In Which I Talk About Home and Hockey

So I went home for Thanksgiving and I brought the JC with me. And while I'd warned him many times just how small the town is, I don't think he was quite prepared for the actual rural-ness of it. To the point that he compared it to cottage country in northern Ontario.

Anyway, I only brought one knitting project. Which was a bad idea as I got to the airport for my flight home and discovered that my size 0 circular needle that I was knitting my socks on had broken. Now, usually I use metal needles because they don't break but I'd specifically bought long narrow wooden circs because I've been doing so much damn flying lately (knitpicks fixed Harmony circs for those of you who are interested) as the skinny little addis are kinda threatening and quite visible on the airport Xray machines. And yes, I know the TSA allows knitting needles, but must screeners are twits and sometimes it's better just to play it safe. So I had NO knitting. And of course my flight home was delayed. Because I wasn't stressed enough already.

Ouch!

Of course, the small LYS at home didn't have a long size 0 circular needle and as it isn't solely a knitting store, the old lady who worked there looked at me like I was on crack when I asked, so I called the yarn store in Brocton, who also didn't have one but at least had someone working who knew what the hell I was talking about. Not being able to deal with my family and the return flight totally sans knitting, I actually went to the Brocton store and got the supplies for an emergency project, the much-knitted Fetchings.


I've already finished the left one. Anyway, I can't say enough nice things about the Brocton yarn store (Woolgathering) - they have a great selection, long hours, and the owner is really nice and apparently offers spinning lessons too. Having knitting made the flight back far more pleasant, a sentiment the JC agrees with.

Anyway, while home I gave the JC the grand tour of...not much. And I even dragged him to BJ's, where I only saw one person I knew from high school (and one I liked at that) so that was good, plus there were dollar pints! And I made a pie for Thanksgiving that turned out mostly okay, though it was HUGE:
So huge that the lattice didn't really work out. Anyway, it's the pomegranate-pear pie from the NYT last year and it's worth a shot...though don't use the pearl tapioca! It was weird having it with my mom because we've been going to dad's the past few years, but she threw such a fit that we sort of had to not go to dad's, which was too bad.

But we spent all Friday with dad - we went into Buffalo for the art museum and the hockey game. Which we spent in a luxury box, which was awesome. And Jim Kelly was in the box next to us! He's going quite bald. My phone crapped out so I took a very blurry pic of the back of his head with the JC's crackberry, but it's so bad it isn't even worth posting. In the box with me was another kid from high school, who despite having the same last name is not the Retropolitan's cousin. And we even won! While my dad's seats are great, the luxury box wins if only because it has a private bathroom. Stadium bathroom lines are so not okay. And that's one classmate at the bar and one at the game, which isn't bad. Though on a related note, I got the save the date card for my 10-year reunion. Ick.

The JC survived my family and my town, and they survived him. Which I suppose is good. I hadn't been back in nearly a year. It's so odd going back - so different from how I live now. With all my urban amenities, like mass transit and stores other than Wal-Mart and being able to drive for two miles without hitting a farm. Though you can buy beer in the grocery store at home, which is an amenity I sorely miss.

Anyway, I'm mostly glad to be back in Philly. With much knitting to choose from.

Familial Badness

Apologies for the lack of posts of late, but things have been massively crazy. Far too massively crazy to recount in one post, so I'm going to stick to the big unpleasantries for the moment.

One thing I didn't mention in my SFN recap was the panicked phone call I got from my sister one evening about the ongoing parental thermonuclear war (the one in which my parents' court date was supposed to be on my birthday, but got postponed twice). Turns out that when our mother said "don't worry, this isn't about the two of you, you won't be put in the middle" what she really meant was "not only am I going to put you in the middle by incessantly talking about how I'm suing your father, I'm going to literally put you in the middle by trying to guilt one of you into coming to the actual hearing and taking the stand!" So, my poor sister got asked to go home (actually, not home - Olean, since my father's position precludes him having this sort of legal proceeding in our county) and just "answer a few questions about who paid for what when you were in college." You know, without being subpoenaed and with opening herself up to what would inevitably be a very unpleasant cross-examination by my father's attorney. Now, I was never really big on this whole lawsuit, but my sister was always far more vehemently opposed than I was. AND my sister was seeing my father that week - on his birthday - but my mom wanted her to keep the whole testifying thing from him so he'd be surprised, ignoring that her lawyer would have to give notice to my father's lawyer about any additions to the witness list. And yet she was supposed to take off work, drive across the entire state, go to court, face down my father in a courtroom and then drive back. Whee!

Well, my sister was obviously upset. As was my mom when I confronted her about it. Apparently my sister and I aren't supportive enough. Because kids are supposed to cheerlead these things? And she wound up informing my sister - via text message, no less - that she didn't have to come testify. After my sister had taken off work, of course.

