Tyler is a little prick. 

Yesterday I came home and there was a note from him. In its entirety, it read: "I came and got all my shit. I am moving back to Massachusetts. I just didn't get what I thought. I can't live in a house like this. "

The fuck?!

He left without paying us a dime. Without a thank you for our hospitality, or the trouble we went through for him. Without articulating a single problem or issue he had with us or the situation.  Without having more than five conversations with us, like, ever. He used us as free storage for a month, and as a hotel for a few weeks, and then left with a terse little asshole note. 

And he fucked us both over royally.

I, for one, was counting on his rent money to help me be able to afford this move. And Matt? He's not going to be able to pay $950 a month in rent money. There's no way. This is just going to give him one more reason to move back to Massachusetts. 

You know, Matt predicted this from the outset: he said that Tyler was a flake and a user. Tyler proved him right. He just came out here and partied every night. He didn't look for a job, he let his stuff get towed and didn't do anything about it. He never even tried to settle in. 

I think he quickly figured out he couldn't hack it, turned tail and ran back home to his rich Mommy and Daddy. He never told us what problems (if any) he had with us-- he just used it as an excuse. I don't think it even entered Tyler's mind that his actions have consequences in the real world. He assumed that what he did would be okay.

Well, it's not fucking okay.

I composed a nasty e-mail to him last night, but resisted sending it. I still want to send it. He's a spoiled 20 year old brat, and I want to smack him around, even if it's just via an e-mail. What he did was wrong, and mean, and unfair, and every other bad word in the world. Fucking little rich boy. 

I am so pissed off.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest...

It looks like we are going to Holland for the holidays (will that make them the Hollandaise?). Although my family drives me batty (my mother and father being the chief sources of battiness), I would love to see my sister, the niecelings and my nephew again. So I'm excited.

My aunt, uncle and cousins have had their tickets for a while and were already planning to be overseas from the 23rd of December through January 9th or so. So basically, without Grandma, it would have been just the four of us: Mom, Dad, Abby and I.  What a sad, sorry Christmas that would have been. 

But now we have a white Christmas in Holland to look forward to instead! It's a nice way to soften the blow that the holidays will invariably bring.  

The Crazy Dog Lady left me a condolence gift and a note today. It was a very sweet gesture, and of course I went to thank her... 

...at which time she launched into this long story about dead squirrels, and how she carries rubber gloves with her at all times, and how it's an affront to God to leave a dead squirrel in the road, and how she puts leaves on them and says a prayer for them, and on and on.

I think there was a metaphor going on there somewhere, wherein the dead squirrel somehow represented Grandma. How exactly? I have no idea.

I guess her heart is in the right place, but seriously, she's a nitwit.

The funeral is on Thursday and the viewing is on Wednesday night.

Charlotte told me last night that the origins of the viewing was that people would sit around a view the body to make sure it was dead. (A wake is the same thing-- they would watch the person to see if he or she was going to "wake" up.)

I have no idea how it's going to be to walk into a room and see a casket with Grandma inside of it. All I keep thinking of is that scene in My Girl, where Veda is walking slowly up the aisle towards the casket of someone. (I think it's her grandmother, actually.)  I am so Veda right now.

Death is such an odd thing. By definition, all death rituals strike me as simultaneously profound and weird. 

I went to lunch with my parents today. We had Greek salad and hummus and wine at a restaurant down the street. Ever since I came home from the Mediterranean, I've had a hankering for that kind of food. Man, this little restaurant is good.

They proffered the perfect solution to the Tyler/Matt/roommate problem, although I'm going to sit on it until I find out what Matt thinks.  And they also promised to give me a small financial boost as I start out in San Francisco, which is another huge weight off my mind. 

I really wasn't sure what the financial situation would be. Apparently though, most of my grandmother's money is tied up in real estate (her house and the apartment building) and the cash she did have is going towards paying off my parents' considerable debt. It's not like we suddenly have cash on the barrel. Factor in mortgages and stuff and, well, it's not a windfall, that's for sure. 

They also gave me a bunch of pictures of Grandma, that I'll be making into a collage for viewing after the funeral.  There are a lot of pictures from "back in the day". I've scanned some of them in (they're quite interesting) and put them on their own page. However, I thought I'd share my favorite one here:

And finally...

The Bookworm 'burb now moonlights as a webring, thanks to the efforts of Columbine and her nifty Nibelung ring thingie. I have my own personal ring, of course, and today I created a ring just for the Bookworms. 

And so, member or not, if you're interested in reading the journals of readers, please do check it out.

Well boo-fucking-hoo.