I'm back from my uncle's funeral and it was everything I thought it would be: tremendously sad, unspeakably hilarious and ultimately uplifting.
It was so great to hear everyone's funny, touching stories about him and to meet so many of the people who loved him and we all of us laughed like crazy and wept like little girls and drank a little and got a little loud and talked about how great the memorial service was and planned all of our own funerals.
I'm going to have to take some notes later to remember what specific kind of sausage one of my aunts would like at her wake and which of my 16 cousins would like an open casket and a large fake mustache.
All in all, it was pretty sweet and I'm so glad I got to be there with my family.
Also, no one else has died in the interim so...SCORE!
After all the festivities and a long journey there and back, it was also pretty sweet to remember that hey! We're on vacation! At the end of it all, I got rejoin Katr and our pooch at the beach cabin we'd rented for 10 days!
I'd say we had four main expectations when we booked the cabin:
1. That the house would be modern and comfortable.
2. That we'd be close to town so that we could go exploring.
3. That I could let the dog run free on the beach for hours at a time, like doggy BayWatch.
4. We could swim.
For 99% of humans, all of these expectations would be met by this cabin. For fatties with a fussy dog, however...
Well, the cabin is beautiful - it looks like it's out of a magazine and it's right on the water. There's a big kitchen that's a delight to cook in, a well-appointed bathroom, a comfortable living room area, a TV & DVD and wifi. Basically, it's exactly as advertised and looks just like the pictures.
What the pictures don't show you is that:
1. Our dog is a princess whose tender city-dog paws can barely handle the rocky shore, to the point where she refuses to leave the yard around the house.
2. The beach is rocky - the closer you get to the water, the bigger the rocks. These rocks shift under your feet and make it difficult to walk. But when the tide is low, you can brave a few meters of rocks and then walk along the sand! Except I can't, because if you are a heavy person, you will sink into the sand up to your mid-thighs and get stuck there, bleating for help as your useless dog scampers up towards some neighbour's lawn. If you can free yourself by falling forward and clawing your way to the safety of the rocks, you may survive. If you can't, you will be claimed by the inexorable advance of the sea.
3. There were a lot of steep, oddly slanted stairs to get down from the car to the cabin. We didn't know this ahead of time and we packed like we were headed to the Yukon. We were both sure we were having heart attacks by the time we'd brought all of our stuff down to the cabin. And then the idea of going up the stairs again to LEAVE the house to drive around or go grocery shopping seemed like an insurmountable task. I KNOW THAT THIS IS JUST US. And that we are pussies. So zip it.
So as it turns out, it's awesome that the cabin itself is so lovely, because we're spending all of our time essentially trapped in here. Eschewing pants. "Relaxing". If you know what I mean. And I think that you do.