Well, according to my mom's interpretation, court did not go so well and my father and his lawyer said horrible, nasty, possibly perjurous things about how awful my mother is. And my mother exercised restraint by not entering into the record how horrible my father was. Which, frankly, he was in a lot of ways. And she then tells me how "betrayed" she feels by my sister because my sister had talked to my dad about the court thing (he knew when he saw her due to his lawyer) and that my sister had called my father to say that she wasn't coming after all. Apparently my mom's plan was to say my sister was going to testify but not actually have her do it just to fuck with my dad and try to gain the upper hand in court. So I got bombarded with how horrible my sister and I are for not being supportive and how she doesn't like us, especially my sister, and how she really didn't care if we came home for Thanksgiving. Which would have been nice to know before I bought the damn plane ticket.

So the backdrop for going home for Thanksgiving was established. Though my mom got nicer (to me, at least) after that unpleasant conversation. Then two days before I was to go home, my father informed me that he was sick. Really sick. Went to the hospital with uncontrollable heart palpitations and a resting pulse of 190 sick. And that he was going to have to go to the hospital in Erie and have some tests and wasn't sure when he'd be out or what he'd be up to but he at least wanted to do Thanksgiving in a restaurant and that he had hockey tickets for the day after Thanksgiving that we should go to but he didn't know if he'd be up to it. Now, as a neuroscientist I don't really know much about the heart. But I do know that a heart rate of 190 is bad news and that the fact that a test had revealed his heart was freaking out because it couldn't synchronize to beat properly and was thus just getting faster and faster while not actually pumping enough blood is really, really bad. So when I talked to my mom later that day about what my plans were for the time I'd be home and I mentioned not knowing about the hockey game, she got all cold and pissed and snarky and said if I needed money I should just ask my father to help pay for my flight if I was going to see him twice when I was home anyway. And when I angrily responded that the reason I didn't know was because dad was going to the hospital to try and stop his heart from fucking exploding, she paused and replied:

"Well, you know, it's his own damn fault for being so unhealthy. I'm just not that sympathetic. Sorry."

She tried to backtrack, but it didn't work. So when I took off Tuesday afternoon, my father was still in the hospital despite thinking he'd get out the day before and my mom knew but didn't care. When my flight landed, I had a message from my dad that I'd have to pick him up from the hospital Wednesday and in the drive back from the airport my mom tried to make things better by saying that for the sake of my sister and I, she hoped my father would be okay but for herself, she still didn't feel any sympathy but that I should do what I felt I had to do for him and not worry about her. Gee, thanks.

When my mom and I got to the house, the lawsuit judgement was in the mail. She won. A lot of money, though I didn't ask the exact amount because I don't want to know. Considering that she's getting money for things I paid for - like my rent for the summers I stayed in Pittsburgh and worked in the lab - I imagine I'll finally get some reimbursed. Apparently she feels vindicated. And I think rather unseemingly gleeful at the prospect of my father returning home from the hospital to find out about the judgement against him.

So I picked my dad up from Hamot Wednesday morning. Hospitals tend to give me panic attacks - I think it was all that time volunteering as a candy striper in high school. They got his heart rate down but they can't figure out what is causing it to beat so crazily. They did a cardiac catheterization and didn't find any structural problems, so there must be something electrical wrong. He's on a bunch of meds and has to go back in a month, or sooner if he starts retaining water so he doesn't get CHF. I don't know if he opened the lawsuit letter and I didn't ask because the timing is just so astonishingly awful.

I know he owes my mom and didn't pay everything he was supposed to when my sister and I were in college. I know he wasn't a very good father. Hell, he disowned me for a few years there. But my mom's behavior was so out of line! I'm not used to him ever being the good parent. Ever. I hate being mad at and disappointed in my mom because I know she was always the better parent. This parental role reversal thing is just strange. And it makes for very awkward homecomings.

Bucky Update

Well, they caught him. I'm sort of sad at the whole thing, it was sort of a letdown of an ending at least in dramatic terms. I guess I'm glad he was caught and I'm glad he's not dead, but I hate the gloating done by the troopers, especially Superintendent Bennett, spokesmodel for trooper arrogance. My next question is: can he get a fair trial anywhere in WNY?

I was talking to my mom yesterday and she pointed out that now my hometown is known for Bucky and that whole Nushawn Williams mess. Doesn't seem like the nicest place to live, does it? Though I suppose small towns don't make the national papers for good news. I don't know if we're really that different from any other small rural town anywhere in the country but it is certainly a mindset totally unlike what I've seen in cities. Or even actual suburbs.

