Category: Uncategorised

tiffany moved back in once the male Dentons departed. She and luoi are being really nice to me. They made soup out of all my tamaters. I didn’t cancell my vegitable service, so my vegitables have been accumulating. They also made rhubarb pie, strawberry rhubarb pie and carrot cake with lemon frosting. Christi grabbed one of Brother Robert’s pear tortes from the funeral reception, so we had a lot of dessert. Peole came over today (the date says monday, but it’s still sunday night to me) and ate the desserts. It was the Kazes, T & L, Sarah D, Mitch, Brother Bob, GI Jen and Ed la instruisto. Mitch brought a clear plastic rat. We ate dessert and then all of us minus the Kazes went for dinner at Jaun’s Place. Then all of us minus Brother Bob and Ed went to see Bowling for Columbine. The movie was good, but there’s a long montage of news footage of people getting shot and killing themselves with guns that was very disturbing and made me shake a bit. Then we went to Gaylords for coffee, but Christi wanted to get home to sleep so she can work tomorrow. Mitch and GI Jen went home. The rest of us came back to casaninja and luoi decided to stay here, sicne she seems to live here part time. Sarah D stayed for a long time too. She read some Dykes to Watch Out For and then went home at some times, who knows when, all the clocks are screwed up because of the time change.
Tiffany, Christi’s mom and I are driving to Portland tomorrow. What will happen to xena has not yet been worked out. Cathy (aka Christi’s mom) has offered to keep the dog for a few weeks until we can return to claim her. Maybe Christi will decide to drive up. I need to go to LA soon. I don’t know when we can come up. Christi complains that she has already missed a lot of work. When I try to get her miss a bit more, she offers to quit her job to make me happy, which I couldn’t possibly ask her to do. I doubt her boss has hinted that he thinks she should quit if she misses more days, but it’s a very effective way for her to get me to quit asking her to go to portland or LA or anyplace else. I must be more self-sufficient and go visit my greiving, elderly relative by myself. When my mom was alive, everytime I proposed skiping some visit with Catherine, the elderly nun cousin, my mom would point out Catherine’s elderliness and say that she wasn’t going to live that much longer (the cousin, that is) and imply that if I skipped I might never see her again. Catherine was younger than many of her relatives in her generation and she has outlived all of her siblings, all of her first cousins, including my grandma, and has started outliving the children of her first cousins. All she’s got left in the catagory of first-cousin-once-removed, afaik, is my uncle. Anyway, I could try smiting Christi with the she’ll-probably-be-dead-soon hammer, but Christi would recognize it as my mother’s. And while I don’t mind sharing many traits with my mom, I’d like to try to skip the mighty guilt wielding one.
Tiffany pointed out to me that “confuse” and “amuse” and “criticise” are spelled with ‘s’ and not ‘z’. Why do we even have a ‘z’ when it’s so underused? Everyplace you think you hear it, it’s just an ‘s’ masquerading. Esperanto spelling makes a lot more sense. But obviously, since I am leaving for portland in eleven hours or so, I will be missing the next Esperanto class. Maybe I’ll actually do some homework. Earlier tonight, I was yelling across a parking lot at Mitch, “Tifanjo kaj mi ne iros al la klasson se ne iros al Portlandon. Gxis poste!” Perhaps that should count as homework? I wish I could speak even that much Spanish.
I just lit candle number 5. It may be tha hand of God. the one before was St. Micheal the Arcangel and the one before that some nautical apparition of the BVM. If i spoke some spanish, I would have clue what these things were. I guess I could look in a spanish-english dictionary. Maybe when I get back. I’ll prolly entirely miss the burning of the Lady of Guadalupe candle.
I went to the pet store to buy dog food and came home with that and a dog halloween costume. It’s a royal cape and crown. Xena has been very mellow and has been wering it without complaint. Crazy dog.

I’m answering all of the condolence email I got. Well, at least most of it. If you are expecting an answer and don’t receive one, here you go:
Thank you for your email. It means a lot to me.
