Some Good, Some Bad, Some Weird

I've put off updating on here for far too long and there's been some major changes around here in the last seven months.

My Dad and Grandma getting some sun in the back yard, 5/11/13.

2013 started off with my 101 year old grandmother moving in with us. Despite her age she's in pretty good shape. Her eyesight and hearing ain't too good, but she gets around pretty well on her own and doesn't really need that much help with anything. She makes her own breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday all on her own, and doesn't suffer from mental disabilities usually associated with someone her age, such as alzheimer's or dementia or whatever. 
For the last few years she's had her own apartment in a senior care facility. It was a really nice place, and she had her own room. The reason she moved in with us wasn't due to a health issue or anything like that. She just simply ran out of money. 

It's amazing that she's 101 and doing so well health wise. Especially when you consider that she's fallen down a few times over the last few years and has even broken bones in a couple of those falls, and she's still kicking hard. However, having her here is like being in prison. It's not because she's old, or because she takes and hour and half in the kitchen to make a sandwich and tea, or because she can be a serious fucking asshole at times. I know that sounds like a dick thing to say, but I'll explain further later on in this post. 

We had WEIRD PANTS FRIDAY a couple months back.
So I wore fishing gaiters.

The first week of February
I FINALLY GOT A JOB!!! 
(Ann Patterson, if you're out there somewhere reading this, you'll get a kick out of this.) 
Kinda funny how I got the job. My mom had me take some of her clothes to the local dry cleaners here in town, and when I went to drop them off they had a help wanted sign in the window looking for a shirt presser. I noticed that everyone working there was a woman, so I didn't give it much thought at first. I mean, look at me... right? But then I thought about it for a second and I realized that I have to AT LEAST ask. So I asked the young girl behind the counter if any experience was needed and she told me that it wasn't necessary. So I asked for an application. She couldn't find one and walked off into the back part of the store. A moment later some dude comes out and walks up to me. Now, you have to keep in mind what I look like in this scenario. I'm wearing black sneakers, jeans, my black SF Giants hoody, Giants beanie, sunglasses, and my beard is a couple weeks grown out. I hadn't really planned on looking for work that day. Those of you that know me know that I'm a big teddy bear and a pretty nice person. But to people that don't know me, I look pretty fucking scary and dangerous. 
So anyway, dude walks up to me and asks me if I've had any experience with this kind of work. I tell him no, and he asks me "Are you sure"? Uhhh, no, I have never had any experience in a dry cleaners or pressing clothes or anything like that. He looks at me strangely for a minute, as if he's skeptical about something. Not that he's skeptical of me so much, but that he doesn't trust me when I tell him I have no experience. He looks confused. Then he says, without asking me my name or to turn in an application or interviewing me in any way whatsoever, to come in Monday morning at 8am. So I said OKAY! I asked him his name, shook his hand, and went home. The whole time I never even took my sunglasses off. I wanted to ask him about what the pay and hours are and such, but at that point, when you've been out of work for a couple years and someone tells you to show up for work on such and such day and time, you don't ask questions. You just say thank you very much and get the fuck out of there! 
So I showed up the following Monday and started work. The guy that hired me, Mark, is some sort of regional repairman/dry cleaning expert for the company. It's a small shop owned buy a guy out of Reno that owns a few different shops in the greater northern Nevada area. It only pays minimum wage, but what the fuck, right? I make about a couple hundred bucks a week. I really don't have any major bills right now to speak of. For now it's mostly just spending money for smokes, food, etc etc.  And everyone that works there is pretty cool.
I start at 7am, Monday through Friday, with weekends off. For those of you that know me well, I've had a serious lack of confidence with finding work due to my poor history of showing up early in the morning due to insomnia and depression etc etc. So far though, I haven't had any trouble getting to work at all. In fact, I'm usually about ten minutes early. For now, my insomnia and depression has subsided. My walk last summer really helped me to understand that I am much more capable of dealing with adversity than I had thought before. Also, a lot of the problems I had in the past, especially with insomnia, has been due to the sort of general anxiety a lonely guy experiences when he's in his twenties and thirties. Back then, it was hard for me to sleep, because I always felt like when I went to bed I was missing out on some cool shit going on somewhere. That's not really the case with me anymore. I have no interest in "going out" or trying to hook up with a girl or any shit like that. I got too many family things going on right now, and I'm just too old anymore to give a fuck about all that stuff. I still do have occasional bouts of sleeplessness (especially with this fucking heat lately!), but I'm still able to get up early and get to work on time. 
So things are going well with work, and with the schedule that I have there, my current living situation, and frame of mind I have right now, I'm going to be able to save money so I can go to school sometime next (hopefully) year. There's a community college in Carson City, and they offer a degree in Management. I figure with my work experience, and getting a degree in Management, I should be able to find a work somewhere eventually that'll pay 30 to 40k a year. 
Oh, I should mention why Mark looked so confused when he hired me. He told me a couple months ago that they hire a lot of guys out of prison because they have experience dry cleaning and pressing. When he told me that, it then dawned on me that when I came in he thought I was a thug because of the way I look, and figured I went there looking for work because maybe I had done that in jail somewhere. That's why he looked at me all weird when I told him I had no experience with this before. Anyway.....

