Two Rants, No, Three, and Something Fun in Day by Day

Rant #1: Younger brother and stepmother have both contacted me about my older brother’s poorly written obituary. As I said before, my older brother hated me from the day I was born. I was asked to speak at his funeral (ironic because I am the LAST person he’d have wanted) and did so with grace. I did not write the obituary and I do not care that my last name was omitted or that my husband’s name was omitted. So I sent them both this e-mail:

“Hi,
Both of you have mentioned Mark’s poorly written obituary, so I thought you’d appreciate [Mark’s friend]’s thoughts (below). My take on it is this: I wrote about some of his childhood, which was included in the power point presentation, and read [younger brother]’s thoughts to the gathering. They laughed in all the right places and nodded almost in unison on the Joan Baez story (apparently Mark repeated it to everyone). My feeling is that what is done is done, but further comments can be made in the comment section of his obit at XXX or his facebook page if you feel more is needed. [Mark’s son & ex-wife] will be coming to our Easter dinner and I feel no need to speak further to his friends. I wasn’t really a part of his life and have risen to the occasion more than he did for Mom or Nick and certainly more grace-filled than he would have shown to me. I love you both, and will certainly nurture [Mark’s son & ex-wife], but don’t think I should be included on anything more on this subject. My pain over Mark is different from yours. Love, Connie”

Mark did not attend our mother’s funeral. He did not attend my son’s funeral. I did not tell the crowd what a selfish jerk he was. Instead, I said a few brief but kind comments and read my younger brother’s loving tribute to the gathering. I have MORE than fulfilled my obligation.

Rant #2: Copy & paste is a wonderful tool. Introducing new worlds is a wonderful thing. But if you are going to copy and paste information from Wikipedia, you should credit your source rather than pass if off as YOUR writing. Plagiarism is not a pretty sight. You should also know that any article on Wikipedia is full of footnotes and the easiest way to get caught is to overlooking deleting ALL the reference numbers. I gave the person a chance to come clean but that person did not. I’m disappointed.

I’m ready for Family Supper Night tomorrow. The sauce is defrosting, the cheese is grated, the dessert is made and the table is set. I’ll need to heat, make the salad and the garlic bread, am also making zucchini “spaghetti” as well as traditional (I really like the combination of zucchini and sauce).

Rant #3: This dinner is for my husband’s birthday which is actually on Thursday, but the teenager in the group of invitees said she had plans for Thursday, so we moved it to Wednesday (less convenient for me) and now she’s not coming! No good deed goes unpunished.

We’ve been invited out to dinner on Saturday and I’m looking forward to that. My turn to get spoiled!