Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

My dog cheered me up when I got home yesterday. It's hard to be sad when you have a dog. She was so happy to see me, she wiggled all over. And then we went for a walk and she thought that was just GREAT! Her tail was wagging the whole time. Every now and then she'd turn and look up at with with happiness. How can you stay sad when you have a dog?

Near the end of our walk, we ran into ben. He drove us home. I dropped off the dog (with a cookie), then we went out for dinner. It was double point night at caltort! Ben ordered a ridiculous number of tacos. While we ate, we talked about the cruise and my guilt for not enjoying snow crash.

After that, we went to the food store to stock up on dog food and fruit. I bought a very expensive tomato. I am looking forward to a house with a yard so I can grow my own tomatoes.

When I got home, I played disgaea 2 for a bit and then went to bed early. I was very tired. I dreamed that my grandma wanted me to crochet something for her. I hate when I dream about dead people. It makes me feel guilty because I can never do the things they want in the dream.

I thought I had managed to get all my crying out of my system before I came up to NY, but I guess I missed some of it. I was asked to be one of the pallbearers (they wheel the coffin on a cart now) for my grandma, and while walking up to the altar with the coffin, I completely fell apart. I barely made it all the way. Stupid stupid me.

I'm not sure if it was grief, anger at my brother who said some horrible things to me, the sappy church music, or exhaustion from the previous days. Maybe it was a nasty combination of them all.

I stopped crying once the church ceremony started, refueled by my hatred of the catholic church. This priest pretty much said life on earth was worthless and the whole reason we are here is to go to the great big Disneyland in the sky. Even dad commented later on how crazy it all sounded.

Then I was reading through the church bulletin, and was filled with more hate. They had this full page dedicated to anti-abortion stuff. Without once admitting that in order to eliminate abortion you need to fix the social problems of society, like families that can't afford to feed the kids they have and minority children that are never adopted and are just tossed to the streets at age 18. The bulletin didn't mention anything about helping feed children or find them health care. Nope, it just said abortion was evil and should be illegal. Sorry, but you can't make something like that go away with a simple law.

After the ceremony was over, I had to help bring grandma to the back of the church. That time I made it all the way out the door before crying. But as the professional pallbearers carried her down the stairs, I lost it again.

From there we went to the cemetery where a deacon with an inappropriately comical voice did another little prayer thing. Then we said our last goodbyes and left for lunch.

There I ate too much food. And watched relatives act crazier than usual, probably from grief. Oh, and I think every relative I have, most of which I don't even know, asked me when I was going to get married. I'm not engaged yet and they're already planning my wedding?! (Yes, they were planning my wedding yesterday. Trying to pick the place for the ceremony and the dinner after)

When lunch was over, we went back to the cemetery to see grandma's new home. She's got one of those fancy shelf/tomb things where they put you in a wall. The whole thing is part of this big fancy building full of marble and statues. Way better than being eaten by worms in the dirt. Grandma's on the fifth row, so she's too high the reach but she's easy to see. Grandpa bought the tomb next to hers for the future. But he's paying his off over 10 years, so he can't die until then.

Afterwards we went back to grandpa's where I got to listen to my relatives argue with each other over grandma's financial stuff. They were trying to figure out what bills she had to pay and stuff like that. It was horribly loud. I couldn't stand it and finally had to beg mom to take me home. My ears are still ringing.

I guess I'll go eat some dinner and see if I can call ben (Never mind the nasty things my relatives said about me always talking to ben) and then go to bed. Today was really exhausting.

Today was more tolerable. My family generally left me alone.

Spent all afternoon sitting around for the wake. Met lots of relatives that I don't know or will remember. Went to grandpa's for dinner. Went back to the wake for a few more hours. Now home.

People kept trying to make me look at grandma's corpse, but when I explained I wanted my last memories to be of her when she was alive, not dead, they backed off. Good choice of them. I didn't want to have to throw a fit at the wake.

The highlight of the day was my phone call to ben. Even though he was tired and having a bad day, he still cheered me up. And he put up with my mom when she told him to come up on Tuesday to marry me. After our phone call, he called me right back to tell me my dog got paint on her head. That made me laugh. My dog is adorably stupid.

If any NY people had interest in going, I now have the info on where the wake will be tomorrow. It's at McCourt & Trudden Funeral Home in Farmingdale and the wake goes from 1-4 in the afternoon and then 7:30-9:30 in the evening. The burial is Monday, but I still don't know when or where. Yay for lack of communication.

Off to answer my mail and get some sleep then. Sitting around doing nothing all day is tiring.

New plans. Going to NY tomorrow.

Wake Saturday and Sunday. Funeral Monday.

Guess I'll come home either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning.

Heading to NY tomorrow.

The doctors say grandma's got hours-days to live.

:(

Note to self: Send grandma flowers

Anyone have a favorite flower place on the internet they could recommend?

Just talked to my mom. Grandma's got cancer again. Her entire abdomen. It's in everything. If they tried to cut it out, there'd be nothing left behind. So she's going to have to have chemo and stuff. No one's telling her though. Not until she starts treatment and they can see if there's going to be any improvement.

Today's the day they start giving out tickets to see the baby panda. So of course the zoo's site is down. I bet too many people are trying to access it at once.

I'm glad this is a short week because I am very very tired. Went to bed too late I guess. Ben and I were playing City of Villians together until really late. So far I am enjoying it more than warcraft, mostly because there has been little to no lag. Very long load times, but I spent my super gaming years on a playstation, the king of loading.

Oh, and today my grandma goes into surgery for breast cancer. Think happy thoughts for her?

Oh, did I forget to mention that my grandmother has breast cancer again?

The good news is they caught it early enough to easily treat it.

So I'm heading home tomorrow until Tuesday for my grandma's 70th birthday. It suddenly occurred to me that I need to get her a gift. I have no clue what old ladies like. I'm hoping to find something at the asian festival this afternoon.

Now to go get ready so I don't miss the taiko!