Across the sky I reach for you

Had to take the Beloved Spouse off to the VA to have her tested for corona virus.

No results yet, highly elevated white call count, but lung xray is clear.

I had to leave here there, she's terrified and I am worried. I have hopes that I can bring her home tomorrow.

Good thought and well wishes appreciated.

You must answer three questions:

1. What kind of kaiju/monster are you. You cannot be Godzilla, Mothra, etc. You must be original.

2. What sort of attack/city destroying move do you have?

3. What is your theme music.

I'll go first:

I'd be a GIANT red panda. Anime eyes, with the power to kill you with the cute.
My attach is the cute attack, where my eyes go enormous and sparkly and the people die from the cute.
My theme song is Ya papi from the end credits of Ranma 1/2.

It's so hard at the moment. Every day I go into work and face the pandemic as one of the last responders, after the hospitals and quarantines fail, they come to us. The Covid victims, the detritus left behind by an uncaring and incompetent government.

I work with an amazing crew. They are all terrified as well, like hospitals and care centers we are low on supplies. We currently have gowns and gloves, but masks are long gone and unlikely to reappear soon. Yet, they go out, every day and bring your loved ones to our facility to wait. Wait until they can be cremated or buried. They wait and so do we.

I dream of an end to the puppet regime that sits in our highest office. An end to the misinformation and out right lies spread by Satan in a Spray Tan. That Golden Calf worshiped by the confused, ignorant, and in some cases outright soulless.

Every time I see another press release from He Who Should Not Be Named, my soul shrivels in response. Trapped in a nightmare that we as a nation cannot seem to wake from.

Please, any Deity that is listening, please take pity on our world.

You may ask, why oh glorious mortician do we care about the folks that work in a funeral home. They are just there to make money aren't they? The vultures! They prey on those in grief and make them spend money that could spend better elsewhere....

*clears throat*

I want to make sure that those in the back can hear me as well. Funerals homes are there to make money, they are a business. And like any business they must charge to pay for goods and services, their employees, rent, upkeep, vehicles.....And then there are those in the industry that are there to MAKE MONEY!, and they are the ones you want to avoid. Capiche?

But, I hear you ask, why is it so expensive for funerals/cremation/green burials? That my friends, is a really long and rambling post. Lets start with some definitions, okay?

Funeral Service - also called a memorial service, life tribute, funeral mass... they are all similar in that there is a service of some nature, religious or not, that talks about the deceased, and offers some form of comfort, even if it is just sharing time with others that are grieving.

Cremation - the reduction of the human remains to particulate matter, often called ashes (a misnomer, its particulate bone fragments) via fire and coming very soon to WA state, water. Most funeral homes now offer a witnessed cremation, which means that you are allowed into the area with the retort (cremation machine) and can see your loved one entering it. This can provide a measure of comfort to families and friends.

Green Burial - A fairly new concept for anyone not of Jewish or Muslim faith. Basically the decedent is buried without embalming in a casket of wood (unfinished), a cotton or linen shroud, or nothing at all. Every cemetery has a Jewish/Muslim section where green burials happen. You will likely will have to have a vault placed over, to allow grounds upkeep, but that and the cost of the ground itself is your major costs.

So, now that we have some definitions, lets look into the costs and why its often sticker shock at the funeral home, okay?

A funeral service can be reasonably priced depending on what you are doing. Caskets cost money, some funeral homes have rentals so all you pay for in them is the insert. Dressing and casketing is time consuming and physically taxing. Imaging wrestling a recalcitrant 2 year old into a winter snow suit, now multiply that by 100 and you have what it is to dress a decedent. It is exhausting.
Most churches offer the use of facilities for a nominal fee, and the payment to the clergy for their time. If you have a casket, you will have to have the funeral home transport it to and from the funeral service. This is the LAW in Washington State. Your state may have other requirements.
They have to pay for a driver, usually a licensed director and possibly one to upwards of six assistants to direct the service. They deserve to be paid for their time and the use of the car, be it a minivan or a coach.
Do you want to have police escort the decedent from the funeral service to the cemetery? That also costs money, the escorts have to be paid for literally risking their lives to halt traffic so that your deceased loved one can go from point A to point B without stopping. None of this is inexpensive.

Cremations are reasonably inexpensive, depending on the weight of the decedent (yes, it does really matter, this is coming from a plus sized individual). A witnessed cremation adds some to the cost, as most crematories have to close down all other aspects of the business for you to witness. But services with cremated remains can be free. Meet at a park or local bar and raise a toast to your cremated loved one. Or you can have a service with the cremated remains, just as you can with a whole body at a church. Its really only limited by your imagination.

Green Burials and green cemeteries are springing up all over the place. Depending on the type of green cemetery it is, it can be standard costs to VERY EXPENSIVE. Basically a green cemetery places decedent directly into the ground, no casket required, and allow the decedent to decompose naturally into the soil. This requires that each decedent basically takes the space of what in a traditional cemetery would be three burial spots to allow for the decomposition to not impact the environment around it including water tables. This can be very pricey for the cost of the land. As stated above, most cemeteries have a Muslim or Jewish section where a natural/green style burial can take place.

The best thing to do is to shop around and pre-plan. Really and truly. Every funeral home is required by law to provide you with a General Price List at asking. This can help to alleviate the sticker shock when it comes to death. Do not be afraid to talk to funeral homes and cemeteries about the costs and what they entail. Be proactive and you will be happier.

So, as I said above, this is a long and rambling post, BUT, if you have questions you want to ask, I am a fully licensed Funeral Director and Embalmer in Washington State and will happily answer your questions.

It seems that all I ever do here is bitch, bitch, bitch. But that is why I actually made a blog originally, was to have someplace to bitch about stuff I have no control over.

