Best Of

Cute starfish. Looks almost human.

Tap, tap…is this thing on? Where is everybody? I usually check in every couple of days and find at least 6-8 posts. I know Betrayal is on her dream cruise, but where is everyone else?

Gordy's FIL is dying, end stage pancreatic & biliary cancer. Dxed a year ago after nonspecific ab pain & GERD, believing it may have been liver disease from drinking. Dx blindsided him. Even palliative chemo failed and was stopped 3 weeks ago and he is on home hospice. He is in tremendous pain; can't eat, dress, or toilet and says he wants to end his life, My DDIL flew down to Houston to help her mom get him ready to fly up to VT today, where MAD (Medical Assistance in Dying) is legal (the other places in N. America are OR, which is too far, and Canada—Toronto is closest but the immigration aspects are problematic). He has to go through an interview and 2-week waiting period to make sure he is psychologically truly ready. Rather than make him fly down to Houston & back, they found a super-hospice facility in VT with superior pain control and death doulas to make his last days less of a torture.

I hadn't planned on attending temple this Friday night, but I need to go and put him on the Mi Sheberach list (as well as my ex-singing partner, whose botched cataract surgery up in the U.P. has led to a cascade of more negligence events that is making her nearly blind in one eye and severely affecting her balance—at a month older than me—-and still working part-time as a substitute teacher on a native reservation and sometimes singing with her husband and her seasonal Christmas vocal quartet). I told Bob that if on my Nov. annual MRI my common-duct nodules have grown I want to make a detailed and staged plan to manage my last years, months or weeks to prepare myself—with what events should trigger the next step.

But enough morbidity. Still plowing through the 1100 boxes (the last 150 of which are coming Friday) and three racks full of clothes, ties, and scarves to be triaged. I'm being ruthless about donating anything size L or larger—unless I recall from just before the fire that they were sized much smaller than their labels. I don't want the temptation of having a clothing "cushion" to accommodate regaining weight. And even some smaller stuff that fit but neither really flatter nor I miss after 15 months without. (My BFF is about my size—though she's downsizing in anticipation of a move back to her native NS, she's expressed interest in some of my pieces, including jeans of which I have duplicates). Bob is absolutely ruthless about his beloved necktie collection—his hospitals and clinic have banned ties on doctors (as has the UK) because they are microbial vectors; and he has gained enough central weight that most are now too short for him (or too wide or narrow to be fashionable). He estimates that he now has maybe 4 or 5 times a year where ties are necessary (including a black one for the inevitable funerals, increasingly common as we lose older &/or sicker friends or relatives…we expect to have one down in Houston next month). He is keeping the silk pocket squares for the new "cocktail casual" dress code of jacket and dress shirt appropriate for his hospital dinners and upscale restaurants. Marie Kondo would approve…though she would likely insist we konmari a lot harder. As for me, "sparking joy" won't be my immediate criterion for what to keep for now. It will be, once we're settled in…which we guesstimate will take about a year. (That will include finding a real contractor to repaint and fix the other mistakes the "Three Stooges" in cahoots with our so-called "public adjuster" won't). I have a number of reputable licensed and bonded (and personally-vetted by rehab-experienced friends & colleagues) painters & contractors at the ready…at our expense, but I guess we all need to occasionally take our turn at a bite of the "s#*+ sandwich" of life.

My BFF came over yesterday and Bob had no afternoon office hours, so we plowed through a lot. Today my landscaper's helper is coming over to pick up the Brown Elephant donations, take out the trash we generate as I plow through boxes, and locate the most important pieces we need right now. My HK is coming back mid-October to help us at least consolidate remaining boxes to allow our cats safe passage around the house to access their food/water and litterboxes. Come hell or high water, we must move out by November unless SF can authorize reimbursement or the landlord's agency can give us a discount. Tomorrow we have a new loveseat for the den being delivered (important to have the den set up with our DTV streaming as a retreat from all the stressful unpacking & winnowing).

Still fuming about da Bears blowing last night's game (especially the idiotic 1st quarter decision to try to pass—which nobody was available to catch—on 4th down instead of going for a sure field goal—which may have made the difference between loss and at least going into OT if not victory). As we say at the Passover Seder, "ma nishtana halayla hazeh" ("why is this night different from all other nights?"). To be a Chicago sports fan is (with some rare highlights), as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said about being Irish, "to know that in the end the world will break your heart."