Today was the day we celebrated my cousin Ethan's graduation from high school. His family rented a pavilion in this large park in Natrona Heights and invited the whole family down to celebrate. I chose today to be the day I would take off of work and spend it with the family. As frustrating as a process as that can be at times, it can also be quite relaxing as well, and a chance to recharge my batteries as it were. Just being with people you love and shutting off the noise of too many people wanting too much of my time is a good thing for me.
In order to make that happen on my end of things though, I had to go into work Friday night to do my ordering for Monday, and to do the making of the salads that I have started doing on weekends to help our deli section out. So in essence I had to work a normal Friday shift, go home and get something to eat, nap and then go rolling back into work 8 hours later and pull a second 8 hour shift, then go from work Saturday morning and hop a 1 Freeport Road for an hour plus bus ride to Natrona Heights.
When I first found out about the party I asked if I was needed to bring anything. One thing about my job that is a plus is the ability to get my hands on things through a number of different vendors. Not that I get things for free, I still pay whatever the store would pay to get those items, but it is much easier for me to order up lemon meringue pie than it is to try making them. I am sure I could, I am a serviceable cook as evidenced by my " get lucky with lasagna" run back in the day, but some things I turn over to trained professionals. Call it my ability to delegate tasks, I know when people are better at things than I and I let them handle such things, such as making pie.
Anyway I ordered up a couple of pies as well as plates and napkins, making my presence somewhat mandatory, unless people were going to eat pasta salad with their fingers, or go all face plant into the bowl and eat it that way. With my family, that is always an option. I think of myself as somewhat funny at times, but my family is way funnier that I. If you ever want a career in comedy, there are few things harder than trying to be the funniest person in my family.
Anyway, back to our story. So I have a plan, a plan that would turn out to be quite exhausting, but in the grand scheme of things, weighing the effort versus the ultimate benefit, I figured it would be worth it. Besides, I could always catch a nap on the bus ride, which is an hour and 10 minutes from downtown.
I get through both shifts at work okay, then grab my box of goodies and make my way to my bus stop at the corner of Liberty and 7 th, which is on the complete other side of town from where I work. I make my way to the bus stop, looking like a homeless man with all of his worldly possessions in tow, my box of plates and napkins, a cup of coffee and my + 1 backpack of wholesome goodness with to pies in it, as well as my tablet.
I tried napping on the bus, but I swear to be a PAT driver, the test you must pass involves slamming into every pothole known to man at a high enough speed as to jostle all of the passengers completely out of their seats. Just as my eyes were closing and it seemed like I might get a 15 minute nap in, the same thing occurred in Cheswick, a little river town that time obviously forgot. Think I am kidding, we rode by a paintball store and in the window of said shop was an Andrew Dice Clay movie poster. Not sure what marketing mind came up with the idea that we could sell more paintball merchandise with that poster in the window.
Sorry, the blog came with a scene change today, if only because I am a retard. I managed to take the lottery keys home yesterday, not that anyone at the store needs them today, I am the only person who goes into the lottery machines, but I don't want to lose them either and anything in my possession for longer than 5 minutes runs the risk of "socks in the dryer" treatment, never to be seen again.
But I was getting sleepy on my bench last night and decided to go home even though I was nowhere near done with this entry ( consider yourselves warned ), so I opted to go home and sleep off the last couple of days, waking up this morning around 9am. From there it was just finding the motivation to put one foot in front of the other and..........
So blog location today is Mellon Park I think, it is nice up here because the wind get trapped amongst all the tall buildings around here, making for an almost permanent breeze. Given it is over 80 degrees out and muggy, sitting in the shade with a nice cool breeze is pretty awesome. I am a couple of slaves, a plantation and some sweet tea away from screaming "southern heritage" and " states rights" at the Yankees that are walking by.
It should be noted that I just lit up a cigarette, and unlike my normal blogging spot, this one is posted no smoking. I am relying on the city police not doing their jobs, besides there is a guy next to me smoking as well, and as we told my cousin Emily at the party yesterday, where she would go looking into the woods for Bigfoot. You don't have to be faster than Bigfoot, you just have to be faster than one of the people you are with. I think I could take this guy in a foot race, so I am safe for now.
Where were we before I took this train completely off the rails? The town that time forgot, Cheswick. After getting jostled by the bus driver to images of Andrew Dice Clay ( I wonder how many women have suffered that fate, ho ). I can see part of the standup routine now, " This bitch asks me to go home with her, says she is going to suck my dick. I wake up the next morning and there are posters of me lining the streets, I ask this bitch where are we and she says Cheswick. I am thinking of moving there next week, ho."
