Fri, 28 Mar 2003
What a Whacky Week
So my last installment left off with the death of Sandy's Grandmother
last Sunday evening.
Tuesday night there was a memorial service at the Guerry Funeral Home from
5pm until 7pm. It was a quiet memorial; Sandy's uncle Charlie came up to pay
his respects, and Richard and Cheryl showed up. The open casket thing kind of
freaked Sandy out, but...
Wednesday we had a formal service at 10am at the GUerry Funeral Home. It was
presided by a Southern
Baptist Minister that really offended the both of us. He gave the entire
spiel about how he was saved because his name was written in the book of life,
yadda yadda yadda.
(an aside) Who really cares if he's saved? It really irkes me when I hear
from these pontificants that I'm not going to be saved because I'm not a
southern baptist, but they are because their name is written in the book of
life. I'll address my religous dogma later, this isn't really the time to do
it..
So after the services, we were able to coordinate methodical chaos with Sandy's
parents and aunt; we drove Sandy's dad to Gainesville to pick up a
rental car while Mrs. Durham took her sister
(Eloise) to get their dog, drop the dog off, and meet us at our place in
Gainesville.
By 12:45pm everyone was at my house, and Sandy and I were ready to tear up the
road to
Miami. Tom was going to drive Mrs. Durham and Eloise down to the hotel,
and Sandy and I were going to drive ourselves. They wanted lunch, so went off
on their own. Sandy and I hit the highway and made tracks.
At about 3pm we stopped for gas and lunch. I had a dog and fries, Sandy ate a
nutritious meal of ice cream. Once we
hit the road again, we got a call from Mrs. Durham. It turned out they were
only 20 miles behind us -- pretty surprising considering I was pressing 75-80
the whole way down and we only stopped for 15 minutes at Ft. Drum.
We continued on to the Holiday
Inn at the University of Miami. We made it down in 5 hours and were
greeted with a glass of champagne, which was much appreciated after the drive
down.
About 15 minutes after I paid for the rooms, The Durhams showed up with
Eloise. Mrs. Durham complained that they hadn't stopped to use the WCs at
all on the journey..
Mr. Durham wanted to go to Shorty's
for dinner, and we figured that would probably be the easiest for everyone
else involved. Eating at Shorty's was like stepping through time. I suspect
that the majority of the "Southern White Florida Cracker" population must
have been at Shorty's on Wednesday judging by the looks of the patronage. It
was definatly a throw-back to Miami pre-mariel.
We were done with dinner by 8:30pm, and I fell asleep by 9:30pm
in my bed.
Thursday there were grave side services held at the Miami Memorial Park
at 5300 W. Flagler. The minister who presided over the services is the
head chaplan at Baptist
Hospital off Kendall drive. His words were kind and comforting, and I
think he helped Sandy, her mother, and Eloise.
After the services, there was a bunch of paperwork to take care of. Sandy's
Grandmother hadn't prepaid for her headstone, or the opening of the grave, so
her parents had to spend a few thousand dollars to get those things squared
away.
While the paperwork was being straightened out, Eloise mentioned she wanted to
see the grave of her husband who had passed away in 1985. Unfortunately, it
turns out Eloise didn't remember that he was buried in a different cemetary
and she was upset when she was told he's not at Miami Memorial Park. I wound
up photocopying a list of all cemetaries in Miami, and next week I'll run down
the list in an effort to help Eloise find
her husband.
After the services and paperwork were straightened out, Mr. Durham went to
see the graves of his mother and father. They were both buried at Miami
Memorial, and there are either four or six plots still owned by the Durham
family there. Who knows, maybe Sandy and I will wind up in Miami again
afterall?
Finally, by 12:30pm everything was said and done. The Durhams (and Eloise)
took off to find a diner and then head home. Sandy and I went to go get
some Cuban Food at La
Carreta. Although it's not as good (in my opinion) as Latin American, it's
still pretty good..
After lunch we went and saw Karen and her three kids. We met their tenants
dog ("molly
the manatee"), which although this picture is not of Molly, I think
you'll get the drift...
Geordan got home a little while later and we hung out until about 4pm. Sandy
and I were both coming down with a
cold and were rather antsy to get back to our own house. Of course,
about 10 minutes after leaving Geordan's house we were caught in a minor
rainstorm. To make matters
more interesting we were also caught in a
little traffic. Oh yeah, I did mention the
weather,
right?
It took us many hours to get home, about 2 hours longer than normal. The
weather was really pretty bad and driving on the turnpike was a challenge.
When we finally made it back to our neighborhood, we found that we couldn't
drive up to our house because
of the amount of water in the street. I called Philip and asked him if he
had this problem earlier, and while I was talking to him the water raised a
whole foot -- aye caramba! (btw, those photos were taken Friday morning, after
the water had a night to recede).
Well, it's Friday. I've got a cold. Sandy's got a cold. Our street is
now dry. I have a yard to pickup. I'll get the photos from the past week
(or so) on the album sometime
this weekend.
(Addendum. here's a picture of molly
the manatee)
Posted at: 21:43 on 28/03/2003
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