Aftermath

Christmas went well. It was actually the least stressful holiday we’ve had in a long time. I think that’s because we had fewer parties to attend this year. I past years we’ve had upwards of five family parties to attend, but work obligations and family feuding whittled that down to three this year. Autumn was completely spoiled, especially by my parents. My mother had been telling me for weeks what she had bought so I knew what we were in for. Autumn now has more toys than she could possibly play with in one day and a closet full of clothes. She’s a very lucky girl.

Christmas wasn’t so lucky for me, however. Christmas night I started feeling run down and developed an upset stomach. I attributed how I was feeling to lack of sleep and overeating, but as the night wore on I became increasingly nauseous until I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I hadn’t been that sick since I developed food poisioning back in 1999. Of course I worried that was what was happening and wondered if any of the family who had brunch at our house were suffering as I was. Luckily they were all okay, except for Autumn who had a touch of diarrhea Tuesday.

So I spent all day Tuesday in my own little cocoon of misery, eating little and watching a lot of TV. TNT is my favorite network to watch when I want to do nothing more than watch TV all day. I figured if I was going to be miserable, I may as well be miserable while watching all my favorite shows. Since I watched TNT all day I had no idea that President Ford died. It wasn’t until I finally visited CNN’s website late yesterday afternoon that I read about it. The news of his death is huge, especially for Grand Rapids and the surrounding areas, which is where I live.

I visited the Gerald R. Ford Museum last night to take pictures and pay my respects. People had been visiting all day, placing signs and candles in front of the museum entrance. I parked a couple of blocks away because I wasn’t sure how many people would be there. There were fewer than I expected, though there were a ton of news vans lined up in the lot getting ready to broadcast their 11:00pm feed. Anyway, here are a few of the photos I took late last night:

As I left the museum to walk back to my car, I caught the scent of all these candles. It was strange to smell something like that outside in the middle of the city.