Archive for the 'family' Category

Full size candy bars = wealth and beauty

Published
by
ashley
on October 22, 2008
in family, friends, i am ridiculous and marques
. 4 Comments

Do you remember when you were a kid, how awesome trick-or-treating was?  Walking around the streets of your neighborhood and knocking on people’s doors for candy, watching as your pumpkin bucket filled up?  I’m pretty sure my Halloween candy stash contributed to my childhood obesity in a tiny way.

My favorite house was always the house who gave out full-size candy bars.  It never failed.  Every year, full-size candy bar.  I always thought those people were rich in my head even though they lived in a little Sears Craftsman bungalow.  For some reason, full-size candy bar equaled wealth.

My second favorite house was the one that always gave out little styrofoam cups of hot chocolate.  Some years, the fickle weather patterns of central West Virginia would make Halloween super cold, to the point where I would have to wear tights under whatever costume I was wearing (though I never participated in Slutoween).  I remember one particularly cold Halloween where I cried for hours because my mom made me wear my coat over my costume.

Costumes ranged.  I can’t remember a lot of them, but I remember one year I dressed up as an Indian princess.  I think I was Raggedy Ann once.  And a Hershey kiss.  And Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  My costumes were very unoriginal.

When we got home from trick-or-treating, my favorite thing to do was to dump all of my candy on the floor and immediately start sorting it out into piles.  Piles of Tootsie Rolls, fun-size candy bars, Smarties, Double Bubble and caramel creams.  Then I would give half to my mom - she is a big fan of any kind of caramel candy, so she would always get the little square Kraft Caramels or the Sugar Daddies.  Then I would count how many I had of each particular candy and keep inventory so I knew when I was running low on any particular kind.  I was very meticulous about my operation.

We lived on a dead-end road, so we never got any trick-or-treaters in my later years.  After I turned 11, my mom wouldn’t let me go out for trick-or-treating, and on Halloween night, she would turn off all the lights and we’d watch a movie.  One time we got two brave kids who knocked on our door and we had to give them candy from my Halloween treat bag from school that day.  I think we gave them like one Hershey kiss and a roll of Smarties.  After that point, nobody ever stopped at our house again.  Also I think the neighborhood kids probably think my mom is a witch, since she’s a woman of a certain age who lives alone with her cats.  Also she wears a lot of black.

This year, I want to dress up, but I have nowhere to go.  My costume idea is pretty awesome, though - I want to go as the Utz girl and I want Marques to go as Natty Boh:

Pros to going as the Utz girl:

1.  Not a hard costume.  All I need is a red bow, lots of blush, a red shirt and a bag of chips.

2.  Holy crap, I get to walk around all night with my hand in a bag of chips.

(Ashley fact-of-the-day:  Did you know that Halloween 2007 was the day of my interview for my current job?  I didn’t even realize it was Halloween until I got off the metro and ran into a girl dressed in a skintight black leotard with cat ears on.)

My family tells me nothing - or why you should get a breast cancer screening

Published
by
ashley
on October 15, 2008
in family
. 0 Comments

Since moving to DC a year ago, I often find myself wondering if I’ve become disconnected from my friends and family.  I do talk to my friends and family often, but there are times where I forget important things and sometimes, there are things that I don’t even know about.

When I lived in Huntington, 45 minutes from Charleston (where my family lives), they would constantly forget to tell me things.  Your cousin is pregnant, someone is in the hospital, blah blah blah.  I would call to say hello and it was like CNN breaking news, and of course, I would always be indignant (why can’t you tell me my grandmother is in the hospital while she’s actually in the hospital!?).  Or I would come in on a Sunday to do laundry at my grandmother’s house and get the weekend update then.  Oh, you mean you guys all got together for family dinner night last night?  Great.

