09.07.05 [CA]

yesterday's service was nice; joe gave a moving eulogy with his aunt, and the earnest young priest dealt well with the fact that 75% of the mourners didn't even pretend to be catholic. he offered non-believers the option of crossing their arms over their hearts and receiving a generic blessing in place of communion (the physicality of which was a strong reminder of entering water slides with my sisters in the late '80s). he also lost his holy water en route to the cemetery and had to bless a bottle of spring water on the fly. i found that quite endearing.

i solved the mystery of the quality inn's MARTIANS WELCOME sign at checkout this morning. when i asked the clerk if there was a convention in town, she handed me the lyrics to "here come the martian martians" and said that her boss just loved the song. a note at the end added that You could do yourself no better favor than to go to Amazon and buy everything Jonathan Richman has ever recorded. bless you, flagstaff quality inn.

1 comment:

sara gordon said...

sounds like things went, shall i say, well enough. the last catholic funeral i went to, for josh's aunt, was terribly impersonal. and her family is was very broken up by the loss and ther was a lot of sobbing and emotions ran high in stark contrast to the service. funerals are difficult in so many ways.