Well, dear readers, I do not like funerals. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I do not like funerals. I’ve only been to a handful of them – my mother’s, my father’s, my friend Esther’s, and maybe one or two others. But yesterday I found myself at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery attending the funeral of my ex-mother-in-law, although why a deevorce should cause a mother-in-law to have to be ex is anyone’s guess. Those who’ve read There’s Mel, There’s Woody, and There’s You have read about her. Her name was Dorothy Geml and she was a lovely woman. After the deevorce, I obviously had little contact with anyone from my ex-wife’s side of things, and that included a couple of my friends who’d sided with her, which was completely silly of them – happily those couple of friends and I have made up since then. I saw her a few times in the 1980s and she was always very sweet to me, unlike my ex-wife who was very bitter towards me back then. Flash forward to the 2000s. My daughter gave her a copy of Benjamin Kritzer to read. Dorothy was a voracious reader and she told my daughter to tell me she’d loved the book. She read all the books as they were written and sent word that she had a great time reading them. She read all of them up to Murder at the Hollywood Historical Society, I think, and since she was a mystery fan, she really had fun with the Hofstetter books. I wish she’d read There’s Mel – I think she would have liked it.
In any case, she lived a wonderful and long life – 96 years of it. She asked to be cremated, which is the way I’m doing it, too, whenever that day comes. It was a very pretty day. When I got there, I saw cousin Dee Dee and Alan, and saw several people I hadn’t seen since the deevorce and that was both weird and fun. The service was nice and mercifully short, but I just don’t like funerals. And it got me to thinking – I don’t want one. I just want someone to scatter my ashes somewhere fun – just a few of the people who loved me to take care of that bit of business. The only other thing I’d like is for people to have a gathering and have FUN – tell stories, and have it be joyful. I don’t want maudlin – if anyone wants to go to that land they should do it in private. Cousin Dee Dee had the lovely idea that we should have that gathering BEFORE I die so I can attend and here all about ME. Then the next day I could just go peacefully and wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to do it all? Then I heard that someone who died made a video before they died, and that was shown to everyone. That sounds like fun, too. My ex-wife looked very pretty and her new beau was there – he looks much older than she does, but I was told he’s actually younger than she is. And I wasn’t the only ex there – several of her ex-boyfriends were there, too – quite odd. Best of all, the darling daughter was there and that was reason enough to attend. She thought I looked very spiffy in my new slacks and a nice shirt. I talked to a few of the folks I hadn’t seen in years, and then I left. There was a lunch somewhere, but that part of the invite was conveniently left out of my invite – I wouldn’t have gone anyway, but, well, people are funny, especially ex-wives.
But enough about death. Other than the funeral, I had a nice day, I suppose. A local dealer picked up CDs, after which I went to the aforementioned funeral. After that, I came home, did a three-mile jog, did some banking, picked up a couple of packages, then I went and had a patty melt and no fries or onion rings – my research tells me that a patty melt has anywhere from six hundred to nine hundred calories. Since the two 4 ounce burgers I make are less than four hundred, that sounds about right. So, I just said it was nine hundred, and then I had a couple of snacks later that totaled four hundred. With the jog, I think I netted the 1200 I have to eat every day to lose weight.
By then, the afternoon was waning and so was I. But let’s face it, when it wanes it pours. We don’t allow groaning here at haineshisway.com. Then I tried to watch a DVD of this well-loved Danish political TV series called Borgen – Stephen King called it one of last year’s finest TV shows. But the DVD is crap, transferred incorrectly, so I’ll get the Blu-ray from the UK and watch it properly. The DVD gets returned to amazon. I spent the rest of the evening listening to one of the Hofstetter candidates reading from the new book – she’s very good and I must say I got a few chuckles from it. I’m hoping the other candidates start sending their stuff soon.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, she of the Evil Eye will be here very early and I will do a jog. Then I have to do a few errands and whatnot, and then I come back at 11:30 to get ready for our noon stumble-through. Normally we do our stumble-through at three, but we adjusted it because one of our cast members needed to be someplace at three. So, she of the Evil Eye will probably just be leaving or she’ll get to hear some mighty pretty singing. After the stumble-through I’m sure a few of us will get something to eat – I’ll probably have salmon or something extremely low-cal so I can have a little something later. Then at about six, I’ll mosey on over to the Saban Theater (always the Wilshire Theater to me) and see the STAGE benefit. I’m invited to the after-party but they neglected to tell me exactly where it is – they just gave me the wristband. I guess I’ll figure it out and only hope it’s either at the theater or very close by. I will, of course, have a full report.
Tomorrow, I’ll jog, then we have our video and sound check, and then show. Next week, I have to dive right into the next Kritzerland show – two of the five people are cast already, so that’s good. But I haven’t even begun choosing the songs yet and must do so pronto (otnorp, spelled backwards). I have to complete all my liner notes, and I truly hope they have the tapes ready for me to pick up soon or I just have to release what I have – I’m already a week behind and I can’t have that happen.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, do errands and whatnot, have a stumble-through, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, and then see a STAGE benefit. Today’s topic of discussion: The last time I brought up death the reaction was most amusing, so let’s do it again – when you go (and you ultimately will) do you want to be buried, cremated or what? And what kind of service do you favor? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream of other matters rather than death.