1 Re-reading Eric FlintÂ’s 1632 series beginning with the first two on the Kindle which are available free from the Baen website.



And waiting for some new ones.

2 OM, I know what you are going through.  I am sorry for your loss.

3 Yes, it is normal.  My late husband's niece just told me a couple of weeks ago that on her death bed, my MIL, her grandmother told her that my husband's Dad had gotten another woman pregnant with twins.  He and his Father were killed in a car accident right around that time, so there was no divorce and that woman was on her own.

4 Re-reading Eric FlintÂ’s 1632 series beginning with the first two on the Kindle which are available free from the Baen website.

I downloaded the two freebies from Baen also, but haven't got to them yet. Are they any good?

5 Condolences. Lost my mom a year and a half ago and my dad's been gone almost 9 years.

6 Condolences on your loss.  It is hard to lose your parents. 

7 I downloaded the two freebies from Baen also, but haven't got to them yet. Are they any good?

Posted by: OregonMuse at October 28, 2012 11:05 AM (XHrL

They are outstanding.  The first one is really good.  The second is good and then it kind of bogs down a little after that. It picks back up later though. After the second book stay away from the ones that are co-authored.

8 Hey, Condolences on your mom. That's a hell of a double-barreled blast to get. And yes, weird and unpleasant closets do, indeed, get opened up during last days. I won't go into detail, but my dad's death revealed some ... interesting new stories and skeletons. If you and your siblings are strong and supportive of each other, then you'll work your way through it. Hang in there.

9 I guess my family is an oddity.  No skeletons when my father and mother died.

10 Wow, I'm sorry for your loss. Don't fret the family secrets. Everyone has them, some far worse than others. The purpose of family stories is to learn from them. They are twisted gifts. Be awed by them, laugh at them, write them down to share them with future generations. There is learning to be done, do it.

11

All families are dysfunctional. Most are just smart enuff not to go on Jerry Springer.

 

12 Deepest sympathies on your loss, OM. 

As usual with the Kindle, I'm bouncing back and forth between stuff.  I just started "The Kraken Wakes" by John Wyndham (supposed to be full of typos, haven't seen any yet).  And "The Space Eaters" by Frank Belknap Long is available in one of those big mega-pack collections.  It's one of the creepiest stories I've ever read and it's nice to have it.

13 9 Yes, Vic, I actually think your situation is unusual. I found quite a few very strange things when I went through my parent's stuff.

14 OM, one thing about Eric Flint though you will have to put up with.  He is a real liberal union labor guy and his main hero in this series is a labor leader.

15 I too am dealing with family. In Phx helping Mom and Dad, both in somewhat bad shape.  Cleaning up financial back-logs and such.  Brought "the Harbingers" with me and finished it up.  Beck was pushing this a few months back.  Basically we're Doomed.  Now I'm on "The Last Colony" from john Scaliz.  It's the last of the John Perry character that started with "Old Man's War".  He would be one of us, very snarky and a very dry wit.

16 I have nothing to say about books today, but I do want to say I'm really sorry to hear about your mom. I lost mine a few years ago and no matter how old you are when it happens, it just is really hard.

17

Condolences, OM.

 

My  family put   the funk in dysfunctional. And Halloween   would   be  the perfect time to   discuss it,  but some things are better left buried.

18 Oh and no weird secrets came out. So we got that goin' for our family.

19 May God keep you and yours, OregonMuse.

I just got back this past week from Albuquerque where my mom and stepdad live. Mom had a single mastectomy and the prognosis is good so far. It's her second bout with cancer; ten years ago she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. That she is still here this long after that, we few as a miracle. (Ovarian cancer is often a death sentence; if not right away, five to ten years down the road.)

I've mentioned this before: my 91-year-old great-aunt is in a nursing home. I took care of her here at home for about nine months. (I was raised by her and my great-uncle--d. 2000--for the first nine years of my life.) During that time, I found out all sorts of ugly family secrets, mostly involving my grandmother (her sister and a horrible person. She died in 2008.) But I also found out some things about their other siblings and their parents, my matrilineal great-grandparents. Murder and other ugly things.

Suffice it to say, all of them were bat-shit crazy.  And yes, I have considered writing a book about them. My great-aunt asked me not to publish it until she passes.

20 OregonMuse, condolences

21 few=view

22 I'm reading this novel about a President who is about to be voted out of office. His handlers convince him to have his Libyan Ambasador kidnapper so a hostage swap can be arraigned for a blind terrorist. The Libyan kidnappers double cross the President because they are upset that arms are being smuggled into Syria. The whole caper comes undone because two ex Seals disobey orders to stand down and the Ambasador is killed in the chaos. I don't know how authors can come up with such crazy ideas.

23 My condolences for your losses, and it's good you have siblings to help cope.

In his last hours, my grandfather informed my father that his mother (my grandmother) was 11 yrs older than everyone had believed. (Easier to falsify documents back then.)

24 Condolences OM.  Lost my mom some time back.  It's never easy. 

25 9 Yes, Vic, I actually think your situation is unusual. I found quite a few very strange things when I went through my parent's stuff.

Posted by: Scanner Dan at October 28, 2012 11:14 AM (Zq1d/)

My parents were married in 1948 and stayed married up until my father died in 1996.  As far as I know neither of them ever strayed and there was never anything significantly strange.  When we went through all the stuff didn't find anything unusual. Except they were pack rats who kept everything.

Although my great grandmother told us that one of our ancestors spit in a witch's eye and that our family was cursed with bad luck.

26 It's not dysfunctional, it's called your family. Sometimes ghosts are better kept in the closet.

27 Sincere condolences to you, OM. Lost my Dad many years ago and am pissed about it. As for skeletons in closets, I just hope our family closet is made from the finest steel.

28 Ooo! Little earthquake!

29

@22.....sounds too far fetched!

 

Ace, my condolences on your loss.

30 Looking forward to seeing Argo, but was thinking I might want to brush up on my history first. What book would the horde recommend for learning about the Iran Hostage Crisis for someone too young to remember it?

31 I want to give everything I want to give away before I die. I also wish I were Jewish and could be in the ground within 24 hours. No fuss. No muss. I don't want people picking through my stuff after I'm dead.

32

Although my great grandmother told us that one of our ancestors spit in a witch's eye and that our family was cursed with bad luck.

 

Backwards Lore has it that my maternal grandma was born with a "veil" on her face, some sort of sign of something or other.

33 Bookwise: check out Guardian Glass by Christopher Nuttall. I have just started it, but so far so good.

34 I'm rereading the Discworld books by T. Pratchette. Lefty loon I know, but still a fun read, even (especially?)with the political satire.

