This morning, Mark and I parted ways after taking a shower at Mom’s house. He took his motorcycle to run errands around Oregon City, and Mom and I went shopping.

First, we went to a local florist to order red rose boutonnieres for Phuong’s funeral. Only the family will be wearing them, and Mom and I are considered family, so we offered to pay for the flowers, along with my sister, Lauryn, who won’t be able to come up for the funeral.

Then Mom said I’m going to need to wear stockings when I dress up for the funeral. We went to Goodwill which is the only place Mom says she can ever find stockings anymore. We found a pair for her and one for me. I haven’t worn stockings in years, generally preferring socks or tights, so I don’t know how I’ll hold up standing in the cemetery for part of the funeral with no longjohns on! Mom said I’m also going to need a pair of dress shoes. There were a couple I liked at Goodwill, but Mom didn’t approve, so she took me over to Eagle Bargain Outlet, an outlet store for Costco. I didn’t find any shoes there either, but we found some inexpensive food items to get. Finally, we tried Marshall’s. They had a lot of pretty things, but no dress shoes. However, Mom and I bought matching flowered tennis shoes, so now we can be twins!

Finally, we stopped at a grocery store because we needed a few things. By the time we got back to Mom’s house, she was pooped and wanted to sit down. We played a game of Scrabble, but I was getting a headache, so Mom decided to try her latest remedy on me — Earthing. There is a metal button that she attaches a cord to and plugs into the wall. Don’t ask me what it’s supposed to do because I haven’t been able to understand Mom’s explanation, but along with aspirin and Ibuprofin, it helped my headache go away. (The question for me remains, was it the medication or the earthing that helped?)