Well, Uncle Paul lasted three days longer than expected: Jennifer had texted me
on Thursday evening that he wasn't expected to last though the night, but he was still alive Friday morning. And again Saturday, and again Sunday. Shobhit asked me each day whether I had any updates from Jennifer, and each time I did not. Until last night: she messaged me over Facebook Messenger at 7:15 that her dad had passed away.
Dealing with death never stops being awkward. I suppose it doesn't have to be, if we lived in a culture that wasn't so embedded in denail and dread about it, preferring avoidance over preparation. I have no idea what kind of preparation Uncle Paul and Sara made regarding their end of life, except that although I was far from close to him, I have a long enough family history with them to probably safely assume they weren't as prepared as they should be. I'm totally making assumptions here, though. I could be totally wrong.
Legally speaking, Uncle Paul had six children. Genetically, there are four. Two of them are actually grandchildren, but Uncle Paul and Sara raised them. To say the details are complicated would be putting it mildly, especially since we're talking about four different mothers and two different fathers. My cousins Ben and Andrew were born in 1971 and 1972, if I remember right, from a mother who died when they were very little; then Jennifer and Heidi were born in 1977 and 1978, respectively—one and a half, and two and a half years after I was. All four of them have had children: Ben had two; I actually don't know for certain how many Andrew has had; Jennifer has three; and Heidi had
seven. I just know that the first two kids Andrew had with a woman named Cassandra, in 2000 and 2004, and both of those children were removed from them by the state, and Uncle Paul and Sara subsequently took custody of and later adopted them both. I'm almost certain Andrew had other children too, I think with some other woman, which were also taken from him, but I don't know what became of them. In any case, the six kids kids are actually five left behind by his death, as Heidi died suddenly in 2019. To the best of my memory, the kids are currently 50, 49, 44, 21 and 17. Heidi would have been 43.
I always thought Uncle Paul and Sara were kind of old to be raising children. I suppose it's not my place to judge their ages, though. Uncle Paul was born in 1950, so he was already 50 years old by the time Braxton was even born. As of last night, he was 71. He and Sara got married, in a truly bonkers wedding in Shelton, in 2003. They were very proudly and openly weird, something that had been on-brand for Uncle Paul since long before I was born. Weirdness is not itself inherently bad—it would be wildly hypocritical of me to suggest otherwise—but Uncle Paul had a tendency to combine it with a pretty defiant rudeness, even more so in his later years. He was kind of the opposite of Grandpa McQuilkin in that regard. And when the youngest of the two they adopted, who now calls himself Spencer, came out as trans, by all accounts Uncle Paul and Sara were deeply unaccepting, so basically what little respect I had for them ran out at that point. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to this, it
is my place to judge—a greater contextual compexity to that story notwithstanding. I'm not certain Spencer has long had a particularly nuanced understanding of gender and transitioning and such, but that is likely because he lives in a town with a family that both have no resources for him to learn. His Facebook profile now says his pronouns are "he/they," which is relatively new; it may be that he's nonbinary. I've never talked to him directly anout any of this stuff, although I did message him a couple of years ago, when he was in the midst of some clear struggles with his parents, with a link to the closest thing I could find to a local resource. He seemed to really appreciate that at least, responding with a heart-eyes emoji.
I just checked his Facebook feed and all those old posts complaining about his parents appear to have been removed. His "intro" section even now reads,
You have been nothing but an amazing father and friend, a clear reference to Uncle Paul. Braxton may be 21, but he will always need outside care, as he is pretty significantly developmentally disabled, and Spencer is still only 17, so for some years yet they will surely be staying with Sara.
And, one amongst Jennifer's siblings has already passed away, and one amongst my dad's siblings has now passed away—Jennifer's dad. Uncle Paul was the second of five; my dad was the youngest. And, oddly, at least two of Grandpa McQuilkin's siblings (two sisters) are still alive. Or are all three of his sisters still alive? I think it's only two. I truly can't keep track anymore.
