Monthly Archives: December 2015

Another Shooting (or Enough Is Enough)

Posted on December 3, 2015 | 1 comment

As a girl, society has taught me to be scared of many things. Many of those things are about men. I’ve been taught to not walk alone at night because a man might rob, rape, or murder me. I’ve been taught to smile and say hello or thank you to a stranger who speaks to me so I don’t make them upset. I’ve been taught to wear a fake wedding ring if I want to prevent men from hitting on me. I’ve been taught not to outright turn a man down if I’m not interested because that can cause them to become violent. I’ve been taught that I should not give a man my address if we are dating until I can trust him because I don’t want him appearing at my home unannounced.

I know that not all men will do these things, but there are bad seeds that we have to worry about. And the good guys out there will do what they can to make sure that I’m not in those situations (walking me to my car or pretending to be my boyfriend to stop a guy from hitting on me).

But I never really had to be fearful of guns.

Until now.

Now I need to be careful when I go to a school because I might be shot. I need to be careful going to work because I might be shot. I need to be careful going to a medical facility because I might be shot. I need to be careful going into public places or near crowds because I might be shot. I need to be careful going into a foreign country because I might be shot.

I’m usually not taking a strong political stance on here, but serious this is getting ridiculous. There have been so many mass shootings lately. In fact there were multiple mass shootings yesterday but the others weren’t reported on because the one in San Bernardino was bigger.

There needs to be some sort of gun control policy set to help prevent these crimes. I’m aware that there isn’t a way to stop all mass shootings, but guns and bullets are far too easy for unstable people to get a hold of. I’m aware that there are thousands of responsible gun owners. They can keep their guns. In fact, many of my gun owning friends are in favor of more gun control and regulation. Why not require background checks and licenses? Is that so unreasonable?

The responsible gun owners are like the good guys who walk me to my car because I’m scared of being attacked. They understand why I (and others) are fearful and are willing to do what needs to be done to help prevent the fear. Why can’t more people see that? I don’t know a single person who is for gun control who wants guns to be banned or taken away from responsible gun owners.

I have a couple of friends who had a friend injured in the shooting yesterday. From what I understand, their friend is going to pull through. But the friends and families of the 14 people who were killed for no reason yesterday will not have that good news. They will be mourning the loss of someone who was killed because they happened to be at a holiday party at a building. That’s not a reason to die.

As much as I want to say that this act of violence will change things and that politicians will wake up and realize a difference needs to be made, I doubt that would happen. I was so sure that would happen after Sandy Hook. But instead of seeing the tragedy of children and their teacher being killed while in school, some politicians said that teachers need to be armed to prevent this. So I’m guessing that the response this time is that all employees should carry guns just in case someone will come into their workplace and shoot. Not prevent that person from coming into their workplace with a gun.

Sorry for the rambling post. I’m pissed and saddened that this is happening again. Hopefully one day, we will look back at this time and realize how stupid it was that it took so many mass shootings for the country to wake up. And I hope that realization will come within my lifetime.

NOH8

 

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The Roadrunner (or More Memories In My House)

Posted on December 2, 2015 | Comments Off on The Roadrunner (or More Memories In My House)

For several years, I’ve been getting things of my grandparents’ to put into my house.

This started when my grandparents were selling their house and moving to their apartment. They had to do a big downsizing and lots of things were given to various family members. While I didn’t really get any pieces of furniture, I got some cool things from my grandpa’s office. That never felt weird because since they were downsizing, they chose to give those things away. And none of the things I got had significant memories to me because they were mainly things from my grandpa’s office (I wasn’t in his office that often in their house).

Then after my grandpa died, I got more things that belonged to my grandparents because my grandma was moving from the apartment she shared with my grandpa into a smaller apartment.

Some of the things I got then were sent to me by my parents (like the mattress from the guest room) and were selected for me. Some things were things that I specifically asked to get to keep (like the martini swords I got). And some things were things that I saw right before the old apartment was closed up when I went to lunch with my grandma and aunt. Everything that nobody had claimed was in the living room and I was allowed to select anything that I thought was cool and wanted to keep. I took a couple of things, but again they weren’t really things that had specific memories for me.

When I went down to San Diego for Thanksgiving, I knew I’d be bringing back the bear made from my grandpa’s sweaters. The bears had been shipped to my parents’ house, so I didn’t get to pick mine out until Thanksgiving. But I wasn’t expecting to take anything else home with me.

But when I was hanging out with my parents the night I arrived, I saw two painting from my grandparents’ house sitting in the rental house. I asked my mom why they were there, and she said that they were taking them back to their house because they had previously been stored.

One painting I’m not sure where it was in my grandparents’ house. But the other painting was very familiar to me. It used to be in the kitchen eating area of my grandparents’ house. I always called it “The Roadrunner” because it reminded me of the roadrunner in the cartoons. I think my brother and cousins might have called it that as well, but I’m not too sure.

I told my mom that I’d like to have The Roadrunner one day because I’ve always loved that painting. My parents then decided that they really didn’t have a place for The Roadrunner to be in their house, so I could take the painting home with me when I drove back to LA (thank goodness I have a decent sized car).

