Friday Flush

This was going to be a Friday Flash post, but things didn’t quite work out that way. I’ll have it ready next week, but I might as well catch y’all up on the everlasting soap opera here…

Mrs. Fetched’s granny died earlier this week, age 98. The photo here is from last fall, obviously, when Mason was rather tiny. The Boy got tagged as a pallbearer, which meant he had to do the monkey suit thing… which meant I had to tie a tie for him and loan him a jacket and black pants. The funeral was in Rome (GA), which meant I put over 300 miles on Mrs. Fetched’s car Wednesday and Thursday. Mrs. Fetched’s sister (the one who gave me the iPad) got a block of hotel rooms near the funeral home, but The Boy needed to be home because it was nearly certain he’d have a probation-related drug/alcohol test on Thursday morning… which meant I got to drive home. Mason stayed at the hotel with Mrs. Fetched.

“Make sure you get me up at 5:00 to make my call,” he said as he headed upstairs.

“If I wake up, I will,” I said. Left unsaid was this is your responsibility, why are you trying to dump it on me? But I did wake up shortly after 5 a.m., and heard the squawk of his alarm all the way in my bedroom. No surprise there, he’d sleep through World War III. I went up and poked him, told him to make his phone call. He turned off the alarm and I went back to bed.

Surprise! He also rolled over and went back to sleep. A friend of his called at 8 a.m. to let him know he needed to do something, so I took him to the ER to get a screen there. He got his papers, and we came back home. Whether it will be enough is the question… if the judge declares him in violation, he goes to jail for 90 days this time.

We got some breakfast and headed back to Rome. Mason did fair… he loved the flowers and wanted to touch (and chew) them. He finally got bored about halfway through the service and Cousin Al took him out back. Then at the graveside, he decided he wanted to preach his own sermon. His second cousin Skyler was already removed from the immediate action (via a nephew), and his other second cousin Wyatt (with his mom) joined us soon after. Being removed from the scene did not deter Mason from delivering his sermon, though.

Meanwhile, my car was in for a new idler pulley (yay, I was afraid the power steering pump was shot). $180 got me rolling again. The mechanic was impressed by the 402,000 miles on the odometer, and that’s a little low because the speedo only works intermittently these days. At least with a manual transmission, you can use the tach to figure out how fast you’re going.

This evening, Mrs. Fetched decided to (finally) put up the tree… so the living room looks like it always does this time of year. Mason and Moptop each hung ornaments on the lower branches, I’ll post pics tomorrow when I get a chance. I also made a loaf of bread this evening, and marked it with an M (for Mason). There was some dough stuck to the bread machine pan after the dough cycle completed. so I rolled it out and put it on top of the loaf. That I’ll also shoot in the morning…