Please send all the prayers and vibes you can spare towards Seattle. My cousin has just been taken in for emergency surgery for a brain tumor. She lost her job, so has either no insurance or minimal, and is looking at a long, hard recovery.

In case anyone missed it on FB, my cousin's daughters have created a GoFundMe for her care.

[link]

My dad died early this morning.

My 90 y-o dad fell this morning and injured himself pretty badly. He broke his cheekbone and maybe his jaw and some ribs. But the reason I don't know the extent of his injuries is that while she was at the hospital with my dad this evening, my mom collapsed and died. It seems that she had a massive aneurysm in her stomach that burst. She was 89, and had a lot of cognitive issues, but otherwise seemed relatively healthy.

I think I am in a state that's something beyond shock.

My dad is in the ER with possible cellulitis, possible blood infection, or who knows what. I'm worried but trying not to freak out too much. Would certainly appreciate any health~ma you can spare.

If ND and I could get some unspecified ~ma to deal with a tricky situation from our Buffista peeps, we'd appreciate it. There's been some tough stuff going on behind the scenes that we can't talk about publicly but has been causing a lot of stress.

Sox is probably too shy to post, but I am not: [link]

Hi Buffistas! I know I see many of you around on the internet and i know I'm friends with many of you on FB. And also that October is the de-lurking month so I'm early.

But I wanted to say thank you. When I met you all, I was a sad and lonely law student in an unhappy marriage. You all became my friends and stuck with me. You also educated me. I'd never met people like you all before - wicked smart, funny, quirky. You introduced me to ideas I'd never come across before.

Today, I won an asylum case for a transgender woman from Mexico who has been through horrible abuse. I've worked hard to become the advocate I am today but you all (and Buffy!) helped guide the way. I just wanted to say thank you for being a shining, human, imperfect, but full of love, safe place on the internet. I owe you all a lot and miss you all!

I know I'm not here as often as I'd like, but if you could spare some of that all-powerful Buffista job~ma on Thursday, I'd really appreciate it. This is potentially an amazing opportunity, and I'd like very much for it to work out.

hey friends if you could shoot me your immigration law contacts near Galveston/Houston asap - profile addy is good. I've emailed Stephanie but this is kind of emergency mode.