After he died my parents started going through the house. They secured several firearms. One story that still makes me laugh:

Mom: “We found this revolver with no serial number, not registered. I didn’t know what to do with it. I mean it’s a gun. I certainly don’t want it.
Me: “So what did you do with it?”
Mom: “Well David (family friend) was there. I looked at him and said ‘David, do you want a gun?”
Me: “You gave him a gun?!?!”
Mom: “Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”
Me: “Um. A lot of things. Does he have a gun permit? The gun isn’t registered. I’m pretty sure that’s not legal.”
Mom: “Well he has other guns. I figured I don’t want this near me. Should I have done something else?”

Gotta love my mother. (For the record she made him bring it back and is going to get it registered.)

So then several weeks later they’ve completed round 1 of the house cleaning. Secured all 8 of the firearms. This had my mom really nervous: “Caro, what do I do with these? I mean, I need to dispose of them somehow, but I’m not driving them somewhere. Taking them in my car. Where would I even take them? The police station? Just throw them on a table and say ‘Here officers. I don’t want these.’”

But then they found my uncle’s homeowner’s policy. The one that had the itemized list of firearms. 10 firearms. As previously mentioned, various family members had only located 8. So there’s 2 weapons unaccounted for somewhere in the house. Um…..that could be a problem. Know what else could be a problem? 7 of the secured guns were loaded. 2 of them fully loaded.

So basically there’s 2 guns MIA in the house. Possibly loaded. How does one lose 2 guns? Especially when one of them is a .22 caliber rifle with a scope.

Happy hunting to us. Literally!

In keeping with this theme, she has recently had a minor surgery to remove an ovarian cyst that just wasn’t going away. Just a couple of weeks later this girl texts because she’s broken out in hives on her chest. OK? What do you want me to do about it? Texts keep pouring in. “Hives are moving up my chest and down my stomach.” “It’s on my neck now.” “I can’t breath and I’m freaking out.” Finally, “I’m going to the ER.”

So she goes. With a 4 year old.

After shots of adrenaline, benadryl, and steroids, I get a text complaining about the needles. Then another one, “My blood pressure is 72/40. Is that bad?” LOL yes, yes it is. Good thing you’re at the hospital.

So they release her, now armed with Prednisone, Benadryl, and an EpiPen. Next day she heads to the doctor for labs so she can find out what in the hell she is apparently very allergic to. Today the labs came back and I got this text:

My doctors called. My lab work came back negative & they’re like ‘so that’s good’. How is that good? We are no closer to finding out what I’m allergic to. And they’re like ‘u have to make an appt in August so until then keep a lot of Benadryl on you’. Ummmmm …? FAIL doctors office! LOL

And this is why I love my sister. Because her body hates her and even though none of the doctors can figure out why, she is able to laugh about it and entertain other people with her misfortunes.

Seems pretty appropriate actually; today marks one month since my uncle died. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. I wish I could have spent just one more Sunday with him, playing dominoes and eating delicious sandwiches. I always thought I’d see him again soon. Not so much.

Thanks James Taylor.

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Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can’t remember who to send it to

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again

Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again

Been walking my mind to an easy time my back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
There’s hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you, baby, one more time again, now

Thought I’d see you one more time again
There’s just a few things coming my way this time around, now
Thought I’d see you, thought I’d see you fire and rain, now

I just found the (insanely expensive) parking receipt from the hospital from the day my great uncle died. Now I’m sad.

As much as it blows my mind that I paid $24 to park for like 6 hours, $24 to be with him when he died seems like a bargain.

I think I’ll keep this in my wallet. Hopefully next time I see it I’ll smile rather than tear up. I <3 him

By far my favorite Angelo-related adventure!

We’re Caro and Mel, and we’re Angelo’s great-nieces.

As you all know, Angelo and Norma didn’t get out of the house much in the last few years. One day Mel and I went over to their house for lunch and a visit. Toward the end of the visit Angelo asked if we could pick some things up from Safeway. Our parents frequently grocery shopped for them, and I had been with my mom on a couple of shopping trips. It really didn’t seem like rocket science so Mel and I happily took the list and headed to the store.

On our way to the store we looked over the list. It was 7 pages. Angelo had attempted to make things easier for us by grouping things together: the meats, the veggies, the frozen foods, and so on. Again, how hard could this be?