Now for some weirdness/badness. My employment couldn't have come at a better time, because only two weeks after I started working my Mom decided to leave my Dad and she moved out. I guess she's not happy, doesn't feel like she's getting the emotional feedback or whatever from my dad that she thinks she's entitled to. 
My Dad and I are both pissed that she left, but happy she's gone.
On one hand, we're happy that we don't have to deal with her day to day. She can be very difficult to live with.
On the other hand:
After making the family move from one house and one town to another over the last 35 years and having nothing to show for it (ie; do NOT own a home), after all the years of support my dad has given her financially or emotionally or whatever, after having her loser son (me) move in at the age of 38 to support, after making him last summer stop making payments on the house and filling out piles and piles of red tape paperwork so they could get a re-fi to only have the payments knocked down about 20 bucks a month, and after his 101 year old mother moves in, she decides that she's not happy and completely bails on us. Leaving my dad to take care of his loser son (me), and his ONE HUNDRED AND ONE YEAR OLD MOTHER!, in a house he can't afford on his own that's way way way upside down on the mortgage. It was completely selfish and I'm pretty pissed at her for it. 

Now it's just me, Dad, and grandma, with only one car. What makes it difficult is that somebody HAS to be here at the house at all times because of grandma. And that's what I meant when I said earlier that it's like being in a prison with her around. So my dad and I have to plan our outings accordingly. And since we only have the one vehicle, it's not like I can take off for the weekend and go visit my homies in Sacto or whatever. I pretty much have to stay home on the weekends, or at least not go too far in case there's an emergency with grandma. Luckily, my work is only five minutes away, and my boss understands the situation and that at any moment I may have to take off. 

Dealing with all of this is pretty frustrating, but my Dad and I are actually doing pretty well together here. We have a good rhythm going on at home. What I mostly am is lonely and bored. As I mentioned moment ago, I can't really take off for the weekend and see my friends and party or whatever. Once or twice a month my friend Paul will come visit me in the evenings when his work sends him to Reno. I really appreciate it when he makes the time to come hang out with me. We just go have dinner at a local casino, do a little gambling. Hang out, talk. Nothing too exciting, but I enjoy the time very much. He's the only friend of mine I've seen since last November when I was in Sacramento for Lori's Sagittarius party. Which is also the last time I've been able to let loose and get hammered. I'm pretty bored over here folks. 

Sooooo, uhhhh, if you're not doing anything on the weekends, Gardnerville is only a couple hours away via a scenic drive on Highway 50. If anyone wants to come hang out for the day we can go shoot my guns, grab some lunch, do a little gambling, hang out at a coffee shop. Whatever. If you wanted to make a weekend out of it there's plenty of motels around, I just need a couple weeks or so notice so I can save up some fun money.