The day after I got back to LA, my parents came to my house for the afternoon. They were driving up to Santa Barbara to see my brother and sister-in-law and made a stop by me to have lunch, see my house, and help me do projects in my house. Fortunately, almost all the projects in my house were already done (I installed the a/c without my dad being there). But my parents did help me hang The Roadrunner in my living room.

New Decorations

Right below The Roadrunner is the acrylic chair I got from my grandparents’ apartment (it was my grandma’s makeup vanity chair in there) and on the chair is my bear.

I love having these things in my house, but it is a bit odd having The Roadrunner in there. I have thousands of memories of that hanging in my grandparents’ kitchen and even though I haven’t seen it in that space in years the memories are still strong. I’m almost doing double takes every time I pass it because it doesn’t feel quite right yet that it’s with me and not with my grandma.

It’s weird that this painting is the first thing that made me feel like I’m stealing something from my grandparents (which is not the case at all) and nothing else I’ve gotten has had anything but positive feelings. It might be because of all of the memories attached or it might be because it’s the most obvious thing in my house that I’ve gotten.

I know that the weird feeling will hopefully go away soon and I will only have the feeling of gratefulness that my family let me have this painting in my house because it is special to me. And I can create new memories with The Roadrunner now.

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Full Thanksgiving Trip (or Being With My Family In San Diego)

Posted on December 1, 2015 | 4 comments

My Thanksgiving trip to San Diego was from Tuesday until Friday last week. I had to work on Wednesday and Friday, but since I work from home I was able to bring all my stuff with me to San Diego and worked from the place we were staying (I did the same thing last year).

Those few days in San Diego were pretty packed, but it was a great family visit. I was nervous how it would be without my grandpa there, but it wasn’t as weird as I expected.

Tuesday I drove down to San Diego (it took 4 hours) and arrived there to have some dinner and spend a bit of time with my parents, aunts and uncle, and grandma. We really didn’t do too much that evening (I was pretty exhausted), but it was good to be around my family.

Wednesday I started with a short work shift. I worked in the kitchen so I had my family hanging out with me. It wasn’t a horribly busy shift so I’m glad that I worked in the kitchen and not in my room. That afternoon my mom, aunt, uncle, and grandma had some errands to run. So I spent a lot of time relaxing at the house and hanging out with my dad and aunt.

Wednesday evening was my grandma’s birthday dinner. We used to do this on Friday after Thanksgiving, but a couple of years ago we moved it to Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I think it’s better that way. We had a private room for the family, so it was nice that we didn’t have to worry about being too loud or my grandma being distracted by a lot of noise. While my grandma isn’t as involved in the conversations as she’s been in the past, she had a nice birthday dinner and it makes me happy to see her so happy.

Grandma's Birthday

Thursday starting with the workout at Orangetheory. After we got back from the workout, we helped set up the dining room for dinner (we did this in our gross gym clothes so we didn’t get our nice clothes dirty). The dining room has a gorgeous view and even though we weren’t able to see it at dinner, it was very nice to look at during the day.

Thanksgiving Table

I did a last minute grocery store run for my mom after that (who would have guessed that grocery stores would be out of green beans?!?) and then helped my parents get the bears set up to give out to the family before dinner. We put all the bears on a couch and covered them with a sheet so nobody would see them before the presentation. Of course with our sick sense of humor we thought that we made it look like we were hiding a dead body and my dad added some shoes and a hat to the pile to make it look even sillier.

Hiding the bears

My cousin Stephie and her kids arrived after that and my cousin Adam was able to take a Thanksgiving day flight to arrive in time to help carve the turkey (we’ve named him the official family turkey carver).

Adam and the turkey

We had a pretty nice spread for dinner and the evening went really well with no awkwardness with my grandpa not being there.

Thanksgiving Food

I didn’t end up using the face paint on my cousin’s kids (they took the face paint home so it won’t go to waste). It was a bit weird not doing that tradition, but the evening was pretty full. And after dinner was done, I went to see the final Hunger Games movie with my cousin and her husband (that’s been our tradition for the past few years).

The next day, my grandpa’s ashes were being scattered at sea. The entire family was going on a boat, but I was not able to get the day off of work so I stayed back with the dog. I’m a bit sad that I wasn’t able to spend time with the family, but I’ve gotten seasick in the past so it was probably for the best.

I had fun with the dog at the house and took lots of silly photos of him. This is him trying to help me work.

Tucker Helping

After my family returned from the boat, I had enough time to get some leftovers for dinner and then I packed up my car to head back to LA.

I’m so lucky that I got to spend as much time with my family as I did. I know that not everybody gets the time off from work or have the ability to travel. I might not have had the time off of work, but I have the luxury of bringing my work with me and since San Diego isn’t a huge drive it’s not a big trip for me.

We are planning on going back down to San Diego to the same place again next year for Thanksgiving. It’s a great house that fits the family nicely and the set up is pretty ideal for a big family meal. I know I’ll be back in San Diego before next November, but I’m glad that I have next Thanksgiving to look forward to as well.

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