Catching up

I need to apologize for my lack of posts this week... I'm still working on compiling the wicked time I had on my sporadic side trip to Kentucky, Columbus and St. Louis. Unfortunately upon arriving home I found out that one of my Mom's best friends had passed away.

My youngest brother was finishing up exams this week, and to not distract him with something he can't change we didn't tell him. This meant that I couldn't post anything about it... I had no idea how hard it would be... here they are, they have been distracting me from finishing my road trip awesomness.

December 13th - It was a 4 house seagull day today, don't leave the house without an umbrella.

I chauferred my Mom around today while she attempted to unravel the tangled mess of executorship. Being an innocent bystander gave me a chance to observe the proceedings... and all I could think the entire time was, that there has got to be a better way to do this.

I mean of all the things in life, only death and taxes are certain. So why on earth is it so damn complicated when someone dies? This should practically be an art form by now.

We met with a nice lady at the funeral home, and pre-filled some of the paperwork out. Discovered that not only do you pay extra on flights if you are over-wide, you also have to pay extra to be cremated. Seriously go figure. Apparently they have to order the cardboard tray in special from Nigeria, and each one is hand made by monkeys that were trained as astronauts. They must be, because what else would account for a cardboard tray costing $400 more for the supersize?

After that we talked to the bank and effectively established that we're stuck in a holding pattern until the cause of death has been declared by the coroner... who it sounds like is avoiding the autopsy and checking with her doctor to establish if there is reasonable assumption that it could be 'natural causes'.

Basically it goes like this, the funeral place wants to cremate asap... however they also want to be paid up front. While they can bill the deceased person's bank directly, the executor still needs to check that there are enough funds to cover the expenses. The bank will not tell you yea or nay until they have an officially dead dead certificate, and the funeral place can't give you the officially dead dead certificate until the coroner has confirmed that the person is dead dead, not just mostly dead... and declared the time and cause of death.

So "hurry up and wait".