« October 27, 2008 | Main | October 30, 2008 »

October 29, 2008

Reviews Are Coming Soon, For Now It's About Pumpkins and Trees!

By: The Dude on the Right
It's a weird thing to go through, the death of a parent, let alone two within a year, but sometimes weird things lead to beautiful things, reflective things, and things you might have never done before.  Beautiful were the trees and stars (and my BFF - as always!), reflective were a batch of 6ish hour drives between the old country of Lorain and the new country of Chicago, and something I've never done before is carve a pumpkin.  I think.

So as I'm working my way back to normalcy, being torn if I should really buy a new MacBook Pro and contemplating getting back into reviewing mode this weekend with the release of the movies "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" and/or "Changeling" or seeing "High School Musical 3," these last few days I'm just working on getting back to posting things, catching up on my TiVo, and hopefully getting a podcast done tomorrow.

But to keep this blog simple, let's get to "Beautiful" and "Reflective" first.

I thought about trying to quantify how many times I've driven between Chicago and Lorain (Lorain is in the state of Ohio for those of you who might not know) over the years, but in simplest terms it has been at least five times a years for the last 22 years, with that number increasing in the past few years.  I'd say it's a long drive, but really it's only about five or six hours, depending on potty breaks, and many a time I have used those hours as personal therapy for a variety of reasons.  People ask why I don't fly home, but in reality, how much time am I really saving by flying?  You're supposed to get to the airport at least an hour and half before your flight, it's about 45 minutes of flying time, and if you factor in airport delays, sitting on the tarmac, having to either get picked up at the airport or rent a car, and then the half hour drive to the old homestead, in the end, I've always found driving to be the prudent mode of travel, with the only wrinkle being when the Lake Michigan snow machine rears its ugly head, dumping snow into the Indiana snowbelt.  The odd things is that in all of those travels I never made that trip to Lorain during the height of the change of seasons in the fall, when the trees were at their brilliant colors and travel was a little lighter because the trip wasn't during a holiday season.  But as things worked out, as my mom's health was fading, I found myself, for a change, on the Indiana Toll Road and Ohio Turnpike as the colors of the trees seemed to be peaking.  As stressful as the times were, between the travel to Lorain knowing it would be for the passing of my mom, to the quick trip back to Chicago after she died to button some things up when the trees were brilliant (and I'm not advocating trying to take a picture with your camera phone while you are driving, but hey, they were some colorful trees), and then driving back to Ohio to bury my mom, during a cold Ohio night, with the constellation Orion being utterly striking, rising over the eastern horizon, so much so that I felt bad keeping it to myself and not waking my BFF to see it, you know, sometimes beauty, wonder, and even pumping gas in the cold air can ease a stressful mind, just when it needs it.

And then came pumpkins.

Mom's funeral had come and gone, but my nephew, niece, and family were still in town, and everyone needed something to do.  I reverted back to normalcy for them - seeing a movie, which sounds bizarre for some folks, but generally worked for all of us at the various holiday times we would get together.  The crappy part is that the movie choices during the weekend of my mom's funeral were crap, but thankfully my BFF was there to save the day.  Well, at first she laid an egg, suggesting bowling, but who knew "bowlers" wouldn't go bowling if they didn't have their own equipment, i.e. balls, bags, shoes, towels, etc., to bowl with.  So when my BFF (and I) suggested going bowling instead of a movie, that suggestions crashed quicker than the Hindenburg.  Then my BFF suggested getting some pumpkins, carving them, and then maybe a dinner, and wouldn't you know it, as complicated as pumpkin picking can sometimes be (especially when the original destination doesn't have any more pumpkins in their patch), somehow pumpkin carving is easier, thanks to those pumpkin carving kits readily available at a Walgreens near you.

And so, after a quick trip to a different, dying, pumpkin patch, various sizes of pumpkins were secured, goop was scooped out of the innards, intricate carvings were attempted as well as some not so intricate, and as my sister and I reminisced about pumpkin carving, well, both of us realized that our family never attempted it, and that there might have been a time, when we were maybe 8 to 12 years old, when we tried to carve pumpkins at our friend's house down the street, and if so, there is no way any of those carvings were as cool as those done by our family, with stencils and appropriate cutting tools, done that Saturday, the Saturday after my mom was buried, when our family didn't go and see a movie, but instead, carved pumpkins.

And it was cool.

Tomorrow should be a podcast, this weekend should be a movie review or two, but for now it's all about getting back to some semblance of normalcy, even if normalcy is now without being able to call your mom on a Saturday morning, at 9:15, when you always do.  And then comes that day when you delete "Mom and Dad" from your phone.  I guess that's another story for another blog, but for now normalcy is the changing of the seasons and carving pumpkins, with family.

Happy Halloween!

That's it for this one!  I'm The Dude on the Right!!   L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 7:59 PM | Comments (0)