Tag: life

I watched the movie Men in Black the other night on Netflix, before I went to bed. I’ve seen it so many times… I have a really vivid memory of going out to watch it in the lounge room at mum and dad’s place after everyone had gone to bed, back when I was working at Apple and finishing work at 9:00pm. I think I probably had a month or more of watching it at least a couple of times a week. There’s just something about it I really love; I think it’s the thought of there being a whole other unseen… civilisation? System of life? I don’t know what the best word for it is.

It’s the same reason I always enjoyed being out and about in the city (way back when) in the really wee hours of the morning when all the garbage trucks and cleaning people were doing their thing, and nobody has any idea that they’re there. There was a book I bought for dad from the Harvard book store in Boston called The Works: Anatomy of a City, and it had a similar theme, all about the things that have to go on behind the scenes of a modern city to keep things running.

Maybe I just like feeling insignificant in the grand scheme of things? I certainly love that feeling when gazing up at the stars and looking at space and such.

How is it now 2015?! I have no idea where last year went!

We went over to a friends’ place for New Year’s Eve, there were two fondue sets and a raclette grill plus the cheese of the same name. It was so. Good. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much cheese. kungfupolarbear made both a spinach dip and sweet potato pie, and both went over an absolute treat, they were delicious! Our friends’ live in an apartment, so unfortunately we couldn’t bring Beanie, and they don’t have air conditioning either, so it ended up being pretty toasty with all the dinner accoutrements that produce heat!

Next year is either going to be at ours, or at another couple’s place (they just bought a house, so we could bring Beanie and it has air conditioning).

Today has been a very lazy day consisting mostly of puttering around on the Internet, and playing Dragon Age: Inquisition.

We just got home from our Christmas lunch at my parents’ place. Haven’t heard a peep from Lily’s mother, so this is the first Christmas in a very long time (possibly ever) that we’ve not seen Lily. It’d definitely be nice to see her, but avoiding all the obnoxiousness that comes with having to deal with her mother is also nice, heh.

My sister, her husband, and their two kids came up from Nowra which was nice, as they don’t normally make it up here for Christmas. It was also our first Christmas since Nanny died, so that was a bit sad. Mum had a photo book printed with a bunch of photos from Nanny’s life, so that was lovely. 🙂

I got a heap of books (six Discworld novels—all of which I’ve read but never actually owned—, three Warhammer 40,000 novels, and Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”), plus a tabletop game called X-Wing. Think Warhammer 40,000 but with Star Wars ships instead! I’ve never played it before but have heard good things and am excited to try it out!

Nanny’s funeral was yesterday. It was sad, of course, but mum made a really nice speech with lots of funny stories, and she was holding up really well. Several people commented that mum looked much more relaxed how — I can’t imagine how stressful the last few months had been for her. They had a slideshow of photos from Nanny’s life, and I was happy to see a number of my photos of Nanny from various Christmases being used. The music played as everyone was leaving the ceremony was Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, which everyone cracked up at.

There were quite a few relatives there that I’d never even laid on eyes before, apparently we have a number of them from Queensland. It was nice to catch up with some of my other relatives that we don’t see too often, too. We’ve never really been a family who had those stereotypical massive family gatherings, which I’m quite okay with, heh.

Today we’re off to see the Dogs on Show, well, show. It’s only purebred dogs, which is a bit annoying, but it’s great to wander around and see all the different breeds that you’ve never seen before. There will of course be lots of photos taken.

Good lord. FIVE YEARS. Crazy! It’s seriously just so effortless, I think that’s why it’s gone so quickly. kungfupolarbear has commented that it feels like we’re having one big long sleepover, and it’s totally true.

Every marriage should be between people who are best friends, and that’s absolutely the case with us. <3

Nanny passed away yesterday, at about 2:15pm.

My grandma (my mum’s mum, who’s my sole remaining grandparent, known as “Nanny”) has been in and out of hospital a fair bit in recent years. She’s turning 90 at the end of this year and has been having heart troubles for a while, though her mind is still sharp as a tack.

I got a call from mum on Monday night saying that Nanny had decided that she was sick of hospital, wanted to be discharged, wasn’t going to be taking any medicine anymore, and was just going to let nature take its course. She was going to have to take thirteen tablets in one hit, which is astonishing (and horrible, and I can see why she decided to do what she did). I said we could come to visit on Saturday, and mum said that she wasn’t sure Nanny would still be around by then. Naturally there was a whole lot of sadness and tears. Nanny had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, so I took the day off work today and kungfupolarbear and I went over to visit today.

It was actually quite a happy visit, Nanny was in really good spirits, much better than I’ve seen her for a while. Mum was there, my sister had driven up from Nowra, and my uncle was up too. We had a good chat for a couple of hours, filled Nanny in on all Beanie’s latest happenings (she’d been absolutely delighted by him when she came over a month or so ago), and griped about the state of politics, hehe.

Both kungfupolarbear and I feel a lot better about things now, and who knows, now that Nanny’s not on a heap of medicines she may last another number of months. Either way, she was really happy to see the both of us, which was nice.