35 22 -

I don't want to give away the ending or anything, but I can tell you there are no human good guys in that story.  There is however, a giant ball of fire from outer space that figures dramatically, but that comes rather late in the process.

36 I posted this a couple days ago in an old, musty, nearly used up thread.  For anyone who likes free stuff, there's a link to Robert McCammon's web page with a Halloween ebook in my name. 

37 Although my great grandmother told us that one of our ancestors spit in a witch's eye and that our family was cursed with bad luck. Backwards Lore has it that my maternal grandma was born with a "veil" on her face, some sort of sign of something or other. Posted by: BackwardsBoy, with laptop dead at October 28, 2012 11:27 AM (lOmbq) The veil on the face thing was used in a book called Darwin's Radio. Cool, but goofy book.

38 God Bless your Mom and Dad Be strong

39 I hate when people write books and describe in detail their parents last moments, i.e., incontinence, drooling, etc. Do you really have to put it in writing? And then they wonder why they were disinherited. This is in a bio I am reading now.

40

I'm reading this novel about a President who is about to be voted out of office.

 

Would you be referring to A  SCOAMF in Full?  I've seen the ads.  It may make th NYT Best Seller list around the beginning of November  if early sales are any indication.

41 Aw, I am sorry for your grief...yes, those things can happen. My parents had long ago divorced as my Dad was a drug user who had periods of sanity and clean. But he spent time in prison. We didn't have a relationship really, just a cordial one because I loved and respected the Grands. When he passed, my Aunt became judge and jury over everything and decided to spill that my sister's father was not my father. She only did it to be mean and nasty even if it was the truth. The kicker was that my father loved all of us the same despite that fact and she couldn't take it. He loved my mother until his end, but neither my Aunt or father ever grew up. There are many secrets that I know, I just choose to keep my mouth shut because they will do no good to anyone. I don't feel burdened at all. I know that others might. I hope you can find a way to move forward without the anger, and bitterness that can sometimes arise. When people die, we often never know why they have kept secrets or made decisions that we would not. All the best.

42 A veil is a caul. It's just afterbirth. Wipe it off, and you're good as new.

43 My grandmother tells me lore I'm one sixteenth Cherokee. Is it too late to run for Congress as a native American  in Massachusetts?

44

Condolances, OM.  I am sorry for your loss.  God bless you and yours.

 

My family's skeletons came out prematurely this year - Dad's a philandering A-hole, but whatevs.  

 

I looked at the Knox's Irregulars book on Amazon.  It looks interesting.  I read the one-star reviews for entertainment.  Made me think of a new word (new to me - apologies if someone has already thought of this) "Jihadophile:"  one whose actions, attitudes and words directly encourage more murders and oppression of innocent people.

As in: "Leftists in American are such pussy jihadophiles!" 

 

 

45 37

 I had just finished Darwin's Radio when the cover caught my wife's eye. She read it and started having nightmares over it. She was 8 months pregnant at the time, and it really spooked her.

46 I'm reading this novel about a President who is about to be voted out of office. His handlers convince him to have his Libyan Ambasador kidnapper so a hostage swap can be arraigned for a blind terrorist. The Libyan kidnappers double cross the President because they are upset that arms are being smuggled into Syria. The whole caper comes undone because two ex Seals disobey orders to stand down and the Ambasador is killed in the chaos. I don't know how authors can come up with such crazy ideas.

Posted by: NativeNH at October 28, 2012 11:19 AM (D/R86)

Add a third Navy SEAL who survived, and in on his own...and looking for payback.  His government wants him silenced, for good.  He is making his way across Africa using old friends, and jump a tramp merchant ship to Mexico.  His plan is to cross the border as a illegal, avoiding any place facial recognition footage will pick him up.  Once back in the USA, he's still not sure what form his revenge will take...assassination, or expose it all to the American people with the Donald...  ok, maybe not with the Donald.  Adding the third SEAL, and this could be a Vince Flinn, or Thor what's his name book.

47 In my experience (and I'm most likely younger than most here, but I've got a large family with lots of elderly members), family is more than happy to let you know just how much they all hate each other, after you reach a certain age. And it generally all comes out at funerals. Occasionally, if you have a couple funerals back to back, people start to regret, and come back together. Till the next one.

48 Sorry for your loss, Oregon. When my maternal grandfather died, my gran, mom, and aunt were going through old paperwork and mom found divorce papers involving gramps and some woman she and my aunt had never heard of. Grams said she forgot all about it, but apparently my grandpa married some woman just days before being sent off to fight in WWII. Turns out the woman was a con artist who married military men to collect their checks while they were deployed. Apparently gramps was so humiliated by it that he didn't want his girls to know, so him and grams kept it secret.

49 Condolences OM. Only one small skeleton came out when my mom died-- I don't know why they bothered to keep it secret. I've been bouncing between The Odyssey, Cahill's the Wine-Dark Sea, Robert Graves' The Greek Myths, and The Cambridge Companion to Homer. Graves is very entertaining: he says that one archaic myth has it that Penelope is the mother of Pan by all her suitors.

50

OT - this just in:

KADUNA, Nigeria (AP) — A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives Sunday at a Catholic church holding Mass in northern Nigeria, injuring a number of worshippers and killing several people, officials and witnesses said.

Apologies from prominent Islamists to Catholics will happen . . .?

51 About curses: my great-aunt says that, back in the thirties, when she, her siblings and her parents lived on a farm in Oklahoma, they didn't feel much of the effect of the Depression. (Probably because my great-grandfather had some lucrative side-gigs going, mostly illegal.)

She says that there was this guy who hated their family and Great-GrandDad caught him walking around the perimeter of the farm performing some voodoo-ish curse on it.

Considering the many, many tragedies and ugly things which have occurred in my family since then, I believe that the curse took and it seems that the only thing which has stopped the bad things is the fact that most of my family, from my parents on down, have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. But that happened in my adulthood.  Before that, unlike most black families, we were straight heathens.

52

OT but yawn Williams is going to have a corinary when TFG loses.

 

Bought a book on vacation.  Civil War Walking tour of Savannah.  Just finished it last night. Very interesting.  Now I need to go back for some more history.

53 You have my condolences. My mother died last December and my father, now unable to take anything by mouth, is in hospice care. It's just a matter of time but at least he is in no pain. There were no skeletons in my immediate family, one of the advantages of being an only child, although there were some that came out earlier among my numerous aunts and uncles and cousins.

54 So sorry for your loss, O-muse.

55

A veil is a caul. It's just afterbirth. Wipe it off, and you're good as new.

 

I had forgotten about that until we started talking. Oh well, 'tis  the season. It was   supposed to have some sort of  mystical   meaning.  And judging from the rest of my mother's side, it wasn't good.

 

Mom's favorite thing to do was play with a Ouija board. I called it the   devil's hot line.

