parents « Patti O'Shea's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘parents’

What OCD?

Monday, January 12th, 2009

I’m a teeny bit obsessive/compulsive. Okay, maybe more than a teeny bit. Tonight, I learned where I just might have gotten it from. I mentioned that I’m setting a story in a cabin in southern Wisconsin that my family stayed at a few times and that my parents are looking for pictures for me, so I can get the details right. At least I’m pretty sure I mentioned this. Anyway, my parents didn’t find more pictures, but they did find papers from when they were younger.

Among the items was my dad’s grade school autobiography, a speech he gave in high school, and the notebook where he kept track of every letter he sent and received while he was in the army. He has date received, date written, and the date he replied all neatly tabulated. He had them broken down by name, even people who only wrote once, and he had all the mail cross referenced by date. Seriously!

I was like, OMG, this is so scary! Not just that he wrote a record in a little notebook, but that he’s kept it all these years. My mom said she was glad she didn’t know him then because she was never much of a letter writer.

Then he brought out some more papers. He kept track of every cent he and my mom spent on their honeymoon, right down to the tips. Even twenty cents wasn’t too small an amount to write down. I’m looking at him thinking, no wonder I have a, um, obsessive attention to detail. It’s hereditary! My sole consolation is that at least I never recorded dates letters were written and received or other truly inconsequential things like that.

And you know, now that I think about it, every family trip my dad would record the mileage, the time we stopped, the time we left, how many gallons of gas the car took, and other things that escape my mind. He always had a long log of our trips. Not the interesting information like what we did, but the bookkeeping type of information. Hmm. Must think some more about the role of environment in the forming of personality and behaviors. This could get scary.

Tags: parents, quirks
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It’s Wednesday? Wow.

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

I forgot it was Wednesday. Really.

It has been a busy week so far and shows no signs of letting up any time soon. I’m beginning to get a new appreciation of how much my dad took care of for me now that he’s laid up. For example, tonight after work I have to go to the post office and mail out some stuff. That’s something my dad has always done for me in the past. It might not seem like a big deal, but it gets to be when it’s added to an already over-full schedule.

Enough about that. The big news is that on Monday I found out that someone broke into the house next to my parents’ place by kicking in the front door! Gah! Apparently, nothing was stolen, but that raises more worries than it quiets. Why didn’t they take anything?

On the good news front, my anthology story, Dark Awakening in Shards of Crimson, is a More Than Magic finalist for Best Novella! Yea! This is Kimi and Nic’s story and my first attempt at writing short, so it’s nice to have validation that I did all right.

This weekend, despite the fact that I don’t have time to do it, I have bulbs to plant in my garden. They arrived–believe it or not–on the same day my dad had surgery and have been sitting in the refrigerator ever since. I also realized that the replacement plants for the ones that didn’t make it last year should be arriving very soon, too. With a little luck, they’ll come this week so I can do it all at once and get it all done.

My garden is actually greening up nicely! Lots of leaves up for different flowers. I took pictures with the intention of posting one, but like I said, I forgot it was Wednesday, so I’m writing this at work and my pictures are still on the digital camera at home.

Tags: garden, parents, plants, shards
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Company Gifts

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Next month I have one of those milestone anniversaries with my employer and for my years of service, I received a catalog from which to choose a gift. I don’t get my commemorative pin and a gift, I had to choose one or the other. So I combed through the catalog and discounted most of the items as being things I wasn’t interested in, but they had a pair of binoculars and I don’t have any of those.

Yea, I thought, getting more excited, binoculars. Then I could bird watch (turkey, hawk, etc) from my house or deck and get a good view. I could also check out my garden when it’s wet and rainy (like today) without getting my feet wet. Cool, I’m going to choose binoculars!

But before I made the selection, I thought, wow, I don’t know much about binoculars. I should check out a few reviews and see if this pair/brand/magnification is decent. I went to Amazon first since they carry everything and so many products have reviews. Do you know what I found? The company gift was for sale for $13! Gee, thanks, NWA, but no thanks. I’ll buy my own binoculars and I’ll pick something that’s halfway decent.

I guess I should be grateful I get anything, right? But I figure by the time they buy in bulk and get their discount, we’re probably talking, what? $5? Maybe $7? I went with the commemorative pin instead. After all, there might not be an NWA after the merger mania dust settles.

I spent the evening at the hospital again. My dad looks better, but progress is slow. I want him to be better now. I’m still exhausted and I think my mom is, too.

