Elbow pain

Recently, L. and I started working out together and hired a personal trainer to help us get on track with our workouts. The first few sessions went OK, and I was enjoying the classes at the gym as well. However, the last couple of sessions left me pretty sore, and both of my elbows really hurt. I let my trainer know, and she eased up on the exercises that forced me to either grip things tightly or bend my arms repeatedly. I also started icing my elbows after working out, taking Ibuprofin, and resting them. We hoped that would help things heal up and I could get on with things again. However, that hasn't really worked. It's been 3-4 weeks now, and even with the vacation and no workouts for the last two weeks, they're still sore. I try to be extra careful with them right now, but sometimes I do something seemingly innocent, like grip the arm of a chair to better position myself or push down on something like a onion when I'm slicing it, and my elbow screams in pain. Anyway, I ended up skipping my workout tonight and will call the doctor in the morning. I hope that she can help me figure out something to get things back on track. It sure sucks getting older.

We'll be up five hundy by midnight, baby!

I realize it's been a very long time since my last post. Probably no one is even following this now, since I fell off the face of the earth for awhile. But, no matter. I can start back up again finally, since life has returned to a somewhat more normal schedule and state.

The most amazing thing is that it has been nearly a year since L. and I tied the knot. We're heading to Las Vegas tomorrow for an extended weekend to celebrate our year anniversary. We're going to do it up right, staying at the Bellagio and going to see some fun and sexy shows. Both of us have been working so hard lately, that we're beyond excited about the ability to just get away from it all and have some fun.

Useless media coverage

You know, I do understand the impact that Michael Jackson had on music. And I do think that it's sad that he died fairly young, even though it seemed like his life was rather riddled with turmoil. But since his death, I can't turn on the TV without there being some "media" outlet speculating about every flippin' thing around his death, from where his body actually is to all of the details of his will and the DNA of his children. Now his dermatologist is on the news reporting about his cosmetic procedures. I'm not sure about much, but I don't think I'd want to take credit for work on that face. I'm just sayin'... I'm hoping that the coverage dies down a bit soon so that we can go back to a normal existence, if there ever was one.

Spinsters

Last night, I was working late at the office when the janitor, W., came by. He's a friendly, cheerful fellow from China and although a bit tough to understand at times, he sure likes to chat. One of my favorite things he does is ask me whether he can empty the waste basket and recycling bin in my office. I always want to chuckle, but he asks it so seriously as though I might put up a fight that he's carting away the trash, and as I don't want to offend him, I always answer back cheerfully, "yes, please do. Thank you!"

Recently, I've been working late quite a bit as I try to finish up stuff for my last job and ramp up for my new one. So, W. has made an effort to get to know me better, since our paths are crossing quite frequently now. I also suppose that as a night-time janitor it is nice to have some human contact in an otherwise lonely building.

Our conversation last night included how to correctly pronounce my name and whether I was married and had children. I told him that I was indeed married for just under a year, but did not have children. When asked how old I was, I answered 31.

This got him to talking about his daughter, who is 30 and unmarried. More than that, she does not have a boyfriend or love interest. This is of great concern to W. He worries that she is becoming a spinster, and discussed the tragedy of older women who are unable to find mates. He is working hard and wants to bring her here to find a husband, because he wants her to be happy. This got me to thinking about the single guys who work late in our building. I'm curious whether W. has tried telling them about his daughter in the hopes that she might land a software engineer. I can only imagine the conversation, but it makes me smile.

Anyway, I tried telling him that it will happen if it's meant to be, but I'm not sure my meaning came across. I realize that my attitude is probably different than a lot of people, Chinese or not, especially considering that I told my own (current) husband that I didn't have a need to get remarried after my divorce and that I find kids to be a kind of take-it-or-leave it proposition. But I found it sweet that this woman has a father who is so concerned about her, especially from a country where women are not prized and female babies are often given up or killed in order to try and procure a son. It was clear that his concern was not just cultural, but caring. He wants her to be happy and have a family, and I can only hope that it will happen for her if it's in the cards and her wish as well.