By moving 300 miles away, it didn’t exactly help the stellar communication we already had set in place.  I do call my grandmother pretty much every Sunday after I read the paper, and I try to talk to my mom once or twice a week.  When she calls and I don’t answer, she becomes worried that I’ve been abducted or murdered or raped (never mind the fact that I live in one of the safest areas of the metro area and regularly walk home from the metro by myself in the late evenings with little to no concern for my personal safety) and she calls 6 more times until I finally pick up.  I try to keep abreast of deaths, births, scandals, events, holidays, and illnesses as best I can.

So when my mom called me this past August to tell me that my grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer, I immediately thought she had known about this for quite awhile and I was just now being told after all the treatments and everything.

The conversation went something like this:

Mom:  So I have something to tell you about your grandmother, but you can’t tell her that I told you because she’ll get upset.

Me:  Is this about her rampant addiction to Tylenol PM?  (Seriously, I swear she’s addicted)

Mom:  ….. Uh…. no.

My grandmother did not tell me about her cancer until about 5 or 6 days after that.  And that’s my family.

I’ve been thinking about this conversation because sometimes I forget that my grandma has breast cancer.  It’s not a particularly dangerous form of breast cancer, it’s very treatable and curable and she probably doesn’t have to go through chemotherapy or anything.  It’s so not a threat that they’ve pushed back her radiation treatments for like 2 months.  My family tends to approach Very Serious Things with humor and making fun of each other, so my mom threatened to buy my grandmother a barrage of pink ribbon merchandise for her birthday.  We are not one of those sentimental families.

Seeing that October is breast cancer month, I tend to think of the cancer a little more than normal.  She’s undergoing radiation therapy until mid-November and she says it’s nothing.  And I believe her.  But part of me wonders if she’s scared, if she’s thinking of her best friend Melissa who died of breast cancer in the early 90s, and how we did all of those breast cancer walks in her honor.

(embarrassing sidenote:  Melissa had cancer for quite awhile before she passed, so breast cancer became a second-nature topic in our household, and my grandmother had stacks of little plastic “How to give yourself a breast exam” placards with things like IMPORTANT written all over it.  I vividly remember trying to give myself a breast exam when I was 8, even though I had no breasts.  Safety first, kids.)

And I also am thankful for my grandmother’s vigilance for her health, and I am eternally apologetic for any jokes I may have made about my grandmother seeing her doctor more than she sees me (though that’s true).

And so, in the middle of breast cancer month, I implore you and any of your loved ones to get a breast cancer screening.  Catch it early.  Get it cured.  And by all means, please inform your family in a timely manner of any possible outcomes.  Even if your family lives 300 miles away.

All the comforts of home

Published
by
ashley
on October 13, 2008
in family, friends and i am ridiculous
. 0 Comments

This past weekend, I was surrounded by cows, mountains, leaves, and trees.

I went to visit my best friend Lorrie in Floyd, Virginia.  She moved there in late August and it was a surprise to everyone considering she lived in Brooklyn for two years.  How do you go from Brooklyn to Floyd?  I don’t know.  I felt a bit out of my element there.  It felt weird to have to drive 30 minutes to get to town, not to mention 45 minutes to get to Target.  Any place where it takes me 45 minutes to get to Target, I pass.

But it reminded me a lot of the area where I grew up.

When I was a wee girl, my mom and I lived with my grandfather in a tiny town called Red House in Putnam County, W.Va.  Putnam County is sandwiched between Kanawha County, where Charleston is, and Cabell County, where Huntington is.  It’s now one of the fastest growing counties in the state - it’s become like the new suburb of Charleston.  Lots of expensive McMansions are built there, and traffic has become almost unbearable.  People moved there to escape the city life for the country life, but now it’s almost become the city life there.

But when I lived there, it wasn’t like that at all.  It was definitely country, with rolling green pastures with cows and hayrolls and red barns.  My grandfather worked as a mechanic for a brick company, but he tended a garden during the summertime.  There were three gardens - one was for vegetables like cucumbers and tomatoes and squash and lettuce.  The other was for fruit like watermelon (my favorite, and he always planted plenty of them for me) and cantaloupe and honeydew.  There was also a smaller section for corn.  We always had bushels of vegetables and fruits outside our door.

