bitchfest

Rainy Days and Mondays...

Today was both, in the worst sense of the phrase. First, we received a phone call from the funeral home to come up and sign a new contract because the fellow who usually does the contracts was out of town when we were planning the funeral... We knew we'd have to do this, but I just didn't want to go back there, if you know what I mean. So I the appointment to go in at 3:30 to do that, and took some clothes out of the dryer, to start the next load.

Well, when I turned it on, it just growled at me and refused to function. We had an element replaced in it about a year ago, and it appears that the guy who did that failed to re-install a rather important grommet. It's been squeaky lately, but we didn't think much of it. Apparently, the squeak was because the drum was off-kilter because of the missing grommet. Now the hole where the grommet belongs is oblong, notched out, and chewed to hell and twice the size it should be. There's no fixing it.. Well, we could fix it, but it would cost as much, if not more, than just replacing it. It served us well for the last 8 years, but it was one of those super-sized dryers that held like 2 loads at a time with no problem. I'm going to miss it.

OK, so we head out the door to the funeral home at 3 and the storms they had been promising hit. You know, the type of torrential rainstorm that completely obstructs your view beyond the windshield, complete with 80mph gusts of wind, thunder and lightning. Of course, there's no drive through in the funeral home, so we arrived outside his office drenched to the bone. We shook off like the couple of ratty dogs we are and went in... to be told that we owed $538.00 more than we'd previously thought.

We signed the papers (what are you going to do, refuse to pay it? Dispute the charges? It's our son's funeral arrangements!) and headed back into the waterlogged outdoors... Of course, the only way for me to get back into the van was through an ankle deep puddle just outside the passenger door.

Then had to stop at the grocery store for an integral dinner ingredient - repeat the above shower, twice. Then come home and read today's mail - including a bill for over $7500.00 that is supposed to be paid by the insurance, but was apparently denied... No way to know anything for sure, because our mail arrives after all business offices close.

In between and around and through all of this, we're trying to figure the logistics of a mid-week trip to New York for Randy's wake on Wednesday night, and funeral on Thursday. I do not in any way relish 14 hours in a van with 5 children, particularly Terra... God help us. And the concept of the funeral itself intimidates me, I'll probably cry more there than I did at Nova's - for Scott mostly, who lost his son and his baby brother in less than 2 weeks, and for Randy's wife too, and that baby girl that just lost her Daddy, and for Scott's mother too, who just lost her youngest son...

And this concludes my bitchfest for Monday, April 17th.