Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: adulthood, amazon, bourbon, burial, buried, casket, coffin, costco, cryogenics, death, death star, family, funerals, humor, monty python, parents, resomation, ryan lochte, Science, shopping, subourbonmom, urn, walmart
I recently received a text from my friend Kristin late one night that just said Costco sells caskets and urns. Naturally, I had to go look it up, and sure enough they do.
So does Walmart…and Amazon.
Did I miss something? When did the big box stores get involved in the big box business? (Apparently, this business is actually referred to as “Death Care,” the death-sensitive phrase I learned while Googling.) In addition to the assortment of caskets and urns available, Costco also posted a must-read FAQ that informed me about all kinds of death-care rules I knew nothing about. For example, not all states will let you order a casket from somewhere other than a funeral home. Of those that do, you are required to be present when it’s delivered.
Of course, I toyed with the idea of ordering one the next time Hubby makes me furious and just leaving it on the front porch with Universal Casket Company (Costco’s supplier) emblazoned on the box as a hint/threat. But now that we live in the country, only the coyotes and screech owls would see it, so I’ll just have to go back to regular yelling.
I couldn’t believe how expensive these caskets were, and mind you, these were from Costco and Walmart, so I’m sure they had a tiny markup compared to the markup funeral homes add. So, in search of other options, I Googled alternative ways to be buried.
Wow.
There are more ways to be buried than there are ways to have a baby – and that’s after watching every episode of A Baby Story. Actually, many burial methods are eerily similar to methods of having a baby – standing up; in water; natural (read “green”); and, cut open and filled with chemicals. I guess you really do come full circle, like they say.
I have a weird fear of being cremated. I can’t rationalize it, but the idea of it freaks me out. I much prefer Monty Python’s “Nibble, Nibble, Nibble to Crackle, Crackle, Crackle.”
I’ve also always assumed I would be buried in a plot of land overlooking something meaningful and gorgeous, like Robert Redford’s character in Out of Africa. Since we are running out of planet space and it’s uber-expensive, I started looking for alternative burial options. A few stuck with me, if only because they fell into the OH HELL NO I’M NOT DOING THAT category.
Resomation – in which the remains are dissolved in an alkaline solution, leaving a white powder not unlike ashes from cremation. Or a giant pile of coke.
Freeze Drying – I believe this method is still in development, but the process is similar to resomation, except they use liquid nitrogen. After being exposed to the nitrogen, the remains become super brittle and are shaken into a powder. I imagine this to be much like the old rock tumblers we used to use to polish rocks. Afterward, fillings and other non-biodegradable parts are sifted out…in keeping with the rock analogy, kind of like panning for gold. No thanks.
Cryogenics – in which the body is frozen until scientists can figure out how to transcend death in the future and bring you back to life. Jurassic Park ring a bell anyone? That went well. What if you are respected now but turn out to be the biggest douche bag in the future (think Walt Disney)? Or worse, what if Ryan Lochte opts for cryogenics and he’s our representative from the 21st century?
My personal favorite is becoming part of an artificial reef. These reefs are being created off-shore using a mixture of cremation remains and whatever else they make artificial reefs with. These eco-friendly reefs are part of the green death care movement, and are increasing fish habitats and scuba diving opportunities, all while resembling the lost city of Atlantis. I like the idea of building something good for the environment out of peoples’ remains. But why stop there? Why not just start making an entire new planet – WAIT!!!! We could call it the Death Star!!
Too far?
But seriously, for a subject that is so personal and impactful to so many people, both the living and the dead, I find it offensive that we can now buy burial items online the same way we can buy clothes or get a pizza delivery. I understand why people will shop at the box stores for these things – the same reason we buy our food and eBooks there. Prices for caskets and funeral services are ridiculous. In my opinion, there should be limits placed on the costs of caskets, urns, shrouds, and burial options. Alternative burial options should be allowed to be explored and utilized. But the big box stores should stay out of an industry that requires sensitivity and dignity. There are entire industries welcoming the box stores with open arms, but the death care industry shouldn’t be one of them – no bones about it.
