AFTBOTGOOGD 2024

 

So, today was the day for the annual meeting of the AFTBOTGOOGD, an event Bonnie and I have held every year since 1995 and which has been blogged about nearly annually since 2006. There was light rain falling but we were undeterred. 

First stop, as always, after passing the Chinese section which was nicely adorned with oranges in abundance, was Uncle Elmer's stone. His family, most of which lives in California, has had a terrible year, punctuated by several losses. We thought of them as we placed Elmer's greens.

We tried to get the orange centered over the wreath and didn't notice until the photo that the wreath itself has a list to the right.

From there, we went to the Monilla family's plot and were dismayed to see that apparently no one has visited there yet this season and that their spring flowers were still present. This is the sizable family that we don't know at all, but have kind of adopted because we are fascinated by their degree of decorating, ordinarily.  Following are the photos we took at Chez Monilla. If you want to see their usual display, here is what they did last year. We found it unsettling that they hadn't visited yet, and hoped that their delay was just a case of a very busy season, and not something more concerning.

But we will never know.

From there it was on to our parents' plot and then to our grandparents'.  We did notice some moss growing on the latter.

And then we left the cemetery to get the annual everything bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon. We had to make do with a toasted onion bagel, their being all out of everythings, but we liked it just as well. 

So that's the report for this year. I'm sitting here listening to Beethoven's Ninth on the radio (Happy Birthday, Ludwig!) and imagining that tomorrow, or maybe the next day, the Monillas will get their act together and make their pilgrimage and ponder, yet again, just who had left that orange.