Death and March (Not a Death March)

March kind of sucks for my family, specifically my mom's side. And it lived up to its bad reputation this weekend.

My grandfather passed away 16 years ago on March 16th 1987. He was buried a week later on March 23rd, which just happened to be my Grandma's birthday. I'm pretty darn sure that was the worst birthday she ever had. I was too young to absorb any of that. I just remember being very angry with God for taking my grandfather away from me. Ironies of ironies, I remember riding my bike around the block in anger and I finally stopped in a parking lot to cry/yell at God. Turns out I was in the parking lot of the funeral home by my parents' house. Looking back on it now, it strikes me as funny. I was 8. 8 year olds do funny things that amuse their old selves many years later.

Next up came the death of my Gram. Once again, March got the dubious honour. March 7th 2006 to be exact. 16 days before her 89th birthday. Atleast it didn't happen on her birthday. That would have been like a double curse or something.

March got a bit of a reprieve last year as my darling niece was born in late March. A blessing indeed.

But as of this weekend, March is back in dubious territory. My mom's best friend's mother passed away on Saturday. While her passing does fall into the territory of being a blessing as she's now at peace, it's still hard on the family, no matter how prepared they think they are. I'm usually fantastic with words and speaking but death is the one time that I find it hard to find the words, or better yet, the right words. When my great-grandmother Watson and my Gram died, it was a blessing. My great-grandma had checked out years before and was just a shell who happened to still be breathing. My Gram wasn't much better when she went. She knew that her time was near and she wanted to go. She was ready. In both cases, they'd been without their husbands for a very long time. I guess they were both over due for a reunion. Death brought them both peace. I hole heartedly believe that they both went on to a much better place than the one they'd found themselves in here. I know it was for the best. But it still doesn't stop the paid and grief of their passing from happening.

Memories are funny things. I hardly knew my grandfather (we called him Cooch because he loved trains...get it? Choo-choo train?). I didn't even know him for a quarter of my life, yet I'll see something or hear something or smell something and thoughts/memories of him will come flooding back to me. I'm almost positive that he's the reason I like trains so much. I love it when my Uncle David comes to visit and he and my mom start telling stories about Chooch. I hardly knew him so hearing their stories helps  bring him back to life for me, so I can get another chance at getting to know the great man that he was. It's when I'm working on my genealogy research that I really wish he was still here. His side of the family has been a real pain in the butt to trace and I could really use his knowledge. That's just one of my many reasons why we should never take our elderly for granted. They're walking, talking pieces of history and there is so much that they can teach us.

Now, this next revelation might make some of you think I'm totally nuts, but while I know that they're gone, I'm pretty sure that both my great-grandma Watson and my Gram come to visit me from time to time. It's not a scary thing. It's actually quite comforting and it usually makes me smile. Sometimes it's just a feeling I get, like I'm not alone but I'm not worried or scared so I know that someone familiar is here. Sometimes I keep catching something from the corner of my eye and when I look, it's gone. I have a photo of my Gram hanging off a hook on my corner shelf. Every now and then, I'll look over and the photo is swinging on the hook. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot and there's no draft, no large trucks having gone down the street, no vibrations from my walking around. Just little things like that. They just remind me that even though they're not here, they still love me and are with me. Which is true. No one ever really leaves if you keep their memory in your heart.

Oh! And Julius Caesar died in March too. March 15th, 44 BC or so history believes. I guess March wasn't a good month for him either.

Good Night!

Sarah

St. Valentine's Day

Tomorrow is St. Valentine's Day. A day dedicated to love and romance all thanks to a Christian who was martyred way back when. There are numerous stories but the most popular one is said that this particular man, who later became a saint, performed marriages for soldiers who happened to be forbidden to marry and he healed the daughter of one of his captures. The whole notion of romance being linked to St. Valentine's Day doesn't really crop up until the somewhere around the middle ages / 15th Century.

