Of course you need a crowbar to open the urns. Makes total sense to me.

I had all these thoughts for how the scattering would go. I found prayers from all over the world, I cut flowers, and I even brought a small cup of Pepsi and coffee (my mom and grandma's favorite drinks). I hoped for something that was respectful and maybe even classy. Stanley went with me to pick up the bodies. They handed Stanley the urns and me the permits to scatter ashes. And away we went.

Lesson #1 ask the funeral people how to open the damn box.

Jump to me, Carl and Stanley freezing at 930 at night on the end of a pier trying to pry open the urns. Those things were closed like a Japanese puzzle box. Pulling, pushing, and a Swiss army knife did not work. Finally Carl remembered he had a crowbar in his car we used that to open them up. Lesson #2 buy a crow bar to keep in my car.

At one point this lovely couple came over to the end of the pier, no doubt to have a romantic moment. They glanced over at us trying to pry the box apart (Carl handling the crowbar and Stanley and I prying the lid back). The operation became klassy.

An hour after we arrived we finally opened all the urns. Due to wind factors we had to kneel on the end of the pier to let them go. In the first go around Stanley dumped grandma, and I took one of the dogs. I tried not to freak about the thought of kneeling in bird poop, as I poured out the dog. I was not good at pouring and some of the ash ended up on the edge of the pier. Without thinking I tried to sweep the ash off the edge with my shoe. Now my shoe has dead dog on it. Lesson #3 bring a broom the next time ashes need to be dumped.

At this point I am freaking out at the ash on my shoe, and make Carl finish scattering dog ashes. As Stanley begins to lower my mom I remember the flowers and the drinks and pour them off the pier. The cup I brought poured out in a way that looked like I was peeing off the edge of the pier. Which is how the night should have ended.

Towards the end of the whole blessed affair Carl asked me if I wanted to say a prayer or poem. I told him no, I didn't need to. At that point I just wanted to clean my shoe (which I did with both water and hand sanitizer), a drink (which Stanley thoughtfully brought), and to warm up. The next day we went out to the pier in the light of day. I wondered how far the ashes traveled, and then I looked down at a chalk like mark at the end of the pier and said hi to the dog.

I don't know how I was supposed to feel after this. Websites said I would feel all sorts of different things. They showed pictures of people looking happy to scatter their loved ones. I am grateful that I wasn't covered in ash, and I hope they are okay with the choice I made. And above all, I wished I did not have to do it.

That's no maid, that's Dr. Sylvia...

I just spent the weekend in the first level of hell, aka Phoenix, Arizona. I am simply boggled that anyone chooses to live in a desert. Besides the heat (it averaged about 114), the sun was so bright that as I was carrying a casserole in to my friends house the foil covering burned my eyes. I felt like a freaking vampire for the 36 hours I was there.

You could probably tell I wasn't there to sight see, but rather spend some time with my best friend and her family as she visited her parents. Her mom was so excited she threw a big party, so all the women she knows could meet her daughter and her children.

In the best of situations I freeze up in large groups of people. So it was no surprise that given a large group of women speaking Arabic the entire time drove me into the kitchen. To keep myself busy (and to keep up with the mess) I cleaned dishes. Well apparently this made me seem like a maid, and someone asked my mom's friend how long the "servant" would be around. To which she replied, "That's no maid. She is my daughter (her catholic-single- nonArabic speaking- daughter, but nonetheless) and she's a doctor!" From that point on my friend called me Sylvia, the name of my own housekeeper. To be honest I was pleased anyone thought my cleaning was good enough to be considered professional work.

Sometimes I dream I hit the progressive...

I know this post is late but it took me longer than I expected to recover from 3 days in Vegas. I came home with .75 cents in my pocket and a kind of self-loathing that only comes from eating meals at buffets. Another thing Vegas left me was a sense of my own oldness. I could only stay up till midnight at the best, my drink of choice was water (because you need to hydrate in the desert), and my activity of choice was the nickel slot machine (the Wheel of Fortune one to be exact). I may be 29, but my inner age is about 76. I did love that slot machine. I was also constantly shocked by the amount of young children hanging around the strip late at night. One night I lost count of the kids 0-3 out after midnight. I don't care what the PR people say, Vegas is not a family vacation spot for me. But that may be because all I want to do is play Wheel of Fortune.

Before the trip I had thoughts of crazy adventures (because of course my life would be like a Vegas commercial), but then I realized my motto: Stranger Danger. So in the end I stayed true to my introvertness, and it was just me, a pregnant girl, and another girl who spent the 3 days sending angry text messages to her boyfriend. We were a regular bunch of "playas". All in all it was a fun trip, and I want to go back. I also have an addiction to slot machines that makes Vegas a once a decade town for me.

It's definitely one way to go about it...

I wouldn't know anything about annoying coworkers. Nothing at all. But, if I had an annoying co-worker (and was okay being fired for sexual harrassment), this is one way to get rid of him (or her).

And, if you were wondering how to tell a child their mother has died, this is not the way.

Thanks to Carl for YouTube surfing with me last night. We discovered thatBrokeTrek was the best of the Brokeback parodies. After we discovered there are a lot of Brokeback parodies.

Because 10 Million Flies Can't Be Wrong

I was told that this was the slogan to the restaurant I dined at Saturday night. It was pretty accurate.

