I just bought a pound of kimchi. There was a Korean BBQ by work which I used to dine at regularly, and I (and my bowels) have missed it.

I'm picking up fried chicken from the place down the street that only does it on Sundays usually but they are also doing Thursdays while socially distant because people kept asking for it. Which is not gonna be kosher-for-passover by any stretch of the imagination being breaded and all, but I ordered it before I thought of that so OH WELL

Timelies all!

Did another abbreviated seder via Skype with Gary's mom. Mr. S was acting up all through it. Sigh...

Remember the rest of the song, Jesse, "...it tastes real bad..."

Oh yeah oh yeah.

some cheesy fake-mexican gang parody thing where a guy in an alley is whispering "psst. Ese. You think you're too good for this gang?"

My secret identity!

It is an adjustment to go from initials to pronunciation, so I am pretty much committed to not changing my tagline for like -- ever.

Seder is scheduled for Saturday, via Zoom. The schul usually hosts about 50 people in person for this seder, so it's going to be *interesting* to see what happens.

Kat! My brother got the bag of masks from Grace, he's very grateful

Update: The attending has submitted a revised cause-of-death form and the county has accepted it; the attending still needs to sign off on the resulting official death certificate to make everything official, but the funeral director, bless him, will be scampering all over tomorrow morning to make that happen.

He's a longtime member of our dad's congregation and has four other funerals to manage already, with more to come, and he is both unbelievably stressed out and unbelievably committed to fighting dragons on behalf of all the bereaved families (I'm sure in some way it is therapeutic for him--no administrator can possibly conquer the virus through sheer force of will, but bureaucratic snafus can be slain).

Middle brother and I went to the funeral home today to choose a casket from the metal-lined options, because those are the only ones covid victims are allowed. I was briefly tempted by a jet black casket with silver accents that looked absolutely goth AF, but probably more right for me than for our decidedly non-goth father. Then the funeral director told a story about a young woman who chose that for her father and how the rest of the family side-eyed her and told her it looked like a Mafia casket and what did she think her father did for a living anyway? Then we had some bitter laughs about casket shaming. Good times!

I finished the rough draft of the obituary, which even in the short form was RIDICULOUSLY long. But, screw it. We had briefly considered a powder-blue casket almost the same shade as the vintage Lincoln Continental convertible our father had bought last summer to console himself for being too ill to take one last trip to Europe and see the relatives in Greece, but eventually settled on something sober, simple, dignified and inexpensive (which his estate will pay for anyway). If we end up overspending on anything, I'd rather it be on an overly long obituary that hundreds of family and friends will read and keep than a casket that 14 people will see for 20 minutes.

There is still a chance that the grave won't be dug and fully prepped by tomorrow afternoon, in which case my middle brother won't be able to attend the actual burial because if it can't be tomorrow it won't be until next Tuesday and he's aching to return to his spouse and children. And of course my youngest brother can't attend any of it, but of course the entire thing will be livestreamed by the cathedral staff, because OF COURSE.

Also, we discovered a super secret safe in the floor of a super secret closet behind the basement, containing stock certificates and a giant wad of $100 bills. We are MORE than ready to get off this Mister Toad's Wild Ride whipsawing us between howling grief and ridiculousness and Hardy Boys mystery drama, anytime at all.

Also, we discovered a super secret safe in the floor of a super secret closet behind the basement, containing stock certificates and a giant wad of $100 bills. We are MORE than ready to get off this Mister Toad's Wild Ride whipsawing us between howling grief and ridiculousness and Hardy Boys mystery drama, anytime at all.

Holy cow, I guess so! I hope the rest of everything runs as smoothly as possible.

Talking about picking out the casket reminds me of my mother and grandmother going to make the arrangements for my grandfather, and every question the funeral home people asked, their answer was, "We want the cheapest!" (There were no wads of bills in the family.) When they got back in the car, they cracked up thinking that funeral home people must have thought they didn't like him much. And then cried, of course, because they did.

Oh love. I'm sorry for the whiplash, because it is exhausting to travel back & forth. After, I can see how it can help to propel forward: emotions, etc, but man.

Also: Bless David, so much, because Matilda has been a complete slug and it's making us both nuts and I had a completely different plan for this morning involving dragging her up and out and making her actually do stuff instead of flumping around. But the second my middle brother called to say he had an appointment to pick out the casket and should he come get me or go alone? David insisted that was it, I should get dressed and let him pick me up because he couldn't do that alone and Matilda's flumpitude would be dealt with one way or another but I was not to consider it a priority at all. The only imaginable priorities were middle brother's mental and emotional health and my desire to support him, full stop.

So, bless him forever.