What once was lost is (un?)fortunately now found

Posted on December 9, 2011 by admin

Last year, while planning for Nikita’s baby shower for DEF CON, I had asked my dad for some pictures from when I was a baby for one of the games (that didn’t end up happening, but that is neither here nor there) that involve looking at baby pictures and then figuring out who it belonged to. He responded immediately that he would look around for it and then (a while later), said that he could only find a single picture and that there were entire albums missing. Let me repeat this: albums. Plural. They weren’t in the same place as some of the other albums and the ones that were missing had pictures of me from being as small as a tumor on my mom and as old as 7 as well as pictures of my little sister from the same tumor stage to the age of 5 or so. A lot of them featured pictures from when we lived overseas because my dad was stationed there. I was devastated. I wanted those pictures to scan and keep forever and ever. Amen. But they were gone.

That is, they were gone until last month when mom and dad cleaned the shed in the backyard and found the albums in tact and with no visible damage (yay!). How did I find this out? Well, mom decided to post this on the Twitters:

Sooooooooo not cool, mom. I will give her this though: she didn’t make a Christmas card with the pictures. It’s not that the picture is embarrassing at all, it just passes the statute of limitations for pictures that can be used as Christmas cards. But, like a lot of crazy-ass ideas she has at the spur of the moment, she forgot about it and I figured it would be the last talk of childhood pictures until I go down to visit and can scan them all so that I have a copy. But I was wrong.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving. I make the grave mistake of using FaceTime to make the obligatory “Happy Thanksgiving” call so that I can also see my cousins and Aunt Anne. I got to see everyone, including the cousin’s and aunt’s little dog (which was a surprise considering my dad refuses to have any fuzzy and can’t poop in the toilet in the house), but they were all busy doing something. So, mom decided that we were going to go to the backyard. With the photo albums. ALL of them.

I will take a break here to say that if I were there physically, I’m sure that it would be fun/lovely to look through the albums with her. Really. There isn’t a shred of sarcasm there, it would be a lot of fun. Especially if there was a hot beverage involved. But that isn’t what happened. What happened was my mom took the albums to the wood swing in the backyard and then proceeded to hold up almost every picture up to the phone (shakily, I might add. A cinematographer my mother is not) and with every picture, tell me what the picture was of and then ask me if I remembered it. Every. Single. Picture. Well, almost every one. I will give her props for stopping herself when she got to a picture of her while she was pregnant of me. After about 30 minutes or so of this, she finally stopped (not from a lack of albums, mind you) and decided to try and make it so my little sister couldn’t keep trying to sleep.

Oh, as a bonus for having read the whole post (or just scrolling to the bottom, you sneaky bastards), here is the photo that mom wanted to use for the Christmas card. It is the last picture that we have of the two of us together in the same picture like this. I feel bad that she had to wear that dress. Then I remembered I wore it first and now I feel a lot less bad about her having to wear it. Even if it does clash with her pretty red hair…

UPDATE: Turns out I was wrong. The picture above is not the last picture that we have that has Autumn and I in that kind of sisterly pose. But this one below with the terrible picture quality that was taken around 2005 is. My bad.

I’m thankful for…

Posted on November 23, 2011 by admin

Yes, it’s cliche. Yes, it’s a stupid list. Yes, it’s early. No, I don’t really care.

In no particular order:

Mom. Dad. Sara. Nikita. Martin. Rick S. Neil. Goddaughter. Godson. Levi (for contributing to goddaughter and godson). ne0nra1n. Amanda G. Amanda R. James A. Jackie A. Jillian L. Rachel. Patrick. Matt. Hollie. rogueclown. Jayson S. Chris P. Seth H. Killface. Danyelle D. Bill Brenner. Niteshad. Emily D. Emily D.’s spawns. April R. Aunt Anne. Stephasaurus Rex. Dave K. Joe P. Adrian C. Miran. Eve. Bryan. Mindy. The Internets. family (chosen). family (not chosen). friends. The hacker community. RSS readers. Heated blankets. my iPod/iPad. Stupid movies that I watch to cry when I want to cry, but don’t really have an excuse to. zombie movies. hot cocoa. trips to Florida. snow. God. girly stuff. mah jong solitaire. birchbox delivery day. letters in the mail from loved ones. chocolate. mac and cheese. tomato soup. DEF CON. DerbyCon. NOTACON. the luxury to procrastinate. books. good beer.

