20th Friendiversary Friendcation Roadtrip!

Alice and I decided to go on a roadtrip to celebrate the 20th anniversary of when we first became friends (we met at church camp when we were fourteen). The plan was simple: Borrow a telescope from Alice’s school and go on a trip to the Cherry Springs State Park in Coudersport PA. We’ve rented an adorable airbnb in nearby Galeton PA for two nights. Today was day one.

We started our trip by going to get the telescope. Here's a photo of Alice and the telescope so you can see how gigantic it is. We're gonna see the sky if it kills us!

Alice with the telescope.

Driving along.

On the way to PA we saw an exit for Worcester NY. Since we both went to high school in Worcester MA, clearly we had to go and check it out.

Me and Alice in front of the Worcester NY sign. We're trying to make baffled faces but I look kind of demented.

Me giving a thumbs up in front of a weird statue guy in Worcester NY.

Alice found a bug hotel.

Worcester NY had an inn called the Worcester Inn, so clearly we had to go there for food. It turns out, the inn is haunted! What?!

Ok. From what I gathered, the inn was built in the early 1800s. There have been multiple deaths at the inn including...

*  A six year old boy related to the owner of the hotel died in the inn.
* Someone who died from a gunshot wound - possibly from being shot by the owner at the time?
* This death didn't happen in the inn, but a waitress at the inn intentionally ran over her landlord, loaded his body, in the back of her car, drove to the end of the road, and then pretended it was an accident. She was the first woman in NY to be executed.
* A restaurant regular died in one of the hotel's dining rooms.

People say they have seen different things: bright lights, the sounds of a child running down the hallway, orbs that appear in their photos, a full on ghost that disappeared into a wall. One ghost story is that a previous manager kept losing his socks and having to buy new one. He finally got rid of all the spare keys to his room so his socks couldn't be stolen any more. But they kept going missing. On his last day working at the inn, he opened his bedroom door and found all his missing socks scattered across his bed.

The inn has even had ghost hunters come with video cameras looking throughout the day. Apparently when the looked at the footage they saw a figure at the end of the hall who opened the door of a room, looked about, and then went back into the room. This happened multiple times in a row but the weirdest part is that the figure had the skeleton head of some sort of horse or donkey.

Alice and I in front of the Worcester Inn.

We did not see any ghosts. We did find an old phone that didn't work and we learned that a religious person obviously handles the wifi since they named it "JesusSaves."

Alice in the phone booth.

Alice waits for food.

JesusSaves Wifi.

After our stop in Worcester NY we continued on all the way to PA where we unloaded and chilled out in our air bnb.

Welcome to Pennsylvania sign.

Road to our air bnb.

Our air bnb.

Alice inside the air bnb.

I found this weird video "Day of the Gobblers."

Finally it got dark enough for us to do what we came to PA for - look at the sky! Here are three of my crappy photos of the moon. It turns out the moon is hard to photograph!

Smallest moon photo.

Medium moon photo.

Biggest moon photo.

Not Much Going On

Not much has been going on lately. I think I'm in a bit of a funk, which is understandable given the circumstances.

It turns out that you can only donate your organs if you die in a hospital, so since Mom died at home she isn't eligible. I was kind of bummed about this since I know she wanted to be an organ donor. However, a friend of a friend is taking all of Mom's leftover medical supplies and shipping them to her village in Ghana. So that kind of makes up for it I guess.

I've been sorting through a bunch of old stuff at my parents' house. It's going to be an ongoing project I think. That said, I found a box with some of my schoolwork from high school. In case you were wondering what I was like in high school, here are the titles of three of my English papers which should give you an idea:

* Gender, Sexuality, and Domination in Antony and Cleopatra
* Racism in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Why We Should Throw This Book In The Paper Shredder
* Romeo and Juliet, Blank Verse, and Social Class

That last paper was written entirely in blank verse. Because of course it was.

I think the only other noteworthy things that have happened lately are that I finally went and got Narcan so I can reverse any opioid overdoses I come across and also I fixed up Waldo's adaptive bicycle:

Me with my Narcan nasal spray package.

Waldo riding his adaptive bike.

I am working this weekend at the CNA job. I'm actually happy about that since I like the work and I've really missed seeing my favorite kid. I don't know what I'll do when he finally gets discharged.

My Mom Died

The funeral was yesterday. I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy with the funeral arrangements and finals week and I've not been in the mood for blogging. 

Mom's prayer cards.

Meet My New Coworker: Dracula

A bat hanging out on Waldo's porch.

Waldo and Surrogate Nonna were NOT pleased with their new housemate so it was up to me to convince it to leave. When opening the door and windows did not do the job I tried turning on the porch lights, but that only caused bugs to fly inside. Then I tried going onto the porch and making a bunch of noise to annoy it into leaving. That also didn't work. Finally I wound up putting on garden gloves and physically relocating it while Waldo and Surrogate Nonna looked on in horror from the safety of the house.

Children's Museum, Airplane Spotting, and Bad Idea Beach

Today was a busy day! Yesterday I finally went to stay the night Rockport to visit Feather, Dolphin, and Wolfie. Wolfie and I had a nice time walking around town and watching the boats in the harbor:

Wolfie and I watch the boats.

This morning we went to the Children's Museum in Boston and a good time was had by all.

Me and Wolfie prior to leaving for the Children's Museum.

Feather, Dolphin, and Wolfie in Boston.

Dolphin and Wolfie at the entrance to the Children's Museum.

Wolfie and I play with the construction toys.

Dolphin found a dinosaur.

Family car ride with Wolfie in the driver's seat and Dolphin and Feather as passengers.

Feather and Wolfie in a tiny mirror box?

Wolfie "cuts" Dolphin's hair - Dolphin seems uncertain about it.

Wolfie and I making "soup" at the water table.

Wolfie in the climbing structure.

After the Children's Museum, I headed off to work with Waldo. We decided to go to his favorite spot in Revere where you can see the airplanes taking off from Logan Airport. Waldo LOVES airplanes so he was thrilled to go here. I'm not nearly as obsessed with airplanes, but I still thought it was really cool to see them taking off so close by. This is definitely one of my new favorite places in Boston.

Me at the airplane spot.

View from the airplane spot.

Plane taking off.

Plane flying overhead.

After watching the planes and having a picnic dinner, we headed to the beach. It was gorgeous:

Waldo on the beach.

Me at the beach.

Sun setting at the beach.

Waldo in the water.

Sunset on the beach.

We had a nice time there until it was time to go home. After all of the exertion of the day, Waldo was exhausted and it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to get him back up to the car the same way I'd gotten him down to the shore. So what did I do? My dumb self drove my car up onto the beach. I loaded Waldo into the car and hit the gas to head back but the car got stuck in the sand. It took a large team of very nice bystanders to push us back off the beach. Oy. Lesson learned. No more driving on sand.

Rest of the Week

Well this week and weekend have flown by. On Tuesday, Feather, Dolphin, and Wolfie arrived in the states. Apparently as soon as they got to their hotel, Wolfie grabbed the phone and tried to call me. She's so cute!

Wolfie trying to call me from the hotel.

Feather: Who are you calling?
Wolfie: Mon parrain Tony.
Wolfie (on the phone): Bonjour Tony. On est à l'hôtel. Tu viens?

Sadly, I have not gotten to see them yet because my day off is tomorrow.

What else happened? On Wednesday I had anatomy, Waldo, Morning, and an appointment with a hemotologist.

Meme of an excited husky telling a joke that says "I went to see a hematologist today... The sign on his door said Drackula."

On Thursday I worked with Waldo and we went bowling. After that, I headed over to Morning's place for my shift with him.

Waldo bowling.

Me at the bowling alley.

On Friday I worked with Waldo and Morning again. Then this weekend I've worked at the pediatric CNA job which, by the way, I am still enjoying. I would post more about that job but unlike with Waldo and Matan where I can and did get consent to blog about them, I can't actually get consent to post about work and I have zero desire to violate HIPPA. I will say that one nice thing about the job is that they have a nice lawn and a porch with a handicapped accessible swing that the patients love so we've managed to get them outside on most of my shifts. The other nice thing about the job is that my favorite patient is still there.

Work, Anatomy, and Nature Walks

Well, this weekend all I did was work. Today I had my anatomy lecture class. I'm actually enjoying it for the most part. The human body is fascinating.

Drawing of a cell taking a selfie and the word "Cell-fie" is written under it.

I also went on a nature walk with Pacman and we saw my favorite perennial plant, Ghost Plant aka "Indian Pipe." Since I've mentioned it before this same month I feel like I should tell you a little bit about this plant so you understand why it's my favorite perennial. It has no chlorophyll! It's a mycoheterotroph. Basically, that means it's a parasitic plant that gets it food from the fungi it parasitizes. Which fungi does it parasitize? Fungi that are mycorrhizal with trees. Other weird fact? It's technically a member of the blueberry family.

Photo of my favorite plant.

I also spent some time working on my comic, which is progressing extremely slowly because I am NOT an artist. I really wish I was better at drawing because the images in my head are so much better than the images on the paper. Maybe if I took an art class?

My comic is progressing extremely slowly.