I had an incredibly fun day today. That sounds normal enough, but the main event of the day was a funeral. And perhaps that's as it should be.
The Boy's grandmother turned 90 last year. She lived on her own until she was about 87, at which point her children decided it would be best if she didn't drive herself anymore, and if she had someone drop by with meals for her, and then maybe if she just went into a nursing home.
She did pretty well for a couple years, but she was getting sort of forgetful and that didn't help since there wasn't a lot going on in life at the nursing home. But, hey she made it to her 90th birthday, so there's an accomplishment. Last month, she caught pneumonia and they gave her three days. She hung on two weeks and passed away this past Tuesday.
This is The Boy's father's side of the family, who are really great people. I love going to see them; they're farm folks and decent talkers. They are My Sort of People. (We are, in fact, very distantly related through my paternal grandfather's maternal line and their paternal line.)
Honestly, I was looking forward to going to this one.
Now, cue the wonderfully awkward Jerry Springer story going on in TB's immediate family. TB's older brother (OB) and his wife (Pseudo Wife) are in the process of a divorce. Their oldest son is currently in foster care because he's 17 and they can't manage him. OB currently has a live-in girlfriend (Girlfriend) who has four children of her own and is also in the process of getting a divorce.
Got all that?
I don't so much like Pseudo Wife as I feel sorry for her. She's not a person I think I'd like on my own, but as the second wife under this particular mother in law, I sympathise with her entirely, and know that she was in a worse place than I was because they got married when she got knocked up. Her children are mad at her, OB is mad at her, and she's been making a lot of trouble, but she's known OB and TB's grandmother for nearly 20 years and she takes things like that hard. She had a reason to be at the funeral.
So, OB offers to drive Psuedo Wife to the funeral. He also has his oldest son, who can't stand either of his parents right now, and his second son, who is pissed at his mother right now. Also in the van of happiness and fun is Girlfriend. I like Girlfriend, she's a lot of fun and she's got a good head on her shoulders, she can probably handle anything you throw at her.
This is Van #1. In Van #2, we have my in-laws, and Younger Brother and Girl. Younger Brother has been dating Girl for a couple months now and my mother in law "is hearing wedding bells." Puke. She may be a very nice girl, I dunno, I've never heard her say anything much and, as Girlfriend said, "Does anyone know anything about her? 'cause we don't, and she was at our house for three hours."
Girl has convinced godless, obese Younger Brother to find God and join a health club. Either Younger Brother has transferred his balls from his mother directly to Girl, or he just had wishy washy convictions in the first place. These days, he's terribly self righteous. "Alcohol should be banned, cigarettes should be banned, everyone should go to church, sex before marriage is bad."
Please. Six months ago Younger Brother would have said exactly the opposite, and a year ago he knocked up some chick. You didn't have to marry her because she miscarried and broke up with you. If all it took to get you to "see the light" was a girl who isn't going to let you into her pants until you fulfill a list of requirements, I don't believe a word that comes out of your mouth, but, whatever.
The other potential for Van #2 was Hoebag Sister. This is TB's youngest sibling, their adopted sister who is a year or so younger than me. She has an almost two year old by her baby daddy, is living with her current boyfriend whenever he doesn't beat her, and has been to jail at least twice. She's a winner, and I can't stand her. Hoebag Sister called up Thursday night with a list of reasons she wasn't going to the funeral, which pissed off ooooh, the entire family. (Even as much as they'd rather not have her there anyway.)
My assumption was that she might wait until the 11th hour so she could play the savior, "Ooooh, we're so proud you came, we're so happy, Hoebag Sister." In the words of Chris Rock, "What do you want, a cookie?! That's what you're supposed to do, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that, you low-expectation-having-motherfucker?" It wouldn't be a first time she's done it, and she always gets the response. She learned it from her mother, who does the same thing, but doesn't recognise it when on the receiving end. (She did not actually go, but they apparently chased a car through town they thought was hers while calling her phone.)
Anyway, choosing between the awkwardness of Van #1 (Girlfriend v. Pseudo Wife and Angsty kids) and Van #2 (Mr. Sanctimonious, potential Hoebag Sister and my mother in law), we chose Van #1. And, as I said when I got in the van, "think about that, folks, this is the van we wanted to be in."
Also, all the grandchildren plus two of the great grandchildren were drafted as pall bearers. Meaning that I got to sit with Girlfriend, Psuedo Wife, Girl and second son. But, Pseudo Wife knew better than to pull some dumbass attention stunt, and the two kids were more or less well behaved all day.
I ended up sitting on the edge of the church next to Girlfriend. Cool. We ended up talking about her kids, and the awkwardness of the whole wife/girlfriend thing. "So, is it just me, or is this awkward?" "Nope, totally awkward, but go with it, you're cool." Then, when they asked the family to go around for the viewing, "Should I go? I mean, am I family?" "Dude, if Girl counts, you count." "Aw, yeah, thanks."
And it was a nice funeral. Small, but it did what it needed to and said what it needed to say.
I do not like the version of the Lord's Prayer that uses "debtors" for "trespassers." I only ever sort of half learned the prayer, thanks entirely to the fact that in middle school I read a parody of it called the Geek's prayer. My mother was amazed at my grandfather's wife's funeral that I could say it at all.
My Biblical/church ritual knowledge isn't expansive- I can repeat that, Linus's speech from Charlie Brown Christmas, and the 23rd psalm. I can paraphrase Ecclesiastes 3.1-7, First Corinthians 13, and give basic renditions of standard Old Testament stories. I can also sing Ave Maria. Thinking about it, I wonder whether TB could do that much. Anyway, the exchange of just that line screws me up just enough that I lose it, because it hasn't got the right number of syllables, and I can't get back into the words.
Younger Brother has a Netflix account and passes the DVDs on to his parents after he watches them. Or (given their turnaround time on the discs) throwing money away that he could use on a Blockbuster account. Anyway, he'd left Slumdog Millionaire for them to watch. I'd wanted to watch it, but I'd wanted to prepare a little bit for it first, not really knowing what lay in store. They only wanted to watch it because one of TB's uncles on his mother's side had seen it and, in her words, "Wasn't expecting to like it but he did. The title's enough to put you off it, though."
Sigh.
The movie was nicely visceral without being unnecessarily graphic, and it actually had a story line. I mean, if you took that same plot "guy wins Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and finds the girl of his dreams," and put it into a big budget Hollywood story, you'd have a straightforward comic movie a la SNL vehicles and Jim Carrey movies. This was a nice change from not that, and suspect it was all down to directing. I don't know the book it's taken from, but I'm not sure the script alone would have been as strong, but it was very well put together, well cast, and can I just say that it had a gorgeous palette? It's been a while since I've seen a movie use colour like that- blue and yellow and orange and pink... It's a real change from the sort of dark action movies I've seen lately, or Garden State (which is green, absolutely green, but it's the only movie I can think of that instantly makes me think of colour that isn't Moulin Rouge).
Got to the end credits and saw Danny Boyle and thought, hmmm, I know him from somewhere. Trainspotting. Awesome.