We got to the store and started with the easier things. Milk, cottage cheese, some yogurts. But then we got into some trouble. What kind of yogurt do they like? What brand of creamer? I called our mom and asked. She laughed but was happy to help. Then we moved on. But we kept running into problems. What does that say? I’ve never heard of that brand, is that a mistake? So of course we kept calling our mom.

I think about an hour and 12 phone calls later she was pretty tired of us. So when we made it to the vegetable section we started calling our dad. Angelo wants red onions – are those the purple ones? What does zucchini look like? Which ones are the sweet potatoes? We must have called our dad 8 times in 10 minutes. Angelo had made everything very specific: 2 pounds of this, half a pound of that. I remember we were measuring the green beans and I thought to myself “a pound of green beans sure is a lot!”. But we just kept piling them into the bag. We would later come to realize that we measured out one kilogram of green beans. Oops!

I think it was about this point that my sister and I realized that not only did we have a 7 page list on our hands, but this thing was double sided. We had milk and other perishable items that we worried were going bad, so we actually swapped some things for fresh ones, then headed over to the frozen section on our way out.

Mel and I grabbed some waffles and some other frozen stuff. Then I noticed we were supposed to get 2 boxes of drumsticks. For some reason, I had it in my head that we were supposed to get drumstick chicken and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why on earth Angelo would think that would come in a box. We had called our parents so many times that they were sick of us so I just made an executive decision: we were getting 2 bags. 2 5-pound bags of drumsticks.

We were happy with what we picked out and pushed our overloaded shopping cart to the register. A few hundred dollars and some creative car loading later, we headed back to Angelo and Norma’s. The look on Angelo’s face when we arrived was priceless. He looked at us and exclaimed “What the hell happened to you? Did you fall into a well or something? You’ve been gone for 3 hours!!” We briefly explained what happened and started unloading the groceries.

Despite 50 calls to our parents we managed to get half the items wrong. We got over double the amount of each vegetable because we measured in kilograms, the wrong size cleaning products, and so forth. And then there were the drumsticks. I told him I had never heard of drumsticks that came in a box, so I showed him the 2 bags that we got and asked if they were an ok substitute. Angelo just about had a heart attack. He was laughing so hard we thought he was going to collapse. He didn’t say anything as he went to the den to tell Norma.

It turns out they had wanted two boxes of drumsticks – the ice cream cones. Instead, we brought them 10 pounds of marinated chicken legs.

Angelo, in the way that only he could, assured us that even though we had done a horrendous job with his list, he bets we were the two prettiest confused girls in the store.

After that day Angelo only asked me to shop for him on a couple more occasions. Each of those times were “emergency” situations and only had a half a page worth of groceries. And every time we went up there for the next year, he offered to cook us some of those chicken legs! It’s adventures such as this that we’ll miss the most.

• Andrew and Rhianna got married. It was a beautiful ceremony and a super fun reception. It was also my first run at being a bridesmaid and it was a completely different experience than I had imagined.
• My cousin got engaged. I’m totally stoked for him.
• I went to the doctor (again) for my foot. After 2 MRIs and 2 appointments within 4 days, I finally have a clearer picture of what’s going on with Marla. There are 3 issues total in my one foot (ffffuuuu). It IS a tumor, but it’s not cancerous. Hopefully the painful cortisone shot I got will make this issue go away once and for all.
• I took a small (but very eventful!) road trip last weekend with some wonderful ladies to attend Jess’s bridal shower. It was a lovely event. I won a prize too
• My great uncle went to the ER yesterday morning. He died today. It never really occurred to me prior to yesterday that when you say “great uncle” people kind of brush you off assuming this is a distant relative and it’s not a big deal. On the contrary, I was incredibly close to this man. My mom lost her father when she was 23. Angelo stepped in and became a second father to her, even walking her down the aisle at her wedding. I’m absolutely devastated.

There’s not really much else to say. It’s 4:45am and I can’t sleep. I can say this: I have the most amazing family and an incredible boyfriend. I know that while I’m crumbling into pieces I am loved and supported. We are a close knit group and this loss has brought us closer. For that I am grateful.

And now back to Boy Meets World. Because that seems to be the only thing on at this hour.

