Wow Brenda, that is a sure stroke of luck! Dang.

Oh, my god, Brenda.

Relieved to hear that Sergei left the concert in time, Brenda.

(edited to add: might be a good time to remind folks that a. tetris is a wonderful tool during super stressful times, and b. no need to watch the videos.)

Oh, yikes, brenda. Glad he's ok!

Timelies all!

Mazel Tov to Nilly's son!

Oy, this week. Mr. S had major meltdowns at school Mon.,Tues. and Wed. I had to leave work a bit early Monday because he wouldn't go with the nanny. Gary was at a business meeting that included dinner, so I brought Mr. S home and we ordered pizza. Things were going ok until I noted he had been in the bathroom 45 minutes. He came out of the bathroom and starting attacking me. He was hitting, kicking, pushing me around and pulling my hair a lot. Eventually we got Gary on the phone and that calmed things down a bit(It helped that he was on his way home) I have a big bruise and some scrapes on my right forearm that I'm sure is due to the attack.

Tuesday he eventually went with the nanny. Wednesday he had a room-trashing meltdown, and the school wrote a referral to the local crisis center. Gary took him there after dinner, and he had a meltdown that led to an er visit. Luckily they got back that night. Thursday had no meltdowns, and neither did today.

We're trying to find resources to help him and us, especially now that he has an official diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum. It's just really hard.

Sheryl, you and Gary must be both physically and emotionally exhausted. I hope you can find help for all of you, soon.

Exactly what Laura said, Sheryl.

Oh Sheryl. I can’t imagine how hard it is for you all.

Thanks everyone. It’s just – what do you even say? It’s a huge relief obviously but also really scary to see things come so close.

And on another level, it will be interesting to see what my sister-in-law takes away from all of this. My joke the last few years has been that my brother and his wife get their Russian propaganda the old-fashioned way – directly from friends and family. My brother gets that it’s mostly bullshit but doesn’t really argue it for the sake of going along. My SIL - very different story. It’s made conversations a little fraught this past several years because at least as of a year or so ago, she has been fully bought in on the Nazis in Ukraine story, the people are dropping like flies from the vaccine stories, and all the rest. To the point that they could not come on what turned out to be the last vacation with our dad and she did not come to visit when he was in the hospital or for the funeral. None of which takes away from the fact that I am genuinely relieved for Sergei and from my SIL and her mother and saddened at anyone caught up in something like this. But yeah.

And of course we’re seeing them in two weeks’ time, and will be meeting up with our two older half sisters, who neither of them have ever met.

At least they’re finally vaccinated.

That sounds exceptionally difficult, Sheryl. Sorry.

Today I've done a bunch of sanding on the shelves I'm building for kitchen, broke down the mountain of cardboard boxes in the garage (they filled the back of an Outback after being broken down) and dumped them at the recycling drop-off, done two loads of laundry, gone to the store and the post office, and done a load of dishes. Still need to do another load of laundry, some cleaning, and make dinner.

I aspire to be a quarter as accomplished as Gud. I did nothing today, until a friend texted at 4pm asking if I wanted to see a movie at 845pm. I countered with the 550pm showing and she and I and another friend went to see “love lies bleeding”. I knew nothing about it going in other than Kristin Stewart was in it and boy was it a wild ride. At no point in the movie did I know what was going to happen next. So weird.