Driving up to San Bernardino was one of my family's few traditions. My great grandmother Opal lived up there and she insisted we visit around most holidays. It was the typical living hell boredom for a kid: a 2 hour car ride, 6-10 hours in a weird house with weird old people, and then another ride back. Even when I had more patience as a teenager, I didn't much care for giving my soundbyte or chatting about inconsequential horseshit. Luckily, I found comfort in reading or watching TV in the back bedroom noone used. I only had two consolations during those visits:

1) My mob-connected great uncle with his lawnmower voice, endearing chuckle and overstocked fridge of sodas.

2) When I heard the magic words "we can go soon".

And after all these years, Opal finally got her quarter of a century wish: she died peacefully. At 99, she'd had near a dozen children, moved about a great deal, worked as a nurse, and mostly cared for all of the surviving children and her husband, never fulfilling her aspirations as a writer. Most of her older life was plagued by sibling feuding, with Uncle Jack and my grandfather Mark battling over a trust fund that'd been given to Opal. Mom and I knew that Opal always wanted the boys to get along, and she'd stuck around hoping it'd happen before she died--either that or outlive them. She got pretty close to one of 'em: all of her surviving children have severe health problems. That could be the reason why a few of them firmly wanted me to be there. I'm the last of the line.

This past friday, then, Mom and I drove up together (to spare her from Gran's odd chatter), arriving at a Best Western near the thai place we always liked to go to. For 89 bucks a night it was pretty conventional, but we had our pick of any kind of restaurant we wanted. After having an odd and unpleasant meal with Gran at the thai place, Ma and I read for awhile and decided to have margaritas. Trouble was that we couldn't make up our minds where to go, so we went to GuadalaHarry's..then scratched that and went to College Asshole Margarita Bar..then scratched that and went back to Harry's at the end of bad karaoke. We ate chips, had decent margaritas and talked about stuff I can't remember.

The, er, 'highlight' of our hotel stay was the air conditioner. Considering how damned hot it was during the afternoon, we of course cranked up the A/C, and I decided to turn it off when we went out for drinks. But when we tried cranking the A/C later on, we got nothing. The thing wouldn't work--not even the fan. Given how damned hot it was, we called to the front desk to get someone to check it out. Funny enough, after an hour of poking, prodding, and trying to replace the fuses, the repairwoman had no idea what was wrong. Somehow the machine had magically stopped functioning for no reason--then again, Gran touched it; gremlins live in her fingertips.

After a miserable night of half sleep in a hot room, then, we threw off our rest-deprived coil and got ready. We cut it pretty close in terms of getting ready, so close we had a 20 minute speed breakfast at IHOP. Getting to the mortuary itself wasn't a problem, though, and we made it in time.

The actual Christian service was depressing, but not for the reason you think. All of us eventually die, after all, but having some meaning attached to the life you just left is what is most important. And as I listened to the eulogy, there seemed to be some emptiness to it, as though the flower gardens, children, and reading were alot, but not enough to make her feel accomplished. I kept remembering what she'd told me about trying to pursue my writing, since she never got around to it. I wasn't sad that Opal was dead--happy for her, actually--but I did pity her.

Afterwards, I shook hands with this or that old friend or family member. Uncle Jack, Opal's caretaker and kid, was too distraught and busy masking it with manliness to talk. None of Opal's other kids were there, but word would obviously get back that I'd shown up and oh I looked so professional and wasn't I the first person in our family to work toward getting a Ph.D.?

* * *

There was a reception after the funeral, of course...but I had a plan: I was going to Vegas to hang with an old friend.

Y'see, by a bizarre coincidence, I'd recently gotten back in contact with Tiff from Las Vegas. We'd had plans way back in 2002 for me to visit her via Greyhound, but that never happened. Now it was two years later and she wanted me to come visit before I left for Madison, a last shot deal. I was on the fence at first about whether or not to go. Since the funeral was happening in San Bernardino (which is closer to Vegas than LA) and I needed time from LA, though, I decided to go for it.

Now I don't know if you've ever driven from the LA area to Las Vegas, but I can sum it up for you: lots of desert, lots of country and mexican oompa music, not a whole hell of alot of stuff to see. Combine that with my car dancing on the verge of overheating when I had the A/C on for awhile, and you partly had a milkshake of suck. I say partly because I like deserts, actually, and I'd never really driven to another city like that.

One other thing you might not know is that the last 14 miles into Vegas are the worst. I'm convinced that some industrial plant pumps massive amounts of Dumbass into the air. That's the only way you could get traffic snarls like that. I mean these fuckers are largely from Los Angeles, but Christ on a pogo-stick it was sad even for them. Eventually I waddled my way through town, glancing past The Strip and shamelessly hoakey billboards, sweating profusely from the heat while edging closer to where Tiff was.

Finally, after getting turned around a time or two, I pulled up and there she was on the porch, smiling with cellphone in hand (since I'd called her 3 minutes before out of courteousy). I got out, we hugged, and then I came inside for introductions...

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