Lost. Found.

So, I went to that memorial service today. There were a good forty or more people there, and I was in the back of the room, waiting for the family to come in. When they did, there were clearly two daughters and a son, and I couldn't tell which of the daughters was my childhood friend, Jessica. She and her sister both looked so different than I remembered them that either one of them could have been either one. The minister was standing near me at this point, and I asked him, and he pointed her out.

Ah. Sophisticated. Sharp. I was not surprised.

I stood so that when she came toward the back of the room, I could step forward and say who I was, but as she got closer to me, she looked puzzled, and then looked like she got it, and said my name. We were immediately hugging each other. I told her that when I saw the announcement of her mother's death in the paper, I had to come, because I had loved her mother.

She was very touched. After a few minutes, she asked how my mother was, and I told her I had lost both of them about seven years ago. "Oh," she said, "then you know. This is the pits." I told her I did know, and it had surprised me too.

We spoke a bit after the service, too. I didn't go to the repast, which I felt was more for family and close friends. But we vowed to get together again. I met her daughters, one in college, one in middle school. Beautiful girls, like their mother, like their grandmother.

It was a surreal, fulfilling experience.

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In other news, I worked on my closet all morning and when I got back, and to my amazement, it's done. My living room now looks like a rummage sale is going on there, and I actually had it all tidied up before I started the closet. I took three sets of plastic bin drawers on rollers out of my closet (two out of the closet, one out of the bedroom), so they're in there, not to mention about eight pair of jeans that I have decided I'm not squeezing back into just yet. (Or ever, probably.) And empty boxes, and other stuff.

In the meantime, K was working on her room, which I went to help her with when I was done with mine. We got her closet completely cleaned out, and at least now we know how the mice are getting into her room. Seems that when I had the electrician there to work on some things a while back, he made huge holes in the walls of the closet that have the attic on the other side. It's like a freaking mouse freeway up there. So now I need to call someone to come and sheetrock the inside of the closet and plug all the holes up.

The SCM, of all non-home-handy people, told me that he had mice in an apartment once, and he was told to stuff steel wool into the cracks. This won't work for the closet, since I'm talking about holes the size of a man's fist, but I did work on some corners and such. We had also suspected that they had made a home in the bottom of a couch we have up there (used to be my mother's, a love seat, actually) but we moved it and everything was clean, thank god. But it's time for that to go, too, so I need to make a lot of phone calls on Monday.

Looks like a busy next few days, between calling to get this work done, getting my car fixed -- the dashboard lights are sometimes on, sometimes not -- voting and watching the results, packing to go away, and going away on Wednesday. If only I didn't have to go work on Tuesday, but it's an in-service day -- closed for the kids, open for the teachers.

I changed the reservations for both of the hotels we're going to stay in, since neither one of them, as it turned out, had the one essential thing that the Hubs, as it turned out, wanted: wireless Internet in the rooms. Now we got it, even though one of the hotels, I think, will cost as much as a new car, but hey, you know, we don't buy new cars, and it's our only vacation. It's also adjacent to the historic district, or the pedestrian mall, or whatever it is they have down there, and I think very close to UVA as well, which they say is the most beautiful college campus in the country.

Packing for a car trip is so different than packing for flying. I have so much room to work with that it makes me giddy with delight. Doesn't fit in the luggage? Put it in a shopping bag on the back seat! Bring my own pillow! Bring the giant economy size of everything! Bring food in a cooler! And all this while I'm glued to the TV Tuesday night. Oh please, please, let there just be a definite outcome before we leave the house on Wednesday.


WATCHING WEST WING MARATHON :: ENTRY #1896
READING: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen