Ten Good Things From Yesterday

My Aunt Jeanne passed away last week. A kind, loving person who lived a good life by any definition. She was 89, and while I hadn't seen her for a long time, she did keep in touch with my Mom until she had a stroke and couldn't do so. Yesterday was her funeral.

From my side of the family at the funeral. Last time we saw them was at my Dad's funeral about eleven years ago. My son has no memory of that (he was four), so he got to see cousins he has never met.

About two hours round trip, and we had a chance to get the kid to talk about family and not stare at his phone.

Spent a good deal of time outside at the cemetery, on a warm almost spring day. Just had to keep away from shadows - there it felt like winter.

After parking the car in a town parking lot near where we went for the repast, got to talking to family members instead of focusing on paying for parking. Learned the lesson - yet again - to "pay attention to the task at hand". I ended up jamming my credit card in the cash slot. Long story short, I got the card back (see below), but not without the requisite embarrassment of explaining to other "parkers" why I was standing there.

As I was trying to get the card out, two young ladies came up and I explained how I'd jammed the cash slot up. They both had knives - one had a small pocket knife, the other had a larger, probably slightly illegal in NJ, one - and both tried to get it out. No luck. Also had a convo with a younger man who needed to pay with cash. I had called the police to get some help (they were sending someone) and we talked about family (he has two boys and a girl), and how they were all musicians. He could have gotten po'ed at me, but was very nice and kind enough to wait around until the parking dept. came and rescued my credit card. And the officer was quite nice as well.

A dear friend celebrated his 60th birthday with a bar hop day in Asbury Park. Not a big drinker, but was thinking about going to see him and other mutual friends. But, the funeral came up. Was able to at least get a feel for how much fun folks had.

The food at the repast was very good - and it was a buffet!

While the food was very good, I had just one plate, with small samples of each dish. Could have eaten two more full plates, but didn't.

As we left, got all four of my cousins to agree to find a way to get together relatively soon, but not for a funeral. Hope that happens.