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I am the confirmation sponsor for my niece Katie.  When I signed up, I received a sheet saying that I should take her out and chat one-on-one.  This morning before I left Canton, I got the chance to do that.  We went to Perkins and got some breakfast and had a really nice talk.  I’m so proud of my niece and who she is becoming.  I think I’d like to spend time like that more often.

Afterward, Dan and I loaded up the very full car.  It had become messy and unwieldy in the last week and half and I was no longer interested in packing things neatly.  We just threw it all in and went home.  It felt so nice to unpack and clean up my own house.  Dan and I ordered some food and watched movies for the rest of the night.  Ah, home.

This morning Julie took me out for my Christmas present, an outing with my sister (that would be Julie)!  First, we went to watch a Central basketball game, then we went out to lunch for some Japanese food, and then we went shopping.  We both ended up with some jeans from Ann Taylor and some smelly stuff from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  Good sales, good times!  Thanks, Julie!

Julie making good use of her chopsticks.

This evening, Dan and I headed up to Medina to visit Todd and Marcy.  They made us spaghetti and meatballs and we had a great time touring the new house, talking, exchanging gifts, and Dan and Todd even got to play some rock band together (they were a good duo).  Getting to hang out with Marcy always makes me wish that we still lived ten minutes away from each other and had 6th period together every day.  Oh, how times change.  Thanks, Marcy!

All grown up!

This morning, Dan and I slowly got up and hung around my mom’s house until it was time for the family party at Grandma’s.  Dan and I got there at around 1pm and the dining room was totally packed.  All nine remaining kids were there and lots of grandkids and great grandkids.  I was able to catch up with a few of my cousins.  Angelika, who is about my age, has a nine-month-old named Nicolas.  I got to tote him around for awhile and smell his nice fuzzy baby head.  It was awesome.

After lunch was served my Uncle Kent had a special announcement.  My Uncle Kent is retired from the army and his son Karl is currently in the army.  Apparently, Uncle Kent had written to see if Grandpa Richards had been overlooked in receiving any medals from his time in WWII.  He had written to the army over three years ago and just this August, he received a letter back stating that, sure enough, my grandfather should have received the bronze star for bravery.  I’m not sure of the circumstances, but the bronze star is the fourth-highest combat award of the U.S. Armed Forces.  Uncle Kent presented it to my grandma and it had my grandpa’s name engraved on the back.  Karl had also put together a special frame with all of my grandpa’s medals and gave it to Grandma as well, explaining each one before handing it over.  There were quite a few tears shed as this is the first Christmas we celebrated without Grandpa at the head of the table.  “Grandpa would have been so pleased.  He would have been so pleased, he wouldn’t have been able to stand it,” Grandma said.

Karl presenting Grandma with Grandpa's medals.

For more pictures from the party, check out the piictures tab!

This morning, I got up early to do a five mile run.  The sun was just starting to come up and the neighborhood was silent, likely nestled in after an exciting day yesterday.  The air was nice and clear and cold and I enjoyed my post-Christmas run very much.  Afterward, Dan and I ate breakfast with Pete, Joyce, and Ray, packed up the car, and headed north.  We stopped in Columbus to drop off some gifts and pick up a few more before landing in Akron at my Mom’s house.  We were the first ones there, followed by Ben, Julie and company, and Mike and Kelly.  First we snacked and caught up, then we opened gifts and then we ate.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.  There are more under the piictures tab!

The Mokros family taking it all in!

Dan likes this one because he thinks I look ADD.

I made Ben an awesome book from our trip to Japan.

Mom loved this homemade ornament from Katie and Marky.

Katie with her Ikea finger puppets (for movie making).

Guido feeling excited and apprehensive about his new iPod.

Now we’re relaxing and watching some football with Guido.  Goodnight!

Giving thanks for my turkey trot.  For the nice weather.  For my working legs.  For my sister and my husband who came and walked with me.  For my bright yellow t-shirt.  For my hopefulness to win my age group.  For my humbling, not-even-close-to-winning place.  For the chance to sit in my old high school gym.  For the energy to pass that girl at the end.

