The kids slept the car ride up to Virginia, and J and I spent the first hour of the trip listening to music. Somewhere in the middle of ‘Jolene‘, I started thinking about my story. I drift a lot to the story these days: the way you do when you’ve found any new hobby or love, running over the niches of it in your head. “I don’t want to be buried in a casket,” I tell Jason. “I just– I get claustrophobic.”

“Okay,” Jason says, and then, “but you’ll be dead.”

“No, I’ll know. I’ll know now. And maybe I won’t be dead. There’s always the chance that I’m not dead at all, and they made a mistake, and being trapped in a coffin would be my worst nightmare.”

“You WILL be dead.”

“I MIGHT NOT BE.” Half a mile passes. “Can you put me in a mausoleum? Like, for our family? Then I’ll be able to knock on the door and a groundskeeper will get me.”

Jason gives me The Look. “Becca. You’ll be in a coffin in a mausoleum, too. They don’t just stack you in there.”

“They don’t?” WHAT? News to me. “I thought they just stuck you on the– bunk bed things. Inside.”

He starts laughing. “Yeah, in a COFFIN.”

Okay. Well. “Do they have to latch it? Maybe they can just leave my coffin unlocked so I can get out.”

“No, they have to lock it. And I PROMISE you’ll be dead. I mean, after the autopsy.”

“What autopsy?”

“The autopsy. To see how you died.”

“They already KNOW how I died. I don’t need an autopsy.”

“Then I’ll order one,” Jason replies. “Just to be sure. Then you’ll definitely be dead, so you don’t have to worry.”

“JASON I WILL HATE YOU FOREVER IF YOU DO THAT.”

Jason thinks this is hilarious, but I am DEAD SERIOUS (no pun intended). “You’ll be DEAD,” he keeps saying, and I’m like, “But you hear about all those cases where someone is, like, bitten by a snake, and they’re paralyzed and people think they’re dead, and then they’re alive during the autopsy. And they can feel everything. If you ordered an autopsy and I was alive, I would die thinking how much I hated you. SO DON’T DO IT.”

“You’re not going to die being poisoned or bitten by a snake. Maybe it’ll be a car accident or something.”

“Well, if it’s a car accident, then you don’t need to cut me up. Because it’ll be obvious.” I WIN.

Jason shrugs. “Okay, okay.”

More forest passes. I’m still worried about this. “Do you think you should just cremate me?”

“… No? That’ll be WAY worse.”

“Oh, yeah. Then I’ll be trapped in an OVEN.” I sigh, staring out the window.

Totally joking, Jason suggests, “Maybe we should just do one of those Viking funerals, where we put you on a raft and push you off in the water, and then shoot flaming arrows at the raft so it catches on fire and you drift away in flames.”

Beat. “Can you DO that? Is that legal?”

“… I have no idea. I don’t think they get asked about it that much.”

“If it’s legal, do that for me, okay?” There is a strange sense of peace and excitement about this plan. “Because, okay, I always love the idea of being buried at sea, and if I’m not dead, then the arrows or the flames will wake me up, and then I can just ROLL OFF THE RAFT into the water and put the fire out and you can come get me. And that’s a real good way to go out. Like, a HERO’S funeral.” YES. “Do that!”

Jason: “Okay. If it’s legal, I will put you on a raft and set it on fire.”

“Thank you.”

Then I add, “You know what’ll be sad, though? When I don’t roll off the raft… then you’ll know I’m really gone.” The scene plays over in my mind, my body in a white sheet, floating away from my family on the shore, and the corners of my eyes begin to sting. “I’m CRYING,” I sniffle to Jason, trying to make it into a joke; even though this is actually horribly depressing. “I’m crying at my own hypothetical Viking funeral.” Hiccup. “I don’t want to die!”

“You won’t die for a long, long, long time,” Jason comforts, putting his hand on my knee from the driver’s seat. “You got a good sixty or seventy years in you.”

“I hope my life sucks when I die, so I don’t miss it that much.”

Jason smiles. “Don’t worry about it, Becca.”

I cry for another two minutes. Then I make a mental note to tell Becky Jo about this conversation, because we have an ongoing joke about the ridiculous things we get emotional over.

