Neanderpundit

there are more than a few purpose built funeral parlors, but in this town, the best ones, the oldest ones, are the modified remains of once stately homes. The halls wide enough, the rooms large enough, to pack away a dozen folks and a casket in Viewing Room A, a handful in B, fifty in C. Or open the connecting doors for one great room with seating for a few hundred.

I always wonder about the original owners, their families, how they might have felt if they knew one day their dining room and parlor would be occupied by a Batesville Truman, with mourners huddled around asking if he ever looked that well in life. Would they be proud that their home was used as a last stopover for the deceased, or revolted at the idea of embalming fluids and blood running down their basement drain.

I spoke some years ago of a mission. I’ve been doing this to the extent I could, and locally we have a group of men who I can count on to help bring a man to his final resting place. My knees no longer being what they once were I sometimes have to bow out. I’m a bit disapointed that I have been unable to do more with this, but i have done what i couild, quietly and with as much dignity as I can muster.

There are no lack of volunteers for my brotherinlaw, so I’m an innocent bystander. All the same, my thoughts run to the people who built this once stately home, the mourners there now, and who will (if anyone) wonder these things about me, when my day approaches.

Wake today. It’s cold here. It’s so cold my metaphor generator is running at about 2% capacity so I can only get it to say “It’s colder than ….”

It’s been a nice time visiting with the inlaws. Sisterinlaws drink all night and then wake to say “This milk has a horrid aftertaste” (the milk tastes fine) “Og put the bags in the sink overnight-(Canadian milk is sold in plastic bags, everyone has a little pitcher that holds exactly one bag and you pour it right out of the bag) that MUST be it, the metal taste from the sink leached into the milk!!” Yep. That’s it, for sure, the inert stainless of the sink seeped through the impermeable plastic bag and tainted the milk. It couldn’t be that the TASTE IS IN YOUR MOUTH FROM THE SEVENTEEN BLOODY MARYS YOU DRANK LAST NIGHT.

Even in the frozen tundra, I’m surrounded by people utterly out of their minds. You’d think the weather would kill off someone that nuts.

But sometimes you remember your umbrella.

We got about halfway here last night and the wife’s Escape started acting up. We’ve had so few troubles with it, we were quite concerned.

A local guy my sisterinlaw knows was able to look at it at two this afternoon, and he confirmewd my suspicion- misfire under load is usually vacuum related, and the hose from the PCV valve had become perforated, which caused the engine to run a bit lean at low RPMs under load. Thankfully, he was able to put a temp hose on it which seems to have resolved the issue. One way or the nother we’re back in business under half a benjamin.

The trip up was a real treat. I had to drive around roadblocks three times, and at one point the passengers were sticking their heads out the windows confirming the location of the ditches on either side of the road (some are 12′ deep)

The funeral arrangements are complete,the funeral to be held monday and a reception therafter. I fully expect to be on the road in the wee small hours of the morning. Hope the weather has cleared some by then.

Now, I’m sitting with the Oglet at the brotherinlaws house (not the deceased, another one, the Ogwife’s family being a large old school Catholic group) while the wife’s family visit one another- the funeral is, of course the old traditional family reunion. While they catch up I try to catch up on some of the things I’ve neglected, such as transcribing my African travelogue and drawing up plans for world domination.

We’re healthy and happy, safe and sound. I miss my freakish beagle Max, but I’ll be back in the grind asap. It’s 20 below here. Snot freezes in your nostrils the moment you look outside. They won’t plant my brotherinlaw until spring, scads of mausolea being utilized for the purpose until the ground thaws adequately to take the gravedigger’s spade.