I'm sorry, Connie. If you need one of us to do that type of research for you, just ask. I'd be happy to do it when I'm home.

I just wanted a simple way to make a hat or two a month and drop it off, but all the organized methods for this have all that uplifting, supportive, "they're so brave" stuff that makes me think unhelpfully of ammunition.

(and I just got teh death certificates last night and I have to talk to Social Security tomorrow, fuckcakes. And will probably have to deal with probate stuff so I can sell his cars.)

Simple options in Provo or Orem, Utah, would be nice. Maybe I should make hats for newborns, they're less stressful. But the hats I saw in the baskets for the cancer patients were mostly ugly and rough. They deserve nice, soft, snuggly hats.

I want ice cream, but I don't want to have to go out and get it.

Sending you much love, Connie.

((((Connie)))) Love the idea! One of the hardest things for my MIL was losing her hair during the second round of chemo. She loved pretty, stylish hats to cover up until she had enough hair to get back to the beauty salon. (She finally stopped covering up when I told her that her new hairstyle had a Judi Dench vibe.)

Is there someone you could call at the hospital to get straightforward information without the heart-tugging?

Love to you Connie.

Fred's idea is a good one. If you feel up to it you might want to contact a local yarn shop and see if they do collections of knitted hats for cancer patients. Katy, the owner of "my" yarn shop did a hat drive thing, where people knitted hats but then just dropped them off at her shop and she got them to the hospital.

Ah, go through the yarn pushers, um, suppliers. There's an excellent thought.

I'm off to Social Security to tell them the nation can now save $700 a month. I'm taking crocheting, a charged tablet, and headphones. And after all that I'll probably be out in half an hour.

So I have my intake appointment today I don't know if it's with the actual therapist or just to figure out which therapist in the practice will work for me. But it's at 3 pm eST.

Hopefully I'll like whatever therapist I end up with.

And in work news the other full time person in my position is leaving. Which is good becuase he does not like working in retail. Actually he said he doesn't mind retail as long as he doesn't have to kiss ass to customers and deal with BS. I was mentally rolling my eyes as he said this.

Anyway, they are going to hire 2 part time people. My manager told me - "you'll have minions!" Only I have to try and recruit a few minions. And I have some plans for better organization, I just need to talk to him. Like we have a binder but it's outdated and no one uses it. So I want to make up a guide for the job with a FAQ and quick reference. I talked to my old manager about this and he didn't like the idea because the information is on the company's system.

And yes, it's true, a lot of that information is. BUT you have to search for it, and sometimes the system is down and some things are store specific to our store. AND a lot of people don't get a chance to really explore the offical company website/employee information so they don't know where everything is. Or if you're searching for 1 bit of info you have to slog through a bunch of random crap (there's a search, it's not so helpful at times).

So if I'm going to be lead on this and have minions I'd like to have some leeway to make changes that I think will be good.

Just found out last night that my brother's in jail. Apparently he's been there a few weeks - for violating his probation, which is to say he's been in jail before. And my mom and I had no frigging clue.

So much WTF right now. Best I can tell, he didn't want our mother to know (he's living with my dad right now, so obviously Dad must be aware), and he knows that I communicate with our mom, so I was left out of the loop too. I don't even know what to do with this. We're not especially close (obviously), and he's been struggling with self-esteem lately because of being under- or unemployed for several years now. Apparently he always thought I was the flake and he was the one with his act together, but the last several years (wherein I was continuously employed and caring for our mother's increasingly complicated health/finance/etc. issues) and he's had to live at Dad's and can't find a good, steady job have thrown that worldview on its ass. But still, to just decide to keep us in the dark? And because my mother's such a worrier, I have to be the upbeat one, "It's not as bad as it sounds," "It'll be okay," and the one I hope she really takes to heart "This isn't your problem. You can't solve it. Don't take it on yourself."

I say again, WTF.

Brothers, man.