Virginia is wet, dreary, and monochrome. We drive to Sharman’s first, unload, go in and visit. Jason’s dad made cookies. I eat seven. (This must be my second adolescence, because I’m always starving and I haven’t gained any weight. Maybe it’s a late growth spurt. I can dream.) There are presents for the kids– Addie gets dress up toys, and Elias gets a kid camera and Brian the Brain. Eli takes pictures first. He is a GOOD photographer. Definitely better than I was at 4.

Eli loves the Brian the Brain, even though he’s too little to actually do much with it. Just the fact that it’s a floating brain is good enough. Addie is sort of meh about all her toys. Sharman mentions there IS an extra box of dress-up shoes and tiaras, if we think Addie would like it. So of course the minute we pull it out, she’ll all, “SHHUUUUUUUES!” and “PUT ET ON! PUT ET ON!”

The boys want to stay and continue to visit, so I take Addie to go see my parents. Aunt Holly and her girlfriend are there. Nothing much is happening– my dad gives me some presents (Bilder Bars and the ceramics we painted last visit). My mom shows up. We just chat. I try to figure out a plan for the rest of the night so everyone gets to see everyone else:

I go back and pick boys up, along with Rock Band; which J brought and was playing with his brother.

My parents, the kids, J and I hang out at their house. Play Rock Band. My parents are good at it– I suspected as much, since they both play guitar.

Leave at 5:30, go back to Sharman’s, she watches the kids while J and I go out to dinner. Becky Jo offered to treat us to On The Border.

Becky and Dave show up 1.3 minutes late. Heh. We’re all excited to see each other; though lagging, since none of us have eaten much. Jason and Dave compare their vacation hours, while Becky and I make jokes about their Dad Conversations. “I can’t wait till we both have kids and they can sit around grilling at family picnics,” I say, and Becky Jo agrees: “Oh yeah, How’s your 401K looking? Did you get Ball Park franks? They were on sale, 2 for 4 dollars down at Food Lion.”

All Becky Jo and I wanted to do, this whole visit, was have chips and queso. Which we order, and devour. I do the make-your-own burrito, which is just a giant solid version of chips and queso (crispy enchilada, beans, sour cream, queso, cheese). SO GOOD. Transcendent.

I tell Becky the Viking story, which she has the exact same reaction to that I did: first humor, then crippling sadness. Somehow that segues into our road trip, which Dave knew nothing about. Jason tells the stories about swimming in our underwear with the nuns. It’s funny how old I’ve gotten– stuff like that embarrasses me now. I’m like, “They don’t need to hear the nun story; come on.” And of course everyone else hears NUNS and gets excited. (Nuns have that effect on people.)

I want to see more of both of them– there’s never enough BECKY JO, and Dave is pretty awesome too. We can’t figure out further plans in the parking lot. I don’t even think we tried to make plans: Becky and I just talked about how full we were (SO FULLLL), and how we couldn’t eat another bite, and WHY did we keep putting these after dinner mints in our mouths and chewing them? Why?

Go back to Sharman’s. Visit with everyone for about a half hour, then cuddle with the kids in Sharman’s bed. She puts ‘Cars’ on. Sharman is SUCH A DOLL. Really, they don’t make better mother-in-laws. Eli and I fall asleep. Addie weasels her way off the bed, and marches out into the living room to keep hanging out.

Wake up. Mildly early. Sharman is already up, and offers to play with the kids if J and I want to sleep in. There’s only one answer to that. We rest another hour, and watch an episode of ‘Dexter’ on TV (because Sharman has Showtime on Demand, and we are not so lucky). It’s amazing.

Dressed, breakfasted. I’m waiting for my parents to call, and they’re waiting for me to call. When I finally phone at about 11:30, they tell me they’ll meet me at lunch. Lunch what? “Michelle called you, right?” my mom asked.

Me: “No.”

Mom: “Oh, well, yeah– we’re supposed to meet her at Ikea to have lunch. She said she was going to call you. You want to be there about 1?”

Okay. I tell Jason, and say he can just hang out with his family while I take the kids. SOMEHOW, there’s a miscommunication. He packs everyone into the car, and says goodbye at 12:30. Now we have a dog in the back, and I’m not leaving Lola in the car for an hour. Also: Jason isn’t hungry. I’m not either, but I wanted to see Shelly and let Eli play in Småland. (Småland is the kid’s play area in Ikea. It’s free, it has a movie theater, a ball pit, and a crafts center. He’s never been before because he wasn’t potty-trained when we lived there, so it’s a big deal for him to go now.)

