I'm so tired, and here's why....
On Sat. I sold my butt off and was completely exhausted. But Sun. wasn't much better.
My Dad picked us up at 10a.m. for Grandma's party at the Old Mill. The party itself was quite pleasant: my great aunt Joan was there (a surprise) - she's so crazy and irreverant that she makes me laugh 'til my sides ache everytime we're together. I got to see my uncle Brian (now retired from the navy) and my aunt Linda and uncle Albert who remain my favorite branch of the entended family. Albert's brother Flavio and his wife Iza were there too and gobsmacked that I had the temerity to grow up and get married. My cousins were, well, distant: I don't know them at all and we really didn't have a chance to talk, except Ryan, who is the black sheep of his family and seems okay despite his vanilla suburban upbringing - I might have to get to know him better.
Grandma had a great time, but she is very, very frail now. The operation opened up her artery to her legs but the pain has returned and her gangrene isn't clearing up. She's on pain meds, so she's sleepy. Her hearing is almost totally gone, so I'm not sure how much conversation she actually heard (my family is always extremely LOUD when placed in a room together. it's extremely disconcerting.). Her eyesight is shot, so most of the picture gifts that she got she admired upside down. It was hard to see her so small and confused but she's 90, so I guess that it had to happen eventually. She did say that she was lucky because there wasn't anyone in the room that she didn't like, which is quite a thing to say when surrounded by family!
Dad got roped into driving Grandma home, but decided to drop Scott and I off first. He was making a left hand turn off Bathurst onto Harbord, trying to beat the oncoming traffic (but Grandma's old Buick doesn't have much pick-up and we didn't make it) and we dinged an oncoming SUV whose driver could have avoided us if he wasn't yapping on his cellphone. I saw the accident coming but Dad couldn't avoid it once he had entered the intersection. The damage was minor, but the other driver, not understanding english, insisted that the police be called. After trading info, Dad got back into the car, started it and pressed the brake only to find that he had no brake pressure at all. It turns out that the rear brake line broke and leaked all of the fluid onto Harbord making it impossible to drive ANYWHERE. Meanwhile it was getting HOT and Grandma was fading fast. A cop pulled up in order to give us a ticket for illegal parking on Harbord (jeez!) and instead called us a towtruck and a cab for Grandma. I sent Scott home, as he had to get ready for work.
The cab showed up but Dad wouldn't let Grandma go alone, and as he had to wait for the tow, I was pressed into chaperone service. The cabbie was great but english was difficult for him, and Grandma insisted on dictating the route that we took, so he couldn't understand her and she (being deaf) couldn't understand him. Construction and various road closures caused the trip uptown to take 3x as long as it normally should, and I had to pee so bad that I thought that I might sprout a leak. We finally reached Grandma's place in North York, paid the cab and had a chance to pee, THEN I had to make it back home downtown via TTC. The return trip took well over an hour (I knew that I had charged my iPod for a reason!) due to being trapped in a subway tunnel between stations for 20 minutes, AND my shoes hurt so bad that I had to take them off and run around the underground in bare feet! After 3 transfers and a streetcar ride, I had become inpervious to visual scorn and had the feet of a Calcutta beggar. I finally made it home at 6p.m., called my Dad to get an update on the car, had a shower, ate dinner and went to bed without accomplishing anything outside of this extended family nightmare epic. No art, no writing, no nothing. *shakes fist at the universe*
Oh, I also discovered that, after depositing my paycheck this weekend, that I had JUST ENOUGH money in my account to cover the rent cheque and nothing more...so I'm busted for two weeks until I get paid again. Sometimes, I just feel like a sad little hamster in a wheel.....
I don't know when I'll have time to post artwork (now that I've mentioned it, folks are kinda expecting something...), or do any writing until the weekend. I am praying that this interview on Wed. offers me a bit of hope. I sure could use some right now.
My Dad picked us up at 10a.m. for Grandma's party at the Old Mill. The party itself was quite pleasant: my great aunt Joan was there (a surprise) - she's so crazy and irreverant that she makes me laugh 'til my sides ache everytime we're together. I got to see my uncle Brian (now retired from the navy) and my aunt Linda and uncle Albert who remain my favorite branch of the entended family. Albert's brother Flavio and his wife Iza were there too and gobsmacked that I had the temerity to grow up and get married. My cousins were, well, distant: I don't know them at all and we really didn't have a chance to talk, except Ryan, who is the black sheep of his family and seems okay despite his vanilla suburban upbringing - I might have to get to know him better.
Grandma had a great time, but she is very, very frail now. The operation opened up her artery to her legs but the pain has returned and her gangrene isn't clearing up. She's on pain meds, so she's sleepy. Her hearing is almost totally gone, so I'm not sure how much conversation she actually heard (my family is always extremely LOUD when placed in a room together. it's extremely disconcerting.). Her eyesight is shot, so most of the picture gifts that she got she admired upside down. It was hard to see her so small and confused but she's 90, so I guess that it had to happen eventually. She did say that she was lucky because there wasn't anyone in the room that she didn't like, which is quite a thing to say when surrounded by family!
Dad got roped into driving Grandma home, but decided to drop Scott and I off first. He was making a left hand turn off Bathurst onto Harbord, trying to beat the oncoming traffic (but Grandma's old Buick doesn't have much pick-up and we didn't make it) and we dinged an oncoming SUV whose driver could have avoided us if he wasn't yapping on his cellphone. I saw the accident coming but Dad couldn't avoid it once he had entered the intersection. The damage was minor, but the other driver, not understanding english, insisted that the police be called. After trading info, Dad got back into the car, started it and pressed the brake only to find that he had no brake pressure at all. It turns out that the rear brake line broke and leaked all of the fluid onto Harbord making it impossible to drive ANYWHERE. Meanwhile it was getting HOT and Grandma was fading fast. A cop pulled up in order to give us a ticket for illegal parking on Harbord (jeez!) and instead called us a towtruck and a cab for Grandma. I sent Scott home, as he had to get ready for work.
The cab showed up but Dad wouldn't let Grandma go alone, and as he had to wait for the tow, I was pressed into chaperone service. The cabbie was great but english was difficult for him, and Grandma insisted on dictating the route that we took, so he couldn't understand her and she (being deaf) couldn't understand him. Construction and various road closures caused the trip uptown to take 3x as long as it normally should, and I had to pee so bad that I thought that I might sprout a leak. We finally reached Grandma's place in North York, paid the cab and had a chance to pee, THEN I had to make it back home downtown via TTC. The return trip took well over an hour (I knew that I had charged my iPod for a reason!) due to being trapped in a subway tunnel between stations for 20 minutes, AND my shoes hurt so bad that I had to take them off and run around the underground in bare feet! After 3 transfers and a streetcar ride, I had become inpervious to visual scorn and had the feet of a Calcutta beggar. I finally made it home at 6p.m., called my Dad to get an update on the car, had a shower, ate dinner and went to bed without accomplishing anything outside of this extended family nightmare epic. No art, no writing, no nothing. *shakes fist at the universe*
Oh, I also discovered that, after depositing my paycheck this weekend, that I had JUST ENOUGH money in my account to cover the rent cheque and nothing more...so I'm busted for two weeks until I get paid again. Sometimes, I just feel like a sad little hamster in a wheel.....
I don't know when I'll have time to post artwork (now that I've mentioned it, folks are kinda expecting something...), or do any writing until the weekend. I am praying that this interview on Wed. offers me a bit of hope. I sure could use some right now.