Today was a strange day. I had a funeral for a relative who has been ill for a long time. She was somewhat of a matriarch of the Italian wing of the family. It was one of those mixed emotion funerals, where you are sad for the loss, but relieved that the deceased is no longer suffering, and so you try to be happy and focus on celebrating the person's life.
The services were quite Catholic, and the food was quite plentiful and Italian. A Sopranos casting director could have done well mingling among the crowd, finding plenty of potential TV capos and foot soldiers among the colorful group. Some potential goomars, too. Somebody needed to tell some of those young ladies how to dress at a funeral. Tip number one: if a bartender would think you are dressed like a whore, it's time to cover a little bit more skin.
Anyhow, Suzy was buried just a few yards away from my grandfather and my uncle. Being there made me dwell a bit on the past. One of my aunts married the deceased's son, and they all grew up on the same street I grew up on, so the services were also attended by neighbors I hadn't seen in years, bearing news about other neighbors I hadn't seen in years (good grief, Steve, you have to be at least 45 years old, move out of your dad's house already!). That further stirred the dwelling on the past. There were also those certain relatives and friends of the family that you only see at the funerals and weddings. I prefer to see them at weddings, for two reasons, not the least of which is that I can be drunk at a wedding if it suits my preference. Some people are easier to tolerate when you are drunk. (P.S. If you are a relative who reads my blog, you can probably assume I'm not talking about you, because the people I'm talking about do not get emails or links from me.)
The temperatures were unpleasantly high. Oddly, the blazing sun bothered me less on the jacket of my dark suit, and much more on the black leather of my dress shoes. It felt like I had been dealt a hotfoot. I honestly cannot recall the tops of my toes ever feeling so hot, especially while protected within a pair of quality shoes. Maybe Al Gore was right. Global warming bit me today.
On the way over and back, we drove right past the house where my ex-girlfriend grew up. I wonder if her parents still live there. They hated me. Eventually, I hated them, too. I wonder if they are dead yet. It's been a long time. He was old as dirt when I went with his daughter. She was neurotic. In fact, she was damn near nuts. She has to have given herself a heart attack sometime in the last 15 years. Maybe him, too. I would be surprised to find them both alive and well. My curiousity was not nearly sufficient, however, to stop by or even slow down as I passed.
The day wasn't all downers, though. Earlier in the morning, my law firm obtained judgments in connection with two settlements -- both contingency cases. One of them will be work to try to collect. The other is like money in the bank. So, professionally, it was a very happy day, objectively speaking. I'm just not quite feeling it. Maybe I need to go to Disneyland again.
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