My grandmother Irene was lovely, humble, eternally kind, and made the best damn chocolate chip cookies in the world. She lived a good life, raised good kids, and will be sorely missed.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

The rest of his show was as hilarious (and true) as I’d expected, and I loved every minute of it. But his opening was really touching and special, and I think that’s what I’ll remember the most.

I wonder, is this just a post-winter/early-springtime generic malaise, or something more? I suspect that my borderline addiction to the news isn’t helping, now that NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and Google News have launched a massive assault on my senses. Is it the occasional, inexplicable weirdness I am seeing from my car? Does it have something to do with waking up on February 1 to the news of Columbia? Am I still hurting from the departure of Mr. Rogers from this mortal coil? Maybe I’ve got unresolved feelings about Grandma and Grandpa both dying this winter. Maybe it’s the still-lingering traces of guilt I feel about how my fuzzy little Nala left the world, so small and helpless and stupidly tragic.

I just have this feeling like, with a few exceptions, the entire world is systematically going horribly, horribly awry. I have this sick feeling in my stomach wherever I go, and I just can’t seem to shake it.

To borrow a phrase from everybody’s favorite angst-monkey, Trent Reznor, I want to do something that matters. I want to find something that I enjoy doing, and do it. I want to be a part of something meaningful. I want real relationships with friends again, not just the stimulus/response of the glowing screen and online journals. I want to see people, and do things, go places, and have some fun before the world goes completely to hell.

I guess what I’m trying to say is:

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn ?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day
Vera ! Vera !
What has become of you ?
Does anybody else in here
Feel the way I do ?

- Pink Floyd, “Vera”, The Wall

Hopefully all the airplane stuff works out, ol’ Bernoulli still in effect, that sort of thing. And hopefully the weekend works out without anyone getting too cranky at anyone else. The weather has really beaten the crap out of me, and Liz is super-tired from having been up super-early from work, and there are always some family tensions…

I’ll catch y’all later. Have a great weekend!

I spent most of the morning sleeping/vegetating in bed while the cat lay between my knees, pinning me in place. After I could no longer bear the Today show, I watched “Dial H for Hitchcock,” a documentary about (duh) Hitchcock and his films. Made mental notes to watch more of his films — I have catching up to do.

Shortly after learning that Home Improvement’s Al is now hosting Family Feud, I decided that it was time to get out of bed. After the full course of daily hygeine, I felt much more human and stumbled downstairs in search of food. I settled on yesterday’s leftover kung pao chicken, which reheated nicely.

I have spent much of the rest of the afternoon reaping the benefits of last night’s TiVo harvest — Futurama, Daily Show, Freakazoid, Lupin, and more. I am just about officially converted to a TiVo junkie already. I may now be vastly more efficiently enslaved to my media masters, whoopee! The one thing I can tell right away, though, is that I will definitely want to upgrade my cabling (and multiswitch, and possibly dish) in order to pump a second DirecTV feed into the second tuner of the DirecTiVo, thus preventing the “can’t change the channel, we’re recording something else right now” syndrome. But all in all, I am definitely in love with it so far!

My mom has taken over planning for Grandpa’s funeral services, which is a good thing, since my aunt was just getting overloaded with responsibilities. The service will be on March 1, so I won’t be doing birthday festivities that weekend (new plans TBA).

The cat has now re-discovered my lap, making posting difficult, so I think that’s enough for now.

So, the quick update:

Sunday, the day after the Columbia disaster, my grandfather finally passed away. This came as more of a relief than a surprise, but given its timing — not thirty days after the death of his wife, and the day after a national tragedy — really stinks. He had been in a nursing home for 10 years, essentially waiting for Alzheimer’s to finish him off. In many ways, I have already mourned his loss and moved on, since it has been a decade since he recognized me.

I started getting sick yesterday afternoon, with sore throat all day that eventually spawned some dizziness and low-level nausea. I actually left work early, figuring I had better drive home while I was still capable of doing so. It turns out it was a good idea, since the fever and aches arrived as the night went on. I watched the cast commentary for FotR (finally), though I slept through the last 45 minutes or so. I woke up around three this morning, moaning, and basically couldn’t get back to sleep for the rest of the night. When we finally got around to measuring my temperature this morning, I had hit 101.8 degrees, so we figured that maybe I should take the day off from work. Since then my fever has been all over the place — at the doctor’s office I was down to 95 degrees, and now I’m up to 98.8 again. Whee….

But on the up side, I was here when the FedEx man arrived with my TiVo. I’m off to get it all set up, can’t wait!

“I read the news today, oh boy”

I hate when people tell me to turn on the news, and this morning is no exception.

In the coming days, there will be much speculation, supposition, analysis, and the inevitable media circus. Our space program, which I truly believe is the only long-term hope for the survival of all humanity, will surely grind to a sudden halt. And our nation will grieve along with the families of those astronauts who are now lost.

What will be important, and hopefully not lost among the sorrow and din, are the words of Ilan Ramon of Israel, who wished dearly for peace.

“When we go up to space, Earth is one unit, unity, no borders are seen from there. And lately, I think, in the last 10 or 20 years, with all the communication and information revolution, Earth became a kind of global village, and nothing more than space can contribute to that.”

“I think people are very happy to be distracted by my flight and NASA flights, maybe to forget a little bit of their problems and get out there with us.”

