Fake Funeral

I originally posted this on Blogher back in April, when I thought I might be active enough to have two blogs. It didn't take more than a post or two to realize that one is enough.  I posted this the same day I posted the funeral poem here, since it reminded me of the memory:

"In 2000-01-ish, my younger-by-a-year sister got it in her head to throw herself a funeral.  At 18 years old she wanted to take part in the festivities while she was still young and alive enough to enjoy them, plus it gave us something to do on a boring Saturday.

First, we went dress shopping-she wanted to be laid to rest in somethin' fancy! We drove around to several department stores, checking out the leftover prom clearance. I think we went to three stores before finding something that was both pretty and affordable. We also had to buy a black and purple velvet top hat-I can't really remember the justification behind the hat now, but it was necessary for the ceremony to be perfect. 

Then we had to get a copy of "Painted Black" --the theme song of choice for our impromptu funeral--and of course we needed flowers! My grandma was not very pleased when we cut a few choice stems from her garden, she didn't quite get the whole "fake funeral" thing.

After my sister was dressed in her gown and hat, she stretched out on the couch while the Rolling Stones played in the background and we stood around staring at her clutching her bouquet of peach roses.  My mom took pictures to commemorate the funeral, and I think between the escaping giggles (we all HAD to be straight faced, this was a serious funeral and we wouldn't laugh if it were the real thing would we??) my mom may have had a bit of moisture in her eyes.

Even if it is a bit on the morbid side, it still cracks us up to talk about it. I would say it is one of my favorite memories--although I say that about most of the good ones!"

I'm not sure right now if this memory is still a favorite. In fact, because of the "what-ifs" I almost wish I could forget it completely.  But at the same time I want to remember things like this, because of the what-ifs. 

I am likely going to post random tidbits related to my sister, mainly for my own memory-keeping but also so everyone else can get to know her a bit.

It's gonna get whiny 'round here...

Remember when I whined and cried for a month over my moving predicament? Yea, well, that was nothing. 

This is going to be a short post. I have written half a dozen posts and none of them seem right. I feel like I have another elephant in the room, so this post is to clear the air and in the weeks and months to follow I'll elaborate, and whine and cry and yell and rage and if you choose to stick around great. If not, I'm sorry.

My sister has Small Cell Lung Cancer.

She doesn't smoke, not that it matters in my opinion, but that's another post.

She has four small children, one of whom is battling her own neuro-degenerative disorder.

She found out two weeks ago that it has spread from one lung to the other, in spite of the two rounds of chemo and month of near-daily radiation. It is no longer classified as non-aggressive; it is now classified as moderate-aggressive.

I am so angry and sad and scared and everything in between. I don't know what to do with my thoughts or feelings--I feel like I can't talk to anyone-I'm already over the "have faith" garbage that I once spewed myself to people in similar situations. I can hardly type out these few sentences without tearing up, but I am hoping I can use this blog to get my feelings out and keep them from spilling over into my QT with my sister.

I'm going to try and keep every single post from being about this, and I'm going to try and write more frequently. But for now this is all I have. Good night.

Random Forgetfulness

For some reason, the "tab" key takes you directly from the title box to the "publish" button now. The older version of Blogger went from the title box to compose section. Which makes sense, why would someone type just the title then hit publish?! Besides me, tonight, since I hit tab then the right combo of keystrokes to equal enter, thus publishing an empty post.

Anyway. 

Today I made cookies. I want to enter a contest so I am tweaking a chocolate & coconut recipe.  I accidentally forgot a cup of flour. Which should've meant two dozen cookies were headed straight to the trash can, right? Nope. I decided to bake them, just in case I didn't really forget the flour, and they came out with a brownie-like texture and my husband loves them. I have another, correct, batch chilling in the fridge, but I am definitely going to add my screw-up to my recipe box.