Jennifer told me there was another Zoom call last night, and she did not mention Dad and Sherri being on this one. She said it was her, Ben, Andrew, Uncle Garth and Aunt Glorya (those two had not been on earlier calls), "and Raenae was having trouble with her audio so she was on the call but couldn't hear any of us." I was glad to hear Garth was at least able to join one of these calls, awkward as a Zoom meeting to someone's death bed might be. The upside to that, honestly, is that people who are too far away to travel easily can still find some way to say goodbye. Uncle Garth and Aunt Glorya (his wife) live I Cheyanne, Wyoming.
The only thing Jennifer posted to Facebook last night, at 7:51, was a single emoji, of a broken heart. As I said before, I feel worst for her, having now lost two of her immediate family in the past three years (whatever my feelings were for the man, there's no escaping the fact that he was still her father). It's strange being back on the other side of this after the loss of my mom in 2020. I totally understood that people all process death in different ways, even the ones attempting to offer condolences. The odd thing is that the experience hasn't made it any easier for me to know what to say to someone else who has lost someone, except that I know it sucks.
In retrospect, I did really like getting flowers, which were sent to me both by Uncle David and Mary Ann ordering from Australia (from a place here in the U.S.) and by Barbara. I'm not sure I would have expected it but there was some comfort in that—especially the tiger lilies, which were such a known part of my mom's story in her childhood, and also butterflies, which Mom liked.
Valerie, my dad's (and thus also Uncle Paul's) cousin, texted me on Saturday because she heard Uncle Paul was in the hospital and was looking for details. I guess Jennifer herself texted Valerie the news last night, but then Valerie texted me to ask for her current address so she could send her flowers. I do think that will be a nice gesture.
Anyway. The three shots in today's post are of all five of Grandma and Grandpa's children. I'm pretty sure the first, with Uncle Garth standing in the center, is from the sixties; the second, again with Uncle Garth in the center, is from Easter at Dad and Sherri's house, 1997; and the third, where they are sitting in order left to right from youngest to oldest, and thus Uncle Paul is second from the right, is from the "Fourth Annual Family & Friends Picnic" at Mason Lake in August 2019.
I guess now I'll go through a rundown, as briefly as I can, of my fairly social weekend: something each day, and each day a movie.
Friday night we didn't go out, but I went next door to Alexia's and we watched the
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Prootcol, the fourth, and my favorite, film in the franchise. It has several great action set pieces, and I totally forgot that one of them was in Mumbai! I mostly remember, of course, the stunt on the outside of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It was a blast to watch as always.
Saturday was once again with Alexia, her first time going to a movie theater since the start of the pandemic! She really wanted to see it and so we went together to see
Death on the Nile, which was kind of . . . meh. (B-minus.) I was annoyed that the Egyptian setting was all soundstage and CGI work, whereas the previous film adaptation from 1978, starring Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury and Maggie Smith, was shot on location. So, I'm now
really interested in seeing that one; it doesn't appear to be streaming or even available on VOD anywhere; so I reserved the DVD at the library and as soon as she is available on another weekend she's in town she'll come over to our condo to watch it. (We may do the same with the previous five
Jurrasic Park and
Jurassic World movies, which Alexia expressed interest in marathoning with me before the new one comes out this summer; I have the first trilogy in a DVD box set.)
And yesterday, Ivan and I watched a movie at home, the 1988 film
Dangerous Liaisons, starring a 41-year-old Gleen Close; a 35-year-old John Malkovich; a 30-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer; a 24-year-old Keanu Reeves; and an 18-year-old (!) Uma Thurman, whom I found barely recognizable, she was so young. I rather enjoyed the movie though, and I think Ivan did too.
He doesn’t get a social review for that, though, because he lives with us and we just watched a movie at home. Giving him a Social Review point for every movie we watched at home together would give him a pointlessly unfair advantage in the Social Review standings. Same rules for him as apply to Shobhit.
But, then I left for a late lunch with Tracy, before she and I also went to a movie. The movie played at SIFF Film Center at Seattle Center, and because I was hoping for a place with outdoor seating, we settled on a place called Taqueria Cantina in Belltown . . . only for me to discover yesterday, less than an hour before I needed to leave, that that location did not open until 4:00. We both spent some time trying to find an alternate lunch place in Belltown or Uptown and, after coming up short, we decided we would just go to the Taqueria Cantina downtown, on the Harbor Steps on University Street between 1st and Western.