I hope you are doing well
— celeste
Just because it’s a form letter doesn’t mean that your email didn’t mean a lot to me. It’s all true.
I hardly slept last night. I was worried about oversleeping, so instead I didn’t sleep at all. I was eating breakfast when I relaized that it was a friday morning and I had only allocated one hour to reach Cupertino from Berkeley by 10:00 am. What’s worse is the carpool lane closes at 10:00. I encouraged the Dentons to hurry. Maybe they did. We left after 9:00. There was a coffee truck overturned on 880. We got to the church at 10:20-something. I was suppossed to be there by 10:10 to be a pallbearer. And Christi took the guest registry-type book home with her to repair a page, so people were signing a photocopied sheet. Most everyone had arrived by the time we put the book in place.
We pulled the casket from the hearst and placed it on a trolley thing, wheeled it to the church vestebule and then places a white sheep called a pall over the top of it. Then we wheeled it inside and sat in the front of church and cried for the whole mass. The cantor sang in te slow pseudo-operatic, wild vibrato style popular among catholic cantors. I was upset with him, but the music selection was good. The organist and I had talked on the phone the night before going back and forth about the music. Most catholic music is not good. But we narrowed it down to Taize. S/he’s so good, even protestants use it. Andway, I thought it was good when he sang Ave Maria. But throughout most of the mass, I felt a wild desire to stab him. Christi’s boss told me later he thought the cantor was good, so I finally decided that I was just unhappy and so disliking the cantor, but it wasn’t his fault.
Monsegnour Milani’s sermon talked about mom in vague terms from the notes he had taken from us. He did know my mom from when she lived at home with her parents and he was their pastor. The readings were from the book of wisdom, psalm 23, a letter of Saint Paul to somebody and the beatitudes. At the end, Marilyn Quentin, mom’s friend got and spoke about taking piano classes with her at DeAnza Community College and being a docent with her at the museum and about how they used to talk for hours and hours. I was glad she spoke. After the mass, we processed out and then milled around for a while, waiting for the Monsegnour. Shyam Nigrani’s wife was there. He was my dad’s old coworker and I was friends with their daughter. Also, Autumn, who I worked with at Netscape was there. I need to call both of these people. Beatrice came again. Margie came. Tiffany, Luoi, GI Jen, Brian and Sarah K, Vince and Tammy and Sarah D all came too. There was a good crowd. A bunch of Chuck’s friends were there. Many of them read the newspaper announcement, because apparently Chuck didn’t tell everyone that he should have. Mary Lou came, as did Hubback. Charles, Christi’s boss came. The Bonasiches came. They run the orchard in Hollister. The Vidiviches came. All the CGC people. That’s the singles club my parents met at. It’s called the Catholic Graduates Club. For Catholics who were out of college, which seems to have meant thirty-something. My dad was still in school when her joined, but he was a resuming student. Anyway, the register thingee plus the photocopied sheet gives us a list.
The fake cops started up their motorbikes and blocked traffic and we got on 280 and went to Gate of Heaven Cemetery in a auto-procession. Apparently, one of the fake cops was almost run over. They looked just like real cops in CHP look-alike uniforms and with look-alike bikes, flashing amber lights instead of blue and red. I think people were fooled. One of them successfully pulled over a semi-truck. There was a short ceremony at the grave site and then another rodent-like mortuary employee thanked everyone for coming and we went to my dad’s house.
Alottas Catering did the food. They catered my mom’s parents’ funerals too. My dad called me a few days ago and asked about vegan food. I told his to just have some salads and maybe a three-bean salad and the vegans would be fine. And then maybe he could get a lasagna too. So when I arrived, there was a lettuce salad, a fruit salad, a three bean salad and a meat lasagna. I can’t say my dad doesn’t listen to me. Brother bob brought a million desserts, including his great pear tortes. Tammy or Sarah D or somebody brought a quiche. Someone else brought a plat full of cake slices. There was a lot of food. And red and white wine.