“The world looks marvelous from up here, so peaceful, so wonderful and so fragile.”

It is this vision that we must hold to if humanity is to survive itself. It is this vision of peace and unity that we must be true to, to aspire to, and to one day make reality.

Farewell, Columbia; your dream will live forever in our hearts.

I’ll probably (maybe) post more later, but for now, I will leave you with this:

When we got back from our trip to the grave, and then the church, there was a rainbow in the western skies, right over the mountains, and though it was fading quickly, it was glorious.

Thank you, Margaret Ellen Taylor, for everything. I’ll see you in the funny pages.

In spite of my no-more-vacation angst, today wasn’t bad. In fact, it was really quiet and slow — too quiet. It was downright eerie. I kept waiting to be suddenly swamped, to find myself thrust into the heart of the crisis du jour, but it never happened, much to my surprise and eventual relief.

It will be a short week anyway, since we will travel to Denver on Friday to attend the memorial services for my grandmother.

I got nine journal entries from the Hawaii trip edited and posted, with a couple minutes to spare before West Wing, so I’m feeling pretty good about that. And now it’s time to run! Hope you enjoy catching up on our vacation adventures.

Apparently so is the Ohio weather. We hear it hasn’t snowed since Christmas. And it’s just started up since we’ve been headed home. Obviously expecting us.

We flew all night to get to Chicago. Liz watched the in-flight entertainment, and I read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (thanks, sam16, it’s good stuff). I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to go to sleep right away after getting done with it, and had no nightmares.

Well, I thought I didn’t have any nightmares, but the rest of the trip kind of turned into one.

We had about ninety minutes on the ground in Chicago, during which time I was able to see the weather on CNN, and the CNN man said that it was snowing in Cleveland. Joy.

We had some bagel breakfast sandwichy things, which felt good at the time because they were hot. They felt less good in a little bit, but at least it was sustenance.

Our flight to Cleveland was late boarding. The flight attendant lady (and I use the term “lady” instead of all the rude things that I think about her) made a fuss about maybe my backpack, laden with delicate things like my iPod, would have to be checked. We exchanged a few words, with her being on the nasty side. She went so far as to grab a strap on it as I was walking to my seat and pull back on me; I had to loudly say, “Please let go of me!” for her to give up. My bag, as I expected, fit under my seat just fine, f— you very much.

So it was late leaving too. By the time we got off the ground, it was starting to be light, and we could see that we were back in the land of winter.

I hate the stupid little regional jets they fly between Cleveland and Chicago; they are small, cramped, have no overhead storage worth speaking of, are hot as hell on the tarmac (even in the middle of winter), the seats suck, the flights are always late, and they generally make me angry. Argh! At least it’s just a short flight, one hour, to Cleveland.

Or so we thought.

We had to hold position about 70 miles outside of Cleveland because of the snow — one of the runways had been closed, and the other one was swamped with the remainder of the traffic. We circled for about half an hour before starting our approach. Then, probably about five minutes from the ground, we had to break off our approach because the second runway had gotten too icy. The plane right ahead of us had “almost no braking action”. (It turns out that it slid off the runway — d’oh!)

So, we got diverted to Detroit, landed there, and got fueled up. As we were landing, we heard that the runway had been de-iced and was open again. Should be a quick turnaround, right? Wrong.

Three passengers decided that they no longer wanted to fly to Cleveland. So that meant an extra twenty minutes on the ground while an American Airlines agent came out to the plane to deplane these three wastrels. By the point we had gotten rid of them, and their junk, we had lost our place in line for a departure and spent awhile longer on the ground.

Finally, we were airborne, and made it to the Cleveland airport without further incident. All of our luggage arrived, so at least something today had gone in our favor.

The guy with the towncar was waiting for us, and took us back home to Westlake, by which point I was so punch-drunk delirious that I didn’t notice when he billed us double the fare we had been quoted on the phone, and added a generous tip to the bill, despite having been tipped in cash on both our drive to and return from the airport. Needless to say, once I was conscious enough to realize the problem, I was pretty upset. I doubt we’ll ever do business with them again, and I am pretty tempted to contact the Better Business Bureau and/or dispute the charge when I get the bill.

The cat was overjoyed to see us, and loudly voiced her complaints with our absence. Then we slept, and the cat slept on us. We rested for about three hours, then dragged ourselves out of bed to shovel snow. Welcome back to reality, I guess. I finally got a shower and a change of clothes once done shoveling, and that felt pretty good.

Sifted through the mail. Mostly crap. Some bills. Whee.

Liz goes back to work tomorrow; I have the day off, and I expect to sleep in one last time. I also have to make arrangements for flying to Denver on Friday to attend the services for my grandmother, have to get a rental car, etc. And I hope to at least sort and upload pictures tomorrow too. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll start posting all of these journal entries then too; we’ll just have to see I guess.

I watched whales for awhile with my father, then we went down below to find Liz and my mother. They turned out to be on the balcony of our room, and just like the sea, too quiet.

A fax had arrived at my parents’ room sometime after breakfast.

My grandmother Taylor passed away a few hours ago.

My uncle Reid was with her at the end, and says she just stopped breathing, letting go gracefully and easily. She was a very special lady, and the world will be worse off without her to brighten it.

So the ocean today mourns her passing, as do we all.