Yesterday we finalized my funeral arrangements. A little surreal, but then again a lot of folks do that early so their families don't have to mess with that when they die. Good idea really. It's zero fun arranging a funeral at the last minute. So Liz, myself, and the funeral directors are going over the arrangements. How I want this, do I want that, and I keep asking Liz "what do you think, I'm not gonna care at that point". Finally she says, "You know what? Whatever you want, it's your funeral". I cracked up, the funeral director just kinda looked at us, but her boss laughed. What's not to laugh at? I don't know how many times I've heard "All Mister, but it's your funeral!". This time, literally. I guess that might bother some folks, making light of a situation like mine. But, honestly there aren't many options left. It's laugh now and be upset later. I mean really, why put your family through the agony of getting your funeral together at the last minute when they could be together, helping each other out? Give it some thought.
I had planned on taking a long ride this spring with my bud John Moye, we were gonna go toward Milwaukee for Harley's birthday party. (the bike, not the guy). We were gonna take a couple weeks, visit some different stuff and generally have a damn nice ride through the country. I like riding with John. We worked out some hand signals for "I need fuel", "I gotta take a leak", "screw this, the traffic sucks", "did you see the boobs on the girl in that car?!?!?!". We enjoy the same kind of things, like historic stuff and places. We like to eat. At least once a trip we eat at a good 4 star place. We hunt around and have been darn lucky to have hit some really good mom and pop places. Especially down south. Most of the joints we've eaten in have home made everything. Shoot, even the bowling alley/restaurant/bar in some little berg in Louisiana had great homemade pies. And was good food. Ya have to be a little careful about that "good food" thing. I've been so hungry that I would have sworn Wendy's made their burgers with Kobe beef. Yes, we take a set of decent duds with us so we can dine in a nice place without looking like we've been thrown off the turnip wagon. There's a really good restaurant in Daytona Beach we ate at twice. Great food, wonderful cuisine, and I'm sure other than Bike Week and pretty solid dress code. We put on the best clothes we have, shine the boots a little and head in. The staff is very nice. We look around, and there's a table with about 12 people sitting at it. Ratty shirts, dirty jeans, squirrelly hair, and loud. I say to John "Jesus, ya know, put on some clean clothes and comb your hair!". He agrees and the closer we look, not a beer one on the table. No mixed drinks. All wine. Not Annie Greensprings, the good stuff. The least expensive bottle this place sells is $75. Something tells me these aren't your typical filthy bikers. Nooooo, these folks are try to pretend to be filthy bikers. Here John and I ride 1400 miles (John closer to 1700) and clean up, and these guys are playing wannabe. There weren't enough bikes out front for them to have ridden. When they leave there are 4 taxis waiting out front for them. Which makes us laugh. Here we do our best to actually ride and be ourselves, and this band of trailer clowns is trying to look like a tough biker.
I had planned on attending the World Master Highland Games Championships in New Mexico this March. I only needed to games early on to qualify without asking for an exemption. Would I have won my age division? Are you kidding me? Not a snowball's chance in hell of me winning, but going would have been great!!! And I was secretly going to save enough money and surprise Liz with a trip to Inverness Scotland in 2014 for the World Master's Championship that will be held there. It would have meant blowing off a big bike trip, but I figure John would understand. I love the Highland Games. It's a difficult sport that I just suck air playing. It's the only sport I have played that I don't get 40 shades of red mad at myself if I don't throw well. Part of that being the level of athlete I throw with. (Notice I don't say compete, I can't throw on the same level as these guys) The other part being that when I practiced a lot, and was doing better, I found myself getting angry at my performance, so I stopped practicing. I decided I enjoyed the sport so much I wasn't going to let myself ruin it for me. I enjoy the other athletes company too much. I've made too many good friends to allow myself to throw a kink in that anywhere. So I throw, I suck, I laugh and have a good time. At the very best, I'm a mediocre athlete, and I can live with that if it means I can still play. At some point I was going to have to stop, I'm sure, but it would have been nice to stop throwing on my terms, not because the cancer screwed my body up so bad I can't. That is a disappointment, and THAT pisses me off.
I had planned on slowing down at work some so Liz and I could enjoy each other's company more. They'd put a guy in to replace me, and when I had been able to come back, there were going to be two of us working at what I'd been doing on my own. How sweet would that have been? It'd cut down my 12 hour days from 4 or 5 to 1 or 2 a week. Don't get me wrong, it'd still be 9 hr days, at least, but those extra 3 hrs in the evening would have been nice. I'd had some plans to take her a couple of nice places. Like Fredericksburg had the cancer been an easy fix. Nice place, cool stuff to see. Wineries to visit. Just Liz n Me time. We've never had much Liz N Me time. Liz became a mom officially September 12, 1992. I had two kids she took on as her own with me. We had 2 more of our own. Sure, we took a couple of trips to Jamaica, but the resorts are a hard place for Liz n Me time. Too many people. I had planned on us getting back to the dating Liz N Me. Where every time we went out we found something new about each other. Yes, there are still things we can find out about one another. I already knew she was a strong woman, this is a shitty way to find out she's an exceptionally strong woman. I'd rather have skipped this part for her, not so much for me, but for Liz. I'd planned on us going places she wanted to see, do some stuff Liz wanted to do. I planned on letting her surprise me with those trips. I think that would have been fun
I planned on living out my life until I was gray, crinkled and a grouchy old bastard. I got to the grouchy part already. And I was starting to gray and crinkle. I planned on showing my grandsons how to do different things. Things they wanted to learn. I planned on giving them a copy of "IF" and taking the time to explain why it's an important poem to me. I planned on being more patient with them than I was my own kids, because Pops can get away with that. I was starting to like getting older. I know 52 isn't very old, but it's getting old enough that I relaxed a bit. People start to listen to what you say. Well, people in their 30's, the guys in their 20's still know everything, right? The getting older thing was really starting to appeal to me. I've always been comfortable and confident in who I am, but now it was starting to be when I was living up to the hype. I figured out that I don't have to do every damn thing, that someone is going to have to do it instead of me eventually. I was getting closer to becoming the guy that ran the old steam rig for the oil show. I need to help find someone to take my spot. It's the last one that's museum quality that still runs on steam. It's important historically.
Yep the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry. I'd spell it in the brogue Robert Burns wrote it, but it's hard to read the brogue.
These were my long term plans, and only a portion of them at that. Those are all on full stop, unless some major miracle happens. Although I can feel the cancer doing it's thing more and more. This too, will be okay though. It means that farther down the road someone will be doing versions of my plans with their own life and plans. See, our plans are often quite a bit alike, we humans. We all want to have a good time, especially with our loved ones. We just see what is fun in different lights.
So go out and live it up. Make each day a portion of a bigger plan. Let's call that plan "Living", not just life but "Living". I've done that my entire life, and intend to do it on the next leg of the journey as well.
