Yes.

That's coming from me and my own stupidity and walking directly into a stop sign (yes. a stop sign) without noticing.

::Raises hand::

Been there - quite often - done that! and it's good to see your pixels, Shir.

Aims, as a child who was dragged all over the country, sometimes twice in one year - 8 grade schools & 2 high schools - the best thing you can do for Em is to stay engaged with how she's feeling and do what you can to help her cope. don't hide the facts from her, but help her find upsides where she only sees down.

My parents got as tired as we did and disengaged and left us to cope on our own with the disruptions the moving caused. there were 7 of us so I guess they figured we would help each other. They were wrong.

Getting the kind of blow you are suffering is one of the worst things that can happen to a family, but you are NOT ALONE! you have us, each other and a meat-space community. Use us/them when you are in need! that's what we/they are there for!

You can be mad at God. I am positive that God can handle our anger. Being stressed and angry and scared and frustrated when shitty situations happen is a normal reaction, even for a person of faith. I have from time to time told God, "I am angry at you, and we will talk about this later," and it was cool.

Teppy is wise; listen to Teppy.

Teppy is, indeed, wise.

Looks like we are staying in Reno tonight and driving 15 hours tomorrow. We stopped here for dinner and to say Hi to another cousin. I tried to reserve a room in a town further east but the whole town is sold out. So, we found a room here. Must get sleep and resist the urge to play.

I edit everything I read. In my head, but...yeah. I am 100% serious. I can't help it.

I do too, but sadly my own writing is getting worse and worse. Some of the things I catch...Jesus, I know the difference between words! Age isn't pretty.

Joe told me just now that "We will get there." My response was, "So we keep saying."

You will, but I also agree that's not the most useful or comforting thing to say. Sometimes you want to work through experiencing the negative reactions, sometimes you want to feel the danger to motivate you into crafting a master plan, or maybe you're like me whose response is "Is 'coping' really the same thing as 'not dying'? Because that feels like all I'm doing right now, and it's not very appealing."

Don't be me, is my wisest counsel.

The drive-in was a success! Emeline made herself a friend in the next car and spent the majority of the evening hanging out with her new VERY BEST FRIEND!! Camille. Joe was cranky at first - especially when I was just giving orders about what needed to go in the car without explaining - but he got into it and we had a good time.

I also took a drunk dial from my brother. Who seems to have the amazing talent for making me feel better. He said he was proud of us for all of the hard work we've been doing in finishing school, improving our marriage, getting the house in such good shape that someone else just HAD to have it. He also pointed out that in order to receive shitty news, you have to be in a good place, otherwise it's just the same old bad news. It made a peculiar kind of sense to me and made me a bit weepy. He said that while yes, he remembers the big upheaval in his life (and our sister's) when our parents moved them from suburbia to Land of the Rural (and also the change from heavily diverse to Whitey McWhitey Town), but what has stuck with him was how hard our parents busted their assess to make that happen, and that's what Emeline is going to remember - that we tried. And "not working out" is not the same as "failure". My brother is amazingcakes, y'all.

It's funny, though. He and I never got along when we were younger. Our sister and I were inseparable. And neither of us got along with our mom under the belief that the three of us are too much alike, personality-wise: emotionally-driven, stubborn, always right, feeling all of the feels all of the time. But as he's gotten older, he's become more like our dad: supportive, cheerleader, wise, introspective. Our sister has become more like mom: negative, depressive, cynical. So I have found myself driven more toward Nick. And it's the reason that Joe and I decided that in the event of our untimely, yet sure to be full of flare and showy-ness, deaths, Nick and Amanda would get Emeline.

All of which is to say, my brother said he is proud of me and to not feel too badly about losing the house because, in his words, "That wasn't your house. Fuck that house."

He was also adamant that we go do something vacation-y, as a family, to reward ourselves for all of the hard work and to relax before the craziness of the school year starts (I start student teaching in the fall, Emeline starts her new school, Joe might be going back to finish his Bachelors). So I think the 3 of us are going to head out to Lake Michigan for a couple of days.

Thank you all so much for your support and counsel. The past few days have been ... harrowing and full of badness. But you guys have been my light. I've missed you so much.

And with that, I tell you with this joke as told to me by one of my Girl Scouts.

How do you get 4 Pikachus and 5 Oshawotts on a plane?

You poke 'em on. I admit: I laughed my tukkus off.

I'm glad you are feeling somewhat encouraged, Aims.

That saying of Julian of Norwich, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well," - Its place in my mind alternates between a very good meditation and the thing that makes me wish I had a time machine so I could go back to the twelfth century and stuff a sock in the mouths of everyone in Norwich.

ETA or possibly fourteenth century. Whichever.

Oh, Lord, I just emailed that joke to my s-son.

Aims,

I am nodding and smiling and giving my computer screen a thumbs up.

Aims, I totally approve of your bother. And everything else that makes you feel good right now.

ImemeawesomeN: A mutual acquaintance pointed David Weinberger to a post I wrote a while ago, and Weinberger linked to it today and wrote about the issue in question. I'm once again amazed by the internet and never gonna wash the statistics page of my blog again.

Also, it seems like my mind is totally broken from years of certain genre of jokes and can't reply to *any* "how do you get (n) into (a vehicle)" question in an answer that isn't "the ashtray".