That IS good news, Laura!

That is not, -t. Although better preventive maintenance than scary stuff during the flight. Good luck with the Wi-Fi!

Brakes would be helpful so best to fix them. I had a minor delay getting to Florida but they moved us to another gate and plane because of timing.

So good to hear about your son, Laura!!

I currently have bruises on two of my fingertips from the stupid lancets that I had to use to try to drip blood on a card for my insurance. Such bullshit. And I couldn't even produce enough blood. So now I have to try to get a doctors appointment in the next two weeks. Stupid insurance.

In MA, new law for ride share drivers means that a bigly criminal record check has to be done on you -- which unfortunately turned up some errors for innocent working drivers, like a juvenile charge for loitering that was dropped and supposedly expunged for someone I know.

But the good thing turned out to be, because I cleared it (not a big surprise) I got put on the TSA pre-check list!?

I'm still waiting on my car to be repaired. And my roommate's heart valve replacement will be rescheduled to sometime in the next couple weeks, now that they've done further testing. The suspicion is that it will be open-heart surgery instead of the easier-to-recover laparoscopic.

Laura, as someone who has gone through deep depressions, I'd say showered and socializing are very good signs.

Good news, Laura!

Is your son undergoing treatment, or is he willing to undergo treatment, for depression or bipolar? Even if he's only willing to consider medication, that might help him deal with the depressed moods.

That's great to hear, Laura!

Reboarding, woohoo!

To whoever asked about the Brazilian political situation a while back: it's definitely a little crazy, though my particular situation isolates me in a pretty big bubble from a lot of it. My students are majority Brazilian, but mostly from the wealthiest class, and though their parents lean conservative and are not fans, on the whole, of the Workers Party that has had a lock on Brazilian politics for years until their leader was jailed, they also don't seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of the super militaristic far-right conservative demagogue who currently "leads" in the polls. It's possible there is a militaristic revolution waiting in the wings and I'm not in the right places to feel it, but it doesn't feel that way to me. And my wife (who was in Venezuela when Chavez came to power) doesn't think it feels here like it did there, for what that's worth.

Woo! See you soon!

It really was such a huge relief. I didn't know what I was going to find. Fred, we have discussed treatment many times and no luck. He's been tossed into 72 hour hold a couple of times because of bad drug reactions (LSD), but within 24 hours he is fine and best buds with the doctors and gets released. He refuses to consider depression meds.