Everyday_Geekery's blog

So yeah, I'm a tinkerer's daughter. But no more do-it-yourself solutions. I'm through with recycling, repurposing and watching poorly made user videos on how to turn household materials into "durable" products. That is, when it comes to covering textbooks.

Last year, I helped my son make too many book covers to count. I think we only had ONE book that needed to be covered — a math textbook that easily outweighed any book I ever had in college — but we made no less than 10 "free" covers:

The tried-and-true method, paper bags, turned out to be Goldilocks and the Three Book Covers — this one's too tight, this one's too loose — but I never found a "just right" cover. Probably because the book was too large for normal-size bags to cover. (!!!)

Also a dud was the wrapping paper turned inside-out. (Thanks, Mom. Only you would have a stash of five rolls of wrapping paper under your bed, year-round.)

My dad was a tinkerer. He had a garage at my Nana’s house full of car-rebuilds-in-progress. A rusted Model T adorned the front yard for most of my childhood, but eventually its charm as an impromptu beehive wore off. Yet more cars dotted her property, at least until the neighbors complained. (At which point he buried many of them in the woods.)

A man of many connections in the auto-parts underground, he helped me find my first two cars in the late 1980s/early 90s. The second car, a 1978 International Scout, had seat belts hanging by a thread and wood on the floor in lieu of carpeting, but he knew someone who’d make it pass inspection, wink-wink, so what’s the big deal? (I had never been approached by so many men wearing lumberjack shirts as I was during the six months I drove that hulking beast; something about the prehistoric SUV lured the type of man who brought his own can to spit in while chewing in classes at the junior college. My then-fiance was not amused.)

If you hate tree-huggers, you will love this story. Last month, I decided that my household was using too much electricity, and we needed to decrease our footprint for the good of the planet. So, I started turning off the computers regularly each night. I made better use of fans and waited until much later in the day to turn on the air conditioning, which was rarely set below 75 anyway. And, most importantly, we stopped using the clothes dryer, which is also in our bedroom. I hung up every piece of clothing, except for some onesies we tie-dyed for my niece-to-be. (Note: It was a lot of fun to tie-dye those baby clothes, and would make a cool baby shower activity. We bought a pack of onesies in three sizes, to get Maine-based Baby Charlotte through her first year in California hippie style.)

Can you feel a disturbance in The Force? If not, you’ll be sure to see it if you’re anywhere near Modesto’s State Theatre tomorrow evening, when it shows Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, better known to some of us old folks who saw it in the theater in 1977 as “the original ‘Star Wars’ movie.”

Tickets are $7. The show starts at 6 p.m., but you’ll want to get there at 5:30 p.m. (and in costume!) to check out fellow movie fans and meet, the State says, “Darth Vader and the amazing 501 Storm Troopers.” There will also be pizza on sale, so you don't have to worry about making dinner.

*copy editor twitch-twitch* (”Stormtroopers” is actually one word.)

If it’s been awhile since you’ve seen the movie, watch the original trailer:

Like many parents, I don’t often get to sleep in when my children are home. They’re not babies, but one of them is still a morning person, and likes to pop into my room first thing to tell me what she plans to do with her day. But Fridays can be different. My husband doesn’t work on Fridays, but he’s used to getting up early, so he holds down the fort. He makes breakfast, keeps the kid(s) entertained and allows me to rise at an hour more befitting my night owl tendencies. But he also brings in the mail.

Normally, this is not a problem. As a mostly freelancing writer/editor/researcher, I live for the delivery of checks from various clients. Invoicing is easy, but waiting six weeks to get paid? That’s tough. Knowing this, my husband puts the mail in our room, so I can look for checks as soon as I’m up. But this time, it was different.

Thank you to everyone for your sympathy. My grandmother’s funeral was on Tuesday, and I couldn’t be there, but I hope to visit her gravestone later this year or next year. My lingering grief is not so much for the loss of my Nana, because I’ve dealt with that for years, but for the realization that You can’t go home again.

There are so many relatives of mine on Facebook, all able to attend the funeral and a cousin’s upcoming wedding. Another cousin, who hasn’t seen me in at least 13 years, said, “I wish you could be here, Em,” and I just about broke down. My mother lives with me, so she could share memories of Nana, but it hit me, hard, that no one else in my life out here knew her. Grieving, I think, should be a communal activity.

My Nana died today.

But really, she died a long time ago. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s disease, that cruel thief that steals memories, relationships and, eventually, an entire life. I last saw my Nana in 1997, just before I moved to California. I’m not sure when she last saw me, because by that time, she didn’t know who I was. My husband, whose sharp-as-a-tack grandmother died unexpectedly a few years ago, has given me hugs and much sympathy today, but my grief is set at mere sadness, because I had already lost my grandmother.