Missing my Daddy

Who takes pictures at a funeral? My family. Last Sunday night at 11:30 pm my mom called to tell me my dad had collapsed and the EMTs were with her at their condo. He had played golf all day, enjoyed dinner with friends, entertained the group with his napkin tricks, home at 9:30 and gone in an hour. He was only 79 but had a great wild of a life. http://www.gramerfuneralhome.com/html/obits/obituaries.asp?listing_id=115932

We spent Monday making arrangements, Tuesday greeting more than 700 people at the visitation; and held the service and wake on Wednesday. Here's what my sister Nancy wrote to the family on Friday:

The funeral was wonderful. My sister Jan, Leroy Hocking, Larry Ode, Mike Tow, Ken Muxlow, and Uncle Robert, all made us laugh and cry with the stories they shared about our dad.

I'm still crying writing this because I loved my dad so much.

There were around 210 people at his funeral and 55 cars in the funeral procession. A motorcycle escort of friends and Shriners followed the hearse. We beeped our horns as we passed URP.

I took pictures at the cemetary because it will be so hard to picture in our minds years from now, and I want to remember. I want to remember everything about my dad. Well, almost everything!!

The pictures you see with mom standing behind the casket are with the grandchildren, every one of whom was hit hard by their papa leaving.

Those of you who knew Jim and his goofy jokes will understand that at his wake we had to do napkin tricks, balance spoons on our noses, and the really talented ones could balance spoons on their noses and put creamers in their eyes both at the same time!

If any of you have any digital pictures of our dad you'd like to email to the rest of us, we'd love to have them. Please forward these on to those people who would like to see them.

Thank you all so much for your love for my dad.
Nancy

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=81sacaq.cdf6op5u&x=0&h=1&y=-tk2l8w&localeid=en_US

Live From New York

They did not disappoint! Amy Poehler and Tina Fey as Clinton and Palin hit it spot on. Oddly, I'm more proud of the comics than I am of the women running for national office.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/34465/saturday-night-live-palin--hillary-open

Confessions of an MOG - the retrospective

Here's the dress I wore to the wedding. I think it looked pretty good and I liked my hair too. My family is all behind me: dad, mom, Karen, Tony, Ryan and Kevin. The high school was a great place for the wedding. The staff did a nice job setting up the chairs so everyone could see. We covered the risers in white paper, and the windows behind them in white muslim. The arch turned out pretty well too.

Voter-Constituent

Suddenly, I'm interested in this election. I didn't care until now. Probably there wasn't anything funny enough. Yesterday the mayor of our metro city finally resigned after months of arrogance and denial of corruption. He admitted guilt, and boldly swore he'd make a come-back. He'll be doing his 120 days in November, so he can't run this year. Maybe next year.

At the same time I saw t-shirts touting the super-powers of Baracktimus Prime; my kids played with Transformers. I also remember the tagline for those toys: "more than meets the eye!" So what's he hiding?

And then of course, there's the GOP VP, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She looks exactly like Tina Fey. I keep expecting something hysterical to come out of her mouth. Turns out, I'm not disappointed - she's a hoot! Baby Mama is her tagline.

MOG Reflections

It's over, and it was a slam bang, awesome, rocking wedding. We had so much fun! I think everyone did. Every detail worked perfectly. Prince Dan married Princess Laura at the high school where they first met. The officiant was a friend of a friend. There were 14 attendants and the marching band. Rev. Jacque announced them man and wife and asked for "the drum roll please..." and then came the drum line and the cadence, and they kissed and left the stage with everyone following behind. The entire band was waiting outside playing music from The Blues Brothers, where a trolley picked them up and took them around for more pictures.

At the reception we did every line dance and I danced with my son to Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man with a trio of Dan's rock band pals serenading us. Cakes decorated every table and ampersands perched on top. Dan did most of the work transforming the hall into a reflection of the delightful people they are.

My biggest surprise of the night, and second most prideful moment was Prince Mike's toast to his brother and new wife. See for yourself...http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=580853208568

CONFESSIONS OF AN MOG

OH MAN -- THREE DAYS!!
I am keeping up with all my projects, but the house is a disaster area. Prince Dan says the groomsmen may be staying here Thursday night through Sunday, and we're having all the families over for brunch (leftovers) on Sunday. I've washed some sheets and pillows, and lots of towels. There's sofa space and mattresses in the basement where they can crash. I'm loading up on cold cuts and bread, need to get more snacks and beer because my boys keep eating everything that's here.

The kids showed up this afternoon with a big box. I thought it was a wedding gift to add to the store that's in the basement. It wasn't. They got me the scrapbookers dream machine! I am so excited to get it going, but I have to learn how to use it. That would take way too much time that I don't have right now, so I'll concentrate on mastering the art of the cricut once they've left. Maybe it will keep me from being sad. My other MOG and MOB friends tell me it's like post-partum all over again. I guess I'm looking forward to scrapbooking the wedding!

MOG Confessions: The Countdown

12 Days To Go!

Wedding number 4 starred Brent, former teammate of Prince Mike from peewee football to
AAU basketball and Prince Dan for high school football, and his beautiful bride Erin. We've known this family the longest, and I teared up the most at this wedding!We danced and drank like we were kids, and went back to our hotel and passed around a bottle of Boone's Farm provided by the Groom's aunt and my stylist until about 2 in the morning. I took just a snippet of the MOG dance and had to wipe my eyes during it.

Here's all the girlfriends in our finest: