Spitting Prohibited

And now it's time to embarass Dad

OK in the last episode in the continuing saga that is the World According to Sketch, I showed you some cute adorable pictures of my Mom that may or may not be from her 2nd birthday...I go today to ask my Aunt, who may or may not know because she is something like 8 years younger than my mom, but I will ask anyway...

In fairness I will now show you my favorite picture of my Dad growing up (and tell a few stories on him as well...sorry about that Dad...I did warn you in the title).

And here it is:    Look at those cute little cowboys!!!  I'm saying this is about 1951 (Dad looks about 5 there doesn't he?)  Please correct me if I'm wrong though.

Oh yes you wanted to hear the dirt right?  So in attempting to find a correlating picture to go with my favorite picture there of the Senior and Junior Cowboys, I found this one...

Wait, what's that there in Dad's hands?  Let's try to clean that up a bit...  Is that a kitten?  Why yes, I do believe that is a kitten...heh heh heh...time to tell stories.

Is it just me?  Or is that a distinct "little brother" look on John's face there that says "Ooooh you are so in Trouble!"  Is that a slightly guilty look on Steve's face?  And can you almost hear my grandmother yelling "Steven!  You put that kitten down now!"

Perhaps it's just me...maybe I've just heard the story more than once how Dad and Uncle John felt the need to test the theory that Cat's always land on their feet by taking the barn cats up to the hay loft and throwing them out the loft window.

                                                                ...is it just me?  or do you see it too?

*editorial note: I did not have room on the layout to mention my Dad telling me this story with a slightly guilty/slightly devious grin on his face.  And as a response to my question, "Well they almost always landed on their feet."

**perhaps I should add as well that it is my belief that said terrorized cats were tossed into piles of hay below.  Still plenty ornery, but better than being tossed out of there without anything soft to land on don't you think?

Oh and here's the strictly cute one:

Scare-wy

As most of you know my mother passed away in August, 2005 of ALS.  Some of you may know that my Grandmother passed away in August, 2004 of the same disease.  My grandmother did not have the extensive treatment my mother received so there is some internal family debate there, but as her disease progressed in such a similar way to my mother's, and in deed was the catalyst of getting my mom to finally seek treatment.

My mom tested negative for the then only known genetic link for ALS (the genetic cases of ALS are very minimal anyway), my Grandmother did not receive the test.  Regardless, we all breathed a sigh of relief when we got the news of mom's negative results.  However, today there is news of another genetic link.  Again, this link has been shown in minimal cases, so there is no reason to assume that my mother would have tested positive for this link either.

Besides the obvious that both she and her mother died of the same disease.  The same extremely rare disease.

Tom called me to tell me of the new research development, he'd seen it on the web.  He's always excited to see any developments in ALS research.  Usually I am too.  But this one is scary.

I did a little research myself, and found that there is an ALS research center here.  And I called them and volunteered to participate in a research study.  The doctor overseeing the research (I've forgotten his name) will be calling me in the next few days to discuss the procedure, and schedule the testing.

Assuming I don't chicken out.  (I'm not going to.  But a little part of me really wants to.)

I know it's a good thing to do.  I'm trying to focus on the vastly more likely result, that the tests will show nothing unusual and my results will just be added to the control group.  To do it's small part in helping doctors to be able to understand this disease.  Or that I would love to see this disease eradicated and if this small part is my only part in that, at least I will have done what I could do. Or that when I get the results that nothing is unusual I will have one more reason to breathe easy, more reason for confidence.

But there is a small part of me terrified that they will find something.

Day 15

Yes it's true we are now on day 15 of the almost 3 week visit from my Dad and Kate.  We have all survived.  We all mostly like each other.

I count this as success.

However, we still have 3 more days to go in which to ruin our relationship forever.

Just kidding Dad.

I'm sure we would get over it in a year or two should something catastrophic happen.  We're a forgiving family.

**Incidentally, I found out at lunch yesterday my Aunt Leslie reads my blog occasionally, everyone in unison say "Hi!  Aunt Leslie!!" (double incidentally, I typed that originally "unisom" perhaps a subliminal message that I got up way to early this morning.)  It would be nice if my family would occasionally post a comment or two so I would know they were reading.  I mean in other ways then a casually dropped comment about something they read on my blog 6 months ago...a comment is not really that painful.  A "Hi!" or "That's so funny" is not that mentally challenging or painful is it?  And is still appreciated.  (Although in Aunt Leslie's case it may well be painful if her hands are giving her trouble.  If that's what's happened to your comments Les, and you've been wishing and dreaming of posting a comment then OK, you are excused. But the rest of you...)  Although I try to require some mental exertions from myself in order to post (hence the extreme lack of posts lately), I don't rate my commenters in order of witty to dull on the Richter scale.

**Incidentally #3: Does the phrase Richter scale remind anyone else of "Big Trouble in Little China" or is it just me?  Or are you all about the death and destruction side of Richter scale?

  Just remember what old Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right in the eye and says, "Give me your best shot. I can take it."

OK I can't find the quote about the Richter scale, but I know it's in there somewhere.  I just know it.  Like you know about a good melon.  (Quick name that movie!)

But you didn't come here to hear about that, did you. You came for this:

Day 1 - They arrive.  They arrive on my day of cleaning (which was preceded by the 2 days of wrapping and shipping and slapping stamps on Christmas cards).  They arrive on the day after Grant's "Winter" Recital, afterwhich I come home to find a message that they will now be arriving an hour earlier or so than I had planned.  Let the frantic cleaning frenzy begin...

Day 2 - We play Apples to Apples Jr.  We realize, and by "we" I mean just the adults, the kids cannot seem to fathom this fact, that Grandma Kate does not really enjoy playing board games.  (The children have since tried to cure this shocking condition -- of which they are not really aware -- by continued repetition of requests to play games.

Day 3 - We take Dad and Kate downtown to walk about Pittsburgh.  I don't take a camera. Sorry.  It is here where I am realizing that I am not nearly taking enough pictures.  We eat lunch at Famous Joe's (or something like that) which did not suit Dad and Kate's tastes in terms of largeness of subs, but I think they enjoyed heading to the PPG building, seeing the out door skating rink, checking out the display of Gingerbread Houses, and our narrow avoidance of the puking man in the food court.  Well perhaps they did not enjoy that experience, but our avoidance of the impending urpiness is surely something for which to be grateful.

Day 4 - We drive to Wheeling, West Virginia to see and .

"...the show has grown into one of the nation's largest, covering more than three hundred acres over a six-mile drive throughout the resort. "

Not a bad way to spend an evening, if and only if, you arrive just after the sun sets and can pretty much start driving through the lights, but if you think you are going to go after dinner, you will be stuck in a long long long long long long long long long (have I made my point yet?) long long long long long long long long long long long line of traffic on a windy road with no exits or desperation change-your-mind-I'm-getting-out-of-this-madness pullouts.  I was amazed as we drove out at the incredibly long line (I knew you missed that above so I'm mentioning it again now) of people waiting for their chance to drive through the electric splendor.  If I had waited as long as those people I would have driven out pretty upset that we'd driven all the way down there for that!  Also there is no nativity scene.  You will think at one point when you see a giant star (over a menorah incidentally) that appears to be guiding one around the bend and up over a hill that when you reach the base of the star there will be a Christ child, but you will not find Him.  You will find fancy moving Christmas tennis players though.  Again, if you go before dinner this will be a disappointing fact but not entirely upsetting, "We wasted our entire evening on THAT!" kind of thing.  After Dinner?  Big time annoying.

Day 4 - Sunday dinner at Shauna & Kevin's plus Nick and Karina and minus Shauna, who felt ill.  Uh oh, is there an urpiness theme going on?

and contemplating if Grandpa really would pour that water over his head if he didn't stop misbehaving at the dinner table and which would be a really cute picture of brother and sister if I hadn't gotten the light fixture in Nick's face, you know we still love you right Nick, and and it's not everyday you get snowmen with bullet holes, and and cross-dressing .

And...

                                                                                           You'll just have to wait for days 6-10...

I have to keep you in suspense somehow.