This is the first year that we did not decorate graves of our friends and family at the cemetery. Usually on Memorial Day, I take Etta out to the White Chapel Cemetery. Yesterday, I asked her if she felt guilty about not going. She said she didn’t. She’d just try to do better through the year.

This is also the first year in a long time that she didn’t go back to her home state of Oklahoma for her high-school reunion.

When we were younger, rain or shine, Memorial Day was always a big party, and we worked in the tradition of honoring the dead. Since the death of his mother, my husband has never wanted to go back. Since we’re not Keith Richards and we don’t party like we used to, Memorial Day is kind of quiet around here. It’s been stormy which has put a damper on some of the bar-b-cues. At least we missed the killer tornadoes. This morning’s trivia question on the local news was, “What was the original name of Memorial Day?” The anchors were stumped. They “knew it but couldn’t remember.”

I’ve known some older people that make a day of decorating the graves over the holiday. Picnics and tail gate parties at the cemetery. As we move away from this ritual, it feels so “Civil War”. But I do miss going, the cemetery is lovely, and White Chapel Memorial Garden has the Walk of Flags that is so moving.

White Chapel Memorial Gardens 2004

I’d write something about Memorial Day, but that presumes you need to be reminded. I’ll raise a glass for yours. Raise a glass for mine. They’re all ours, in the end.

James Lileks

Today on our Meet the Artist series we are talking with Val Grinshpan of Carvax Incorporated. Val is the creator of our popular bronze angel dog and kitty pet urns.

We’ve also just added his horse keepsake urn.

Val is a sculptor who came to the USA from Russia in 1989 during the collapse of the Soviet Union. His training in Russia was with wood, ivory, stone carvings, folk art and small gifts and custom jewelry settings. In 2002, he started Carvax Inc. and began sculpting his own designs in wax for custom orders, and later started building prototypes for furniture hardware and kitchen and bath pulls, which has become the core of the business.

The urn line was pure accident, Val had received a custom order from a client who wanted a pet urn sculpted. Happy with the results, he then created one for his own beloved German Shepard, Timber.

Later, he worked up the kitty and dog design and started calling around to find distributors. Timberland Urns was launched in 2005 and is now 30% of his business and growing.

The beauty of Val’s work and the quality is evident. Timberland Urns are made in the USA. He feels that he can maintain quality control better and casts only 35 pieces of art from a silicon mold in order to maintain the great detail.

We’ve just added two of Val’s new creations: a marble urn topped with a golf sculpture and the marble vault style urn, Creation of Man.

Supposedly, this is the first Ghost Bike, memorializing an accident on Holly Hills Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003. It was created by Patrick Van Der Tuin who saw a cyclist hit by a car. A few days later, he and his friends locked up several bikes at locations where he knew cars had collided with cyclists.

A Ghostbike is a junker bike that has been painted stark white and affixed to the site where a cyclist has been hit or killed by a car driver. Ghostbikes are intended to be memorials for the fallen and reminders to everyone to SHARE THE ROAD with one another. Since that first memorial in St. Louis, the meme has spread nationwide.

I’ve never seen one here in the Ozarks, and I hope I never do. But in densely populated areas like St. Louis, Portland, and New York City there seems to be more Ghost Bike sightings.

Check out this wild ride!

Today’s Tip: Ride Safe and Share the Road!

Ordinarily firecrackers are used in China to ward off evil spirits, especially at weddings but also at funerals. Through out China this past week, exploding firecrackers was the sound of mourners wishing safe passage for the souls of the deceased journeying to their next life.

A glorious weekend, wrapped up in sunshine, baseball, skaters, flowers and a few surprises.

This morning, while strolling about the garden, I noticed that my compost barrel was missing. Compost on the ground, and the barrel? Gone. It’s a mystery.

Earlier this week: Clean up on aisle two. Who spilled the molasses?

Rocky got a hair cut. He was a shaggy mess. Before:

After:

So handsome! The following day, I took him to the vet for dental work, a cleaning supposedly. When I picked him up, the vet greeted me with a bag full of bloody teeth. 10 to be exact. Poor baby.

More baskets in the garden. My yard is so wrecked up this year, that the only digging I’m doing is in pots. Want color and a no fuss flower on your porch or patio? Pick up a pot of petunias. They are easy, hardy, fragrant, and fun!

And then finally, after 10 years here, I still jump when this neighbor comes to visit, but I work around him.

This weekend was the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life fund raiser and memorial service celebration for cancer survivors as well as those who didn’t make it. The luminarias are lit around 9:00 and it’s a beautiful glowing tribute to our loved ones that passed on.

Peggy Smith.

So moving.

To the “seekers” that come here using the search term “Big Buddha Bud“, you should know- IT’S A SCAM!

From E-Week.com

Buying “legal herbs” for smoking purposes from Chinese servers with ever-changing IP addresses will likely lose you your credit card number. Bummer, dude.

We’ve had several schools call that are doing memorial gardens on the grounds. Tree dedication stones for a couple of kids that lost their dads. And today? A memorial stone to place in a butterfly garden to honor one of the teacher’s who’s lost a child.

The client didn’t want anything that looked too “cemetery-ish”.

A personalized river rock tucked in beside a butterfly bush is a lovely lasting tribute.