The Next 24 Hours

What are you planning for the next 24 hours?  Big meal? Small meal? Intimate gathering? Huge family meetup?  All those are acceptable answers. Going shopping at some point?  

Think that is harsh? Well believe me when I say dochebag wasn't the first descriptor I thought of. I scaled it back a bit. 

Now let me add that I'm materialistic, antisocial and the only thing better than sitting in my movie room surrounded by toys, films and games is knowing I'm amazing at finding deals and saving money on them.

But I'm also old enough to remember a small slice on time where Thanksgiving, and to a larger degree Christmas, turned my hometown in a ghost town. Didn't fill up the tank on Wednesday? Good luck finding a gas station open on the way to grandma's house. Forgot an important ingredient for the big meal? You better call around to the family who will be coming over because the stores aren't an option. With the exception of my Aunt being needed at the hospital during the holidays I knew I would get to see every local retaliative and a few distant ones because they were all off work and dedicated to being with family.

We've slowly chipped away at this holiday.  It is wasn't for this nation's love of food I almost think we'd eventually just think of today as simply another Thursday. It's certainly not about family as much as it used to be. I really am proud of the few stores that have promised to not open until Friday but that list is still so small that it is disheartening.  Maybe the list will get larger next year and little by little the trend will change.

The thing that confuses me are the people who say going shopping on Thanksgiving after the meal is a tradition .  Well your outing with your loved ones means loved ones stocking shelves and checking you out instead of these people doing any traditions at home with their families.  I'm not against stores making money or flooding my radio, Facebook feed or e-mail with sale announcements. If you are reading this you have a smartphone, tablet or a computer and most every store out there is offering you a way to stay home and till score some deals.  

I'm not an old fashioned type of guy but if you go shopping today it is impacting someone.  Someone is missing out on a family meal because their company feels a need to be competitive with countless other stores.  I'd love to see the list of stores closed today grow each year and in turn more families will get the quality time we seemed to take for granted these days. 

In Need? Yes....Of A Shower!

My normal routine for a bit now on Sundays has been to leave work at Hoss's, go to Moe's to check my schedule and get something to eat while I'm there.  This week the only change was I left Hoss's early enough to come home and get Xander so he could go grab dinner with me.  We had yet another great meal at Moe's and then went to the Sincerely Yogurt location next door for dessert.  Since my meals at Moe's are half off even when I'm not working I figured I'd treat myself.  I proceeded to get cheesecake yogurt and load it up.  When I went to pay for it the owner, who I know from him dining at Moe's all the time, informed me that the girls in front of us had paid for our dessert.  He mistook my surprise for confusion and continued to elaborate on an idea that I've heard of but never experienced first hand.  It really struck me and shocked me and it is upsetting that you never get to thank the people who do these amazing things.  As Xander and I sit and eat we chat up the owner and he even gives Xander some candy since I refused to allow him to put Sour Patch Kids in our New York Cheesecake yogurt.  When we went to leave I approached the counter to keep the kindess going and help pay for the next patron that comes along.  As I am doing so the owner hands me a roll of money and tells me that the people in front of me wanted us to have this as well.  This is where I get totally lost.  This is out of the ordinary, right?  I mean the roll contained less than 10.00 but it is still very odd.  I told the owner to keep the money and keep the generosity going all while refusing to grab the money.  While I continue to urge him to keep it he hands it to Xander.  Back and forth we went for a few moments and in the end we thanked him and walked out with Xander clutching a wad of bills.
Now I realize that I looked rough after working, falling down the steps and limping my way to dinner,  I'm not offended if the girls ahead of me thought I was poor because I kinda looked the part in a dirty uniform and a jacket covered in liquid that previously occupied.  If anything I would like to thank the girls.  If anything ELSE I'd like to tell them I didn't let Xander get yogurt because he's so picky he refuses even delicious snacks until you almost have to force him to eat them.  In the end I went to get Mexican and yogurt and pretty much came home with more money in my pocket than I left with.

