Extended Family Activities

Last week and this week have not been one of my best weeks ever.  In fact, a lot of it just sucked.

First there was the migraine, brought on by who knows what because I am not harvesting the damn things.  I promise!

Wait.  Maybe the week began the week before…

My dad had called me to tell me that my mom’s little brother (my uncle) had died down in Florida (where they would spend the winter).  There would be no funeral, because he was being cremated, but there would be a memorial service later this spring up in Ohio.

Okay.  I could deal with that.  I mean my Uncle was only 67, but he had been in bad shape and getting worse for years.  His golden years were not going to happen.  My mom died at 68.  Some of you guys may think these people were really old, but they weren’t.  I’m 48 right now.  I hope I’ve got more than 20 good years left — at least that’s what I’m working for. 

My two gramma’s and one grampa made it to their 90′s.  My other grampa died of pneumonia in his 50′s, but it was complicated because he’d also had tuberculosis at one time…bad lungs and all.  The grampa that did make it to his 90′s should have probably gone in his 80′s.  His last years were much like that of my Uncle mentioned above.

So that was just before last week, but I was handling well (probably because I wasn’t going to really have to deal with it until the memorial service). 

Then I get this freakin’ migraine last week.  Crap.  Can I just say that until the thing actually started I was feeling really good physically and mentally?  And I knew it.  And I thought about it.  Which prolly jinxed it for me.

You know, like when everything’s going fine and you’ve actually even got money in your savings account and then the furnace goes out or something and there goes the start of something good that you have to start all over…

Then on Tuesday, the worst day of the migraine, my dad called to tell me that my other Uncle died.

Seriously.

And I’m all like how I don’t get it; because I keep in contact with these people via emails and no one told me Uncle two has had cancer since February, that was discovered too late. 

Two Uncles.  One week.  Oh, it could be worse.  One of them could’ve been my husband, my dad, or brother.  Two of them.

So now Uncle two’s funeral is to be Friday and since everyone will be there Uncle one’s memorial service is going to be on Saturday.

And my Dad’s worried I won’t be coming because:

a)  I avoid these things connected with public mourning and;

b)  I’m in the middle of a migraine;

c)  I hate being away from home.

I try to tell him that I will be there; that this is not the worst migraine ever and it will pass soon because I need to be at work; and then he’s like I won’t be coming because I’ll have to miss more work.

Hey my migraine and these deaths are completely unrelated, I will be there.  And I was.

I held on to my emotions during the whole ordeal because I needed to be someone else’s shoulders for being emotional.  Those that were closer than I was (not being a wife or child and such) and I almost succeeded until my cousin gave me a picture of her dad with his brother taken a couple of years earlier.  My Uncles…

And then Monday I’m back at work and kinda lost between having been out with the migraine, and my uncles, and now an office mate’s dog had a stroke while I was gone and she will prolly have to put him down (she did today) and I’ve got stuff to do on my desk and don’t know where to start.

But I do start on something because I’ve got an event I have to help with that afternoon.  And then in the middle of this I get an email from Moveable Feast and have to turn them down because of the event that will last after hours…

And then just before I leave for the event I check mine and my boss’ calendars and see that I have conference in the morning and he will be out of the office, too — so I send him an IM to remind him that we will both be out of the office in the morning.

I do my part at the event and get home before six.  I do some laundry, run the dishwasher, take the dogs out, feed ‘em and get into bed by nine.

Because I am frazzled.

Then today I’m sitting at this event and I’m thinking this thing doesn’t really have much to do with my job, I wish I hadn’t signed up for it — but hey there’s a office mate!  And there was lunch, too!

And then I get back to my office and discover no one knew where I was.

Crap.

My boss didn’t see the IM.  In fact he didn’t even know I was supposed to work the event the afternoon before and was surprised to see me there.  I’m thinking this is the kinda stuff that happens when you really have two bosses, and I’m wondering which one I sent the reminder IM to.

Then I get an email from my other boss that I’m out of the office too much.  So the sickness and medical appointments I can’t do much about, but other my boss pretty much cancels everything I have on my calendar that will take me away from my desk — and we agree to communicate better.

Crap.

I screwed up royally.

Crapola.

Finally this day is done and I am on my way home.  HOME SWEET HOME.

And then I’m out with Lily and those kids are back and now they are throwing rocks at each other.  (And I forgot to include how I came upon a couple them the other day throwing rocks at the street light behind my house.)

So I drag Lily with me over to D’s house and tell her what’s going on and what can I do to get through to these kids so they will stop behaving like assholes.  And then it turns out she’s having problems with these kids, too.

THEY CAME INTO HER YARD AND TOOK HER LAWN CHAIRS OUT TO THE ALLEY TO SIT IN WHILE WATCHING OTHERS PLAY BASKETBALL.

OMG!

And they don’t go home until well after dark and they’re always cussing and yelling; and the other day they were shooting a BB gun at one of her kids; and that a lady at the other end of the block called the cops on them and, And, AND!!!

And they don’t listen to anyone!

So I go back out there and have the kids separate into who is visiting who.  There’s like 10 kids out there, but only two of them are actually visiting anyone who lives here.

So I tell the other kids they need to leave now or explain to the cops why they are not in their own street behind one of their own houses throwing rocks at each other, and this and that…

Because that is what this is about.  Kids misbehaving.  Even against each other.  What kind of middle school aged kid doesn’t know that getting hit with a rock will hurt?  Rocks damage property?  Rocks could put someone’s eye out?  (Okay, I had to go there.)

They all know!

They can’t just play and behave and be respectful of those who’s street they are playing on.  Nope.  They have to go out of their way with just asking to be run off.

I know they say it takes a village, but DAHAMN, must they annoy the village?

…and it’s only Tuesday!

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