so, let’s see – i last wrote just over a week ago, on march 16. since then:

– i’ve run my 10k race

– i played board games with bruno_boy and our friend jae at this monthly board-game meetup event we attend

– i met up with whammywah and his girlfriend (along with much of our pub trivia team) for a st. patrick’s day party at his girlfriend’s place

– my grandmother passed away suddenly

– i came one step closer to being fired from work

– i met up with my doctor for a follow-up appointment to see how i’m doing

– i met up with some of my dc drinkup friends and discovered a live-band rock and roll karaoke group in dc

when i did my 10k race i liked about half of it. i should have guessed, what with it being in prince william forest park, that it would involve trail running. well, about half of it was on trails, and since this was the first time that i’ve ever really run on trails for any length of time, i didn’t care much for trail running since i had to keep an eye out for loose rocks and slippery leaves and mud puddles and so on. the other half of the race was on paved roads throughout the park and that wasn’t so bad. the other part that i could have done without was running across a suspension bridge – it was only about 40 feet long or so, but running on that with one or two other people made that a bit more springy than i would have liked. i ended up with a time of 57:33, which was only 1 minute 9 seconds slower than my first (and personal-record) 10K race. but, for running cautiously on the trails, that’s still a great time. i still need to use my golden ticket i received so i can register for the marine corps marathon in october.

the st. patrick’s day party was great. beth, whammywah‘s girlfriend, had cooked up corned beef and potatoes and we all relaxed and hung out and made fun of the irish pub down the street that was so full that they had the fire marshal stationed outside all day long to keep an eye on their occupancy, and were charging a $10 cover for people to party in the back parking lot among the dumpsters and port-a-potties. ours was so much better, hahaha.

i had already planned to visit mom and dad and anne on sunday since anne’s home from school on break this week, so when bruno_boy called me to see if i was interested in going to hang out with him and zenmetsu that afternoon i declined. i can’t remember if it was just before or after his call, but about the same time i got a text from anne and a later text from mom about how grandmother was going in for surgery that day because she lost all circulation to her legs, so that made it even more important for me to go visit mom and dad and anne that day.

i’m not sure how the sequence of events went, but from what i can understand she had some sort of outpatient surgery scheduled and so had to go off her blood thinners. going off blood thinners meant that she had a few blood clots develop, and the blood clots cut off circulation to her legs. i’m not sure if it was before she was admitted to the hospital, but at some point she also had a stroke and a heart attack. so, the surgery that anne and mom texted about was to clear up the blood clots to the legs, but they might need to amputate the legs depending how well the surgery went.

i posted about it to twitter and facebook, and one of my dad’s cousins saw it and asked me for more details. dad spent pretty much all day in the hospital on sunday, but he called the house to say that the surgery went better than expected and that they were now getting a pulse in her feet, and that he heard from his cousin and said that i should probably take down my posts to avoid panicking the west-coast relatives at that time. so, from that point on, i became very cryptic about my tweets.

on monday morning i was just about to head out the door to work when dad called me to say that grandmother’s condition deteriorated overnight. i went to work since my office is only about 10 miles from the hospital, told my boss what was going on and took the day off, and headed over to the hospital. i got there at about 8:45 and spent some time in the visitor’s room for the ICU talking with mom and anne and dad and my two aunts and their husbands. apparently even though they were able to detect a pulse in her feet after the surgery, the loss of circulation might have caused significant organ damage and they were worried about her kidneys and liver since toxins were building up within her body, and then they lost the circulation in her feet later. she also had a do not resuscitate order as well.

at one point dad and his sisters went into the ICU so it was just me and mom and anne and my uncles talking, but then a little after 9:45 dad came running in and said she passed away, so mom and anne and i jumped up to give him a hug while my uncles beat a hasty exit to find my aunts. after a few minutes we went in to the ICU as well to see everyone. apparently the doctor had told grandaddy and dad and my aunts how they might have been able to buy hours or days, but not weeks, and shortly after that she stopped breathing and then shortly after that her heart stopped. when we arrived in the ICU, someone said how grandmother had always prayed to st. joseph for a happy death, and that day was the feast day of st. joseph.

mom and my aunts and uncles set about calling different relatives to let them know. i wasn’t sure if it had really sunk in with grandaddy at one point because when i looked over at him he was just reading the front of the wall street times as if nothing had happened. once the relatives were informed, and since grandaddy still hadn’t had anything to eat for breakfast, my aunts and uncles decided to take him down to the cafeteria, but that was closed from 10 – 11:30. we all went out in search of brunch and ended up up at a nearby bagel bakery, and then afterwards i drove mom and anne home while dad went with my aunts and uncles and grandaddy back to grandaddy’s apartment and later to the funeral home to make plans.

