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I am rarely at rest, but I've driven myself to the point of illness the last few weeks. Who gets a head cold in August? Little Miss Overachiever, that's who. I finally got my CDL today, nearly a month after the deadline because of scheduling difficulties. I am elated. My examiner is in the National Gaurd and has been to Iraq three times, and without thinking, I thanked him. He told me what he claims he tells everyone: "I'd rather be fighting them over there than fighting them here." I've always had a hard time taking people with Southern accents seriously, simply because hearing them makes me grin (think Scarlett in Gone with the Wind), but his was charming and put me at ease right away. I would have loved to drive the big gorgeous International clean out of gas just visiting with him while we tooled around town. He said my air braking is divine. I thanked Dad for sending me an angel, because the last guy was a total Nazi.

Julia's funeral was nice. Mormon funerals are weird, and I don't mean that in a bad way, just that they're not my cup of tea (baptized though I am. Someday we'll have a post about organized religion, and why I feel it's a crock of... butter. But not today). She died in a skydiving accident. That right there would have ruled out the open casket thing for me, but hey. Somebody's pretty good at his job. Greg Crandall's speech was wonderful, her bishop and undertaker all in one, a hard spot to be in. But Greg... well, his other talent is kindness. Justin still just looks shell-shocked and her sisters are a mess (though everyone was curiously dry-eyed at the viewing the night before). There were so many people at the service they had to open the big accordion doors from the chapel into the multipurpose room and set out folding chairs. The line of cars in the procession stretched from the Fourth Ward church on Sage all the way over the overpass to the cemetery, blocking Main Street, Front Street, Bear River Drive, Highway 89, and a few more minor intersections, with cops camped out at the lights. At the plot, her mom's relatives were grinning in a group around the casket, having their pictures taken. They released purple balloons. I tried no to think of the environment.

After the funeral I didn't go back to work. I went to the laundromat. The Kemmerer Relay for Life is this weekend, and I am one of Carrie's Sleepwalkers (we are conveniently walking in our pajamas). I'm going to Pinedale to help Mom hang Rose's drycleaned drapes tomorrow, while Rose (my last living grandparent, out of six) recuperates from a knee-replacement surgery. How strange to imagine having a titanium joint! She's pretty thrilled, or will be when the pain goes away.

I have to go find my boss now and tell him I passed my road test. He won't be hard to track down. Thursday evening, in this town? He'll be bellied up to the bar at Kate's.