Let’s be clear.  I am an easy crier.  I have cried over tv commercials (remember that Tele-Flora one with what’s-his-name from Little House on the Prairie {the football guy – and I don’t mean OJ} – it got me EVERY.SINGLE.TIME he sent flowers to his mom). I have cried over too many tv/movie characters lost loves and deaths.  The Hubby has been worn into the ground and now pretty much knows to just let me cry and I’ll stop much sooner that way.

But I have been spontaneously bursting into tears since Wednesday, usually when I am doing dishes and my mind wanders.  (Maybe I should stop doing dishes.)  That is the day my Aunt J. passed away.  Today was the wake – the start of really saying goodbye to her.  I actually did fairly well – only going through 5 or 6 tissues in 2.5 hours.  Tomorrow – well, I guess time will tell if I can hold it together as well.

It’s not particularly recent, but it’s one of my favorite pictures of my aunt.  Even though you can’t see her great smile, I know it is there.  And I know she is smiling down at us, at peace and keeping us in her heart, just as we will always keep her in ours.

Hello all!  Just wanted to check in – you know, my typical post for every 3 or 4 (or 6 or 7) months.

I just spent an hour changing the permissions on my posts to turn off comments.  I know this will make you all sad (especially the people/spambots that are so excited to share a way to monetize my blog or push their porn or sell their illegal/knockoff products), but I was getting tired of getting comments on the same four or five posts.  The clear winner was Out of Gas – I’d get three or four spam comments on that one EACH.DAY.  So now, I have turned off commenting and am hoping that will cut down on the email notifications that keep clogging my system.

In reviewing some of my old posts, I found the one where I talked about the sucky end of 2011 and finding out about my aunt’s cancer.  She passed away on June 20, 2012.  She was lucky enough to be with her husband and her two sisters.  Her brother – that would be my father – was able to visit on the Monday before she started on a morphine drip.  I was able to be with my parents for that visit, as my father was under doctor’s orders not to drive until the 20th.

And the reason he was under doctor’s orders not to drive was because he was recovering from surgery – prostate cancer surgery.  The week he had surgery, my aunt went to the hospital with an infection.  Everyone was thinking in the back of their heads that it was possible they would not be able to see each other before something happened to my aunt.  But, he was out of the hospital before she left the hospital for a nursing home.  I actually drove him from his hospital to her hospital the day he was released.

On a more positive note, The Hubby is working with his friend to expand our back deck.  It’s almost done – we’ll have an EXTRA 150 square feet of space.  And they are fixing the stairs to be wider and more sturdy.   The Boy is home for the summer and has a paying internship.  He broke up with the New Girlfriend and has a New/New Girlfriend.  (Gee, how long can I call them that?  I’m going to have to think of something else to start calling them!)

And I have been very fortunate with my freelance proofreading/copy editing business.  I’ve been busy just about each week, working with some great authors on some very cool books.

Hmm… my posting has been slacking off lately, mostly because I haven’t been able to answer the question: what do I have to say today?  By the time I think about it, I’m already doing something else.

The Boy went back to school yesterday.  I did not supervise his packing.  I woke him up; asked if he was packed and ready to go; he said yes.  We brought his stuff downstairs and out into his car.  (Which, by the way, had less than a quarter of a tank of gas.  “Sure, we can get up to school without getting gas.  Maybe even get home.”  This from the kid who ran out of gas in the school driveway.)  We went clothes shopping – he wanted some slacks and dress shirts for some presentations he is planning on this semester.  The Boy is definitely NOT a clotheshorse.  He did manage to find two pairs of pants and we grabbed a dress shirt/tie combo pack, plus new dress shoes.  And that’s it – he was ready to go and get out of that store.  I pity the girl who tries to get him to shop.

We make our way to The School without incident.  And by that I mean, we listened to his music and sped up the highway.  One particular song he must have picked to make me laugh, which of course it did.  These two rappers were rapping about how much they loved their mom, how special she was, how she took care of them, on and on and on with the praising of mom.  Every once in awhile, “mom” would interrupt the song with a mom-like question: “where’s the remote?” or “never mind, I found it.”  Each time they were interrupted, they complained and swore at their mom.  She kept coming back more and more often; the song of “mom praise” would stop and be filled with the rappers’ ire at mom for interrupting.  I couldn’t help but laugh – that was a mom doing what moms do best: aggravate their kids.

But, as mentioned earlier, I did not aggravate my son by micro-managing his packing.  I asked if he had it all and he said yes.  When we got to The School, he got out of the car and said,” Damn.  I forgot my pillows, blankets, and sheets.”   Oooookkkkkaaaaayyyyyy.  Yup, mom should have micro-managed just a little bit here.

