Funerals are frighteningly expensive. For a whole body to go into the ground, it can cost anywhere from eight to twenty thousand dollars. Of course, there was no money left behind and the family is going to have to foot the bill for all of the expenses. Which also means that in order to keep the costs from killing any one person, the word has gone out for everyone to dig deep down and help out. Therefore, I have also been asked and so now I will make a contribution. It’s not that I mind paying or helping to pay, it’s just that there’s this expectation of me to put in around two to three hundred, where my sisters are being asked for twenty to fifty bucks. But am I going to complain? Fuck, no. Like I really need to be the asshole in what’s already a stressful enough situation. I’ll be the asshole any other time but now.
Instead of burying her whole, however, the children, in their wisdom, have opted to have her cremated. In the Bay Area, though, there must be something of a back up on bodies needing to be reduced to ash, as she won’t be ready until the week of the ninth of September. The funeral services will be handled at a church local to her hometown, and it will likely be near the end of that week. I don’t really have to worry about time off, as my boss has given me his approval to take however many days off as necessary (within reason) to go up north to be with the family. I’m thinking that I will go up for the night, pay my respects, and then get the hell out of there. As much as I love my father, I’m just not that close to his side of the family beyond my grandparents. They make me feel uncomfortable, and I always feel like I’ve done something wrong just by being in their presence. It drove me nuts as a kid, and I’ll like it even less as an adult.
Anyway, in other news… the DirectTV guy finally came by and installed both receivers. So now we have decent TV pouring through our veins once more. I can actually watch local shows without having to filter out the static in my head. The DSL installation has been delayed until the fucking middle of September, since the ILEC didn’t have the brains enough to call up to the apartment to ask us for entry into the building… so instead of doing that, they left. They said they had no access, yet I was in the apartment all damn day. It’s very frustrating to have to deal with stupid Pacific Bell over the loop install. This is why I adore Covad. Covad goes the extra mile for their clients. Until then, I am netless, but this also means that I’ll have more time to properly setup the LAN for uplinking to the new bridge router. Yay.
