Is this gal going to help you find a place that would accept your parents?

That's the plan. She's going to give us some recommendations and tour the facilities with us. There will have to be a lot of lying to my mother along the way, I'm sure.

Can you not bring her on the tour and just spring it on her when it's a done deal and time to move? I realize that sounds terrible.

The folks who own the villa we're staying at for my sister's birthday are trying to charge her $1500 US DOLLARS, let's be clear, extra for having a bunch of people over to "lyme" (chillax with alcohol) for the day. Seriously--shouldn't there be oral sex involved for at least the birthday girl at that cost?

She's trying to talk them down by trading free ad space from a friend of hers who writes for a travel mag, but how annoying is that? We already have the place Friday through Monday, and we're not exactly boozy university students or doped up Rastas.

Personally, I'm not looking forward to the day at all, because there will be nowhere to run. My sister is very accommodating about my health bullshit, but this is her party (and I'll hide if I want to?) so she gets what she wants. I just don't know how to also get what I need.

Speaking of old songs, I deliberately slipped an earworm into my mid year performance review (one complaint--communication--they can't work out how sometimes I give the shortest and clearest presentations of complex stuff, and sometimes I speak Greek. I want them to step up and get entry level knowledge in what I'm talking about, but that's not going to happen, so I should own it). For some reason I felt compelled to type "in these ever changing teams in which we're working." I hope it infects everyone, forever.

You are evil.

I'm a polictially naive. Is it a step forward to have homosexuality be an identity rather than a facet of an individual? Or is that a necessary step towards it being truly an accepted facet of an individual? When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I resented the hell out of being identified as "diabetic" instead of "someone with diabethes".

As I understand it, the idea of homosexuality as a facet of a person is still somewhat new. The older idea was that a person might commit homosexual acts, the same way a person might commit adultery or some other sin, but the idea of homosexuality being something that someone was rather than something that someone did is pretty much late Victorian, and owes a lot to Freud.

(Someone who knows this stuff better than I do can probably correct some of that, but I think I've got the basic ideas right.)

The folks who own the villa we're staying at for my sister's birthday are trying to charge her $1500 US DOLLARS, let's be clear, extra for having a bunch of people over to "lyme" (chillax with alcohol) for the day.

She's rented the villa already and they want to charge $1500 to have a party? That's insane.

I could maybe, maybe, see that as a damage deposit that is refunded if the place isn't burnt down in the end.

Suela, is your mother on any anti-anxiety type of medication? I feel like it's terrible to suggest, but I feel like Valium could make everyone's life better in this situation.

Speaking of medical/hospital issues, Kat's experiences have been instructive for me because I feel like I keep having to push back on my arm care. Long story short: I got my cast off yesterday and my arm is still kind of fucked up -- e.g., going palm down to palm up I can only do it halfway. Doc wants me to get PT, and I'll be 100% in a month. First PT appointment is in ONE MONTH. That's too long, right? I feel like I'll have permanent loss of function if I wait that long.

Not terrible! A lot of people with dementia can find drug combos that lessen their anxiety, which is good for everyone.