We got his stuff into his room and I left without incident. That means I didn’t cry when I left him, in case you were wondering.  All the way back home (after I stopped for gas, that is) I was figuring out when I’d be going back up to give him the stuff he forgot.  Then I remembered MY parents often went up to The School to watch basketball games.  I stopped at their house and helped my mom with a Word document issue she was having.  (It’s always good to be kind before you ask for a favor!)  She casually mentions they are going up to The School tonight to watch a game.  Awesome!  So, they agreed to bring The Boy his stuff.  When I call him to tell him, he was so happy.  Because he also forgot his gym shorts, sweats, the white dress shirt he already has, and his wireless keyboard and mouse thingie (yes, that’s a technical term).

He now has his stuff and starts classes today.  But not too early, of course – his first class today starts at 12:30. Nice, huh?

Well, figuratively, anyway.   This is the most posting I’ve done in months!

On another “fire” note, I picked up a Kindle Fire a few days ago (which may or may not explain why I haven’t posted for a few days).  I’m not sure I’m in love with it, but I am in serious like with it.  It is kind of cool to have a Kindle paired up with the internet.  But there are a few things Amazon needs to fix, or at least I think there are (and really, that’s all that matters to me – my own wonderful little thoughts).

They have this “carousel” of your most recently active items.  So, say for instance I was reading Sex Goddess (not that I would have such a thing,  or have thought about any such book being in existence).   And  my mother happened to look at my Kindle.   She would now see the graphic, full color, hot guy-hot gal cover.   And die of embarrassment.  Wait – maybe that’d be me dying of embarrassment.  Either way – not good.  Or maybe the last book I read I didn’t like and now I have to look at it until I do another four things, like check my Facebook, check my GoodReads, check out the local Patch articles, or something equally important.

There is a “shelf” under this carousel for your favorite apps.  I’d like to be able to move those shelves up on top of the carousel, but you can’t.  And it looks like the stuff moves around on the shelves instead of staying where you put them.  What kind of shelves are these?  ‘Cause I don’t want them in my house. Can you imagine:

“Dear, where are the glasses?”

“They should be on the first shelf.”

“The first shelf has the salad plates and the deep bowls – no glasses.”

“Damn.  They must have moved themselves into the next shelf over.”

Really?  Where does it work this way? Nowhere but the Kindle Fire, apparently.

They did kind of screw up on the design.  They put the power button at the bottom of the device.  Yes, it is a BUTTON.  At the BOTTOM of the device.   You know, where one’s hands may be holding it.  And continually bumping into said power button.  But, all is not lost.  You just need to turn it around and the screen rotates and the viola! the power button is up top and out of harm’s way.

But the most annoying (non)feature is the categorization feature.  Meaning, there is none.  Now, in my Kindle 3G I can download a book and put it into a book collection (also known as a category – like Unread (currently 130 books), Romance (currently around 150 books read), Science Fiction and Fantasy (currently around 100 books read)…. you get the idea).  But this new, fancy, current, up-to-date, awesome piece of technology – nope.  No book collections.  No book shelves to put different books on.  Just go ahead and scroll through those 600 books – we’re sure you’re going to find what you are looking for – eventually.  Once you get the search party together.

Gotta run – the search party is back to stock up on vittles and take a break from looking for my next reading adventure.

So, the first eight or so hours of 2012 have gone by fairly uneventfully.  I wonder how long that will last?

Happy New Year!

So today is the last day of 2011 and tomorrow will be the first day of 2012.

We have our traditions, The Hubby and I.  And one of them is to spend the last day of the year and the first day of the year watching the Twilight Zone marathon (what, did you think I was going to say we did something mystical?).  The first episode this morning was one of those make-a-deal-with-the-devil-and-live-to-regret-it ones.  I’m not really sure I’d seen this one, or if I have, I haven’t seen it very often.  Episodes like that could make one all philosophical, starting to ponder the mysteries of life, the gifts of love and sacrifice, and what is really important in the world.  Or, it just could be a solid thirty minutes of entertainment.  The beauty is – you get to choose.

We recently saw The Adjustment Bureau on cable.  I’d wanted to see it at the movies, but never got around to it.  It’s a pretty good movie, but again it can lead to some philosophical introspection … or just a hour and half or so of solid entertainment.  But part of the argument in  the movie is that while we have free will to choose our breakfast cereal, we (as a species) don’t deserve or take our free will (and the consequences thereof) seriously enough, so the Adjustment Bureau is there to keep us “on the right path.”  You start thinking about fate, destiny, chance and just what the hell does it all mean.

Deep thoughts, people, deep thoughts.

Then again, it could just be entertainment….

Happy New Year’s to all of my dedicated readers….wherever you are (and I guess you haven’t become dedicated readers yet, so this one is for you to find years from now).