I Still Suck At Nana's

yesterday, karen and i spent most of the day at nana's house. unfortunately, i still suck at nana's.

karen and her cousin (karlene) from lowell made plans to continue their quest to scan the numerous photos at nana's house so that they could distribute the pictures among all of the relatives. (shameless plug: there is a lot to like about lowell... as the lowell commercials will have you believe.)

it turns out that karlene's husband (tommy) was also coming down from lowell to get a haircut. there is a barber in quincy that tommy likes going to. so he decided that he would come down for the day and get a haircut.

meanwhile, karen's aunt (denise) was likewise down at nana's. she had spent the night there as she attended karen's great uncle's (bob) funeral service the day before. and rather than drive back to lowell from where the funeral was in the cape, she decided to spend the night at nana's.

so needless to say, with karen, karlene, tommy and aunt denise already at nana's, i likewise decided to join the party. little did i know, i would be put to work. truth be told, i really did not mind doing work around nana's house. i had no other plans that day anyway. and as aunt denise has reminded me... i apparently do a lot stuff for their family. (i so have them fooled.)

i actually found aunt denise's statement a little funny. the whole thing came about because there is a quilt hanging in nana's bedroom. the quilt contains pictures of all the relatives... and at the time... their spouses. because i was not married to karen at the time, i did not "make it " to the quilt.

(pictured below from left to right are karlene, aunt denise, karen and tommy. tommy was looking up the derivation of our names. for me, my name means one who is like god... with a question mark... tommy thought the question mark was amusing.)


it turns out that should nana ever pass away, the aforementioned quilt would be buried with nana. so naturally, i found that proposal to bury nana with the quilt slightly ironic in conjunction with aunt denise's statement that i do stuff for the family. after all, there are people on the quilt who are no longer in the family... yet... will be buried with nana should she pass away. in essence, there will be people who did not do stuff for nana that will be buried with her. i just found that funny.

truth be told, it does not matter to me if a picture of me makes the quilt. i just like to joke and tease karen's family about it. after all... like aunt denise said, i apparently do a lot for the family. i told aunt denise that i would boycott all family things... memorial masses included... until i made the quilt. i obviously am joking.

anyway, i really did not do too much at nana's. while karen and karlene were scanning more pictures, tommy cleaned the ceiling fans and the areas above the windows (because he is tall). (tommy also got his haircut too.) aunt denise cleaned the back porch. my tasks included removing a safety bar at the bottom of the stairs, removing a tupperware lid holder from the wall, and removing other things screwed into the walls. as well, i went through all the paint cans to see which cans were still good to use. there may have been a few other odds and ends like moving stuff and throwing stuff out, too.

all in all, there wasn't that much for me to do yesterday. but, i did what i could... even if i did not make the quilt.