Tags: EDJ, gifts, parents
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Report

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

My dad’s surgery went well and he was groggy, but talking shortly after he was brought to his room. Tonight, he was hooked up to a gazillion things and everything was being monitored. Tomorrow, the nurse said, they’ll have him on his feet and walking and the doctor anticipates him coming home some time this weekend.

As good as things look right now, I’ll be holding my breath until he’s farther on the road to recovery. Even so, I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This was really worrying me. And when he’s all okay, then the rest of the worry will ease.

We left a little after 7pm so that my dad could get some sleep. When I brought my mom home, she had a mallard duck under one of the front bushes.

I’ll be back at the hospital tomorrow.

Tags: parents
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The Friday Post

Friday, April 11th, 2008

It is a raw, miserable day here. Yesterday, it was so windy that the snow was coming in sideways and this morning I saw my downspout for one of my gutters in my backyard, noticed the neighbors have a huge tree branch down, and the little snowflake on my wind spinner is all bent up. That was some storm!

Because it snowed and we were still getting freezing drizzle, I drove my dad to his doctor’s appointment with the surgeon that will be removing his kidney. The doctor said that nine times out of ten, they remove the kidney arthroscopicly, but in my dad’s case, they want to open him up to remove it. That means instead of an overnight stay, he’ll be in the hospital for five or six days and restricted for about six weeks afterward on what he can do. Surgery is scheduled for a week and a half from now.

I have to say that my dad can be funny. We were supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow and he wonders if I”ll have trouble getting out with “all that snow.” 1) I drive a SUV with 4-wheel drive and I’ve taken it to work in 18″ of heavy March snow in the past. I don’t think 2-4 is going to stop me. 2) For years now, he’s said this every time any snow is in the forecast. There’s also been times that he’s told me to call him if I can’t get out in the morning to call and he’ll come over and snow blow. Um, see item 1 about the 4-wheel drive. The other thing he said yesterday was his car probably wouldn’t make it out. How does 2-4 inches of snow translate into being snowbound? I haven’t figured this one out yet.

Anyway, needless to say, I didn’t have any trouble getting the SUV out of the driveway with the maybe 1 inch of snow that fell. (We ended up with more rain than they predicted.)

The other thing that’s kind of funny is that I’d planned to take time off from work when he had surgery, but he’s already made other arrangements. One of his lodge buddies is going to drive him and Mom to the hospital and I can come when I get off work. Oookay, Dad.

He’s got a great attitude, though, and I think that’s more than half the battle. And the even better news is that the doctor doesn’t think Dad will need chemo. He’s not 100% certain of that and won’t be until the surgery, but it would be nice if my dad could miss that.

Keep sending positive vibes for a little while longer. Thanks!

Tags: parents, snow, weather
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Adventures in Computer Delivery

Monday, March 17th, 2008

My new iMac computer arrived and it’s beautiful! It’s also a joy to use and I fell in love with it in less than 24 hours. Now I want a Mac laptop, too!

Of course, I have a story about the delivery of the new computer.

When I ordered the computer, I asked my parents if I could have it delivered to them at their house. I’m at the Evil Day Job (EDJ) Monday through Friday and I was sure the delivery would be during the week. And sure enough, the original estimated arrival date was Tuesday, March 18.

Saturday morning, as I’m drinking coffee, I decide to check the tracking number to see where the computer is now and see that it’s on the Fed Ex truck, scheduled for a Saturday delivery! =8-O

I hurry up and call my dad since I don’t have a clue when Fed Ex is going to arrive and it was already after 9am. This is where I got my first hint that things weren’t going to go as discussed. His reply was he wanted to go to the grocery store. I was like, okay, but could you leave Mom home–just in case? And that’s what he did.

It never occurred to me that this would become an ongoing issue for the day. I’d assumed–incorrectly it seems–that they would still take delivery of the computer for me even if it was Saturday because I needed to write, and in my mind, that’s every bit as much of a commitment as the EDJ. I assumed wrong.

The first call from my parents came at noon. Could my dad have the tracking number? He’s going to call and find out where it’s at. I said, well, yeah, but– Hello? Hello? He’d gone to get a piece of paper to write down the number. When he finally got back on the phone, I read him what it said at the Fed Ex site: 8:05 on truck for delivery. He conceded that Fed Ex wasn’t going to know exactly where the truck was and when it could be expected to make delivery.

