how was your thanksgiving (part 1)?

mine was a little surreal. here's what happened.

hops and i went to waynesville missouri to spend the holiday with her parents and her sister, who live there. her sister's husband (hereafter Stan, "the deer hunter") had been suffering from cancer of the pancreas for at least nine months. he was said to be in poor shape when we arrived, at home under hospice care.

we arrived late wednesday in st. louis, drove to st. robert, and spent our first night in a local hotel (usually we stay in hops' parents' guest room, more on that in a moment).

after our continental breakfast, we went to hops' parents' house and took off our jackets, because though the weather was in the low 60's, the parents keep their house wood-fired to a cozy 900 degrees. within minutes, i was seized by an epic sneezing fit. whether it's the wood-burning-stove, the moldy foundations, or just the natural aroma of old people, i am very allergic to something in that house.

hops' mom very kindly told us she'd extinguished her smelly candle because it might cause my sneezing. very thoughtful and sweet, but of course the lone candle was not the problem.

hops' mom had also saved a pair of $2.50 flip flops which i'd accidentally left there in august, as well as 57 cents in change that i had intentionally left. she'd gone to mail the shoes to me but didn't want to pay the 8 bucks asked by usps (good). we'd told her to keep the change, but she wouldn't.

so, we sat and chatted. we walked around and talked. we killed time until thanksgiving dinner, which would be served around 1:00 in the PM, just close enough to lunchtime to be maddeningly wtf, but not so far from lunch time to be weird. hops' dad reheated some ham. when the moment presented itself, hops spoke with him alone about a matter of great importance and secrecy, which does not concern me (or, dear reader, you), and which cannot be explained further here (yet). but it must be mentioned, because it is a big thing, weighing heavily on the minds and hearts of hops' dad, hops, and myself. it is important to understand that through the events that followed, crazy and furiously odd as they were, three people were dealing with a secret just as crazy and big.

as we sat down for "dinner", having waited as long as practical for hops' nephews to arrive, the nephews arrived. we ate, and enjoyed a bottle of french wine exported to japan (and labeled in japanese), then imported back somehow to hops' folks. the ham had been reheated with the mesh rubber-bands still on, so that had to be picked out of the crust before or while eating. yum.

shortly after we finished, hops' sister called the nephews (her sons) to come back home to help with her ill husband. they lived 5 minutes away, so the boys left. their help accomplished, they returned, and we talked and joked some more. we all spoke about how much Stan's health had declined. hops and i had heard this story during our visit in august, and then we had not been so shocked by his appearance as we'd been warned. after a while, hops and i and the nephews took some food over for hops' sister.

this time, the poor man's appearance was indeed shocking. he was little more than a skeleton, and though he spoke briefly with hops, we don't think he actually knew who she was, and when i spoke to him, he did not acknowledge me at all.

we sat and spoke with the sister, and after a while, set up a board game. while Stan watched tv, we played the game and hops' sister had her thanksgiving meal. she got up every five minutes to check on her husband.

after we finished the game (i won, barely), she got up to check again on Stan. he had died since her last check, no more than five minutes earlier.

what followed was confusing, but ordered, considering. time of death was estimated and noted, hospice was called, some folks sequestered themselves, understandably not interested in looking at a dead person. hops called her parents to share the news -- but before she could break the news, her dad wanted to talk more about the mysterious matter mentioned above. hops and i drove back to her folks' house to bring them over to the sister's house.

lots of crying, some praying, more crying. the hospice worker arrived and went through her script. the nephews dressed Stan, which seemed an unenviable job. after a while, the parents had had enough and asked to go home. this was perfect for me, as i was very hungry. i was sad and distressed and doing all i could to comfort the family, but biology is biology, and mine is especially testy. hops recognized that it was well past my feeding time, and we took her folks home, with the promise of our own return, but only after i'd had some leftovers -- not because they were delicious (they weren't, under the circumstances) but simply so i could continue not passing out from hunger and stress.

when we got back, there were more people at Stan's house. Stan, so named here because of his passion for hunting deer, was a member of several gun and black powder clubs, but most notably, a small group called the Four Amigos. Two of the other amigos had come to pay their respects (we met the final Amigo at Stan's funeral on Monday but never really figured out why he didn't come to the other gatherings. perhaps he was a new member of the group and not fully invested).

the four amigos were rednecks by any measure, and i do not mean that as an insult, nor would they take it as one. my experiences with Stan, and later with his two friends, have changed my opinions on rednecks in general. they were all kind, welcoming, funny, and smart. One of them, the one who seemed to most embody the stereotype, we'll call "Earl". Like the rednecks I met in wyoming, who were most certainly not kind or welcoming, and managed to run about as far away as possible from "smart", Earl jumped straight to the queer jokes when he heard we were from California.

i never did find out his real opinion of gay people. i don't much care. but i could tell right off the bat that Earl was joking, and the queer jokes were his way of welcoming us. to a "liberal west coast elite" i'm sure the comments would have been shocking. but we're not easily shaken and we dished as much as we received.

mostly, though, Earl and the other Amigo were deeply, deeply saddened by the loss of their friend. They never called Stan their friend, they referred to him as their brother. hops and i were both touched by their love for their brother (i later pointed out that there's not much more queer than four dudes camping out in the woods for a week doing nobody-really-knows-what). they drank a number of shitty yellow fizzy beers for their fallen comrade, and told us a number of stories where the characters could easily have been replaced by myself and my own hetero life mate, Spu. these were strong manly men, retired soldiers, who tried but could not hide their emotions.

after a while the nephews wanted to get something to eat. so we all went out to a really crappy "beer" and hot-wings chain. i was forced to settle for a guinness, since they were out of the hefeweisen i wanted to drink in tribute to Stan (it was his preferred beer style). the guinness was served in a friggin pilsner glass that tasted like dishwashing fluid. i'm sure the glass was supposed to impress the locals, as was the "expansive" beer menu including such imports as guinness, negro modelo, and blue moon. the food sucked, the waitress was worse than the food, and they closed early. but they were open on thanksgiving, and we all got to be out of the house when the coroner arrived.

after they kicked us out, it was nearly midnight. i suggested we attend black friday at wal mart, which we did. they had real police and fake police out directing traffic. the parking lot was a madhouse, but inside the store was very orderly and tidy. there were police posted throughout the store, and lines of people waiting for items to officially go on sale.

i just wanted to do some people watching, but the nephews wanted to buy some crap. so we stood in line for half an hour as i whined and the meth-fueled locals spilled their drinks all over the floors. eventually, we escaped. overall, not so exciting an experience.

hops and i arrived back at our hotel well past midnight and took a much deserved sleep.