Last Month
He died at the end of June.
I knew him to talk to him, which I did last when I ran into him in February at the UWO Athletic Banquet. I worked with his mother. I directed his long-time girlfriend in a play. Just some kid you see around.
First we heard about the accident, the SUV that ran over a median and into his car. They closed the roadway for hours. He was in critical condition, with severe injuries to most of the left side of his body. When he finally regained consciousness he had no idea what had happened. But the e-mails keeping friends and well-wishers up to date kept improving with his condition. He'd need a year of surgery and an indefinite amount of physio, but he would gradually rebound.
Three weeks after his accident, almost to the day, an embolism took him out. He was nineteen.
The lines ran long at the visitation.
There's no moral to see here. Move along.
Last Week
My two-day visit back to the home town went as expected. I took my mother various places; she's getting worse and I suspect she won't know us by next summer. Fragments of memories and personality drift through her conversation. She continues, however, to knit and play piano. She has her old piano in her room, and she often plays the one in the lounge. Either draws a small crowd of residents. She enjoys it, though she seems to tire out after two or three numbers.
We watched part of O Brother, Where Art Thou? She likes the music.
We drove to my aunt and uncle's new house on Sand Bay. I got caught up on family stories. Their front window features a great view of sand through trees and the water’s edge. I gathered some Lake Superior sand for Chiisuta.
Back in the city I saw one of those cymbal-crashing wind-up monkeys at Value Village, the kind that were once part of childhood and now seems to be associated with creepy movies. I didn't buy it.
Every morning the trucks drove through town carrying impossible oversized pieces. One transport pulls a single blade the size of the usual trailer. They're assembling a massive wind farm near Prince Township. My brother the engineer has a key role overseeing this project. It's impressive and amusing to see the least-communicative member of my family quoted all over the local media as general manager of "wind operations."
I caught one of my niece's soccer games. A cousin played on the opposing team. They were assigned to each other and during calls and such kept pushing each other and laughing about it. We wondered if the ref would call them on it. Soccer's big at their house, and it seemed I couldn't step inside without seeing the World Cup, usually in prerecorded replays.
Yesterday
I was sorry Jenny and Jeremy had to change their plans, and couldn't make it up Saturday to Sunfest. We had a good day even though the act I most wanted to see couldn't get into the country and the alternative booksellers weren't there this year. I hung around with Singularity Girl and her current. Most amusing moment: Jamaican-born Pat translating Lazlo's between-song patter for her, after she heard a statement about "rights" as one pertaining to "rice." They left to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and I slept under a tree and listened to the music and the crowds until my wife came 'round. Some kids played some kind of Star Wars-themed game, which seemed to involve declaring themselves characters and then climbing all over the World War II "Holy Roller" tank. The M.C. at one stage wore a long robe which is traditional somewhere in the world and kept using a line about being hit on by guys because it's the local Gay Pride week. No one laughed, but he kept using it, apparently possessed of the notion that the joke would get funnier at some point. We stayed until the crowd became viscously thick, around 8:00.
We have to decide today whether we'd rather watch the World Cup from the very start or see the Pride Parade from Sunfest (the route runs alongside the park). Dang cross-programming.
S.G. leaves for Sarajevo this week. She's nervous as hell about the flight and about a return to the place of a childhood that was interrupted by siege and shelling.
Some journeys home are more difficult than others.
I just read Dimview's daylog, posted at about the same time. The nearly-identical lines are a very odd coincidence.
UPDATE (5:45 EST): Went to Sunfest for a bit, caught the tail end of Pride. Headed for nearby Kool's. Two guys left shortly after arrival, providing seats at the bar. Watched the rest of the nailbiter World Cup. Saw the spontaneous Italian Pride parade. Italian and French and Gay Pride flags look surprisingly similar. Gave Roy copies of the photos I took of him awhile back. Walked home. Actual sequence of events may not resemble sequence in which I've typed them in this update.
Oh yeah.
So this guy walks up to the bar and orders a pitcher of Kilkenny. The woman working bar asks how many glasses they need.
THIS GUY: We already have glasses.
WOMAN WORKING BAR: Are those the same glasses we served the 50 in?
THIS GUY: Yeah.
She grimaces, turns and gets new glasses
WOMAN WORKING BAR: Is three enough?
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