There were more calls to tell me that the computer had yet to arrive. At 1:30 it’s my mom on the line suggesting they just leave a note on the door for the Fed Ex guy to drive over to my house instead. Yeah, right, like he’s going to do that with a computer.

I conceded that no writing would be accomplished and that I was going to have to drive over to my parents’ house. I told my mom that I’d be there as soon as I took a shower. Yes, it’s true, I was still in my pajamas while I was trying to write.

I was just getting ready to leave my house when the phone rang again. The computer was there. Yea! I drove over and got it and brought it home.

Why were my parents so hot to leave the house? Did they have lunch plans with friends? Did they have matinee tickets at the theater?

Nope, they wanted to go to the natural store and eat free samples.

I kid you not. This was far more important than my writing and it would be obvious to anyone else, right?

I love my parents dearly, but they can make me insane. I guess it’s mutual. I can’t help but wonder, though, what they would have done if this was during the week and I was at the EDJ? It wasn’t as if I didn’t consult with them on the delivery thing before I even placed an order for the computer and it wasn’t as if they didn’t know it could come on a Saturday. I told them the delivery range and there were no protests like Saturday is free sample day.

Anyway, the computer is home and set up without any need to consult instructions. I turned it on and it recognized my other computers on the network without my having to do a thing! (Keep in mind that after three or four days of work, I still can’t get my two Windows XP computers to access each other! I can get on the desktop and access the laptop, but not the other way around.) Um, come to think of it, the Mac only reads the laptop, too, so clearly the issue is the PC desktop.

I didn’t get to use the Mac too much. I have to move the old desktop out of the prime spot, put the Mac in that spot, dig out my printer and other peripheral disks to load the drivers, and get my programs loaded, but I was immediately struck by how easy the Mac is. I turned it on and it just worked. Wow! What a concept.

The only two things I don’t like about it are the keyboard and the mouse. I need an ergonomic keyboard and my old one is so old, it doesn’t even have a USB plug, so I ordered a new one. The mouse is just awful! The cord is short and constantly in my way and it’s too flat to fit comfortably in my hand. I also ordered a cordless laser mouse, and since I’m going to lose the two USB ports on the sides of the Apple keyboard, I got a USB hub, too.

It’s worth it, though, and I get to avoid Vista. Hurrah!

Tags: adventures, computer, parents
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Adventures in Digital Photography

Friday, February 29th, 2008

So I have 15,000 bookmarks for In Twilight’s Shadow. Most of them will be headed to bookstores and readers’ groups, but if you’d like one for yourself–or bookmarks for any of my other books–I’ll be happy to get it/them out to you.

Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Patti O’Shea
PO Box 1365
Minnetonka, MN 55345

* * *

Adventures in Photography

I might have mentioned here that I gave my parents a digital camera for Christmas. They’re always so hard to buy for and this seemed like such an ideal gift. Never mind that neither my mom nor my dad can manage to turn the computer on without me–how annoying could it be to download the pictures off their camera occassionally?

As it turned out, fairly annoying.

My parents returned last Friday from visiting my brother. On Sunday evening, I uploaded the pictures off their camera to the computer for them and my dad–the man who has left film sitting undeveloped for a year or longer–wants me to immediately order him prints of the digital pictures.

Actually, his first statement was that he would print them out on his all-in-one Epson. I was like, uh, no, you don’t have a photo printer. You don’t want to know how long it took before he understood that he wasn’t going to get a quality photo off a cheap inkjet printer. It was after this when we got into the discussion about immediately getting him prints.

So Wednesday I went over to my parents’ house and this was the day I was going to take care of it all for them. First up was getting them an email account. Yep, they didn’t have email. Next, I signed them up for an online photo service. Third on the list was getting them to pick out which photos they wanted printed.

“All of them,” my dad said.

“You don’t want to pay to print 70 shots when some of them are blurred, or have people’s heads cut off, or are duplicates of other shots,” I explained.

Now my real ordeal began. I set up the computer to run all 70 shots as slideshow. All they had to do was look at the picture, decide whether or not they wanted it, and write down the photo number. I might as well have asked them to build a rocket ship, so that I could visit the International Space Station.

OMG! They watched the slideshow three times without reaching any decisions. I finally had to take charge. I would stop each image and ask, “Do you want this one?” Or if they said they wanted one, I would say, “Are you sure? It’s out of focus.” Then they’d rethink their decision. After a torturous length of time, they decided on 30 photos they wanted. (All I have to say is I don’t understand why they wanted some of them, but whatever. At least we’d finished.)

