Random item of the evening... checking email I discovered that someone recently faved a story I posted four years ago. I didn't even remember what I wrote so I read it again and had to laugh when I discovered that it ends with the new Clinton slogan, "Stronger Together". Do I get some kind of credit for that?

Absolutely!

Your poor mom, Laura. She's up there, right?

I am having an unprecedented experience in my professional life. I have to put a bunch of stuff into an online form, with strict word counts. The online form has exactly the same word counts as we do in Word! I swear to god, this has never happened before. I was basically planning on spending my day trying to find ten words that would be OK to cut from each section.

That's spooky Jesse.

I mean, it's great, but yes, spooky!

Anyway, my day is now going to be much more pleasant than I thought it would be, and I might be able to finagle my way into a work trip to Mexico!

Hopefully, Em will be back by Sunday. For the time being I'm working hard on some of the other fallout. The house was messy with EMTs and Police responded to the 911 call, so we'll have an inspection coming up. So whenever I'm not going to appointments or visiting Em, I'm cleaning. That hasn't amounted to much time yet, but this weekend that can be almost my sole activity (aside from visiting Em of course). My wife needs to finish a paper Monday so if I'm lucky she won't help much. Sometimes I feel like when my wife and I work on cleaning together we're able to get half as much done as I would by myself. She's kind of ADHD while I have the Autistic superpower of being super focused on the task.

Here's hoping.

Your poor mom, Laura. She's up there, right?

She was not well enough to come north this year so she is in a rehab in Florida. She was supposed to go home tomorrow, but the chest x-ray didn't pass. When I came up here Memorial Day and opened up my place I hoped she would be coming and I would be returning, but the place stayed empty all summer. DH and I came up to escape the oppressive FL heat and check out the fall leaves. Then we will drain the water and do what needs to happen to prepare the place for winter.

Gud, I totally get how cleaning by yourself can be more effective. Might I suggest getting a pro maid service for a day, preferably while your wife is at the library doing her paper and getting some help getting the house together. They can do in 3 hours what would take you 12. Of course they can't organize so much, but they can be really amazing. DH calls our cleaning person 'reboot' because when Christina comes it is well, like a reboot.

Yes, I definitely vote for getting help, if you can.

Looking at the website of Gary Johnson, a lot of the ideas they've got seem, on the surface, to be something I might agree with. But there's no real depth to how any of it would be accomplished, let alone an acknowledgement of how difficult it would be to get things through Congress.

This is aside from the recent huge gaffes that Johnson has made.

Oh guys, I don't even know where to begin. Our nephew had his 18th birthday last Sunday. While his dad was at our house shooting pool with his brother the kid stole his car. Apparently he knew about him stealing the car, but although we knew he was distressed he didn't say why, just took a few calls, probably from his wife. We found out via FB this morning that the kid got trashed, wrecked the car, and fled the scene after killing a 39 year old man. We are just sick. Have not talked to DH's brother yet as he hasn't returned the calls. The kid has had many issues for many years, but hit and run. We are just in tears here and devastated for everyone. Especially the victim. [link]

eta: apparently it wasn't BIL's car that was stolen but someone else's. Not that that is any better or worse.

Oh my god, Laura. That's so tragic and terrible, I'm so sorry, for all of you involved.

Oh, Jesus, Laura. What a mess.