Giving thanks for dinner preparations.  For looking through ads for black Friday.  For drinking coffee.  For peeling and chopping potatoes.  For the turkey in the garage.  For chatting with my mom.  For the hillbilly refrigerator (the car).  For watching Guido blaze a trail through the kitchen.  For waiting.  For the cheeseball and the pumpernickel bread and spinach dip.

Giving thanks for dinner.  For Nick and Tyler’s arrival.  For woodworking talk.  For Ben and Rachael.  For Matt.  For new friends and old.  For Julie, Mark, Katie and Marky.  For hugs.  For digging in.  For telling stories about crazy ladies (three in all).  For mashed potatoes and stuffing.  For losing at euchre.  For three kinds of pie, with whipped cream.  For a little more spinach dip.  For washing dishes.  For sitting down.  For more hugs goodbye.  For relaxing with football.  For going to bed stuffed.

For more pictures on the piictures tab.

In Canton today, I got to go to one of Marky’s basketball games.  It was quite a nail-biter, so I forgot to take pictures.  Then, Katie went to trick-or-treat and the rest of us went to the Winking Lizard for a late lunch for Julie’s birthday.  It was fun.  Here are Julie, me and my mom:

Happy Birthday/Halloween

Dan and I got home around 7 and I tried to read some for class, but could not keep my eyes open.  I took a nap and then woke up to read a bit more.  I read an interesting chapter on “the machine.”  I thought I was nothing for Halloween, turns out, I’m a cyborg* (and every day is Halloween).  I talked about this once before, but what the heck, it’s interesting to me.  Not only is technology sort of messing with our notions of time (synchronous, asynchronous, what?) and space (where is my blog anyway?), but also our beingness in the world.  The computer (connected to the internet) extends (some might say constrains) my capacity to read, write, learn, communicate, think, be, etc. etc.  I go nowhere without at least my iPhone (though laptop is preferable), which I use to constantly check email, update facebook, record thoughts, check wikipedia, oh, and sometimes answer phone calls.  My laptop makes me exponentially smarter.  I remember learning to read difficult texts in high school and how inefficient I was at it.  If I didn’t know a word, I would rely on context clues or maybe, possibly, go find that collegiate dictionary on the bookshelf in the living room to look it up (but only if the sentence was nonsense without the word, and okay, sometimes not even then).  But, if I didn’t know a literary reference, I just allowed myself to be confused and not understand the passage (I mean, really what was I going to do, go to the card catalogue at the library?  And do you remember how terrible the internet was in 1996?).  Sometimes a teacher would elaborate on the reference in class, which would sometimes clear it up and sometimes not.  Reading now, with my laptop, is a completely different experience.  I look up words instantly and then tweet them to keep a log of words I am learning.  I look up references to philosophers and read the wikipedia page to help me understand (and sometimes several subpages that leads to a veritable labyrinth of information).  I understand what I am reading in ways not possible without my handy extension of the mind/body.  Even in class, if some big name theorist or book or article comes up that I don’t know, I don’t have to try to look contemplative to avoid the suspicion of my ignorance (though suspicion abounds I am sure), I just look it up right then and there, and am able to follow a conversation I might not have been able to follow otherwise.  In a way, this is sort of an old idea.  I mean, even the seemingly insignificant invention of lenses, eventually used to make glasses, extends our sight.  Cars extend our motility.  Technology has been changing the way humans function for a long time, but I still lean toward the idea that computer technology has made changes that rock our assumptions of reality in ways not imagined before.  I mean, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, cyborgs?  This is the stuff of science fiction.  I belong in a science fiction novel.  Here I am constructing my life in this virtual space, which is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time and at different times, any time.  It’s mind boggling.  And for those who read this and don’t know me in real life, this is all I am.  This little box with words and photographs.  It doesn’t even matter if I “really” exist.  All I am for them is what is on this website.  What’s the difference between the “real” me and the website?  Or am I both?  I say both, I think, because I’m a cyborg.

*I like Donna Haraway and her Cyborg Manifesto.

