Happy Birthday to Me
Things have to start getting better now! Of course, I've thought that before! :-) My pater's obituary* came out today. I went to the dentist's this morning* -- they are nice. I get to have a crown replaced! Yay! I hate that old crown! It's cool, now, so I feel like (comparatively) Superwoman. Yay! It's my birthday -- I am half a century old today! Yay!! My brother, who has nasty cancer, is doing very well, and for that I am profoundly grateful.

*now you have to do a search for "Roy Kendall."

Yesterday I went to Shelley's apartment, then to the funeral home. My mum had prearranged her own cremation at a sensible low-cost cremation company. My pater's being cremated, too, but here we were at a rather horrendous funeral parlor full of nasty coffins -- apparently the trend is to have a drawer in the coffin so they can charge more... I mean so the family can put children's drawings and keepsakes in there. I told the funeral woman that it was gross, but you'd be proud of me -- I was going to remark how bodies liquified in the metal coffins, but I restrained myself. There was a book by Monica Lewinsky in the sobbing area: apparently some grievers need the heavy-duty stuff to get their minds off the deceased. The funeral people were interfacing at great cost between the bereaved and the newspaper. Not interfacing efficiently (since when is "Egypt" spelt with a "Q?" As I pointed out twice BEFORE the obit was taken away with corrections), just expensively. And they were antsy and rushed us. Shelley went to see my father, but I didn't, as I think it's distasteful, especially as he died on the 3rd. But I kept my mouth shut. Viewing costs $35. When we were picking out a box for the "cremains," I said, "Don't you have anything with horses on it?" They have a watering can, a rose, wheat, elk, etc., etc. I asked if they did the design from one's own artwork, and they said yes. I asked if was an arm and a leg (ha ha), and they said it was 35 bucks in addition. I said ok, tell me the size, and they tried to stear us to a clipart mustang instead, but it was cheesy, so we insisted on my plan. Ha -- creeps. So I'm going to supply a foxhunting b&w that will be laser punched into the wooden box, which Shelley will keep after my pater's ashes are sprinkled (I said we should go up in a Chinook -- I'm full of dangerous ideas). We nixed their ugly guestbooks, so they had to take off 30 bucks for that. The guestbooks were all ugly, with bad artwork, religious in the extreme, and only useable for us if we took out most of the pages. At one point a small child was wailing and crying -- I said, "Why would anyone bring a child to a place like this??" Poor tyke. I'd deliberately not taken my camera, but I knew there'd be a lot of stuff to photograph. I just didn't want to be tempted. I'm such a trouble-maker, anyway, that I probably would've got arrested. Just be happy you're not looking at a photograph of my father's dead body. See? I may be wild but I'm not totally out of control.

Earlier Shelley wanted to "clear the air," so I aired my grievances and told her I wasn't angry at her -- she was surely a victim of her family's irresponsibility, too. She said, "Yes, I'm sure it didn't turn out as they expected, but it's all water under the bridge. Let's let bygones be bygones." I said, "The water hasn't gone under the bridge for me. Not yet." Her sister-in-law did not accompany us as was the previous plan, for which I was heartily thankful.

*last time I went my mother had just died