I also ended up being a chaperone on my dad's date. I thought it was a family dinner with her kids too, but instead I was a third wheel. I told my dad it made me feel uncomfortable, and I kid you not he said, "That wasn't a date!" To which I replied, "Did you not eat dinner and then dance with your girlfriend? Pretty much the definition of a date."

Mothers, Fake Dates, and the Beach

This weekend I went to the beach for a wedding. My friend Sigmund went as my fake date. It was also my first wedding in which my father wasn't my date (or I went alone), so that was a pleasant change. We enjoyed the margarita and taco bar, as well as the funny couples we were seated with. Another couple, Carl and Stanley, came along for the road trip as well.

We began by having dinner at this honky tonk place in the middle of nowhere. I forgot how many country songs I know, and I think I scared my travel companions with this knowledge. In honor of this dinner, "cowboy up" was the term for the weekend. We also stopped for gas about a block from the honky tonk and it was like entering the Grindhouse double feature. Everyone in the station either looked they were were about to die (like the female college students who loudly talked about how they were lost and needed to call their moms and let them know they are not dead- this wasn't foreshadowing at all) or wanted to kill others (like the stupid girls).

Saturday after the wedding Sig and I met up with Carl and Stanley and wandered around town. At dinner I was more in love with the Bollywood films being shown than the company or the food. They were great films of love and loss and of course dancing.

Sunday started out well. We had a nice breakfast at the local IHOP (umm pancakes) then went shopping. Then my mother called.

She has begun hallucinating again and forgot I was not in town. Right there in the middle of a busy sidewalk I stopped and listened as my mother began talking about all the people following her, watching her, and destroying her house. I was near a restaurant where families were celebrating Mother's Day, and it finally hit me that this was it. For the rest of her life this would be the down and the ups would never get as up as they once were. I have thought about it before but now I realize one day she will need me to see to her care 24/7. Sigh.

I looked over at my friends who were pretending not to watch me try not to fall apart, and I was glad to have such good company. Even speaking to my therapist about it yesterday didn't quite take the sadness away. Mother's day has never been a holiday I enjoyed with my mother anyways (reasons why best saved for a later post), but it hit me that one day potentially every holiday could sound like this. Am I ready to be her caretaker full time? No, not even close to ready. I am not even ready to be a real grown up yet, much less be in charge of her. Is anyone ever ready to parent their parent?

And so you don't think my Sunday was completely a downer I will end by telling you how I began to conquer not one, but two fears. As I drove my travel weary friends home I needed to use the restroom. I had my fill of scary gas station bathrooms (where you know you'll get the monkey pox if your butt touches the seat) and asked Sig if I could use his. He looked a little alarmed but agreed. He tried to tell me it was a little dirty, but not monkey pox dirty. What he didn't tell me was that the last time he entered that room in his house was the first day he moved in. There were spider webs everywhere including the toilet bowl, and as I tried to sweep them off the place I would soon be sitting he stood outside the door telling me this was better than the upstairs one. I have a hard time using the restroom while other people are around, and well spiders scare the crap out of me. But I did what I needed to. And hopefully received no spider bite in the ass.

Jealously, thy name is Halta Lorelai

I am totally feeling green because Supermommy (who just came back from a cruise) is going to the beach with her family for a few days. I want to lay by the pool too dammit. It made me remember all the times when my parents would bundle us in the car right before nap time and take us to a "surprise." The surprise was always the beach but I never guessed it (but I always guessed Chuck E Cheese). So here I am at my desk, while they get to be near the ocean. Being a grown up sucks.

In other news the pirate fair was okay. There weren't many people around so it was a very small fair. I heard a lot of pirate jokes and saw many a womens chests exposed in the name of being a "wench" but alas, I took no pirate lover home. Truth be told the pirate who was also a magician was kind of cute, but that romance was not to be.

And last but not least. I am going to be Halta Lorelai for the third time! Halta means aunt in arabic (which I can never pronounce properly). My bestest friend ever (the one who is coming for my graduation) is pregnant, and I was the first one they told! Dammit I can't keep news like this to myself. So I called people who have no contact with her (such as Supermommy, which is how I found out about the beach trip).
I can't wait to meet my newest neice or nephew. My prediction is that it will be a boy (she has two girls now).

It Was All I Expected and More

It began when the waiter dropped my glass of ice water on my friend (thankfully not the b-day girl who would have stabbed him). It was all down her back and on her pants so it looked like she peed herself. She also had a lemon on her shoulder. After a few minutes a new waiter came out and asked my friend if she was okay. My friend replied that she was still wet, and not the good kind of wet. It was all I could do not to spray the drink of water I had all over her. The waiter just walked away. Thanks Olive Garden.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Some days lend themselves to reflection. For me it has been a weekend of reflecting on my life, specifically my friends. Every night this weekend I have spent time with friends. Whether it was laughing over dinner with high school friends, experiencing a disturbing movie with grad school friends, meeting old work friends for sushi, or eating cookies with the girl who was my first best friend, there was lot of reminiscing.

As I was driving home from visiting with a friend whom I spent every weekend of junior high with, I realized how nice it was to have a friend whom I have not seen in 5 years, but yet we instantly began talking to like only 5 days had passed. I have always been a person who has a few close friends and many acquaintances, and at times my circle can seem small. Even when time and distance get in the way, I am lucky to have people who can easily fall back into our relationship. I used to feel like there was a problem with me because I am not more extroverted, but now I am content. I treasure my circle, and all the people who make it up. Driving home tonight I realized how blessed I am.