First day back to work and my stomach hurt. I was also tired because it’s the first time I got up that early in a week. But like my neighbor says, go to work, go home, go to work, go home. She thinks her Indian name should be, “Goes to work.”

Other than work sucking, not much new today.

I drank some sort of weird energy drink yesterday but I’m not sure if that’s what kept me from sleeping well last night. I kept hearing how great it was, how it didn’t have any caffeine, and how awful it tasted, so I just had to try it. It had guarana, though, and that has caffeine in it.

So today was a Sunday. Took some stuff to the post office, got my brother-in-law to haul my dad’s old Lay-Z-Boy to the dump (it was falling apart) and mowed the lawn. It’s finally nice enough that the neighbors are walking around and the lawn mowing took a lot longer than it should have. I was busy talking.

I also had a bit of an ordeal recycling an old metal closet that we were holding on to so my brother-in-law could see if he wanted it. My sister said they had no space for it and I was hoping my brother-in-law could take it to the dump. I had to dismantle it and take it myself. The local recycling center was closed, but the dump still took it for free, since it was metal for recycling. Thank goodness for recycling.

Not much excitement today, thank goodness. It’s about time for some quiet.

I was asked to say something at my father’s funeral and I came up with this as a first draft. I just went with it and the only bad thing is that people thought my sister wrote it. Harrumph.

Thank you for coming to the memorial service of my father, Tatsuo George Fujinaka. We appreciate that you took time to come remember him.

My father was a complicated man. He hated gatherings, but would have fun after he arrived. He was a bit shy in that respect. He would have hated having too many people here tonight, but would have been mad if no one showed up.

He loved plants. But I just found his college transcript and he got a C in Botany. I’m sure it wasn’t because he was a bad student because he also got an “A” in Organic Chemistry, and that’s one of the hardest classes that pre-meds have to pass to get into medical school. Like I said, he was a complicated man. He planted all sorts of trees and shrubs in our yard and refused to let anyone cut them. I had to sneak around and trim things back when he wasn’t paying attention and then get yelled at afterwards. He told me, “I have to live here you know. The way that rhododendron looks is embarrassing.”

I’m going to have to sort through thousands of slides of trees and flowers because he liked photography as well. I can tell you a story about his hobby of taking plant pictures. We were in a garden before my sister’s wedding and everyone was watching my sister and my brother-in-law. My dad had wandered off and was squatting down taking pictures of some spring flowers.

My dad also liked all sorts of artsy-craftsy things as well. I saw some practice sumi-e (charcoal-ink) paintings he was making on a whim. I tried making the same sorts of images and I just ended up with black-and-white pictures of marshmallows.

Even when my dad slowed down, he liked wandering up and down the block, giving gardening advice. I hope he was able to help you all so you don’t have to live with embarrassing rhododendrons.

The funeral went quite well. Reverend Gibbs explained all of the parts of the Buddhist service as he performed them and he’s an easy-going guy from Fresno. My father’s Buddhist name is “Shaku Gou Gi” which means “Child of the Buddha, Strength and Integrity.” In Korean it probably sounds like, “Child of the Buddha: Meat.” Fortunately we’re not Korean.

Who knew that Kinko’s wasn’t open all night and closed at 9PM? They sent the proofs for the memorial service and they couldn’t even spell Friday right. I forwarded it to my sister and kept badgering her, but she was out with some silly knit blogger and by the time I called Kinko’s, they were closed. I thought they were all open until at least midnight, but all the ones on the list I saw closed at 9PM. So, maybe we’re going to make the programs with crayon or a ‘ditto’ machine. Ah, well.

I’m also supposed to say something about my father. I had lots of ideas, but as soon as I said I’d do it, I forgot them all. I can say something about how he would have wanted everyone to leave him alone at a time like this, but that he’d also have been mad if no one had shown up. I can say something about his artsy-craftsy side and how I’m going to have to sort through a thousand slides of trees after I dig through all the candy and toys he liked to buy. (When they were taking pictures before my sister’s wedding, he was busy trying to take pictures of some flowers in the garden.) As his son, he infuriated me often, but just by doing odd things. He was never mean, just a little passive-aggressive and a whole lot of goofy.

Well, I’ll have to figure out what I’m saying tomorrow. Today I just filled up two 45-gallon shopping bags by shredding old bank records from 1990-2003. Man that’s a lot of old checks and credit card receipts.

Today we were out running errands half of the day and I even went through an ordeal trying to get acupuncture. While we were gone, people had left food and flowers. I feel kind of guilty for being gone, but most of the things (besides the acupuncture and dinner) were related to funeral arrangements.

