I will be joining Kristin in Florida hopefully soon. This is the week I'm heading to Montana to meet my birth mother and half sisters and their families and we'd both really been looking forward to it. Kristin is insisting I still go, so I'm heading up there tomorrow.

After that I have a few loose ends to tie up for work since, thankfully, things have picked back up for my company. Then I will also make sure that we have things like pets and house covered here in LA before I can head to FL. Both of her parents have treated me like a son and I don't have my parents around any longer so I really want to be there to help, and I'm worried about Kristin and her dad.

I'm so glad that you are finally getting to meet your birth mother, ND. And that you are there for the rest of your family (how you are family doesn't matter so much as the fact that you are family) as well.

Right now I just want to be in three places at once. That would be helpful.

I'm glad you're going to Montana for that meeting, ND, though I'm sorry for the timing for you both.

All the empathy in what you're dealing with with your dad Kristin and Drew - hard doesn't begin to cover it.

Exciting that you are having this Montana trip. It is a very good thing, which is needed to balance the bad things we have to deal with in this life. I'm also glad you will be joining Pix. It will be enormously helpful to her emotional well being to have you there.

As always, if there is anything Brendon or I can do to help you in any way on the local level please don't hesitate.

So much love to you, Pix, and to ND too.

Y'all are pretty great. I'm happy to report that today was a better day.

Dad has been really improving today mentally and physically, and we had some great, honest conversations. Without getting into too many details, I feel like I'm FINALLY making real progress, and we are working together as a team to figure out the best way forward.

For now, we've hired a great local care company to work with him four days a week for six hours a day (we can go up if needed), and he's starting physical therapy at home tomorrow. We are also looking at selling this condo with its two floors and getting into a more manageable single-floor situation. We are avoiding actual assisted living as long as possible because it's always depressing and STUPID expensive.

It's going to be a busy summer, but I feel like I'm getting my dad back to some extent, which is pretty great. (And, yes, I know, this is far from the end of what is always going to be a difficult process that will get harder, but I'll take any win I can get.)

With the progress I've made here and the care I'm getting into place, I'm going to be able to slip away to meet Drew and his birth family in Montana from Thursday to Sunday; I'll then be coming back here to continue working with Dad and see how the caregivers are working out.

I honestly don't know yet how much longer I'll be in Florida after that. A lot will depend on how the caregivers work out (I plan to overlap for a bit) and what happens with possibly selling this condo and moving him to a new one.

But yay. Yay for a better day. Yay for better news.

That is really excellent news, Pix. And I'm so glad you'll get to meet Drew's family in Montana!

That sounds great Pix! And I’m so glad you’ll get to meet up with drew too!

I have gone straight from “boring COVID lonesome” to “I have something every night of the week, three house guests for the weekend, am going to a wedding Friday, hosting brunch Saturday, an evening part Saturday, and have FOUR invites between 11am and 3pm on Sunday”. It’s a bit much even for me, mostly because work is continuing to stress me out and kick my ass, and I don’t know how I’m going to do all of it! But I don’t want to cancel anything and know once it’s happening I’ll enjoy it. Meanwhile I am up past my bedtime, unable to sleep even though I was exhausted all day, and Wishing I had AC because it is going to be hot all week here. It wasn’t so bad today in my house but it’s still about 78 in my room and that’s too warm.

I’m glad things are looking up, Pix.

Work is challenging and frequently annoying. But I have an application in with my sister’s alma mater up in MI, so at least I feel like I’m trying to change things. We’ll see how that goes.