sometimes, life just isn't fair.

we knew it was going to happen, we had warning, but it still doesn't make it any easier, any less sad.

my uncle passed away this morning. he was 52 years old. on january 9, 2011, he went to the doctor because he had this annoying cough that he couldn't get rid of. turns out, he had lung cancer. he never smoked a day in his life.

he is my mom's baby sister's husband. he has three kids, too young to have to deal with this. one just out of college, one just in college, and one in middle school. and it just breaks my heart that they have all just changed their facebook photos to pictures of their hands, holding their father's hand. i can't even imagine. my aunt lost her father and her husband in 3 months.

we knew it was coming soon since last week, it's just been one set of bad news after another, as he was hospitalized. when i talked to my mom yesterday, she told me she was flying up this afternoon. she didn't think she'd be there before anything happened.

my phone rang at 6:33am today. it was my mom. she just had to say "well, around 3am...." she told me that her and my dad were sitting on the plane, waiting for the door to be closed to take off. [mind you, we have just received the first snow storm since our unseasonable october storm this year]. i'm compulsively checking their flight status to make sure they take off. and it just did [1 minute early]. all i want is for them to arrive here safely. and i can't wait to just hug them and not let go.

when i talked to my mom, she commented on how much loss my sister and i have experienced in our short lives. only 1 was before my awareness of these things kicked in (i was 4). and the past 6 have been in the past 10 years. 2001-2002 was a bad year, we lost my uncle m. [accident], my uncle p.[unexpected], and aunt c.[Alzheimer's/old age]. so far, 2011-2012 is looking eerily like that year. since poppa passed away this october, also unexpectedly. the only other death, was my grandma, who also died of lung cancer. although she had been a smoker for a long time, she had only been diagnosed 7 months before.

if you're not familiar with lung cancer, it's aggressive and excruciating. it's ugly and painful as you struggle for every breath. and as my uncle was told in november, they were unable to find continuing treatments for him with the advanced stage.

as my mom mentioned, it's a good thing we have some happy times scheduled for this year. one of my cousins is getting married in april, and you obviously know about our big day in august. it's hard to think about happy times in the future at this moment.

RIP uncle ken 

sept 25, 1959 - jan 21, 2012

random tuesday thoughts: helicopter parents

i was reading an article entitled "3 things you should never do for your child." now, i don't have any children, so this may seem odd for me to read. but i like to be prepared about these things.

but as i started reading the origination of "helicopter parent," i realize that by their definition, my parents were helicopter parents. i never felt this was the case, as i think my parents did a good job of supporting me, but keeping a respectful distance. they came to my tennis matches, softball games, and orchestra concerts, but they didn't insist that i play in every game (ever), and they didn't sit outside the door for every rehearsal. actually, given the choice, my mom would have waited in the car during all of my viola lessons, and never pressed me to give all the details afterwards. they wanted to be involved, but they wanted to give me a chance to grow up. 

but apparently the term "helicopter parent" came from parents who 'sweep in to rescue their children from the perils of higher education.' there are two such instances where this was the case for me.

credit

case #1. april, my freshman year. my parents and my aunt were coming up to visit for easter, and at 5am, i woke up to my roommate having vomited all over the floor, herself, books, etc. and she was naked in our room [she often was drunk, and was quite a disturbance for my academic pursuits, stole things from me, etc.]. i had a midterm exam that morning at 9am, and another class at 11am. my parents were to arrive around noon. and now my room was overwhelmed with the smell of vomit. 

i begged my roommate to help me clean it up (she didn't), but another girl on the hall did help. the room still reeked, as many of her belongings still had vomit on them. i got back from my first class, asked her if she would please clean the room up as my parents were going to be there in less than 2 hours. she cursed at me and rolled over in her bed. i was furious. 

i told my parents what was going on, and we went up to my room when the arrived. i had no idea what condition it would be in, but surprisingly it was as cleaned up as it could be and my roommate was MIA. the room still smelled gross. my parents pushed me to talk to the Residence Life staff (my RA was constantly MIA, so she was no help). usually if one roommate has an issue with the other, the plaintiff is the one to move rooms. It was April. I didn't want to get a new roommate somewhere else on campus for the last month of the semester. With my parents there to push, and my roommate's previous alcohol infractions in the dorm, she was required to move out that night. [i was an RA for two years in the same building, and i have never heard of another situation like this or even close to it, and most of the upper level ResLife staff hadn't either.]




