Rae "Sunshine" Seddon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sunbaked_baker) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ways_back_room2016-11-29 08:42 am
sunbaked_baker) wrote in ways_back_room2016-11-29 08:42 am
Apology for Absence
So, it has been a bad year, but November has taken the cake, stomped on the the ice cream, and probably pissed in the punch.
Two weeks ago, I made an attempt at taking a week's vacation to Florida, which ended after two days when my 97-year-old granddad had a heart attack. We drove two full days back, fearing we wouldn't get back before he died. He didn't die right away, he seemed to get better for a while, there was family drama regarding my particularly selfish and oblivious uncle (who complained the whole time that he could've been sipping bourbon at The Breakers in Palm Beach if some family members hadn't overreacted), and then a week ago my grandfather died. He went in the night as peacefully as one could hope. The drama is somewhat ongoing because my uncle wants all of granddad's stuff, including his extensive WWII photographs and letters, my great-great-great grandfather's medical degree (in Latin, on vellum) and his traveling set of surgical tools, even though my uncle doesn't care enough to take proper care of them or have the know-how required to do so. He just wants them because then they'll be his. /archivist grumbles
This is just to say that I apologize for dropping off the face of the map and completely dropping threads without warning or explanation, these last few weeks. I will continue to be mostly gone through this weekend, most likely, as I am hurriedly scanning granddad's WWII letters and photographs and documents so that my siblings and I will have copies. None of us think that our uncle's carelessness should be the sole arbiter of these materials' existence, but there is a time crunch involved because he's coming down on the 13th-14th to take all of granddad's things back with him, so I have to be done by then, and I only have the evenings to work with. Most of the photographs are loose, so I am also buying acid-free, adhesive-free scrapbooks to put the loose photographs in and hopefully keep them as safe as possible in the meantime. /more archivist grumbles
Anyway. I'm hoping that once this passes and things settle down I'll be around more. Love to you all.
-Saph
Two weeks ago, I made an attempt at taking a week's vacation to Florida, which ended after two days when my 97-year-old granddad had a heart attack. We drove two full days back, fearing we wouldn't get back before he died. He didn't die right away, he seemed to get better for a while, there was family drama regarding my particularly selfish and oblivious uncle (who complained the whole time that he could've been sipping bourbon at The Breakers in Palm Beach if some family members hadn't overreacted), and then a week ago my grandfather died. He went in the night as peacefully as one could hope. The drama is somewhat ongoing because my uncle wants all of granddad's stuff, including his extensive WWII photographs and letters, my great-great-great grandfather's medical degree (in Latin, on vellum) and his traveling set of surgical tools, even though my uncle doesn't care enough to take proper care of them or have the know-how required to do so. He just wants them because then they'll be his. /archivist grumbles
This is just to say that I apologize for dropping off the face of the map and completely dropping threads without warning or explanation, these last few weeks. I will continue to be mostly gone through this weekend, most likely, as I am hurriedly scanning granddad's WWII letters and photographs and documents so that my siblings and I will have copies. None of us think that our uncle's carelessness should be the sole arbiter of these materials' existence, but there is a time crunch involved because he's coming down on the 13th-14th to take all of granddad's things back with him, so I have to be done by then, and I only have the evenings to work with. Most of the photographs are loose, so I am also buying acid-free, adhesive-free scrapbooks to put the loose photographs in and hopefully keep them as safe as possible in the meantime. /more archivist grumbles
Anyway. I'm hoping that once this passes and things settle down I'll be around more. Love to you all.
-Saph
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I'm sorry about your granddad.
Family drama is the worst drama. Take care of yourself.
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That sounds like a ton of work, though, and I hope you have someone to give you a hand.
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That is the uncle who had made a nuisance of himself often on earlier occasions so we had notionally consulted Hannibal's rolodex?
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