first, the bad: my sweet gramma passed away yesterday, on her 92nd birthday. i loved this woman so much; i spent so much time with her in my childhood, and a lot of time in the last few years of her life. she lived a great, full life, i know... but i am just so sad. she was totally mentally with it until maybe the last month, so that was really a blessing...but, she fell out of her chair and broke some bones and had internal bleeding, so there was nothing they could do but put her in hospice and keep her comfortable. i credit her for my love of yard sales and flea markets and farmer's markets and johnny cash. she made the best holiday dinners i've ever had...this woman would get up at 3 am and make these giant meals all by herself, and EVERYONE would come to her house...my family, my aunt and her family, my uncle and his family, gramma's stepbrother and his family, various friends...just everyone. her house was packed all day and all night. she was really wonderful, and i've been kind of a mess for the past week because she couldn't speak or keep her eyes open, and she looked nothing like the gramma i've always known. in one of the last conversations i had with her, she told me how special i was to her, and i told her the same...we talked a lot about when i was little, how every weekend i would sleep over at her house, just because i wanted to be with her. during the summer, i would stay for weeks at a time. and i lived in the same town! i just loved being at her house, and hanging out with these
2 other girls that went to my school and
lived on her block. and she spolied me rotten, of course. :)
i am thankful that she is at peace now, and finally with my pappy (who passed away in 1998 at 88 years old...he tripped and fell coming inside the house because "the price is right" was on. i shit you not. that man never missed "the price is right" a day in his life.) my 2 sisters and i are going to be pallbearers at her funeral along with chris, my sister's husband, and my cousin. that's gonna be a tough one. my mom also asked if i wanted to speak at the funeral, but i don't think i can get through it...
and now, the good...
despite my grieving state, chris and i got up at 5 am and magically whisked ourselves away to delaware
("hi...i'm in delaware...") to wait in line for
white stripes tickets. it was only a little over an hour away, and there were like 50 people in line already when we got there. eek! but, after careful calculating, we felt secure that we would get some tickets, and we did! wooooooo! and we got pretty decent seats (see above photo, we are in the very front row of that side section. not too shabby!). we each bought two tickets, because we overheard that practically everyone was buying 4 (the limit), and if you bought 2, the availablity was closer to the stage. i think that the theory was correct, because this girl who was at least 10 people ahead of us in line bought 4 and came out and her tickets were in the very back. and she didn't look too pleased. at any rate, looks like 2 of our lucky friends will be going to the show with us! or, two lucky ebayers will be paying a retarded amount of $$$ for these tickets at the last minute if we can't find anyone to go.
the venue, the
grand opera house in fabulous downtown wilmington, seats a mere 1,100, so there isn't really a bad seat in the house. i mean, seriously.
look how small this place is!!! and the top of the bulding (in the center with the two little windows and the triangle)
looks like a chicken!! this place seems to be or once was a masonic lodge...hmmm...my dad's a mason...wonder if i can get him to pull some strings? "ok dad, i've never asked you to use your
masonic connections ever before in my whole life...now's the time. i need to meet jack white. make it so!!!"
the place looks
totally cool inside, too. so, i'm really excited. this will be white stripes shows #5 for me (#3 for chris), and only my 2nd indoor stripes show. this is shaping up to be a good summer for me, concert-wise. bob dylan, the police, and the white stripes all in the span of one month. we also have loose plans to go back to the
rock n' roll hall of fame this year, because there's a big doors thing. but also because it's awesome. we went in '03 and it was seriously one of the best times ever. and hopefully we can hit up
cedar point again and get our coaster on as well.
and what is the ugly, you may ask? well, i decided to make some jell-o this afternoon. strawberry! mmmmmm. but a little boring all by itself. i have no cool whip handy, and i didn't feel like going to the store just for cool whip, you know? then i remembered when we would get jell-o in school, and it would always have bits of delicious fruit floating delicately and evenly throughout the jell-o blob. hey, i thought...i have some blackberries! that would be de-lish!!! WELL. they all sunk to the bottom of the bowl. how in the hell do you get them to float around?!? am i an idiot? what am i not understanding here? do you have to put it on its side, or add them halfway through the chilling process, or what? maybe it has to be made in like a long flat pan and not a bowl...whatEVER. eating that later is gonna be u-g-l-y...i ain't got no alibi, it's UGLY! i'd take a picture of it, but a certain co-worker of mine (accidentally) spilled an ENTIRE BEER on my camera in orlando and now it doesn't work. i'm not going to mention any names...MARTY!!!! >:(
*heavy sigh* this is all too much. i'm gonna take a nap now.
