Birmingham Chronicles, Day 5
Headed over to my nephew's house to help him out with his iPod Nano. He was having issues with his home computer and things weren't working out correctly. Since it was on the way to my mom's house I stopped by there briefly...not that I'm a computer expert by any means...but I knew more than his family. And, I gotta be honest, I was going up against two enemies I loathe: Technology that's supposed to work and doesn't, and the Christmas gift that doesn't work out as planned. Like Tracy said, "Not being able to get that to work on his computer is like getting the toy you wanted for Christmas without the batteries."
Then it was off to my mom's house for a planned visit with her sisters and a few of their grandkids. It was a multi-purpose affair, among them that side of the family meeting Barnstorming Pilot Shane as well as the Christmas family stuff.
Among the highlights was my cousin Sherry Lynn. We were the closest in age at the bottom of the grandchild food chain (my higher-order life-liver sister Jilly was the baby, but she was five years younger--sorta out of the mix because she was so little) so we did pretty much everything together at family gatherings. We were good friends through college, too. She regailed us with stories of what it's like to be married to a veteranarian, including failed calf-roping attempts, sons that play with broken cattle prods, and adoption of all sorts of critters. Sherry Lynn's a far cry from the suburban bowhead she was in college and equally as likeable in this phase of her life.
Another highlight was a 4-year-old who is my mom's husband's grandchild dropping in to get his presents. He entered the room sideways, cut his head sharply and glanced out of the corners of his eyes at all of us. "Spiderman entrance," his mom clarified in response to our puzzled looks. Nice. Even better looks came from my sister as Spidey ran his remote control truck into the walls, cabinets and doors.
We took down all the Christmas stuff in my mom's house in about 30 minutes. Her house was nicely decorated...just efficiently so. It just cleans up quickly.
The lowlight for me came as Tracy took various photos of Mom with her sisters, Mom with Jill and I, Mom with Will, etc. I suddenly felt like we were preserving moments for family history instead of capturing joyful moments for the heck of it. Such is life with Mom in chemotherapy.
After a discussion of a possible movie with HOLL/BPH Jilly & Shane, my family decided to go visit neice & nephew while Jill napped and we'd finalize plans later. We should've known that once we got settled fatigue would hit and we'd want to stay put...so they headed off to dinner and a movie and...
...UNCLE BRENT GOT THE iPOD SITUATION FIXED!!! Nothing like being the hero, even if it was immediately thanked by pushing me out of the computer chair and dismissed from ensuing playlist making/transferring, etc. My neice was kicking around in various stages of dress-up...she's got a big princess motif and plays the part well for age three.
We did get some Milo's Hamburgers. Oddly enough, we went to one location only to be told they were out of bread. How does a hamburger joint run out of bread? "When will you get some?" "Don't know." A key to that answer was that it was about 8PM and all the grills had been cleaned as well as the deep fryers. We figured that the smart move was heading another location about 15 minutes away. Oddly enough, you can't buy Milo's Sweet Tea (supposedly it's "famous"--it is good, though) in the gallon containers at Milo's restaurants. You have to get them at the grocery store. Which we did...but they were out of the sweet tea, so we got unsweet. No one drank it.
There was a ping-pong tournament and all sorts of fun moments that won't translate here, but we finally wrapped things up around 10PM and headed off to bed. Everybody's sleeping late today...holiday recovery, I guess. It's nice to have some morning solitude.
Headed over to my nephew's house to help him out with his iPod Nano. He was having issues with his home computer and things weren't working out correctly. Since it was on the way to my mom's house I stopped by there briefly...not that I'm a computer expert by any means...but I knew more than his family. And, I gotta be honest, I was going up against two enemies I loathe: Technology that's supposed to work and doesn't, and the Christmas gift that doesn't work out as planned. Like Tracy said, "Not being able to get that to work on his computer is like getting the toy you wanted for Christmas without the batteries."
Then it was off to my mom's house for a planned visit with her sisters and a few of their grandkids. It was a multi-purpose affair, among them that side of the family meeting Barnstorming Pilot Shane as well as the Christmas family stuff.
Among the highlights was my cousin Sherry Lynn. We were the closest in age at the bottom of the grandchild food chain (my higher-order life-liver sister Jilly was the baby, but she was five years younger--sorta out of the mix because she was so little) so we did pretty much everything together at family gatherings. We were good friends through college, too. She regailed us with stories of what it's like to be married to a veteranarian, including failed calf-roping attempts, sons that play with broken cattle prods, and adoption of all sorts of critters. Sherry Lynn's a far cry from the suburban bowhead she was in college and equally as likeable in this phase of her life.
Another highlight was a 4-year-old who is my mom's husband's grandchild dropping in to get his presents. He entered the room sideways, cut his head sharply and glanced out of the corners of his eyes at all of us. "Spiderman entrance," his mom clarified in response to our puzzled looks. Nice. Even better looks came from my sister as Spidey ran his remote control truck into the walls, cabinets and doors.
We took down all the Christmas stuff in my mom's house in about 30 minutes. Her house was nicely decorated...just efficiently so. It just cleans up quickly.
The lowlight for me came as Tracy took various photos of Mom with her sisters, Mom with Jill and I, Mom with Will, etc. I suddenly felt like we were preserving moments for family history instead of capturing joyful moments for the heck of it. Such is life with Mom in chemotherapy.
After a discussion of a possible movie with HOLL/BPH Jilly & Shane, my family decided to go visit neice & nephew while Jill napped and we'd finalize plans later. We should've known that once we got settled fatigue would hit and we'd want to stay put...so they headed off to dinner and a movie and...
...UNCLE BRENT GOT THE iPOD SITUATION FIXED!!! Nothing like being the hero, even if it was immediately thanked by pushing me out of the computer chair and dismissed from ensuing playlist making/transferring, etc. My neice was kicking around in various stages of dress-up...she's got a big princess motif and plays the part well for age three.
We did get some Milo's Hamburgers. Oddly enough, we went to one location only to be told they were out of bread. How does a hamburger joint run out of bread? "When will you get some?" "Don't know." A key to that answer was that it was about 8PM and all the grills had been cleaned as well as the deep fryers. We figured that the smart move was heading another location about 15 minutes away. Oddly enough, you can't buy Milo's Sweet Tea (supposedly it's "famous"--it is good, though) in the gallon containers at Milo's restaurants. You have to get them at the grocery store. Which we did...but they were out of the sweet tea, so we got unsweet. No one drank it.
There was a ping-pong tournament and all sorts of fun moments that won't translate here, but we finally wrapped things up around 10PM and headed off to bed. Everybody's sleeping late today...holiday recovery, I guess. It's nice to have some morning solitude.
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