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First things first: Chrismakkah and winter break

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my employers. I have been so spoiled my entire working life, and I think that if I were ever to leave my job(s) and go to a place that doesn’t give 2 weeks off at the end of the year I would die a little inside. But alas, I was able to relish in the 2 weeks of mandatory vacation time the end of last month. It’s usually a glorious time for me. This year wasn’t really relaxing, but not having to go to work, regardless of the stressors you encounter, is still glorious. So hallelujah lol.

My plan for break was to sleep in every day, eat well, go to the gym more days than not, catch up on ALL my TV shows, and read a book. The reality of what happened was sleep in about half the days, eat way too much crap, go to the gym once maybe?, catch up on one season of one TV show, and read 0 pages of a book. Not even any in a magazine! Yikes.

So what happened exactly? Yeah I’m not sure either.

The first couple of days of my break were spent sleeping in and working at job C. Definitely relaxing. Then I had to find last minute stocking stuffers and other gifts. Then it was Christmas eve, a day we celebrate more heavily than Christmas. Did family stuff basically all day long. Then Christmas, a day that started with me trying to get bloodwork done for my stupid annual doctor check-up (they were closed, go figure), ended with me exhausted from seeing family and eating my body weight in food.

Day after Christmas was spent actually getting said bloodwork (an endeavor that took me 2 hours!), then driving 6 hours to see J’s family. His grandma is in the hospital, and people are tense. Tense might be an understatement. There were some family dynamics in play that kinda stressed me out for the 3 days I spent there. Yeah, a vacation would have been nice after that trip!!

I did get to vegetate and play Mario Kart all day the day after I got back, which falls back into my “glorious” category, but then we started back up again with NYE, and other miscellaneous things that prevented me from relaxing. Lame. On the bright side NYE was awesome and I did start organizing myself for the new year a bit. Yay for organization.

Then it was back to work. All 3 of them on my first work day of the year. Not my idea of fun, but surprisingly it went by quickly.

I’ll try to post some pics from Christmas in a little bit. Mine wasn’t quite as mellow as I like, but with all the family I got to see and all the wonderful food, it was a great day nonetheless. I hope everyone else’s was great too!

A couple of days after Thanksgiving J and I went to Target and came home with our very first Chrismakkah tree! It had been chillin, naked, in our living room ever since. We decided to decorate and realized that we still needed a string of white lights. In addition, a single string of blue lights wasn’t gonna cut it. Who knew blue lights were so popular? I had an easy time finding them around Thanksgiving, but had to go on a major hunt this week. The second set of blue lights are on a white string, which isn’t ideal, but it works well enough for this year. So on Sunday night Jeremy and I put on the Christmas Carole cable station, lit 3 Hanukkah candles, and did some major tree decorating:

I absolutely love it!! When I get home from work I’ve been turning off all the lights in the house and turning on the tree. I love the tree lights + that fresh pine smell!

Going through all my ornaments was definitely like taking a trip down memory lane. I found my absolute FAVORITE ornament – a rattle with a diorama scene inside, from my first Christmas. It kind of made me sad that I have an insane amount of ornaments, and J only has the 3 I got him last year – 2 Stars of David and a driedel. But I guess that’s not his thing, so it’s not something I should get worked up about!

We also have this ridiculous 18″ tinsel penguin from Target. When I say it’s ridiculous, I’m not kidding. This thing is so cheaply made, it’s eyes are crooked, and as a result, it looks like it has Downs or something. But I’m an equal opportunity penguin lover, so this guy holds a special place in my heart:

Then there’s our stockings. I really enjoy these, but they seem so out of place in my bookcase. Maybe if I actually could find some stocking holders I actually LIKED then they’d look better. The tape that’s currently holding them in place just isn’t cutting it for me. Or maybe I’m just spoiled and used to the matching green-red-white hand-crocheted stockings my grandma made for my entire family. They’re so festive! But alas, those stay at my parents’ house. *sigh*

I don’t know if you can tell, but there’s an abundance of presents underneath these stockings that need to be wrapped. I think that means it’s time to put the Christmas Carole channel back on and rock out to Frosty the Snowman while I get my gift wrap on!

While I’m at it I should take a picture of our Menorah. It’s so cute!! Lighting the candles each night has been a lot of fun. Slowly but surely I’m learning the words to the blessing that goes with it. J has been doing a repeat-after-me thing so I can play along. And I’ve been actually lighting the candles too. It’s so nice! I did learn that you can’t blow out these candles – they have to burn out. I’ll get an action shot tonight and post it later!

Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to everyone!