Tuesday, July 14, 2009
My Summer Serenity Launch pad...
Went down to Riverside park to shoot some local scenery for a friend and realized that I needed a spot to chill when the going gets weird...
Sister gave me a new camera to replace the one that was 'lost' (or stolen) while I was on vacation and it has quite a few neat features one of them being video...so here goes...my first digital video upload!!!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Funeral Plans or How Long Do You Keep the Voice of the Recently Departed on the Answering Machine?
I was born on a Wednesday. Perhaps, that is why when it comes to death, I tend to not be that emotional about it, except when it directly, and I do mean directly concerns me. (More on that in another post.) I look at the rituals of funerals in a very matter of fact way. My family has an odd preoccupation with death. Well... maybe not a preoccupation, but a certain familiarity with the rituals of death so far as United States/American culture is concerned. Putting it simply, Mom and Dad managed a small cemetery in town. It was not unusual for me to find the cremated remains of someone's 'Dearly Departed' in a small brown packing carton on the front porch, recently delivered by UPS on any given day of the week. My significant others did find my parents line of work a bit disconcerting, but over time, eventually came to realize that my parents were pretty normal, at least until they discovered where the flowers on the dining room table originated from. (More on that in another post too.) If they hung around long enough, they did eventually get over it, and realized that we weren't related to the Addams Family.
Having given that teaser of an introduction..
Mom turned up at my door this afternoon. I had just woken up and thought I heard her pound on the side of my house. I threw a long nightgown on and went to the porch where we proceed to smoke cigs and have our usual chat that ensues upon my bleary eyed entrance to the porch shortly after her arrival and shouted epithets regarding my inability to get out of bed at a 'decent hour'. (She seems to conveniently forget that I work til 1am.) ok..I exaggerate there, but you get the idea. You don't ignore my Mom when she shows up at the door.
The conversation starts with her visit to the Medical Oncologist. The visit with the Dr went ok...but she wonders after getting her medication, why people 'just wont let her die in peace.' ok...I know she doesn't really mean that just yet...but there is a grain of truth in that statement. She is after all, 79 yrs old.
She then relates a story about my sister and a cemetery marker and what to do with said cemetery marker, which then morphs into her own desires for her final resting place.
She seems to at this particular moment to desire to not be buried next to my father. OK...I can understand that-as he did have a tendency to get on her last nerve and considering what he had engraved on the marker (more on that in another post). I can see her point. But- hey, from my point of view- they did produce my sister and me. So even after death do us part those two are going to be together. But, I see my mom's sense of humor and postulate the following for her funeral.
She wants to be cremated. Ok, that in and of itself makes all the following possible. And since I think that death is a natural part of life.. and ones' life should be celebrated by those left in this life I suggest that those of us left should celebrate my mother's life by doing the following for her funeral....
We start at the cemetery where Dad is buried...we sprinkle a bit of Mom on Dad's grave, we then relocate to the bar down the road from the cemetery and have a beer. We then move to another bar and have another 'restorative cocktail' with Mom's ashes in attendance at the bar, and then relocate to another bar where a bloody mary is consumed. After that we relocate to the cemetery where Mom's parents are buried and sprinkle some more of Mom on her parent's grave and then drive towards the Norwegian ancestral home where halfway there we stop at a tavern known as the Golden Frog..(Mom collected frogs, and we shall bring Phreddy the light up frog from her porch for this to sit on the bar with her ashes) to have another restorative cocktail and a burger. After lunch, we continue the drive to Nelson, a town eerily reminiscent of Lake Woebegon and stop at yet another tavern and drink, and then move on to the ancestral burial grounds where we have the worlds best coffee, jello salad, cookies and bars and give ourselves diabetes. After checking our blood sugar we then move on to the church cemetery where we plant Mom, and pour some of the worlds best coffee and a couple of martinis over her grave and call it good. We then retire to the bar in Urne ( pronounced Ernie) and proceed to drink ourselves silly and hope for the best.
While I play this out for her....she found it decidedly workable, as she didn't want to be buried next to her own parents, thinking she would have to listen to an eternity of "Red, are you mad at me?" followed by "God Damn it Selma....I'm not mad at you!" (More on that story too in another post.) She giggled and laughed and stories got told and I got to get to know my mother just a little bit better than I thought I knew her..Sad that it takes the Specter of Death to do that, but also wonderful in a Wednesday's child is full of woe kind of way.
