Caught Up in the Family Tree

May 22, 2006 at 1:12 am (Uncategorized)

I feel like I’ve been immersed in family history research for days on end. I just finished cutting out 9 family trees, loads of green squares for the kids to glue in place, and just finished making directions. I would hate to have some kid cry and say, “But I don’t have a daddy!” or something like that just because my tree might have one, so I intentionally left it rather blank, with directions to customize it at home. Still, they look very cute.

Today our Black Swallowtail butterfly hatched out of her cocoon! I was peeved that I missed watching it emerge – because I had been checking it every few minutes – it really looked like something was happening soon. Sure enough, the little thing was out of it’s cocoon, and Nathan called to me, sounding rather surprised that a butterfly had gotten in our jar. I sat holding it on my arm while it dried out its wings, and then placed it on a parsley plant and came out a little while later to see it flutter away. It was so cool. And I took pictures, but still can’t do my photo posting quite as easily as I would like.

In other news, my boozy neighbor managed to fall asleep with her speakers blaring out the window – playing Van Morrison, “I’m in Heaven, I’m in Heaven, I’m in Heaven, when you smile” (aka the most repetitive song ever written) HOWEVER, there was something wrong with the CD and it would get almost done and then repeat the song. This went on for about 45 minutes before I thought I was going to have to go over there and kill her. Whisper-Yelling out the window didn’t work. Banging on her door and yelling in her window didn’t work. I finally assumed she wasn’t home, and when her landlords appeared I ran down to beg them for a key or something so I could shut it off. I even heard other neighbors yelling for her to shut that fucking music off! I kind of wish I had just called the cops on her just to throw her into a tizzy. As it was, I got the key, and went in to stop it. And she was home in bed with the lights on and completely passed out. (When I say asleep, I mean probably drunk as a skunk and “on Meds” as she says.) I don’t know her medical issues, and frankly I don’t want to. What I really want to do is move the hell out of this dump and go to Asheville, where people care about their neighbors!

Last night I actually was at a party at her house, sitting on the porch with her friends, and drinking Sangria (and plenty of it!) It was my first time over there (not going to be a habit) and actually this evening is the first time I’ve ever stepped foot in her house. (It was a wreck). And honestly, if she had woken up to find me unlocking her door, and carried on or yelled at me, I might have had to sit her down and tell her about herself. Why the hell are her speakers always pointing out the window, anyway! In any event, I had a nice time last night, and I saw that I’m not the only one who knows Cindy cannot hold her liquor (or whatever the hell she’s on) at all!

So much to tell – Thursday I spent hours on end researching history for the school secretary (pro bono, I might add) but it was a lot of fun for me. She knew only her grandparent’s names, but I was able to find back several generations using Census records, and in contrast to research on my own family, it was pretty easy to find her people in every census – they even lined up (and had uncommon enough names) that I could find the person as a child with his/her parents and then move back a generation almost every time till I ran out of Census records to check. Today, I got an email from Ancestry saying they just added the 1841 UK Census, so I had to blow about 2+ hours looking for my England people, and while I did find some new things, my folks are far more elusive than I would prefer.

I am all set to make my presentation to Alex’s class tomorrow – I only need to whip up a batch of cookies (stupid last minute!). Tomorrow morning should be lots of fun! Elliot’s class presentation is Tuesday, and should be great – I’m feeling prepared for it – and at least I’ll have the cookies ready a little more in advance for his group!

Tonight we went to Trip’s cousin’s 21st birthday party. Made me feel quite old, as we were up with the “grownups” and all the kids were downstairs playing “Beer Pong” (while my kids watched – they were quite comfortable in the room with the big kids.) My sister in law continued her streak of being a freak. She lives to shock and disgust everyone, but I particularly find it loathsome. Tonight she: Text messaged my husband Trip a photo of someone’s balls with the message “You’ve been teabagged” (Lovely). Regaled a somewhat large mixed group about her dog’s medical problem which warranted the creation of rather female looking genitalia which she described in some detail (foul). Described in detail the female medical problems of Trip’s cousin’s wife, who just had surgery. (Maybe she didn’t want everyone to know her business. Oh well, too late now!) And another favorite, (and she does this crap all the time) – she prompted her son as he was saying his goodbyes (he’s 3) to yell to the birthday boy “I hope you get lucky!” Aww, how cute! There were other things – she makes me so sick – yet another reason I’d love to live far away from her.

I am very close to finishing my heritage scrapbook, but I don’t know if I’m close enough to continue working on it tonight, or just give up, bring it as is to Alex’s class and try to finish it up before Elliot’s class presentation. come to think of it, there really isn’t any reason to show a bunch of 5 year olds – they really won’t appreciate it. There, that was easy! I’ll just put out the butter to soften up and hit the hay.