Where have I been?

The last time I wrote, I was heading off to a fantastically dreaded vacation with my future in laws...

1. The Vacation:
Actually, it was not that bad. J is pretty anti-person so we ended up spending a lot of time alone. Plus, I spent most of the vacation with a drink in hand. We swam in the ocean. We went on a dolphin cruise. One day all of us went into historic Savannah. I loved it. Savannah is amazing. We went on a trolly tour and even visited a house that had been on my most favorite show, Ghost Hunters. Then the vacation ended early.

2. The Funeral:
Tuesday, after the splendid dolphin cruise, I got a phone call from my brother. He started with, "You may not want to call mom for a few minutes. She's really upset." My first thought was that my father, who owns a trucking company and spends a bulk of his time under semis, dropped a truck on himself. Actually, it was my uncle.

I know that this is not the best way to break news like that but how else am I supposed to say it? He was working on a truck and it fell on him and ran him over and it was a terrible shock and a horrible thing to learn when you are so far away from all of your family. J was awesome. I mean, he let me cry and he said right away that we would be there for the funeral. He was even a pal barer (sp?). We left on Thursday instead on Saturday and drove from Hilton Head Island, SC to north of Detroit, MI in one day. THe funeral was horrible. I have never cried at a funeral before.

What makes it even harder is this: I have a huge extended family. My father is one of four. My mother is one of eight. Each of my mom's siblings have at least three children. My mother is about 22 years younger than her older siblings and grew up with my cousins. Randy, the uncle who died so suddenly, was the nearest to her in age and, well, nearness. Him and his wife went on vacations with my parents. They liked the same stuff. When I was little, they would drink and eat and play games at my kitchen table. It was terrible loss that my parents felt so harshly which made it even harder on me. There are some people that you should never have to see cry.

3. The Great Disaster:
The library I work at is now "circulation driven," which means that the books which circulate the most (fiction) have the largest room and the books that circulate the least (non-fiction) have the smaller room. Only, we have more non-fiction than fiction, which was pretty cramped in the smaller room to begin with.

Don't get me wrong, it looks very nice upstairs... if you don't know that we withdrew something like 3000 books to make it fit and it still doesn't. And what a nightmare the job was! We moved the complete non-fiction section no less than 4 times last week. This has been a display of complete incompitence. I often wonder why people make so much more than me and lack common sense.

4. Getting it Together
I celebrated another wonderful birthday with my wonderful friends and it has left me feeling a little more grown up. I am ready to step back into the driver seat and take on the things that need to be taken on.

Glad to be back. More writing junk soon.