Schreiber

I shouldn't complain. This is totally first-world problems, and I had a perfectly ok birthday party. But...

My aunt has scheduled my uncle's memorial service for the Saturday of Thanksgiving. In Ithaca. For a number of reasons (including the fact that I should really help out with things like picking my mom up from the airport) this means that going up to Maine for the weekend, as I'd planned, is pretty much a non-starter. This is bugging me for a couple of reasons:

1a. Last year, doing pre-Thanksgiving with Dad&Friends, then TG Dinner itself with my brother, was really pleasant; I'd hoped to do a repeat.

1b. Over the years since my divorce, I have done Thanksgiving dinner with various friends and family. (Thank you all for your hospitality, whether on DW or no!) However, there are...certain things you grow up expecting from TG, just because of how your family always does things; and none of the various Thanksgivings I've attended have fulfilled 'em, barring last year; and that means I come away from thanksgiving feeling really weird about the whole business.

2. This was going to be my only actively pleasant major public holiday this half of the year. Christmas, I am going to be alone; New Year's, I am going to be entertaining Peter.


(And ironically, I'm not at all sure that my uncle WANTED a memorial service.)
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I should finish writing about my uncle. And about my car adventures.
And I should write to my remaining grandmother.

For the moment, I'm going to go home and cook dinner. And probably drink heavily.

(Yes, before you ask, I voted. At like 8 this morning. What do you take me for?)

I know I really shouldn't be surprised, or amazed, or ask why.
But everything I do, now, seems to require two rounds of online forms, two or three more rounds of paper forms, and then dealing with some problem of incomplete, incorrect, or missing paperwork...