For those who don't read her blog, Deb Grabien is holed up in a Days Inn in downtown Cleveland.

What a place for a Californian.

The nearby grocery store is selling half-pound bags of roasted, salted sunflower nuts (no shells) for $1.

I should not have an open bag next to me while preparing breakfast.

nom nom nom

I'm just at the point where I'm afraid I'm just going to start laughing hysterically at the funeral or when something else goes wrong.

Hang in there, Nora. You and yours remain in my thoughts.

The worst case my sisters and I had of hysterical laughter was in the hospital where my father was a patient. My BIL was horrified, but we just couldn't stop. My dear father had some brain problems resulting from his strokes. Most of the time he was lucid, but there were times when he just spoke gibberish, and other times he would create the most outlandish stories. He would get totally pissed at us if we didn't accept as truth when he told us he had huge sums of cash buried in the back yard, or crazy tales of adventures he had taken. We were discussing some of these in the waiting room and the combination of fear and stress started one of us laughing and that was the end for all of us. The more BIL yelled at us for being disrespectful the more we cried and laughed.

ION, I am broke city this year and one of the gifts I am giving our family members is a calendar for 2008 with pictures of the birthday people on their dates. Anniversary people and so forth. Digging through all the pictures. I am going to have to do some scanning. It is a fun project and I believe that everyone will enjoy it.

The eulogy my sister read at my dad's funeral was totally funny. Everyone was laughing, and crying too, but lots of laughing. He himself was a very funny man and it felt like it was the perfect way to memorialize him.

Laughing is a better means of stress relief than crying if you can manage it. The Irish funerals that were frequent events in my childhood featured lots of laughing, and crying, and drinking of course.

The worst case my sisters and I had of hysterical laughter was in the hospital where my father was a patient. My BIL was horrified, but we just couldn't stop. My dear father had some brain problems resulting from his strokes. Most of the time he was lucid, but there were times when he just spoke gibberish, and other times he would create the most outlandish stories. He would get totally pissed at us if we didn't accept as truth when he told us he had huge sums of cash buried in the back yard, or crazy tales of adventures he had taken. We were discussing some of these in the waiting room and the combination of fear and stress started one of us laughing and that was the end for all of us. The more BIL yelled at us for being disrespectful the more we cried and laughed.

This was us in my mom's hospital room for like four straight months. Fortunately we're immune (or more like, oblivious) to the disapproval of others.

I want my funeral to be funny. I'm hoping for lots of slapstick.

Upon reflection, I think that perhaps he sorted everyone else's out back in November, and because my passport was in my possession (because of the trip to Singapore), rather than in his possession, I just got left out. Certainly I didn't hear anything from him after I confirmed by email on November 13th that I would be returning to the UK for Christmas and thus need a re-entry visa.

I think that you should leave this out. If you give them an excuse to blame you, they may try not to pay you back. I would say something like.

“I confirmed my need for a visa with Admin Guy by email on November 13, per his request. We’ve all been busy with the end of term, and it occurred to me I had not heard anything from him.”

or something like that.

Question: I am trying to clean out my garage and it's actually full of awesome stuff that I do not need to make $ from, and is too nice to take to Goodwill.

try freecycle.org. Perfect for this sort of thing.

May I recommend that you ship that sewing machine via UPS?

perhaps, but their customer service blows.

I made a smaller batch, and it's actually in a punch bowl this time.

as opposed to a large trash can?

For the A's fans, here's an enemy take on the Haren trade: [link]

But don't worry, thanks to our management, we're sure to suck (again) too: [link]

I'm talking my sister through making an Amazon.com order. Please shoot me now.