56 NFL???

ELBOWS????

Wake up Dave.

57 So very sorry for your loss OregonMuse. As for family secrets, everyone has them. My family was very open with mine, so I know everything about all the relatives. If you have kids, I suggest that approach- if you treat something like no big deal, it's not. Hiding things make them much more important, even if they're not.

58 Mom's favorite thing to do was play with a Ouija board. I called it the devil's hot line.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy, with laptop dead at October 28, 2012 11:41 AM (lOmbq)

True dat. I never could stand one of my other great-aunts. She gave me the creeps.  Long after she passed (in the 70s), my mom told me that she was a regular Quija board user.

59 42 The Golux' mother was born only half in a caul (James Thurber).

60

 

My condolences on your loss, losing your mother is difficult. I wish you the best.

 

Strange, this too happened to me, when my nother died I found out I had an aunt neither she, nor anyone else in the family had ever mentioned. I had never know my grandparents, both died when I was very young, and the only ones who knew of this aunt were my mother, aunt and my uncle.  It turns out she had run off in her teens with a "bohemian free-love type" and was living in some communal village in Canada.

Sorry you missed the Halloween thread, to make up for it here is a link to a fun Halloween site: http://haunted--houses.com

 

61 Yes its normal to hear about skeletons in these situations. Sometimes they keep coming out after death. Think of it as a cleansing ritual and in the long run, a blessing... you gain much more understanding and appreciation that your parents were just human like the rest of us.

62 Re: Argo. I read Antonio J. Mendez's book "The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA." Mendez was an artist who did IDs and disguises for the CIA. He was the man who did the real Argo. Book starts a bit slow, but well worth it to RTWT because his early life influenced how/why he operated. A real bargain at 99 cents for Kindle. FWIW, the man was an old-fashioned patriot & loved the CIA, warts and all.

63 "What book would the horde recommend for learning about the Iran Hostage Crisis for someone too young to remember it?"

Guest of the Ayatollahs, definitely.

64 OM our prayers for you.  You want a bumber, one of my friends has liver cancer and nothing can be done.  They have sent him home with hospice.  They are giving him a week.  He is 60.

Course, unsaid here is that the man was a great guy and did every damn thing, AKA drugs, you could do.  Wild, would be mild.  He had two smoking hot daughters who use to baby sit for me. His dad was a state senator, and all an all the MFer lived a great life. 

Burn out or rust out?  He went with the first.

65 My Fathers uncle spoke to his 15 kids through the Pastor at his funeral. Didn't seem fair as for some he had some pretty derogatory things to say. I am surprised that the Minister agreed to do it.

66 Sorry for your losses, OM.  My family's had a pretty boring existence as far as skeletons go.

As far as books go, I finished Danilo Kis's "Encyclopedia of the Dead" which I enjoyed about as much as I thought I would, having read "A Tomb for Boris Davidovich" previously.  Have now begun "Middlemarch" by George Eliot, which I've had on my shelf for decades and finally decided now is the time.

67 I am sorry about your loss OregonMuse. I know what you mean about feeling like a looter. When my maternal grandmother passed, my parents and one of my uncles did most of the work of cleaning out her apartment. My mother kept insisting I claim some jewelry before the other grandchildren took it all. I felt very awkward about it.

68 LOL, after my mom passed  (Dad went several years earlier), a couple of my brothers went through her closet and found a rat's nest.  Literally.  A fucking rat was living in my mom's closet.

69
Do you think Bugs Bunny is hot when he dresses up in a dress and wig?

70 New book: "Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page" by Brad Tolinski. Rock's finest guitarist, I suffer no fools who claim otherwise. Vision, eye for talent, compostions, arrangements, record production, breadth and depth of material, plays multiple stringed instruments, dynamics, exploratory live performances. There are better individual soloists and guitar technicians. There are no better "musicians who play the guitar".

71

Considering the many, many tragedies and ugly things which have occurred in my family since then, I believe that the curse took...

 

How I've prayed to have my curse lifted...

72 The birth caul was supposedly a sign of second sight.  IIRC, Danny (the son) in "The Shining" was born with it. 

As for family secrets being revealed, my godmother found out, upon the death of her mother, that she was actually her grandmother.  It completely upended her reality. 

73 Sorry for your losses, OM. Meanwhile: a truck coved in TFG stickers dumped a bunch of nails in the parking lot of a Romney rally. Not exactly the actions of the confident. http://tinyurl.com/8p48ggw

74 Re: picking through parents' belongings. Doesn't anyone write wills anymore?

75 Started "Fall of Giants," book one of Follett's "Century Trilogy" based on recommendation by Brad Thor. Hooked! Warning -- 985 pages for first book.

76 Another Kindle freebie.......link to amazon page via tinyurl preview.......evidently amazon is banned??

http://preview.tinyurl.com/8ql7dgz

77 Eman, I liked "Darwin's Radio," but the sequel, "Darwin's Children," was a mess.  Greg Bear is the author. 

78 a couple of my brothers went through her closet and found a rat's nest. Literally. A fucking rat was living in my mom's closet.

Well ... who got to keep the rat?

79 My condolences OM. Prayers for you and your family. As always, the book thread beats the Sunday sermon. Still reading the same books I was reading 3 weeks ago. I watch too much TV. I have given up listening to the Game of Thrones books because if I just listen to them on my 20 min commute home and each of these audiobooks is 40 hours long, I'll be listening to these books for the rest of my natural life. Oh well, read on, morons!

80 Sorry for you loss.  The time-bombs are bad, but be grateful that you and your siblings are handling things amicably.  My family is entering the 8th year of a lawsuit started by my cousins over some property my grandparents owned.  We're hoping for a final resolution next year.

81 "He loved my mother until his end, but neither my Aunt or father ever grew up. There are many secrets that I know, I just choose to keep my mouth shut because they will do no good to anyone."  Posted by: DefendUSA at October 28, 2012 11:33 AM (nAHMK)

I know what you mean.  When my late husband's Step-Dad was passing away, I scolded him for not giving his Mom more comfort.  We had been married for over 25 years at that point in time.  He turned to me and began to weep and told me, "I never wanted you to know this because you get along with her so well, but, my Mom used to beat me with anything she could grab.  She never even spanked L--- (his sister).  It did not stop until I was in my teens and told her that I would hit her back."  After his Mom dies, my niece, daughter of L---, made some truly nasty remarks about my husband and how she hated him because he was not nicer to his Mom.  I simply told her, T---, there are things you do not know, so don't speak about him that way or we are done.

