Thursday, December 24, 2009

After the Funeral

So Cat's Grandpa died over the weekend after several days of not having any brain activity. Several of Cat's relatives poked him, whispering things to the effect of "Teddy, you forgot to turn your body off when you left." So Cat's Mom and Bother were their when he actually died. Then everyone descended on the house (including little children - ah!), and they had a Big Fat Polish Funeral. In addition to black and white, many people wore red - I guess that's from the Polish flag. Also Cat's Grandpa wore it all the time. And they served Polish sausage at the luncheon - and a concertina player (that's an accordion folks) played polkas through the luncheon. Cat says the grave site thing was nice. They put him next to Cat's Uncle Scottie - she's glad the little boy isn't alone now. They did the Catholic prayer thing and then the V.A. did their bit. They were too cheap to get him hearing aids while he was alive, but they did send four nice young service men to help the old guys do the gun salute thing and the stuff with the flag.

Cat's birthday sort of got postponed - you know people were busy with other things that had to be done so they could bury Grandpa on time. That was okay - Cat didn't feel like having a fuss then anyway. Though her Aunt decided last minute to make a cake, and that was good. Not a lot of fuss - just enough to know it wasn't forgotten. So one of these days, Cat will actually have her birthday.

Christmas is also low key, though we do have plenty of presents to guard. Sheepy seems to want to steal them . . . we'll have to keep an eye on her.

Hopefully, we'll get to see some of our friends before we get dragged back to Champaign or out to Michigan, but plans are still really shaky and Cat's not sure when she's going to be where.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Bad News, Bad Time

Cat's Grandpa is dying. It sucks. We're in Michigan instead of under the Christmas Tree at home or at Cat's Mom and Dad's.