Gracepoint

I did it again, I'm sorry. Actually, I only just got back Monday from visiting my aunt and uncle, so I actually have something to post!

While I was there, there was some filming going on in a small shopping district only a few blocks from my aunt's house. I didn't think much about it, because I had never heard of the show. My aunt had seen one of the actors in a pub, but I had never heard of him either. We watched a scene being filmed for a bit, but all we really saw were extras walking around or cars driving by. There was a police car, but other than that, nothing too interesting.

It was only when I was about ten minutes away from home that I was texting my friend and found out that the show, called Gracepoint, is a remake of the popular British mystery called Broadchurch. Not only that, but it has DAVID TENNANT in it. That means that I could have very possibly been on the same street, or at least within a kilometre of the Tenth Doctor. Had I known this on Monday before we left, I would have insisted that we stayed longer to try and find him.

From what I've read, all the filming is being done within the area, or within close by cities. I also have several family members living around there, so I might be able to get them to go out and see if they can find David Tennant. I just really want a picture...

Goodbye, Farmor

This is a very belated post for my grandma, who I called Farmor. (Swedish for father's mother) She died a little over a month ago now, and at the funeral I wrote a poem. I mentioned this earlier and how I was planning on posting it. Well, here it is! (finally)

She was a Queen,

more regal and elegant as any royalty.

Her heart was made of gold,

but she shared the treasure

to ensure everyone was as rich as her with love.

She was a superstar,

wearing her oversized sunglasses

as if to hide her identity,

but it was those sunglasses

that would always identify her.

She was a model

who was always the star of a photo,

no matter if that photo

was supposed to be of her or not.

She was the support

of the household, who helped

her children grow and flourish,

and in turn they took her hand

to return the support four times over.

She was a five star chef,

who made sure everyone was settled

and happy before she started her own meal.

Even the pickiest of eaters

could not complain about her food.

She was entertainment and audience combined,

always laughing, even if she didn’t understand

what she was laughing at.

It was contagious. Only the stone-hearted

could not find joy in her presence.

She was a critic,

the very best one would ever find.

Everyone and everything was beautiful,

and to her it was never a lie,

even if you wore nothing but a potato sack.

She was the wind

that blew the clouds away

to reveal the sun behind,

and when the rain was tears,

the sun was her smile.

She was Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween

and any holiday in between.

She was the slow unwrapper, who had

little care in what the present actually was,

for she knew the real gift was being with her family.

But most importantly, she was a mother,

who raised her four children to become

mothers and fathers themselves.

And she still is an inspiration,

to overcome obstacles as large as

oceans and countries, or as small as

a bed in a hospital.

Late Late Late

I'm so sorry for missing the Friday post. I intended to write it on Saturday, but other things got in the way. I was barely on my laptop or Ipad at all since Friday. The big reason was the funeral of my grandma. We had at least a dozen people over for dinner on Saturday, and had several people staying the night since Thursday.  It was hectic, but a lot of fun. I finally got to meet some family members who I'm friends with through Facebook, and I reconnected with cousins that I had not seen for months, if not years. Unfortunately, it takes a death to bring the family together, it seems. The last time I saw some of these people was when my aunt's brother had died.

Then of course, Sunday was Mother's Day. I would like to say that I was busy spending the day with my mom, but we both had to work. So I woke up early (for me), she opened her presents, then my dad sister and I went out for a bit while she went to work. I would have seen her around seven that night, when I was scheduled to be off work, but my co-worker had not seen her mom all day, so we switched shifts so that she could see her mom, and I got two more hours of work.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I'm considering putting my poem up that I read at the funeral. I've been warned not to put my work online, as it's considered published then, but I don't see myself publishing this poem for money any time soon, as it's far too personal to make sense to anyone other than my family. I'll think about it, and maybe on Wednesday I'll put it up.