So here it is the quarterly bitch fest from your truly.

Up until the 4th of July things were going fairly good. The tiny house lady was all settled in, and more yard stuff had been accomplished. Work was being work and very little changes there. Then the Middle Spawn got hit with surprise! divorce papers.

Yeah.

So, then we hear that the MiL has taken the kids and is holding them quasi-hostage, saying that in order for mom to see them she has to sign some papers. Needless to say my kid did not sign no fucking papers. She instead filed a police report.

Flash forward a few weeks ago and the first court date, JAG steps in and says that mom has as much rights as dad, but still the MiL persists on picking up from school, etc.

Then today we get the notice that our Baby Red, the youngest granddaughter is in the hospital for fucking kidney failure and an upper respiratory infection. They are putting in a dialysis port today.

And how, you may ask did this come about? The MiL.

See, Baby Red was born real early (6 weeks preterm), with a host of issues including kidney and bladder complications - which mean that she has very little control over her bladder and urinary functions and wears pull ups to prevent wet clothing. The MiL has insisted that she just needs to use the toilet like a big girl, and let her sit in wet and dirty pull ups.

We are currently looking to see if we can file CPS charges from another state.

I am so fucking pissed off right now about this.

I am just needing to place this out there, somewhere private, or at least as private as the interwebs get.

For those who do not know my family issues, I have 2 daughters that live at home (nothing wrong with this, just laying out the facts). The Eldest has been helping to take care of the Youngest, and has not had the best of luck with jobs in the recent past SO much so that they are seriously depressed and unwilling to think about working for the time being. A bit of a financial strain, but we are making do.

The Youngest is bipolar with a host of other diagnoses, and we've been fighting to get her declared as disabled with SSI - she cannot hold a job, and honestly cannot take care of her self.'

She has been a smoker for a while (a whole host of issues for me in this, but she is an adult and can make her choices), but had finally quit to the relief of all of the family. The stress of the SSI hearings (several over the past 4 years) had her reaching for the cigarettes again. She then came to her sister and said that she wanted to quit again, so started the Chantix program again. It helped the first time, and have hopes that it will the second.

Today had been hell. She's attacked one family member, cut on herself, drank a bottle of vodka and then tried to pick a fight with me when I got home.

I'm just discouraged and saddened by it all, I know its hard for her to quit, and as I told her, "I hate that you smoke, but you are a grown ass woman and can choose to do what you want. Just don't expect me to support you in buying cigarettes for you."

There was a lot of loud voices and statements about perceptions. I doubt that anything will change in the immediate future, but I just needed to vent about the issues to the universe at large and let it go.

It's that time of year again, the rains continue unabated and the rivers rise. My phone is blowing up with flood alerts for the local river. I just want to put on my wellies and go for a walk along the soggy and commune with the drenched world.

I keep cutting my hair shorter and shorter, by fall I'll have shaved my head, or let it start growing back out. I'm not actually sure which I want.

As a result of my work schedule, I rarely have time to sit and read for leisure, so I became an Audible subscriber, which has been a good and a bad thing. On the good side, I've not continued to bring paperback books into the house where there is no place to hold them other than the floor and every flat surface.
On the bad side, I spend at least as much on audio books as I did on hard copy books. So I'm not saving any money.

Yesterday I started to listen to John Wyndham: A BBC Radio Drama Collection: Six classic BBC radio adaptations. I can recommend it to any that like this kind of thing, with all the additional noises and aspects of a radio drama. I am enjoying it quite a bit.

In my job I wear many hats, funeral director, dispatch, removal tech, embalmer, and lead. I have two 'call-out' embalmers that trade off alternating weekends of the month. One of them has gone through two years of chemo and surgery for breast cancer and during that time, if she was on light duty we made accommodations for it and her.

Jump forward 2 years - my second call out embalmer is having some back issues, and the doctor puts her on light duty. She comes in with the note and is told to go home, that she can come back in two weeks with a clear to work note from the doctor.

In the two years between there have been a few that have had light duty that abused the system, but I feel that the response was out of line and uncalled for. It was however the owner of the business that made the call.

I guess that I am just wondering if this is as wrong as I feel that it is?

Lets be honest. We are all going to die. That is the truth, but have you thought about what it means?

I invite you to ask me anything about the death industry, really, anything.

I will respond in an open and honest manner.

I got a note from a long time friend wanting to know if this journal was still active and I realized that I haven't updated in two years.

Time, like a river flows ever on, even when we attempt to hold it back.

In my case I made the realization that I rarely have the opportunity to just sit in front of a computer these days. When I worked for the Evil Empire was in front of one 8-10 hours a day, now I'm lucky to have an hour a day in front of one.the limits blogging and fandom activities pretty quickly.

I'm not complaining, I'm still employed full time in my field and I'm licensed as both a full funeral director and an Embalmer, so the trade-off is fair, but miss the ease participating in fandom.

So, here in a nutshell is what's happened in the past two years....

I am still employed at the mortuary provider and finished my internships. I passed my exams and became fully licensed. I am currently job hunting for something in a more traditional funeral home and have done a couple interviews.

My spouse embraced their inner woman and began transitioning a year ago. The Elder and the Younger Spawn continue to reside at the family home, the Elder working in their chosen field as well. They had planned on moving out, then as typical with life a crisis occurred and that was put on hold. Medical bills to be paid off, etc. Nothing to worry about, just a gall bladder that needed to come out then a reaction to the meds. All it's fine with them now.

The Middle Spawn, the Son in Law, and the Spawnletts moved back to the area for health issues and are doing mostly okay. Time prevents me from seeing then as much as I'd like, and I want to change that for the coming year.