Category: Family

Posted on

Dear House

I wanted to say thank you for sheltering me and the rest of my siblings and my parents for almost 60 years.

There are times I know that I took you for granted, and other times that I was glad you were there for me to come home to.

I’m sorry that we failed to keep up with your issues, but I’ve found that many houses that are as old are also not in the best shape either.  Just know that we tried our best.

You’ll not be forgotten, as many friends and family have expressed how they have good memories of you.  I’m not going to list any because that would take forever, and I don’t want to start crying as I make a list.

I’ve said recently that you stopped feeling like my home some time ago.  This is not through any fault of yours, it’s just a feeling that I’ve had as I’ve gotten older.

I don’t know how I’ll feel as I move on into apartment life, I just know that I’ll probably never live in San Francisco ever again.

You were my first home.  I’ll never forget that.  You’ll probably be my first and only house that I’ve lived in and I sure as hell won’t forget that either.

Maybe your next owner will take much better care of you.  but I doubt they’ll have the same kind of memories that I have of you.

Maybe it’ll be good for you to get renovated, so you can go on to shelter others as you did my family.

Whatever the future brings, I’ll always have my memories of you.

Again, thanks.

Posted on

82

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Miss you and love you. ♥

Posted on

Crap Shoot

It really is.

You never know how you’ll react when a memory strikes you.

This is especially true on the anniversary of certain events.

I woke up knowing what today is, and felt oddly calm.

It wasn’t until I got up and walked past the spot where I found him 4 years ago that the feelings, emotions, anxiety returned.

And that’s all I’m going to say about this today.

Miss you, Dad.

Posted on

I got chills….

… and luckily no more than that.

I was laid up in bed most of Friday, from an onset of chills in the early morning, to spending most of the rest of my day knocked out.

This is the most I’ve slept in one day in a long time.

I managed to get up to shower and eat some Belvita breakfast biscuits and tea, but after that, I just collapsed onto my bed.

I got up again around 2pm and at a couple of dinner rolls for late lunch, and that’s when the chills really started to get me.

Concerned that I was, I took a home COVID test that came up negative.

I texted my sister to let her know what was going on, and she called and came home with some won ton soup.

Around 6pm I got up and had a small bowl of soup, took some cold/flu medicine, and proceeded to fall unconscious for the next 10 hours or so, occasionally waking up to see what time it was, but drifting off immediately after that.

Around 5:30 am I got up, still a little dizzy, but no chills.  I took a shower which seemed to clear my head a bit more, and then I finished off one of the take out containers of won ton soup and a glass of ginger ale.

I feel fine now, but still a bit meh.  Hopefully it was just a 24 hour bug.

Ah, the healing powers of won ton soup and ginger ale.  And cold medicine.

Thanks, Jen.

Posted on

17

The weird thing is that I think about my parents daily, yet today’s anniversary just snuck up on me.

Probably because I can’t believe it’s already freaking September.

17 years since she left us.

Miss you, Mom. I love you.

Posted on

Film to Digital

As if I didn’t have enough hobbies/projects in my spare time…

Since a little after my Mom passed away, I had this idea of converting any and all Super 8mm film that I could find into digital video files.

The cost of offsite conversion concerned me, along with the idea of shipping these memories elsewhere.

After Dad passed away, I started looking into getting a home system to do this, but again, the price was a bit high.

Recently I checked pricing on these units again, they had dropped to an affordable price point, and decided to pick one up.

It seems to do the job well, having digitized about a dozen and a half 3-minute reels of film (at a rate of around 30 minutes per reel) and I’m pretty satisfied with the output.

For example: from about 45 years ago, Christmas 75.

Watching these films reminded me of another reason I didn’t convert them right away, it was still painful to see home movies of ones who have moved on, but age has made it a bit… less painful to watch.

It’s also fun to watch my niece, reacting to movies of her mother (my sister) as a baby.

Gotta say that’s it’s oddly satisfying and emotional to do this, seeing memories from over 40 years ago, and preserving them.