And it's only Wednesday!

I still feel like I have a whole week's worth of stuff ahead of me. I found out on Monday that a distant uncle of mine (one of my mom's second cousins) who lives here in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale passed away last Saturday from a sudden heart attack. :( I only met him a few times but he seemed nice, though extremely quiet. He owned a small Chinese restaurant in a Glendale strip mall. Even though I didn't interact with him much, I want to go to the funeral. It's more about being there for the family and showing that I care. The service is this Sunday at 9 a.m. in Scottsdale. I found this out the day after I registered for a competitive 5K that morning in another part of Scottsdale. The start time is 7:35 a.m. Luckily, my friend Alyson, who doesn't live too far from the mortuary, graciously told me to come and use her house as a stop to freshen up, shower, change, etc. So...I am going to try and run 5K or 3ish miles in less than an hour which I'm sure I can do and then high-tail it from Alyson's.

I really do not like going to funerals. In some ways, I dislike going to Chinese funerals even more. They are really superstitious and I have a feeling if you tried to insert a little humor in a eulogy to relieve tension, the older folks would throw a fit. Everything has to maintain a certain decorum and trying to relieve the tension would probably jeopardize the deceased person's chances of going to the next world. I just think it's ok to crack a smile if it pertains to remembering good things about the person.

Tomorrow, I have to go to the VA Medical Center and interview two survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack. Actually, I'm looking forward to that. It should be interesting, talking to people who witnessed such a catastrophic and unbelievable event. The hard part is running back to the office to write it all up in one afternoon. I'll be adding what I get to what I have from my phone interview with another survivor today. Gosh, someday, some young journalist is going to be interviewing elderly folks who survived the attacks on the World Trade Center and like me, he/she will have no inkling of what it was like that day.

Well, gotta go wrap a gift. I have a holiday party at a friend's tomorrow after work. She and her fiance are doing one of those white elephant gift exchanges. I'll just be gifting what I received last year. :P