I wish I would have thought of the title line, but it’s actually from a song by Blue Oyster Cult (later covered by Metallica) called “Astronomy.” It’s probably a good thing I don’t have (and I certainly don’t need, nor want) access to the psychotropic drugs that were available in the mid 1970s, but people came up with some hella cool song lyrics while stoned on that stuff. Now it seems the pop stars and rappers are more worried about whether or not the words rhyme, and/or if cop-killing and sister-raping can be successfully included in the story line. Apparently today’s drugs just don’t motivate good song lyrics.
I like that old psychedelic stuff. The song lyrics, that is.
I found last Saturday’s short hiatus and respite to be most energizing. I love it when I can turn off the world for awhile, and I need to do it a lot more often than I do.
Tonight I have to do something rather distasteful, although it does involve a short solitary road trip (that part of the adventure should be pretty good.) I have probably at one time or another told the story of my grandmother’s twin sisters – the ones who, when my great-grandmother died, were about 70 years old. The both of them were rather eccentric, and their tastes were largely indulged, as they were both married to relatively wealthy men. I never really liked either of them very much, but I acquired a little bit of contempt toward them when they got in a fist fight over my great-grandmother’s paltry belongings.
70 year old twins duking it out over a bunch of worthless old lady kitsch is a little bit over the top. I’ve walked past better stuff at garage sales. Great-Grandma was not a wealthy woman, and she didn’t need a lot of stuff. None of her stuff was particularly valuable. Neither of the twins needed any of that stuff. It was about possession and control. I was never close to either of my great-aunts, and after that I never really wanted to be.
Witnessing that little melee convinced me that I never want to fight over dead people’s stuff, even if it’s really good stuff. My sisters will cannibalize my parents’ stuff, should they both outlive my parents, and they will fight over it, though the oldest one will ultimately end up with everything she wants. If I am still alive, I won’t be there to stand back and watch. They can have it all. My Dad had to hide a lot of Grandma’s stuff- as well as all of Grandpa’s WWII medals and other memorabilia- to keep my oldest sister from taking everything. What she wants, she takes. Unless she can’t find it.
The only reason I don’t drop dead is that I don’t think my son can stand the visual of my sisters fighting over my bras and underwear.
The older twin (I think she was 98) finally went to the Great Beyond last Saturday, and the calling hours are tonight. I can’t take off work tomorrow to go to the funeral (OK by me) but I at least have to show up at the calling hours to keep my mother from having a coronary, and so Dad might have one sane person to talk to. Mom’s relatives are downright weird, and they are the huggy-kissy type which is positively nauseating to me. But politeness dictates.. so I will show up. Briefly. Very briefly.
I wish funeral homes had drive-thrus. I don’t think the idea would catch on in Ohio, where people make a really big deal out of funerals and wakes, but I wish that at least that the one I have to go to tonight had a drive-thru. Sign the book and get the hell out…
ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL: 
Have fun on your roadtrip (short though it is!). You’ve got the right attitude. I love drives by myself.
It’s funny you mention psychotropic drugs and road trips (in fairness, I’m the one who conflated the two, you just mentioned them separately), because, as a fan of such drugs in my youth, I’ve often felt that a long, long solo road-trip was kind of like an acid trip. I don’t mean that people’s faces start turning into lava lamps or anything, but there’s a detachment from your everyday reality with a long trip, an alienness and a chance for new insights and adventure. I’m not explaining it well, but that’s how I’ve always felt.
If one twin aunt died, then it sounds like the other 98 year old is the winner!
And in all seriousness, as an only child (PMOC), your son does have an advantage when it’s your time to go. When my mom died, it was pretty easy. My family helped me out because they knew EVERYTHING was going to me (although I did give them stuff if they asked for it, as my mom would have wanted).
The other twin died about 20 years ago, which was sort of surprising because they were identical twins. The one who just passed was the more evil of the two. The aunt that just passed also won the fist fight with her twin, but it wasn’t exactly fair as the other one had just had a stroke and could only move her right arm.
She was the one who was married to the infamous “Uncle Bob,” the family perv. Even their dog was a perv- an effeminate male Poodle named Jacques who went to the groomer like religion every week, and in spite of wearing both perfume and nail polish, he humped anything he could latch his forelegs around.
I still remember Uncle Bob giving my sister a Budweiser when she was five. She chugged the beer alright (both of my sisters like beer) and polished it off as my mother (who despite being ultra-Catholic, is a tee-totaler) stepped in the room and was positively mortified.
I also remember him looking up the little girls’ dresses, and trying to slip my Mom the tongue, which is the reason why I never got very close to him. Always a handshake, never a kiss or even a hug, with this dude. I didn’t get away with forgoing the hugs and kisses with anyone else, but when it came to Uncle Bob, Mom didn’t say jack.