There were also fruit trees - apple and plum and peaches.  Blackberry bushes lined the barbed wire fence that separated the farm from the forest.  Behind the garage, my grandfather planted blueberries and raspberries and sometimes strawberries.

Driving up the mountain to get to the farm, you were surrounded by trees and mountains and farms.  It’s a beautiful, scenic drive, one that takes about 30 minutes from the bottom to the top, with lots of spots where the mountains seem to go on for miles, fading to a dusty blue in the distance.  It is, of course, particularly beautiful in the fall, when there are rows and rows of red and yellow and orange trees as far as you can see, in every direction.

I was really young then - young enough that I didn’t notice anything about the way we were living.  I didn’t realize we were only living there because my mom couldn’t afford to live anywhere else, and after my grandmother left my grandfather, he wasn’t able to take care of himself.  When I was younger, I favored my grandfather for the sole reason that he favored me.  I followed him everywhere, in the garden, helping water the plants, picking apples from the trees, shucking corn on the porch, playing kitchen in his garage and making him drink imaginary cups of coffee.

My mom saved money, and she bought a house and I moved away when I was around 6 or 7 years old.  And as we both got older, the garden shriveled up.  He was too old to work in it anymore.  He remarried a woman that I didn’t particularly like, but tolerated and occasionally had a nice time with.  They divorced a few years back and then my grandfather was left alone in the house he had built himself 25 years earlier.

And then he died this past March, and it was enormously sad, like all deaths are.

My family has an annoying habit of scheduling important things without checking dates with everyone.  For example, this past weekend, they scattered my grandfather’s ashes at his farm.  I considered skipping out on my Floyd weekend, but I felt that since those plans had been made months in advance and the scattering plans had been made, oh, I don’t know, weeks in advance, it would be unfair for me to throw everything into upheaval.  So I went to Floyd, and had a nice time, and ate delicious food and laughed with my friends.

I felt guilty, naturally, but the guilt subsided a bit when I started to draw parallels between the area and the area I grew up in.  Mountains and trees and leaves and cows and barbed wire fences and gardens and corn.  Surrounding myself this weekend with the things that surrounded him in his life was actually very nice, even if these things were 3 hours away.  Even if these things weren’t home.

I have returned triumphant

Published
by
ashley
on August 12, 2008
in family, friends, i am ridiculous, life, marques and waylon
. 0 Comments

Quick recap:

  1. 12 hours on the road = restless leg syndrome.
  2. We drove home the southern way, but returned back to DC the northern way. Google Maps shows the northern way as being 3 minutes shorter than the southern way. Google Maps is a liar. L-I-A-R.
  3. I did not get to eat any biscuits from Tudors, which was disappointing as I could honestly really go for a Dottie or even a Mary B right now. However, I did get to eat at Rio Grande, and it was delicious as always.
  4. As much as I enjoy seeing my family, and I honestly sincerely do, sometimes after extended periods, they grate on my nerves. Also it’s possible I have developed lung cancer from the amount of secondhand smoke I inhaled this weekend.
  5. I love kittens, and if I could have justified taking one back to DC with me, I would have. In. A. Heartbeat.
  6. Two Sheetz stops - one south, one north. Yum Sheetz. I love you.
  7. The wedding was absolutely beautiful, and very unique. Enough that when I plan my future wedding to Michael Phelps, I now find the bar has been raised. Well played, Tory. Well played.
  8. My best friend Tina is late for everything. EVERYTHING.
  9. Waylon did not stop crying when I got home. 4 straight hours of meowing. It is a good thing I did not bring home the kitten.

    I have tiny amounts of pictures, but first, I would like to say how fascinated I am about my search referrals this month. Somebody found my website by searching “cracker barrel and baked potatoes”. In response to that, I say this:

    Why would you go to Cracker Barrel and eat a baked potato? HASHBROWN CASSEROLE. Get with it.

    As well, I have “how to inventory ice cream”. Again, in response, as I am nothing if not helpful:

    I do not inventory my ice cream. I merely eat it. If your ice cream is hanging around your freezer long enough that you have to inventory it, you don’t deserve to be eating ice cream. Try sherbet.

