Monday, mourning
I've spent the last couple days in a daze, trying to come to grips with Susie's passing. A chunk of Saturday was taken up with helping T and J write an obituary. As I found out with Kat's death, they charge for those by the line, but T uttered the three most dangerous words in the English language: "I don't care." So I smoothed out his rough draft and added a few adjectives to help convey her personality, and included the sentence, "She was an excellent canasta player.". Because I can picture her cocky grin as we sat down to play; when she was sober, she was.
We got acquainted in 1982, when BC rented a room from her. March would've been 29 years since we first met. We had our differences over the years, but always made up eventually. That's a long time, and there are so many things I'll always associate with Susie. Her favorite writers were Piers Anthony, Stephen King and Jack London. Her favorite musicians were Elton John, Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor. She loved George Carlin, Eddie Izzard and Bette Midler.
Her feelings about green peppers was like mine about peas, as in, she'd pitch a fit if they were in a dish she was served. She used scented laundry detergent and a double dose of fabric softener, so her clothes were always highly perfumed, and woe to you if you used one of her towels (even the oldest, rattiest ones) to dry to wipe the morning dew from your windshield. The build-up left an evil greasy film on the glass.
She thought it was acceptable to "bake" potatoes in the microwave. I could never convince her otherwise. On the other hand, I couldn't even reheat leftovers to her satisfaction, so why am I surprised? She was one of those people who, if you did things differently from the way they did, told you you were doing it wrong. Not a lot of flexability there; "good enough" was never good enough, to the point where she'd refuse to fire a piece of ceramic because she didn't approve of how well I'd cleaned it.
When her mom died, Susie was upset by the lack of make-up the funeral home did. Said she didn't look natural without a ton of blue eye shadow and crooked pink lipstick. She made me promise that I'd do her funerary make-up if she predeceased me. I'm willing to do it; I promised, after all. But J has a friend who's a professional cosmetologist, and tomorrow the three of us are going to go take care of her. I doubt I'll actually wield an eyeliner, but I'll be there for her.
I know, this is a downer, but that's life...and death.
.
We got acquainted in 1982, when BC rented a room from her. March would've been 29 years since we first met. We had our differences over the years, but always made up eventually. That's a long time, and there are so many things I'll always associate with Susie. Her favorite writers were Piers Anthony, Stephen King and Jack London. Her favorite musicians were Elton John, Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor. She loved George Carlin, Eddie Izzard and Bette Midler.
Her feelings about green peppers was like mine about peas, as in, she'd pitch a fit if they were in a dish she was served. She used scented laundry detergent and a double dose of fabric softener, so her clothes were always highly perfumed, and woe to you if you used one of her towels (even the oldest, rattiest ones) to dry to wipe the morning dew from your windshield. The build-up left an evil greasy film on the glass.
She thought it was acceptable to "bake" potatoes in the microwave. I could never convince her otherwise. On the other hand, I couldn't even reheat leftovers to her satisfaction, so why am I surprised? She was one of those people who, if you did things differently from the way they did, told you you were doing it wrong. Not a lot of flexability there; "good enough" was never good enough, to the point where she'd refuse to fire a piece of ceramic because she didn't approve of how well I'd cleaned it.
When her mom died, Susie was upset by the lack of make-up the funeral home did. Said she didn't look natural without a ton of blue eye shadow and crooked pink lipstick. She made me promise that I'd do her funerary make-up if she predeceased me. I'm willing to do it; I promised, after all. But J has a friend who's a professional cosmetologist, and tomorrow the three of us are going to go take care of her. I doubt I'll actually wield an eyeliner, but I'll be there for her.
I know, this is a downer, but that's life...and death.
.