(no subject)

We stayed up too late last night, but a good long sleep in a quiet hotel room helps. We visited James' house and saw his super fancy surround sound and giant flat screen setup. I have never seen a TV that good, and I might never watch my own television again. We played the oliphant charge in Return of the King, and it was incredible. I cried a little, sitting there. Later on, we visited the bar he started on Northgate. Playboy is going to feature them as the bar of the month in an upcoming issue.

People have been bringing food nonstop, and I'm writing it all down for Joan. Cakes and sandwiches and pies and cookies and drinks and apple turnovers... a friend out of town called a catering company and had enough food for twenty people sent over. I've been eating devilled eggs all morning.

Alan's grandfather always said that in October someone always dies and it always rains.

It's cold out there.

wake

We spent most of the evening at the funeral home, in a couple big rooms filled with flower arrangements and the coffin. I understand the cultural and sociohistorical significance of sitting with the dead, but god help me I wish we didn't do it. I half expected him to move, to get up or to cough. There's something so jarring about seeing him so lifelike and so dead.

My headache won't go away, no matter what.

There were probably a hundred and twenty five people in there today, family and friends and just people who knew August Nowak. It's astounding how much this man did for his community in his day to day life, and how effortlessly it seemed to come to him.

Alan and I arranged the Little League pictures and baseballs. While we packed stuff up this afternoon, I found a shoe box full of little diaries. There are decades worth of entries in a clear, old fashioned cursive hand that belonged to Mattie, his wife. Some of them are starting to fall apart, and I told Joan I would gladly take the task of transcribing all of them. I wouldn't want her to lose something like that.

You know it's a Texas death, because people haven't stopped bringing food. Alan and I will end up carting an ice chest home with us, no doubt.