Ketchup

Things have been VERY busy in my world the last week or so.

First things first:
Friday evening I found out that my grandmother had passed away. (She'd been struggling for a while so it wasn't a particular surprise, but sad nonetheless.) My family immediately began making arrangements for a trip back to Utah. Of course, as it ALWAYS is with my family (or so it seems) the day we first choose to travel is also the first day a huge storm moves in. We don't plan it this way, but I think the weather does. (Humbugabug!) Finally, after delaying the trip a day, we head out. We ultimately decided to take 1-70 West, for the weather reports showed it to be safer. Well, it may be safer, but it's also a lot LONGER! We drove all the way there in one sprint, leaving at 3 a.m. (CST) from MO and getting to Springville, UT, (where my brother and sister-in-law reside (and where we generally crashed)) at about 12:30 a.m. (MST).

The next morning it was all hustle and bustle with showering and getting ready for the funeral. Mom and dad headed up to SLC earlier and then the rest of us (Tom, Margo, Am, Sam, and I) came up in the late morning. We attended the viewing, where there were a lot or relatives I haven't seen for a while, a lot of people I didn't know, and a few people so teary eyed I simply couldn't make heads or tails whether I knew them or not. I personally don't usually get all sad at funerals. I know it may sound terribly to some people, but I cry over kittens that die in the spring than I did over my grandmother's casket. In actuallity I didn't go to the casket until the end of the viewing when we did a walk by. I don't like dead bodies and I prefered to keep the image of my grandmother as living, smiling, happy person unblemished. I didn't want to have to see her once active frame as a lonely shell: cold and wax like. That wasn't my grandmother, it was her carcass. (If that hurts or offends anyone just take into acount that this IS my blog, and my feelings and you are reading them by choice. I'm not forcing them on you, and I'm not condeming you if you feel otherwise). When I did finally walk by the casket I felt awkward and like I was standing in a spot light-people watching me, looking for me to say something or start crying or something.

After the viewing we went into a little chapel-type room and had a service where people told stories and sang songs, etc. etc. It was kinda long, many stories were repeated, but it was more cheerful than the viewing and at times quite amusing. After that we all piled into vehicles and headed for the cemetery. Now HERE was something I felt more appropriate for a funeral. The whole cemetery was covered in snow and pine trees and little benches with lamps. It was like one had stepped into the ideal winter wonderland. In the distance were the rockie mountains, looming up with snow packed peeks and slopes, like sentinals, or witness of solomn age and wisdom. And the trees managed to nearly completely block out the sounds and sights of the bustling city beyond the edge of the park. I wish now that I could have take my camera and hiked all over the landscape, snapping away with my brain (for memories) and with my camera for experience. Actually my digital camera wound up being battery-dead, but my father handed me his "real" film camera and I ended up going through two rolls of film, capturing the casket and the people milling and talking, mourning and smiling. I really felt like it was a REAL funeral then. Family, friends, beautiful scenery, and whiteness all around. (I think white much more appopriate for funerals than black.)

Finally my brother urged us all that it was warmer somewhere else, and we all trapsed back to our cars and went to the ward building for a lunch-dinner-thing. (it was around 4 p.m. so I'll let you decide what it was). The food was good, but the company was better. It was like an impromptu family reunion. We kicked the boys out and had a table for just the girls. Cousins, aunts, sisters, and friends. The boys, in retaliation, held a "manly man" (Caleb, he he) convention at the other table. Uncles, brothers, cousins, and friends. Then, that evening, we all gathered at my grandmother's house and had another reunion. One full of talking, crowded couches, and a fantastically executed game or two of Mafia! Moo-ha-ha! It honestly was a BLAST! The house was FULL of flowers and people, and even Abby (our not-so-small dog who road all the way across the country on our laps, "MOAN!"), who was most successfully raking in a new and thoroughly enchanted fan club. Eventually we all split up again, off to our places of rest to find beds and sleep.

The next morning my two eldest sisters, Johanna and Charlotte, and I headed out on a mission of top importants. We were going out to get, GASP, our hair cut!!! :) I have never before had my hair cut professionally so I was really nervous. I'd been needing a hair cut for a long while and had quite firmly convinced myself that it was "now or never". (And I felt I trusted my sisters with my hair more than anyone else in the world, so here was a very opportune moment to go with them.) As I sat down in the chair, and the lady strapped on the bib, I took out the hair magazine my sister and I had picked from. I showed the lady my photos, asked a few un-answered questions, and sat back to be completely ignored and overwhelmed. She was the sort of lady that doesn't like spending time explaining, or getting unique requests. She took one look at my picture and said, "Ope, that's a basic a-line cut." Snip, snip, snip. Well, no, that was NOT what I'd asked for. I tried to explain it to her, but my "hair cutting lingo-illiteracy" was apparently too great for she mostly just stood there with her hands on her hips, chewing her gum, and telling me that she had no idea what I was talking about. At that time I REALLY wished my sisters were standing there with me to translate, but they were off at the other side of the room. Pretty much I ended up with a pudding bowl but, with a sweep bang, and about 3 inches shorter than I wanted! Personally, I felt I looke AWFUL! Frusterated at my failure at my first ever professional cut, I put my money down and we left. But my sister's were not happy with my frustration and insisted that they were either going to drag me into another salon and have it cut again, or they were going to do it themselves... or something of the sort. I honestly just wanted to go home and do something with it myself, for I was willing to live with it so long as I was allowed to style it how I liked, but they were insistant. In the end I got my hair re-trimmed (it was too short to really cut a ton more off) and highlighted and dyed a warmer shade of blonde). It did cheer me up, and I liked it a great bit better than the origional (for while the dying DID help, the trimming was enough in the right places to change it from a pudding bowl, mushroom head look. I still style it differently, more how I like it, but...)

ANYHOO... so the rest of the week flew by in a blur. We helped someone move, we got our toes painted, we went window shopping, we had a busy, hectic, blast while my dad worked out legal with my grandma's will and estate, etc. Then we drove home. Again with the dog on our laps. Again with severe crowding and uncomfortably long hours and situations.

My father had come down with some illness during the trip and wasn't feeling great, and by Friday evening I was feverish, covered in chills and those achings when you skin hurts when touched, a bit of nausea, and extreme uncomfortableness. Over the next few days I had ups and downs with my illness, enough to keep me home from church on Sunday, but receding enough to send me, weak, but alive to work on Monday. Blah! I should have waited a day.

Now it's the end of the next week. I'm tired. I'm very tired. But it was sunny and in the 60's today (which is nice even if I was stuck inside all day at work and unable to really enjoy it). I look forward to hot chocolate, a good book and/or movie, and sleeping in tomorrow. And since we have dial-up internet here (which will soon be changing, YIPEEEE!!!) It's taken me quite some time and a couple of days to write this, and I'm now posting it and letting you make whatever of it you will. Have fun. Don't be too critical. Don't make fun of my spelling. Honestly, it's all informalities and I really don't care.

Cheerio.