boredom

I don't think i ever said that Schewan quit. She and her husband had been living in different states, and she decided to go home and focus on her marriage rather than her career. I was just talking to her on the phone. She's thinking about becoming an optician. Mortician/optician, just move some letters around and it'll be a whole new career. So i got a new funeral director, but he only comes over here from the main funeral home to make arrangements or to do funerals, he doesn't stay over here. I get pretty bored trying to entertain myself sometimes. You can only search the web so much. This chapel is such the red-headed stepchild. While i was eating lunch, I scanned the newspaper and there was an article about pre-planning funerals, with a huge full page ad for the other funeral home. One tiny sentence that they also own this one. Hey, what about getting me some business??? We get a business card size ad in the thrify nickel. What the heck kind of advertising is that? Of course i'm gonna get the bottom of the barrel clientell if they only advertise once in a great while and i'm right next to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet coupon. Get a buck off your lunch and then call for a low-cost cremation. If you turn the page you could get your gutters cleaned at a discount as well. Give me some work!

travels

Steve leaves again this morning to go to his office. He has about a three hour commute from our home to the airport to another airport to his offfice. Generally he's gone M-F, but I got to see him for an extra day this weekend and he's not leaving till this morning. I hate it when he leaves. I'm okay once he's gone and arrived there safely, but i hate the saying goodbye part. Probably even more because of my job, but I always worry a little, what if this is the last time i see you. What if you don't come home for some horrible reason. I can picture his funeral, of course I'd have it here, at my work. I picture who would come from which different walk of our life together. I feel the loss as if it's already happened. All this occurs in the ten minute drive to the funeral home after saying goodbye. I have to shake myself out of it, remind myself that he's made this trip hundreds of times, and that even if he were home with me tonight, I still wouldn't be guaranteed tomorrow with him. It's not that i think these thoughts everytime he leaves, only once in a while, thankfully. Only today I wondered, what if it's me who doesn't go home? Weird. We have all these plans and all these ideas about how we'd like to spend the next few months, years, decades, but i guess everyday i'm faced with people who had those same plans. Grrr. Today is a rainy GRAY day and i'm ready to go back home and crawl under the covers.

What I've learned in a year

1. Sitting at a desk all day adds inches to my butt.
2. I hate having to check a person in the morning of their second day of viewing to be sure their eyes and mouth are still closed and to be sure no liquid has escaped their lips or nose.
3. I really hate having to then close their eyes or mouth.
4. I really, really hate having to then wipe up any liquids.
5. Mean people do suck.
6. There's a difference between grief and just plain butthead. I don't mind when someone isn't at their best and is forgetful or a little short and it's obvious that they are in pain. I do mind when someone uses death as an excuse to be the angry jerks that they already are.
7. I don't like smelling like a dead person. It sometimes sticks in my nose even after i go home and change clothes.
8. I feel tired alot and it's not so much physical.
9. I feel immensely satisfied that my tiredness may have just helped someone else be less tired themselves.
10. I'm still learning. Every day.
11. Fighting siblings should be shot, no matter their age.
12. EVERYONE thinks funerals should be free.
13. My husband is amazingly patient and supportive, allowing me to yak for hours when a family has really gotten to me or just holding me and letting me "be" when I'm sad or laughing with me at some stupid stuff that goes on here.
14. Every piece of paper in every archive file cabinet, book, or box represents a human life and I am awed by the numbers of pages.
15. We each face our maker after this. Doesn't really matter if we believe it or not. We still meet Him.
16. All military wives KNOW their husbands can still fit into their service uniforms, which they wore when they were 20.
17. Doors do open by themselves.
18. Occassionally someone listens in on my phone calls (I see the line light up from the other -empty- office), has called one particular lady at least twice (she's starting to get a little freaked out), and answers the phone when i'm talking on the first line but doesn't speak to the caller.
19. People in this industry are a little twisted (myself included??).
20. This is my second career. I still don't know what my third will be.