    Searching for “white trash casserole tuna”, which is my favorite guilty pleasure meal ever. Here’s the recipe, in case you haven’t found it:

    White Trash Casserole

    ingredients: 1 prepared box macaroni and cheese (not the fancy kind with the cheese sauce, the neon orange powder kind), 1 can tuna, 1 can peas (or green beans), some ritz crackers/crushed potato chips.

    instructions: mix all of that up. top with crackers/chips. eat and revel in your glory.

    Finally, I have “my ex shares a phone plan with her”. Let me say I feel your pain, but on the opposite side, as we had to share our phone plan with Marques’s ex-girlfriend for over a year. This would not have been a problem, I don’t mind sharing at all, if not for the misplaced spite that forced his ex-girlfriend to run over our minutes every month. It was a very long and expensive period of time. I hope that you have resolved your issues with your phone plan, as we have, and we are all the happier for it.

    As well, my favorite search phrase is this: “i love you more than anything books are fun”

    That pretty much sums up most conversations I have with Marques. I love you more than anything, and books are fun. I want that on a t-shirt. Never say I’ve not warned you on what kind of a girlfriend I am.

    Hopefully pictures tomorrow, of mountains and kittens and friends.

    Just for the record… our trip in numbers & lists

    Published
    by
    ashley
    on August 6, 2008
    in books, family, friends, i am ridiculous, marques and tunes
    . 1 Comment

    So tomorrow Marques and I are going home for the first time in a really long time. We’re both excited to see our families, and do all the fun things we used to do before we moved to DC and became The Most Boring Couple Ever.

    Miles from Springfield, Va. to Charleston, W.Va.: 373 miles

    Approximate gallons of gas used round-trip: 25

    Approximate cost of gas round-trip (assuming gas is an average $4.10): $101

    Five restaurants we want to eat at while we’re home: Tudor’s Biscuit World (omg, Dottie, I love you), Rio Grande, Boston Beanery, Penn Station, Skyline Chili.

    Number of these restaurants we will actually get to eat at: 2, possibly 3

    Best friends I get to see: 2 - Tina and Jasmine

    Number of outfits I’m bringing home: 6

    Number of days I’ll be gone: 4

    Number of pairs of shoes I’m bringing: 2

    Hopeful number of stops at Sonic on the way home: 1 million

    Actual Sonic stops: Probably not even one. Sad face.

    Possible number of Sheetz stops: 1, hopefully 2

    Playlist created for iPod: Named “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here”, contains 204 songs, 13.5 hours, 972.4 MB.

    Most songs by one single artist in said playlist: 21, by Ryan Adams. 22 if you consider Whiskeytown to be Ryan Adams.

    Number of 80’s songs: 7. Surprisingly low. Two by Billy Idol, 4 by Bowie.

    Surprising number of songs from the Juno soundtrack, directly influenced by the fact that I read Diablo Cody’s “Candy Girl” book last night: 4

    Number of books I’m bringing home: 6

    Number of things specifically requested that I bring home: 13

    Number of those aforementioned things that is food: 5

    Days Waylon will be left alone: 3 and a half. Sad kitty.

    You actually CAN go home again

    Published
    by
    ashley
    on July 30, 2008
    in family, friends, i am ridiculous and marques
    . 1 Comment

    So next week I go back home to Charleston to visit my friends and family, whom I haven’t seen since March.  Well, I did see my mom for a weekend in May, but I haven’t seen anyone since March and this is a severe problem as I sincerely miss them all.

    Going back home is both good and bad.  It’s good because I get to see everyone, and revisit all of my favorite places like Rio and my grandma usually cooks me something delicious to eat.  But bad because it just doesn’t feel like home anymore.  Since I moved out of my mom’s house for college, the house I spent my formative teen years doesn’t really feel like my house.  My room still has all of the posters in it, though, and it’s pretty embarrassing to hang out in a room full of Billy Corgan and Reel Big Fish pictures.

