Left my Rockstar-ness in Vegas

I'm home from Vegas.  Home from feeling glamorous. I like that you can leave the state, get in a hotel room and everything seems cooler.  Including your husband.  Not that I don't think he's cool, but the truth is when anyone is standing in a fabulous room with the lights of a crazy city behind you, you just are - more.  More everything, more whatever it is.  And for me personally, when I get to far away from the kids to make it to the emergency room should one of them break an arm or something - I really go for it! Not crazy bad, crazy good.
 I have to say that almost every night I was over-served (my way of saying I drank too much). We had some incredible food, which was the main reason we were in Vegas.  I plan to post more about the food another time.  Of course we gambled too. And while it was a great trip and I loved getting to be wild - I am happy to be home.

January 2010

Today is a HUGE DAY for Sister and I - Today marks 12 WHOLE MONTHS without someone dieing. The first time we have made it a year in a four year span.  Also, the fact that it was an IMPORTANT female in our family every time only added to it.  I am thankful and grateful that we have finally had a year without death.  Today is also my mothers birthday.  My grandmother (mom's mom) was the last to die, last year, the day before mom's birthday.  So I am celebrating!!!!!!  Now if anyone dies in the very near future I am going to be a little pissed.  I am posting a picture of my sister and my Mema from last year. Sister was so good at giving comfort and love.  I'm not posting the picture to bring about sadness but because it is beautiful to me. It's beautiful to me that we can be sharing space and love with someone who is about to embark on a new journey outside of this life.

Another Day Another Death I'm still not a Mortician

M - You might not should read this post, you just had a baby which is so happy and wonderful, and your hormones might still be wacky, and this post could be a bit of a downer to you.  So skip to another one!

I hesitate to even write about this death because my followers (the 2 of you) might be getting bored with the death and dying posts.  In 20 months I have lost my mother, my paternal grandmother and now my maternal gradmother.  I realize that everyone experiences death and I still sometimes can't fucking believe the shittyness of this lot.  Is shittyness even a word? Anyway, Sister and I took the children to see Mema for Christmas and a week later she had a stroke, never really recovered, and then Sister and I took her to Hospice and she died the day before mom's birthday. One of the craziest parts is that I feel like Sister and I should change our last name to Reaper because we have to keep sending people to hospice.


 We come from a matriarchal family and have now lost our three strongest women.  Our leaders, the ones who made the decisions, the ones that taught us how to be strong, bossy women, women that don't take anything less than what we deseve from a man.  Somedays the loss feels huge and other days it feels like there is a ton of pressure gone because these women who we have always felt the need to answer to are no longer checking on us.  You know how sometimes you look at a porn star and wonder... what if her mom or grandmother found out? Well, I could so totally be a porn star now because those women are gone from my life.  Not that I would, I'm just saying I could if I wanted.
 
Now Sister and I become those leaders.  We will teach my daughter how to lead, how men should treat her and how she should treat them.  We will show her how to be a fiercly loyal friend, a caretaker of her planet, a woman who knows how to give love and be loved.  And lots more.  We will be able to do this because we had such good teachers.  And she will also, by default, know how to throw an amazing funeral. Because she had watched us plan so many. And I'm not kidding when I say that we know all the ins and outs of funerals and ours rock.
 
PS I am still not smoking! All the stress of the holidays and the dying and still I refuse to take the habit back up!  I may or may not have made my own version of the candy necklace with Xanex, but I haven't smoked!!!