etc.

in the past 24 hours...

* my aunt priscilla and i went dress shopping for my cousin heather's wedding (which is here in pittsburgh next month... heather is priscilla's niece also)... while priscilla didn't find anything she wanted to buy, i got a really cool skirt and matching top, and a cool necklace earrings set to go with, and priscilla insisted on paying "as a late birthday present", which was nice too... perhaps i'll post a picture when i get back to jersey tomorrow... it was also exciting as i fit into another size smaller than last month. :)

* i finally watched the video of my grandma's funeral from last month... it actually wasn't quite as hard for me to do as i had been expecting... part of that may be that the casket wasn't physically in front of me, but just on the TV screen and i was curled up in my aunt's bed with her cat... after watching that (and they videotaped the graveside service and had taken some pictures at the wake that they put as stillshots on the videotape too), my aunt and i chatted up a storm about grandma until we both needed to crash... i think it was good for both of us.

* this morning, my aunt and i bought flowers and soil and went up to the cemetary to plant them on grandma's grave. there's not a headstone yet... just a little sign in the ground with her name and 1928-2005 on it... all in all i think we did a nice job.

across the street from grandma's grave is a cow pasture and the mooing cows made me laugh... grandma's favorite childhood vacation spot was her uncle's cow farm, so somehow that's appropriate for her... i think she would have gotten a good laugh out of watching me and priscilla try to figure out what to put where and to plant the ground without actually stepping over her body... and i think our efforts turned out good.

* since the cemetary is literally just down the street from the nursing home that my grandma had been in for the past 5 years, and since my step-grandpa roy lives there now since he's started having major heart problems and got a pacemaker this summer, priscilla and i stopped there on the way back from the grave.

it's weird to see someone else in grandma's old room, but priscilla's right... somehow the fact that it's an older man instead of another white-haired old lady makes it a little better... anyhow, roy wasn't in his room (down the hall from g-ma's old room), and the nurses told priscilla that he had been taken to the hospital yesterday... (his niece has power of attorney as of last week, (as it should be) so she was the one who got called not us... priscilla requested to be called in the future even though she doesn't have any decision-making authority, just so that we know what's going on)

so we headed down to the hospital to see what was up... roy's in a progressive care unit (a level between general care and critical care)... apparently the blood isn't getting to his brain right, and his blood pressure is really low... he was asleep when we stopped in, but they had him sleeping with his head way back and his legs elevated which looked strange. priscilla, uncle bob, and i will go back later tonight during visiting hours in hopes of catching him awake... we shall see...

i think that's about it... tomorrow i drive back to NJ... ai yai yai.... don't you wish you had had my week? :P