Death and the Matron

I want to thank all of you for your sweet thoughts which express not only sympathy but empathy too; I know you are feeling me. And to all you lurkers who didn't leave a comment but called, I love you. The Vet even sent a little clay thingie with Roscoe's pawprint and name that we didn't ask for. Fatboy's good vibes will linger on.

So with death on my mind (the scheduling was an unfortunate fluke), my esteemed brother and SIL came up so we could take care of some unpleasant decisions related to our mother's death last February that we (I) kept putting off for reasons too numerous and numerical to enumerate.
Securely nestled in the bosom of my family we set forth, first to the memorial shop to order the grave marker for Mom's plot. We were greeted by a passive-agressive chihuahua. (what are the odds of using that word in consecutive posts?) As we were discussing the inscription to be ingraved on the tablet and I started obsessing about it, Roz said, sweetie, you can decide later, its not like it's written in stone! I so love her. So blah, blah and Sid gets up to stretch his legs not noticing a considerable-for-a-tiny-dog pile of poop. At the very same instant before he took a step, I noticed it. "Don't step", I cried, my pre-school poopy radar activated, but to no avail; tragically (for the rug) it was too late. Sid had no-tread soles luckily, so on we went for pleasant lunch. It was a gorgeous sunny day, high 50's.

We went out to the beach and found a broker and finally put Mom's house on the market. The broker is from the area and knows the house, a plus.
This was a huge onus on me and Sid and we all feel like a tremendous weight was lifted and replaced by relief and accomplishment. Yay us!

Back home to wait for Steve to come home from work, then out to Laura's, a local Italian restaurant that we have wanted to try for years and always forget about. It's an old fashioned, family run place, a little run down too while you mention it. Dinner was fun and the food was good but their location is terrible, you can't get there from here!
A highway, subway tunnels and a maze of tiny streets divide us. Sid thinks one of them is too narrow to be a two-way. (His street is the same) Laura's is at the east entrance to our subway stop ( there are two entrances per stop) but we drove 10 minutes to get there. Next time, we walk thru the tunnel, damn the rats and winos!

The news today is chockful of death too, miners, Katrina, the Haj- elated stampede, unspeakable child abuse in NY, casualties in Iraq, the entire Middle East and Africa, Haiti.... yech, I'm too sick too work up a lot of outrage. I didn't even care about the NY Giants! Football sucks anyway.
My cold is worsening, I hope it's not an infection. Stinky is on the way home, he sounded awful too. We will have soup and tea and cake from Red Hens, which will nourish both body and spirit, and zone out with Netflix cause there was no Voyager to tape. Steve actually prefers cookies to cake but as always is willing to make the big sacrifices. My honeybaby! We must rest as we don't want to miss our Cousin's Day tomorrow. There are only eight of us (the ninth one is out of comission) but we all live in different states and rarely group.
I spoke to My Uncle today and has a bad cold too. He told me this joke ( this is the short version) that must be read out loud, preferably with a yiddish accent:

A little boy goes to his parents to ask what fornication means. They each brush him off so he goes to ask Bubba, his grandmother. Sure! Fornication, says Bubba, come, I'll show you. They go into her bedroom and walk over to the closet. She pulls out and beaded evening dress and says: see this fancy dress? This is fornication!