Gone

This morning I received news that my Grandmother (who I call Farmor) passed away. We're lucky that my dad and I had gone to visit her yesterday. I kind of knew that it would be one of the last times I got to see her. Now I've been trying to come up with words all morning, and nothing is coming. All I can say is that she died months ago, and what we visited was barely more than a shell. I remember when she lived by herself, and was always bustling around to get dinner prepared while she insisted that everyone else sit down and relax. She always aimed to please, and she never failed. I've written poems and stories about her, about how she was so independent, how she moved from Sweden to Canada and raised her four kids almost by herself. But now that she's gone, I find that all inspiration has vanished too. So I'll just end by saying that I'll miss her, but the grieving started the moment she took the downturn in December. She wasn't the Farmor I remember after that.

Cheese

((Since I'm still 'studying' for my finals, I don't have anything new to write. Nothing exciting has happened, except for the fact that we got out Christmas Tree on Saturday. We did a bit of decorating today, but I think we'll finished it throughout the week. Anyway, here is something that I had written for my Personal Narrative class.))

The first attack must have happened when I was in the eleventh grade. At some point in the early morning, my mom woke me up to say that my dad was in a lot of pain, and that my sister had to drive him to the hospital. Because my mom’s seizure less than a year ago, she had been forbidden from driving until a whole year had passed. We were just lucky that my sister was decent enough at driving by this point to be able to brave the freeways in the dark.

                I stayed home with our dog. She wined and cried, and waited near the window, her ears perked for any sound of a car returning, and her eyes never leaving the driveway. Despite how tired I was, I couldn’t get back to sleep. It almost felt disrespectful to try. While my parents and sister were forced to remain awake, sleeping felt like a luxury. I must have gone to bed at some point, however, because I don’t remember when they came home.

                The next morning I was told it was a gall stone. Nothing too severe or life threatening, as long as he worked to cut fat out of his diet. For a Swede, reducing the amount of cheese he ate was nearly impossible.

                Although it sounds cruel, my dad and I like to joke about such things as this, and if someone wipes out on a bike, we’ll wince, and then start laughing. It’s my theory that is you cannot laugh at the pain of others, you cannot deal with that pain yourself. And so that’s how it went in our house. When my mom asked what we should have for dinner, the first thing I would say is ‘macaroni and cheese, with extra cheese, with some cheese melts on the side.” After all, melted cheese is a nightmare for someone with a bad gall bladder.

                But despite the jests and laughing, we knew it was serious. No more pizza, no more mac n’ cheese, no more cheese melts or cheesecake or grilled cheese or lasagna or tacos. Sometimes I would catch him in the morning with several slices of cheese, and he would argue that it’s only once a week. It’s odd, how easily someone can get addicted to cheese, and even stranger how it seemed to be doing more damage to him than his smoking.

Of course, that once-a-week luxury would always catch up to him. Apparently one time in the mall, around Christmas time, he had a small attack while waiting in line at London Drugs.

I can’t exactly remember when, but it was sunny out and I don’t recall a need for a sweater. During the day, he had an attack. As far as I know, it was the first one during the day that had incapacitated him. My sister and I politely tried to ignore the groans of pain coming from his room. Only when it began to die down did I go to check on him. He sent us out to buy some bubbly water, and when we came back, he was beginning to feel better. As he walked around, looking as if he had not slept in days, he gave me a smile and said that he finally knew how much pain a woman went through when they gave birth. That night we had reservations at a formal restaurant for dinner, but due to my dad’s condition, we had to cancel, instead having a light, fat-free dinner at home.

But out of all those times, one of the latest ones was the worst. Like any diligent and hardworking student, I had been up at one thirty in the morning, working on a paper in between checking Facebook. It didn’t feel that late, because my mom was still walking around downstairs, her heels making a constant annoying clicking sound, and I could hear my dad’s heavy footsteps in their bedroom. Although he always went to bed no later than nine thirty on a weekday, it had become normal to hear him stomping from bed to bathroom and back, even in the wee hours of the morning.

It wasn’t long before he was in too much pain, and an ambulance was called. A few minutes passed, and I heard the sirens. It’s odd, how we can dismiss them as just another sound in the night, but the moment it’s coming for someone you love, each second it gets closer and gets louder, feels like an eternity. Suddenly the sound is sharper, as if everything else has been muted, and the only stirring is that wailing sound. The fire truck came first. And another. The ambulance only arrived after one of the fire fighters had concluded that, yes, my dad was in fact having a gall stone attack. As if we couldn’t have figured that out on our own.

