Until (a) death (certificate) do us part, Part 1

Gather 'round, one and all, to hear a tale of one of my greater facepalmingest moments¹.  My step-daughter had just given me my wife's urn and ashes along with her death certificate and some other papers concerning her cremation (my wife's. that is, not my step-daughter's... just thought I should make that clear).  I proceeded to put the ashes on the floor beside and place the papers in my coat's inner pocket shortly before she (that "she" would be referring to my step-daughter this time) and her husband drove me to the North County Transit Center to await the train that would take me home to Los Angeles.  Shortly after we said our goodbyes, I felt too warm and took my coat off, folding it over my arm.  As the train arrived, I put the coat back on just before I boarded.  Finally I got home, took my wife's urn (with the ashes still inside) over to my sister-in-law's place, where I spent some time before going back to my apartment.  I checked for the papers and discovered they weren't in my coat pocket.  Ok, so maybe I left them at sister-in-law's, but asking her reveals that's a dead end.  So I search my room, but turn up nothing.  So part of Sunday is spent searching once more and finding the e-mail addresses of lost and found for MetroLink and the North County Transit Center and explaining what happened and asking them to get in contact me on the off chance someone has turned them in.  Long odds, I know, but better than no odds at all.
Monday comes, but it's Memorial Day.  About the only news concerning the death certificate is that I discover I cannot order it online.  Looks like my only option is to go down to the Los Angeles County Public Health building (LACPH; remember that acronym- I'm probably going to be using it tomorrow) and buy a new copy (or two, since I'm already going to be there, I might as well get an extra).  But that part of the tale is for another day....

¹ I would add "of my life" here, except that would be redundant. I don't think I've ever had a facepalmingest (or any other) moment in anyone else's life but my own.

I just learned how to change the cover photo on my Google+ profile

Words cannot describe how beautiful she is to me.  And the emotions every time I see it: love, pain, joy, sorrow, blessedness, betrayal (how dare she leave me alone?), and too many more to sort them all out.  Then there are the questions to which I do not know the answer.  I have to restrain myself from punching the monitor so that I no longer can see it while at the same time wanting to linger on it, caressing the image of her face (why can't it be the real thing?).
I hope that no one reading this is bothered by my remembering this Memorial Day someone who fell in the battle against cancer.  I didn't plan it this way, it just happened.

She's Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Finally, the Lorena has returned to Los Angeles^{1, 2}
And for one brief and shining moment,she was even here, back home in what was previously our apartment.³  But for better or worse, I took her over to her sister's place... and tears began to flow⁴.  And when that was all over, they began to flow again.  In between, there was time for me to eat three chicken tortillas and some reheated Mexican-style pinto beans interrupted by periods of comforting her sister and our (i.e., my and my wife's) niece and answering or declining to answer questions from our 5(?)-year-old grandniece⁵ (Is that tía Lore in there?  Can she get out?  Can you open it?).  Some time during all of this, I offered to let them keep her ashes for a brief yet unspecified amount of time and they agreed.  Thus, she is currently being memorialized in a vigil there with the whole burning candles around her "urn" ⁶.

¹ And not only can't I smell what the Lorena is cooking, I doubt that she is cooking.
² And, yes, it is time to play "how many cultural references can you spot and identify in this post".
³ The "where she belongs" is, of course, implied.
⁴ As a male, I can neither confirm nor deny that any such tears proceeded from me, but let the reader(s) figure it out.
⁵ This is the same grandniece who once (when my wife was still alive) asked me "Is your tía Lore home?". In an effort to correct her, I explained that Lorena was not my tía ("aunt"), but my esposa ("wife").  After which she asked, "Oh, so is your tía esposa home?".
⁶ It looks more or less like this⁷:

except:

1. it's dark blue instead of black;
2. it has a label with her name and the name of and information for the cremation service (Cremation Services, Inc., 2570 Fortune Way Suite D Vista, CA 92081, 760-727-8906); and,
3. most importantly, it is closed and possibly sealed.

⁷ This is in no way meant as a criticism or complaint against the service. On the contrary, one of the things that most impressed me about them is that while they offer (more expensive) alternatives, they didn't try to upsell any of them to me by suggesting that paying more equates to loving my wife more⁸, which I have read is a common tactic among funerary services. Not the most creatively named, but highly recommended by yours truly.  Now if they only offered a referral fee if I can get someone to mention that he or she heard of their service here....
⁸ Then again, that was probably a smart and/or fortunate move on their part when dealing with me because I would have immediately asked them whether that was what they meant if they had.

9 minutes to go and I better finished getting my socks and shoes on and turn off the computer.

It's been fun.  I might do this again sometime.  Then again, probably not.  Y'all come back now, ya hear?

18 minutes.... guess I'll find clothes to wear

I would tell you what I found, but either:

1. you wouldn't find it all that exciting, or,
2. if you did find it exciting, I probably wouldn't want to tell you because you seem to get excited too easily.