Rant

so i had a mellow day today in cleveland. Snowed like crazy all day and all night. Miserable outside. Went out late with Joe who is here from SF for training with Phillips' medical devision. Drove out to pick him up in MISERABLE driving conditions, and almost got blown off the road a couple times. Picked joe up, drove all over beachwood looking for a bar. then we spent even longer driving around looking for an OPEN bar. finally found some pub and had a couple drinks talking about how weird it is to have "big boy" jobs now. His gig with Phillips sounds pretty rad. He's doing regional engineer stuff for Xray equipment. paid vehicle, expenses, etc. Makes me kinda jealous that he's more regional to the Bay than national like me. Sheesh, don't even have the job yet and i'm already complaining. go me

Joe convinced me i need some sort of palm device. Talking with mary it seems like i may want one of those pda/phone things i've always despised, but finally have a use/need for. joe's like CE device was pretty sweet. And i think i need a new laptop bag. Joe's "record" bag will hold his xbox, laptop, and all the trimmings for both. i imagine it's heavy as hell, but that's the kinda bag i want.

Now off to sleep

Grandma passed away last nite around midnight. I went to matt's to babysit matt while uncle matt took care of things with my mom, madelyn and melissa. Hasn't really hit me yet, but in a way it really has already been digested. It's been such a long time coming that i've come to peace with it. Hope the rest of the family keeps it together, so far they're doing a pretty amazing job.

We'll miss you, Mary.

so i'm still in cleveland. I called the chang today to tell them i wouldn't be around after the 30th, and that i didn't know when i'd be back. Pretty shitty thing to do to them, but i didn't really have any other choice. Jesse was cool about it tho, cuz he's cool about everything.

my aunt Theresa Antinucci came to the house today to see grandma. They've known each other since what seems to me to be the beginning of the universe. You could tell it was rough on her but she was strong. When she came back into the living room i sent her chris gabel's regards, because he loved her. Then i told her this story to take her mind off things and remind her how amazing grandma was:

Chris and I met the entire detroit shoreway gang in Vegas a couple years back. we drove down from slc and they flew in from cleveland. it was 2am vegas time on a thursday morning when we all arived at the Imperial Palace lobby. That's 5am cleveland time on a weeknite. At the front of the line was Grandma and Theresa, side by side as they'd been for decades. I introduced chris to them both, Theresa first. He commented that there aren't enough good names like "aunt theresa antinucci" in salt lake. Then i introduced him to grandma, who said hello and then in a way that only mary zone could (from a wheelchair at 83 years old), she explained "hey we're going over to Harrah's for steak and eggs if you want to come with us". 83 years old at 5am, just off a plane and traveling all night with a group of 40 some people... and she's going next door for steak and eggs. Chris just stood there in awe for a second and i grabbed the handles of her wheelchair and pushed her to Harrah's where we had a lovely breakfast.

it seemed to cheer her up, and you could tell a million other memories of her were all rushing back at once. They were for me, too. It's amazing to think of the impact she's had on lives all over this city. this county. this state. Shit, there's some guy in italy who sends her a fruit basket every year at xmas because she had him to the house one year while he was an exchange student at Case Western or some shit. like 20 years ago.

She's been a council woman. she's run her own businesses. she's ran campaigns for mayors, attorney generals, setators. She raised a huge family thru the depression and even burried her husband and a few of her children. She's been thru more than i can fathom in a thousand years. And even now that she lies in bed, speaks to no one and hasn't eaten in 10 days, she just keeps right on track. I hope to be 1/1000 as amazing for just 5 minutes in my life... and i hope i'm not asleep when it happens.

so i had a subdued evening playing with easynews and hangin with crystal. then around 2:30am in came kaleb with christian and missy. let the games begin. Missy managed to lock herself in the bathroom accidentally. been here 2 years, never seen such a thing. sure was freakin funny tho

it's now 6am. im gonna try to go to bed and get some sleep.

a little recap on the last couple days:

went to the season premiere of Alias at dave and kris's. everybody drank a TON. i don't think anyone actually knows what the show was about Pics here

Headed out to Wendover for my birthday with Crystal. Her stepfather hooked us up with a room at the Rainbow, which was rad. Played a TON of craps. ended the evening up a couple bux and went to bed. got up in the am, checked out, lost about $50. Went home.

Grabbed some lunch, got ready to head out to the chang. I got a phonecall from mary giving me a little update on my situation at wise. she says things are almost finished, which makes me happy. We shall soon see.

I closed the chang last nite... and watched Jessie throw gift cards like darts. he was deadly accurate. then we rode big trays like skimboards on the entree line. it was pretty damn fun. i'm gonna miss him.

Now it's on to the chang. again. hopefully for one of the last times.