The blackest Friday
As has been my usual all week, I did not sleep well last night. I've been waking around 3 or 4 in the morning and attempting to go back to sleep, and failing. Since I wanted to finish up scanning my grandfather's pictures, I ended up working on that at roughly 6 this morning. By about 8:15 I was done and had submitted some of them to be printed at Walgreens. I've never done that before. They had a half-off coupon code--"Such a deal!" as my grandfather, a longtime Walgreens shopper, would say--and despite it being Black Friday, the supposed hour-long turn-around time was just 30 minutes. Sweet. Although, when I'd gotten there, the pictures weren't in the bin yet. They were still in the processor and the guy who helped me ended up having to put them in an envelope for me, after printing out the label. It was fine.
After having worked so many Black Fridays back in the day, I am loathe to even leave the house. Traditionally, we put up the tree if I'm home. This will be postponed until at least Monday; there's just too much to do and think about. To wit, my trip to Walgreens was good for not just the pictures, but poster board and sticky stuff as well. I'd gone online to see what was recommended to make these sorts of memorial pictures posters, as I'd like to be able to remove the pictures once we're done. (I'd scanned them all just in case, or else what I printed were digital pictures I already have online.) One item mentioned was 3M double-sided tape in the yellow container, which was there, and they also had poster tack, which had been my first thought. I remember using that stuff as a kid. I'm glad it's still around. But I really wanted to get Glue Dots, the poster or removable kind, which weren't there. Oh, but first I had to get vitamins for my mom. She was out of C and told me to get two bottles if it was on sale. It was--if you had a card. I don't. But mom does, and I just needed to type in her phone number and voila. I ended up going back for a second bottle and had to get out of line, as just as my transaction (pictures and poster materials) finished, three people appeared behind me, boom boom boom. But yeah, might as well get her as much as I can for the money she gave me. Then I was off to Hobby Lobby, where I found the poster Glue Dots; they didn't have the removable kind, but these should be okay.
I then spent a number of hours working on these posters. Who knew they'd be so time-consuming? I probably had enough pictures for three posters; I'd planned on two. My cousins might be making their own, which is fine, considering we've hardly had any common parties or anything like that. I then had to edit them down to maybe one or two per activity so that I had a nice representation of things. Then mom came along. She immediately made me put all the black and white pictures on one poster. My grandfather ballroom danced for years, but she made me remove all but one of those pictures; the one that remained was a group shot, not just him and one or two other people. At least one picture she made me remove because she thought he looked terrible. I had it there because, number one, it was his first visit after he got out of the hospital after the amputation. He'd only been home a month at that time. And, for two, it ended up being exactly 4 years before he died. But, yeah, he didn't look great, and mom was insistent, so it was gone. Believe me, I still had plenty to work with, and my father worked on a slideshow that we can play at the memorial and a number of pictures that didn't make it onto the posters will be there as well. Mom still insisted on removing some of the dancing pictures. She went, if the people in them don't appear in the obituary, I don't want them! Uh...I have some pictures of him at a family party--the first birthday for my second cousin's twins. Those people aren't in the obituary. What now? (They stayed.) Anyway, I think it was around 11 when I started, and though I did stop for lunch for a bit, I didn't finish until 3:15. It takes a while to get everything stuck down. Who knew. It probably would have been faster had I just used the dots, but the tack was better for certain places and that takes a little time to work with.
Other than that, I haven't done much. I'm tired. We're all tired. Mom, first thing this morning, was in contact with her younger brother in planning food for the service. We're not having a luncheon but we'll get sandwiches and a sweets tray from Corner Bakery; we're getting a number of 2-liters of pop; my uncle is bringing water; and my aunt is making a couple desserts. Her famous cheese cake (not to be confused with cheesecake) is on the menu, much as I expected. The sandwiches come with chips, but I'm not sure what other snacky foods will be there. And, we'll also have to contend with at least one other service going on; the food area is shared. Meanwhile, my father is out tonight...at another wake. We've had a rash of people dying among my father's friends. It's really weird--at least once a week for a good five weeks now, somebody's died. There was even one wake he missed because it was getting to be too much and he didn't really know the person. Tonight's wake is the mom of a family he grew up knowing; I met two of the nine kids back at Jacob's services. One of the sons is the guy who hit on me in the bathroom at Jacob's funeral. Nice. So, yeah, it's not been the best of times, but we are grateful to have had a few more days to put this together. I still have to work on what I'm going to talk about; that's on tap for tomorrow. My brain's too jumbled to do much more today. I barely know it's even Friday.
