Sunday, September 9
This was a “sleep-in” morning for us. Barbara went to bed early last night, but the rest of us stayed up until midnight watching the Auburn / University of South Florida football game. Getting up early was not an option for anyone.
After we all did get moving around, we got cleaned up and had
breakfast before leaving Graceville and heading down to Mineola to visit with family members. Paula and James took their car since they needed to get back to Graceville for lunch with her mom and aunts. Barbara and I drove on down with the intention of spending the day and returning to Graceville to spend another night.Cousin Kathy left to return to Lakeland before we got there, but we did get to spend a lot of time with Glennis and Darrin, Aunt T.J., Cousin Rob and his son Joseph, Paula and James, and Cousin Danny and his wife Cindy, and Cousin Ty (not pictured. Most of the time was spent just reminiscing about the times that we had spent with Uncle Raymond and Aunt
Glennis over the years.We thought that T.J. was going to spend the night with Glennis before returning to Mineola on Monday, but she decided that she, Rob, and Joseph would just leave early Monday morning from their motel, so Barbara and I returned to Graceville to pack everything so we could move in with Glennis and Darrin for a few days.
Monday, September 10
We got up to a quiet house this morning…the first time in several days. After a death in the family, there is so very much to do before being able to pick up the pieces and move on. Having been through the death of a spouse, Barbara knew to begin making lists of all the places that needed to be contacted to find out the next steps (it seems that everyone – insurance companies, utilities, local and state offices, social security, etc. have different procedures), so she spent a large part of the day contacting every agency and business she could think of that needed to be notified so we would know what to do next.
I’ll admit right up front that I have very little patience for being shunted from one mid-level bureaucratic functionary to another while listening to really bad telephone background music, so I put my time to use by starting to clean out and straighten the garage. Uncle Raymond was a “keeper” in more ways than one. I found parts and pieces of equipment that had long since bit the dust, but were kept around “just in case.” In an effort to get the place organized, I (and later Barbara) made some executive decisions about what was useful and what just needed to be gone.
Four hours later, we had the place pretty well straightened up (except for several large boxes of “stuff”) and swept out. We decided to set up a few lawn chairs and just use it as our coffee room and computer lab for the next few days. Glennis has a dial-up connection for her computer, but when we went to the garage, Barbara and I were able to latch on to a neighbor’s wireless signal and keep up with the world on our laptops.
While doing the cleaning, I found a gasoline-powered edger under a work table. I finally got it to working and spent some time in the late afternoon and evening trimming the somewhat extensive driveway, sidewalk, and parking area.
One of the decisions that we all made was that Glennis needed something better than her current computer service, so Barbara searched around and found that she could bundle her telephone, television, and internet service and save a fair chunk of money each month. Barbara spent a great deal of time on the telephone making all those arrangements, which included a satellite dish installation and receiving a new internet modem from Embarq, the telephone service provider. With new services scheduled to start up on Wednesday, we turned our collective attention to other matters around the house. By the end of the day, we were all “weary with well-doing,” and had no trouble going to sleep (except for Darrin, who has to go to work at 11:00 pm each evening).
Tuesday, September 11
Today was more of the same as yesterday. Barbara spent what seemed like hours on the telephone with the Social Security folks, trying to figure out what was needed. Late in the afternoon Glennis received a call from the funeral home telling her that the death certificates had arrived, so we drove her down there and picked them up. Nothing other than information gathering could be accomplished without the certificates, so now we would be able to move ahead.
Wednesday, September 12
The satellite dish installation was scheduled for this morning. Glennis and Barbara went to the grocery store while I waited for the installer to show up and get to work. Luckily, he arrived around 8:30 and had everything up and running in a little over an hour.
After I got cleaned up, we started making the rounds of banks, tax offices, and other businesses that had to be notified so Glennis could switch everything over to her name. Marianna is a typical small town where almost everyone knows everyone else, so folks were very patient and helpful as we wound our way through the process. Nothing was very difficult…just time-consuming.
This afternoon we drove to Tallahassee to see Danny and Cindy’s home. They have been doing some remodeling and Glennis hadn’t seen it. It turned out to be quite an interesting drive. Just a few miles from Tallahassee we ran into a monstrous rainstorm…visibility almost down to zero. The traffic slowed down and we made it without incident…did get to see lightning strike a transformer pole about 50 feet away from us…now THAT is something that will get your attention!