Anyhow, I happen to be single. This means that I'm socially obligated to hate Valentine's Day. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I don't hate it. In face, I love it!!

I have tried to hate it before. Gotten all sad and lonely, but that had more to do with depression than anything. Truthfully, I think it's a fun day. Yes, I agree that you should tell the people that you love that you love them every day but this is the one day for OVER THE TOP kind of love and romance and just plain cheezy silliness. I love cinnamon hearts (got a funny story about a friend who sent her bf a bunch of cinnamon hearts one year..only to discover he hated them...LOL) and I love the goofy, cheezy stuffed bears and my god, do I love the flowers. I mean it. I love flowers. Real ones of course. People at work try to bribe me all the time for supplies or info and they never succeed. Now if they showed up with a bunch of beautiful gerber daisies...that might get them somewhere. I'm a sucker for flowers. I buy them for myself all the time just because I love having them around, and if I were to wait for a man to buy me some.... LOL. I'm pretty sure that a man has given me flowers only 3-4 times in my life and that includes my dad giving me 16 pink roses on my 16th birthday. I love the little kids Valentine's Day cards that they fill out and make paper bag envelopes for. I all just makes me smile.

So every year, I treat myself to something for Valentine's Day. This year, I got my hair cut. It's only been 10 months since the last time I had it cut! Oops. I had nearly 4 inches taken off and it feels amazing. I feel amazing. Hell, I even shaved my legs tonight!! Still need to do my nails though.... And I baked cupcakes. But those are for work. We're having a bake sale tomorrow and we're selling Candy Grams too. I spent an hour along with 2 co-workers stuffing bags full of candy. I'm sick of looking at the candy already.

I do have a Valentine's Day tradition. I rent/watch a movie where lots of stuff get blown up (so usually a Die Hard or Lethal Weapon movie), order Chinese Food and have a slice of cheesecake for dessert. This year, the violent movie will be replaced with a new episode of The Big Bang Theory, the Chinese food will be replaced with pasta (watching my wallet and waistline) but I'm still having the cheesecake... if I remember to take it out of the freezer.

I do admit that Valentine's Day is one of those days when it does kind of suck to be single. And don't give me that old line about not really celebrating it or it not mattering much. I've never got to celebrate Valentine's Day with someone special. Murphy's Law I guess. I tend to break up with guys before it and not meet new ones until after it. Even if you've been married for 50 years, chances are you've had a least one special Valentine's Day. I haven't. So don't feed me lines until I've had my chance to experience one with someone special first. There are some things in this world that I'd like to find out for myself. This is one of those things. And I'll get there, eventually.  But until then, I shall treat myself and keep laughing at the cheezy, romantic gestures.

After all, All We Need Is Love :)

Good Night!

Sarah

I'm A History Geek

This stupid sinus thing is more stubborn than I am. Grrrr. I just want to feel like myself again. Maybe I'll be able to re-coop this weekend. I have so much house work to do too.

Tonight I opted to watch stuff on Netflix rather than clean up. I think I might have gotten hooked on "Pretty Little Liars". I watched the first 2 episodes and they were pretty awesome. I really don't need yet another show to distract me from all the other stuff that I really "should" be doing. Like cleaning and exercising.

Those who know me well know that I'm a bit of a history geek. I love it. It fascinates the hell out of me. I firmly believe that we can't fully know where we're going if we don't know where we've been. Sometimes I think I missed my calling in life. I should have been a historian or an archaeologist. Anyhow, there was a very cool news story that came out on Monday. A team of archaeologists in England found a skeleton last year and on Monday announced that they knew who it was: King Richard III. Most of what people know of him is fiction, told by William Shakespeare in his play, Richard III. In the play, Richard killed his nephews to ensure that he'd get the throne. In real life, Richard met his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the War of the Roses. Henry the VII would then become King, ushering in the rule of the Tudors.

