So my fun evening last night consisted of sitting around watching family videos of the dead. Not everyone in those videos was dead. I certainly am not dead, nor is Sue or K, or my brothers, or most of my cousins, a few Aunts and Uncles, my Mom and Dad, we're all still very alive at the moment. There however, were more dead people in them than living. Especially in Sue's videos. Except for a couple of cousins and maybe an uncle, almost everyone in Sue's family videos are dead. Not long livers on her side of the family. Thank god she is adopted.

Don't get me wrong, I truly enjoyed watching those videos. Some of them had clips in them we had never seen. Like Grandma giving an oral history of our family lineage. I don't have the full copy of that video, too long of a story to relate here as to why I don't, but suffice to say, I wish I had the rest of it to watch.

At any rate, it was a walk down memory lane. More it was a walk through an almost full range of your emotions while seeing people you knew and loved alive once again as you knew them. Interacting with the dead in your life through film and video.

This all started when Sue brought Marty's family videos in from the garage to go through them. Videos we all thought we had seen before a million times only to find out there were hidden treasures neither of us had ever seen. Some of them had film taken long before Sue was ever born. One little treasure had video of Sue visiting Marty and Evie in Florida when she was probably 23 or so. When the camera panned to this hot little blonde dyke sitting by the pool reading a book, I was like "Who's that hottie?!" Within a moment I realized who it was and boy was I shocked. I had forgotten that Sue was ever that skinny or ever that nearly tattooless. I also initially thought that Marty was being an old letch video taping some young hot chick sitting poolside at his condo complex. I should have known better.

I guess I better get going now. Today is our in karate school's Dojo Days tournament. I am not sure I will make it all the way through Wan Su as my open hand kata since I haven't really practiced it much. I will breeze through my weapons because I can do that one in my sleep. I managed to screw Wan Su up pretty bad at the last tournament. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to not just stop and walk away. When I realized I was way screwing up and had gone into a whole other kata instead of Wan Su, I simply made up a few quick fake out moves, went to my closing and ended it as all Sho Rye Ru open hand katas end. None of the judges were Black Belts from our style, so they had no idea I hadn't done a real Sho Rye Ru kata anyway. I still took third place out of five anyway despite my grievious error. I happened to be thinking about my cousin Suzie while I was starting that kata at that tournament. Little did I know that she was in the middle of actually drawing her last few breaths while I preformed that kata for the judges.

I don't really care if I win anything anyway. To me, this is about doing your personal best at that exact moment in time and having fun. I get to hang around my friends and have fun. Sounds like a fun Sunday afternoon to me. Sue will be thinking about Marty not being there to watch her and K do their competitions. After ten years I know her far too well. I keep telling her that he's there, you just can't see him right now. And he is there, just like he is here, we just can't see him right now.

By the way, speaking of Marty, he says that I can do it myself when it comes to financial investment issues. I told him I have no clue what I am really doing. He is of the opinion that I am able with out his help. It's little conversations with Marty that I have in my head that keep him close to me now. The Marty in my mind hasn't changed one bit since he died. He's still just as corny and still just as witty.

I miss you guy.... miss my Poppy in Law a lot. I love you Poppy.