After visiting for a couple of hours, we headed back to Marianna. When we got back to town, Barbara went into KFC and ordered some food while Glennis and I went across the street to Wal-Mart to gas up the car. Then, it was back to the house for dinner.
The new internet service was scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm, but we couldn’t use it until I made a number of installations. Cousin Danny, our family computer expert, had already installed the new card in the computer, but I had to work through the process of wiring everything up and installing the new modem and router…another new experience for me.
The so-called easy to use instructions ended in a five-hour process that involved multiple telephone calls to technicians for both Belkin (manufacturer of the router), and Embarq (the ISP).
Each was more than willing to point out that the seeming incompatibilities were solely the responsibility of the other party. In the end, it was an Embarq technician who guided me into the router and gave me an IP address that got the system going. At last, Glennis would be able to enter the world of high-speed internet service, Darrin (hopefully) would be able to get rid of his dial-up service and connect by wireless, and we wouldn’t have to sit out in the garage to use our laptops.
The main computer was working just fine, but by the time we finished, Darrin was fast asleep (his “weekend” is Wednesday and Thursday nights), so we wouldn’t know until tomorrow if the new wireless card in his computer would work.
1:00 am – Time to call it a day!!!!!
Thursday, September 13
While Darrin took Glennis to a doctor appointment in Dothan, Alabama, this morning, I went to his room to see if the wireless system was going to work. After multiple attempts to log on, I decided that I would have to disconnect the computer, take it to the kitchen table and open it up, and physically reinstall the wireless card (things I’ve never done before, but Danny had given me a crash course earlier in the week).
Once everything was put back together and hooked up, I ran the installation program again…still no luck, so I shut the computer down and prepared to call Danny to ask for his advice. As the computer was rebooting, the phone rang – it was Danny, wanting to know how things were going. I told him I thought we had major problem. When I explained what was happening (or not happening), he started to tell me that maybe the new card was incompatible with the Windows Vista system. Just as he finished saying that, the screen came up and announced that we had a wireless network connection…success at last. Within a few minutes we had the system encrypted and up and running with all systems go.
Because of the late hours we kept last night, afternoon naps (the first in several days) were definitely in order.
Glennis took us all out for Chinese food tonight. When we got back to the house, it was time to gather everything up and start packing for tomorrow’s trip. We all thought that we might have trouble sleeping after taking hard naps during the afternoon, but everyone was asleep by 10:00 pm.
Friday, September 14
After eating an early breakfast and getting the car packed, we said our goodbyes to Glennis and Darrin and left Marianna for a l-o-n-g travel day. We drove 540 miles through four states (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) before reaching the Texas state line at Orange, and then tacked on another 160 miles driving west on I-10 through Beaumont, Houston, and Katy before deciding to call it a night at the first motel we could find outside the metropolitan area.
After getting checked in (making sure we had good internet service), we went across the street to a Flying J truck stop to get something to eat. We took it back to the room, got settled in for the evening, and worked on email and journal entries while listening to the 4-A Artesia Bulldog homecoming football game with 5-A Rio Rancho. After a nip and tuck battle, the hometown Dawgs managed to pull out a squeaker by a score of 42 – 35, remaining undefeated on the season.
Saturday, September 15
We got away from the motel around 8:30 am. After a stop at the Flying J for breakfast, newspaper, and ice, we were on I-10 and headed west by 9:00. It was basically another Point A to Point B day; we just wanted to be at John and Carol’s house in San Antonio as quickly as possible.
We did call Rob as we got close to Seguin…thought that if they could meet us for a quick break as we came through, we would do that. Unfortunately, Michelle and Joseph were away for the morning, and Rob didn’t have wheels. We talked for a few minutes and decided we’d just catch up the next time through.
We got to San Antonio just a little before noon…gassed up the car, made a stop at the ATM station, and got to the house right at 12:00.
The rest of the day was spent visiting and loafing around. Barbara, Carol, and Randi went to the grocery store while John and I watched the Texas Tech / Rice football game. Randi’s friend Jesse came over for a few hours and we had supper, played board games, and watched movies…a really relaxing way to finish up a busy week.
“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family; whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”…Jane Howard
From San Antonio,
Jim & Barbara
