It's been two months

since I posted. It's May! We're two-thirds done with Spring already. And what have I done since I last posted? Not much of note. Work. Parenting. Spending time with friends and family.

Oh, there are a couple things to mention.

One: we interred my dad's ashes a few weeks ago at the cemetery in Palo Alto. There was a short, small Buddhist ceremony. It was lovely and was good closure (for hopefully everyone, not just me). I facetimed the event with my brother, who sadly couldn't make it up in such short notice with his demanding schedule.

It's strange to know that all that physically remains of my dad fits in a brick-sized box, and is kept inside a hollow brick wall in a park filled with other people who no longer live.

Two: Mother's Day. I spent the morning with my dad's cousin (Auntie Barbara), her husband, and my mom. We drove down to Salinas to visit Auntie Barbara's mom (Auntie Mary, blogged here), who is essentially dying. She also suffers from dementia and often doesn't recognize a lot of people in her life anymore, including her family. I hadn't seen her in about a year, and it was arresting to see her in such decline – skin and bones, minimally responsive, confused and agitated, with not enough energy to stay awake for more than five minutes at a time. She hardly eats. She was always vibrant and active before she "got old" (she's in her 90s), and in my mind that's how I visualize her, so to see her like she is now just about made me cry. Sunday's visit might have been the last time I'll see her alive.

The rest of my Mother's Day was good. Spent the evening with Yoshi and Tom. They took me out to a swanky Japanese restaurant where I had a fancy multi-course dinner. I haven't had a meal that nice in a long time. At the end of the night, they dropped me off at home, where I relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the night in solitude until I fell asleep.

Three: On a happier note, I have a sewing project. I'm making a skirt for Coco's wedding in a couple months. I bought some flowers and took some macro, out-of-focus photos of it so I could get a very abstract, watercolor-type image, which I had custom printed on five yards of fabric. It's going to be fantastic. I have tentative plans to make a top to go with it, but I might run out of time and/or motivation and just end up buying something off-the-rack from a store.

I never know how to end a blog post.