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Jean K. Mellang: 1919-2012

My grandma, Jean Mellang, passed away this last Sunday at age 92. This was what I wrote to say at her service today ( though I didn’t use notes so what I actually said was probably kinda different.

Grandma, I love you and will miss you very much.

It’s funny the things you remember….

I’ve got a long commute to work every day and I’ve spend the last few days thinking about grandma and beating myself up that I can’t come up with some poignant story or memory to talk about…

The only things I seem to come up with are a lot of little silly stuff..

I remember going to her house on hickory hills and her giving me a soda… Used to drive mom NUTS but I loved it..

I remember baking cookies…

I remember her slipping me those chalky mints from the club.

I remember her reading me the good Samaritan, Daniel and the lions den, and Joseph and the coat of many colors..

I remember that zipper pocket in her furry winter muff.

I remember her writing me letters full of strange clippings about apple and Steve jobs that she’d found in the paper.

I remember her asking how Kevin is doing.

I remember her asking me every time I called what I did at work, only to respond that she didn’t really understand what I was talking about but it sounded very interesting..

I remember her last letter to me in November where she described to me what she’d had for dinner and advising me to stick to one dog – two might be too many.. 🙂

I remember her telling me I was gods perfect loving reflection and that she loved me very much… She said that a lot over the years..

But as I thought about this stuff I came to realize that this WAS the important stuff..

The relationship between mother and daughter when it came to parenting styles ( manifested by a soda in my hand before I was out of the car ) must have driven them nuts but I came to realize had a very important side effect – it meant that is was always clear the I was cared for, safe, and loved no matter what… Despite everything that might have been happening around me at the time I was largely aware because I had both of them loving me in their own ways.

Those bible stories and words about perfection and gods love didn’t make much sense to me at the time but they seemed nice… But as I grew up and started question myself and the outside world started telling what was right and wrong it became very important… It meant that I really never questioned whether I was who I was meant to be. I exactly the person I was supposed to be and that was enough…

And, most importantly, those apple clippings about stuff I already knew, questions about work and Kevin, and advice about how many dogs to have? Its because of those I knew that she was thinking about me, interested in my life, and loved me…

So really it’s those little things that seem inconsequential at the time that add up to meaning so much..

And for those, and for her, I’ll always be grateful. And she’ll always be with me.

Tags: Family

Jean K. Mellang: 1919-2012

Tags: Family

An update from the lost

Its been AGES and AGES since i’ve posted anything to my blog – and i don’t even really have much to say this time. Just been stupid busy with a bunch of things as usual. True to form (for me at least) work occupies a larger than normal percentage of my time – never been very good at that whole work life balance thing. Just like it was at Apple, I can’t really talk publicly about whats going on with me in this gig either..

Have managed to get some play time in outside of work though which has been nice – the holidays were VERY nice – got to spend some good quality time with one side of the family and got to rest up some too as well. We spent Christmas in Sacramento with my mom, step dad, sis, bro-in law, step sis, step bro-in-law, and the bro-in-law’s dad… Those days were a lot of eating, talking, opening presents, movie watching (in the new kick-ass granite bay media room) and a trip to see Avitar (which i LOVED).

New Years was super fun too – the whole family (minus the step sis and bro-in law since they had to go back to PDX :(:( ) came out for new years eve dinner.. After dinner the rents had to beat it back to Granite bay for a party of their own and Katie, nick and I went off to a party for the new year and then out to blackbird for drinks after that. Really fun night (though did result in a SUPER fun hangover the next day – but thats OK).

New Years day we went to Matt and Brian’s for BB’s new years birthday with Katie and Nick which was also great.. As usual Matt cooked up a storm and we got to hang out and play with the Aud-ster. Later in the day was a blur – think dinner and rented a movie or something.

That weekend Katie and Nick had to head back home (booo) and we just hung out. Went to see “A Single Man” which we both LOVED… Very well done both from a production / artistic perspective as well as from a plot perspective… Loved it..

Last week was mostly work and pulling together a video for Alex’s 40th Birthday party. Scott and I decided to pull together a slideshow and a video for the party last saturday night with clips from a bunch of his friends. Turned out to be super fun to edit it all together – video wound up being a little long and I don’t like the audio mix much.. but still fun. The actual party was Saturday night which was super fun to.. Pictures all through dinner and video at the end.. We got a private room at Luce in the Intercontinental… Overall very fun…

This week is all work and this weekend we’re going up to Napa with some friends to escape.

So I guess that was longer than i thought.. boring to most i’m sure but figured i was overdue… no promises on the next post (since i always seem to break them).. but i’ll try! 🙂

Tags: christmas, Family, holiday, newyears, party, update, video editing

Weekend ahead

Ugggg… Its been one of those weeks and i woke up this morning absolutely exhausted. We did have Kevin’s niece Kayla in town from North Carolina which was fantastic – she’s a total sweet heart and its always great having her around. Unfortunately, because of work and other things I didn’t get to spend very much time with her. We did get to have a few nice dinners and Kevin made sure she got to get around and enjoy the city – they even went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and then got a massage yesterday (her first). Hopefully she had a good time – we did.

Work week was much of the usual but it seemed to all collide at the same time. My job is a very strange combination of an ever decreasing amount of technical and engineering duties combined with an ever increasing number of meetings and other people and planning activities. As a manager in a company like ours my job frequently boils down to a lot of interpersonal coaching – which is particularly funny coming from me since i’m well known to be relatively calus to such things.. (or at least I think I am)… Engineers are a very interesting breed of very smart people who care very deeply about what they do but, at the same time, can be a little bit rough around the edges when it comes to how they interact with others. They can often be blunt and very matter of fact without a ton of thought to how what they say will be received (my self included – just to be clear). So when you’re managing these type of smart folks you end up spending a good amount of time helping people through sticky interactions. So, between planning for upcoming work, people management type things, and meetings, I got very little time to be a geek which is somewhat sad! 😉 🙂

ANYWAY… thus my exhausting week…

This weekend looks to be good but very busy. Tomorrow we’ve got the gym in the AM and then Audrey’s 4th birthday party (YAY) in the afternoon. Then Sunday we’ve got some family stuff to do with Matt and Brian. Between there i’m hoping to relax a little (though also get some work done… :-\)

ok… enough for now… more later…

Tags: Family, management, work

Quick Thursday Update

Its been a bit of a crazy week so i’ve been falling behind once again.. but a quick update seems like a good thing…

Home wise its been a little nuts… in the process of dealing with a move, selling a house, and other topsey turvey stuff around that. I really should be more relaxed about all of this because I know at the end of it all things will turn out great however while everything is in process i can’t help but stress out a little.. My little sis reminds me that it runs in the family. Without going into a bunch of details in a public forum we had a deal fall through that flipped me out initially but now i’m thinking it was a great thing from multiple perspectives… Its really funny how your gut instincts prove to be the best….

Other than that we’ve been trying to have a little fun. Last weekend we went to see the new Batman movie which was PHENOMENAL… Disturbing.. But GREAT.. I walked away just feeling giddy and oogey at the same time – how weird is that.. Something about Heath Ledger in Scary Clown Nurse Drag that is just not right.. but DAMN…

Weekend before was the HRC Dinner and Dore Alley Street Fair – both of which were great. The HRC Dinner was a little odd because of the drama around the HRC position on ENDA. It kind of breaks my heart because there isn’t a clear good answer here and I hate seeing people that would normally be on the same side of the issue being divided so badly.. its a shame.. But the dinner was fun and it was great to have my parents join us for it. Dore Alley was the usual stuff… just a lot of tawdry fun which would shock the hell out of most people but is kinda boring to me these days… unfortunately it was also a little cold so we didn’t last very long…

This week we’re having a few house guests to keep us busy. Kevin’s friend Laura that he met in Guatemala got here Monday and left this morning. Then on Saturday night Kevin’s Niece from NC arrives for a week. It will be interesting to see what Kevin plans for her. Last time she was here he took her EVERYWHERE – they did tourist stuff in SF that i’ve never done which is impressive – she was EXHAUSTED by the time she left..

I think thats it at this point – probably more soon but that’ll do for now…

Peace

Tags: california, Family, gay, hrc

Catching you up

Last few weeks have been crazy in both good and bad ways…. So here is the run down…

Two or three weeks ago Kevin and I took a vacation to go visit family back east. Kevin left first and spent a week in North Carolina with his family an I came 4 days later to spend a few days with them as well. After that we both flew up to Gettysburg to spend a few days with my Dad and new Step mom which was really nice…

After family time Kevin and I went to Washington D.C. to attend a Leadership Summit for the Human Rights Campaign. I wasn’t entirely sure what that was going to be like but it turned out to be a great experience. During the day time they lined up a bunch of speakers and other information on political strategy, politics, and policy initiatives and then in the evenings they had really swanky dinners and events.. overall it was a lot of fun though…

So then we got back and had a week of normalcy… work… dinners at home… walking the dog.. Also had a few HRC events in San Francisco which were fun – i’m very inspired to get more involved with them.

Then came the weekend… Started off well.. Dog walks and housework.. My sister was also in town so Sunday evening we hung out with her. Unfortunately, Sunday afternoon we got a call from Kevin’s nice saying that his Mother was very ill and in the hospital. As the day progressed she got worse and by the end of the day it became clear that he needed to go out there and, sadly, by the time he was about to board the plane she had passed away.

Kevin got out there monday and I showed up tuesday morning on a red eye. We spent the week there and returned to San Francisco on Saturday evening. I won’t go into the rest of the details of the following week out of respect. Suffice it to say the funeral was lovely and everyone, despite the solemn occasion, was very welcoming and loving. The other details are probably a little too raw right now – I may describe more later, who knows

I do have to say though that I feel really lucky to have met Kevin’s mom while she was with us – she’s an amazing lady…

So that’s our last few weeks… uggg… crazy huh? i’m EXHAUSTED and REALLY ready to get back to work.. :):)

more later…

Tags: Family, hrc, kevin, sawyers, travel