the tinyblog

Amazing.

I'm writing this post in Chicago, Illinois where I'm visiting my Dad. Sometimes I don't know who's more of a spazz, me or him. It's been nice to see him, though, even though we have always ended up locking horns.

We went to Edwardos and had about the yummiest spinach stuffed pizza you can get. Plus, a few days ago I hung out with my friend Bill Hada and had another great local pie at a little pizzeria. I'm in pizza hog heaven. Maybe I'll even end up getting a Chicago-style hotdog before I leave.

I made it into Illinois a few days ago on Christmas Eve, just in time for the Holiday Madness to begin. I'm staying at my mom's house in Rockford for most of the time I'm here. We had Christmas with my mom's boyfriend Art, Art's son Dan, and Art's mom and aunt.

Art's mom Astrud is starting to get fairly senile, but man, does she like to party. She's the fiestiest 89 year old I've ever met. She mainly drank whisky sours and playfully came on to me as I sat next to her on the couch. "They say you should watch out for me," she'd say, winking and poking me in the ribs with her elbow, "They're right!"

Her sister was even more forgetful, and deaf in one ear. She kept forgetting some very vital information. "I think I forgot where I live," she said to Art.

"Don't worry," he assured her, "I'll get you to the right place."

"Do I have two dogs?" She started to worry about how long she had been gone, and whether her dogs would be okay.

She was mostly deaf and had a very croaky vaice because she had been a chronic smoker her entire life, had developed throat cancer and had radiation therapy in order to treat it...none of which she remembered. She chain smoked in my mother's living room (my mom suspends the rule about smoking in the house for little old senile ladies) and told us she wasn't sure she wanted to spend $500 on a hearing aid when she thought that her across the street neighbors were into the occult and were cursing her.

It was actually very funny and very sad at the same time. My sister was so concerned for her that she ended up slipping her a little picture of White Tara (a Buddhist compassion and long life diety) and told her it would protect her from any evil occult powers. For some reason that made me feel greatly better.

It's been stressful, but last night my mom couldn't sleep so she came out on the couch and passed out there with her legs on my lap. I just read and said mantras for a long time because it was so nice to just be there with her quietly on the couch.

I just gave my Dad a massage before he passed out and now I sit here on his housemate's ancient compaq hacking away into the wee hours. His computer was set to 256 color and I changed it to 24-bit color...he probably didn't even know about that. I wonder if he'll notice. Hehehehe, I love being the beneficient computer gremlin. My god, this is turning into the post from hell.

My mom doesn't have a computer at her house so I've gone into browser withdrawal. If I don't spend a certain amount of time typing into a textbox, I get a little jittery.