I made an appointment with my usual acupuncturist at the Clown CollegeOregon College of Oriental Medicine because of pains in my lower back. After sitting in their waiting room for half-an-hour, they finally told me that the guy had already missed one appointment and his phone was disconnected. Fortunately they got ahold of him and I saw him at another office about an hour after when my appointment should have been. None of his weird contortions were hurting my lower back, but just moving wrong can trigger a sharp pain. His treatment didn’t seem to have as much effect as it usually does. He thinks it’s probably a back strain. Dave the trainer thinks it’s god’s punishment for my jokes about my father. Megan thinks it’s stress. I think it’s annoying.

I don’t know what we’re supposed to do with all the food that’s around. I just measured my waist and it’s 3″ larger than I thought it was.

I made it to the gym today but as soon as I got there my back started to hurt. It has been getting a bit worse since then. I felt a twinge as I performed my pallbearer duties yesterday, but I thought it would go away. I guess lifting a weight with one hand while trying to maintain footing down a wet grassy slope isn’t the way to help your back. I think I’ll call the acupuncturist tomorrow.

I started clearing out some of the junk in my dad’s room today to try to get a path to his closet. We haven’t seen the inside of the closet in years. The shredder is already making horrible noises and I have a long ways to go. I’ve found some odd things in there, including a Japanese jigsaw puzzle for kids and a lot of candy we’ll have to throw out. My dad loved buying candy but stopped eating it a few years back.

We also had several visitors today, including a couple I hadn’t seen in years who are in their mid-nineties! My mom finds all the visits tiring, but so far they haven’t been so bad.

Well, I better get some sleep and start a list for the things I need to do tomorrow. Today, for example, I spent some time just lying around reading a book. Maybe tomorrow I can take a nap instead.

The first major thing I did today was to be a pallbearer at my friend’s mom’s funeral. I hate seeing sad people, and funerals are not a place to be if you don’t want to see sad people. I did like meeting my buddy’s relatives and finally seeing his nieces and nephews.

But then I had to go with my mom and sister to the funeral home to arrange my father’s disposition. It was more tiring than I was expecting, even though everything went quite quickly and we had no major disagreements. An example of a disagreement: my mom wanted me to tell my 90-something Uncle Leo to not come from Spokane, and I wanted to suggest to him that he didn’t need to come. (I suggested he not do anything unsafe when I called, and I’m sure he understood what I meant. He’s the smart ex-pharmacist, after all.)

In any case, we’re doing fine, and tomorrow I may tackle cleaning some of my dad’s desk. My ex-girlfriend had some suggestions because she had to clean up her dad’s office as well. (If you’re wondering if we’re still friends, she came by to check on us and see how we were doing today.)

Like my sister said, he went mostly the way she would want to go, fairly peacefully in his sleep, not knowing the worst. I added he went out the way he would want to go, the big drama queen, rolling down the stairs with no pants on. One of the last family images: after I called 911, my mom was cutting my dad’s toenails (that were almost half-an-inch long) as he lay on the living room floor before the paramedics came to take him to the hospital. Don’t worry, we made sure he was comfortable (even using the doll from yesterday’s posting as a pillow) before we started doing nutty things.

And on an official note, the memorial service is on Friday the 20th, at 7PM, at the Oregon Buddhist Temple, 3720 SE 34th Avenue Portland, OR 97202 (just south of Powell Blvd.)

My dad fell down the stairs today. I wasn’t as worried about the fall or the bloody scalp laceration as I was about the disorientation he’s had since yesterday. After the fall he just kept saying, “I just want to sleep,” and curled up on the living room floor.

I called the advice nurse and she just told me to call 911. The EMTs in the ambulance suggested we go to the trauma center, just in case, and after we got there, they raised him to a Level 1 Trauma. I went outside to call my mom and my sister and by the time I got back I was told my dad had been intubated and had been given CPR.

Apparently my dad had an aortic dissection. They called in the heart surgeon from home but he wasn’t too optimistic about operating on an almost 91-year-old man. We all decided that surgery would just be torturing an old man. My dad passed away around 5:07PM, but the voodoo ritual performed by the doctor didn’t end until 5:19PM, so that’s his official time of death. 5:19PM, April 15, tax day.

My mom and sister and I were always afraid that he’d have a hard death, and I’m glad it was fairly quick and painless. If you’ve seen a picture of the nest he has for a desk, you’ll understand another fear of mine that they’d have to shovel out all his crap to get him out of his bed. Fortunately, it was much easier than all that. The biggest surprise is that they didn’t even ask for a signature after his death; they just wanted a phone number and the funeral home we wanted to use.

I’m off to be a pallbearer for my friend’s mom tomorrow and I just heard from another friend that his girlfriend just dumped him. This is not an auspicious start to the week.

