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Random Post-Funeral Thoughts

The week before my mother died, I had nothing on any credit cards, save for any recurring expenditures.

TIMING

My father died on a Thursday; we had the funeral on a Sunday, and he was buried on a Monday. My mother died on a Tuesday, and our first inclination was to have the funeral on the following Saturday. But, instead of working on the obituary or the program on that day, we sat around telling Trudy stories. I think, in some way, we died my father’s death the way he would have wanted his death to be handled, quickly and efficiently; it also helped that we knew my father was going to die at least the day beforehand. Whereas mom’s death took us, and indeed her long-time doctor, by surprise; her heart was still strong, even after the stroke, and we were having conversations about placing her in some medical facility after she got out of the hospital the very morning she died.

Once Saturday was off the table, we considered Sunday, but it was Super Bowl Sunday, on which my mother’s mother died; I remember getting the call during the 3rd quarter of the game in 1983. Besides, it was just different. My dad was the hare, my mother, the tortoise, and we all know that slow and steady win the race.

So, it was a Tuesday funeral, which had an enormous number of people outside of the family wanting to speak, and a Wednesday burial at the Salisbury National Cemetery in Salisbury, NC, about 40 miles from Charlotte, Section 8, Plot 358, next to my father. I read a few passages from the Proverbs reading my eldest niece read the day before, then sang a little, then I, then my sisters, in turn, shoveled some dirt on her cremains, then we sang some more. Then we went to Waffle House, which was one of my father’s favorite places. I believe I had only been to that gravesite once since his burial there.

FOOD

One of the traditions in the South, at least in my parents’ circle, is for people to come over, often bringing various food items, usually homemade. And by “come over”, I don’t mean that they call and ask, “Would this be a good time to come over?” I mean that they just show up. I became aware of this tradition ten and a half years ago; can’t say that I’ve gotten USED to it. But it was (mostly) nice.

MONEY

The week before my mother died, I had nothing on any credit cards, save for any recurring expenditures, such as the newspaper. Can’t say THAT right now. The next bill will be a whopper; it will include:
The funeral parlor. When my father died, the same funeral parlor accepted the promise of payment from his insurance; not so this time. So it went on my credit card. I’ll get reimbursed eventually. But it was the least amount of money we could spend, which would have pleased my mother, $840.
The obit. I totally miscalculated how much it was going to cost: $472.75. I’ll probably eat half of that.
The niece’s last-minute plane ride from California. Somewhere north of $600, which I hope to get back eventually.
The hotel. Once my wife and daughter arrived, the house would have been too crowded with my sisters, my nieces, and a family friend. Five nights, $330; not bad actually.
*Miscellaneous stuff, including a meal after our bizarre visit with the funeral home – was she high, merely incompetent, or uncaring because we weren’t spending enough? She couldn’t even spell Charlotte, and at one point, my sister threw her out of our meeting.
This doesn’t even count the train tickets or the rental car, which are on my WIFE’S credit card. BTW, 3 days out on Amtrak is a better rate than 2 days out, which is WAY better than one day out.

TECHNOLOGY

I had access to the home computer, but I didn’t have one of my own. My wife actually brought the daughter’s laptop, but it was uncharged, and she forgot the plug, so it didn’t work.

Of course, I had to focus on the funeral stuff and managed to write four blog posts in the 12 days I was down there. Viva the blogger’s reserve, which I was trying to create for our vacation this fall. C’est la vie.

The hotel had one (count’em, ONE) computer in the “business center”, which was often occupied. Once I was on it – at 2:48 a.m. – and some young woman came down and said, “This is the ONLY computer here? I have to do my homework!” I ceded it to her at 3 a.m. after I’d spent an hour on it. BTW, it needs a new keyboard; the a, c, e, m, and n were unreadable.

The house printer didn’t work. The hotel printer was quirky, at best.

I used my cellphone more in that two-week period than I had in all the previous two years.

One Twitter tweet, one Facebook post. Just no time for it.
***
The train ride back from Charlotte to Albany last Friday.

P is for Polly Ticks

So VOTE!

(With apologies to Anthony North):

Some largely nonpartisan things that have been bugging me about the electoral process in the United States recently, and not so recently.

MONEY: It has long been an issue, and there have been a series of legislative actions, Such as McCain-Feingold trying to limit the effect of money on the campaign. However, in January 2010, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court decided that corporations and unions have the same First Amendment rights as individuals, and as such may now directly and expressly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates for federal office, as long as they do not coordinate their efforts with campaigns or political parties. Without getting too wonky here, social welfare organizations may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not their primary activity. As a result, there is a lot more election spending this cycle than ever before. GOP political operative Ed Gillespie said last week on ABC News, and someone said similarly on NBC’s Meet the Press, that the American people do not care about outside spending; I care– a lot.

RANCOR: With that much money, candidates are even more willing and able to run negative, misleading, even inaccurate advertisements. One can and should debate the issues, but it’d be nice if they could get along better while doing so.

Someone’s Photoshop of 2008 Democratic candidate for President Barack Obama, and Republican candidate for Vice-President Sarah Palin

NO REAL CHOICE: A growing number of people believe a third party is needed in the US. Now, there are third-party candidates legitimately doing well this political season, but it doesn’t reflect a sustained, or sustainable national organization. My sense is that there never will be without instant runoff voting.

