Monday

I didn't go to the show today because I took the opportunity to go to the cemetery where now both of my parents are buried. Over the years, I've probably gone two or three other times. The town is about an hour from here, but I had no idea, or memory, of how to get there.

I had some trouble yesterday getting on line because of a very weak signal, and couldn't get on line from my room. I moved to the lobby and still no luck. I tried everything. The hotel people even came over to help. Nothing.

To make a long story short, two hours into this process, I couldn't help but think there was some sort of firewall stopping the connection, but that didn't really make sense since I had been on the hotel's wifi yesterday.

Nonetheless, I went to Norton security settings and saw that an update had been made in the last 12 hours. I removed the firewall with dire warnings that I am now under threat of attack. I tried to connect ouswith the firewall turned off... and lo and behold, that was it.  It sounds like an obvious solution, but only after two hours of angst. Always something simple.

I got the directions, to the town, not to the cemetery and find myself on Main Street. Didn't know where to go so I went to a Hardee's drive thru and asked for directions -- the woman literally laughed at me... she thought looking for a cemetery was hilarious.  And she was older too --- not a teenager. She and the manager were useless... I have often wondered how people live in a town -- and this is NOT a huge city... and not know the whereabouts of a cemetery.

"Fourth Street" is a one-way street and I vaguely remembered that so I followed it... came to one cemetery (not mine) and I asked this caretaker who was weedwhacking. He was very nice and I was about two minutes away. Got there, and this is one of these really old cemeteries where the road through it was built for horse and buggies, or small cars or something... but I knew the gravesite was very close to one of the roads and I found it and had a solemn moment. That's all I can say. No big emotions.

By this time, it was mid-afternoon -- had some lunch, got gas (for the car, not from lunch) and came back to the hotel. Thanked the woman who was still behind the desk for helping me.

So tomorrow I have to get to the show really early for a media breakfast. One good thing about having to get up to (ahem) use the restroom is that it's almost impossible to oversleep. I am not going to tempt fate, and I will set the clock radio. I have to leave here no later than 6:30 a.m.