Two museums and a funeral

So, I spent the last few days in Arlington and in D.C. with my dad's family for my grandfather's burial at Arlington National Cemetery. You can read my comments on his memorial service in July here.

I had never been to a formal Military service before with the drums, rifles, and the folding of the flag. First we followed in our cars to meet the horse drawn carriage with the casket, which wasn't an actual casket. One end pulled out like a drawer and one of the uniforms presented the urn with his ashes and placed it in the drawer so we could follow the casket to the burial site.

It was all pretty neat to watch, but it was still hard to sit through because so many things seemed wrong. I've never been one for pomp and circumstance, for one, and it just felt like another round of self-indulgent bullshit for Wivi, my grandfather's wife -- who he married within a year of my grandmother's death -- needless to say, we had some issues with that.

After the ceremony, my older cousin, Gina, noticed that the open plot beside his, which was getting ready to be filled, had a little plaque with the name "Gertrude" on it. Gertrude was my grandmother's name. So that was really neat because it felt like a nod from Nanie (what we called our grandmother) to say she's still watching and she's still here. Because all of us felt like it was Nanie who should have been given that flag and not Wivi. Nanie was the one who spent fifty years of her life with him and he was not an easy man to be around.

Afterwards, Wivi and her friends came back to our hotel for drinks -- causing those of us who can't survive on alcohol and nicotine alone to not have lunch until dinner time. It's inevitable that whenever I am with my dad's family I am going to miss at least one meal because these people don't eat.

And Wivi bragged about how she was donating her money to the MOWW, an organization my grandfather was involved in. She didn't help any of us pay for the trip or our hotel rooms of the drinks that she and her friends consumed, but she had to proclaim her donation.

Luckily, my aunt Donna paid for everything. She moved to TX before I was even born and I can easily count all the times I've seen her in person. She is also probably the most well adjusted of my dad's siblings and sadly it is mostly due to the fact that she got away. I wish I had more time to actually sit and talk to her one on one, but it's hard when you only have a couple days to spend with your whole family.

She's the only person I know who can actually force my dad to actually participate in family functions/outings...she even forced him to stay seated and have a conversation for a couple hours with all of us. Anxious is an extreme understatement when describing my dad -- I'm not sure if there is a term to explain how anxiety ridden he is.

I like having Donna around because she actually gets everyone to talk about things and she blatantly tells my dad that he doesn't know me and should talk to me. So it was nice for all of us to sit around in talk.

Friday we spent in D.C. and took the Metro to what it called "The Mall." It's actually the two mile stretch of museums that make up the Smithsonian. We went to the Natural History Museum and the American Indian Museum. The Indian museum was awesome and I spent alot of time salivating in there gift shop over all of their silver/turquoise jewelry -- my favorite.

The exhibits were wonderfully set up. You can learn more about it at The National Museum of the American Indian website.

I really love Native American culture, so it was great to see all the art and the mini-histories on all the different tribes. It has exhibits about their past and evolution, but also focuses alot on the culture today and who they are as a people today. This actually ties into a conversation I had with Musicwench about hunting and respect for life, because I think Native Americans are the only hunters that truly respect the animals they hunt. They may kill an animal for food and clothing, but they also respect that animal and honor it. I highly respect that ideology.

It was stressful trying to plan things with seven people, but all and all it was a good time and I'm glad I went. I was really, really tense about going, but it turned up working out well. I'm definitely tired and was glad to come home yesterday, but it was good.