Safe and swift travels, ND.

Bev, your little Renault reminds me of a roommate's car from when we were stationed in Spain. [link] She got parked in one time by a quartet of scooters and a couple of cute Spanish boys came by, lifted the car up at both ends and carried it into the street for her.

Thankfully within 30 minutes of getting the call I was able to get a direct flight from Boston to San Diego booked. 15 minutes after that on the way to the airport where I am now. My flight leaves at 5:15 and I'll be in San Diego around 8:30. I have a rental car reserved there so I should be at the family home by 9:30 is my guess.

Dad took a sudden turn for the worse, I believe our plan is to put him into home hospice care. My sister tells me that he is not lucid and doesn't really know where he is right now. The hospital is not sure they can get hospice set up before the end of the day today so he will most likely be in the hospital through the weekend. Right now my first hope is that nothing happens to him while I'm flying across country tonight. After that we'll deal with things one step at a time. It sounds like we may only have him for a few more days, but I don't have any solid information right now.

Thank you everyone for your support right now.

Oh, fuck, Drew. I'm so glad you were able to get a flight, and may he hang on until you get there. My love to you and yours.

Our thoughts and get there ~ma are with you Drew.

Oh, fuck, Drew. I'm so glad you were able to get a flight, and may he hang on until you get there. My love to you and yours.

Plei beat me to it. All very much the same.

Then there was the time we slipped on a mere slick of ice and did a pretty 180 with Mom driving. She took it as a sign and went back home.

Once, when traveling out to visit my dad and I ensconced in the ice fishing shack on Pleasant lake in February, my mom hit a patch of ice and did a 720 and got stuck.

A farmer came along an pulled her out and she told him "Thanks, but we were headed the other way."

Like your mom, she decided it was a sign and headed back home with my sister and another passenger.

My sister thought it was fun and scary, and loves to tell the story for mom.

My first car was a 1987 16V VW Scirocco. It was bright red and a load of fun.

I just spent an hour getting the inside door panel off of Andi's 1990 caprice. WHAT A PAIN.

It was bad enough I had to buy a $5 tool in order to get the crank handle off, but I had to remove over a dozen screws and two rivets to even get to where I *might* be able to replace the handle.

(Separate rant for insane GM engineers: WTF were you thinking making door handles need a special tool to get off? Ford does well enough with a single Phillips screw, why couldn't you?)

Don't get me started on the whole "lets put the seat belt mechanism in the door so that if someone opens it while driving, they'd fall right out onto the ground."

Fuck, Drew.

More accurately, fuck cancer. Hard. With a blow torch.