rhapsodic.org is a weblog by Valette Keller

Goodbye, Uncle Dave

One of the problems with relying on electronic communication to pass on vital family information is that not everyone gets said information.

The whole family isn't addicted to the internet (by the size of my family blog list in the sidebar you may think I'm lying, but honey, that isn't even the immediate family), and the whole family doesn't check their email every day. And some of us don't check some of our myriad email addresses as often as other addresses.

I found out about very important, very vital piece of information hours after it was available online, which was hours and hours after it was available from my email inbox. An email I usually don't check at work, but I had been because I was expecting this news for a few days. Just not today.

A blog is a shitty way to find out that a close family friend has died.

Since leaving work early, I cannot stop thinking about death and funerals and food and annual shopping trips and the tree swing and playing in Uncle Dave's shop while he made dental crowns and bridges and the giant gold ring he gave to Aunt Judy and his huge mustache and how he was so different when I saw him in September, his body betraying him by falling apart.

To counteract that, I give you three things that have caused me to laugh, actually laugh with an audible sound, today since I got home, in order by which I came across them:

• In competitive Crate Racing, I fear there are no real winners.
• Trivial Pursuit: Drunk Edition
• Knock, knock