Filed under: Food/Drink, Middle Age, Posts | Tags: adulthood, alcohol, alcoholic, Beer, bourbon, drinks, family, health, humor, liver, love, Marriage, Middle-Age, rum, sex, south, southern, subourbonmom, tequila, wine
There are a lot of body organs that can be equated to types of people. My heart is the parent of teenagers – steadily working to keep things moving forward and occasionally feeling like it can’t keep up, and skipping a beat when exciting things are happening. My brain is definitely the five-year-old of the body family, with the ability to be shockingly accurate and annoyingly obtuse at the same.
But the most interesting body organ is my liver – she’s a slut – or at least she used to be. She would take in anything, but like a lot of older sluts, doing so now comes with a lot of consequences.
I think the history of alcoholic drinks my liver has filtered also reflects the relationships (and I use the word “relationships” loosely) I’ve had.
In the beginning, there were the sweet early-years boyfriends, who felt good at the time, compared to, well, nothing much else yet… but who left me in the end with monster headaches and an upset stomach. For my liver these years were marked by avid consumption of your staple redneck beers, occasionally spiked with an unusual combination of vodka and whatever else was available.
Of course, everyone has a tequila story. Let’s just say I still can’t even think about it to this day without gagging…and that was just that one guy…(Daughters 1 & 2, be smarter and better than your mom…please!)
Like many people, my liver and heart were indiscriminate for a while, trying to find a basis for comparison. You have to know the bad before you can appreciate the good, right?
Eventually there was the first reciprocated love – and the introduction to wine. Sweet white wine was delightful and full of promise. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t tried a lot of other drinks or relationships, and needed to branch out to truly understand what my liver, er, heart thought was best. European beers with their fancy labels had always been a draw, but in the end they made me sick at heart and in the toilet.
And then my liver and I discovered rum – a drink traditionally from the islands, with a bite that will cut through too much sweet and not leave me with the dreaded wine headache/hangover. That lasted for years and years, and is still a favorite.
But as I’ve gotten older, my liver is thankfully starting to show her age, getting more and more picky about what spills inside, creating all kinds of side effects when I make a bad choice. Beer leaves me feeling tired and fat, wine gives me hot flashes, and vodka just eliminates any mental filters I have – none of these are desirable side effects in my body or in a relationship.
I have now switched from rum to bourbon, and before anyone freaks out and thinks something is wrong between me and Hubby, we are fine. But after 27 years, relationships change. I no longer need the flash fire and overt sweetness of rum drinks. Instead, I prefer the steady burn of bourbon, warming me from the inside. It keeps the hot flashes away, and I rarely have a hangover. Same with Hubby – he’s my Blanton’s, my Basil Hayden, my Jefferson Ocean.
So there you have it, folks. Whether you are in the Boones Farm stage (or, God forbid, never got out of it), trying your first sweet, white wine or still throwing back those nasty shots of tequila, think about what it might be telling. My liver was a slut – but thankfully she held up long enough so that I can now ingest quality.
Filed under: Exercise, Food/Drink, Middle Age, Posts, Spring Break | Tags: adulthood, bikini, bourbon, Exercise, gym, health, humor, menopause, Middle-Age, mom, Running, Running Tourette's, south, southern, Spring Break, subourbonmom, summer, treadmill, Virginia, weight loss, winter
After walking around all winter grumbling about how I hate the way my stomach has started moving independently of the rest of my body, I finally realized I was actually going to have to do something about it.
I was going to have to start…dare I say it?
Exercising.
And even worse… Eating Better.
So I did what I always do when I realize Virginia winters don’t require the amount of extra insulation I’ve been building up. I tried a few things, and quickly realized my intentions do not match the reality of the situation.
Intention: I am trying to eat 5 fruits and veggies a day and limiting bread to get more good carbs and limit the bad.
Reality: My body went into a fiber-induced shock. Apparently, granola is not everybody’s friend, at least not at first.
Intention: I am limiting alcohol – and by that I mean I am only having drinks Thursday through Saturday. (Some folks asked me “why include Thursday?” Well duh…because Thursday is “Little Friday!”)
