him, and he let the loudest fart I've ever heard rip across the floor for a good four seconds like it was nothing. The only other one who seemed to notice the sonic blast and vibrations was my sister on the other side of the room, but she thought it was my uncle or grandpa. It wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't so annoying and disgusting anyway, but it just amplified it.
• My grandpa also complained about my grandma receiving one of those contraptions that helps you reach things high up because she's been getting bruises on her arms. He claimed that she never asks him for help and if she did, she wouldn't need the device because he'd be able to get it for her. He never stopped to think about what she'd do when he's gone hunting, fishing, or running errands.
• Kyle also bent over and licked his plate at the table after a few attempts to pick up the food with his fork.

I can’t believe my aunt and uncle never taught their children any manners or etiquette because they need it badly. Then again, these are the same people who see every animated film that comes out, were still cutting up their children’s food well into their teens, and laughed uncontrollably throughout an entire mass because they could see the top of the man’s ass that was sitting in the pew in front of them.

Christmas Day with my father’s side of the family went surprisingly well. My uncle, who is a sheriff’s captain for the county, even gave me cider despite my being underage because of Gaelic Storm’s “Johnny Jump Up”. I've never had it before and it's quite good; like a sweet beer that actually has a good aftertaste. He never has anything bad to say about anyone, so I was fairly surprised when he scoffed at the mention of my father and mumbled something about his “midlife crisis”. The only things that didn’t go so smoothly were my grandma wanting to leave right after we were done eating and my aunt complaining that we didn’t bring gifts to exchange after my mom and I had left with my grandmother. My grandma has always been the first to arrive and first to leave, so there’s no surprise there. As for my aunt, we had all decided that it wasn’t appropriate to exchange gifts with her parents there, and my dad waited to inform them of this hours before we arrived. We arranged to go over to my grandma’s on Sunday to exchange gifts, but my aunt was angry because it interfered with her time getting drunk and throwing darts at the Mukwonago VFW. I am still asking myself why my uncle married this woman. At least my dad is working on Sunday, so they won’t be able to bicker with each other.

As usual, my mom hosted Thanksgiving dinner. The only person who decided to come from my father’s side of the family was his mother. Most of my mom’s family lives on the east coast, so my grandparents, aunt, uncle, two cousins, and my sister were the only others present. I’m just glad my dad’s brother and his wife didn’t invite themselves over this year so they could eat the vast majority of our food, steal all our leftovers, and go on about themselves like they usually do. However, there was still plenty of dysfunction, partly because my grandpa, uncle, and cousin all have Aspberger’s Syndrome. Here are some highlights from the evening*:

• My dad lied about having to work and actually went to a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner instead of his own family’s.
• We found out that morning from my dad that my grandma had broken her wrist and still made three desserts using only one hand. She has trouble balancing, but she refuses to use a cane or a walker, and she fell. (Not to mention the fact that she drinks and weighs about 80 lbs.) Last Christmas, she fell into an end table, broke a lamp, and sent a bowl of food flying facedown into the carpet. Needless to say, I ended up being her chauffeur for the evening.
• My grandpa freaked out in front of everyone because no one else was “dressed up” and my grandma made him wear gray dress pants that weren’t as comfortable as his typical navy blue trousers.
• My aunt forgot my sister’s birthday present, so she decided to make the half-hour round trip back home to get it. In the meantime, my mom was trying to keep the food warm and my grandpa was chomping at the bit to eat. He proceeded to make up all these scenarios of how she could possibly be delayed further, which would mean he’d have to wait longer.
• We had to have white rice, even though no one in our family is Asian. My cousins, uncle, and grandpa are too picky to eat wild rice (which is native to the area) or mashed potatoes. At least it wasn’t as bad as last year when we had six starches.
• Even though we had the table set with our best silverware, crystal goblets, and white lace tablecloth, we used paper plates. I can understand that my mom didn’t want us to have to deal with more mess, but it was still pretty white trash.
• At the table, my grandpa couldn’t stop farting, my cousin dropped food onto the floor, picked it up and ate it anyway, and also licked his plate when he was finished. My grandpa refused to try anything with pumpkin it in because he didn’t like how it looked and said if the milk wasn’t Roundy’s that he wouldn’t drink it. (Luckily, it was.) He, as well as my aunt, told all these pointless stories about people know one else knows and when my grandpa didn’t follow the details exactly, he demanded a repeat. My grandma got annoyed and said, “Who cares? You don’t know who these people are!” and my sister and I tried not to die of laughter. She always makes snarky comments to us about him at the table, the best being, “He’s kind of slow sometimes.”
• I got yelled at by my grandpa and aunt for saying that the Falls Baptist Church is a cult, even though it really is. My mom and my sister were able to back me up on that one. Everyone I’ve met that goes there is nuts, including my old band director that cheated on his wife with a seventeen-year-old student.
• My 16-year-old cousin tried to tell another one of his lame “jokes” (usually ones by Dave Barry), and he unknowingly described the amp scene from Spinal Tap, which he has never seen before. Only he could take the humor out of that movie.
• My aunt had brought a cat encyclopedia and not only got my cat’s breed wrong, but also read all the pages aloud on the wrong breed. (She’s a RagaMuffin, not a Ragdoll or a Turkish Angora.)

