Hiiiiii

 It was March Break and my husband was in California AGAIN. I left town. I drove six hours to my sister's place and hung out with her (and her husband) without our parents being around for the first time in... decades, possibly? We held chaotic gabfests in the hot tub every night and said "we have to get out now" multiple times and were so incredibly pruney when we finally did. We went to her little neighbourhood theatre and watched Oscar-nominated animated short films with her friend who brought boozy juice boxes for us, and then went back to her house and watched the Oscars (the animated short film that one was far down on my list but oh well - MICHAEL B. JORDAN yes! I think Sinners should have won but I did like One Battle After Another. Amy Madigan was adorable, and her performance in Weapons was fire.) We went to her neighbourhood pub for St. Patrick's Day. We double-Facetimed our daughters who are doing masters degrees in two different countries. It was blissful. 

We're all wearing a green but you can't tell because IT FREAKING SNOWED AGAIN and we were walking to the pub.

Then I drove an hour and a half back in the direction of home and hung out with Eve for a few days. I took her and her former housemate out for dinner and the waitress said we were adorable and then we accidentally did some trivia and didn't suck as much as we expected. She presented a poster at a symposium and I walked in and watched her walking a professor through her experiment while she didn't know I was there and she looked so confident and professional and it was so weird. She wanted to go to McDonalds one day after I picked her up from the lab so we went and we punched in the order and then were standing at the counter and she said "do you want to sit down?" and I said "no, I'm fine, do you want to get a table" and she said "no, I mean you get the table" and I said "YOU'RE going to get the food?" and then collapsed laughing because she's 23 and I realized I was still treating her like a seven-year-old and HOW DOES THIS ALL WORK, I still don't know, should I ask her to do my taxes too? 

Matt flew in from California Friday and came to the Hamilton hotel, and Saturday we took Eve out for lunch and then drove to Toronto because there was a funeral service for Matt's aunt who died from lung cancer at 72, exactly like his mother six years ago. Which is stupid and sad, and we were in that 'seeing people we were happy to see, but for sad reasons' headspace. We went out for dinner with people Saturday night and I got to meet Matt's long-lost sister in person finally, and when the waiter asked what the occasion was we talked about that instead of the funeral thing. The number of wait staff in the Toronto area who now know this story is quite a bit more than zero.

Matt's cousin Mary (who I love) organized the service and gave the eulogy for her mom, Lorana. I didn't see Lorana often but she was lovely to me and amazing to my kids, and she had a great sense of humor.   Mary is spirited and funny and energetic and she gave the kind of eulogy I've told my kids I want  - 80% loving and complimentary, 20% loving roast ("Her apple pie was the best in the world. Her rhubarb pie was disgusting.") I read Engie's post about the laughter book this morning and it made me realize how much I love belonging to two families who approach every situation with as much humour as possible and usually more than is appropriate. After the speeches, a bunch of us compared notes and realized that when Mary said her mom hated green peas we had heard Greenpeace and were really confused about what her beef was with environmentalists. We laughed until we cried and then cried until we laughed, my contacts were shriveled by the end of the day and there was no moisture left in my body. 

The last time most of us got together was for Mary's wedding a few years ago, and it was the most joyful occasion, and we knew how fortunate we were to be together for something other than a funeral. It's easy to say we should all get together before someone else dies, but we are far-flung and busy and it is difficult, of course. I was pouring a small amount of bourbon over my feelings thinking that funerals are sad, but weirdly also joyful, because you feel closer to the people left behind, and aware of how precious our time together is. 

Anyone remember when we went to Georgia last May and it was Atlanta Furry Weekend? We got an email from the hotel in Toronto before we got there advising us that we would be there the same time as....... prepare yourself...... the Furnal Equinox. 

It was mostly great fun, other than elevator issues. A couple of people in full fur suits really fill an elevator. The hotel allowed the service elevators to be used for guests, which helped. We were on the 28th floor, which meant that (after a long wait) we were able to get on as the elevator started back down from the 30th floor, but then we stopped on virtually every other floor on the way down, until we were jammed up against each other and afterwards. This happened as we were on our way down to drive to the funeral, and got increasingly funny. The part of Engie's post about talking to strangers resonated with me because we all spent a good fifteen minutes together, and naturally by the time we got down to the main floor they knew we were going to a funeral and that I was appreciating the hilarity as a counter to the sadness. I asked one furry if I could snap a picture of her head to send to Eve, and instead she rode down to the main level (even though that was not her original destination) and got out to let me take a full-length picture, and then she asked if I wanted a hug. So that was amazing, and for increased amusement points, I looked up and saw my husband halfway across the main lobby pretending he didn't know me. Joke's on him, clearly I am going to be more present, creative, connected and happy. And also I will have better furry pictures.