Life gets in the way, and then some

Life gets in the way, and then some

I was hoping to have time to leave you all with another (much more interesting) entry, but unfortunately I won’t be able to do that before I go.

John’s grandma passed away yesterday – she hadn’t been doing well for some time, but still, it was a little unexpected. She worsened and died within a few hours, or we would have otherwise taken great pains in order to be there sooner. I feel bad that we didn’t make it down with wee boy, so she, along with most of the rest of the family, could meet him; we’d been discussing it right before John ended up essentially unemployed last year. Now that he’s working steady and we have a few extra bucks, we were again planning on going in the next month or so.

I wish John’s mom had phoned earlier. We knew grandma was in and out of the hospital, and maybe it was more unexpected than it seemed to be, but John is still upset that no one called him until the day she passed away. She’d been in the hospital for over three weeks, apparently, and while my brother-in-law had mentioned it to me when she first went in, I kind of thought someone would keep us on top of how she was doing. We never heard another word, so we assumed she was doing relatively all right.

Of course, with all that was going on, and with mom being at the hospital day in and out, it’s totally understandable. I just know John will still be upset, regardless. He’ll understand, logically, but emotionally he’ll still be bitter about it.

Which leads us to John’s biggest beef with his mom – we’re almost ten years with the same phone number, and his mom can’t ever seem to hang on to it. It’s always her explanation as to why she doesn’t phone. She keeps in touch for a little while once she gets it again, but then that tapers off and, nothing. It makes John feel unimportant, for sure. I mean, you’d think she would try to keep her son’s phone number where she wouldn’t ‘lose’ it. Even I have her number memorized, and even if I didn’t, I damn sure would write it down and keep it somewhere. Not that John calls often or even seldom, but at least he doesn’t make her feel guilty about it like she does him. So, if it is just an excuse, it’s a pretty poor one. If you really don’t care to talk to him that badly, don’t pretend it’s something else.

Regardless… we’re headed out tomorrow morning and we won’t be back until Wednesday night. The funeral should be early Tuesday. We’ll be stopping at Gary’s on the way down to stay the night, and to drop off half of the meat we just got back from the butcher shop – all that deer meat that we had processed – and thank heavens Gary is taking some, because already I don’t have enough room for our half. Since the weather isn’t going to be cold enough this weekend for me to utilize the back porch or my car’s trunk as a temporary deep freeze, I have to pull a bunch of crap out of the freezer to try and make room for half of this stuff before we go, none of which, except for the burger, got wrapped in paper.

I have two-foot+-long sticks of summer sausage frozen solid, loose in a box. I have jerky sticks, also loose in a big box. The garlic sausage is in huge coils and tied with string, and, yes, it is also loose in a box. John never specified that he wanted the stuff cut and wrapped into manageable sizes, as he has never had to point out something so (we thought) obvious; and they didn’t ask beyond confirming that he didn’t want everything vacuum sealed in plastic at forty cents a pound. So, that’s what we got. Really, what the hell?

Sigh. Anyway, Gary is going to be catching a ride back with us, since he’s feeling well enough to try to do some easy work for Boss, so the truck is going to be a little crowded. John’s going to go pick Jr. up tonight too, as it’s been several years since Jr.’s seen his dad’s family (grandma never phoned him or sent a card for his birthday either). The truck is a crew cab, but ten or twelve hours in the back of one of those isn’t much more comfortable than sitting in an extended cab, and since Gary’s all fucked up physically, guess who gets to sit in the backseat all the way home? …Yours truly, you betcha. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but that doesn’t mean I am looking forward to it.

I’m hoping John’s able to get a small advance today – we don’t desperately need it but it will save me from using my loan account. We still have the gas card, so we don’t have to pay for fuel. If we had to, we’d probably be taking the car; but, the truck is probably a bit more road worthy at the moment, and John prefers to drive it anyhow, so whatever. We’ll be staying at mom’s, so we won’t have to pay for a room, or food, or anything. Normally we probably wouldn’t stay there – nothing against mom, we just like to have our own space – but with wee boy and Jr. along for the trip, I know mom will really enjoy having us all at the house, and she does have the room.

I hate leaving like this last minute! As you can imagine, I’ve got several lists on the go so I don’t forget to do anything or pack anything. I think I have enough time to get what I need to get done, but I do still have to buy a skirt before we leave, since I’m not allowed to wear pants in church. I’m not going to bother pissing with a hat, so if they don’t like it they can kiss my generous ass. John’s still got a good pair of dress pants (I was amazed that after a couple of years in the closet, they’re ready to wear and free of wrinkles. Bonus!). He just needs a dress shirt, so I have to pick one of those up too. There’s no way I am letting him wear one of his bad, really bad, 80s sweaters. If they weren’t so suitable for working in, I would have pitched them all to begin with.

Wish us nice driving weather, would you? There’s a forecast for freezing rain and shit… John’s assured me that nothing is going to stop us since we have chains, but if we don’t leave too early it should be fine driving. My mom is, of course, beginning her worrywart routine because my whole family is in one vehicle on the highway in the winter, and she can’t help but imagine whatever she would do if something were to happen to all of us. But we have to go, and we can’t leave the kids behind. I’m not worried – John is an excellent driver.

I’ll check in when we get back, and I’ll be chock full of new material, I’m sure.

Edit: Well, I ended up having to pick up Jr., but I got to leave wee boy at home with first my grandma, and then my mom, since the roads were yucky. I saw lots of wildlife, some of it in my headlights; and I almost got rear-ended by someone who wasn’t paying attention to my flashing brake lights. Whee! I wish he would have gone the extra few feet into the ditch.

And also, I found a suitable skirt right away. This is a big deal. The nice clerk found a new shipment just after I’d phoned, and hit star-69 to get my number so she could let me know they had some. I thought finding a long black skirt this time of year would be easier, but nobody had them, so that was sweet.

John was asked to be pallbearer, so now I have to find him a good jacket, too. All Jr. owns are cargo pants. I think we’ll just wait until we get down there. Should be cheaper anyhow. I hope it all looks good with hiking boots.

I still have lots to do and not much time to do it in, so I best be off!