throwing him a bone

I feel bad for my photography teacher. He's so inept. I mean, maybe he's a good photographer, but it's hard to tell, because he's such a bad teacher. And I can tell the rest of the class feels the same way about him, because there is like dead silence, even when he asks a simple question.

I've taken to asking him questions that I actually already know the answers to just so that he thinks someone is interested enough to participate. Unfortunately, then he rambles on incoherently, and it's hard to prevent my eyes from glazing over. Sure hope he couldn't really make out my expression with only the light from the projector lighting the room tonight.

I'm gonna hang in for one more week, because he'll be covering composition, but after that, I'm probably gonna be ditching the rest of the classes. Such a waste of money, and I had been sooo looking forward to it too :(

i may get one of these

the writing was on the wall

I sensed it was coming. Not sure why, because my younger sister and I aren't especially close, but an email today confirmed that she and her husband are moving away.

It's not very far in the scheme of things, but there's already what feels like a gulf between us due to a fight she and my mother had over the Summer, a fight that my mother just confessed to around Christmas when my sister didn't RSVP for Christmas Eve.

It's not unusual that I don't hear from my sister for weeks on end, but my mother and she used to work in the same office, which is where the fight occurred, and which is apparently why my mother found another job a few months back.

My family is really good at the silent treatment, and so it has been between them since last Summer, but Mom, not wanting to drive a wedge between us sisters (there's 5 of us in all, as well as 2 brothers), kept it to herself, pretending like everything was normal so that we wouldn't take sides.

Mom has said that she's tried to extend the proverbial olive branch, but my sister, who takes a lot after my stubborn father, has refused it. And this move will just make it easier for her to continue to do so.

Time for an intervention? Perhaps. Just not sure she'd be open to hearing any of it.

The Power of Presence

On a recently re-aired edition of NPR's This I Believe, Debbie Hall tells of her belief in the Power of Presence...

True presence or “being with” another person carries with it a silent power — to bear witness to a passage, to help carry an emotional burden or to begin a healing process. In it, there is an intimate connection with another that is perhaps too seldom felt in a society that strives for ever-faster “connectivity.”

I felt this power of presence that she speaks of as my father lay dying in his hospital bed. There wasn't much I could do for him, or my family for that matter. He was unconscious, and we knew he wouldn't be coming out of it. All I could offer was to hold his hand as he left this life. It was probably the closest I ever felt to him.

I knew the most overwhelming worry he had in the last couple months of his life was who would take care of my mother once he was gone. He often hinted about me moving back in with them for just this reason. Not that my mom needs a lot of caring for, she's always been very self-sufficient, but he worried about her nonetheless.  And I like to believe that by holding his hand that last day, it let him know that everything was going to be okay and that he could finally let go.

I don't know if all my siblings felt the same way, but it was such a blessing to me to witness the last hours of my father's life and the way my family came together at the end. None of us could do much, but we were there...present...and that's all that mattered.

a sign?

Is coming across three large black crows, and then them following you for a little bit, a sign of your imminent death?

how do they do it?

How are spammers able to leave anonymous comments without actually visiting your blog?

Well, at least I know that I finally made it in blogdom, because I got two anonymous spam comments today. I decided to change my comment settings. Hope that doesn't cause any headaches for you.

one of us is losing it

So, last night, I was visiting my mother when my sister popped over, and while we were talking, Entertainment Tonight was playing on the TV in the background. As is often the case, my sister was mid-sentence when she interrupted herself and said, "she looks really great for her age," pointing at the television. Talked ensued about how old we each thought Mary Hart was (the host of Entertainment Tonight). Mom was convinced she was in her 60's. I thought she was in her late 50's, and Kathy was arguing, "no way, she's gotta be younger than me [50]". We never could agree how old she was, and I'm sure each of us had it in mind to look it up online later so that we could say we were right and the other two wrong (btw...I was right, she is 59 *smile*).

Not 10 minutes went by, and my sister interrupts herself again, "She sure looks good for being in her 60's." And I look over at my sister, and I can see she's dead serious. And then I look over at my mom dumbfounded and really concerned about my sister. I saw the same expression on my Mom's face. "Wait," I said to my sister, "weren't you the one who just said she was under 50?"  "Oh, hahaha" she replied, "I was talking about Nancy Kerrigan [ice skater, who is 40]." And we all cracked up laughing, because we realized we'd just wasted a lot of time arguing about two different people. Apparently, there'd been a story on the show about Nancy that my Mom & I had missed.

This same sorta thing happened about three more times last night, and it left me thinking that one of us really was losing it...lol.

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UPDATE: My older sister's response to the email I sent to my younger sister sharing this story (I'm thinking she's a little pissed)...lol