I could not stop for death- Part 1

About 10 years ago, when Big Daddy died (my maternal grandfather),I was given some words of wisdom from one of his girlfriends that I will never forget." There will be two occasions in your life where you will make enemies. When you get married and when you die.Because everybody wants to run the show." And you know how right she was.

Last week Mama Dear(my maternal grandmother), called to tell us that Uncle Buddy died. Buddy was her eldest child,and her only son. MamaDear and Buddy had a very strange and strained
relationship,in fact most people outside of our family didn't know that Buddy even existed. MamaDear had received a call on Tuesday night from Sheila; Buddy's longtime girlfriend. I was told that they had been together for 12 years, but no one in the family had ever met her. Okay's that not actually true. Teddy; Buddy's oldest son used to live with them for a while,but Buddy put him out. Hell if I know why? But Teddy, is a simple-ass, so God only knows. It seems that Buddy had died sometime on Saturday,but we were just getting word on Tuesday night. And to add insult to injury, Sheila was having Buddy cremated instead of a traditional funeral. Well, Thank God Buddy is already dead,
because all hell is about to break loose.

I've said before how strange my family is. We make it a point of only
getting together for the occasion wedding or funeral.And family reunions are totally out of the question. We tried years ago, but it wasn't pretty.It just doesn't seem to work out for us. And we are actually fine with it.
Some family events have been known to end with the police being called and folks with outstanding warrants being escorted off by Baltimore's finest.
Mama Dear or Aunt Pearl to all who know and love her, is the matriarch of our dysfunctional tribe. She's 89 years old, smokes two packs of Camels a day, curses like a long shoreman and has been known to keep a flask full of Crown Royal somewhere in the bottom of her purse. Oh and she's a devout Catholic;need say more? Mama Dear has buried two husbands,her first was Buddy's father,whom was never talked about,we didn't even know his name until we say it in Buddy's obituary. Mama Dear calls me & Marnie EVERYDAY. Usually just to say that she's not dead yet. It is the opinion of our tribe that she will out live all of us.

Next in the group is Claudia; Claudia is Mama Dear's eldest daughter. She has two lovely daughters, Marnie & Laila. Claudia was able to do something that few in our family has manage accomplish with some degree of success. That is getting the hell out of Baltimore. Claudia used to be a private duty nurse for this sweet little old lady Miss Anne. Claudia had become so attached to Miss Anne that when she wanted to move to Arizona for health reasons, Miss Anne took Claudia with her. When Miss Anne died two years ago,she left everything to Claudia. Claudia is now retired and living in Las Vegas. She works one day a week at one of the big hotels so that when she travels she can get the employee rate. She rarely comes back to visit. Unless she has to.

Then there's Isabella, but everyone just calls her Ella. Ella is the crazy
aunt; she is a the typical middle child or as some would call her our resident Drama Queen. Ella entered a convent the day after she graduated highshcool. Ella was always "the fragile one". So my grandparents thought that the convent would be the best place for her. Ella became Sr.Catherine Marie, she was a great school teacher, She directed the choir, organized bake sales. Etc. In my opinion, she was bucking for sainthood. But Ella really wasn't cut out for convent life if you know what I mean. She had one little flaw, she loved the communion wine,a little to much if I might add. She said that it made her feel closer to God. And then there was that seminary student that she was secretly dating. And you what happened next. One nun plus communion wine,plus a seminary student equals a conception,that not so immaculate. When Sr. Catherine Marie got pregnant,she was asked to leave the the convent. Ella became one of those tree hugging hippies and now runs one an outreach program that targets single mothers and she's also a practicing Rastafari . Who knew?

And last but not least is Jessica. Jessica is probably the only normal one in the whole family. Jessica is MamaDear's pride and joy. I mean butter can't melt in Aunt Jess' mouth as far as MamaDear is concerned. Aunt Jess went to college,graduated at the top of her class, became a school teacher,married her college sweetheart ,has a wonderful family,beautiful home,Blah,Blah,Blah... You get my point. I personally think that they have dead bodies buried in their back yard. They are just too fucking wholesome as far as I'm concerned The truth will come out about them later. So know you've officially met the relatives. Let the festivities begin.....

