Another summer gone

Well, today is officially my last Friday off for the summer. Those twelve weeks sure whiz by each year. It's been the summer from hell (literally?) with hot, hazy, humid days more often than not. I heard the other day that we only had 13 days over 90, but almost triple that with high temps and high humidity. We got a break for the past few days, and the temps have been in the high 70s to low 80s. Right now, at almost noon, it's only 72 degrees but with 82% humidity.

Most of my Fridays off I've spent just laying low, trying to stay cool, and working furiously to get two knitting projects done. One is a matching throw and rug set for my oldest daughter. It's done block style, by knitting blocks into strips, that's the first picture. It'll be black and white. The second is a bit more ambitious and will be a 90"x80" blanket for our California King waterbed. Lisa knows I'm making it, but seeing it in progress or in strips isn't the same as seeing it completed. It's done in the same way as the first one, strips of blocks, but these blocks are alternating solid and multicolor. The solid ones have images -- I've done the letter "L" and "P", the lesbian symbol (two female symbols side-by-side), a watering can, a house, two hearts, a cat, the word "Love" with the O in a heart shape, stuff like that. The multicolored blocks just have different textures. The outer blocks (edge) are "colonial blue" while the inner solids are a grayish light blue. The multicolor has both of those solid colors with some white, tan, and light brown and gray mixed in. Yes, we both have a thing for blue, and the side rails on the waterbed are a royal blue velour type of thing. The summer spread we have on it now was bought back in 1980 when we (my ex and I) bought our house in Massachusetts. I think it's served me well, and I certainly got my money's worth out of it, but I'm also slowly trying to remove all of the "us" stuff from my former life and replace it with "us" stuff from my present life.

I've become my grandmother.

When my grandmother wasn't spending hours in her gardens, she was knitting furiously, and this is where I've ended up. Not such a bad person to become -- my grandmother was pretty cool and I loved her dearly. Since I've started knitting again, I've thought about her a lot. In October she'll have been gone for 26 years, but I believe that she lives on in me. Lisa pointed out the other night that I was sitting with my legs crossed, straight out in the air in front of me. I nearly dropped my teeth -- my grandmother used to sit that same way.

Since I've been thinking about my grandmother, I've been thinking about family in general. My father and my Aunt Wanda (his sister) both came to my birthday party, as did my oldest daughter. I had my father and step-mother and step-sister up for Thanksgiving dinner last year, along with Michelle and Doug and the kids. It's nice having family around, and now that my Aunt has moved back up here from Florida, it's that much better.

I think about my mother often. Wondering how she is, what she's doing with her life these days. Same with my younger half-sibs whom I've not seen nor heard of/from in longer than I can remember. My older brother's wife passed away two summers ago and I saw him then for the funeral, but since then he's let his house get foreclosed on, has been diagnosed diabetic and with emphysema, and is living at his marrie girlfriend's house, with the girlfriend and her husband.

Ever since the time I allowed myself to loathe my mother and my half-sibs, I've gotten along with myself so much better. Oh yeah, Prozac helps tremendously, no doubt about it, but I AM at peace with myself regarding my family. But, it doesn't make me not think about them from time to time. I'm toying with the idea of orchestrating some type of family reunion next summer, to see if they'll come or not.

There's also my younger daughter. She's not spoken to me since last May. I still send Christmas gifts to her, her husband, and my grandson, just to let them know that the door is open anytime they want to step through it.

We sure put the "fun" in dysfunctional, don't we? And there's that whole Jerry Springer thing going, too.

And people wonder why I take Prozac....