case #2. november, my junior year. when i declared my major during my 1st semester of my freshman year, i was informed of what classes i had to take, among them were two math classes: Calc 1 and Calc 2. In the midst of me taking (and doing very poorly in) Calc 2, I was informed that that curriculum hadn't been approved yet, and since I declared before the approval, I needed to take Calc 1, and Stats/Probability. No Calc 2--good thing, because I got a C- in Calc 2, which means I would have had to take it over again. So I took Stats/Prob and got an A during the spring of my sophomore year. So we were good to go.


Then I was going to apply to the combined BA/MA program during my junior year. The new curriculum had been approved at this point, and anybody entering the BA/MA program would be on the new program (aka the Calc 2 route). I balked at this, and got everything approved by my department heads to be able to substitute Stats/Prob for Calc 2, so that I could just be on the new program to move forward with the Masters. I did everything I needed to so that there would be no problems when I went to the dean's office to change the curriculum. all on my own.


They had instituted this new online curriculum check-off system that put the required classes in, and they were checked off when you completed the class with a sufficient grade (C or above). They would use this to determine if you were eligible for graduation when the time came. I went to the dean's office, explained my case, provided all the appropriate documentation, and they said no problem. When the online system was updated, it didn't reflect that substitution. I went back to the dean's office, and they told me that I couldn't substitute a class (Stats/Prob) for a required class that I had gotten an insufficient grade in (Calc 2). I continued to explain that the head of the department/director of undergraduate studies in the department (aka the one who signs off on the curriculum and my graduation paperwork) had signed off on it, fully knowing that I had been jerked around curriculum-wise. They said there was nothing they could do, the system cannot be overridden in that case, and I would have to take Calc 2 over again.

No way. By this time, I was home for the weekend. I had to have knee surgery. I told my parents what was going on. I didn't want my parents to get involved, but I didn't want to take Calc 2 AGAIN even more. So, my dad sent an email to the same person I had been working with. I read it, it said nothing different than what I had already explained. By the following afternoon (when I got home from the hospital), they had suddenly found a way to override the system. I didn't have to take Calc 2 again. 


I spent weeks putting together my information, getting my ducks lined up, appropriate signatures, pleading my case. for nothing. My dad sent one email and it was fixed immediately. I mean, miraculously. 


---------
Both of these situations illustrate that having the one who pays the very expensive bill deal with a situation is necessary in some cases. These are the perils of higher education, not a mom advocating to a professor about why a college student should be allowed to re-take a test if he/she is sick (because that is wrong). If my parents hadn't stepped in, I would have had to move out because my roommate screwed me over. I would have had to take an extra class (over again, for no additional credit) that my department said i wouldn't have to (and he had SIGNED off on!). That could have hurt my ability to complete the BA/MA program on time, or it could have prevented me from an important summer internship to take it as a summer class. If that was the case, I probably would have taken the class in Summer 2006. And i would have missed out on the opportunity to meet the guy I'm going to marry this summer.


So if that means that my parents are 'helicopter parents,' i'm really happy about it. I don't think they fit in AT ALL with the current meaning of the phrase. because i do agree with the rest of that article-- you should not do your child's homework, you should not talk for them unless it's necessary, etc. 


what are your thoughts on helicopter parenting?

weekend wedding recap

(it was a 3-day weekend for me, so that's why i'm getting to this now)

before my parents headed back to texas a few weeks ago, my dad had called and said he was going to be having a business trip to a town about 30-45 min from where we live. he asked if he could come stay and spend the weekend. i realized it would be the PERFECT weekend for him to come, since we had a meeting with our wedding coordinator at our place, which my dad has never seen. 


before he arrived at our place friday night, i stopped to pick up our save the dates and our invite samples. they look awesome! 


we skyped with my mom to go over what we'd talk about at the meeting, and then headed to bed because we had a big day planned.