82 My family skeleton in the closet isn't about my parents but my sister. She's is a self-serving manipulator who craves attention. In her personal life her behavior is very similar to the type of character you see on a soap opera. Before she was divorced she had spent most of her marriage cheating on her husband with a man who was also married. She found it necessary to share all this with me at the time, apparently thinking there was nothing wrong with it. I see her for family functions and get along with her okay, but I despise her. She is just a very self-absorbed person and will never change. So I suck it up, and put a smile on my face.

83 Obama: Don't judge him by the color of his skin, but by the lack of content of his character

84

Condolences, Muse.  Sorry for your losses, and God Bless your parents.  And yes, to some degree or other, ALL families are dysfunctional.  i like to think i'm the most broken of my brood, but who really knows?

 

Take care. 

85 Well ... who got to keep the rat? A very common community-property question.

86 I lost my dad to cancer 22 years ago when I was 16.  At the funeral, there was a local guy there who I know that was a few years older than me, maybe 19 or 20.  He was bawling his eyes out, I mean he was as upset as my mother and I.  He even came through the line at the cemetary to shake the family's hand blubbering.  I was too upset, and in shock to really ask any questions. 

I never knew of any connection between my dad and this guy.  I'd never seen him around the house or anything like that.  The only reason I knew of him is that he had a little brother who was a year ahead of me in school.  The little brother wasn't at the funeral.  I asked my mom what was going on and she denied knowing anything either.  So I just left it alone, but it was damned suspicious.  The obvious answer is that this guy is my half brother. 

I never brought it up to my mother again and she was killed in a car accident five years later.  Now its just one of those things in the back of my mind that I wonder about sometimes.

87 "Happy families are all the same.  Unhappy families are unhappy in their unique ways." - Some dead Russian.  (Dostoyevski)

88 My mother died at 47 my senior year in college. My grandmother had been a bitch-on-wheels MIL and I wrote her a letter that summer, telling her so. She proudly sent copies of the letter around. Saved me lots of postage on wedding invites. ...family...

89 Condolences on your loss, OregonMuse, and not just the loss of your mother. It's odd, that even as adults we still sometimes have innocence to lose, and yet we do, and sometimes that can be just as devastating. May you find peace and comfort in the midst of your troubles.

90 I'm sorry for your loss. My best wishes for comfort and healing to you and your family. I'm the family historian, and in going through my mother's things, came across information that was, fortunately, nearly all positive. Not all of it was received well, and rumors came to me that I couldn't verify and hoped I couldn't. If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: take time to sit with your mother's passing. When you feel ready to do so dispassionately, look at the things she said in context, and keep whatever new picture may emerge of your family and its history in the context of the positive places to which y'all have come. Sometimes shocking things are just part of a larger picture. You have each other and your love. Everything else is part of the path you took to get to where you are now, and your future is what you make it, in love.

91 I posted this a couple days ago in an old, musty, nearly used up thread. For anyone who likes free stuff, there's a link to Robert McCammon's web page with a Halloween ebook in my name.
Posted by: JMKN1 at October 28, 2012 11:30 AM


Oh, I like McCammon, both the old and the new stuff.  Thanks.

Please accept my condolences, OM.

92 Still reading G.A. Henty's The Lost Heir. Part of the plot revolves around the fact that a major character is partially deaf and has learned to read lips, which is interesting for a late 1800's book. Also still reading Lauren Willig's Silver Orchid from her Pink Carnation Napolionic war series. I'd forgotten how much I love her writing (although the books are sort of expensive for Kindle). Bought So You Want To Own a Gun yesterday for $.99 as a Kindle book but haven't started it yet. It's by a guy who does Appleseed competitions (whatever those are) along with his wife.

93 My mother always told us we were 1/16th Indian and that we were related to Gen. Ben McCulloch.

Neither is true.  Otherwise, she was an honest person in the things that matter.  May God rest her soul.

94 Posted by: Beth just south of Berkeley and just east of San Francisco

Emeryville?
Oakland?

95 Jennifer Griffin on FNC.  Shit's gettin real.

96 I get the feeling that Oregon Muse is providing a public service by posting book threads each week that make folks feel guilty, or left behind, and thus encourages them to read more often.

97 oregon muse ((((((HUGS))))))) my condolences to you and your family yes, the old family secrets.....ugh....been dealing with them for a few years here....some have done permanent damage in mine....which is sad....we used to all be really close.....now, not so much....

98 Thanks dawnfire and Doug, I added Guests of the Ayatollah and The Master of Disguise to my reading list. Any more suggestions? I'm especially interested in the Carter angle.

99

OK, 'ron's 'n 'ettes, time for me to  surrender B'Gal's laptop.  Plus, football and NASCAR await.

 

From one of the accursed, Happy Halloween!

 

Y'all have fun and try not to trash the place, 'k?

100 What book would the horde recommend for learning about the Iran Hostage Crisis for someone too young to remember it?

Posted by: BornLib at October 28, 2012 11:26 AM (zpNwC)

Although not about the hostage crisis James Clavell's book Whirlwind was about Iran and the fall of the Shah.  It is a good book and he has nothing good to say about Jimmy Carter.

101 Thanks to the Internet you can continue to get mind f'd by your dead ancestors years later.

102 Just got the Master of Disquise book recommended here. Looks very interesting.

103 74 Re: picking through parents' belongings. Doesn't anyone write wills anymore?

yeah no kidding.

on a couple of occasions my mom has said to me, when we go, do you want this trinket or this doodad?  And I keep saying it's not my decision to make, put it all in a will, and they say "we'll get around to it someday"

ugh

104 you still have to go through their shit...unless they cleaned everything up themselves.....there are closets and drawers to go through....that doesn't magically organize on it's own

105 "I'm especially interested in the Carter angle." I don't know of anything that focuses on that, but "Inside Delta Force" by CSM Eric Haney (ret) deals directly with Operation Eagle Claw; he was there for it, after all.

106 God bless, OM. I've been there too, and know it's rough. Everyone's situation is different, though, and every passing brings its own exquisite pain & suffering, and confrontation with realities old and new. Hang in there, and know that you're amongst friends here.

107 My condolences on your loss. It's tough to lose one's parents.

Regarding the book mentioned, does anyone else here find it kind of creepy that the author used "Abkhenazi" to describe the bad tribe? Too close to "Ashkenazi" for me. Could it be veiled anti-Semitism?

108 Some dead Russian. (Dostoyevski)

Posted by: Bart who lurks with SMOD 2012, master of his domain at October 28, 2012 12:03 PM (he2LC)

You sure about that?  That sounds more like Tolstoy at the beginning of Anna Karenina.

109 104 yep.  Grandma had a will and living trust, but you still have to go thru all the closets, kitchen, garage.  At least Aunt, Dad and us five cousins didn't argue about anything.  I know people who have some very nasty stories about stuff like that.  Sad really.