It's Long, Boring, Sad But Also It's Personal Catharsis

I lost my Aunt this week to cancer.  I got a call last Sunday that she was given about a week to live.  That night I packed the car and made the drive from Pittsburgh to Hershey where she was being "treated".  Hearing that someone is days away from passing does nothing to prepare you for seeing someone motionless and completely unresponsive.  The entire time I was there she slept.  She was motionless, except for her chest moving ever so slightly when she would inhale and exhale, and she was completely unresponsive.  She only sounds she made during my visit was when the nurses would come in to turn or move her.  When that happened my mom and I had to retreat to the hall because the moans and cries of pain were unbearable.
Now that she's gone I should be lamenting her passing and speaking about the horrors associated with cancer.  While I will miss her immensely  I won't be shaking my first and cursing about how cancer took her from me.  It was as much her unwillingness to get treatment YEARS ago as it was the fault of the cancer.  In the final weeks of her life the doctors couldn't believe how fast the cancer had spread.  Her deterioration ramped up unbelievably fast since Christmas but I can't tell you the last time I recall her walking without pain and a serious limp.  She was the oldest sibling on my Dad's side and was never in great health so for a bit we brushed it off just like my Aunt would.  Then we'd comment about the duration of these ailments and and would  get no response.  Family members even guilted her and said about she wouldn't be around to see her nephews graduate or get married if she didn't seek out help.  The biggest response you would get was that after all the years she spent working at a hospital the last thing she wanted to do was go to one voluntarily. This one sided conversation with her was initiated with her numerous times over the years and quietly I thought that when we had our first son it might be a motivator for her to seek help.  It wasn't and neither was the birth of our second child.  She even got so bad that she moved out of her very old and dilapidated trailer and moved into the rental property my parents had on their land.  She had just recently started her retirement and she was excited about relaxing on my parent's farm, talking walks in the woods and relaxing on her porch.  She got to enjoy none of that.  With being so close to my parents on a daily basis I think it became much harder to hide the discomfort and pain she had.  She couldn't even walk the less that 100 feet from her trailer to my parents house when they would invite her to dinner.  She'd drive down her driveway and up there driveway so she could shave a few feet off her trip.
Once she went to the doctors, around October or early November, it was a constant string of bad or worse news.  When I went to visit her just before Christmas I had already heard she'd most likely never live on her own again.  Whether she had heard or accepted this news I'm not sure but she was talking about being late on getting Christmas gifts to people because she was behind on her wrapping.  She was talking about how nice everyone was at the hospital and about how all the people she had worked with for years at this very hospital were stopping to see her.  While this action brought comfort to her it also enlightened the rest of my family as to how bad off my Aunt had been and for how long. These visitors would talk privately with my Mom and Dad after visiting my Aunt.  We found out that she'd come to work HOURS early to score a close parking space and then she would sit in her car waiting for her shift to start.  She could barely walk from the lot into the hospital so she had to stake her claim on a spot close enough that she could fake it and hobble to from each day.  Little stories like this one made it clear that she was far more ill than we ever thought and for much longer than we realized.
Towards the end she initiated the DNR order at the hospital and refused a feeding tube.  She knew her time was limited and from what I gather some of the very last gestures and sentences were used to convey her wishes to be cremated and to not have a viewing. There were no goodbyes or last calls for visitors while she still had to energy to talk or acknowledge people.  When I walked into the dark hospital room the day before she passed I thought I walked into the wrong room.  The person laying on the bed wasn't who I had seen just 3 weeks prior.
So fuck cancer, right?  Well......yeah.....duh.  Cancer really does suck and it took my aunt down at a brutal speed toward the end.   But I have a hard time not being angry with my Aunt.  Surely in all her years working at the hospital she not only saw families suffer over the loss of a loved on but I'm pretty sure she saw some amazing recoveries.  Perhaps my anger over her refusal to get care is a way for me to avoid getting so sad I cry.  Haven't cried a single tear yet and that's awful to say since my Aunt was the cool relative all my life that taught me all the stuff parents warn you about.  She taught me how ti drive.  She gave me booze when I wasn't even close to 21.  She took me to Blockbuster to rent movies and buy snacks.  She took me out to do fun things in State College with her friends.  She was the bad influence that I knew still cared about me and wanted to look after me.
So I'm certainly left with a range of emotions but sadness is a rather small fraction of it.  We warned Xander that Aunt Sandy was very sick for some time.  He knew my trip out to see her was because she wouldn't be around much longer.  When she passed I broke the news to him and he took the news without question and didn't need much clarification.  Now I come to find out that when not around me he's been talking about her and her trailer.  I'm guessing until he goes to visit my parents again she sees Aunt Sandy isn't in the trailer any longer it isn't something that will really settle/sink in.  Hopefully he has enough good memories of her like I do that it makes the loss somewhat easier to cope with.
Cancer is a real fuck.  No question about it. But I can't fully blame a disease when the person carrying it had so much time to get help and treatment.  I'll always remember the good times and fun but I fear it will often be punctuated with bit of anger and resentment.  No matter how angry or upset I am not I don't want to feel that way for any longer than I have to in order to cope with all this.