jedibuttercup

One of the most wrenching things about grief, I think, is this feeling of not being able to breathe.

( Cut for more tl;dr about grief, D--, and what comes next... )

Would it be too much, do you think, if I dug around in my photo albums for pix of D-- to take along with the potted flowers when I drop by his parents' house tonight?
~

Something really terrible has happened today. No-- not Granddad. Worse.

There's this family that's lived down the street from mine ever since we moved up from Texas eighteen years ago. Went to the same church for years, their daughter was a year and a half younger than me and their son a few years younger than my brother, and we all got along really well. Their parents and ours still do stuff best-friend-style all the time.

For us, though-- the daughter's married with four babies and I almost never see her; and the son's been in the Army in Korea, so we haven't seen him much in recent years, either. Except he got out just before Christmas. And he and his new wife have been living with his Mom, here, while he arranged things so he could stay in the National Guard, get a regular job, and look for an apartment. I helped him put a resume together just last weekend, so he could look for a job with the local police or correctional institutions.

He went fishing with his brother-in-law today at the coast. Their boat capsized. He was knocked unconscious, according to the brother-in-law, who *was* rescued, and then-- they were separated. They can't find him. His parents took off for the coast with my parents about two and a half hours ago, and I haven't heard anything since. It doesn't look good.

ETA 7PM: For those of you who know this coast-- they were in a little raft-boat up by Pacific City when something happened to the motor, and then it capsized. A-- says he held on to D-- for an hour and a half after it happened, trying to keep them afloat and swallowing water the whole time, before he lost hold of him, and it was awhile longer before Coast Guard picked A-- up. They've found pieces of the boat washing up downcurrent at Neskowin, but no D--; and the water's so cold here-- there's no chance, even if he woke up immediately after A-- lost him, that D-- could have survived. My parents are staying with his at the coast over night; their whole family's there, his wife's been weeping for six hours-- it could be days before they find his body.

I just can't believe it. He was such a good kid-- had his whole life ahead of him. God. Why?
~

I know, I disappeared off the face of the earth immediately after promising a new chapter. *wince* Sorry, writer's block got in the way, and then Real Life popped up and demanded my attention for awhile.

I spent nine hours Wednesday just balancing my accounts. Agh. Remind me never to wait four months to do that, ever again. I thought I had about $500 more than I actually do, because I'd forgotten to record a few things like, oh, my summer course registration fee, the auto insurance payments that were being automatically deducted from my account, etc., etc. *slapping forehead* But now my records on my checking account, student loans, car loan, and credit cards are all in Quickbooks, properly totalled and categorized, and the relevant bills all sorted in my filing cabinet. I felt nicely accomplished afterward.

If it weren't for the promise of unemployment checks starting next week, things might be looking a mite grim, though. Oh, I'm not short on money at the moment, but I only have about a month and a half of cushion for future bills; if I didn't have a source of income, I'd have to put in my 30-day notice with the next rent check. Thankfully, however, it looks like the government will be paying me about 80% of what my employers were, so all I have to do is cut back on things like books and DVDs and fast food and I should be fine until I get hired somewhere.

Thursday I spent some time with Meadhbha. We were meant to have a sewing get-together, but she didn't bring the necessary equipment, so we did a bit of shopping and watched movies instead. The first was "Court Jester", which I am informed is part of the Top Three necessary videos for any SCA member's education. (The other two, of course, are "The Princess Bride" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", both of which I own). It was highly entertaining, but a bit winceworthy, as many of the older comic musicals are. The second movie we watched was "Moulin Rouge", which I never would have seen on my own. Ewan McGregor might be a significant draw factor for me, but my dislike for Nicole Kidman balanced that out, and did I mention that I'm rather picky about musicals? I'm glad to have seen it the once, I suppose, so I can say that I have -- it was quite the experience -- but never again.

Yesterday morning I filled out some applications and voted. Gotta love the Oregon mail-in system, but it took awhile to read through all the informative pamphlets. I may tend to vote Republican, as most of my family does, but I'm registered Independent; I believe in weighing up the facts for oneself and making the decision that feels right, regardless of what the party line or public opinion might be. After that, I spent some time updating some of my other personal files.

Mom's sick. The injectable medication she's been taking for her severe osteoporosis has been making her ill, not as bad as most of the other options, but still not good, so they sent her in for an EKG Thursday to check for the cause of the chest pains she's having and Friday they scoped her upper GI tract to make sure there wasn't any damage there. I hate this. Sometimes it feels like she's been eroding away in tiny fragments for years, and she's only 46. She sounded awful on the phone last night. But at least there weren't any immediately apparent problems.

In slightly better news, my brother scored a 92 on his ASVAB. As long as he does well on his physical, there seems to be no immediate obstacle to his gaining his choice of Air Force career -- air traffic controller. Apparently, due to the high stress nature of the job, applications for the post are a little thin, so he has a decent chance of getting it. Also, as he already possesses an Associate's degree, he'd go straight to Airman First Class. Mom's tense over it, but it's not like he'd be in any combat danger like our friend DS, who is in advanced infantry bootcamp right now and will be on the ground in Iraq after the turn of the year.

Tomorrow, after church, I'm off the parents' house again. Every year, we throw our own private All Hallows' Eve party and watch a collection of horror movies. Not the gory ones, though. A couple of mildly spooky ones like "Sleepy Hollow" are good, but we usually follow them with old cheesy 50's type horror pics like "Them!" or "The Birds" or "Creature from the Black Lagoon". And of course, hot cider and caramel apples and ceramic pumpkins filled with candy.

I did avoid my duty once, 1999 I think, and stayed at Fox instead to host a party.

( Here are a couple of pics from that one. )

Anyway. I suppose I'd better get back to The Mandalorian Armor if I want to have a review for it up within a week of starting it. I bragged about my reading speed, but I'm afraid my AD/HD tends to reduce that drastically when my interest is flagging, and Boba Fett was never the draw for me that the main characters are. Sure, he's cool, but in the end the stories of the various bounty hunters have relatively little impact on the vast story arcs that hold the Star Wars universe together. What I'm really looking forward to is reaching the Thrawn trilogy again, the first EU books I ever bought, but I have the rest of the Bounty Hunter Wars to slog through first, followed by The Truce at Bakura, the first seven X-Wing books, The Courtship of Princess Leia, and Tatooine Ghost. *sigh*

*sniffle* I have a cold, too. First of the fall season; joy. *cough* Hmm. I think I still have a few packets of Earl Grey tea left, and I suppose it's about time I got the lap blankets down out of the cupboard ...