Friday, March 21, 2008

Sigh

I miss Gina. I'm listening to my random playlist thru playlist.com.

First a Travis song, Why does it Always Rain on Me played. And then followed by Oasis' Wonderwall. I wanna say it was right before Jacob was born, or after Jake but before Clara, Gina and I went to see Oasis up at the Schnitz in Portland, and Travis opened up for them.

Because Gina's widow Mike is in the music business back in England, he knows Oasis' manager because they both like the same football team (or did, who knows, this was years ago). So he was able to contact him to get us comp tickets. Turns out we had 6th row seat tickets. It was pretty cool.

Did I ever post about the time I went to England in June of 2000? I was there for 2 weeks. Gina had just found out she was pregnant with Margo. We had a quick trip to Dublin planned, I think we stayed 2 or 3 nights. My favorite author at the time was Mauve Binchy who writes all about Ireland. So I was really excited to go.

The trip over was fairly uneventful--it's a whole 45 min. plane ride. The air stewards all wore matching dresses, white gloves, and white hats. I was very intrigued by it. Things were fine until we had to go thru customs at the Dublin airport. Gina was already pissy because we had to unload out the back of the plane, walk down to the tarmac, then walk up 2 flights of stairs to get back in to the airport. She was pregnant and unhappy. And then they didn't treat her as a British citizen, even though she had dual citizenship.

The rest of our little jaunt was uneventful. We spent some time together at thrift stores, but then split up because I wanted to do a tour of Dublin via a bus, and she wanted to rest and hit more shops. One of the nights there we went and saw a comedienne, but I can't remember who.

The most memorable part of the trip for me, other than having to choke down a pint of Guinness at the brewery, was our flight home. We were crammed in the back of the plane, and Gina hadn't been feeling well, I think she was having the normal morning sickness crap. Even though the flight was so short, they offered a sandwich to eat for a snack. By the time they came to where we were sitting, our only choice was ham with soft cheese. She had wanted the turkey with cheddar. Instead of just choosing to abstain, she threw her sandwich on the ground and stomped on it. I was mortified. At this point we're both yelling and I'm crying, and I'm sure EVERYONE around us was thinking we were fucking psycho. Once we got back to London I didn't speak to her for 3 days, until the day I was leaving.

After enough time had passed, we looked back at that incident and laughed. Really that was my sister in a nutshell. Very passionate, but could laugh at herself. I really miss her. It's hard because out of nowhere, it hits me that she's gone. Nothing really brings it on, it'll just be a thought, and then pow. I'm crying.

My dad got a bunch of his disposable cameras developed a few weeks ago. There were quite a few pictures of Gina on them. I was sad to know there were none of her and I. I had been under the impression she didn't want her picture taken very much. But then to find these pictures of her with random people whom I don't even know their names...it hurt. But then I wasn't very insistant, so what can I do.

Well I'm gonna go snuggle my kiddos. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Sorry I've been so inconsistent with posting.

2 comments:

Melly said...

(((((my friend)))) Just keep remembering all that good stuff - and keep laughing. Keep laughing about all of those quirky things that made her who she was.

Susan's 365 said...

(((Mary))). Melly is right...keep thinking of all the good times and good things.

 

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