110 Just finished Bernard Lewis' book on the Assassins. Interesting, but not for the reasons I had anticipated. Sorry for your loss, OM.

111 I get the feeling that Oregon Muse is providing a public service by posting book threads each week that make folks feel guilty, or left behind, and thus encourages them to read more often.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at October 28, 2012 12:13 PM (piMMO)

Not to diminish what OM does, which is great, but didn't Monty get the ball rolling on these book threads?

112

There is a novel called appropriately enough "The Grab", a story of a family of sisters who gather to sort out their mother's possessions. Think I'll pick it up this week.

I finally made a will last year. Time to tweak it a little as circumstances have changed. It's an important thing to do to minimize the confusion after a death.

Deep condolences on your loss. I've done it. It takes time and you are going to have to reach your new normal. Prayers for you.

113 I'm so sorry, Oregon Muse. It is fairly common for people to air their secrets right at the end, from what I can tell, and it's hard. I hope you and your siblings are on good enough terms, and can help each other process all the new info---that seems to make all the difference. I've seen quarreling siblings throw their new information---including the knowledge that someone was adopted, or had a different father---at each other like weapons (No, Johnny doesn't get a say; turns out he's not *really* Dad's son) while making funeral arrangements and it's just so sad.

114 I am very sorry for your loss. Best to get the secrets out while folks are alive and treat them as no big deal. Having said that I am secretly dreading the day we tell our son he's adopted. We have prepared for it and all but the uncertainty and all that. He's been with us since he was 24 hours old. While his birthmom has always been welcome to visit she never has and I doubt she will ever want to meet him. She has told us very little about his birth father but he did knock her up when she was in her early 20's then dumped her to go back to his wife and kids. Don't know what I would do if I ever did meet him, shake his hand then rip it off and beat the jerk with it; always wondered. Thanks to WWII and the rise of the Iron Curtain any tracing of family trees gets difficult after the grandparents as they changed names to escape the "Old Country" and refused to talk about it while they were alive. My parents have told me and my siblings some but now that one can go back neither have any interest in it. My grandparents and my parents consider this the "New World" in every sense of the term and from what I have been told I can see why.

115 Re: 105 Haney's "Inside Delta Force." Agreed. From cbs.com bio of Haney -- Command Sergeant Major (retired) Eric L. Haney is the author of Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counter-terrorist Unit. In 2003, Haney met and worked with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer/director David Mamet on Mamet's film, "Spartan." The success of that relationship led to Haney, Mamet and Shawn Ryan working together to create a television show based on "Inside Delta Force." I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall so I could listen to Mamet and Haney talk...

116 Thanks Vic, Whirlwind looks interesting but since it's fiction I'll need to leave it for later so I can separate history from artistic license.

117 103 Chemjeff.
       Re: Last will & Testament
Just went thru a Living Trust with LegalZoom for my 90 year old mother. It was a nightmare only because their software is not user friendly for some bequests. This involved an extensive list of items and real property. For a simple will it would probably be a snap. I'm getting ready to do a simple will as an interim till she passes-my assets are limited. After she passes a very complicated Trust will be required to protect my daughter when I go.Probably beyond the scope of online services. Look also @ Nolo Press they have a similar service. I'm going to try them.

118 I learned a few interesting things in my mother's last week. But she was drugged out of her gourd and I asked leading questions and I suspected the answers already. No fun at all, this burying of parents. But, in the ordinary course of things, it comes to us all. Take care.

119 BTW, if you haven't seen Mamet's movie "Spartan," I'd recommend it. I liked his "Redbelt" even better. Not a book post, admittedly, but Mamet *writes* like a god!

120 Eman, I liked "Darwin's Radio," but the sequel, "Darwin's Children," was a mess. Greg Bear is the author. Posted by: no good deed at October 28, 2012 11:58 AM (mjR67) Agree in full. I like Greg Bear's work in general. Did you read "Slant"?

121

God bless you and yours. After my Father died, my [now EX-] sister -in-law threw out all of the short stories and poems Dad had written. He never published, but he kept family and friends entertained and amused. And a poem about JFK's funeral had us all in tears. Then she started walking off with goodies from Mom. My kid brother is now married to someone who we all love.

When my wife's uncle died, his misteress showed up at the funeral - and reading of the will. Fox in the hen house! He was well to-do and a Catholic, living with his widowed Mother and sister.  She was a divorced protestant. He'd bought her a house about a mile from Mom and sister.

As to books, "Valley of Shadows:  Kingdom of Hillael", by Anre Cortsdino. The pen name of a student of mine in '68-'69  when I taught English in a scool outside Patterson, NJ. She tracked me down to send me an e-mail, thanking me for encouraging her!

122 Posted by: Old Fart at October 28, 2012 12:37 PM (w4RtJ)

Oh they know how to do it, they just never get around to doing it.

123 Sorry for your loss.

124 "Some dead Russian. (Dostoyevski)


Posted by: Bart who lurks with SMOD 2012, master of his domain at October 28, 2012 12:03 PM (he2LC)
You sure about that? That sounds more like Tolstoy at the beginning of Anna Karenina.

Posted by: Captain Hate at October 28, 2012 12:22 PM (guDSs)"

I am sure it was some dead Russian.  Not sure about it not being Tolstoy.

125 My Dad told me the one how my Uncle Ralph stole the bag of nickles off the counter.

126 OregonMuse, may your mother's memory be eternal.

127

Oh OM, I'm so sorry. I think all families have some things they think no one will ever know about. When my mom died I found out all kind of things, like how she hated me and wished I had never been born. Nothing new, because she would beat me with whatever she could hold and nearly killed me with an ice pick. But the other things about my sibs and grandparents are still hard to hear. My older brother and I decided not to tell the rest of the family, not yet anyway. My father is still alive, maybe after he is gone.

I am reading The Twelve, right now it's kind of ...meh.

128 Currently reading a "Jack Reacher" novel by Lee Child.  It is OK, but not on the same level as a Robert Crais, or even Brad Thor or Vince Flynn.

As to wills and such, I, and my siblings have to figure out how to get my father's ashes to an island in the gulf of california and not get killed by a drug cartel.  Don't make crazy requests in a will.  It makes it hard for those who have to survive your passing.

129

114, Man from Athens, just make sure that you tell your boy that his birth mother COULDN'T take care of him, not that she didn't want to.  I speak from experience as the birth mother and I was a messed up basket case.  If I had kept my baby, the child would have ended up dead and me in prison, most likely.  I pray for her often.  I know I did the right thing, but you never cease to wonder....  It was the 70s and a closed adoption so I have no clue.