Then there was more fun. Their photo software that came with the camera doesn’t have editing capability! ::head-desk:: I uploaded the shots to the photo site anyway, planning to download them at my house, edit them and reload them, but as it turned out, the photo site lets people do simple editing. So I did. I cropped the pictures that needed cropping, placed their order, and booted down the machine.

Hurrah!

I ended up spending much longer at their house than I expected and most of that can be attributed to the length of time they spent dithering on which pictures they wanted. If I’d had any premonition that this is what my future would hold when I bought them that camera, I would have rethought my choice of Christmas gift. Argh! And just think, I’ll have to go through this every time they take pictures. Sigh.

Tags: adventures, parents, pictures
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I Stink at Titles (Blog or Otherwise)

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

I actually got a little sleep last night–not as much as I needed, but hey, I’m just happy I got some. That made it easier to get out of bed this morning, and so I didn’t hit the snooze as many times as usual. Cool, I thought, I’ll be able to blog from home this morning instead of the EDJ (Evil Day Job) or at least be able to answer comments.

Instead, I spent all the “extra” time I had trying to get my laptop to pick up the wireless signal from the router. This included several boot-ups of the laptop, one boot-up of the desktop, and unplugging the router for a minute and plugging it back in. One of the last two steps worked. Since did both simultaneously, I’m not sure which one it was.

This has become a frustration for me since this weekend when the power went out for a minute or two. There wasn’t lightning so I don’t know what happened, but that seemed to have knocked the router out on Saturday morning. Computers–you gotta love them–or something.

I stopped by my parents house on the way home from work yesterday. The first thing my mom asks is: “Did you stop and get gas?” Um, no, why? Apparently, I was late. I looked at the clock and it’s 3pm. Not that late. Besides, it was raining yesterday and Minnesotans can’t drive in rain. But gee, how close is she paying attention to my schedule? I rarely stop off on my way home so the timing isn’t something she could be accustomed to.

The other parent event of the day involves my dad. I saw him digging out the space for my garden on Monday when I got home from the EDJ and it was a lot of work. It just seemed smarter to get the wall put around the garden this fall rather than having him dig it out, pile dirt in, and then get the retaining wall put up next spring. So we talked about hiring the guy who did my tree ring and my dad said he’d call him and see when he could come out and give an estimate.

Now here’s the funny dad part. I drive home and the phone’s ringing as I walk in the door. Of course, I didn’t reach it in time. I had my purse, my tote bag, a couple of bags full of stuff my mom had given me and my shoes were wet from the rain. I wasn’t traipsing through the house with those on.

After missing the phone, I put down my bags, took off my shoes, and the phone rings again, so jacket still on, I rush to the computer room. It’s my dad. I just had to shake my head. Does he think I can beam myself home like Star Trek? And when I didn’t answer the first time, he didn’t wait very long to call the second time. I guess he was pretty impatient to talk to me. Anyway, the tree-ring guy is coming out to give my dad an estimate tomorrow morning.

And I got some semi-decent work in on my latest project yesterday–both on lunch and in the evening. If I hadn’t been so darn tired, I could have done more. I love it when things actually go well!

Baseball playoffs start today. Unfortunately, the Cubs/Diamondbacks game is on at 9pm MN time which means I won’t be able to watch much of it.

Tags: computer, parents, writing
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Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Matter

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Dad story. Over the weekend, he began the process of putting some shelves up for me in the garage. Before you think I’m working the poor man to death, I should explain that he doesn’t sit still well. He always needs to be doing something. If it wasn’t putting shelves up for me, it would have been something for his lodge.

Anyway, he had some old shelving units that were rusty, so he bought some cream-colored paint for the metal shelves. He sprayed them on Saturday. Then on Sunday, he decided to put backs on the shelving units, only now his paint for metal won’t work because the backs are some other kind of material. Unbeknownst to me, he decided to paint those, too, and went to the store to get some different type.

This is when I found out what was going on. He came over to my house and explained that they wanted to charge him $10 to mix a quart of paint to match the color of the other paint, and if he bought the premade color, it was like a buck something. He wanted to make sure that this was okay because it was a brown color.

Uh, these are the shelving units in my garage; I don’t care what color they’re painted. Heck, I didn’t even care if they were painted at all. It took a little while to convince him that the color didn’t matter.

Then Sunday night, when I went over to my parents’ house for dinner, he wanted to find out what I thought of the color. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I never even looked at them, so I assured him they looked great. When I got home, I finally checked them out. It’s a brown that will hide the dirt nicely. Besides, the shelving units are in the garage.

