Last Call

The final batch

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I ration my mom's martini intake. I mix up a batch, then pour a single martini into each jam jar and lock them away. For this batch I carefully counted out the jars we'll need to get us to our departure date. Who needs x-es on calendar squares? We have mixed drinks.

Just a bit ago, I got the automated call from the sheriff's office regarding the tsunami. We are not being asked to evacuate. Which is good. Very good. I gasped though as the message unfurled. 8.3 magnitude earthquake in Chile. Tsunami forming. Holy crap. I stopped breathing for a minute as I imagined waking my mom and getting her into the car and remembering to put the wheel chair in the car, in case the traffic jammed in a mass exodus and we had to run for it.

There's still quite a bit of martini mixed up in that gin bottle. Note to self: if you do have to evacuate, take the bottle!

My mom continues to talk about going home. I think she will get lots of visitors. Tonight at dinner she reviewed her burial plans: she wants to be cremated and then have the ashes buried in my father's grave. She has a plot next to his that I guess was purchased for her at the same time his was, but she's very clear that she does not want to be buried there. I assured her that I understood. That other grave though--she's obsessed with it. It shouldn't go to waste, she says. We own it. I should be buried there, she says. Or my brother should be buried there--it drives her crazy that good money was spent on it and no one has plans to rest eternally there.

What are you going to do with your body? she asked. I told her that I was going to be cremated and leave instructions for my children to deposit the ashes in the Mississippi, the Seine and the Aegean. I hope they'll take those trips together. Then again, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind about all of that. It would be nice if I had a good 20 or so years to think about that.