 

I read "What the Dog Did" by Emily Yoffee (Dear Prudence at Slate.com) and it was quite funny and mercifully free of politics.  In the car I am listening to "How Civilizations Die" by David Goldman.  Apparently it's caused by teaching us wimminfolks how to read, but it's too late now!  I finished Adam Corolla's second book, which I enjoyed, and now I am going to read his first.  And on my Kindle, I'm in the middle of Ann Coulter's latest.  It's interesting, but it's vintage Coulter, as they say, so I feel a little like I've read it before.

 

OM, I'm very sorry for your loss.

130 I like Goldman's line about the Germans and the Japanese.  Apparently they don't reproduce in captivity.

131 77  I have not, eman.  Those two are the only books of his I've read.  "Slant" looks interesting. 

132 That line about happy families is the opening sentence in the literary boat anchor that is Anna Karenina. I heartily recommend not reading it. Tolstoy never used one word where he could use twenty; maybe it reads better in Russian. Anna's actions make no sense, you'll spend the entire novel wanting to strangle Vronsky (her boy toy) with his own bowels, and there's a subplot about a nobleman who is obviously an avatar for Tolstoy himself going on about the virtuous sweat of the peasants and the joy of the serf's life and blah blah blah.

133 I was about 30 pages to the end of "The Brothers Karamazov" when I put it down, never to pick it up again.  I just don't give a shit about these crazy people.

134 I'm reading the O'Reilly Killing Kennedy book and it's pretty riveting. 

Sorry about your mom...

135 One of the cool parts of Guests Of The Ayatollah is the resistance of the Marine hostages during their long captivity. One story was that the guards used to leave their dirty dishes in the bathroom sink, so during their bathroom breaks the Marines would take great joy in pissing on the dishes.

136 Sorry for your loss, OregonMuse.

My husband found out that his father had been married before and that his mother's first name wasn't what he thought it was. Fortunately, those tidbits weren't too disturbing.

137 I read the last book in Joanne Harris's Chocolat trilogy, Peaches for Father Francis last week and enjoyed it very much.  It's about a clash between the priest in a small French village and Muslim immigrants and is not very forgiving toward political correctness and fundamentalism.

138 @114, Thanks to WWII and the rise of the Iron Curtain any tracing of family trees gets difficult after the grandparents as they changed names to escape the "Old Country"

Right you are, but it isn't just this century. Two lines of my family arise from the German Baltic shore, which must have as much ethnic cleansing/per/hectare as any point on earth. They've been slaughtering, usurping, stealing family fortunes, throwing each other out, and changing names since time immoral. Oh, and dodging the draft, too. I have distant cousins who are Danish, German, and Polish (and, dead, too) even though they never moved. Those are the ones we admit to -- go back one more notch and you get into Franks and Frisians. "Stetin, on the Baltic" was only one of the later chapters.

Among dirty-collar progs I've known, the main excuse for throwing over all of human tradition and trusting Mother State instead is that their own families had bad actors, back-stabbing, or a blown inheritance. They can't act in that arena (I find it difficult myself), so they put their faith in a Brave New World where they assume everyone is nice because they aren't related. Then they tell their kids, you're on your own. Then the kids have kids and move back in.

139 After my dad died, I found out that my granddad had re-married after his divorce to my grandmother.  BFD.  Who cares?

140 Which reminds me of this joke.

A young priest is assigned to a new (for him) parish.  He shares a house with an older Monsignor.  There is a fairly attractive young housemaid.

After a week or so, the old priest says to the young priest:

"I'm not saying you did and I'm not saying you didn't.  But we are missing the silver ladle."

The young priest replies:

"I'm not saying you did and I'm not saying you didn't.  But if you were sleeping in your own bed, you would have found the fucking ladle."

141

 

OregonMuse,

What you're going through sounds eerily familiar to what I went through with my folks.

Except I was closely involved as a caregiver, right up till the end.

 

You have my sincere condolences.

Which, I know is little comfort when it is all still going on...and throbbing like a raw nerve.

 

And yeah, things do come pouring out at the end.

People want to set the record straight, unburden themselves of secrets they've been keeping their whole lives....

Or in the case of a vindictive person, they want to lay down one last lie as revenge on someone.

 

We don't get to choose our family.

We can only make the best of the hand we've been dealt.

 

I hope the aftermath that you're having to deal with, is over soon...and with as few sibling diffugalties as possible.

 

 

142

Sorry for your loss. It is never easy to loose your parents.

143 All of this unburdening of guilt reminds me of my ex-SiL.   She cheated on my BiL.  Then, to make herself feel better, she confesses to him.

It brought his whole world down.  He just couldn't trust her anymore.

It was extremely selfish of her to try to escape her guilt by blabbing.  She should have repented and never ever done anything like it again. 

Deathbed confessions shouldn't be heard by family.  Get the clergy in there stat.

144 To:
-----
107 My condolences on your loss. It's tough to lose one's parents.

Regarding the book mentioned, does anyone else here find it kind of creepy that the author used "Abkhenazi" to describe the bad tribe? Too close to "Ashkenazi" for me. Could it be veiled anti-Semitism?

----
Yeah, I caught that detail, too.  Seems too coincidental.  Incidentally, it had me clue in to the last four letters of both words: nazi.  That is too creepy.

145 Abkhenazi.  It's Disneyesque.  Cruella D'Evil?

146 So sorry for your loss.  It's especially sad when Moms die, there's that special bond between kids and their Moms.  I am so sorry.  I lost my mom 22 years ago when I was 27.  I still miss her.

147 114, 129 Man from Athens, i was adopted very soon after birth. My parents told me at a very early age that i was adopted, and i have no memory of "discovering" that fact. I can't speak to your specific situation, of course, but i never felt in any way diminished, unloved, world-turned-upside-down, etc because of that. I do suspect that learning earlier in life rather than later makes that easier, but i have no idea. I've met my birth mother and my siblings by her (from what i understand, my father tried to avoid/forget the whole thing, and he died in a car crash a number of years ago), but we haven't really done well developing a solid relationship (my fault, i think). For all my curiosity about where i came from, at the end of the day, my parents are the ones who raised me. Tonestaple, like i said above, i don't recall ever feeling abandoned or unwanted because of my mom's decision to give me up for adoption, and even though we don't have much contact, i love her and want the best for her. It seems like she's had a pretty rough life, and it makes me sad. I'm also grateful that she spared me from those rough times, and in the act of adoption gave me opportunities she never could have provided on her own. I hope this encourages you about your daughter.

148 145 Abkhenazi. It's Disneyesque. Cruella D'Evil?

--------------

It was Abby something. Abby Khenazi.

149 My sincere condolences on the loss of your mother and father.

150 137 I read the last book in Joanne Harris's Chocolat trilogy, Peaches for Father Francis last week and enjoyed it very much. It's about a clash between the priest in a small French village and Muslim immigrants and is not very forgiving toward political correctness and fundamentalism.

Posted by: huerfano at October 28, 2012 01:24 PM (bAGA/)

Huerfano, thank you. I have enjoyed her other books and just put this one on hold at library.

151

Condolences on your losses, OregonMuse.

 

Grams said she forgot all about it, but apparently my grandpa married some woman just days before being sent off to fight in WWII. Turns out the woman was a con artist who married military men to collect their checks while they were deployed.

Apparently gramps was so humiliated by it that he didn't want his girls to know, so him and grams kept it secret.

 

Same here. My father told me about this just before he died. Against all odds, he came back from the Pacific - Saipan, Tinian, Roi Namur, and Iwo Jima - and came home to find her shacked up with someone else, and damned disappointed that some Nip hadn't smoked him.

 

152 95 Jennifer Griffin on FNC. Shit's gettin real.

Posted by: Infidel at October 28, 2012 12:12 PM (prnik)

In a normal world Jennifer Griffin should get a Pulitzer or the equivalent. In today's world she will simply have to know we appreciate her work and the truth. I may email her at FOX and thank her.

153 I can relate to the dysfunctional family thing. Had a situation happen recently that was similar: I've always been a family history junkie. Recently, when going through some genealogy stuff I looked at the date of my grandparent's wedding certificate. Early December. My Dad was born in early August. For the math challenged, that is 8 months. At 8 lbs. 6 oz, my Dad would have to have been either the largest premie in the history of history or he was a surprise. Apparently my Grandfather didn't know his soon-to-be wife's father's name either because it is blank on the marriage license. A first in my document searches. Not terribly shocking, but it does explain much of the family drama and dysfunction.

154 I liked Knox's Irregulars and thought it was good, but I was a little disappointed that it was not quite great. My review is here.

I give it high marks for making Calvinists the heroes and commies the villains. The story is not as much fun as, say, the stories by Robert Buettner.

Knox's Irregulars made me dust off my "Planet of the Baptists" stories and see if anybody would buy them.

155 Oregon Muse- Please accept my condolences on your loss. I lost my Mother in July 2011 and my Father in November 1988. It's tough even when it is a blessing, as it was in the case of My Mother. She had been in a nursing home for almost six years with Alzheimer's but Thank God she never got so bad that she did not know me and my brother. May God Bless you and your parents. Carol

156 I think what you experienced with the death of your mother is pretty par for the course for most people. The week before my grandmother died, she got quite chatty (of course, she always was). She called here to talk to me and began railing off on my father. (I was bold enough to tell her I wasn't going to listen to it. The conversation would be the last I had with her. I'd say I felt badly about it, but truly, I had 37 years history with her. Most of it good, so I carry no guilt about it.) She was big into guilting her children, and she could be downright evil in her time - spreading family gossip and hating on people. She was legendary. Of all the dysfunctional things she spewed, at the end, there were actually some interesting tidbits that came that enlightened me about her as a person and what she experienced in her life. . . maybe even explaining some of her spewing and vindictiveness. Things about her childhood (which gave real insight into her lifelong behavior). . . things about other people. . . (my favorite was when she told some of us how my decade-gone grandfather was the "first man to pop her cherry" and that he was "a good man even at the age of 72"). . . some of it funny, some of it vulgar, some of it irritating, etc. People at the end of their lives can say all manner of things, and I'd be careful not to let it eat at me. Try to look at it in context, learn something from it, but don't let it screw up your relationships with other people in your family. My parents fortunately are hearing all kinds of stories about their peers having to clean out the stuff left behind by dying parents, and my parents came to the conclusion that it was sinful to leave that sort of mess behind for your children to have to deal with physically and emotionally. They are getting their own ducks in a row and making sure their children don't have to deal with it. They've also never made material possessions a priority, so that helps with not just the cleaning out but also with our own values. Stuff isn't worth breaking up relationships for, I think. I've watched my own materialistic relatives (and mother-in-law) get in feuds and bickering with others with the deaths of parents. Not worth it, and quite childish. Our lives are more soap opera than we like to think. And I think I'm pretty dull.

157 My sincere condolences to you and your family. But as for skeletons? A couple of months ago a relative wrote a bunch of letters explaining some things from his past and also telling other people about their past which they didn't know about. Family secrets and things best left unsaid. He then tried to kill himself but the paramedics got there first. Everyone had got their letters in the post the next day though. Now *that* was awkward. Including something serious I found out about my parents. And also about him from his own mea culpa. It has torn the family apart. OregonMuse, I wish you all the peace and solace in the world. On topic can I recommend rundextrun.com which is an online book - basically the guy posts story updates about once a week. It's about a man trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. It's not a love story and for some characters it doesn't go so well. But he's approaching his 100th post and once you've caught up then you find yourself itching for the next update. The story is flowing and evolving too. He takes ideas for names and plot developments and freely confesses to no idea how it will end. Enjoy, and say Hi from GeoffM in his comments :-)

158 Sorry about your loss. Hope you are able to find the time to just sit with your siblings and talk about good times. That's the only thing that I've seen working to help me get through the grieving process. I'm reading "The Gift of Fear". Pretty good read about what tips off our instincts about danger.

159 OregonMuse - My condolences and deepest sympathies, I'm in the midst of that same situation. Dad passed away back in July, Mom is taking it very hard and fading away fast. Small wonder, she went straight from her mother's house to married life, 61 years with him, now on her own at age 80 for the first time in her life. Gee whiz, what everyone else said about cleaning out the rooms and closets. Mom wants "her house back," and the place pretty much cleaned out, so she can enjoy what time she has left in a clean house. Dad left, conservatively, at lest 25,000 books, mostly hardbacks, few of which are anything anyone in the family wants and that have little resale value (though Mom saw serious $ in them). Then there is his huge Apple ][ era computer collection, at least 50 machines and countless peripherals and parts. Then there are countless other oddball collections and nicknacks. I'm really getting to dread opening another closet, knowing it will be stuffed to the gills with who knows what. No family secrets unveiled, though. Dad was in very poor health, but still thought and stated that he had "three to five more years left," almost exactly 60 hours before he died. Whatever you do, try to get your parents (and yourself) to preplan funerals and do wills. We got them to do all this almost at the last moment, and it saved a world of problems when he did pass away.

160 Not to diminish what OM does, which is great, but didn't Monty get the ball rolling on these book threads?

Yes, he did. Monty was the original book thread author. So when he left, I heard people saying "gee, I miss having a book thread" so I just stepped in and picked it up and ran with it. Monty can have it back if he ever returns. Also, if there's someone who knows more about books, like an author or someone who works in the industry, or whatever, and who wants to do a better book thread, I will gladly step aside.