at work we get 3 days of bereavement leave, and while i could have probably gone back to work since i was surprised at how well i was taking it (the way i figured, even though it was sudden and a surprise, if you’ve got a do not resuscitate order and your organs start failing and you end up dying at 88 years old on the feast day of st. joseph when you’ve prayed to him all your life, your number was probably up and that’s the way you would have wanted to go), i stayed around the house just in case mom or dad needed me for anything. feisty_fitz was on leave from her boat until friday, so when she first heard about grandmother being in the hospital she scheduled a flight home and arrived monday night. dad said he was alright as long as he didn’t think too much about it, and mom liked having us all there at that time.

the viewing was on wednesday, the funeral was on thursday. grandmother’s grave site is only about a few hundred yards away from grandma and pap-pap’s in the same cemetery.

grandaddy is going to turn 90 years old in july, and plans were already underway for a combination birthday party for him and grandmother. half of the invitations were already sent. grandmother made grandaddy promise that no matter what happens, don’t cancel the birthday party. and, for the west-coast relatives, if they can only make it to one event (funeral, or birthday party), they should go to the party. she was very adamant about that when she was in the hospital, apparently.

i went back to work for a half-day on friday morning. i had a doctor’s appointment already scheduled for that afternoon and had the afternoon off. it was uneventful, but when i had my one-on-one meeting with my boss (that should have taken place earlier in the week), she said that this was bad timing because she had to write me up. about a year ago i made a dumb mistake when calculating a payment and that put me on some sort of probation. well, apparently with one of the payments that they had me write a query for, the query leaves out a bunch of lines that should be included, and when they asked me why i said how that was what i was told to do. (with this customer, we pay on any new lines that fall under this agreement, and any existing lines once they are migrated to this new agreement, and my query wasn’t picking up some of these migrated lines because apparently i had one understanding of the migration process that doesn’t jive with others’ understanding.) my boss thinks it’s stupid that she has to write me up for this, but this is coming from her boss, and it’s because this slip-up meant we underpaid a contract and might be considered in default of the contract terms. i told my boss that it’s ridiculous that i’m expected to be the absolute go-to expert for several issues and support other teams, with no additional compensation or anything, when i’m given insufficient resources to do my job, etc., etc. my boss agrees with me and i haven’t signed the writeup paper yet so i can write a summary of what happened and my side of events. so, basically, i can’t post for any other jobs in the company for the next six months (not like there were any jobs being made available anyway), but i don’t know what would happen to me if they find another mistake. if i find a mistake on my own, i don’t know if i bring it to their attention if they’ll hold that against me or what. but, whatever, i was very transparent about this query that i was writing and have comments throughout the query to show exactly what each step does, so anybody else could have seen what it does and said something, and look where being transparent gets me. almost fired, that’s where it gets me.

so, tl;dr: i’m close to being fired because of some ol’ bull-shit. time to step up the job search in dc even more. if i made a flowchart of things i want to improve in my life (save more money, go on dates / find a ladyfriend, replace my busted laptop, etc.), the root would be “need to find a new job” so i can “get more money” and then “do stuff i want to do”.

i also heard back about a position i applied for with the state department; i qualify, but i don’t qualify enough to be passed to the hiring manager. sigh.

when i got home from work there was a fedex delivery slip on my door – apparently someone tried to send me a package that requires my signature. i’m not expecting anything, so my first reaction was “it’s a bomb!” 😛 i looked up the tracking number and it was sent by one of the HR managers from work, but it also says “health and fitness”. so, i’m guessing it’s going to be a prize for the company’s health and fitness program where we track how many miles / minutes we exercise and get swag at different levels. but, when you just got written up at work, seeing a fedex package from HR is the last thing you want to see. 😛

after work i went to my doctor’s office and had my re-evaluation. while i scored a 10 on my original depression test, this time i scored a 1, and even that was kind of a stretch (i’m feeling tired and lethargic, yes, but that’s also because the weather’s heating up and i want to nap). follow-up appointment in 12 weeks and another blood test to see how my vitamin d is doing. my meds are still working. hooray!

i also went to mini of annapolis. i don’t know what caused it, but while i get FM stations in fine, i don’t hear any AM stations at all. scheduled an appointment for next month so they can take a look at it as they’re backlogged until then with recall repairs on water pumps.

went to the dc drinkup some of my friends organize last night. the original plan was to go back to the spinny bar but they charge a $10 cover on fridays, so we went to a restaurant nearby for dinner and drinks. afterwards i went with a few of the folks that were there to a bar over in clarendon to see the harikaraoke band, a live band that plays songs as you sing karaoke, just like metalsome monday does in atlanta. metalsome monday was better – much larger song selection and stage vibe – but these guys weren’t bad, and these guys are much closer than atlanta too, haha. unfortunately 2/3 of our group didn’t get to sing before their show ended, oh well.

i should really start getting ready. at 4 pm i’m going to see the mythbusters live stage show – i asked for a ticket for christmas, and received a pair of tickets so i could bring a date. no date, but i asked jae yesterday if she’d want to go since it seems like something she’d be interested in. apparently two friends of ours are going to be there too – should be fun!