Two Stories

I know, I know, its been awhile. Man, do I have some stories to tell you! Sometimes life is like that where events just line up all at once and then you go through dry spells. I guess what I can do is summarize a few of my updates first.

1) We (ok, really just I) fixed the blue screen of death on the second computer. I figured it had been long enough waiting for my husband to tinker with it with all of his free time. Read: there is no free time. The sucker had been down since Feburary 6th. Yes, you read correctly: Feburary 6th (but who's counting, right?). I did some research to see who was reputable and hired Bruce from Computer Housecalls to come out without the consent of my husband. I wanted it to be a surprise. 2.5 hours later of Bruce scratching his head from all of the security measures put into place he commented, "Well, if this doctor thing doesn't work out, your husband could have a job being a systems administrator for Fort Knox. I've never seen such security measures on a private computer in my life and I've been in the business for 13 years." I had to laugh. My guy encrypted the system network as a Macintosh (we have PC's), made it invisible for everyone but our computers, and had "creative" passwords on everything that were somewhere around 30 characters long. Yup, this is my husband, God love him. Poor Bruce was so confounded with J's security measures that were protecting our banal photos of Edgar and some spreadsheets from our wedding 2 years ago, that somehow all of our data was lost. He felt terrible and after admitted sleepless nights and another 1.5 hours, he refunded some of our money. He was a great guy who had integrity and I would totally recommend him. Its not his fault that he was disarmed from our own private version of Fort Knox. Some of you may be wondering how J felt about my surprise. "Violated." Yup, that was exactly what he said.

2) My Godmother was back visiting her family and spent time with my mom a couple of weeks ago. She was telling her how upset her children were that she wrote her will and decided to donate her body to science. They were upset that they wouldn't have a place to go visit her...like in the ground. (God, that's creepy) Upon this, my mom shared a story of her own.

Back when my grandfather died (Pop, the one with Alzheimer's, back in Oct 2005), he had his body donated to the local medical school for research. Apparently last Christmas my Aunt got a UPS delivery with all of her other Christmas packages, this one labeled from the University of Utah. Pop's ashes had arrived in a neat small, but dense, box. She has a wicked sense of humor and called my mom to say, "Well, Daddy's here." All 3 sisters swore each other to secrecy not to tell Ginny as it was around Christmas and they didn't want to upset her. Pop got put in the basement next to the wine and canned goods. A few months later, Ginny began to perseverate on where in the hell her husband was. After all, it had been over two years. Well, she called the school of medicine who informed her that my Aunt had indeed signed for his remains. Ginny, also with the wicked sense of humor, called my Aunt to say, "I hear you have an unusual house guest." It took my Aunt a minute to figure out what she was talking about, because by now, Pop's ashes were just hanging out and quite easily forgotten. Ginny was apparently quite upset that none of the girls told her as she had a "right to know, dammit." I don't think she wants to visit the ashes per say, but apparently Pop is just going to hang out next to the cases of wine, old bundt pans, and whatnot until Ginny's remains get returned from the medical school as well and then, we're all supposed to spread them somewhere together.

I've asked that my husband also donate my body to science like the rest of my family. His response was, "Hell, no." He used to be an anatomy instructor and really does not want me to be hung up in a cold locker by my ears until they use me. I figure, why not? God, just don't bury me. This is ironic as I have a death fear of fire, but I couldn't imagine being in the ground where its dark, dank, and icky.