In MTP news, Tim had that wretched hunched-over neck-less hobgoblin of doom, Dick Cheney, on this weekend. Tim was relatively good in his questioning this time, he didn't seem to defer to Cheney like he's done in the past. I don't think I need to sum up any more than the NYT. The transcript is here. There was a point in the interview that I thought fully summed up the attitude of the administration - "I don't buy the terms of the question, Tim" - though according to the transcript what he actually said was "I don't buy the premature question" which can still work if you figure that all questioning of this administration is considered by them to be premature, in the sense that they don't feel they should ever be questioned at all. But I like what I heard better, anyway.

Beware of Bucky!

So I have been totally remiss in my duties as a Western NY expat blogger by not posting about Bucky until now, though those close to me will already know the details because I keep emailing them the NYT articles.

Ralph "Bucky" Phillips escaped from prison in April. The NYS police (the State Troopers) have been looking for him ever since. Three troopers have been shot (allegedly) by Bucky and one has died. In their manhunt, the troopers shot and killed a 25-year-old ATVer in murky circumstances. This isn't the first time he's escapted from prison, either. Back when I was in fifth grade, he escaped. We thought it was a joke and we wrote the number for the police on our hands along with "beware of Bucky!" It was funny until I got home and got yelled at by my parents for making light of the situation, especially since my dad had prosecuted him for something back in the day and they were a wee bit concerned that Bucky could be cranky about that. But they caught him...that time.

In the process of looking for Bucky, the troopers have disrupted everyone's lives and somehow managed to give the locals an even lower opinion of the state police than we already had. I never once had a positive interaction with a trooper. Even my father, who by virtue of both his jobs (EMT and attorney) has had a lot of dealings with them, admits that they're arrogant jerks. And they didn't help the PR much with the Friday am news conference (held in my old high school auditorium!) in which the superintendent of the troopers basically said "fuck you" to all the locals whose lives have been totally disrupted by the search. Technically, he was answering a question posed about the local community's growing resentment over the roadblocks, searches, helicopters, and other search-related annoyances but his response - that the community should just deal with it and that it was our fault that the troopers couldn't catch him anyway - basically sums up everything wrong with the NYS police and their attitude.

It is obviously very very bad that three troopers have been shot and that one is dead. And I don't think the excuse some are giving (that the cops got what's coming to them becasue in an effort to pressure Bucky, CPS took his grandkids away from their mother becasue she'd allowed the kids to be around him and he was armed. Ignoring the fact that if the standard is "don't have your kids around people with guns" there are about seven fit parents in the whole county.) is justification. But what reason (other than the $250,000 reward, I suppose) do people have to cooperate with the troopers, who so obviously have no regard for the actual residents of the community they're so intent on turning upside down?

The gross part is that this is all making me weirdly homesick. People that know me can't seem to belive that I'm from somewhere so small. Last I checked, my town had about 10,000 residents. There are about 160,000 in the entire county. All the back roads they're blocking are the places I used to go in a certain boy's 1984 Ford Tempo in search of abandoned grape roads that we could go park on. For the love of God, my high school mascot was the hillbilly. What people don't realize and what I've tried desperately to forget is that Chautauqua County is technically part of Appalachia. We may be in New York, but we're hicks, okay? I may have escaped but most people don't. All the interviews with the locals and the Bucky merchandise and his whole folk-hero status thing isn't really helping our image but bringing in hundreds of troopers from other parts of the state who obviously don't care to integrate into the community they're supposed to be serving. Add that to the fact that all these troopers can't even find the guy and no wonder people aren't being more helpful.

As the JC said while telling me about all the coverage we were getting on CNN, "wow. You really are from nowhere." Hail hail Fredonia, indeed.

Each Household Appliance is Like a New Science in My Town

So I went home last weekend, mostly because apparently one cannot get a NYS inspection in PA. So I drove there Friday and back Monday, which makes almost 900 miles of driving in very little time.

Aside from the car inspection, I also went home to do a little recon before my sister's graduation (in 2 weeks!). I figured I needed to see firsthand what the dynamics of the current Parental Thermonuclear War were like before we added my sister and her major life event to the mix. My mom keeps talking about it and my dad knows now, but he doesn't really talk about it. He makes oblique references to it as if I don't know what he's talking about. Examples: "I'd give you some more cash for the drive back, but my finances are tied up. I had to put a retainer on a lawyer." Even more fun: "I was thinking about buying a house, but you can't get a mortgage approved when you're involved in ongoing litigation." Does he think I don't know that he's using getting sued by his ex-wife as an excuse? Didn't he wonder why I didn't ask "gee dad, who is suing you?"

Yeah, graduation will be fun. Especially since they got rooms in the same hotel. And at dinner, there won't be Jessy's family to distract me, just my sister's boyfriend. Not even his family, which might induce them to behave.

And lab really, really sucks. Because everything has to go to hell at once.