So much for event high.

While my joints feel much better today, I miss being around everyone. Good thing that people in BFS want me to let them know when I'll be in town next. :D Hee hee. At this rate, outside of Diocesan Convention, the next time I'll be in town will be...Thanksgiving? Christmas? Sometime in there?

I guess this means I get to plan which event is my next one. Decisions, decisions. I also have to work around church events, too, like Diocesan Convention, when the Presiding Bishop is coming. While I don't agree with everything she says, I want to respect her office and at least meet her.

I know I'll be at the following:

Crystal Ball (Shattered Crystal [Midrealm], November 8-9)
Queen's Prize (No Mountain, January 10-11)

Kris Kinder may be a go, as might Twelfth Night. My fear is that Twelfth Night is back-to-back with QP, so expenses may be tight. And, I like spending time with Anti. Lord knows I don't often enough because of our work schedules. (I so commiserate with you, scooterheather.)

In non-SCA related news, my Mac is here! In town, at least. The boy should be picking it up, hopefully, tomorrow, so I get my computer! YAY!

Lastly, I'm going to try and filter things so that people who are interested in the day-to-day stuff aren't reading the SCA stuff they don't care about and vice-versa. So.

If you want to be on my SCA filter, let me know.

If you want to be on my life filter, let me know.

If you don't care, and want to read about it anyway, let me know.

If you think I'm missing a filter...you should probably specify what sort of filter I should have and then let me know.

Night!

I got the call from my mom this morning.

It's the end of the road for Chance this Saturday. I am besides myself with grief, and maybe just a touch of guilt. Mom told me she feels the same, but at the same point, I'm still not exactly happy with the outcome. So, I'll be in KC this weekend, but I'm not really going to feel like doing much, more than likely.

Mom's told me that he's not sleeping, and he's having more and more incontinence issues, and won't even eat on top of that, so maybe this is for the best. It still doesn't stop the pain. That's the problem. The pain is still there. And it hurts.

Sixteen years with Chance, at times, seemed like it was forever. Times like now, I realise how very little time that is.

I really should be in bed, but instead, I'm here.

Grandpa's funeral was the balm to my Uncle Tom's fiasco (which, that it was, even if I didn't post it. It was downright inappropriate, the things his pastor said, and that I may go over in a later post). It wasn't a traditionally Catholic service (my Uncle Ham's father is a Baptist minister, and he did the service, and he did the service as a friend of my grandfather, and with that, came things like, "Well, this is what he would want me to say," and he'd hit the nail right on the head), and Uncle Ham and his brother Gary played "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," on harmonica and guitar. A simple service, yes, but a good, solid, balm to those who mourn.

It's the first time in years I've seen my mother be welcomed back to that side. My cousin Matt kept calling her Aunt Betty (she hasn't been his aunt for over ten years), my Uncle Ham referred to her as his sister-in-law countless times, and my father and my mother actually hugged. I'm still shocked. My Uncle Paul was cordial to my mother, and even introduced his partner, Will to her.

Full reconciliation may never occur, but I rejoice when I see this. There are things I understand now, and there are things that I may never understand.

Grandpa was cremated, but instead of being interred into a columbarium, he was buried in his plot at Mount Olivet. It was a military funeral, as he was a part of the Navy during WWII, as an Electrician's Mate. My cousin Matt and I are the worse off, I think, as we're the two oldest at 32 and 24 respectively. Grandma was strangely composed, although, this is the second funeral fro Grandpa and the third Ost funeral since November 2005. She doesn't look good: she's losing weight, she didn't eat much at the reception afterwards, and she isn't the Grandma I know, personality-wise.

I'm not going into work for the next two days, though I'm still torn: do I go back and try to get back to normal as soon as I can, or do I try and finish mourning? Considering I've been an absolute wreck, I'm hedging my bets towards the safer side and will take my remaining two bereavement days. I'm not sure I have to call in further, but I probably will. I'm tired of crying, and it even hurts to cry, but that's all I feel like doing. I know I'm depressed, and I know that this is an even harder time of year to feel this way, but I do. It's not fun, and I wish I didn't feel this way, sometimes.

However, if I didn't, I'd be a robot, totally incapable of any kind of emotion, and that's not the way that God made me. But this depression thing sucks. I hate it, and I hate feeling that absolutely gut-wrenchingly powerless feeling that goes along with it.

At the very least, I'll get a head-start on my Christmas cards, and I'll be able to get things out in the mail that I haven't been able to do so yet.