    But my mom piled everything in the free world on my rusty old daybed (DAYBED.  ack.  I was not cool) so now whenever I go home, I have to either sleep on the couch or on an air mattress.  Neither of these options are particularly fun.  Also, it seems like my grandma and my mom almost fight over where I sleep that night.  This week, my grandma tried to bribe me by saying if I stayed at her house, I would get to sleep in the bed and she would sleep on the chaise lounge.  BRIBERY.

    I have a wedding to go to that weekend which I am surprisingly looking forward to, as the bride is a genuinely sweet and very cool person and I think her wedding would be really fun.  Plus, a lot of her friends will be there, and I used to be friends with those people back in high school so I’ll get to see them too.  I tried to buy a cute little embroidered cotton dress from Old Navy for the ceremony but apparently, Old Navy sizes are made for gargantuan Amazon women because the size I normally wear in pants?  The neckline of the dress fell UNDER my boobs.  So either my breasts have shrank (possibility?) or Old Navy sizing is messed up.  I tried to exchange it for a size smaller, and was looking forward to it but unfortunately, was brutally rebuffed by it being too big AGAIN.

    Also, don’t get all excited because you think I’ve lost weight.  Oh no.  See, I thought that too.  I put the dress on and was overjoyed (also sad) that it didn’t fit because I’m like WHOO HOO size-I-fit-into-before-the-devil-Depo!  I haven’t worn anything with that size in a looooong time.  And I’m dancing around, giddy with happiness.  I think to myself, “There’s no need to try these jeans on, they won’t even fit!  Maybe I can go a size SMALLER!  My cereal diet works!”  But then I put the jeans on (in the bigger size) and died a little death of mortification and disappointment.

    Then I ate a Reese’s cup.

    I do wish there was some kind of zapper where I could lose about 80 pounds before next weekend.  Like a laser or even some sort of genie that would grant me a wish (that wasn’t more wishes, of course, because everyone thinks of the more wishes).

    Also, it is ridiculously hot here in DC, so all of you people who live in temperate zones like the Pacific Northwest, I am jealous of you.  As I was preparing myself for the mile home from the Metro, I put my hair in a ponytail, shouldered my messenger bag squarely on my shoulder, walked out of the train car, and instantly became drenched in sweat.  As soon as I walked through my door, I peeled off my clothes and stood in front of the fan for 10 minutes.  Hot weather, I hate you.

    And back on the subject of going home, I am trying to plan our route home in a most Sonic-efficient manner.  So we can make sure to stop at every Sonic (or Sheetz or WaWa) in our 300 miles.  I think it’s an awesome plan, but Marques?  Not so much.

    man walks into a room

    Published
    by
    ashley
    on February 12, 2007
    in apartment, family, life and marques
    . 0 Comments

    so apparently, rachel let me know that chili cheese burritos were still alive and thriving in ohio and kentucky.  i think she’s just saying that because she secretly wants me to move to her city and have pillow fights with her.  she’s all the time trying to get me to move away from here, citing such dangerous things like the chemical plants near my house in dunbar.  i guess she doesn’t know about the solid sheet of ice that currently covers the entire parking lot at work.  she’s always looking out for me.

    right now, my awesome boyfriend is cleaning our apartment.  this is a good thing, as our apartment is hella gross lately.  i don’t know what it is, but i just have the worst time ever cleaning.  and i feel bad because i WANT to keep the apartment clean, but everytime i start to clean, i just get overwhelmed with this feeling of depression and then i turn the television on to degrassi to help reduce the feeling.

    and valentine’s day is coming soon.  this is my first real valentine’s day with marques, although we sort of celebrated it last year, too, with mix cds.  i don’t have anything special planned because we both have to work that night, but i think i’m going to make us a good, tasty dinner (whole-wheat penne with shrimp and pesto sauce, my favorite dinner ever) and i bought him a stupid present that he’s going to roll his eyes at.

    i’m also leaving for new york this weekend to visit lorrie, which is exciting.  i can’t wait to touch her with my belly.  she hates that.