What. A. Year.

Well, folks, this has been quite the year. Let's take a little trip down memory lane...

January: Celebrated 6 years with my then girlfriend in Victoria. Watched her leave for India for 6 weeks before I left for India, myself. Started building a friendship with someone who was, at that point, only an acquaintance.

February: Left for India at the beginning of the month for four weeks in Bangalore for work.

March: Returned from India to a life that had changed a bit. Started socializing more with friends. Had a very fun and interesting welcome back party. Continued building friendship with the person who used to be an acquaintance.

April: Ended my six year relationship with my girlfriend. Road trip to Vegas with a friend, and on the return, San Francisco. Start friendships with several people and become part of a new circle of friends.

May: Started seeing someone I knew in high school. This did not last for long (see below).

June: The fit hits the shan and thus begins the worst summer of my life.

July: Yup, the fit's still in the shan and summer still sucks, but I took a motorcycle training course and I bought a motorcycle. Woo!!!!

August: The fit's no longer on the shan. I take a deep breath and life starts to simmer down. I turn 28. I take another road trip with a different friend - this time to LA to see the Price is Right, and through the Bay area. One of the best road trips ever! I got to go to Disneyland!!!! For the first time!!!!!

September: A minor crisis averted. And a long motorcycle trip around the Olympics.

October: Nothing much to report here. Did go to Oregon Trail Rally near Tillamook, Oregon.

November: Nothing much to report here. Did go to the Seattle International Autoshow.

December: Wild West Rally at the beginning of the month. Then, a trip to Connecticut to see my grandmother, whose health had been progressively getting worse. Then back home for a week, and then back to Connecticut for her funeral. Happy Holidays, yo!

A very eventful year. Ups and downs. But through it all, my friends have been there and I end the year with more friends than when I started. I love my friends. Being 3000 miles away from my real family, my friends ARE my family.

I'm back...

I don't even know quite where to begin about this month. It's just been shitty. This has not been an easy time. Don't know how else to put it.

Merry Christmas. I'm back from Connecticut (again).

To all of my friends who have supported me throughout this, thank you again. I'd do anything for you and I know you would too.

Grama Case

Obituary

I leave for another trip to Connecticut tomorrow morning. This time it's for my grandmother's wake and funeral. She was a great woman.

Thanks to all of my friends who have been so supportive throughout the last couple of weeks. Now I really know I won't forget 2006. So much has happened this year. I just hope 2007 is a better year.

Going back to CT

My grandmother died today. I'm going back to CT for the wake and funeral as soon as I find out the dates for them.

Oh yeah, today really is a shitty day. There was a huge windstorm in Seattle last night - no power at my house right now. This means I get to stay in a hotel tonight because I have to have Internet access for work. I'm on-call. Fucking great.

I gots me 2 quarts of WMD!

TSA searched my checked bag. I had two 1-quart bottles of maple syrup. I'm sure they thought they were bombs. This isn't the first time they've searched my bag, and they were nice enough to leave a note. How sweet.

Deliciously improvised explosive devices! Maple syrup - yum!

It doesn't really matter.

I cried a bit to myself tonight on the flight home. I guess the trip finally caught up with me. And I had time to think to myself, which makes me a little emotional. What a freakin' week.

Casedom

About my trip to Connecticut...

The flights from SeaTac were completely uneventful. Thanks to a generous helping of frequent flyer miles I was able to score first class tickets this go-around. I feel pretty lucky to get this and the customer service rep at Northwest was incredibly helpful in helping me out with this. It was a redeye out of Seattle at 12:50am and I got into BDL at 11:15am. My dad met me there and after a longish walk to the car, we were on our way (he parked at the wrong terminal - doh!).

Seeing my grandmother for the first time in 6 months was great, but she's in really sad shape. She's on oxygen, has pneumonia, and has fluid in her lungs that she's having a hard time clearing out. My Aunt Sally and Uncle Fred spend all of their spare time with her and really have busted their butts to try to make sure she's comfortable and is going to somehow beat this. But seeing her like that was so incredibly tough. This is a woman who stands not much over 5 feet tall who takes shit from nobody. If ever there was someone who was full of piss 'n' vinegar, it'd be her. She's one hell of a woman.

Every time I visit with the family I learn something new about it. This is the trouble with having grown up 3000 miles away from the core family. I just didn't have the exposure to them over the years. Let's see what I learned...