I talked to a bunch of people, I think. I sort of floated through it. Near the end, Margaret Schieck, my godmother, pulled me into a another room and said that while my mom was sick and could still talk, she asked Margaret to look after me and she promised she would. And she said she wanted me to consider myself part of her family if I want and Christi too and her kids know about me and Christi and everyone is ok about it and even if my mom hadn’t said anything to her, she wtill would have wanted me in her family because she’s known me her whole life and she’s my god mother. I just kind of cried. Christi has been asking me all day what we talked about and I can’t speak it because it makes me cry too much, but i can type it. So now all my blog readers (both of you) know now. The whole time my mom was sick, I kept thinking that Margaret was going to have to assume her duties as a godmother soon. I guess she was thinking the same thing. I didn’t know that my mom ever knew she was dying. the time she was still talking was probably when we were still doing radiation treatment. I was annoyed at her negative attitude then, but she must have known better than us. I’m glad she knew. I’m sorry I kept denying that, because I wanted the radiation to help and I wanted her to be more positive about it, because of the mythical mind-body connection.
Christi’s mom took all the male Dentons to the airport. After everyone left, she, Christi and I sat and talked to my dad for a while. Christi and her mom disappeared off to Sarah K’s house. And when my dad fell asleep in his chair, I snuck off after them. We drank tea and then went back and got some desserts and most of the last of my stuff from my dad. Like oreos and a pomegranite and a pumpkin.
We came back to berkeley and Christi talked me into going for sushi. It was miserable. I kept wanting to cry. I didn’t want to go to a restaurant. Tiffany anf Luoi invited us to a party, but I didn’t want to go and we ended up not calling them at all. Apparently they told me that Christi wanted to go and Christi that I wanted to go. But we talked to each other and foiled their plans. I don’t think my mom would like the idea of me going to a party after her funeral one bit.
Margaret told me that I’m a lot like my mom. Not very long ago, that would have annoyed me, but now I know that my mom was kind and funny and humble and always put other people first and smart and a good friend to people and fun to be around. I was barely old enough to start appreciating my mother. Just ten years ago, I still often saw her as a tyrant trying to ruin my social life. I wish I’d had more time as an adult to know her. Today was the hardest day since she died, maybe since she was sick. While she was sick, I had hope or at least chores. Before the funeral, there was logistics or a sence of relief that she wasn’t suffering. But now there’s nothing more to do and she’s gone forever

So after Tiffany left, later Mitch came over. He was talking a lot about Mozilla. I thought it was a religious discussion, but it turned out he’s got some startup idea that’s going to use esperanto. I say, “yay.” We went out to pizza. We came back and Christi’s Mother and Brother arrived. We sat around and talked, then went to bed. (aren’t blogs exciting?)
This morning I woke up and Tiffany was back here. yay. I thanked her for doing my half of the chores. Then she left and the Dentons and I drove to San Jose to get Christi’s Father from the SJ Airport. We went to my dad’s house to change. It’s full of flowers. I haven’t yet collected cards to write thank you notes. My dad showed up, so we went to Kim’s Vietnamese food with him. The organist called my cell phone and I finally gave her the list of hymns. Then we went to the rosary. We only said a decade of the rosary. Monsegnour Milani read a few readings and did a short, vague homily. Then it was over. Bang, bang, done. My mom would have been disappointed. But the crowd was pretty good. Christi made the book thingee. It’s beautiful. It’s covered with handmade (not by her) paper with rosebuds embedded in it. A lot of people came. The first guy I talked to was upset that we had communicated insufficieantly with him and was mad about it. And then some other guy came by and complained at my dad for being insufficiently sociable. Um yeah. Next time she dies, we’ll handle it better. The criticizm was very mild, but when you’re already fighting back tears, it stings more than normal.