Anyway Cheswick is most of the way to my destination, so I didn't try to nod off again. My aunt Amy asked me to call when I got to my bus stop and they would come and pick me up. There house is about a 15 minute walk from the stop, but that is unencumbered. Any good D&D person would tell you that being encumbered affects your movement rate.
Okay, brief break there while I played some MPQ. I did not know I could steal Starbucks wifi from this spot. That is freaking awesome. Back to my story though.
So I get off of the bus, underneath the New Kensington bridge. With my box of stuff and as much room as there is under the bridge, I briefly thought about setting up my homeless nirvana, instead I called Amy. She sent her son Christopher down to meet me, which turned out to be quite a good idea, never would have found the park on my own. But he drives me over to where the party is and since I am early, party time set for 12 pm, I am fashionably early at 10 am, I help Amy and Fred set things up, banners, decorations table settings. Which was all good, keeping me moving prevented me from wanting to fall asleep.
Eventually Fred and I had to make a WalMart run, to pick up the chicken they ordered for the party as well as some other things when my retail knowledge came in use again. Amy wanted us to get her some Gold Peak tea, so as we start looking for it in coolers, I chime in, "only check the Coke coolers" as Gold Peak is bottled by Coke in this market, and the vendors are sticklers when it comes to other people's products in their space. Trust me when I say that Coke and Pepsi are both paying to be in WalMart.
Now part of the reason I was going to the party, though certainly not the only one, was my mother was supposed to be there. Her husband said on Facebook they were attending, though when I called to confirm this information on Monday last week no one answered the phone. Also I wanted to catch up on things that happened at the family reunion. One thing they decided was next year they are changing locations, moving the festivities from the Shelocta Sportmens Club, to the Elderton/Plumcreek Recreation Park. Something about rental costs going up and what not, to be honest, Shelocta has always sucked as a choice. Very little for the kids there to do. I was thinking about just paying for one of the pavilions in one of the city parks here, but I imagine people would get lost trying to find it.
It turns out I was missed at the reunion, as I have been designated the photographer for family events. This is more the fact I am the only one that brings a camera then any sort of skill with said camera. You can see the previous entry to see that I indeed do take a camera to these types of festivities.
Back to our story again, I get sidetracked quite easily. I was hoping that my mom would be there, it has been about a year since I have been home, I still have their Christmas presents sitting in my apartment, save for the TV that I had shipped to them. Anyway, as people arrive I am kind of geeked, I don't spend nearly the time with my family that I should ( epic fail on me there ) and it was good catching up, but my mother did not show. Apparently her husband didn't bother to get his ass up and bring her ( no surprise there ) and my mother is in no mental shape to be driving. I can see her having a lapse where she forgets which is the break and which is the gas pedal, followed by one of those YouTube videos with her driving through the front of a store.
What was worse was the stories I was getting about her behavior at the family reunion. Apparently she would be lucid for a while, then go off the tracks and say something like I was with my brother at Nyle's house. Those people who know the situation know this isn't remotely a possibility because a) my great uncle Nyle is dead, 2) my brother has been dead for nearly 30 years now and 3) even when all of the listed parties were alive, I rarely hung out at Nyle's house so why her mind would process things in such a way is beyond my ability to comprehend. Worse still was her husband, who when asked what he was up to by my uncle, answered that he was busy taking care of my uncle's sister. Which is true, but that same person is also his wife. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to marry my mom. This is akin to when he messaged me on Facebook, saying all my mom does is sleep and watch TV, and my thought was, " You are fucking there, you aren't working. I have people whose jobs rely on me doing my job. You want her out of bed, walk down the fucking hall and get her out of bed." He keeps sitting around waiting for some magical disability settlement to come raining money down from the sky and solve all of their problems. I am just the opposite, if I need to make money I am out there hustling and doing whatever I can to make money. My resume looks like a " what the fuck are you doing with you life" plan then it resembles some sort of career arc. But it keeps a roof over my head and keeps me from blogging from under a bridge, so I must be doing something right.
After the party, Fred offered to drive me home. I was content to go back and check on how my homeless shelter was coming along under the bridge and catch the next bus, but it wasn't something that I was going to stomp my foot to try and get my way, so I got a ride home went to sleep shortly thereafter and woke up in what I thought was the middle of the night, it was only 12:30 which is very early for me on most days, and walked over to my bench to begin this entry.
I think I am relaxed now, my neck popped which is always a good sign. Now to figure out what to do with the rest of my day off.
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