Tired...

...of hearing bad news. I've just found out about a teacher who passed away from cancer this evening. He'd been ill since May. Another former coworker of mine passed away from a different form of cancer, less than 2 weeks ago - she was a few months younger than I am, and she leaves 2 young children. I'm trying not to be pessimistic, but it's been hard in 2009. In August, a friend's father (cancer) and one of Hubby's cousins (unknown how he died); in May & June, the last of my great-uncles (Alzheimer's complications), my father-in-law (heart and Parkinson's disease), and one of my dad's best friends (cancer).

Please consider supporting the American Cancer Society so we can find some answers to the many forms of this horrible disease.

Also, I'm tired of knitting on my Sea & Shells stole. I'm really close to the end of the skein; in fact, there's only about 10 grams left. If I'd stop playing Bejeweled, I could be done with it tomorrow! I'm not allowing myself to work on either of the sweaters I cast on recently until this is finished. Pictures will be forthcoming when it's finished and blocked.

However, I'm not tired of looking through the paperwork that my parents found when they went to the National Archives in San Bruno looking for information about my great-grandparents' immigration to the US from China. Mom apparently found about 90 pages worth of info, and I've been fascinated by it.

Turns out my great-grandfather was born in San Francisco in the basement of a building that housed his father's shoe store, and a white-owned saloon in the Chinatown area in 1877. We have the transcript of the interview that proved his identity as a native-born US resident, as well as the entrance papers and interview transcripts of his wife, and pictures of his twin daughters (I didn't know they were twins - I never met my great-aunts) and baby son, the great-uncle who died in May. My grandfather was the oldest of the children, and he decided to stay in China with his grandmother.

The transcripts provide a view into the world of Chinatown before the 1906 SF earthquake, and I'd like to map out the addresses given and correlate them with the historical records. I'd also like to try and look for more info on my great-great-grandparents, now that I have their names and when/why they came to the US.

Okay, Kathy - get off the computer. You're also tired and need to go to bed, especially since you are walking with No-blog-Rachel tomorrow morning. And then you need to take The Dork shopping for new pants before his senior portrait session tomorrow afternoon. Okay, now I feel old...

Brownies!

Yup, The Dork is making brownies. He requested them for a club meeting tomorrow and was told that if he wanted them, he had to make them.

It smells really good in here right now!

(He wants to learn to cook more. Chalk it up to his dad's influence!)