                I remained in my room the whole time, though my mind had wandered too far to be able to properly concentrate on my paper anymore. With a house full of fire fighters and paramedics, someone might have expected me to at least peak out my door. But I didn’t want to see my dad in this state.

I could hear them talking, asking questions.

“How are you feeling?”

“Can you stand?”

“Is the pain gone?”

“We will have to ask you to come to the emergency.”

The fire men and paramedics marched past my door, down the stairs, and out the door. Among them was my dad, shuffling along. My mom, now flustered, scampered around the house, talking to herself to make sure she didn’t forget anything.

“Keys, jacket, scarf, purse, wallet, phone, keys… Where are my keys.”

                Only when my mom was the last one in the house did I dare leave my room. She told me that she had to follow the ambulance to the hospital, and would hopefully be back in a few hours. I silently nodded and returned to my room to get ready for bed.

                But who can sleep when their dad is in the hospital, and their mom is tired enough to possibly get in an accident on the way there or back. As I always do when emotions run rampant in my mind, I began to think. Those thoughts turned to writing, and eventually to poetry. It seems it’s the only time I can truly write about feelings; when they are enhanced by an event such as this. So I turned my light on and picked up my notebook to empty those words from my head;

Oh please, please

Let the sirens pass

Just move, move

To let them go.

It comes close,

The call of the Reaper,

The song of the Angels,

And stops.

Silent as death,

The Last breath

That escapes the quivering lips.

And breathes again.

Oh please, please,

Silence the sirens.

Fall quiet, quiet,

As the sleeping babe.

Pounding steps.

The march of an army.

One by one,

They file by.

Go up, up,

To the resting man.

We wait, wait,

For word of hope.

Faceless, nameless,

The army passes,

The beat of his heart.

Keep walking, keep beating.

Oh please, please,

Let the Sirens pass.

Just move, move,

To let them go.

I placed the notebook down, and succumbed to my leaden eyes.

Like the first time, my dog kept watch, ever vigilant for the car to return. By four in the morning I jolted away to the sound of her happy barking. It must have been adrenalin that made me jump out of bed and rush downstairs, because on any other day, if I was woken at that ungodly hour, I would have just groaned and rolled over. They were both home, looking haggard from the ordeal, but they were most definitely alive. I exchanged a few words before exhaustion crashed down again. As I returned to bed, all I thought was that I was thankful my first class started at four thirty that night, and that I would have plenty of time to sleep in.

He’s getting the gall bladder removed soon, sometime in March. We’re all looking forward to being able to make a cheesy dinner without feeling like we’re taunting him. But once it’s gone, we’ll have to worry about heart attacks. I think I would rather be deprived of cheese, than deprived of a father.

Happy Birth... Week?

My birthday is in a little under a week, on this coming Saturday. But since Thanksgiving (for Canadians) was this week, we had family over. That meant both of my aunt and uncles and my sister; the house was very busy, especially with three dogs. The good thing is, we now have a fridge jam-packed with extra food.

We had turkey dinner on Saturday, then a huge breakfast on Sunday morning. My aunt and uncles left Sunday after noon, but not before giving me a birthday present;

I received a ton of candy.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I love candy. I even have a candy chest which at the moment just barely closes. To be more specific, I got a box of Nerds (already eaten) a large box of Jelly Bellies (Half gone... Especially the black liquorish), a Pez-like Wii controller candy dispenser, a tin of Ghostbuster themed candy, and some chocolates that have been formed and coloured to look like shells or colourful rocks. They're so pretty, I don't want to eat them.

Today my sister is leaving, pretty soon, I think. She gave me a present too, and inside was a very pretty mug with a green and black design on it, two packages of hot chocolate, a small container of candy with a label that says 'Cray People Pills', and a mint case in the shape of Link's shield. I think I might just bring that to my next Zelda party...

(And yes, that is what I look like without make up)

Anyway, just a short post today, since I woke up with a headache and it's still here. I was actually going to write something new, but that might have to wait until after midterms and after birthday parties and the like.