Blar, it's the Sunday before everyone goes back to school, so no one's online. :( *feels so alone*

On Thursday I got up at 6:00 am (which is going to be happening all the time now, sigh...) to drive my brothers and I down to Bakersfield for the funeral. Shockingly, we actually left on time! Although considering I had to drive to Bakersfield AND back AND then drop bothers off at home AND then drive home, neither I nor my car were that happy about it. :P I really just need to start looking for cars.

Anyways, we got there and the funeral went okay. It was a Catholic funeral, which I'd never been to before, and which was a little awkward because there was maybe, uh, one practicing Catholic in the entire audience? But there was the whole ritual with incense and sprinkling holy water and at least thirty "hail Marys" (I started counting after awhile), and maybe just the whole unusualness of it kept my mind off of crying. My dad had to be a pallbearer, which he's never done before. Also, the priest had this really thick accent that I can't place for the life of me. I think it was from somewhere in South America, but it didn't sound quite Spanish.

We drove to the grave site afterwards, and I'm glad we didn't stay there long because it was frickin' hooooooooot. (Baskersfield gets hellish during the summer...) My great-granddad served in the Army during WWII (stateside, but he belonged to a veteran's group for decades afterwards) so there were several other veterans there to do the traditional flag-folding and a 21-gun salute. I've never seen one before, so it was kinda cool, but the guns scared the crap out of me. I don't think I could ever live with anyone who owned a gun, they just make me too damned nervous. :P

Afterwards there was a big potluck dinner for everyone at the funeral, so I just hung out with cousins away from all the old people I didn't know and ate food. Still got bombarded with all of those "so what are you doing now?" questions that I would rather avoid, kthx. But mom's friends Terry and Sue showed up, which I thought was really cool of them. Also, my mom made this big photo collage the night before with all kinds of old pictures (one of them was from the 30s, I think!) and everyone liked that.

I was frecking exhausted by the time I got home and didn't really want to think about mortality anymore, so I sat and played KH2 for five hours. :P

Yesterday I wanted to spend some time with my mom since my family's leaving for Italy so soon, and we tried to go shopping, but I was really tired for some reason and my "shopping mode" wasn't turned on. ;_; So I didn't really buy anything, except for a new alarm clock I needed. Tried on some shoes, but I could barely even think about "will this look good?" for more than five seconds. Guh, at least I tried. Mom bought some Christmas presents and board games for Italy so that my younger brother won't feel left out when all the students go out and drink, so we went into a Toys R Us for the first time in...a decade, I feel like. We also ate at Wood Ranch BBQ, which was goooood. *has leftovers, yum* And then we tried to watch 'The Matador' 'cause she'd gotten it from Netflix. Half an hour in I realized the movie wasn't entertaining at all, so we shut it off and dug for art supplies instead.

It could've gone a lot better, just it seemed all of my energy was drained out of me. We did have some good conversations, though, and I should do stuff with the family again before they leave. Kinda have to, as we still have a billion arrangements to work out. I need to get my December tickets, figure out whether I can actually go to GNOMON, get my passport renewed, try and buy a new car...aaadsadsajsdkjsalkfha. *bangs head*

Feh, and I was feeling so much better this morning, too.

Operator status: Busy, all things considered. I have to work to midnight and then get up at 6:00 to start again at 7:30 though, arrrgh.

Drawing: I started...a painting! I just suddenly said I got the urge to paint, and mom helped me pick out a ton of acrylic paints, brushes, an easel and even a canvas for me to use! So I don't even have to go and spend a fortune at the art supply store, yay! I just started painting a random dragon this morning; I haven't painted in years, so this is kind of practice. I'm also trying to get over my fear of strong colors. I hope the painting comes out okay, anyways. ^^ There's also two huuuuuge canvases I've got at home and a larger easel at my disposal if I ever want to paint something really big!

Writing: Some editing on LW and suchforth.