Oh, Calli, that sounds delish!

Hooray sleep, Theo! And good flour/bread. And all y'all's cocktails.

I'm going to try cooking grits and split peas together in the same pot for tomorrow's breakfast. I think it might be good. With some pepper jack melted on top?

OK, this is a really weird thing to delurk on after not posting in awhile, but I don't feel comfortable talking about this on Facebook even locked down, so...I just found out about an hour and a half ago that my oldest brother died by what appears to be suicide either yesterday or today.

I'm much younger than all of my brothers--I'm 49, and D was 66. What with the four of us living in 4 different states and the fact he was never as active on FB as the rest of my family, I'd kinda lost touch with him the last few years, though. I've since talked to my other two brothers, M and J, and apparently there was a lot going on over the past year or so that I just wasn't up on. He and my SIL had separated, and it sounds like he'd kinda walked away from everything and everyone, hadn't even been that much in touch with his kids and grandkids. J said that he suspected, from various hints over the years, that maybe D had a gambling problem. (J also apologized for not telling me all this when we met for dinner when he and his family were in Seattle for a conference last spring, but we agreed that it would've been a weird conversation to have in a noisy restaurant/sports bar.)

It's just a lot to take in. I have so many memories of D from when I was a teenager and he was the one brother who lived close to my parents and was advising me on college and career stuff. We went to an Alabama-Auburn game in Birmingham together, just the two of us, while Bo Jackson was playing because D had gotten sweet seats as a work perk, and I have so many vivid memories of that day (even if more of them are to do with how miserably cold and wet it was than of the game itself). I'd always felt like he and I were the closest in personality of the four of us kids, that we were the (relatively) mellow ones of our decidedly non-mellow family. I'm sad and angry and mostly just very stunned.

Goodness, Susan. How awful. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry Susan. My condolences to you and your family.

Oh, Susan, that's staggeringly hard to find out suddenly. I'm so sorry. But I'm glad you can enjoy memories of him.

I am so very sorry, Susan. I hope that you can get some comfort from your happy memories. That is a lot to take in for sure.

Thanks, y'all. It's a lot to take in. I almost didn't pick up the phone when it rang, because I was so sure it was yet another person wanting me to donate to some campaign or other, but I did just in case when I saw the Alabama area code. It was my nephew, D's son, and when he told me D had passed I was so SURE he was going to say it was covid.

Oh Susan, I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry, Susan.

Susan, I'm so sorry. That's so much to deal with.