A certain gentleman who is socially awkward came over to say goodbye. I thanked him for coming, so he said, “well thank you for being born.” I replied, “anytime.” Brother Bob guffawed. It was the only comic moment. In case I haven’t been clear on this, my mom dying sucks. My mom always liked the unnamed gentleman. She was always willing to overlook people’s foibles. She would give anybody on earth a second chance. Unless someone hurt someone she cared about. Then she never forgave, ever.
My mother’s mother died nine years ago. While she was ill, before her death, she had a nurse named Beatrice. Beatrice read about my mom in the paper and showed up to her rosary. She said my mom was always her friend. So if you helped someone my mom cared about, she didn’t forget you then either.
after the mortuary asked us to leave so they could close up, we went to La Teejo de Lusi. We stayed forty minutes past closing, but they never asked us to leave. I think we made tea orders after they closed, and they filled them without saying anything. Only Sarah K clued us in to their closing. They’re much nicer than the mortuary. It’s too bad they don’t do wakes there. The mortician at the rosary looked like he has the ability to turn into a bat. But the mortuary chapel has a huge crucifix, so he must not actually be a vampire. Anyway, we were at Lucy’s with the Dentons, the Sarahs, Mitch, Vince and Tammy. Vince and Tammy didn’t go to the rosary because Vince’s mom told them that Vince’s dad needed an emergency angioplasty and was at death’s door, but apparently, she overstated the crisis. I’m glad he’s ok.
We came home and did trash night things. I lit candle number three. The BVM and John the Baptist already burned out, but they were pretty low when they came here. Aside from the BVM (it seemed right to start with her), all of the remaining candles are ordered by amount of wax left, so all things being equal, they should burn longer and longer with each candle. And I fixed the heater. The fan had been failing to come on when the heater got hot, so instead of being like a regular, mordern heater, it was more like a radiator and utterly innefective at dispersing heat over our upstairs, which has very high ceilings. anyway, I opened the heater cover and switched a button marked “fan” to to “on.” I’m leading people to beleive that it was actually a technical repair, so keep this quiet.
It’s so weird having family gatherings without my mom. It’s not right at all

Tiffany left wednessday afternoon. Christi’s mom and brother were set to arrive, so she absconded. First, she made the bunk bed. It take 13 more minutes than making a bed ought to take. this is frustrating. tiffany also helped Christi clean and I’m pretty sure she put away all the vegitables. A few days ago, she made cream of cauliflower soup. yesturday, she bought oatmeal and coffee for the house and baked oatmeal cookies. she’s been maintaining the garden. I was thinking I missed her and I then I was thinking how much work she’s been doing around here. I must remember to say thank you.

Shelia detailed out her plan to me. It’s genious boggled my mind. “It’s so audacious, it just might work!” I exclaimed.
she just smiled her enigmatic smile and handed me another dossier. “This is the authoritative document on our adversary, published by the justice department. some of it is even correct.”
I scanned it. “Ah, so he or she is named JK and was a belligerent in Columbia, fighting with the paramilitary. Officially, JK is our ally.”
“Only because we favor an authoritarian regime. You know what JK planned for Flagstaff.”
The dune buggy kept bounding accross the dunes of the barren desert. Suddenly, a shot rang out overhead. My revolver was in my hands in an instant as I looked for the assailant.
“We have you surrounded. Drop your weapons.” A voice came through a megaphone.
“How do I know you have us surrounded?” I challeneged. antoher shot rang out and my pistol was violently torn from my fingers. It had been shot out of my hand! A hidden sniper that skilled is as good as being surrounded. Shelia and I put our hands in the air.
A gentleman in a white suit, reminiscent of Boss Hog, stepped out from behind a dune. “So, Jane,” he said with incongrous benevolence, “we meet again. You’ll have to forgive me. My henchmen didn’t recognize Shelia next to you and so confused you with a Mr Anderson.”
That name again! “So you’re letting us go?” I asked, burning with curiosity.
