I am surprised at people all the time. The truth of the matter is, I always want to believe in the good in people and am always surprised and many times disappointed in them. My mother outlived 2 husbands. Both marriages were second marriages for the men and they had children from prior marriages. In Joe's case it was 3 daughters who live in Chicago, and never wanted any relationship with their Dad. There were problems there that I don't wish to be judgemental about. Al had 2 daughters that live here, and always seemed to want something from him whenever they were around. They usually needed money, or to borrow the car. Al understood he was being used, but my Mom didn't until after their Dad died and they stopped coming around.

They hung around until they discovered that their Dad didn't leave any money and then they abandoned her. They both owed her large amounts of money that was never paid. They avoided her after she asked them to resume payments of any kind no matter how small because she was needing the money. They avoided her until she died and then they crawled out of the woodwork and into my life briefly. They called a couple of times, offering help and asking what happened to this dish or that knick knack. When they found out that those things were gone or mine they quit calling. They did take their pound of flesh in a way that I felt was very petty. They had no contact with her for over a year, almost two. They never came to the hospital, never stopped to visit when she was between hospital stays nor did they ever send cards or call her on the phone. If she called them, she left messages on their answering machines and never heard from them. Finally she realized that they didn't want any part of her and that hurt.

Last year the gravesite was pretty much in the shade, and thinking in terms of when I'm no longer able to care for it, I asked Biggie T from The Dog House, what plants would do best. He gave me a list of them and since they are perennials, they were quite a bit more expensive than annuals. I arrived with my very expensive plants only to find that the step daughters had taken most of the available planting space for themselves. Cemetery rules allow a planting area the width of the stone, and 14 inches out. Well my plants were beyond the 14 inches. The cemetery didn't say anything because they weren't that far out, so I was happy. Some people suggested I remove the girls flowers because this was MY mother, but their Dad is buried there too, so I just couldn't. I'm not a petty person, but I was upset, very upset.

They planted annuals, so nothing was growing where they had planted this year, and my plants were 16 inches out from the stone which means they have been mowed over. I'd be upset except they wouldn't have survived this year anyway. The tree that was in front of the grave, off to the left which blocked the sun has been removed. The front of the stone is now in full sun from noon on. I'm planting a combination of sun loving annuals and perennials plus I'm using an edging so that the maintenance personnel won't weedwhack them down next year. I have the entire planting area to myself since the girls did not plant anything this year. I guess they've decided to focus on their own mother who is buried on the other side of the dividing road in the same cemetery. Good for them. I wish they'd thought of that last year. I just thought of something. Good things really do come to those who wait.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day and it was called that in my family by both sets of Grandparents. It was always the day we went to decorate the graves of our deceased ancestors. Grannies cemetary picnic usually took place as close to Decoration Day as both weather and her weekends off allowed. It was a day of remembrance dedicated to those who died during the Civil War, observed for the first time on May 30, 1868 when the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers in Arlington Cemetery were decorated. The first state to adopt Decoration Day as a day of remembrance was New York and in 1966, Waterloo, NY was declared by President Lyndon B. Johnson to be the birthplace of Memorial Day.

Over the years the number of the fallen military men who were remembered came from other wars. The Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and now Iraq have contributed to the number of military men being honored by their survivors. As the years passed, the division between our War dead and the passing of our ancestors, our Grandparents, Mothers and Fathers dissolved. Now Memorial weekend has become the time when we tend the graves of our loved ones. For many of us in the Northern zone, it's usually the first time of the year when we can plant our flowers with some hope that they will survive until Autumn.

Traveling through the cemetery yesterday I saw the American Legion, and Veterans of Foreign Wars had been out and placed the flags in the markers next to all of the known graves of our honored dead. The cemetery maintenance personnel have been out cleaning the winters debris, and mowing the grass in preparation for this solemn weekend. Flowers were planted yesterday on the graves of my Dad and his Mother. Today I will go and tend to the grave of my Mom and step-fathers. This year the daughters of my stepfathers have placed nothing on the grave site. This year I will be the only one honoring 2 deceased veterans of World War II and the woman they both loved. This is my right, this is my duty and I am honored to fulfill it.

 

Computers are strange and not always so wonderful. I do realize that a large part of my problem is that I have dial-up, but things happen that, in my mind anyway, have no rhyme or reason. I get frustrated with it, because it does limit me. I'm not one that likes being limited by anything. It's that Type A thing of mine, I'm apparently genetically predisposed to find everything frustrating.

A few weeks ago I started having difficulties downloading imeem plug n plays. When I first started going there they downloaded faster even with the pauses you get with dial-up music and video downloads. I was quite satisfied with the speed and started doing playlists. In the last 2 or 3 weeks things began to change. Download times were getting slower and slower. It was taking me over an hour to load 20 minutes of music at the imeem site and then I had to do it again here. In the past, once I downloaded it here it would play right through without pauses no matter how many times I moved from my page. Last week that changed.

Last weeks playlist had to be reloaded every time I came to my page, which meant that until it was complete I couldn't get in to my comment page. That's so much fun. Then I received 2 PM's and one public comment that other bloggers couldn't get into my comment page. Placing the plug n play in my comments cured my problem. I assume that it cured the others problems too because I know that I can't get into other people's comment pages until their page completely downloads on my computer. Isn't this all so boring?

A page consists of 5 posts here in Blogstream. If you have 5 imeem plug n plays on your page, it can take me 5 to 10 minutes of waiting to get into your comment page. Now, for a Type A to wait that long to "speak" to you without taking a hammer to her computer should indicate just how much I really like you. Last night, after sitting here waiting...and waiting...and waiting, I came back to my own page and I couldn't get my imeem plug n play to download at all. Blank space where it should have been and no music. This had never happened before. To add insult to injury, this morning it wouldn't reappear either.

So, it was "refresh browser" time. Which means that I will be having to download everyones pages again without the aid of the so called "top speed" files that my ISP claims makes my download times 5 times faster than standard dial-up. If all I do is clear footprints, it removes my browsing history but doesn't change anything. I have to remove the browser cache info because not getting my imeem plug n play back happens because the "top speed" file loses it. First I will do the easy stuff, the no background, limited graphic pages. Then the colored background pages and then I'll tackle the rest of you. So, it you don't hear from me for a few days, it's because I'm traveling at less than the speed of light, on a rather circuitous route that will get me there eventually.

I have the perfect graphic for this post, and because I have other things on my page I won't be able to use it. Since I all ready have cleared my browser cache it will take me a bit just to publish this bit of silliness. Publishing this silliness with a sappy graphic could take me the rest of the morning and I have enough gray hairs thanks. Besides, I have things I want to do. Places to go and people to see. Oh yeah, and pages to download.