And here's where I went right back into "calculated risk" territory. I took Light Rail, and was there several minutes before Tracy, but we were set to meet at 2:00, a typically slow time for lunch. The place had outdoor seating, but no mobile heaters, and the day was quite chilly. There were all of three tables with diners inside, so I decided we would just eat inside after all (Tracy said it was up to me). Unfortunately, shortly after we sat down, another good four or five tables had people in them. Oh, well. Let's just hope I don't get yet another exposure notification.
I really liked the place, though. Very good food, the best nachos I've had in ages (which I wouldn’t have even had but Tracy wanted to share a plate, in addition to the plate I got for myself, which was why my own portion of lunch plus tip cost me a good forty bucks), and we even learned they just started hosting Sunday brunch drag shows there. I need to offer this as a possible Happy Hour venue to Laney, even though Happy Hour and Sunday brunch do not overlap, so I don't know if we'll do both or not, or just pick one over the other. But, she and I used to love the nachos at Bleu Bistro's Grotto on Capitol Hill, and although these aren't quite as great, they're closer to it than any other place I've been.
After that, we got into her car in the parking garage, and drove to Seattle Center, where we saw an excellent film from Chad, about a single woman trying to find an abortion for her 15-year-old daughter, called
Lingui, the Sacred Bonds. Highly recommend.
We actually got to the theater so early that they weren't even open yet for the 4:15 showing that was the first of the day, so we walked over to the Center House to use the bathroom and kill some time. On our way back, we killed a bunch more time standing and staring at an LED ad screen waiting for the return of an ad for John Mayer's "
SOB ROCK TOUR." Tracy couldn't figure out if it was "Sob Rock" or "S.O.B. Rock." Well, now that I've found that link to one of his tweets, I guess it's "Sob Rock," although I don't really know what the hell it means. Will all his fans be crying? Whatever.
We got into the theater and these two guys came into the screening room who really annoyed me. They had no popcorn or drinks, no reason to remove their masks, but as soon as they reached their seats, they just took off their masks and pocketed them, settling in to watch the entire movie without them. There was even the requisite sign, huge up onscreen, asking people only to remove their masks when actively eating or drinking, and to replace masks when not eating or drinking. I looked over at them and
both of them were looking straight up at this message. Maskless.
It was an old man and a somewhat younger guy, so I wondered if they were father and son. They did sit with a seat "butter" between them, an utterly ridiculous practice particularly between bro-y straight men. It's not like they were doing this now for any kind of safety reasons, obviously. The thing that baffled me was that this is typically closed-minded dipshit behavior among far-right conservatives, and yet they had evidently come, of their own volition, to see this clearly feminist, pro-choice movie from Africa. Something does not compute. I know I'm generalizing here, but there's a lot of truth to these generalizations; there have been multiple studies done at this point, and the biggest anti-maskers (and anti-vaxxers) tend to be hard-right conservatives. Ganted, there's also a fair contingent of far-left anti-vaxxers as well, but for all I know these guys are vaccinated and somehow convinced that makes them impervious (like that dipshit at Thanksgiving at Faith's, who declared himself "bulletproof" because he'd already had Covid).
So, anyway. Another calculated risk. If either of those guys was infected, they truly filled the entire room with it. I felt mostly okay being both vaccinated and masked the entire time in
that room, with a KN95 mask. Of course, I
had just spent a good hour in a restaurant earlier that same afternoon, unmasked myself around other unmasked people. What's the difference? Well, there's a different context for sure, and a defiance amongs those guys at the theater that clearly makes them more suspect. Like, fuck those two guys in the theater.
So then Tracy drove me home, and I skipped dinner because I was still so stuffed from that heavy, late lunch. Except Shobhit made himself homemade French fries and they were so perfectly done I could not stop picking from them. We watched the season two premiere of
Space Force, then the new seasom premiere of
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (the main story a very informative deep dive about the manufactured panic around "Critical Race Theory" . . . Shobhit fell asleep), then one more episode of
Space Force (a relatively mediocre show that we still find amusing) before I decided it was time to get ready for bed.
[posted 12:32 pm]
