Is ramblings the right word? Should I have called this masterpiece of literary genius “Friday Mumblings” instead? We may never know.

Has anyone else found that they have become chemically depended on GPS apps while driving anywhere? We have a meeting scheduled for 4:00 today at the funeral home to start going over the arrangements. I know where this place is. I grew up less than a mile from it (Google maps tells me it is 0.8 miles from the house I grew up in) and I could probably find it with my eyes closed in the middle of a blizzard. Why then did I just email the address to myself so that I can plug it into a GPS app on my phone when I head over there in about 80 minutes? Why can’t I just… ya know… go? Why do I need a bunch of satellites in orbit of the Earth to tell me when the next turn is coming up? What did I do to my brain?

A year and a half ago, when my mother passed away, we had a similar meeting with the funeral director booked and we all went into it without the faintest clue of what we were in store for. Now? Today? We know exactly what’s coming and somehow that makes this whole experience more depressing. It’s a little less stressful and a lot less intimidating, but it is so much more depressing. Of all the things to be pro’s at… yeah, this shouldn’t be one of them.

Complete and total change of subject… When the forth and final season of The Umbrella Academy came out a couple of weeks ago I jumped right into it. It was only six episodes (the previous three seasons were all 10 each) and as I was watching the fifth episode I declared to myself (and no one else because why would anyone else care) that when I finished the finale I was going to immediately go back and watch the whole series from start to finish.

I did exactly that, and I finished it yesterday. Just in time for new seasons of Rings of Power and Only Murders in the Building to launch. I watched the first episode of each show (there are two more Rings of Power episodes available and I’ll get to them shortly). While I was waiting for Rings of Power to come back I started reading The Silmarillion and woah babie, is that puppy a slog. I’m on chapter 19 and so far the entire book has been 100% exposition. It’s like a textbook only less interesting. I know at some point it’s going to tie into the Lord of the Rings at least a little bit, but good heavens is it tough to get through. Maybe had Tolkien lived to finish it himself it might have been more readable… then again, maybe not. Yikes.

I’ll tell you what though, Rings of Power is making me want to grab the third Lord of the Rings book and read the appendixes. I’m sure I’ve made it through them at least once before, but maybe I should pay closer attention. It’s tough to read through a couple of hundred (or however long the appendix is) pages of a book that come after the book ended, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

What else should I write about before my lunch break ends and I get back to work for an hour before leaving early to go to the funeral home? I don’t know. Retail therapy… that might be a thing. All of the sadness and stress of the last few weeks. It’s possible that some new camera gear, or a new guitar, or a trip to Manhattan or the mountains might be the only things that can straighten me out. Just a thought, you know? The punchline to this joke is that I am not joking. I’m being serious. Oh well… it will be okay. We’ll get through this together. My father would not have wanted any of us to be all sad. He’d want us to focus on the good rather than stress over the bad. Although having said that, he was an Olympic level, world class worrier himself so… yeah. I love you, dad.