I know that the mind works in mysterious ways. Well, at least mine does. But I am always surprised when something strange happens to me. I was finishing up an hour and a half round of grocery shopping at Walmart, when out of nowhere I thought it would be hilarious if I forgot my debit card and had to go home. I laughed out loud, luckily the aisle was empty, then all of a sudden realized I didn't have my card! I used it earlier and put it in the center console instead of my pocket, so at least it was in the car and not at home. But I am sure I wouldn't have remembered until I was checking out, if it hadn't of been for that random thought. Sure, most people would remember stuff like that, or would check to be sure they had whatever they needed, but I am not most people. I let my husband keep my driver's license in his wallet because I have lost it 4 times in the last two years. So remembering or checking for my ATM card before starting a grocery trip just isn't part of my M.O.

In another example of my poor memory this weekend, I found out the hard way that I forgot to update my Facebook account with my new phone number.  I don't rely on the mobile updates to keep me updated as much as I did this past summer, so updating the phone number wasn't something I thought of right away, then I completely forgot about changing it.  Apparently someone has activated a phone with it though...I logged on yesterday afternoon to see that "I" replied to a bunch of posts saying things like "I don't know you" & "My name is Sean, quit texting me!"  At first, I thought I was hacked, obviously I'm not Sean, and I do know my sister and my friends.  After a minute or two or re-reading all the texts I realized what happened, and called the kid to apologize then updated my Facebook account. Then I had to explain to half a dozen people what happened.

(I have another kinda funny story about Facebook but rather than bore you, it can be summed up with the following bit of advice:  "Don't Facebook stalk from your cell phone if it is prone to freezing, as you are likely to start tapping in frustration and sending out a bunch of random friend requests to people you don't know". I'll leave it at that for tonight.)

Have a great week!

What's in a name?

Once a week I get a meme in my email that I never fill out. I know, I know, I'm never going to get kissed, someone's going to die, and I'll be poor forever... One of the first questions is always a variation of "what is your nickname".  Some of my friends have really awesome or funny or fitting nicknames. Mine are: Maria, Bagel and Raquel.  My middle name is Marie but my dad has always called me "Maria", so much so that I call myself Maria weekly.  "Bagel" is my sister's favorite name for me-it kind of rhymes with Rachael. And "Raquel" is just Spanish for "Rachael". Which apparently isn't common knowledge since I had to explain to the new kid why my co-worker calls me Raquel. Oh well.

Over the years, I have collected at least a dozen email accounts. My very first account, circa 1998-9, is a weird-ish spelling of twilight eyes: my favorite time of day + my best physical feature (well besides my big ol' booty, but twilight ass isn't something I could write my grandma with).  I loved that handle so much that I have used variations of it in several of my other email accounts. 

It would probably still be my favorite user id, except for the whole Twilight saga thing.  I didn't hate the books or the movies, but I certainly hate the snickers I get after giving out my email address when I call various customer service depts.  Obviously, I am such a "twihard" I had to put my love for the series in my email account; there is no way I created my account before the books/movies came out.  Unfortunately Yahoo doesn't have a "member since ##" like pretty much every other email hosting service. So I have zero proof. And no choice but to suffer through the lame jokes.

Anyone else out there have an email that they can't get rid of but aren't always proud of?

Another name I have gotten a couple questions on is my blog name. "Angle 949" is pretty random. No, really, it is. I picked it from a list of captchas I liked enough to think they would be usable one day. (In case you're interested, three have been used-this one plus two others have shown up in WIPs (the plural of WIP seems odd to me-it seems like it should ve WsIP!!)).  And since my interests are all over the place, I figured hundreds of angles would cover it!  So far, I haven't really covered many of my interests other than writing. And I've done quite a bit of whining. But eventually I'll post other stuff, and then the name will fit a little better.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Limerick Feud

This week's first line for the Limerick-Off on MadKane's Humor Blog is:

"A man was involved in a feud"
or
"A gal was involved in a feud"

Here's my entry:

A man was involved in a feud
Over the new 'do his wife debuted.
His word choice was poor,
Now his bed's on the floor
'Til his sense of style's less skewed.

I'm not satisfied with the last line, but I've run out of revision ideas for it.  I really, really want to use "skewed" and this seems to be the best I can do with that word this afternoon.