Frog and Goat

Somehow I missed all of February. I went to Las Vegas for work and it is always interesting to me how split the reaction is when I tell people I went to Vegas. It is nearly equal in the so cool camp as in the so not cool camp. I’m in the so not cool camp. It’s just not my town. It doesn’t help that I flew in on a Tuesday and out on a Thursday and spent 95% of the time in a hotel prepping for or holding a meeting.

The better-half and I are planning on some time in Texas in the early part of May and I really can’t wait.

We’ve spent a weekend or two trying to wrangle the backyard where the sheep ate all the crap last summer. I think we’ll be working on that task for years to come. I’m really hoping I’ll have some luck with starting a wildflower garden. We shall see.

This is really just for me in a year or so when I ask myself, when did the city not have any water?

The answer is January 2025…the crazy taxes we agree to pay doesn’t help stupid, lazy, and ancient equipment.

Can you tell I generated this with AI?

If you’ve read this blog for a long time (exactly zero of you), you’ll know I’ve struggled with how my father ignored me for about 19 years. He got dementia and so one day he completely forgot that he was mad about whatever made him mad all those years ago and was happy to see me. All through the pandemic he and my mother, along with the better-half were what you’d call a pod. We hung out and saw each other quite a bit. That time didn’t really make up for those long years of silence, but what else are you going to do but humor a dementia-stricken person.

He died on December 4th.

We’ve been helping my mom get things in order including everything from trimming the bushes around the house to killing the silverfish that were ravishing the paper in the house. She’s doing OK and the silverfish are dying.

Not sure what else to say about this.

I found this quote which is kind of apropos, although not exactly about this subject:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Not the best week. I hope in 4.5 years there’s still a democratic United States that’s very diverse.

We had a low-key lunch yesterday with my parents, one of my sisters, her husband, and her (adult!) children. Lovely time and my dementia-addled father had a good time. The better-half is a rock star with my father. We did not go to see any fireworks and, honestly, I was in bed before 9:30. I was really tired and slept like a stone only waking up once at midnight and then at 3:30-ish when the cat got on the bed to cuddle up.

This morning the better-half and I both took naps after breakfast and dang we needed that. I don’t know about y’all but this year has been nothing but exhausting.

Yep, that’s it. That’s the post.