Jason says he’ll just drive around with Lola and Addie in the parking lot, and I can go in for fifteen or twenty minutes. We get dropped off. It takes me fifteen minutes to get E signed into Småland. Ten minutes left. Run upstairs to the cafeteria, sit down with my parents, chat a little. Shelly is nowhere to be seen. It’s 1:30. I had a feeling I might miss her– she’d just gotten back from Tennessee the night before, after a week away for the funeral. I’m sure her desk was piled with work.

She calls as we’re getting back into the car. I tell her I’m not in Ikea anymore, but everyone else is. I hope they had a nice lunch together. Eli raved about Småland, which was filled with “SHARKS AND LOBSTERS! THEY WERE NOT REAL! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Drive to my parents. Play Rock Band. Parents show up, play more Rock Band. Becky Jo and Dave arrive. Play more Rock Band. I do the majority of the singing, though most people try. I totally rock “Maps“. 100% on Hard. I totally suck at “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Tons of jokes are made about our video audience, who Won’t Get Fooled Again into listening to my awful performance.

The intro sequence of Rock Band has an entire band playing “Highway Star” on a moving vehicle. When J brought Rock Band to work, someone asked if they could play The Driver.

Becky Jo: Yeah, driver– and manager. They’d be new roles.

Becca: Steer! Steer!

Becky Jo: Book! Book!

Becca: You’d have, like, an electronic book, and it would light up like Whack-a-Mole, and you’d have to click on all the right places.

Becky Jo: Tokyo! Paris! ROME! I can’t keep up!

Driving back was forever long; maybe five hours. It was pouring down rain. I offered to pilot, because J was exhausted, and everyone fell asleep in their seats. One adult, two kids, and a furry dog. At night– in the fog lit by headlights– all the roads and forests looked eerie and unfamiliar. Hours passed, and I daydreamed.

When we entered North Carolina, the rain slowed; then eased. The skies opened up into this beautiful shade of deep violet, the radio playing “Tonight I Have to Leave It“, the cadence of our slumbering family around me. There are very few times in life I felt like I was coming home, and that was one.

I’ve been writing for almost two and a half hours, so I’ll finish up. A few final little notes.

ONE. Thank you for all your comments and emails about ‘Zombiefighter’. I appreciated every single one. I wasn’t near a computer for several days, so I couldn’t reply easily (I checked messages on J’s Blackberry). I liked the honest opinions, too– Lisa, you’re dead on about some of the grammar things– I didn’t do any kind of edit in that sense. I’ve just been editing actual content and story. So there will probably be misspellings and comma abuse galore for another few months. Heh. I chose that particular excerpt not because I thought it was the best writing of the story, but because it encompassed so much about the characters in a few pages. (And gave a hint to the zombie scenario without giving the actual punchline away.) I’m adding another short excerpt due to so many of the email requests. This is a portion of the John-Delia section, which is the driving romance of the story. I hardly ever write romances, but this has sort of evolved in a beautiful way. Like I said, the story is in multiple parts, and not in order, so it’s a struggle to find a chunk that (A) makes sense on its own, and (B) doesn’t give the plot away in a major way. (PS: Back to Lisa– make sure you let me know of any other errors you find. And I mean that seriously. You have eagle eyes.)

TWO. This site is up, but not totally done. There were a couple things I was hoping to accomplish with this theme. One, it should be easy to load and read. It should be compatible with all browsers. It’s easy to update, and it allows for a photo with every entry. Most importantly, the comments (which will be styled better soon) are threaded AND paged, so you don’t get swamped with 45 comments at a time, and you can reply directly to a comment. I also FINALLY joined BlogHer ads– one of my friends gets a monthly check from them for five hundred dollars, which is more than I ever earned through Google. It’s worth a shot, and I’m pretty sure you just have to show up and read for me to get the money. Page impressions, not clicks. So it’s theoretically less work and more cash for everyone.

I think that’s it. Heh. I’m about to hop in the shower, eat some late lunch, and get the house clean. It’ll be nice to start the new year off with all my work done. A very warm 2008 to everyone– hope this year has an abundance of lovely surprises.