Reality: Middle Age takes care of some of that desire; I now have a whole list of drinks that make me have hot flashes, so I’m definitely weighing my choices more carefully – is it really worth having to change out of my sweat-soaked my PJs at 3:00am to have that glass of wine? Nope.
Intention: I bought a few Clean Eating and exercise magazines to give me inspiration and ideas.
Reality: They make me feel like I am being healthy without actually being healthy…until I look at the 20-year-olds in the pictures who clearly have never had children and don’t sit in an office cube all day like a veal. I also refuse to spend a lot of money on special spices and high-end oils that those Clean Eating magazines seem to demand. And, I have never once tried any of the exercises in the fitness mags – mostly because I couldn’t follow the diagrams any more than I can put together anything that says “some assembly required.”
Intention: I am regularly exercising at the office gym, mostly doing ab work and cardio to get the weight off as fast as I can.
Reality: Running on the treadmill comes with two hazards I wasn’t expecting:
1. Watching my reflection in the windows as I run makes me unbalanced – I had to grab the rails before I shot off the back of the machine like a sweaty, horizontal human waterfall;
2. I thought my new cheap headphones were mildly electrocuting me every few seconds, until I realized that in the winter treadmills acquire a lot of static electricity. So, every 3rd or 4th step I had to slap the metal rail with my hand to prevent the static zap from reaching my headphones and inner ear. I don’t know what the people walking by the gym window thought, but I’m pretty sure I looked like I had a case of Running Tourette’s.
Intention: I am going to look awesome in a bikini this summer.
Reality: I will once again spend too much money on a conservative tankini that my mother will approve of.
But in the meantime, I’m going to be burning those extra calories flailing at the metal treadmill rails – maybe those expended calories will turn into that bikini body I remember. Or maybe they’ll just let me eat that extra helping of summertime happy hour appetizers.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: adulthood, bars, bourbon, Dancing, drinking, elderly, Enzo's Chop House, humor, Middle-Age, parenting, parents, sandwich generation, sex, south, southern, subourbonmom, Twerking, Viagra
Being part of the Sandwich Generation is more than just taking care of both your parents and your kids—you’re also the ground wire between those two high-voltage groups.
Now y’all, I am well aware that I have lately slipped into a routine of going to work, coming home, fixing dinner, and mindlessly binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy. Somewhere between the patient being diagnosed and the amazing procedure that miraculously saves her, I fall asleep. I know my mouth is hangs open and I probably snore, but no one has made it into a Vine yet (that I know of).
Until the other night, I assumed my flagging energy is a sign of age—then I was proved oh, so wrong.
A week or so ago, Hubby and I broke the mold and went out at eight o’clock on a Wednesday to meet some friends—we hadn’t seen them in a while, and they were going to Enzo’s Chop House.
Enzo’s is known for three things: great food, stiff drinks, and fun dance music from the 60’s and 70’s. We’d been there before, and knew there would mostly be older folks out having a good time before going home and bathing in Ben Gay—we were confident we would outlast them.
This time it wasn’t just an older crowd—it was a scene out of the movie Cocoon.
Our mere speckles of white hair and ability to walk without hitching one hip up on one side were not the only things that set us apart — was the dancing.
As I said, Enzo’s is also known as a fun place to dance to the oldies—and by that I mean Motown and good ol’ Southern Rock. (I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but Southern Rock is now classified as “classic.” When I was growing up it was just “Rock.”)
Usually, when Hubby and I dance, we do the high school sway back and forth thing, because the one time we took dancing lessons, it was pointed out (to me) that both people can’t lead. So while we shifted our weight back and forth, the rest of the crowd was doing the Shag, the Swing, and the Two-Step, and even throwing out some disco moves that would make John Travolta look bad.
It was humiliating.
And if the dancing wasn’t enough, watching those reliable social lubricants, Viagra and Bourbon start to take affect was just scary. Like any bar filled with 25-30-year-olds, the bourbon goggles eventually came on, and couples that had begun the evening together started mixing it up. Men in their 70’s shuffled over to tables occupied by younger women and began chatting them up. Eventually, one of the women would stray from the herd and find herself out on the dance floor shuffling and kicking her feet to Al Green and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Hands sometimes wandered a little lower than they should, and meaningful, myopic stares stretched across the dance floor from table to table.