Crack me up

L. and I saw this awhile back on SNL and I about spit water through my nose. We got to talking about it again, so I looked it up and enjoyed it all over again.



"Yes, that is bad..."

Moving along

So, things have been getting a bit better again. I went to Chicago last week/end for a few days for my grandma's funeral, and it was difficult (as was expected) but also somewhat fun (totally unexpected). The difficult part was saying goodbye to grandma and trying to work through the feelings that I had about her passing and my failure to visit her more often, especially in the end. But the fun part was seeing some family that I hadn't seen in many years and realizing that there are people related to me who I hardly even know. My aunt, A., and cousin, H., came down from Minnesota for the funeral, and I hadn't seen them in probably 16-17-ish years. Since I was pre-teen brat at that point, and my cousin was about 5-6 years younger, I recall not really liking her that much because we had nothing in common.

This time around, it was different because we are both older and wiser, and had in common the passing of our grandmother. We stayed in a hotel in De Kalb and spent a lot of time catching up and learning about one another again, and it was really nice to hear about her and her brothers (who could not make it, unfortunately). We left this time promising to stay in better touch and not let years go by before we meet up again.

Grandma's funeral and burial were nice. My dad did a great job pulling everything together, and we were thankful that the funeral home provided a limo and driver to take us between the service and her burial site 45 minutes away. It gave us the necessary time to process what we experienced at the service and her viewing, before laying her to rest. The pastor rode with us in the limo, and we had a nice chat with her about her experience becoming a pastor so late in life. After the burial, we went over to a cousin's house in Marseilles for drinks and food, and had a nice time catching up with everyone who came. All in all, it was a nice day and something that I'm sure that grandma would have loved. We had many wonderful stories to tell about her and how much of an impact she had on us all. She will be missed dearly.

I'm still working through some of the grief and guilt. I met with my counselor yesterday and have been praying a lot. Somehow, this has hit me in a way I wasn't quite expecting. But I'm getting through it and I'm thankful for everyone who sent cards or emails and comments to let me know that I'm in their thoughts and prayers.

Grief

Grief definitely works in mysterious ways. This weekend has been a series of ups and downs with some in-between moments. I slept 14 hours Friday night, and woke up feeling a bit better. Being exhausted always makes things just that much worse. I spent most of my time either working out in the yard or cleaning the house. Doesn't sound too exciting, but when there is chaos I like to try and create order, which is exactly what I did this weekend.

The thing that just floors me, though, is how random grief is. You can be going along and think that things are going OK again, and then BAM! Grief sneaks back up on you in the strangest moments and reminds you that you've still got some things to work through. Earlier tonight I was doing alright, and then I went upstairs to take a shower and for some reason grief just overcame me for no particular reason. So, I had a good cry in the shower and then got out feeling a bit better again. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. I'll be heading back to work, and hopefully it will go better than my attempt on Friday, which led to nowhere fast.

Saying goodbye

Tonight, I am saying goodbye to my Grandma K. She passed away earlier this evening, around 7:00 PM. This, of course, comes no more than about two weeks after my Grandpa M. passed away. I will be heading back to her little farming town outside of Chicago for her funeral, likely next week when the plans are figured out.



This is a picture of me as a baby, when she and my Grandpa K. came to visit us in my childhood home in Tukwila, WA. They look so young and different than what they became. My Grandma K. outlived Grandpa K. by nearly a quarter of a century, making it to her mid-90s. But, my Grandpa K. passed away in 1986, which was less than 10 years after that photo. The last time I saw him, he was in the hospital for a bypass, and he died a few weeks thereafter after he came home and took a nap from which he never woke. My last memories of him are hooked up to machines and holding a little mug that I bought him with hearts on it and some message like, "I love my grandpa." I remember listening to Gloria Estefan a lot on my Walkman during that trip, since we were always in the car going back and forth to visit him at the hospital. I still regret not going to that funeral, but my parents thought that it would be too difficult for me to experience something like that so young, so they didn't let me go. It was a tough time anyway. My parents had recently divorced and everything was full of turmoil. Everything happens for a reason, and for whatever reason, I wasn't meant to go to his service.