“Oh no, ” Dr. cool laughed bombastically, “now that you know I’m here, you’ll have to be my prisoner.” He took a look at my jumpsuit. “I can see you’ve already visitted our common adversary across the desert. Too bad we can’t work together on this, but I am comitted to avenging your murder of my father.”
Dr. cool’s henchmen pushed us into a windowless hovercraft and started across the desert. “I’ve always found him to be something of a boor.” said Shelia.
A video screen clicked to life across from us, with Dr. cool’s image on it. “Now that’s no way to talk about your host. Miss Manners might severely berate for your lapse of ettiquite, were she as belligerent as some of my henchmen. some of them are quite testy about what yuou did to dad. and for that you will pay!”
Maniacal bad guys are the most difficult to reason with, but still, I had to try. “That video you saw of me killing your father was bogus! It was fabricated by JK to make you dedicate your life to evil!”
“I can aver that claim.” said Shelia
“It doesn’t matter. I avowed that I would kill you in front of my henchmen and I can’t back down now.” The monitor clicked off and gas jets opened around the room to a hissing sound. A purple-ish fog was filling the hovercraft. Is this the end?
As darkness overcame my sight, I cursed Dr. Cool, “May all your decendants be barren!” and the world faded from my sight.

the 15 GRE Words of the Day

  1. audacious (adjective) bold, daring, adventurous. Joan of Arc’s audacious plan to lead the Dauphin behind enemy lines of his coronation succeeded. audacity (noun).
  2. authoritarian (adjective) Favoring or demanding blind obediance to leaders. Ari Fleischer says, “If you’re not in favor of the USA becoming authoritarian, you’re helping the terrorists.” authoritarianism (noun)
  3. authoritative (adjective) Official, conclusive. The strong “buy” reccomendations in the boom years appeared to be authoritative, but were actually issued by individuals with conflicts of interest. authority (noun), authorize (verb).
  4. avenge (verb) To exact a punishment for or on behalf of someone. Some speculate that dubya’s proposed military adventure in Iraq is to avenge his father’s failure.
  5. aver (verb) to claim to be true; to avouch. Mitch will aver Dan’s claims of having burned a piano, because Mitch was a witness
  6. avow (verb) to declare bodly. Suddenly, in the midst of his sermon, the bishop avowed his queerness and shocked the congregation. avowal (noun), avowed (adjective).
  7. barren (adjective) Desolate; infertile. There are those who want to nuke third world countries into barren wastelands, but those people are stupid.   Elizabeth was old and thought to be barren, but then Gabriel showed up and announced to Mary that Elizabeth was pregnant with a fetus that would grow up to become John the Baptist
  8. belligerent (adjective) Quarrelsome, combative. While some folks become belligerent when drunk. marijuana does not cause such behavior changes
  9. belligerent (noun) an opposing army. a party waging war. The USA is the most active belligerent in the world.
  10. benevolent (adjective) wishing or doing good. Nuns dedicate their whole lives to benevolent purposes. . . or sometimes they become grade school principals. . .. benevolence (noun).
  11. berate to scold or criticize harshly. dubya cried in the oval office after Ralph Nader berated him for his stupid policies.
  12. boggle (verb) to overwhelm with amazement. the complexity of musical structures developed by Serialism boggles the listeners’ minds, but often not their ears.
  13. bogus (adjective) phony, a sham the USA’s claim of Nicuragua posessing MIGS turned out to be bogus, something to consider while pondering claims of nukes in Iraq.
  14. bombastic (adjective) inflated or pompous in style. Some who profess not to like opera, describe it as bombastic. bombast (noun).
  15. boor (noun) Crude, insensitive and overbearing. Although delightful when sober, Ralph turned into a terrible boor when drunk and would insist on sharing all the details of his latest sexual exploit. boorish (adjective)

I’m updating my blog and my mom is dead.
