The Funeral Diet

(0) Book a flight to Houston to fly out in less than 12 hours.
(1) Work on the computer until you can’t even get the driver to get up and take you home . . . in other words, sleep at your cousin’s where the best breakfast is toast and peanut butter.
(2) Drive to Dallas.
(3) Plan the funeral . . . drive around running errands.
(4) Learn to hate the song Angel . . . silly, silly picture slide show.
(5) Attend viewing . . . ie try really, really hard to not cry while everyone around you is telling stories and feeling sorry for you. *
(6) Freak out because the slide show cuts of the first song . . . become even more annoyed by Angel . . .
(7) Attend funeral . . . let’s just not go there . . . big-old-bundle of nerves. **
(8) Eat a dinner provided by family & friends . . . such a big spread . . . thank goodness that someone said that they’d do the thank you notes for us!
(9) Wake up the next day expecting to work on that big-old weblab, just to find out that your ex-Uncle died that morning.
(10) Plan second funeral in one week . . . including another picture slide show.
(11) Skip the viewing to work on the slide show.
(12) Attend funeral.
(13) Eat lunch provided by family & friends (mostly the church women) . . . it was a huge spread!
(14) Drive back to Houston . . . yes, the same day as the funeral.
(15) Wake up at 4:30 the next morning to catch a plane back to Boston.

* I hate that! Pity . . . it’s awful . . . it’s even worse than the event sometimes . . . most of the time. I mean, I understand that people feel bad for us, but do they really have to make me feel worse for myself that I already do? Arg.
** Oh, and try not to kill your cousins when they take the first row and make your mother sit in the second . . . it’s her fucking mother! Maybe we’ll make sure that they don’t get the front row for their mother’s funeral. Or maybe just not let them sit with their siblings. That’d be really nice, wouldn’t it? Pay back’s a bitch . . . ok, not really, no pay back . . . but I really did wanna kill them for a while there. Even still . . . it was quite self-centered. Especial when we’d made a big deal about me and mom sitting in the front row incase there were any technical difficulties. OK . . . I need to stop thinking about this and breathe . . .