It was almost like watching your parents twerk.
By ten o-clock, the Highball Shuffle took over as the dance move of choice. The music wound down, and Styrofoam water cups began to replace bourbon glasses on the tables. By 10:30 we were done with a capital “D”. We were sober, and I’ll admit it—a little jealous—we left those rascally retirees to their own (sometimes medically required) devices and went home to the next generation of bar-hopping, dancing romance-seekers.
Filed under: Food/Drink | Tags: adulthood, bourbon, football, humor, Middle-Age, south, southern, subourbonmom
I don’t know how it escaped me, but I recently learned that September is National Bourbon Month, celebrating bourbon as America’s “Native Spirit.” How ironic–because of genetics, America’s true natives can’t hold their liquor. In 2007, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky sponsored the bill that was, not surprisingly, unanimously approved.
So, to honor this most sacred of months, I decided to celebrate in my own ways:
Whereas Congress declared bourbon as `America’s Native Spirit’ in 1964, making it the only spirit distinctive to the United States; To honor the Native Spirit, I decided to have a drink or two while sitting on the lawn with a couple of other moms at an Imagine Dragons concert, supervising our teenage daughters as they navigated the creepy world of older boys and men playing “guess how old they are.” It was how I imagine a Native American story-telling evening might have been spent (because I watched Dances with Wolves way too many times) if they had massive speakers, electric guitars and huge screens so the neighboring tribes could complain about the noise for miles around. We didn’t smoke pipes, but we did sit with our fellow elders, solve most of the world’s problems, and clap and dance along with the music. However, unlike our Native Sons, my European genetics let me hold my liquor all too well, until I got sleepy. I believe I snored most of the way down I-95.
Whereas the history of bourbon-making is interwoven with the history of the United States, from the first settlers of Kentucky in the 1700s, who began the bourbon-making process; To honor our bourbon-brewing forefathers who left the east coast for the freedom to brew tax-free in the mountains, I recently sampled some bourbon that was dis-“stilled” far, far away from any liquor store. I like corn, and I like water, the two most important ingredients in bourbon. Unfortunately, what I drank tasted like these were the ONLY ingredients—with maybe a cup or two of rubbing alcohol thrown in. But it was tax-free!
Whereas bourbon has been used as a form of currency; This one was easy—I had a bottle of Woodford Reserve with a Kentucky Derby label on it made into a lamp for my mom for Christmas—so much better than a gift card!
I have also used bourbon drinks to trade for food and other drinks at tailgates. It is not unheard of for my voice to carry over the din of the football crowd rasping, “I’ve got an extra cup here if you’ll share your chips and salsa.” Bourbon can also be used as currency to punish fellow tailgaters who insist that women in their 40’s somehow lose their ability to do shots. For the record, we don’t lose our ability–we lose our stupidity. However, sometimes one must step up to the plate and prove, once again, that taking a bourbon shot in the Redskins parking lot is not just a man’s prerogative. With the bet announced, bourbon has occasionally cost a doubter some cash, or at least a few homemade cookies.
I’m also stockpiling bourbon and other bottles of alcohol (at least that’s what I tell people when they get a glimpse of my liquor cabinet) for the demise of the modern world. If the American dollar ever fails, I will be a survivor. My wounds will also be clean.
Whereas generations have continued the heritage and tradition of the bourbon-making process, unchanged from the process used by their ancestors centuries before;” The processes may not have changed all that much, but our drinking habits have. I’ve been known to drink out of a mason jar (now I have fancy ones with a hole through the lid for a straw), but I prefer Bourbon Slushies and the one I like to call, “Give Me My Figgin’ Bourbon” (see https://subourbonmom.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/mint-juleps-and-other-signs-of-spring/ for the recipe). Now that I’m in my 40’s, and antacids are a regular part of my diet, I have learned to be kinder to my body. I sip instead of slam, and regularly doctor my drinks up to fool my brain into thinking its just another form of dessert.
So enjoy National Bourbon month, and let me know how you plan to celebrate our Native Spirit!
Subourbon Mom 