Les said, the better II

Um, so I left off my life chronicles sometime friday after my dad decreed that the candles must go. He was super irritating that day, but duh, his wife just died. My brother finally showed up for the first time in two weeks or so and was nice to my dad, but decreed that he wanted mom’s computer. Mom’s computer is a macintosh, but it has a cinemascope display, quite decent speakers attached and a superdrive. When my mom first got it, my brother called up Christi and ranted for a couple of hours about how stupid macintoshes were and what a terrible computer it was, while trying to get Christi to provide some tech support. My dad already told me I could have it. I told him he should keep it for a while. Will it just walk off, like so many things have that my brother wants, or has he outgrown that? We’ll see.
On saturday, we went over to the morticians to figure stuff out. Christi and I picked out clothes to bury my mom in. It’s a closed casket, but it wouldn’t be right to send her off in nothing but a Womens Philharmonic T-shirt. But mom lost so much weight, her clothes were all way too big. So we picked out her one wrap around skirt, so on the last day when Jesus calls us all out of our tombs, at least her skirt will fit right. And we picked out a pleated white shirt and a turquisoe jacket. When Mikey, our pet dachshund was still alive, I gave some pictures of him to Christi’s mom and had her make a vest with his image on it. It’s a nice vest with weiner dogs running around in circles on it, and it has some checkers and a lot of turquiose, since my mom looks good in it. After Mikey died, my mom quit wearing it for a long time beause “it [was] just too sad, you know.” She had just started wearing it again, so we picked it out too. I don’t know what else I could possibly do with a vest with pictures of a dead dog on it that had been specially made for my dead mom. So Christi, Dad and I showed up to the Lima Family Mortuary with those, and some nylons and the hat I got my mom and her teddy bear and a scapular and my mom’s volunteer ID Badges for History San Jose. My dad wants those on her. Why not? It’s a closed casket.
The mortician took the clothes, but told us to come back later with the bear, scapular and badges. We should have insisted on the scapular, sicne they’re suppossed to be worn under the clothes, but we didn’t. Then he took us into the casket room. There were some wood ones, which is good, cuz we wanted wood. And there was an ok hardwood one that said it was made from renewable materials, so I was thinking we could just get that and save ourselves the trouble of looking for an ecologically correct casket, since there was one right there. But then, wandering around the room, I noticed that the solid mahogany one also claimed to be a renewable natural resource and thus green. So after I became upset, the mortician showed us a catalog of orthodox caskets and we liked one of those, but decided to keep looking a few other places. We went to the casket outlet in San Jose, but they only had things even less green, so we went back to my parents house. Brother Robert invited my dad, my brother, my uncle, Christi and I over to his place for dinner. Shockingly, everyone agreed to come and my brother actually showed up. I guess it’s easier for him when dying people aren’t lying around.
Brother Bob called up a little more than an hour before we were all suppossed to go over. He just had cataract surgery and has been having trouble with his eyes. He was running late and distraught over my mom’s death and couldn’t read any of his cookbooks. So Christi went over and helped him make dinner. Which was great. He’s a great cook. And then he sent us home with the leftovers. We decided he should be a pall-bearer, but we forgot to tell him.
After that, I decided Christi and I should just stop by Mitch’s birthday party, especially since Tiffany and Luoi were going and didn’t know that many people. We showed up way late and T&L were already gone and everyone there was pretty drunk. Mitch’s mom was there. I saw a lot of her in highschool, but not much since then, except at parties. Mitch’s family are partiers. They would fight for their right to party. So she seemed to be drunk. She ran up to me and gave me a big hug and told me how great I was to my mom. Every time anybody says that, I cry. It’s not that I don’t want to hear it or anything, it justs makes me cry. The sermon on the mount makes me cry too and sometimes The Paino Concerto by Micheal Nyman makes me cry, it’s just one of those things. Not great for parties, but I shouldn’t be going to parties anyway, if I might busrt into tears. And then she said, “I’m your mom now.” So I ran away to the bathroom. And when I exitted, Mitch asked me if I would like a drink. yes. something. anything strong.