we left our house around 7am (our meeting wasn't until 11am), but it takes about 1.5 hours to get there, and there was the threat of bad weather. we wanted to get a few things other wedding-related things squared away. we stopped at the hotel with the room block, and set up the "after-party," because you can't just stop after 5 hours of partying after a wedding. we tried to scope out a few other hotel options to provide to our guests, and we checked out a few brunch locations for the morning afterwards. it was sort of dizzying all that driving around the same 5-10 mile loop. 


our meeting went well. our wedding coordinator was impressed with all that we've gotten together so far. my dad was a little crazy with his room temperature butter and having enough salt and pepper shaker requests. i think it will all be fine. 


so, we went back and booked the brunch place, and then went to one of my favorite Pocono restaurants, Alaska Pete's. my parents came up to visit me on my 21st birthday my first summer in the poconos, and we went there for lunch. Andy took me there at the end of the summer that year too. After that, it became our anniversary dinner spot (at least for the first two summers). and on saturday, i ate myself into a food coma. we checked out a couple of other hotels on the way out of town, and then it was time to head back home. [and the food coma commenced. i fell asleep on the way back. it was 4pm.]


when i got home, and we worked on a couple of other wedding things, i got an email from the florist that we met last week, and found out she was not available. i got kind of upset, because she didn't email me for a week, and then said that she had another bride on hold for our date, which is why she didn't get back to me.

karma flowers

i emailed two other florists, one that i really liked (who also seemed to have it more together than the one that didn't email me). i kept my fingers crossed. by sunday i had an email that the other back-up was not available. i started freaking out. how can all of these florists be booked? i would not think that florals are the first thing you should book when planning a wedding. i mean, we're still 7 months out, i thought i was ahead of the game. guess not.


i started finding other back-up options to reach out to, ones that don't specialize in our style, but that would suffice. i still hadn't heard back from the other one i liked a lot.


after my dad left on sunday morning, i spent some time addressing the save the dates. on my day off, andy and i went to my sister's office, and got the grand tour. she's a human resources manager for a major chocolate company. yes, they get free candy. and i got to see twin, who lives up in that area. i wanted to see her before she headed back down south. i'm so glad i've gotten to see her so many times over the past two months, even though it's because she was broken.


and i will inform you, tuesday started off really well--the other florist i like had sent me an email, and she's available!! i'm so excited!!

karma flowers

hope you had a good weekend!

presentations & bicycle helmets, part 2

okay, so i know, i left you with a cliff-hanger yesterday with my random tuesday thought that turned terrifying. so we left off that my friend just went unconscious on the side of the Panamerican Highway in Ecuador. 


Okay, so panic sets in for all of us. We pull out our local cell phones, and call our professor (who was more like a parent) and our program director in ecuador. A few guys run down the street to a building where there may be people to get help. We try to flag down cars driving by. Most just think we're stupid gringos waving at them. One finally stops. We need to get her off of this 3 foot wide strip of grass between one of the busiest roads in South America and a huge cliff to the river down below. We use our broken panicked spanish. (good thing we've been living there for a few months already). They help us get her into their car. 


Shortly after this, an ambulance arrives. They can take her to the hospital. Two people from the group go with her. The rest of us are left. On the side of the road, with 3 extra bikes. I decide that's it. I never want to ride a bike again. All she did was hit the wall with her handlebars on the right side, and then landed on her left shoulder (& head--which could have been way worse had she not been wearing a helmet). And she was getting carted away to a small town hospital in a developing country. No way was I going to do the next 30 miles on a bike. So, a few of us grabbed the extra bikes, and waited for the next bus heading northbound. Some others continued on the trek, no hard feelings on either end for continuing or not. 


The bus came, the put our bikes on the top of the bus, charged us an arm and a leg ($1 per person + $7 a bike)--RIDICULOUS in Ecuadorian terms. For reference, a typical bus fare roughly equals $1 per hour on the road, so a roughly 3 hour trip would cost about $3. We had only had to go 6 miles! We were in shock about the incident, and just paid whatever they asked for. We cleaned ourselves up and the bus entered the town of Banos. We were about 2 blocks from our drop off point, when we heard a crash behind us. We looked back, and there was a bike, on the hood of the police car behind us. And two other bikes on the ground. They had gotten caught in the overhead wires. The bus driver called us, told us to get off, gave us the other bikes, and just drove away. We didn't realize how damaged the bikes were until he was long gone. [The police officer just drove off, unphased.] 


