What America might find surprising about me

I missed the boys' episode of American Idol earlier this week because I was doing community service (voluntary, not court imposed - I'm just lettin' ya know). But I watched the girls last night and the results, too.

This morning on our way out to the new cemetery section's grand opening (yes, I will tell you all about it), I told the Vol-in-Law that I had to get back in time to watch the boys in re-run.

He did his little eye roll and said "I married a middle-class girl."


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In this week's American Idol theme, the little filmed vignettes of the contestants were all based around "what America doesn't know about me". And the responses were "I'm a hula dancer", "I'm a drag racer", "I ride a Harley, but I also love to read," and so on... But one of them was "I don't like different kind of foods to touch on my plate." Two minutes of "green bean juice running into other food icks me out" and so on...

I thought to myself: Hey girl, America really didn't want to know that about you - so now America is gonna send you home. And America did.

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After three years of blogging, I reckon there's very little that America doesn't know about me that it might have wanted to know or that I didn't want America to know (wait, does that make sense? No, it doesn't - eh, work it out)

Here's one thing America already knows about me. I go to the local cemetery events. My local cemetery has events and I go to them. I've been the open day, the re-dedication of the civilian war memorial and today the grand opening of a new section of the cemetery - a vaulted burial village. A thanatopia, a necropolis if you will. It's all supposed to be landscaped and nice and easy, just slide open the doors and pop in the dead.

In fact, the grand opening was supposed to be (I guess) a little presentation about the future of burial and then a demonstration of loading up the vaults and then some light refreshments (yes, seriously).

I've been really wanting to go because I wanted to know what kind of person shows up to such a thing. (Yes, I do recognise the irony.)

So, we go and there's no one else there. No one. True, we were a little late, but it looked like we were the only people to show up. And there was nothing going on. Although the new vaults had been prepared ready for the demonstration.

So what does the Vol-in-Law say? He says: "Now we know exactly what kind of person shows up to these kinds of things." And if I shared that story as an American Idol contestant, well - I pretty much would deserve to get sent home.

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Ok, so what was the burial village like? Well, let me say this. Just roll me in an old carpet and throw me in a dumpster, 'cause that's the way I'd rather end up than in that stinky old burial village.

It was half-ass. Nah, it was a quarter ass. The burial vault things were ok though there was an overreliance on resin - a cheapo material. It was the landscaping was absolutely atrocious. To me, it sort of signified the absolute worst about public private partnerships. Yes, the contractor had probably planted out the requisite number of trees. But the soil wasn't prepared properly, the trees were absolutely the wrong kind of trees (cheapy pines for an area with very questionable drainage that had been stripped of topsoil during construction), and the sodding was a joke. If that plant material isn't 90% dead by July, I'll eat my hat. Looked to me like the partnership was poorly specified and our neighbouring council (which owns the cemetery) got taken for a ride. Shameful.

The pre-prepared burial vaults do make sense though - particularly in a country that is very short of burial space and where traditionally there have been multiple burials in the same plot. This system allows you to easily layer at least three caskets in the same vault without disturbing either previous occupants or your neighbours.


Folks are dying to get in.


Pile 'em high and stack 'em deep. Note the sod just plunked down on piled up subsoil.