You’d think that would be the end of it, wouldn’t you? But nope, he asked me again on Monday if the color was okay. Sigh.

And now for something completely different.

In Sunday’s paper here, there was an article about fashion week and there were pictures of some of the dresses. There were two that I wanted to save because they might work for one of my heroines. I thought about scanning, but not only was the picture newspaper quality, but one of them was too long for my scanner. No problem, right? Quick little internet search and all would be found.

I was half right. The dress that I thought would be hard to find was easy since it was right on the front page of the What’s New section on the designer’s website. It wasn’t easy to save it since it was posted in flash player. Luckily for me, I knew how to get around that, and while it took a little work, I have that picture.

What I couldn’t find was the sea-foam green, Greek goddess dress. The reason I thought it would be quick to find was the fact that it was the largest picture on the page. Surely, that meant there’d be dozens of pictures of it on the net by now. I started with local paper’s website. Nada. I noticed the article was reprinted from the Washington Post and I registered for their website. Nada.

Next up was an online search. Tons of dresses came up, but not that one. On to the designer’s website. This dress was part of the collection for Spring/Summer 2008, and she only had the two collections for 2007 up. More searching online using different search terms. Nada. I gave up and resigned myself to keeping the newspaper article.

Tags: characters, parents
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Glamour Don’ts and Crimes of Fashion

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

The storms that rolled through on Monday night didn’t cause any damage by me, but less than 10 miles to my east, they sure picked up steam. When I drove into work on Tuesday morning, NWA had about half a dozen trees down and some big branches as well. That was my first intimation of how severe the weather was.

Then that afternoon, one of my tech writers was telling me the storm woke him and his wife up. They saw the large tree in their backyard at a 45 degree angle and headed for the basement. Wow. Last night, the news was full of damage reports from the Twin Cities. The weather guy said the straight-line winds were around 71 mph when they went through. Double wow. Since I fell right back asleep after noting the storm, I’m glad it wasn’t severe like that in my area. Yikes!

Before I went to bed last night, I turned on the Weather Channel. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to have another middle of the night wake up call.

It’s really odd. We were in a draught for most of the summer. People kept walking around saying, “when are we going to get some rain?” Now we’re walking around going, “I can’t believe we got another storm.” Rain totals for August are 9.29″. The all-time record for the month is 9.31″ and average is 4.something”.

Enough about weather, right?

I stop by my parents’ house almost every day to see them, check in on them, etc. I usually stay about an hour or so and then go home to write. Last night, my mom asked me if I had time to give her my opinion on what she wanted to wear to the wedding and rehearsal dinner this weekend. I knew this wasn’t going to be quick and I was right.

Picking out the outfit for the wedding actually ended up being pretty easy. Time consuming, though, because my mom has slowed down so much in the last six months. If only it had been that easy with the rehearsal dinner choice.

She comes out in this awful dress. Now I’m not exactly a fashion maven, but I took one look and said, “no.” That wasn’t good enough. I had to zip up the back all the way because clearly that was the only reason the dress was hideous. NOT! It didn’t look any better zipped. Talk about a Glamour Don’t! I told her so and she argued with me.

First of all, it was far too big for her, especially on top. Secondly, it was too long, almost coming down to the floor. If it had been a straighter cut on the skirt, it might not have been a problem, but it wasn’t and it just looked wrong with that style.

The worst problem, however, was how ugly the pattern on the dress was. It looked as if she’d stolen someone’s brocade drapes and had them made into a dress. I told her it was like the Carol Burnett take off on Gone With the Wind. Mom didn’t find that funny.

She went and asked my dad for a second opinion–I guess she really wanted to wear this dress because she kept saying, but I like it. My dad told her it was too big, too. She argued a bit longer before conceding.

Rehearsal dinner outfit two was better, but it was slacks and a matching blouse with a pattern on it. It was far too much pattern. She gave up this argument faster. I told her to wear wedding outfit 1 as the rehearsal dinner outfit, but she didn’t want to do that. Sigh. She said she’s going to keep looking, which will probably mean more fashion shows for me. I ended up spending two hours over at the house and didn’t get the amount of work done on the synopsis that I was hoping for. Sigh.

As I was winding down for the night, I found a show on E! called Crimes of Fashion. It was about celebrity Glamour Don’ts. Definitely ironic timing.

Tags: fashion, parents, weather
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