The Fanstastic Ms. Fox

As part of truly exploring my masculinity and awakening the wild man within, I'm going to learn how to bead.
Why?
1 - I think I can make pretty things,
2 - It sounds like fun,
3 - I can sell it because, when it comes to beads, people will buy complete crap
4 - It used to be a fad, so there hould be lots of extra beading equipment floating around and I can pick it up for cheap.

This announcment is here because
1 - If you, or someone you know, has old beading stuff, I'll take it off your/their hands in exchange for novel photoediting services, customized freshly baked bread, or something along these lines
2 - if you want to bead and want someone to do it with, I'm... well, I guess that's pretty obvious,

Cheers

My mother, three aunts, and one uncle stepped formard to fall on their knees around the hole in the ground. They were gently handling my grandmother's ashes at the end of the sevice. It was a heavy brass box - I'm told that eight pounds of ashes is a lot. They took my grandfather's box out of the hole. It had lain there for a little over three years. Had it really been over three years? The verdigris that tried to hide his name informed my time-sense. They put them face-to-face, then sealed the top and we tossed a little dirt on it. More service, popcorn prayer, then candles and shovelfulls of earth. The capstone will go on later, I think.

It's a stone's throw from my father's grave:
It has Maple leaves on it. He liked Fall.
He was also an American, sort of.

It was good, or at least kind, that I realized that I could see death and grieve without feeling angry at someone. Not "I'm going to make sure this doesn't happen again goddamn it," but instead, "God, this really hurts."

Later, after the aunts and uncle were done, the elder cousins (this includes myself) were at my grandmother's, sorting through old belongings. We were giving a new home to masterless possessions. This felt right: full circles; proper scavenging.