We brought the bikes back to the shop, the front wheels mangled on the bikes that fell. The woman started screaming at us [in Spanish], telling us we had to pay for new bikes - $200 each. We owed them $600. Everything is so cheap in Ecuador, we were staying here for 3 nights, eating food, and getting bus fare back to Quito--I only had $60 cash on me for all of that. 


We explained that the bus driver did not tie the bikes down like he was supposed to, and that he just drove off. In the small town, a witness to the bikes falling was able to identify the bus company and driver. We got back on the phone with our program director, as we got marched down the block to the bus company.


The bus company explained that the owner was poor, and that he had sick children, and he couldn't take care of them, so he couldn't pay for the bikes. The police, who were next to the bus company, said that we had to pay for them for the same reason. We were advised to have a mechanic look at the bikes to see how much it would cost to repair them, rather than replace the bikes.

We did that, and the cost was $20/bike. We scrounged the money together to give them, and just let that be that. We were completely taken advantage of twice that day, it shouldn't have been our responsibility to tie the bikes down. This is where I learned the word "culpa" in spanish (that means 'fault', as in whose fault is it?). 

My friend had broken her collarbone, and they put her in a weird cast. The hospital cost was less than $10, for x-rays, medication, and the cast. She took a taxi 3 hours back to Quito, where the doctor there put her in another cast. It made for a rough last month of the semester abroad for her, but at least she was able to stay. It was a scary ordeal, but its one that I will definitely share with my children when they tell me they don't want to wear a bike helmet anymore, because it could have been so much worse.

random tuesday thought: presentations & bicycle helmets

sometimes, these random thoughts come over me. and tuesday seemed like a good day for that. and apparently, a lot of other people think so, as it's a tuesday blog theme, started by The Un Mom (this is not a blog I often read, i just wondered if anybody else had random thoughts on tuesdays). but hey, it seems like a good idea. because sometimes these random thoughts are interesting memories that are somewhere in the back of my brain, and that maybe someday i'd like to remember or share. so don't feel obligated to read the randomness, if you're not interested. [i do realize my train of thought may be difficult to follow, but i promise it will all come together in the end]

so today i'm giving a presentation on 'time management and project planning.' two separate, but related topics. my audience is americorps program members for the program i was in 3 years ago. why they think i am qualified after 2.5 years of working in the workplace to give this presentation, i'm not sure.

but this all reminded me of the 'persuasive speech' i had to give in my 10th grade language arts class (side note: this was also the same class that i wrote a paper on multiple personality disorder). for some reason, i had no idea what to write/speak about, and my parents gave me an idea. i think i was too lazy to think of something else, so i was the 15-yeard old persuading my classmates that they should wear a helmet when riding their bikes. really cool, i know.

my dad even gave me the idea of bringing in a hard-boiled egg, and smashing it against the chalkboard during an especially intense point during my speech (the egg smashing went horribly awry and it ended up skidding across the chalk board and not even really cracking when it hit the floor). 


but i realize now, 11 years later, that i would persuade my peers today even more to wear a helmet when riding their bicycles. in that short time, i hear too much about people on city streets getting hit by cars (i lived in boston for 5 years, and i certainly was not going to ride a bike there), knowing people that have wiped out on a bike (someone who i used to work with recently fell on his bike and broke his hip), and one of the most terrifying experiences of my life revolved around a bicycle accident. [this is kind of a long story, so it may have to go over a couple installments]


back in 2006, when i was in ecuador, my friends/classmates decided during our trip to Banos, that we would bike down the Panamerican Highway. This is such a popular trip that many places in Banos offer rental bikes to make the 60 km (~37 mile) trip to Puyo. [side note: why did i think i could bike 37 miles in one day? and this was about 5 months after i had knee surgery]  when we started, the place we rented the bikes from said we could take helmets if we wanted, but said we didn't have to. we took helmets. they also instructed us that we could go around all of the tunnels except for the first one, which we would have to go through.


we got started, it was pretty intense downhill. my hands were clamped lightly on the brakes the whole time it seemed. it was beautiful. 

we got to the first tunnel. we could see the light on the other side. the Panamerican Highway is pretty busy, being one of the best maintained roads, and a major artery linking the highland cities of Ecuador and many South American countries. We waited for a break in traffic so that we wouldn't have a car or bus or truck coming up behind us while we went through this tunnel.