After Vince and Tammy left, the females remaining were Mitch’s mom (who came into the garage where we were drinking (why the garage?) every half hour and announced she was going to go to sleep), Christi, me, Sarah K, Sarah D and Jen Stout. Sarah K is out as bi. Sarah D is not out as bi, but has smooched chicks on occasion, especially when there’s beer in her. I got the idea that we should ask Jen Stout to strip. The Sarahs were all over that idea. Money was pledged. Mitch and an airforce guy started digging out one dollar bills. Jen Stout finally agreed, but didn’t like the music that was on. “I can’t strip to the Beastie Boys” she said. Mitch replied, “This is my best birthday ever.”
Uh yeah, so we talked her into something while she was drunk. When I die, I’m going to go to the peraly gates. And standing there will not be St. Peter, but rather Betty Friedan and she will send me to hell.
I woke up the next morning hung-over. Actually, the next afternoon. And went down to my parents house and finished writing the obituary notice, which we then took to the mortuary and they’ll submit it to the papers. How much extra are we paying for this? I dunno, we didn’t ask. Look for the notice in your next newspaper. My dad went out while I has still sleeping it off and bought a cemetery plot. The cemetery requires that all the markers be made out of wither granite or bronze. They need to be a certain exact size and shape. They need to lie flat. They must contain an christian symbol and be approved by the cemetery. The cemetery can change it’s mind in the future. They have catalogs of pre-cut stones that just needs a name and years. Sometime, when all pop-culture was telling us to look the other way, they McDonalds-ized death. The mortuary is a national chain. The grave markers come pre-cut. God forbid somebody try to say something too personal with a head stone.
My dad did some net surfing and discovered the kind of six sided profile box we were looking for to bury mom in is called a coffin. Square boxes are caskets. Vampire movie boxes are coffins. We couldn’t find any, so we ordered the orthodox casket. We scheduled the funeral. Then, I went back to my parents house and we relaized we needed to call people. It turns out that one of my mom’s friends was trying to be helpful and called a lot of people and told them the wrong day. We made a list of who needed to be called and Sarah K came over and called most of them. She then left to go to a party and I picked up all the candles and put them in my car. I got them home with the idea that I would put them on top of my bookshelf and burn them all one at a time until they all burned out and then take all the empties to the East Bay Depot for Creative Re-Use. But there were too many to fit on top of my bookcase. I’m going to be burning candles forever.
Today I went to St. Joseph of Cupertino parish to meet with the Monsenior to plan the funeral. Then I dropped Christi by work. Tiffany and I went out to the Albany Bulb, also known as the Albany Dump and the Albany Landfill. It’s rumored to be filled with art instillations. We came upon a castle. Two stories! And a hut. And several small sculptures. And an outdoor gallery by a group called Sniff. All of their stuff is good. Some of it is exceptionally excellent. The bulb is al the end of Buchanan Street in ALbany, kind of near the Berkeley border. There’s a trail or something there. Park and walk out on the penninsula that goes into the bay. It’s cool. We took xena and she spent the whole time running around in circles in estatic glee. Oh to be a dog.
I see a full moon and I think, “It’s a full moon and my mom is dead.” and I go for food and think, “I’m eating a pizza and my mom is dead.” and so I was thinking, “I’m looking at art and my mom is dead.” The art was excellent, but I’m not much for reviews right now.
We went home and I called the organist from Resurrection Church in Sunnyvale. When I was in Seventh and Eightth grade, I played trumpet every week at Satuday evening mass. I remebered hearing the organist talk about one of her teachers who was Baptist and how the catholic parishoners started complaining that she played like a protestant, so she had to get a new teacher. When my grandma died, less than a year ago, my mom picked all protestant hyms for the funeral. None of us knew what kind of music my grandma liked. The organist then played like a catholic and butchered the songs. So I’m very happy my old organist has said that she’ll play at the funeral.
Nothing much else happened since the last installement, except that porn came in the mail. It’s exciting living in a lesbian household. Tiffany is here and so Luoi is also here a lot. So the porn is universally popular. Oh and Luoi got a blog.