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I could not stop for death-Part 2

I have decided that when I die,that I want my funeral to be a sheer spectacle.
I've made certain provisions in my will that I want carried out. Including a video montage ending with me & the Grim Reaper walking hand & hand down the yellow brick road singing "My Way"(The Sinatra version) . A reception with an open bar and a live band. My friends have to fight over who will try to ride the casket out of the church. Dancing girls ,midget wrestling, a disco ball and a 21 shot toast with everyone singing "Sweet Home Alabama", all in my honor.
To whoever is actually reading this, you have your work cut out for you. But know this,it will be one hell of a party.
Weddings and funerals are the only occasions when my family feels obligated to come together. Just to recap, Uncle Buddy is dead. MamaDear is pissed off with Sheila because she wants to have Buddy cremated. Not to mention that Mama Dear had a list of demands that she wanted met, such as moving the funeral to Saturday so that All of the family could pay their respects.(Actually the Saturday thing was my idea,God forbid I should tell Suezilla that I need a day off. Who knew that it would cause so much controversy). Now I don't know what words passed between MamaDear and Sheila,but I heard that Sheila told MamaDear that she wasn't going to pay for the funeral. Drama, I tell you. So ofcourse this upsets MamaDear and Marnie enough to call Claudia and request for her to come home ASAP. By the way ,Claudia was not amused. As usual,Ella and I were left out of the loop.And Jessica was off trying to be the peace maker.Ella and I were taking bets on who would make Jessica cry first. We call her Crying Jessie, because she is so overly dramatic about everything.
I really don't understand how her husband puts up with her in general.
Claudia called me two days before the funeral to find out what was really going on. She understands how our family has a flare for the dramatic,and that MamaDear has to have her way with everything. Claudia explained that she had spoken to Uncle Buddy a few weeks before he died . Uncle Buddy knew that he was dying and that he didn't trust either Sheila or MamaDear to carry out his wishes. Buddy had named Claudia the executor of his estate when he realized how far his illness had progressed. Buddy also knew that Sheila and MamaDear both had separate insurance polices on him. Claudia had figured that they both would try to take the cheap route. But by the time Claudia had arrived at BWI, everything was taken care of. I still don't know how she did it.
As luck would have it,I had to drive Marnie and Claudia to the funeral. I never get a break. Marnie and Claudia started arguing almost immediately. Claudia made it a point of calling Marnie a kiss-ass,because she likes to cater to MamaDear's ego. Under any other circumstances Marnie would have retorted with some kind of rude comment. Marnie always has to have the last word. But not in this case. Claudia was in rare form today. I think she was waiting for Marnie to say something,so she could slap the taste out of her mouth. Since Marnie's ego was bruised, I guess she figured she would pick on me. Marnie found fault with everything from my clothes,to my hair,to my driving ability. But Claudia was having no of that. Claudia told Marnie if she uttered another word,that she would put her out of the car and make her walk the rest of the way. If Claudia wasn't my mom, I would adopt her.
Once we arrived at the funeral home, we ran into Ella and Antoinette ;they were both outside having a much needed cigarette break. Marnie quickly made her way inside, to go check on Mama Dear. Claudia's exact words were "Buddy ain't going anywhere, I'm gonna have me a smoke before I have to deal with these motherfuckers. " By the time we made it inside,it was practically standing room only. Most of the attendees were Mamadear's church members;most of whom had never met Buddy. Mamadear had appointed Jessica to be the official greeter. All she had to stand was stand at the door and hand out the obituary programs. And later during the funeral, Jessica would read the obituary.

Excuses,Excuses

I know it's been a while and you feel neglected. Sorry, but I've been really busy lately.
For starters,I told you that Marnie & I are in the middle of refinance the house. So that meant that we had to clean the house. Yuck.!!!! I have to be honest with you; Marnie & I didn't inherit the cleaning gene. In fact, we avoid cleaning like the plague. Also, we are both pack rats. We have never been able to throw things away. I don't know why. So can you imagine that I still have things in boxes from when Jason & I moved into this house almost ten years ago? I know what your probaly thinking, and I'll say it again, I have no plans for therapy unless it is court appointed. So Marnie and I paid our nephew to come over and help. And since he just got out of jail;he had an opening in his busy schedule and was able to lend us a hand.He said that he was locked up because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.But that 's another story ,for another day.
So we were up all night cleaning the house. Because the appraisal was the next morning. After all of that ,do you know how long it took for the appraisal ?
Fifteen fucking minutes at a cost of $300. Ain't that some shit! I'm definelty in the wrong line of work. I just hope this process is over soon. Because the day after we go to settlement,I'm going in to tell Suezilla to "Kiss my black ass".
And no I haven't found another job. I don't care. I'll go back to the Megabookstore full time if I have to.
Secondly, my doggie Coco is getting old. She's going on 11 years old and has developed arthritis. Marnie is flipping out,because she's became attached to the dog, and now she's having problems dealing with the dog's morality.(Can you refer to it as mortality when your speaking of a dog ?) I keep telling her that MamaDear is 85 years old and has more health problems than Coco and we haven't put her to sleep yet. Marnie wasn't amused,but I thought that it was funny. Anyhoo,we are considering aquatherapy for the dog. Yes, I am serious.
And last but not least we had death in the family. Uncle Buddy died. And that my dears,is a whole other story.That I will give you all the gory deatils to the funeral/family reunion. Well, I gotta go. I have to make an early appearance in hell tomorrow.
Laila