VOTER SUPPRESSION: Latinos for Reform is running ads on television, radio and the Internet telling Nevada’s Hispanic population not to vote on election day so as to teach Democrats a lesson for failing on the promise to deliver on immigration reform. Others have reported intimidation tactics of voters likely to vote for the opposition.

Another form of voter suppression, I believe, is the overuse of polling. When one hears that Candidate X is a “sure thing” to win or to lose, voters often lose interest and stay home, skewing the results. I’m not sure what to make of poll results anyway. I’ve read that the Republicans may win 100 seats in the House of Representatives. I’ve also noticed another poll, which includes people whose only phone is a cell phone, Democrats lead by 6 points on the generic ballot.

All that said, and in particular, in response to the voter suppression tactics, I encourage people to vote at every opportunity. Not only do I believe it is one’s civic duty, but, for me, it is a personal necessity. I’ve had ancestors who could not vote, so I would be dishonoring those who fought for the ballot not to exercise the franchise.

Did you ever notice that a large number of the Amendments in the US Constitution, after the Bill of Rights, deal with voting?

Amendment 15 states that race or previous condition of servitude (i.e., slavery) is no bar to voting (1865), passed right after the Civil War.
Amendment 17 requires that US Senators be elected by popular vote, rather than by the state legislature (1913) – someone please explain to me why some candidates this year have indicated repealing this amendment?
Amendment 19 provided for nationwide women’s suffrage (1920), though some individual states had allowed women to vote earlier.
Amendment 23 gave the Presidential Vote to Washington, DC (1961) – now if they could only get a voting member in Congress.
Amendment 24 bars the imposition of a poll tax as a requirement for voting (1964), eliminating that particular voter suppression tactic.
Amendment 26 set the voting age at 18 years (1971); unfortunately, statistically, the group least likely to use it.

So VOTE! And if you’re elsewhere in the world, VOTE when your next chance occurs.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

The Scenario

Hair in my food?

I found this at something called Monday Mayhem, only the URL spells it “mahem”. Whatever. It’s rather like Sunday Stealing except the lists tend to be shorter. I thought this one from January was rather interesting.

1. You see a strange car pull up to your neighbor’s house every day at lunchtime. You accidentally glance into the window of the house and notice that your ‘happily married neighbor’ is fooling around! What do you do?

Well, it depends very much on my relationship with the neighbor and the neighbor’s spouse. It might be that I would do absolutely nothing at all if I didn’t know them well. If the one fooling around was my friend, I probably would mention it to him/her. If the neighbor’s spouse was my friend, I would almost certainly mention it, not to my friend, at least initially, but to the cheating spouse, with a recommendation to end the affair; whether I told my friend would depend on the actions of the person “fooling around”.

2. You are at the mall and a mom with really annoying screaming little kids is walking in front of you. She goes to give her kids a quarter for the giant gumball machine and she accidentally drops a $10 bill and doesn’t realize it. What do you do?

Say, “Hey lady, you dropped something!” Don’t know how the noisy kids factor into this. Right is right.

3. You get an email from a candy company telling you that they will send you 6 pounds of delicious chocolate if you blog about their product. When you get the product and try it you realize that it is the worst chocolate that you have ever tasted. What do you do?

It’d be one of two things: 1) I just don’t write anything at all, especially if it’s a small company, or 2) I write a negative review, probably filled with qualifiers such as “unfortunately, I found the candy pretty much inedible. I have to wonder: was this just a bad, or tainted batch, or is this what they sell regularly? If the latter, I can’t imagine long-term success.”

4. Texting while driving is one of the most dangerous and annoying things someone could do. Yet, what would you do if you were driving and listening to the radio when the announcer says that he will give $10,000 to the first person with your name that texts a message to him?

Well, assuming I actually knew where my cellphone was, if I were driving, I’d pull over at the first opportunity.

5. You’ve been invited to your boss’s house for a dinner party. It’s dark out and there is poor lighting when you get there. As soon as you get inside you realize that you have stepped in dog poop and you have tracked into your boss’s house. What do you do?

Well, it would depend on whether it was the boss’s dog. If it was, I’d say, “I’m afraid I just stepped into some dog poop” without specifying. Conversely, if I knew for sure it WASN’T my boss’s dog, I’d launch into a tirade about people who don’t curb their pets.

6. You are at a restaurant waiting for your food to arrive. You’ve waited nearly 30 minutes since the moment you placed your order when your food finally shows up. There is a hair on the top of the food. Do you send it back and wait another 30 minutes or do you deal?

I send it back and leave, paying for the drinks and salad already consumed. All the restaurant studies suggest it is the experience, not the quality of the food, that makes the most impact on whether one has a good or poor dining experience. Another half-hour wait would make it a poor dining experience, no matter how good the food was.

7. If you had the power to do so, what would be the one question that you would like to ask anyone who reads this?

Why do they call it “reality television” when the circumstances are so artificial, anything but real?
***
Exene Cervenka of the band X co-directed Bad Day (1986), a “20-minute, silent, black & white western to pay tribute to the early days of the one-reel westerns,” starting John Doe (X), Dave Alvin (Blasters), Chris D (Flesh Eaters), Kevin Costner (yes, that Kevin Costner), “now available for digital download on a pay-what-you-will basis…a portion of the proceeds from the film are going to Gulf Coast aid organizations.”