161 No need for that.  You are doing a fine job.

162 @ JFirch
I've read "The Gift of Fear," and given copies to people I know. Excellent advice about trusting your intuition over worrying about seeming "nice," a trap women esp., I think, fall into. Always better to err on the side of safety.

163

Posted by: Vic at October 28, 2012 04:58 PM (YdQQY)

 

I second that. You are doing a damn fine job. Heck, just coming back and posting like you did after the family event shows a lot of character.

 

Best of all wishes for you...

164 My sibs still haven't forgiven me for buying out their shares in my mother's home,  cash on the barrel-head at the top of the market,  because the offer was contingent on them selling the contents to me (offer was  above estimated estate-sale or auction return value).   They had really looked forward to ditching mom's stuff and getting rid of the house,  which had bad memories.   They don't speak to me.  

They also were really mad my husband was named executor of the will, and thought I had mom cremated out of spite (it was more the week before discovery thing).

I often wonder about them coming out so well financially and holding it against me.   But they do.

165 You're doing a great job OregonMuse.

166 Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

167 I am very sorry to hear of your loss. My mother passed away in 2008 - while there were no deathbed confessions - in January we found out the skeleton in the family closet in the form of a half brother my mother gave up for adoption in 1943. We have all met and get along, but his presence does explain a lot about some of the unusual dynamics in my family. People are complicated....

168 To: Posted by: Tonestaple at October 28, 2012 12:51 PM (gvVlx) Tonestaple, You did the right thing and for what it is worth I am humbled that you told me a bit about your story. Birth mother's are no saints but their love for their children is just as real and as deep as any mother's. Even more so as they know they cannot give their child a decent life and thus choose to give their child to those that can. I have heard that even with a closed adoption it is still possible to obtain some information. Perhaps a visit to an attorney may prove fruitful.

169 Posted by: Occam's Safety Razor at October 28, 2012 02:23 PM (8Mgrk) I enjoyed your post. We are ready to tell my son everything. We had a party for him the day of the official adoption and had a group photo taken and he loves looking at that photo and picking out family and family friends. He has asked about it and has been told he has a "birth lady" (my wife owns and has earned the title of "mother") and why we celebrate a "gotcha day" but at his age it has not quite meshed. It will though.

170 Jews and Muslims are buried quick out of necessity. It's too hot to let a sack of raw meat rot in the sun.

171 Condolences to you and your family. I don't think it's all that unusual for stuff to come to light near the death of others. I remember my grandmother asking to have the pastor of the church slightly reword something at her mother's (my great-grandma's) funeral. I only found out about 2 years ago why. Unfortunately, it was because of something fairly scandalous, but my great-grandmother was in no way at fault for what happened. (Short - the woman who she knew as her mother wasn't really her mother. She knew this, but most people didn't, and my grandmother didn't want the error to be repeated in church, but she didn't want to let on to others that there was anything out of the ordinary.)

172 Re: 132 Dear Secundus, I was a Sputnik-era Russian major. Trust me, the "literary boat anchor" (BWA-hahaha!) Anna Karenina is no better in Russian. At the time, I thought it was just me.

173 Please take anything your mother said to her caregiver with a grain of salt. The effects of old age or dementia may have allowed the stories to flow, but it is also highly probable that some events were conflated with others. It's impossible at this stage to tease out what is truth, what is hurt feelings, and what is family rumor that has been embroidered upon with the years. The ONLY thing that matters is that you and your siblings get along and still love each other. Let the rest go. The day will come quickly enough when everyone will know what the unvarnished and simple truth really is, until then love your family with all you've got.

174 Hey, Muse, I just want to give you my deep sympathies for your losses, and also for how tough this past week must have been. I'm glad you had your siblings to share it with you, and hope that you all will grow even closer in the days and years to come. God is so good to give us spouses and siblings! For all the rest of you on the thread, the third and final presidential debate inspired me to get Mitt's 2010 book, "No Apology," on my Kindle. IT IS A REVELATION. The "no apology" refers NOT to himself, but to America -- as in, the opposite of Obama's foreign apology tours -- as in, no apologies for American exceptionalism and greatness. As a former Mitt-basher, all I can say is, I HAD NO IDEA. I totally recommend it -- if you have time. Don't let it take you away from knocking on doors, phone-banking, etc. We've all got to be going full-bore these next 9 days. But suffice it to say that the Mitt you saw in the debates is the real Mitt. And boy is he ever, as Paul Ryan says, the right man at the right time for the circumstances we're in.

175 Jews and Muslims are buried quick out of necessity. It's too hot to let a sack of raw meat rot in the sun. Posted by Dave @ 170 That's very true at my latitude here in the Mediterranean (cnic.navy.mil/rota is the US base in Spain) and so, as you rightly say, both religions absorbed that into their laws centuries ago out of necessity. However for exactly the same reasons us Christians are also buried within 24/48 hours over here even if family can't fly over in time. Science and access to a chilled morgue made that unnecessary decades ago but it still lives on in the culture and tradition these days.

176

No matter how old you are when your parents die, you become an orphan.

And you never really stop thinking about them.  Every now and then, you wish you could tell them something... or wish they could be here for this or that.

Even when they lived long and happy lives.

This is just my own experience.  I keep thinking, Did my mom think about her mom as much as I think about her?  Or did Dad think about his parents this way?  And I know they did.  But they never said it.  What is there to say?  They are gone, and you miss them.  And no one can really understand that... accept I think we all understand that in our own ways.

177

Alberta Oil Peon -

"Regarding the book mentioned, does anyone else here find it kind of creepy that the author used "Abkhenazi" to describe the bad tribe? Too close to "Ashkenazi" for me. Could it be veiled anti-Semitism?"

I'm the author, and am definitely pro-Israel and semitophilic.  The Abkhenazi were originally the Abkhazi, but that name had been used in another sci fi book, so I changed it. Didn't think of the Ashkenazi similarity until after publication.

OregonMuse -

Thanks so much for the link!  I hope you enjoy the book.  Ace of Spades has been one of my favorite blogs since Ace first hit the scene (I think I was his first permalink.) We also killed a few brain cells together at a CPAC reception. You guys are great.

178

OregonMuse -

Very sorry to hear about your loss.  It sounds especially traumatic with your mother spilling beans at the end.  We have something similar happening with a relative of my wife, who has lost her internal monologue and now just says whatever pops in her head. Wish you all the best.

- John

179 I just downloaded "Knox's Irregulars." Whoever it was on this site (was it you?) that steered me to the "Wool" series did me a real favor, so I'll try this one, too.

180 To celebrate the one year anniversary of the publication of <a href="http://tinyurl.com/aeoa4ql">Knox's Irregulars</a>, it will be available for free download until November 15th.

Enjoy!