Update...

To those of you wondering.....

My sister arrived last night, to help with the burial. We planted him under the trumpet vine along the fence behind our house.

It took a little bit to dig a hole in our frozen tundra. I'm sure the neighbors were scratching their heads over what the crazy girl next door was doing with a shovel in her backyard last night. :-)

I like to keep them guessing.

1st Mental Note: Dead fish......in water for 1.5 days.......does not smell pleasant when removed.

2nd Mental Note: Bring sister for all burials, she's a hoot, and will get you laughing at the most inconvenient times!!!!

Stories behind 2nd mental note.......

1) My cat, Skunk, passed away in the dead of winter. He was an inside cat, that refused to stay inside...so we were constantly chasing him when he escaped. One time, he escaped and we didn't know it. When I found him, he was outside.....frozen. Ugh! I called for Mot, and he came to the rescue...snow shovel in hand. He scooped up poor Skunk and put him in a copy paper box I had in the trunk of my car.

Skunk was a big cat. Not fat...but LLOOONNNGGG. He didn't fit in the box....he kinda hung over the side....sticking straight out (still frozen). Not pleasant...but we (my sister was there), of course, still got the giggles when Mot plunked him in the box, and he didn't fit.

Mot, trying not to laugh himself, went inside the house to look for something closer to the correct size. As he was walking towards the house, Skunk fell out of the box. Neither my sister or I were looking in that direction when it happened...so after we heard the noise, we looked to see what caused it. There was Skunk, staring right at us, out of the box.

I admit it, we both screamed like girls, and were at the end of the driveway in Olympic sprinter's time.

2) My aunt's funeral in April. We were standing in the back of the room, during the viewing the day before the funeral. Depressing music is playing, people are crying, we're trying to be strong. Well, it all finally overwhelms us. I'm sniveling, and Inny (my sis) starts in. I give her a hug, and she cries on my shoulder. It's all very "lifetime movie" like.

When she gets herself under control, she pulls away from my shoulder. I look down and say (not so quietly) "Ew, you snotted on me."

And that was that......

We were both holding back the giggles....until we could no longer fight it. We were all out laughing....and everyone in the room is looking at us.

Our red, puffy eyes must have given us free reign to laugh...because everyone went back to what they were doing soon after. On that note, we left.

3) Last night's burial starts with "I don't have to touch him, do I?"

I made her no promises.

I use the fish net, scoop him out of the tank, and put him in a soon to be thrown away dish towel she's holding. Inny spends the whole time with this look of complete and total disgust on her face. It's awesome.

As we're getting ready to walk down stairs......the smell hits us. Oh my god!!!! 2 days in a fish tank, dead. There are no words.

I take the towel (containing dead fish) and go running down the stairs and outside.....hoping to keep as little of the smell from lingering as possible.

(sidenote : running through the house didn't help)

Once outside, we pick a spot and I try to dig a hole. We throw him in it...and he lands upside down. Well....that's just not going to work for me. I reach down to flip him over and Inny lets out a squeal. Heck, she wasn't even touching him, and she was grossed out.

Fish have no eyelids.....so my dead 10+ year old puffer fish was in a hole in the ground - staring at me. How I didn't have nightmares last night, I'll never know!

I get him flipped over, quickly we say "Love you Puff" and put the frozen mound of dirt back down...and run inside.

(It's colder than heck out - single digits - and we both had just gotten done at the gym. I was in shorts and a tshirt - we made the burial quick...to say the least.)

If you ever need comic relief at a funeral....call on us. If you want tact, decorum, and good behavior, make sure we're not in attendance!!!!