After having worked so many Black Fridays back in the day, I am loathe to even leave the house. Traditionally, we put up the tree if I'm home. This will be postponed until at least Monday; there's just too much to do and think about. To wit, my trip to Walgreens was good for not just the pictures, but poster board and sticky stuff as well. I'd gone online to see what was recommended to make these sorts of memorial pictures posters, as I'd like to be able to remove the pictures once we're done. (I'd scanned them all just in case, or else what I printed were digital pictures I already have online.) One item mentioned was 3M double-sided tape in the yellow container, which was there, and they also had poster tack, which had been my first thought. I remember using that stuff as a kid. I'm glad it's still around. But I really wanted to get Glue Dots, the poster or removable kind, which weren't there. Oh, but first I had to get vitamins for my mom. She was out of C and told me to get two bottles if it was on sale. It was--if you had a card. I don't. But mom does, and I just needed to type in her phone number and voila. I ended up going back for a second bottle and had to get out of line, as just as my transaction (pictures and poster materials) finished, three people appeared behind me, boom boom boom. But yeah, might as well get her as much as I can for the money she gave me. Then I was off to Hobby Lobby, where I found the poster Glue Dots; they didn't have the removable kind, but these should be okay.
I then spent a number of hours working on these posters. Who knew they'd be so time-consuming? I probably had enough pictures for three posters; I'd planned on two. My cousins might be making their own, which is fine, considering we've hardly had any common parties or anything like that. I then had to edit them down to maybe one or two per activity so that I had a nice representation of things. Then mom came along. She immediately made me put all the black and white pictures on one poster. My grandfather ballroom danced for years, but she made me remove all but one of those pictures; the one that remained was a group shot, not just him and one or two other people. At least one picture she made me remove because she thought he looked terrible. I had it there because, number one, it was his first visit after he got out of the hospital after the amputation. He'd only been home a month at that time. And, for two, it ended up being exactly 4 years before he died. But, yeah, he didn't look great, and mom was insistent, so it was gone. Believe me, I still had plenty to work with, and my father worked on a slideshow that we can play at the memorial and a number of pictures that didn't make it onto the posters will be there as well. Mom still insisted on removing some of the dancing pictures. She went, if the people in them don't appear in the obituary, I don't want them! Uh...I have some pictures of him at a family party--the first birthday for my second cousin's twins. Those people aren't in the obituary. What now? (They stayed.) Anyway, I think it was around 11 when I started, and though I did stop for lunch for a bit, I didn't finish until 3:15. It takes a while to get everything stuck down. Who knew. It probably would have been faster had I just used the dots, but the tack was better for certain places and that takes a little time to work with.
Other than that, I haven't done much. I'm tired. We're all tired. Mom, first thing this morning, was in contact with her younger brother in planning food for the service. We're not having a luncheon but we'll get sandwiches and a sweets tray from Corner Bakery; we're getting a number of 2-liters of pop; my uncle is bringing water; and my aunt is making a couple desserts. Her famous cheese cake (not to be confused with cheesecake) is on the menu, much as I expected. The sandwiches come with chips, but I'm not sure what other snacky foods will be there. And, we'll also have to contend with at least one other service going on; the food area is shared. Meanwhile, my father is out tonight...at another wake. We've had a rash of people dying among my father's friends. It's really weird--at least once a week for a good five weeks now, somebody's died. There was even one wake he missed because it was getting to be too much and he didn't really know the person. Tonight's wake is the mom of a family he grew up knowing; I met two of the nine kids back at Jacob's services. One of the sons is the guy who hit on me in the bathroom at Jacob's funeral. Nice. So, yeah, it's not been the best of times, but we are grateful to have had a few more days to put this together. I still have to work on what I'm going to talk about; that's on tap for tomorrow. My brain's too jumbled to do much more today. I barely know it's even Friday.