A truck entered the tunnel, and it looked pretty clear (there were two one-way tunnels, so we weren't going to encounter any on-coming traffic). I was the 3rd person in the group to enter the tunnel. It didn't look that long, but once we were in it, it was clear it was a pretty long tunnel. At one point, the truck blocked the exit of the tunnel, and it was pitch black in the tunnel. I was going too fast, and I didn't feel like I had control of my bike, and i heard a bump and a crash right behind me. I couldn't stop (the truck had exited, so I could see again), and i was close to the exit of the tunnel. We made it out and stopped on the other side.


My friend was walking her bike out, and I could just hear her saying "I'm fine.  I just have to get out of this tunnel." She was walking, that had to be a good sign. When she and the others emerged from the tunnel (all of the rest of them were walking), she said she just wanted to sit down. She sat down on the small strip of grass. We asked her if she was hurt, and she pointed to the spot between her neck and her shoulder. Another friend, pulled down her shirt collar, and it was apparent she was not okay. A huge lump had formed next to her neck, and it was black and blue. She tried to take her helmet off, we helped her. There was a huge skid mark on the side from where her head hit the pavement. She said she didn't feel good, turned pale white, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went unconscious.

weekend wedding recap

Now that we've reach the year of our wedding (yay!), we've really got to ramp up some of the planning! tomorrow will mark 3 months that we've been engaged, and we've gotten a lot done:

• place & date (for ceremony & reception, which also includes food and cake)
• band
• photographer
• ceremony musicians
• officiant
• hotel for room block
• save the dates/invitations (STDs are printed, invitation sample is in the works)
• the guest list finalized
• DRESS
• bridesmaids dresses (store, color, just need to figure out the final styles for all the 'maids)
• 1 registry done

and there are still a few things that i know we need to figure out:

• flowers/decor
• hair
• make-up
• honeymoon
• shuttle bus for guests
• 2nd registry location
• set-up the tux rental (we know where that will be too)
• the little things (all the details, bridal party gifts, rings, songs, etc.)

so this weekend, i dragged my fiance to a bridal show. now this is the 2nd one we've gone to--the first one was to sign our contract with the photographer, and we actually met our invitations person at this event. And little did I know that I received information and met the dress shop owner where I got my dress.

but i wasn't looking to eat my way peruse through this show. i was on a mission. (so no cake was tasted! yay!)
#1. find a florist
#2. find hair/makeup
#3. talk to jos. a bank about tuxes
#4. find a shuttle bus company


i think we found a florist (depending on her availability), i have a good idea for hair/makeup, i talked to jos a bank about tuxes, and we have some options for the shuttle bus, but i'm not totally happy on that front. this show was only about 30-40 min from where we're getting married, but everybody pigeon-holes themselves into their little region. within their region, a wedding could be 30 min from where they are based, so it's tough to hear that "we may have to charge more for the driving distance."

i know we need to get it together with some of these things, as these people get booked fast for saturday weddings in the summer, but jeez, give me a break. i feel pretty impressed with that list of things we've accomplished in 3 months (which may i remind you also included a funeral, thanksgiving, and christmas?). so when one of the florist options was like "you need to book NOW," that's pretty rough to hear. i know we're a little behind the 8-ball since we picked a date that was only 10 months after we got engaged. 


i, for one, am not willing to wait a long time to get married, so i'm not looking to put it off until 2013 just because people have longer engagements nowadays. sheesh. [sorry for the rant]. 


anyway, i hope to have some good updates next weekend. we have our first official meeting with our wedding coordinator at our ceremony/reception site. my dad is going to be in town (and staying with us--yikes!), so he'll get to see the place for the first time. 


happy monday!