a whirlwind of a day

i have been awake for 35 hours straight... but going strong... the last 23/24 hours are nothing at all what i would have expected them to be at this time yesterday.

8:15pm: i call roommate to see how her day is going, our call gets dropped mid sentence and i call back and leave a voicemail (this happens... neither of us are places where we get excellent reception)

8:45pm: roommate calls to tell me that just after we hung up before (just 30 minutes before) her mom died peacefully... we cry together on the phone for a bit

10pm: after sobbing for awhile on the porch, roommate calls back with specific funeral details and requests i show up monday morning/by lunchtime (this is at 10pm sunday night)

10:30pm: completely unpacked and needing to do laundry, i schedule a 6am flight that requires me to leave for the airport at 4:30am

11pm: i proceed to cry and freak out about the situation at hand... eric and me go on a field trip to pick up scott (who doesn't have a car) so he can eat ice cream with me and read me kids books

11:30pm: while we're out, me, scott, and eric stop by ben's place and kidnap him

12 midnight: scott and eric make root beer floats for us all, eric and scott read go dog go and fox in socks to cheer me up a little... the four of us (eric scott me and ben) laugh quite a bit

1am: eric and scott go home -- i'm exhausted, my eyes are bloodshot, and i have 3 hours to pack...

1-4am: ben decides to stay the night and make sure i don't freak out about packing on short notice on so little sleep... we watched "brother bear" while my laundry was going, and he made grits while i showered and packed

4:30am: a mere 8 hours after i got word about kristin's mom, i'm letting ben drive me in my car to the airport

6-8am: fly from newark to chicago

8am-11am: layover in chicago, midway

11am-noon: fly from chicago to toledo, OH

since then, when roommate and her dad picked me up at the airport, we've been running errands... first a mennonite buffet lunch place, then we went to pick out the flowers for the arrangement that will be on the casket this week, then went to the funeral home to meet with the funeral director for kristin's dad to sign a lot of papers... kinda surreal all in all.

other than that, i do whatever they're putting me to work doing and spend a lot of time playing with their dog and 4 cats... kristin's dad gave me the job of reserving a rental car and a hotel room for the florida part of their week...

all that said, it's gonna be a looong rest of the week:

tomorrow: wake/visitation from 1-5pm, 7-9pm.
wednesday: visitation from 10am-1pm, funeral from 1-2, i fly in reverse of what i did this morning, leaving toledo at 6pm and getting to newark for eric to pick me up at 12:30am (i.e. at night)
thursday: kristin and her dad will fly to florida, as will her mom's casket...
friday: they'll have a graveside burial service in clearwater, florida... kristin has several school friends from SC who will be there, and the ticket prices are pretty insane, so i won't be there for that part.

in the meantime, more errands and stuff with roommate -- back in touch when i'm back in jersey.