• Case Avenue in Winsted, CT, is not named for my family. There's apparently another Case family in Winsted and there's no relation. My family is based in Colebrook.
  
• My grandmother is an institution in Colebrook. In the wintertime, she bakes and gives food to the guys who plow the roads by her house. They gave her a cute card with all of them holding out their stomachs with some cheesy poem about how they'd miss her cooking this winter.
  
• Apparently there is such a thing as "Case temper." My cousin Mitchell and I talked about this. Cases are usually very happy-go-lucky, but once the fuse is lit, get away. Our temper is not a pleasant one. Anybody who knows me well might have seen it at some point. If you have, sorry.
  
• I learned more about how my Great Uncle Paul lived in his final days, and how everybody else in the family took so much care of him. He had his last cigarette the day before he died of lung cancer. He was a cool guy.
  

I'm sure there are more little tidbits I'm forgetting, but those are the ones that stick out.

Friday was a rough day. Grandma was incredibly frail and weak in the morning. She was having a really hard time breathing. Things were looking really bleak, and she was given a dose of morphine. By 6pm, she was up and talking again and was doing a lot better. But things were rough and I must've been on the verge of balling my eyes out at least 3 or 4 times. My poor cousin Mitch spends all of his spare time with her. I've got so much fucking respect for him after seeing how much time he spends with her and how much he loves her. It makes my 4 days here seem insignificant.

Mitch is 4 years younger than me and he reminded me of one of his earlier memories of my visits out to Connecticut. I exposed that poor boy to 2 Live Crew. He was 9. I was 12 or 13. Talk about corrupting the youth. The thing he didn't know was that his father caught me exposing him to it and luckily I didn't get the shit beat out of me. And my parents never said a word to me about it. I don't get it. And Mitch said that we looked at a Penthouse, but I don't remember that. He joked that he didn't know what the hell he was looking at at the time (in reference to female anatomy). Ah, good times.

Mitch and his wife, Renee, have been very warm and welcoming. Had drinks with them Friday and Saturday night at their apartment and watched Garden State and bunch of TV with them. Mitch and I talked about how there is such a thing as a Connecticut accent, and we compared notes on pronunciation of common words. Considering Renee's a speech and language pathologist, this was even more interesting. This trip has been great considering all of the time I've spent with my family.

But, my grandma. It's anybody's guess when she's going to go. Yesterday we thought was it, but by the evening she was better. And today she was weak in the morning but by 8pm she was up and talking again. And with the steady stream of visitors today, how could she not be. These past four days I've seen so many people that remember me when I was "this high." Do I remember them? Not so much, but the family here is so well known it's amazing to me. This is something I don't have in Seattle, and it's very appealing. I got to see my aunt Barb (removed via divorce) for the first time in 10 years today. Of course she gave me shit for not calling her, but I got to see her for a little while.

So that's Connecticut. It's yet another family reunion of sorts. It's emotional because of my grandma's situation, but she might pull through enough to at least go home. My mom's an RN and worked in nursing homes, so I've been exposed to it before. It's just tough to see someone as vital as my grandma in the same sort of place. It hurts.

Sunday's events with her were pretty good. I got to spend a couple hours with her alone and she filled me in on some of the events in the family. I was hoping to ask some more historical questions but most of what's on her mind is stuff that's happening right now to certain people in the family. She's holding on to what she's got so she can see this family stuff through.

Today was better for her. She actually managed to have more than just a smoothie, and had a bit of a turkey grinder my Aunt Sally brought me. Yum yum yum. I'm going to miss grinders, but I think there's a place in Seattle I can go to get them.

Overall, this was a really good trip. I bonded with more of my family (particularly my cousin Mitch and his wife) and really got to see my grandma more than ever. I'd like to try to go back twice a year, if possible. We'll see how that works out.

So, I'm back. And happy for it. I missed all of my friends.

Seat 01-A

I'm off to Connecticut tonight, folks. My grandma's been in declining health and the family's not sure when she'll be better. So I'm heading out tonight for a short trip to see her, my dad, and other relatives. It's been a few months since I was back there (May) and I hope to get to spend a lot of time with her.

I'll be back late Sunday night. I'm still available via cell phone while I'm gone. Enjoy!