Veterans Day

Posted on November 11, 2011 by admin

After I passed eighth grade, I was finally allowed to spend my summers volunteering at the Veterans Hospital down the road (more or less) from my house, where my dad works. I had been a few times during Take Your Daughter to Work Day and really enjoyed spending the day following him and seeing all he gets to do as well as the environment that he worked in (more about both of those at a later date, though). The VA’s volunteer program is probably the best and most memorable part of my adolescent hood.

The first summer (2001, I think), I kept myself in the background and didn’t have much (if any) patient interaction. I spent my time divided between two different services. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were spent at the Request of Information (RoI) office, where I would help sort, find, copy, and mail patients’ medical records to them, their family, lawyer or other medical facility. Tuesdays and Thursdays I was in the Dietary Services area, where I would help prepare meals that would later be served to the patients that were staying either in one of the hospital wards or in the nursing home.

In 2002, I dropped Dietary Services (I was tired of rolling meatballs with an ice cream scoop by then) and worked in RoI (again, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I spent my time with the head of the Compensated Work Therapy (CWT) program. From their website (http://www.cwt.va.gov/), here’s a brief explanation of what they do:

“Compensated Work Therapy (CWT) is a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) vocational rehabilitation program that endeavors to match and support work ready veterans in competitive jobs, and to consult with business and industry regarding their specific employment needs. In some locations CWT is also known as Veterans Industries; these designations are synonymous.”

CWT was the first time that I really interacted with the veterans other than passing them in the hallway or in the canteen, where I would make eye contact with them as they passed, smiled and said “hello”. It was also when it occurred to me that a lot of our veterans are tossed aside and forgotten like an old toy once their service comes to an end. It was really heartbreaking to hear the stories of all the different veterans (all of whom were either veterans who were homeless, had some sort of addiction, or psychological disorder). After that year, they didn’t need another volunteer so I moved on to the department that would allow me to talk with the most amount of veterans as possible.

So, from 2003-2005, I spent all of my summers and any holiday I wasn’t in school at the Escort service (I know, I know. It sounds *AWFUL*. But let me explain). The Escort service consisted of not only student volunteers, but also (older) adult volunteers (many of whom were veterans themselves or had a spouse who was a veteran) who were in charge of taking requests from any ward in the hospital, the psych ward, or the nursing home and then going out to: push a patient in a wheelchair from point A to point B, push a patient in a stretcher from point A to point B, pick up X Rays from the Radiology department and bring them to a ward, or pick up a specimen and deliver it to a lab (blech).

It sounds simple enough, but it wasn’t always that way. Sometimes, you get a patient who is EASILY twice (or more) your weight. And you have to push him up a ramp, outside, to the other buildings, in the Florida summer heat. But know what? That was totally fine. I have and have heard so many stories and met A TON of amazing people as a result of volunteering there. There was an older volunteer who I would sit with in the morning before the rush of calls would come in and we would drink coffee and do a crossword puzzle together. All the while, she would talk about what it was like when her husband was in the military and how it is so different from now, when her son is in the military. There was a patient who was so radical left-wing that he once (loudly, in a crowded area) that once he could walk again, he’s going to Tallahassee and “stick it to” Jeb (our governor at the time). It didn’t matter how old the patient was or what they were there for, you could tell that they were genuinely thankful to have someone (anyone) there to help them because they wanted to (not because they were getting anything out of it) and to *listen*.

The number of patients who would talk about how no one came to visit and only occasionally sent a card made me tear up more than once. Hell, I’m tearing up just thinking about it (don’t judge. It’s sad, dammit). No one comes to visit a lot of them during Christmas or their birthdays. Most of them will never see their grandkids hunt for Easter eggs or eat a chunk of the Thanksgiving turkey while surrounded by their loved ones.

These people sacrificed *A LOT* so that we can do whatever it is we do in our day-to-day lives. What do we do in return? Toss some meat on a grill and drink a beer “in their honor” twice a year. Happy Veterans Day.