And so I Leave You with This . . .

Before I depart tomorrow for the great Viking funeral of 2009, I thought I would update everyone on the ill-fated launching/burning of a Viking ship in a public lake in Minneapolis.

Apparently, someone talked some sense into the rest of my family and convinced them that spending the night in jail would probably not be the best way to celebrate my Uncle's life. So, it was decided that we would burn the ship in my aunt's fireplace. I was immediately against this idea because that fireplace has probably not been cleaned in the 15 years they have lived in the house. The second-to-last thing we need at this funeral is a chimney fire.

(As an aside, I would like to stress that I am not the killjoy in my family. I like to have good fun too . . . I just tend to have my fun without fire. I think that's perfectly reasonable.)

Anyway, so the burning of the Viking ship has been moved outside to the Weber grill. I don't really know all of the details, but I do know that we all get to write personal messages to put into the ship as it is burning to send with Uncle T into the afterlife or heaven or wherever his ashes land.

First, I asked whether these messages would be secret, which, given the nature of the potential messages, is very important. Then I decided my message will say:

I hope they don't force you to remain married to the same person in heaven.

My brother just informed me he was thinking of writing this:

Watch out for the wasabi! It's not avocado in heaven either!

Uncle T was my mother's only brother. My mother told me hers is going to say:

Life is like a bag of charcoal briquettes . . . and then they set you on fire in the Weber.

Yeah. We're not a very sentimental bunch.