Suburban Subterranean Thornfield

What with this being season of spectacularly snooze-inducing suburban sleeper sofas and all, we found ourselves in Larry’s cousin’s basement last night, on a pull-out bed, cocooned inside the most comfortable blankets I’ve ever felt. If only I had brought roomier baggage.

The downstairs is heated by a gas fireplace, which is on a thermostat and fires up whenever necessary. In the middle of the night, I could sense a flickering through my closed eyes. I woke up and immediately felt surrounded by flames, like Rochester trapped in a cellar of suburban slumber. And my Jane Eyre? Snoring beside me, lost in a dream of his own, more likely gossiping with sisters Lorna and Liza than Charlotte and Emily.

In other news, and at the risk of this blog becoming an obituary column, my step-mom’s sister, Cindy, died yesterday afternoon, only a couple hours after we finished with Uncle Norm’s funeral. She’d been struggling the (whisper it) “cancer” for more than five years now, and has been in hospice for the past week or so, growing more and more tired. Dad and Lynne have been there with her pretty much 24/7, and I’m sure they’re just exhausted.

Can we please just all agree to have a moratorium on mortality for the rest of the year?