Friday the 13th didn’t start out that well. I was tired from the ONE BEER I didn’t get for free. When I checked my email I found out that my friend’s mom had died and that kind of put things into perspective. On the way to work I was trying to pass a bicycle where he had a full lane and I had a full lane, but he decided to take the left lane and I was passing him on the right. At the last minute he swerved towards me and then started yelling at me that I was a car and I better watch out. I tried to tell him to be more careful, because, hey, who’s going to get hurt? But whatever. He kept glaring at me at the stoplights.

Later in the evening I went out with friends, including one who is kind of annoying. I had to leave the bar because the music was too loud and my ears were bothering me. We all wanted to go home but the annoying guy made us go to the grocery store for some reason before he’d take us to Jack-in-the-Box, and he wouldn’t let us eat in his used car because he wanted it clean. Keep in mind that he has two kids, a baby and a 3-year-old.

So today I felt like dogmeat, and all I had last night was two drinks. I took a nap and woke up with a headache, but felt well enough to head out to my ex-girlfriend’s birthday party. It didn’t bother me that she had another 10-year-her-junior boyfriend who looked just like the shaved-headed heavy-metal-band loser that she went out with right after me, and it didn’t really bother me that it was all his youthful friends showing up to make me feel old, and it didn’t bother me that we were in a dank and smoky bar and I was trying to hack up a lung. It did start to bother me when her friends, who appeared to be her age, showed up with their much younger boy-toys.

Fortunately, the one shot of Laphroaig I had was working it’s usual magic and I didn’t feel too bad after I drank it. I left at 9:30, telling everyone I had to dress up like Harry Potter and surf the internet. Hah. Like I’d dress up like Harry Potter.

Happy Birthday to me. I went to work and attended a meeting on, “What we should be doing in our group,” which so incensed my co-worker that he told a complete stranger how useless we all were. Nothing new there, just more confirmation that I’m not the only one who is frustrated and wanting to leave the group if not Megacorp in general.

I was told to go to the Rogue Brewery on my birthday and score lots of swag. A yard of beer, a glass, and a t-shirt. What I got is bupkis. I got to drive around for five minutes and park eight blocks away for my trouble and sit in a smoke-filled bar. Well, Dave the Trainer and I did get to eat Kobe beef hamburgers and the beer was good and he bought my birthday dinner. But the initial disappointment was hard to overcome. I was looking forward to my swag for several weeks.

My sister came through with a weird mini-speaker for my iPod that isn’t very loud, and a mini-carrot-cake! She didn’t even steal a slice before delivery.

I also found out that I should probably avoid drinking for a while. I’m generally a happy drunk but all I could think of is how much I hated my current job. I even called my sister to complain (about the job and the lack of birthday swag). So, even though I’m supposed to go on a pub crawl tomorrow and to a bar on Saturday for my ex-girlfriend’s birthday, I may not be drinking at all. Well, nothing alcoholic anyway. I may reconsider tomorrow.

So tomorrow (April 12) is my birthday. Since my sister is too “busy” to come over, I got my present on Sunday. It was in a paper bag and I was told I’d think it was lame. I still haven’t opened up the bag. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m too busy or because I’m too lazy. Just like usual, I’ve been trying to get my computer to do something it doesn’t want to do.

I’ve bought a couple of THINGS lately that I’d rather not discuss (think BATF but not alcohol or tobacco) lately so I don’t think I’m going to buy myself any birthday presents. I was going to buy another computer, but I think I’m going to wait a bit. My job situation may be a bit more fluid, if you know what I mean.

This is the time of year where I think, damn, when was my friend Sun’s birthday? I’m a dude, and I have a hard time remembering birthdays. I can remember my dad’s because he’s a big drama queen, but I used to have trouble with my mom’s. It’s been years since I forgot what the date was, but I rarely know what today’s date is. I’m lucky to have a friend whose birthday is on the same date as my mom’s, and luckier that he’s on Friendster. Friendster emails me and then I know it’s time to wish her a Happy Birthday. Easy, see?

So today I had two official meetings where I was repeatedly asked, “Do you know what you’re doing?” Really, the answer is no, my current job has nothing to do with my skill set. I was also taken aside by a co-worker who strongly suggested that I take care of the guy I told off before he took care of me. This was an hour-long diatribe, and at the end of it I started looking for a job outside of Megacorp. I don’t play those kind of games.

Oh, and I rushed to the gym only to find out that I was an hour early (Dave the trainer’s magic schedule change again). Dave the Trainer also wanted to grab a bite to eat afterwards but was busy chatting up someone who theoretically found him attractive because they’re both Jewish. I told him the only way he could be more attractive is if he was a doctor. Apparently it’s the last day of Passover and time to eat a hamburger (or bacon cheeseburger if you’re truly a bad Jew.) I really am a bigot.