Well, it’s been four days and she seems pretty serious about this being dead thing. It seems like it might be permanent, not just some sort of phase she’s going through. This morning I woke up after having a nightmare that she died and then I realized that she really was dead. And then I had this odd thought that she was going to stay dead and that is was a permanent thing. I don’t know why I would think otherwise. Jesus called forth Lazarus from the tomb, but Jesus was Lazaras’ good friend and Jesus was walking around and stuff. And even though my mom seemed to have a lot of friends, no Jesus ever walked in to visit, as far as I know. I took ancient history when I was a freshman in college and the teacher said that there were street magicians raising the dead on every street corner in Jerusalem. The stuff that came out about Jesus raising the dead was written way after he died and far away from where he lived and was suppossed to illustrate how miraculous he was. But there’s no way he would have actually raised the dead, because it would have destroyed his credibility and made him nothing more than another street performer. And, as far as I know, no saints have any miracles of re-animating corpses, so no Christian supernatural forces are going to change this. Mom isn’t going to pop out and say, “oh this was all just a test. You passed so I decided to come back.” what a stupid thought.
When I first got the tatoo on my leg, I wasn’t sure I liked it and I was talking to people and I kept saying, “if I keep it . . .” as if it was some easily erasible thing, like a piercing or something. Anyway, I decided I liked it and realized it was permanent. I wasn’t just bing pragmatic. But I’ve never had a strong inner sence of the innate irreversability of some things. read: spacy
I’ve spent tho whole day being spacy, not being able to remember my way around berkely or the names of major streets like Shattuck. I went out in the morning with Christi to buy paper. The mortuary sells these auful guest books. They’re binders and they’re pre-printed and have images of things like Thomas Kinkaide on them. My mom liked Thomas Kinkaide, but since she’s dead, I can turn her into any person I want in my mind. My reference point slips away. I can say that liking his artwork was only a result of her brain tumor. Right now, I know that’s not true, but in time, I’ll make myself believe it. Anyway, the guest books are ugly and expensive for what you get. So Christi and I bought nice paper, some of which is made with rosebuds in it. I know she would like that, for real, not just in my invented version of her. And we got some more rice paper and some vellum and some paperboard and glue and good pens and razor blades and it’s costing more than the mortuary’s McDeath guest book, but at least it’s actually nice. Christi made the book used at her own grandmother’s funeral.
I went to esperanto class tonight. I was actually paying attention. I was trying to pay attention earlier, but couldn’t. I tried to explain -ig and -igx to the class, since Ed was refusing to teach a lesson for some reason I missed. But I dunno how useful my explination was. I got home and the first candle lit here was burned out. It took several times as long as it was suppossed to. These are the candles that were burning while my mom was dying. No wonder she held on for so long. Even the candles burn extra-long. It’s like some sort of miracle. A “dark miracle” like the ones at the beginning of Incubus. Maybe a temporary miracle, like the one the brain surgeon provided. Was it worth it? My mom would have been dead by mid-july and saved months of suffering. Were we stupid to think it was a good idea to remove a quarter of her brain and then try to cure her, with such a gigantic tumor, or was the surgeon unethical or uncaring to suggest it? Did it perhaps stand some sort of chance of improving her life for more than the good three weeks afterwards? Did the delay starting radiation treatment make any sort of difference at all? The surgeon said six months and she didn’t even make it that long. Maybe that’s the diference. Just another woman wih brain cancer, this is all very routine. Oooh, that’s a big tumor. We shouldn’t make her too big a priority. We can’t do much. Better not say that to the family. We’ll do what we can, in our way, when we have time.
What did I used to do with my days? I think I was working on some projects. I know I did web stuff for Sarah’s reptile zoo. I don’t feel much like working and I don’t know what I was doing anyway. Too bad I didn’t keep a blog back then. I could go look up boring posts of debuggin javascript or something. I want to go away. Christi has already missed oodles of work. My mom was a very major donor to Christi’s non-profit. But there’s nothing for them in the will. Christi can’t just have all the time off she wants, she has work to do. There’s a big film festival coming up that she needs to work on. Everything needs to get back to work, back to being normal. Life must go on. But not for my mom.