The part of this story that I find most amazing is that it was the DNA of a Canadian man who was used to confirm that the skeleton was really King Richard. Genealogists were able to determine that this man was a direct descendant of King Richard's sister, Ann of York. How friggin' cool is that???

I think it would be a blast to find out that I was related to a King who sat on the throne of England 500 years ago. History is so cool. There are all kinds of mysteries like this that are yet to be solved. Today's technology is helping history to come alive again. And in the process, helping to preserve it too.

So now that I've gotten my history geek on for the evening, it's time for bed.

Good Night!

Sarah

A little piece of my own Genealogy

Zombies, Witches and Vampires, Oh My!

It's been one week since you looked at me...Oops, sorry. That's the Barenaked Ladies, not me. Seriously, it's been one week since I started blogging and I've managed to keep to my goal of blogging every day. The results have been quite surprising. I never expected it to be so therapeutic. Who knew that it would feel go good to get some of the things rolling around in my head, out of my head? Sure as shit wasn't me :)

I had a very relaxing day today. I didn't do much of anything. Slept in until after 10, got up had breakfast. I did attempt to do a load of laundry 3 times. Some jackass was hogging our laundry room. Personally, if I have more than 2 loads of laundry to do, I do them on different days our of respect to my fellow tenants. We only have 1 washer and 1 dryer so tying them up for 5 hours isn't very nice.

Anyhow, I spent most of my day reading and watching episode of "Charmed". Netflix is evil. One of the things I read today was a friend's blog. She mentioned zombies in it. I've mentioned zombies in one of my earlier blogs to. So that got me to thinking about tonight's blog topic. And asking myself: What's the draw?

Seems like pop culture loves the supernatural and undead. We had Teen Wolf with Michael J Fox back in the 80s, got our Vampire and Witch fill with Buffy, Angel, Interview with a Vampire and Charmed in the 90s, Witches and Wizards made a roaring come back thanks to Harry Potter and of course the kinds and queens of the undead are back with Twilight. Somewhere alone the way we have some zombies tossed in too. Shaun of the Dead is one of my favourite movies.

The supernatural aren't exactly new. They've been around for a very long time. The opening scene of Shakespeare's Macbeth starts with three witches. They're the ones who tell Macbeth that he will be king. That was written somewhere around 1606. Then we've Mary Shelley who introduced us to her monster, Frankenstein in 1818 and then good ol' Bram Stoker gave us Dracula in 1897. I'm not sure why, but Frankenstein never seems to be quite as popular as the others. Maybe he doesn't have any real street cred. Or maybe it's because Shelley was way ahead of her time and she created something that seems just a little too real. Think about up. Doctors have been able to successfully do a face transplant... so the idea of building someone from spare body parts really isn't all that far fetched.

Our new pals, the zombies, have been part of African and Haitian culture for centuries. It's only been since the late 19th century or so that they really entered our culture and now they're pop culture darlings.

But where do all these things come from? Take Dracula for instance. It's long been believe that the character created by Stoker was based on a real man: Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia who was later known as Vlad the Impaler - guess what he used to do to his victims? Rumour has it that he used to drink the blood of his enemies in order to make him stronger. Eww is all I have to say.

Witches are a newer form of the old Pagan religions which have been around since well, before Christ. It can be argued that several of our holidays are just converted pagan holidays or perhaps that's just a happy coincidence.

Most myths are based on some sort of truth. Something strange happens that scares the shit out of everyone and no one can explain it, so a story is made up to make sense out of the stuff we can't make sense of. The stories get passed along from village to village, generation to generation. Someone eventually writes them down and just like that, a myth becomes part of our culture.

I'm not going to say whether or not I believe in any of it. That's a discussion for another day. But you have to admit, the unknown and the unexplained do make for some very enjoyable entertainment.

Oh, and if we're ever being chased by zombies, I'd totally trip the person beside me, but I'd feel bad about it later.

Sweet dreams!

Sarah

(Had a heck of a time finding a photo to go with this blog...this one is from Hallowe'en 2009)