Back in the city.
I got here around 3:30. I wasted some time late this morning trying to find a place that sold gas. There has been a run on gasoline in Nova Scotia in the last few days, and more and more places are selling out. The places that still have gas, are experiencing ever-longer line ups of folks queuing up to buy petrol. Meanwhile, there has been at least one container vessel in Halifax harbor awaiting whatever process is required at the Esso refinery before gasoline can be delivered across the province.
Anyway, after I wrote my post last evening, I struggled getting to sleep. I tossed and turned and turned and tossed until the process resembled that Bobby Lewis song from 1961.
After too few hours sleep I got up, around 7:30. I ate something and washed the dishes and frigged off for a little while before I left the house in search of a place to top off my gas tank. Along the way, I ended up at my parents' grave. I still think of them a lot, especially Mom since her death was more recent and far more sudden and unexpected. Dad had circled the drain for years and we had lots of time to prepare for his death, which was almost anticlimactic when it finally happened.
I hung around their graves for a little while, and wandered up to see my father's parents. I never knew my father's father, as he died in 1952, years before I was born. His mother died when I was 13 and I remember her well. She had a hard life and made some decisions that still make me scratch my head, like why did she give up living in the family home to accommodate her son and his family, and accept living in a place that had no bathroom facilities for years and years? I sure as frig wouldn't, and neither would you.
Since I was nowhere near depressed enough yet, I walked around the cemetery a bit more. I picked up a couple Tim Horton's cups that had made their way to one plot and found the grave-to-be for my former dentist. He is retired and enjoying it I think, along with his wife; but their daughter is buried there. She went to bed one night and did not wake up in the morning. For this to happen at age 12 must have been devastating for the rest of the family. It made enough of an impression on me that I still remember it, nearly 40 years later.
"If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." I am not a very religious dude, but that piece of doggerel runs through my head a lot.
Two more things about my parents' grave. My brother is buried there as well, on the other side. And the year of Mom's death still hasn't been filled in yet, 7 months after the funeral. How long does it take to fill that in, anyway?
I left the cemetery and found a place that sold gas in nearby Coldbrook. I bought some lunch first, and then topped up the tank, before I drove my way through Kentville and New Minas and then into Port Williams, up Belcher Street to Tiny Parrish Road, to Church Street and to the family home. A roundabout way that would make the typical taxi driver sit up and take notes.
I gathered my stuff, locked up the house and returned to the city, arriving here at 3:30. Patricia and I spent some time watching a couple episodes of Ray Donovan season 2, and now I am down here writing this and wondering if I have enough gumption to watch "Fear The Walking Dead" this evening. If I decide I have enough gumption, I have to ask myself then whether I want to watch it tonight or if it is good enough to watch it tomorrow night through my pvr, minus the commercials. Hard to say.
Sorry for being such a buzz kill tonight. I am in one of those moods that make me introspective and contemplative. I will try to be more chipper Monday night.
Wait a minute. Chipper, after the first day back to work?
Never mind.
I will be happier on Tuesday.
See you tomorrow, though.
Bevboy
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