Which brings us to the explanation of the rest of the title to this post.
After Mom and Dad got out of the cemetery business...they changed their phone number but Dad never bothered to change the greeting message on the answering machine and it wasn't until Mom spent a short time in a nursing home recuperating from a serious illness that the nursing home called the house to get in touch with me and never left a message- because the number given in the greeting message didn't match the number in their records- that we realized that the greeting on the answering machine was Dad's voice on the machine and ... well, guess you had to be there to see just how funny it was, and Mom has never recorded a new message for the new phone after I managed to annihilate the old message in an attempt to clean the old phone. I think I shall have her record a message for the new phone, just to see how long her voice lasts after she goes on to the Great Beyond.
Having given that teaser of an introduction..
Mom turned up at my door this afternoon. I had just woken up and thought I heard her pound on the side of my house. I threw a long nightgown on and went to the porch where we proceed to smoke cigs and have our usual chat that ensues upon my bleary eyed entrance to the porch shortly after her arrival and shouted epithets regarding my inability to get out of bed at a 'decent hour'. (She seems to conveniently forget that I work til 1am.) ok..I exaggerate there, but you get the idea. You don't ignore my Mom when she shows up at the door.
The conversation starts with her visit to the Medical Oncologist. The visit with the Dr went ok...but she wonders after getting her medication, why people 'just wont let her die in peace.' ok...I know she doesn't really mean that just yet...but there is a grain of truth in that statement. She is after all, 79 yrs old.
She then relates a story about my sister and a cemetery marker and what to do with said cemetery marker, which then morphs into her own desires for her final resting place.
She seems to at this particular moment to desire to not be buried next to my father. OK...I can understand that-as he did have a tendency to get on her last nerve and considering what he had engraved on the marker (more on that in another post). I can see her point. But- hey, from my point of view- they did produce my sister and me. So even after death do us part those two are going to be together. But, I see my mom's sense of humor and postulate the following for her funeral.
She wants to be cremated. Ok, that in and of itself makes all the following possible. And since I think that death is a natural part of life.. and ones' life should be celebrated by those left in this life I suggest that those of us left should celebrate my mother's life by doing the following for her funeral....
We start at the cemetery where Dad is buried...we sprinkle a bit of Mom on Dad's grave, we then relocate to the bar down the road from the cemetery and have a beer. We then move to another bar and have another 'restorative cocktail' with Mom's ashes in attendance at the bar, and then relocate to another bar where a bloody mary is consumed. After that we relocate to the cemetery where Mom's parents are buried and sprinkle some more of Mom on her parent's grave and then drive towards the Norwegian ancestral home where halfway there we stop at a tavern known as the Golden Frog..(Mom collected frogs, and we shall bring Phreddy the light up frog from her porch for this to sit on the bar with her ashes) to have another restorative cocktail and a burger. After lunch, we continue the drive to Nelson, a town eerily reminiscent of Lake Woebegon and stop at yet another tavern and drink, and then move on to the ancestral burial grounds where we have the worlds best coffee, jello salad, cookies and bars and give ourselves diabetes. After checking our blood sugar we then move on to the church cemetery where we plant Mom, and pour some of the worlds best coffee and a couple of martinis over her grave and call it good. We then retire to the bar in Urne ( pronounced Ernie) and proceed to drink ourselves silly and hope for the best.
While I play this out for her....she found it decidedly workable, as she didn't want to be buried next to her own parents, thinking she would have to listen to an eternity of "Red, are you mad at me?" followed by "God Damn it Selma....I'm not mad at you!" (More on that story too in another post.) She giggled and laughed and stories got told and I got to get to know my mother just a little bit better than I thought I knew her..Sad that it takes the Specter of Death to do that, but also wonderful in a Wednesday's child is full of woe kind of way.
Which brings us to the explanation of the rest of the title to this post.
After Mom and Dad got out of the cemetery business...they changed their phone number but Dad never bothered to change the greeting message on the answering machine and it wasn't until Mom spent a short time in a nursing home recuperating from a serious illness that the nursing home called the house to get in touch with me and never left a message- because the number given in the greeting message didn't match the number in their records- that we realized that the greeting on the answering machine was Dad's voice on the machine and ... well, guess you had to be there to see just how funny it was, and Mom has never recorded a new message for the new phone after I managed to annihilate the old message in an attempt to clean the old phone. I think I shall have her record a message for the new phone, just to see how long her voice lasts after she goes on to the Great Beyond.
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