My grandfather died last week. My sister actually covered it a lot better than I could.

I don't know. When I found out, my only real reaction was feeling bad, because I didn't feel bad. Out of all the grandparents, this was the one I never really connected with. I'm sorry he's dead, because I know he did actually mean a lot to some people, but I'm afraid that's really about as far as I can go.

I had to work, so I missed the first two hours or so of the visitation. (Random thought: There was a Visitation, followed by a Memorial. Saturday, there was a Burial. Don't people have Funerals anymore?) My uncle is the principal at ONHS, so apparently I missed seeing a bunch of my old teachers come through. Ron was grilling my cousin for info about me. Scary.

(Another quick peripheral: Somewhere, Branden is reading that paragraph and doing a double take. She's related to WHO?? I think the rest of the Oshkosh LARP folk would have been before Uncle Jim's time, so they are probably not quite as freaked out. They can enjoy the Ron-stalking-me moment, though, which none of you Taus (except Hwaaah, of course) can do. Hmm. Now I'm torn. In the interests of protecting his anonymity and stuff, I don't want to give his full name on the big scary Internet. Michelle and I always called him Ron when he wasn't listening, but just saying Ron may not be enough to let you fully grasp the situation. We're talking about North Star adviser (spell it with an E) Ron. Everybody with me now? I graduated high school eleven fucking years ago! Granted, I was maybe the worstest newspaper editor ever, but that was eleven years ago! And he still remembers me! Scary, non?)

(Did you even know I was a co-editor of my high school newspaper? It's not something I talk about much now. I'm not Al Bundy here, still imagining my highschool glories are even a little bit relevant. My dad had a quote he said all the time my senior year. "In five years, no one will care where you went to high school, and in 10 years, no one will care IF you went to high school." At the time, I thought it was just another meaningless string of babble coming out of his mouth in a futile attempt to distract me from how much my life SUCKED, but he was right. I see that now. Score one for Dad.)

(This is turning into the longest digression ever. I sure am glad I didn't have anything important to talk about tonight.)

***

Right. So. Dead grandparents: Two. Dad: Much wiser than he seemed 10 years ago. Ron: Still has the power to freak me the hell out.

I think that's about it.

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