Post semester

The winter solstice and the longest night have passed. Although it was a rainy, foggy, day here in Kansas, we can still take comfort in the sun's 'return' and the lengthening of the days. It was a lovely time spent with family and friends. The celebrations will continue through the rest of the month, but I still have to deal with the responsibility aspects of things. I got my last paycheck until I start back in January at the graduate assistantship position so there has been a lot more baking and cooking going on at my house with making freezable meals and baked presents. Tightening one's belt in the midst of traditional feasting is oddly chaotic and somehow satisfying.

Tomorrow is the hubby's birthday. We are going for sushi, some free live music, and to watch the new Hobbit movie for a late night. It has been amusing seeing all the added creative backstory that did not happen in the book, but the movies are fun. I like them as something almost separate from the Tolkien story and I recognize that it is a trilogy about making more money for the studio that produced it. Sometimes, though, I think it is better if a film becomes its own story separate from the book that inspired it. In any case, I decided not to do a surprise party for John this year, which usually involved doing it later in the year, but instead celebrate on his actual birthday doing whatever he wanted to do.  That has not happened too often in his years on the planet so I figured it was time.

Raider is definitely on the way out, but he seems comfortable and to be enjoying himself in his last days. It's tough dealing with this, since he's been with me for the past seventeen years. Even with that, I think it is going to be the hardest on Mokona, the (now-grown) kitten that Raider simply brought home one day.

Eventually I will make it to the gym again but I need to replace the shoes that fell apart. I am not entirely looking forward to the New Year's resolution crowd that always rushes the gym especially since they tend to hog the 'easy' weight equipment and often do not know or care that they are working out improperly. I can not tell you how many times I have wanted to literally kick someone off the machines because they are just sitting there, talking on a cellphone instead of doing their sets and moving on.

The semester ended on a high academic note, with a 4.0 for the semester. I have not checked to see how much it brought my overall GPA yet, but I am sure it was helpful. One of the classes was a class I had to retake since I got a D in it on my first attempt. Sometimes, a change in professors and class format is a good thing.

One more week of freedom

For me, the next semester starts on January 22nd. This really has been the longest break ever, but it's quickly coming to an end. I have three classes this semester, instead of four, which I think is much better for me. My ability to cram everything into a long day is not as awesome as it used to be. I also am determined to keep devoting time to my writing. I mean, I can talk about writing until I'm blue in the face, but until I start producing more, it's hardly anything more than fluffy daydreams.

You would think working in a funeral home, I would have a better grasp on my own grief, but I don't. It's one thing to give others sound advice, and yet another to take it yourself. The most important, perhaps, is that there is no time scale to grief even when you really want there to be one. I lost one cousin to Afghanistan in December of 2011. I lost another to brain cancer on the exact same day this past year. I joke sometimes that I have more than enough cousins to go around and that I barely know most of them, but, they're still part of my family. It still hurts like someone driving an ice pick through your ribcage and twisting. Right now, I just want to black mark the day off the calendar. Not that it would really help.

The holidays are tense around Casa Mihulec anyway. We've not had the best of luck in winter. It's become the mythical season of the dead and the pain and the hopelessness, wondering when the light is going to return. It's gotten a bit better now that we're past the new year. Which, in fact, New Year's Eve was pretty awesome. Even if John had to go out of his way to ruin the sentimental moment with his "adopted" sister. In fact, the paper flicking into the champagne glass (a transgression that had to be repaid by crepes the next morning) might have been one of the best moments. At least it won't be forgotten. Also, New Year's countdowns are more amusing when you cannot hear the commentators over the general sounds in the pub. Best opportunity for color commentary ever.

I love my job, but the gain in hours I had initially received because we were getting more cases has gone back down. It's not looking too promising for the business to build quickly enough for me to work anywhere near full-time in the next few years. I think this is a good thing, because it's forcing me to think about getting out of my comfort zone in a big way. As great as it is to have a boss and a job you like in a locale you mostly enjoy, that's not always enough. There's little advancement to be had in a small college town that is still learning how to bank on it being a college town. I suspect John and I both are going to be setting our sights on larger cities and better regions. There's a lot of push still for Seattle or Portland, although Austin, Texas has also been suggested as it is becoming a big technology area. It's also trying to bank on 'weirdness' which seems like it could be a good fit.

Going back to my original topic of grad school, as I said, I'm taking three classes. Next Friday, I should have my financial aid and be able to go get my textbooks. Last I checked, I only had one required textbook but blackboard is timing out so I cannot really check if it's changed. If that's still the case, I may just buy it although my original intent was to save a little bit of money by renting if there were multiple books.

I think I will be feeling some better once classes start, although I was annoyed not to get a call to interview for the scanning assistant position in Human Resources. The position starts in four days, so I'm going to assume someone else was chosen. Either that or they got way too busy and still haven't finished going through applications. John's getting ready to find part-time job number three since the bar hasn't been able to provide as many hours as he wanted and the funeral home's on-call work is not steady or reliable.

By the way, I find New Year's resolutions to be ridiculous ways to fail and hate yourself. I'm just setting small goals on improving different areas of my life, little bits at a time. It's really all I can do. I know what the big goals are, but it's not a good idea to focus on those too often. One of my goals, this particular blog post notwithstanding, is to spend more time focusing on positives and what I can change rather than what I cannot.

At the end of the day, I have good friends and family which, in my book, is worth more than anything else. So that's my positive out of all this convoluted mess I've written.

Don't worry, Ginger: We won't forget.

I tend to think that coffee is a magical substance that prevents me and a few million others from turning into raging, homicidal, beasts first thing in the morning. At the same time, you're not going to find magic while standing in line at a Starbucks. It's just a rather matter-of-fact endeavor. You stand in line, you get your coffee, and you leave. Except this past Thursday, on a random splurge to go get some coffee and a sandwich before work, magic did happen in our local Starbucks.

It started with appeared to be just a simple random act of kindness. The lady in line before us, whose named we learned was Ginger, wanted to buy our coffees. You have that thought of, wow, I feel really lucky today, I don't have to pay the $6 or $7 bucks today, but there was more to the story. Today would have been her grandson, Seth Asher's, first birthday. Being unable to buy birthday gifts, she wanted to give gifts to other people.

Seth died on his second day of life, overseas, where Ginger never had the chance to meet him in person. She asked us to do something nice for someone else today, to pay it forward, on her grandson's birthday and that is what we intended to do. However, if more people know, the more people can remember this child who was lost, hence this blog post.

John and I both hugged Ginger before she left the tiny little Starbucks as she tried not to cry. We never told her that we both work at a funeral home and that we understood viscerally the pain of loss that people go through when the worst happens. We only told her that we wouldn't forget and that we would pay it forward.

And we're asking you all to do the same, today. Go. Pay for some coffee or some groceries for the person behind you in line. Help a neighbor or a stranger or anyone and tell them about Seth. Let his birthday be an amazing day of paying it forward.