Today’s my big sister’s birthday and at work someone asked her if she was still in her twenties and she said, “Yeah, I’m 20-15.”  Good one, Grandma!  She got some new running clothes and modeled them for my blog (see picture below).  The first picture was ASTRONOMICALLY funnier than this one, but she would have killed me if I had posted it because she had this hilarious face that looked sorta like, well, you know when you pause the TV and you just so happen to pause it when someone is talking, and their mouth is all twisted and one eye is closed and you go, I can’t believe there is a moment in time when my face looks like that!  Yeah, it was like that.  Hilarious.  Sorry I can’t post it here, but it will forever be on my iPhone for when I need to remember not to take life too seriously (like, for example, every day this week).  Here’s the funny, but significantly less funny picture:

Practice Run

So since today is Julie’s birthday, Dan and I left Columbus right when I was done with work and minutes after Dan had stepped off of an airplane.  We headed straight for Canton and the Central/Aquinas game (big small Catholic school rivalry).  We got to see my niece, Katie, perform as head majorette.  Here she is after the half time show (sorry about the lighting):

We are definitely related.

Then, the craziest thing happened.  I ran into my best friend from grade school, Jina with a J!  I haven’t seen Jina since I was 15 years old.  We were the craziest little pair that made up radio shows and disgusting songs about toe jam, watched Willow, Children of the Corn and Drop Dead Fred until we knew all of the lines, and nicknamed each other Ding-a-ling (Jina) and Ling Ding (me).  So, she sees me and I barely recognize her and we scream and start talking so fast I pretty much forget it’s 2009.  I was transported back to 1994 when we sat in the back of my dad’s station wagon and waved to strangers just to see their discomfort.  Ah, those were the days.  Crazy and carefree.  I need to wave to strangers more often.  She pulls me over to see her dad (who I always thought was the greatest) and she says, “Dad, guess who?” and he looks for a second and goes, “Ling Ding?!”  Ha.  Yep, that’s me.

Oh no, not gladiolas!

This morning, we got up early and headed to Cleveland at around 7:30am.  Guido likes to get there early to get a good spot for tailgating and to start cooking.  He had a ton of food and everything packed the night before.  He’s very meticulous about his tailgating.  Once we were parked and set up, we were welcomed by this message printed on a cornhole board:

The guys who owned it had spied our Bengals gear (just Dan and I) and moved this so that we could see it.  We spent the next few hours eating lots of food, playing cornhole off and on and sitting around chatting.  It was great fun and a nice break from my reading sprees as of late.

Here’s my mom and I chatting with Guido:

And Guido making one of his classic faces and wearing one of his classic hats:

The game started at 1, so we headed over at around 12:30.  The weather was perfect football weather and so much better than last year… and the game got really good.  The Bengals were up 14-0 for awhile, but managed to let the Browns take the lead at 14-20 by close to the end of the game.  Then, we left and headed home, but listened the rest in the car and it turns out that the Bengals scored a touchdown after we left, but missed the extra point.  So, they went into overtime and the Bengals finally scored with only 7 seconds left.  Exciting game.  I’m tired.

Oh, there are more pictures under the piictures tab.  Enjoy.

Dan and I headed up to Canton for the night.  We got to see Katie play volleyball (they beat St. Paul’s!) and then I spent most of the rest of the night trying to get my Foucault reading done.  I only have about 11 pages left for class on Tuesday and I am psyched! Why did I not finish those measly 11 pages tonight?  Well, because I read Foucault at a rate of about 10 pages/hour.  So, yeah.

Tomorrow, we are going to the Browns/Bengals game with my mom and Guido and I am just so excited that it’s not going to be -13 like last year, that I could pee!  Guido has made a TON of food and I’m looking forward to playing some cornhole and tailgating before the game.  The Browns have been doing so terribly that I brought my Bengals sweatshirt to wear.  I know, I’m a bad Northeastern Ohioan.

Bride to be

Today was Marcy’s bridal shower at her Aunt Kathy’s house.  It was a super cute brunch followed by presents.  I was in charge of writing down the gifts, which is a job I like as it involves making lists.  Todd stopped by toward the end and he and Marcy played a cute game where they sat back to back, with one of their own shoes and one of their fiance/e’s shoes in each hand.  Then, Aunt Kathy would ask a question like, who is going to mow the lawn (Todd) or who is going to do the cooking (Todd) and who is more of a planner (Marcy) and they would raise the correct person’s shoe and then we’d laugh at how predictable some questions were and how they differed on others.  It was a very nice shower and a very nice weekend in Canton.