pigs, relatives & other worlds

I'm Feeling: even-keel (sp?)
Background Noise: My Girl by The Temptations

So that's our friend Cory, pretending to eat the pig that was de-boned and roasted in his backyard. Mostly, the picture just looks mildly psychotic - check out his eyes!! :) But, all creepy-ness aside, the pig was dee-licious, and Cory's really not crazy.

I had a big weekend - battled traffic on the way home to Chicagoland on Friday, hung out with the parents and my sister - then went to visit all 3 grandparents. Here's a brief update:

My dad's mom is in a nursing home (independent care for now) because of Alzheimer's. She's pretty darn lucid still, but definitely shrinking. The top of her head came up to my ribcage.

My mom's mom is never going to die, I think. She's tough, loves to talk, and knocks the breath out of you when she hugs you. Also shrinking, though.

My mom's dad had a stroke almost 3 years ago - he's been in a nursing home ever since - can't really talk, and has no function on the left side of his body. I don't get to see him nearly as often as I should, but it rips my heart out a little each time I do. He was so strong. But he loves us to visit, and he smiles more than I ever remember him doing when I was a kid.

It was good to hang out with my sister, brother, sister-in-law, mom, dad and assorted relatives. We laughed A LOT over the weekend - mostly because my sister and I can be massively obnoxious. But funnny. So funny.

Do you ever feel like different parts of your life exist completely independent of one another? Like you bounce from one universe to the next as you move between them? I get that feeling a lot when I visit my home... some kind of strange, parallel universe. The weirdest part is that I grew up there.