*All of this is in good fun. They are all nice people that I love dearly, but can be very embarrassing at times.

At least there was some good food. We also celebrated my sister’s birthday that was two weeks ago, so we had a huge frosted chocolate chip cookie from Mrs. Fields. My mom also made fruit punch-flavored jell-o with orange sherbet and mandarin oranges and there was sherry cake, pumpkin and apple pies, and a pumpkin and nut dish. I also consumed the majority of the mashed potatoes and gravy.

Good news first: today I went to Village Hall and voted absentee for Barack Obama! (I’m not registered to vote in Milwaukee County, and since I only live in the dorms on campus, I’m technically a resident of Waukesha County.) This is the first presidential election I've been able to vote in, and I'm glad there is a candidate this time that I can fully support.

This is kind of random, but I just noticed that one of my icons has disappeared and been replaced by an image of a woman I’ve never seen before. I made the original icon myself, so the image was uploaded directly from my computer.

( WTF? )

I’m obviously changing it immediately because it’s not 100 x 100 pixels, which drives me insane, and I want my old icon back. I guess I’m also going to need to change my password, even though I thought it was already nearly impossible to figure out to begin with.

Now for the not-so-great news…

Two days ago, my mom moved my college money over into a money market. Unfortunately, this happened too late. She found out through a mailed statement that with the recent stock market drops, I’d lost about $15,000 from my college funds. It’s a good thing she didn’t wait any longer. I wish she would’ve done it sooner, but my dad is the only one who has access to these accounts. With his self-imposed exile and depression, I doubt he was/is concerned with my college funds. At least my grandpa has been giving away money like crazy, so there’ll be enough to pay for my education. Still, I knew this was going to happen way before it did, and it sucks that I had no control over it. I’m going to need all the money I can get when I graduate, and this is just making things worse. Apparently, my dad only put $5,000 into it when I was born, so it’s not like he’s completely paying for my education. However, he promised he would explain to my mom what he had invested the money in, and he never did. When he moved out 10 months ago, he also moved all his money over into more secure accounts and ignored my mom’s, my sister’s, and mine. I normally wouldn’t be concerned, but not only did I lose $15,000, my sister who will be graduating from high school and starting a two-year college this year lost about $6,000. Luckily, my grandpa was a stockbroker and an accountant; so he’s been giving advice and helping to somewhat fix this. I know this all may sound greedy and materialistic of me, but I’m in college right now, so I need the money. I understand a lot of people have to take out student loans, but most of them will be looking for standard, stable careers once they graduate that will help pay them off, whereas I won’t be. As I’ve mentioned before, the body modification industry in this country is currently extremely competitive, so if it’s impossible for me to get an apprenticeship here, I’m going to need to go and get an associate’s degree in graphic design so I can start out somewhere while still looking for an apprenticeship. Ideally, I’d like to get an apprenticeship here and relocate to Europe where things aren’t so competitive (according to my tattoo artist, anyway).

This story of how a couple murdered a UWM student over his car has been in the news lately, and it’s made me do a lot of thinking. I didn’t know him personally, but he was in my astronomy class. He was essentially kidnapped near where I go to school and live during the week. My farm is also located near where the murder happened, which I also find surprising for such a small, rural community.

In lighter, gory news, I had my bottom teeth crudely stripped some more with sandpaper this afternoon courtesy of my orthodontist. All I have to say is my teeth better look perfect after all of this is done because it was quite painful and I spit blood for quite some time afterward. My ortho looked like an axe-murderer after it was over with all the blood on his gloves. I may have to have this done yet again in six weeks depending on how well my teeth are aligning. But at least I’m, you know, still alive and fairly well.