Today was tough. Mom's friend came over and drove Frank and I over to the funeral home in her Rolls. She wanted to be there with us for moral support. I appreciated it. She's been a big help. I was more or less ok through most of it, working out all of the details, the obituary, etc. But when it came time to select the casket it was very, very hard. As soon as we chose the one we wanted I just had to get the hell out of there for a couple of minutes. I stepped outside and smoked a couple of c...

I've had a few requests for an address to send flowers for my mother's funeral. She insisted that she didn't want any flowers for her funeral as she wanted to enjoy flowers while she was still living. She asked that instead of flowers people make a donation to the American Cancer Society in her memory. If any wish to do this donations may be made in memory of Florence Jean Mullins. Thanks to all.

I pulled my favorite sport coat out of the closet as I planned to wear it to the funeral home tomorrow. It's a grey silk coat that I've had for a few years. I guess it had got scrunched in the closet and was wrinkled; creased would be a better word. I got so seriously pissed that this jacket had the nerve to come out of the closet wrinkled. Realistically I know that silk wrinkles easily, but somehow I just went off on this thing. It's lucky to still be in one piece. I think I'm losing my m...

Despite drinking more beer than is healthy, I just can't sleep. I didn't sleep very much at all last night, and during the 30 minutes or so that I did sleep I dreamed that I rushed home to find my mother was actually ok and hadn't died. I am exhausted but somehow sleep refuses me. Damn, how selfish is this? My mother just died and I am bitching about the fact that I can't sleep. Good G-d I'm a selfish piece of shit! I keep thinking about my mother, the funeral home I have to visit in the m...

My mother passed away at midnight last night. I knew it was coming but didn't expect it to be so soon. I thought she would at least make it through Christmas and her birthday two days after. I had prepared myself for this news, but it is still hard to take and I suppose I am still in something of a state of shock. I had prayed just a couple of days ago that if she had to go that G-d be merciful and make it quick so she wouldn't have to suffer. I am at least thankful for that, she simply slipp...

I have always had certain issues with Christian dogma and in recent years it has become more bothersome to me. Of late I have been studying Judaism, Jewish traditions, and Jewish culture. During my studies the reasons for my issues starting becoming more and more clear to me. My heart has always been Jewish, it's just taken a while for my head to catch up. I directed my studies toward eventual conversion. This is a deeply personal thing to me and is between G-d and myself, and I state in no unce...

I feeling pretty depressed now. It seems that everything is going wrong. I learned that my mother is dieing from lung cancer and is refusing any more treatment. She's at home with a hospice worker now. It truly breaks my heart that she won't have the chemo, but I do understand and respect her wishes. From what the doctor said it doesn't sound like it would really do much good anyway. Thanks to the slow economy and trucking business I have a bunch of past due bills and bills coming due and won...

I just got a call from my mother's husband. She's back in the hospital. They have diagnosed her with stage 4 lung cancer. They said without chemo she has about 6 months, with chemo maybe a year or so. After all she's been through with this cancer stuff, now this. It seems she just can't get a break. I'm over 1,000 miles away and feel powerless to help her. Of course realistically there's actually nothing I could do if I were there. He's supposed to call me back on Monday after speaking wit...

This morning I drove 90 minutes over to AR to pick up a tractor after spending all day yesterday sitting around a truckstop. Once I got the tractor loaded and chained down I called in expecting them to either have something else for me to pick up or to just proceed to WI. Well, they did in fact have something else for me to pick up, in Wichita. Monday. Geez. So I drove the hour up to Joplin and parked in yet another truckstop. I'll be sitting here until Sunday and then I'll head on over to...

I've been working on the sweater a little here and there as time allows. I've finished the sleeve holes and have the sleeve stitches on holders and am now just working the rest of the body.

Tomorrow I have to pick up a tractor at an equipment dealer in AR. I'm spending today, Thanksgiving, sitting at a truckstop in OK about 90 minutes from where I'll be picking up. As a majority of drivers are home for Thanksgiving, finding a parking space in the truckstop was no problem. I am just sitting here looking out my windshield watching the travelers come and go in their cars, SUVs, pickups, and RVs.  Traffic was horrible. Doesn't anyone actually stay home for Thanksgiving any more...

This morning the shop in Cleveland hadn't made any progress on repairing the electrical problem in my truck. They close at 4:30PM on Saturday and don't reopen until Monday morning. As I didn't feel like hanging around for that long I, and our shop manager, decided to just find a 24/7 shop and nurse the truck to it. I am now in a hotel in Columbus and my truck is being worked on in a real shop. Those guys in Cleveland were a joke. With any luck they'll have my truck repaired tomorrow and I ...

I had to get my truck jump started to get going the other day. Second time. I let our shop know about it and we figured the batteries were due to be replaced. We also figured that once I got my load delivered we would have me cruise into a dealership and have them install four new ones. I delivered this morning, ran up to Cleveland to pick up my next load, some fabricated steel going to Texas, and then stopped by the Western Star dealership to have them put new batteries in my rig. Should hav...

Late this afternoon I finally got a call from dispatch. They'd found me a load out of here. Tomorrow I have to go down to Hollywood, FL to pick up some rails heading for Ohio. I'd hoped for something that gets me closer to the yard, but it's a start. I just hope I don't wind up sitting too long in Ohio when I get there. Well at least when I return home again (around Christmas), it'll be to a clean house. All this extra time at home gave me a chance to get fully rested and I even managed to...

Update progress pic of the sweater I am currently knitting.