November 14, 2020

Urns

From last week:

What did you do today?

Oh, a friend's widower asked the crowd for ideas of what kind of urn to get for her.

My idea: a vintage Wedgewood jasperware biscuit jar. Think about it. They often depict women in diaphanous gowns and almost funerary broken column kinds of images. It would be perfect. My own ashes? I've told mrguy that I'd like my ashes to go in here (that is until scattering):

From this week:

What did you do today?

Jury's still out on the urn. I was not a close friend of this person, but liked her so so much. And it turns out that her friends think that she would look good in an urn that looks like Japanese gold repair Kintsugi. And it still looks like an urn and not as I imagine my friend, so I suggested something else.

Don't procrastinate on that stuff, People! Mrguy knows that when I go, I want to be scattered off a boat, with jazz playing (Bill Evans?), just as we did with the big guy. My sparkles can eventually mingle with his, and with my pop's, or at least the part of my pop that ended up in the ocean, not the part that ended up at my brother's property which eventually became a pot farm. He would have HATED that.

Maybe the lesson, here, is to arrange to have yourself cremated and entrust your ashes to a service that will hide them from your family! 

Whatever you do, make a plan. Most people don't enjoy this sort of thing as much as I do, but don't leave your people to figure it out for you or you will end up in an urn that has both kintsugi and the Pink Panther.

Kill Clouseau!


November 7, 2020

Eggxuberance

 We've been saving this egg since election day. Which turned into election week.










November 6, 2020

The Foot of Cupid

I've been looking for a good gif of the Monty Python foot, because for the last few months I've been imagining the foot crushing me closer and closer to the ground. It's a comical way to look at the amazing pile-up of events we're all having during the pandemic.

In the last two months I've watched from afar the decline and death of my favorite cousin, the new partner of an old friend (he went from diagnosis of prion disease to death in a matter of weeks), and a work colleague who did chemo for most of the last year and blogged it all.

Three cats in our circle have died. Our older boy cat is hobbled and the boisterous kitten and I live in separate parts of the house to protect the elder from the younger.

Update: I totally forgot about the stress of fires. My go-bags are still packed.

I'm grinding through a more-than-decade project at work that is grinding to a stop, yet this project still occupies many meetings and emails and much planning even in its conclusion.

The election.

My family has so much conflict over my mom and her care. Covid has only made it worse. Covid will continue. The caregivers split a 7 day week between them. I don't think they can continue to work this way. My older siblings are too frail themselves to pitch in. In May I expressed to middlesis that this was a problem, and she responded that it was Spring and she couldn't think about it after a hard winter and doing so much for the family (truth. she does so much).

So we didn't talk about it, and with the holidays coming she asked me for help. I said go to mediation with me and I'll give you my answer. I've been seeing someone who specializes in gerontology to hopefully get my sister to talk to me about this stuff. Over the summer she had said she'd go to mediation with me, and now...nope. Big sis and I got a mutual email and we're on the shit list.

The election.

Big sis has a potential large health situation, in the middle of all of this.

The election.

The election.

Layoffs. Yesterday I went to four separate meetings about layoffs. Of 22 people at the factory, 4 were in my tiny department, and two others were people I work with closely. One of them is my closest work buddy, who was hired on the same day as I was, 20 years ago. I'm devastated.

I will cope. It will get better. I coined a phrase last week about finding one thing a day that you like and love the hell out of it.

But I feel the foot right now.

 

For more on the origin of the foot, check out its Wikipedia page.

Maybe I'll just love the foot today.

November 2, 2020

Election Bunker 2020

So tomorrow is Election Bunker 2020. I will start the day by putting up my venerable "Jesse Jackson Urges You to Vote Today" poster, removed from a telephone pole in my neighborhood in 1984. Makes me so happy to share it with the people.

Then I will enjoy some working hours, trying to get the election and other things out of my mind.

And I will enjoy my pizza, which mrguy will be ordering at 3pm. Can taste those little pepperonis in my mind. When tv coverage starts, I will stop working and start thinking of the election. Hope it goes my way.

The thing I'm going to try to ignore is the current guy family strife. It's ugly and it's petty. It is super frustrating and it hurts.

So let's change the subject! The first christmas cactus are blooming. The white with magenta (estate sale find) and dark red with white stripes (Home Depot). Seasons Greetings!