I remember lots of fun times going out to visit them in their sleepy little farming town when I was a kid. We'd go to visit my Great Grandma K. in Ottowa, who lived to 99 before she passed away. We'd go have lunch out at Shabbona Lake. And we'd always go on trips to the various places the family had farmed thoughout their lives, and visited the graveyards to bring flowers to those who went before us. This time those flowers will be for my Grandma K. as well. I'll have to take on the duty of making sure to pick out the right flowers and have the things we need to clean up the graves and make them look pretty again.

When I was younger, I went out to visit my grandma every summer and she was always ecstatic to see me. As a very young girl, she would put me in the basket of her bicycle and we would ride around town, while she showed me off to neighbors - her little granddaughter. We would walk through the forest and collect pinecones and acorns and leaves in the fall. And one winter, we received so much snow there that my dad and I built an igloo out in the backyard. She hummed and sang constantly, and she had such a funny voice. I can't even think of how to describe it, yet I'll always remember how she went about her business while humming and singing along. She always wore these heavy-duty shaping undergarments that just looked so uncomfortable. They weren't quite corsets, but they were close enough. She wore these even up to my last visit, when I meant to tell her that it was OK if she didn't want to wear those things anymore, but then thought better of it since it really was such a part of her and she felt it was important to do things by the book.

She always remembered my birthday and sent me money for the holidays. And she always wrote that she prayed for me every day and thanked God for me in her life. She loved her family fiercely, no matter how ridiculous we all are in our own ways. What are we supposed to do now that she is gone?

As I got older, my visits became less and less frequent, spanning a couple or a few years at a time. She was no longer well enough to travel out our way, so we always went to Chicago to see her.



My last visit to see her was almost two years ago. The picture above is from that visit. L. and I made a trip out to visit her with my dad, and then went on to Detroit to visit L.'s grandparents. At the time, Grandma K. was still living in the house she had shared with my Grandpa K. so many years before. But her health was clearly starting to fail, she was sleeping all the time, and her mind started to go as well. We had a few tense moments in public when things didn't make sense to her. She had already broken her hip several years before that and recovered, but had then fallen again at one point and didn't remember to use her life alert, so she waited until her caretaker came to check in on her later that day. At that point, I talked to my dad and the caretaker, and we decided that she needed to go into an assisted living home so that she would be safer. I had a picture of her getting confused at some point and deciding to go down into the basement to get something, then falling and hurting herself again. She agreed to go to the assisted living home, but not without some discussion and fear. A few weeks after that, she fell in the bathroom in her apartment there and hurt herself, so she had to go to the nursing home thereafter. Every since that, she was never really the same.

Everything I know after that point is second hand. My dad has gone out to see her and take care of her business every two to three months since that time. Sometimes she would be conscious and know who he was, other times she would only sleep and not recognize him. I should have gotten out there at some point to visit her, but I never did. I can make the excuse that it was never a good time to go, and I suppose in some ways that was true, what with last year being so busy with my relatively new job, buying the house, and all of the stuff with the wedding last year, and then my crappy health situation earlier this year. And I figured it was always dubious whether she would recognize her visitors or not, so I could never be sure that it would matter much anyway. But no matter what, I just think that I was a bad granddaughter for not going to visit her regardless of whether she would have known I was there or not. And I actually planned to visit her in July with my dad, because I feared that it wouldn't be much longer until she passed. But, I waited too long and now I'll never have that chance. I hope she understands and can forgive that part of me, since I know that I let both of us down on that one. But I hope that she knew that I really did love her and still do, and will always cherish the memories I have of her.