Matilda took off to spend NYE at a friend's house (with sleepover). So I'm all alone with a blossoming cold.

A sneezing and snizzling head cold. Rundown and snotty.

I just took a NyQuil and made myself a hot cider with cognac. So that should knock me out.

It's entirely appropriate that I'm entering 2024 sliding backwards down the coal chute.

It would be a good night to have a dog.

I know the feeling.

Happy New Year! from UTC-6

I'm on the middle-to-tail end of mine, Hec, and I empathize. We didn't have the oomph to put together anything remotely celebratory today.

Now, I sleep. Late, I hope.

Good 2024 to all.

Happy(ish?) New Year everyone.

I forgot to say yesterday, I have 4 cards left to send out, and thank you to the people waiting so patiently!

I haven't sent out any of my cards. I'm also flying back to Florida today after less than 15 hours here because it's not going to work for me to try to manage Dad's care remotely. My dear friend was there this morning, and thank god she was since all the rehab doctors and therapists were coming in and asking questions. Dad is still completely incapacitated verbally, cognitively, and physically, so she was trying to help them assess him without all the info. At least for this first week, I need to be there. So I'm on a 1 p.m. flight.

Husband and I both spent the night vomiting, so 2023 and 2024 can go fuck themselves right now.

Aye caramba! Pix and Dana, you're both making me grateful for my measly head cold.

Dana, a blessing on your stomach and your husband's. Be well. Be settled.

Pix - JFC! It feels like he's not going home, he's going to have to go into an assisted living situation. I'm sorry it's so fraught and exhausting.

You need help. Isn't there anybody else in the family who can pick up some of the slack?

He's almost definitely going to have to go into assisted living from rehab. Right now I'm just hoping he will recover enough to be able to go into assisted living and not have to be in a nursing home.

There is no one else. I am am only child. His sisters are all elderly and/or dead. There are no cousins who know my dad well enough for me to ask for help, and they all have families of their own. ND is my only backup, and he is trying to hold things together at home while I'm gone. My friends in FL are wonderful and willing to check in, but they can't make any decisions and don't know his history — and it's not fair to ask them to deal with the kind of advanced caregiving needed for a completely incapacitated 81 year old man.

I spent yesterday with my friend Martha and my friend Alan. Alan was married to Lisa, my friend who died this year. Martha, lisa, and I were besties in college. And Martha just had surgery for breast cancer that was diagnosed in Nov.

We did basically nothing all day and it was exactly what we all needed.

Today we are doing a little driving sightseeing in Baltimore before they need to head back to NY.