Home again.

Went to Ontario, gave eulogy, hung out with my parents, my sister, and my aunt, went home.

Things I learned on my flight home: 

There was a glitch with the map feature on the plane so I flew 47,736 kms in 2 hours and 40 minutes from Winnipeg to Vancouver via Berlin, Germany. Awesome supersonic plane technology I guess.

The temperature at 9,000m altitude was 20 degrees warmer than it was on the ground in Winnipeg.

Chicken and bacon quesadillas are awesome.

C.C. and Coke is awesome.

I could not find someone in my home town to be a bad influence on me, for the first time in my entire life.

So my grandma died.

I'm writing the eulogy.

I've got a four and a half hour flight to Ontario, by myself, on Friday.

Then I get to deliver the eulogy sometime after 1 PM on Saturday.

Then I get to spend two days with my family, though I am not sure where.

Then I get to check in at YYZ before 9 AM on Tuesday which will mean that I get to spend several hours on Christmas Day waiting for my Vancouver flight in YWG.

(Look that up.)

I'm exhausted. I'm sad. I think I might be dehydrated.

So I'm going to brush my teeth, get into bed, sip my first and only vodka and Coke of the day(don't knock it 'til you try it, but it is better with vanilla vodka), and hope that it puts me before midnight.

I'll try to put pixels to blank text box on Friday, but no promises.

"If her DNA was off by one percentage point she'd be a dolphin."

I haven't watched the show much for the past couple of seasons, but I did spend some time tonight watching the series finale of House, MD.

Mostly I will miss having someone who says what I often think on television. House's cynical logic was a breath of fresh air to me.

"I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see... they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down.... There's no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting.... I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test."

Not a whole lot of atheists on US television, and as objectionable as this character's actions could be, Dr. Gregory House was often a voice of reason for those of us who want to confront life, mortality, illness and even grief without god.

So House is "dead". Long live House.

My friend died.

One of my oldest friends apparently just dropped dead for no apparent reason sometime in the past 24 hours.

He's been living in South Korea for ever and ever and I haven't seen him since he tried briefly to live in Vancouver about four or five years ago.

His birthday was Remembrance Day. I'll never forget him.

Since I don't believe in an afterlife and I don't believe that he's reading this right now or that he knows that I will miss our talks online and be sad that we never got to see each other again, I'll just say it to you, dear Reader:

I'll miss talking with my friend, Frank. I am sad that we never got a chance to see each other again.

The previous three thoughts that I typed out and then deleted remind me that my attitudes about death aren't "normal" and I don't want to have the words come out wrong or with a tone and tenor that can't be heard in this medium, I'll just shut up now.

But I do know that I made a To-Do list for today and I have done everything but one. That feels good.