With family before departure.

I'm sucking down salt water taffies from Ocean City, New Jersey. My grandpa bring us all a box every time we see him. I love the cinnamon ones.

It's been time with my family for the past few days. Everyone's living in separate places now, so it's different, but okay. I have three houses to bounce around between.

My grandpa got in Wednesday. It's been a year since I last saw him and the first time I've seen him since my grandma died in October. He seems to be doing well, just like I always remember him. We haven't really done anything extra special since he's been here. Mostly we're all hanging around at my dad's...talking and eating.

The night my grandpa got here we watched this DVD I made for my dad of the newscast I anchored at KVR. It's this weird inside joke we have. Ever since I started anchoring newscasts in 11th grade he'd ask me to say this certain line on the air. He's a huge fan of The Three Stooges. On one of the episodes Moe says, "Quiet numbskulls, I'm broadcasting." So my dad's been asking me to say it on air for five years. I always act annoyed, but I actually think it's funny. So our last newscast of this year was a joke newscast, so I finally said it on the air and gave my dad the copy so he could see. He laughed really hard. Now he's probably going to ask when I'll say it again. :) Then we all watched Mythbusters and found out that your eyes CANNOT pop out of your head if you keep them open when you sneeze.

I spent the night at my sister's that night, but we hit up House of Pies first. I ordered something with chocolate and bananas, but it had way too much whip cream. I'm generally not a fan. We sat there and talked for so long. We got the bill and kept talking more and more until the waiter came back and tried to refill my sister's coffee. It's great to lose track of time with someone when you're so engaged. I think we were talking about our weird family. While we were in the car that night we thought we heard gunshots around Westheimer and Montrose. Houston's ghetto fabulous.

I slept late today (actually yesterday) but it was raining all morning so I didn't care that I missed it. My mom had called me and left two voicemails. First warning me about the weather and collapsing roofs. Then to tell me my cell phone for Spain came in the mail. (I saw it tonight and it's SO cute and compact!)

After lazing around for awhile we walked down the street to my dad's. It was almost 4pm by that time so he wanted to start preparing dinner. Him and my sister went to run an errand so I chatted with my grandpa, who can talk forever. But in a good, non-annoying way. He explained growing up in Newark and all of the racial problems that developed there between the blacks and the Italians. Apparently they built projects there because so many people were coming from the South, but they built them in the Italian community right across the street from the most popular church. My grandpa said they would have these big feasts at the church and processions in the streets to honor saints and the people in the projects would throw stuff at them. Eventually there were riots in the town in 1967 and most of the Italian people scattered to go live in other places. My grandparents moved out in 1962 when my dad was a little boy. Then he told me about all of the jobs he had when he was younger. Like shining shoes for money to go to the movies and working in an Italian grocery store from the age of 11 until 17. Then he got this job in some kind of warehouse place and the basement where the boxes were kept was all messy and disorganized when he got there. So he spent extra time cleaning it all up and everyone was so happy with him. Then he stacked the boxes up and would sleep on top of them during his shifts. He said that people would ring bells when they needed someone, but when his bell would ring he could sleep through it because people assumed he would be busy with something since he established such a hard-working reputation for himself. He'd only sleep for an hour or two, but it's so smart. I'm so proud of his cunning ways.

Then before dinner he wad slipping his feet into my sister's girl shoes to be funny. And then he tried putting his foot in my worn out Birkenstocks and it went in and he says, "OOOOOooooOOOh!" Implying it's so bad that I wear shoes that his big man-feet could fit into.

After dinner my dad started telling stories of his frat days at the table. There was one time when he took an engineering exam and KNEW that he'd failed. So him and his friend gave their keys to another friend and went out to party their cares away. They were at some happy hour at another frat and there was a guy there making sandwiches with a mushroom shaped chef's hat on. My dad and his friends (who were on their way to drunkenness) went up to the sandwich maker and told him they wanted to wear his hat. He told them that they couldn't. They were still sober enough to devise a plan. It had gotten dark outside by this time. They found the fusebox and took position. My dad was at the front door, another guy was waiting by the sandwich maker and their third friend was at the fusebox. The friend turned all of the power off. Then the other guy stole the hat from the chef while it was dark and panicky. My dad was at the front door making sure his friends had a clear path to escape. Out in the streets the frat guys were chasing them. My dad didn't have the hat so he was asking the angry frat guys what they were chasing after. They couldn't really say anything...the guy with the chef's hat got away. The three friends met up and took turns wearing the chef's hat to all the other parties they went to that night.

Later tonight we played Monopoly. For more than two hours! Too long. At one point we were all really into it. I like making private transactions in that game. I was the first to lose. I wasn't careful enough with my money, but I was the first to build houses. Towards the end I got a throbbing headache with a warm face. It keeps happening. I hope it's the weather or something.

I'm getting too used to spending time with people. During the school year I was more used to being alone for long amounts of time. Over the summer and especially the past month I've been around people almost all the time. I think I'm equally happy alone and with others. Sometimes I really need to be by myself though. I know too many people who are scared to be alone for large spans of time. That might suck.

It's almost 5am and there is no reason I should still be awake.