I'm living in Minnesota now. Feeling pretty fortunate overall.

So, in the very end of 2021 I at long last moved back into the city after seven years away - I never thought I’d be gone so long. After paying a realtor fee for the first time in my life I found a two bedroom, 1.5 bath (that half bath is amazingly rare) in a rent stabilized building with an elevator. It’s lovely and sunny with beautiful hardwoods and a deep tub. It’s literally two blocks from my last place in a neighborhood I love. I’m never moving again. I’ve already had one Buffista stay and am looking forward to many more.

In the spring I adopted a little rescue pup who’d been taken out of a hoarding situation. Since Dallas lived to 18 I have experience with a senior dog and said I’d be happy to take an older one of the 45. I named him Warwick after the place where he was rescued (thereby officially making that a tradition after Dallas and my cat Manahatta). Due to a broken jaw that had gone untreated and healed crooked he had an oral/nasal fistula. In repairing the hole, they removed the remainder of his teeth. He was very scrawny and his coat was sparse, his ears were just skin. For the first month he’d only leave his crate when I pulled him out to clean it. We honestly didn’t know what to expect, but if he only had six months they were going to be safe and clean and comfortable and loved. His physical recovery has been everything we could have hoped for. His coat came in, he put on muscle, he goes for walks. He has become increasingly trusting and affectionate but still has his behavioral oddities (won’t eat or walk through a door if I’m looking at him) and training a dog who’s not food motivated (eating having been painful for so long) has proved challenging. House breaking went very well and once I get him outside he enjoys that, sometimes a great deal. It’s slowly dawning on him that being a doggy is a wonderful thing and one bright day I’ll come in the door and he’ll come running.

In August I appeared in a play as part of a South Asian theater festival. It was an English translation of an Indian play called Silence! The Court is in Session by Vijay Tendulkar. The cast was all female and international. We were well received which was gratifying as the audience for that festival is notoriously tough and we were pushing the boundaries of a modern classic (The Crucible is a fair comparison) that all of them knew well. It was also particularly timely as the story is about a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy. Hopefully we will be mounting further productions.

In September a friend and I made a trip to Minneapolis to see My Chem. The trip had been postponed twice due to COVID. We had a wonderful time. We ate at the acclaimed indigenous restaurant Owamni (do that if you can). We were supposed to see a play at the Guthrie but I came down very suddenly with a vicious headache, fever, exhaustion… in the morning I felt much better, normal temperature, tested negative, and flew home. We had hope in our hearts because, hey, who sleeps off COVID?

Within the day, alas, my friend, our host, and I were all sick and testing positive (thereby making me the worst houseguest ever). It was a terrible week with a brief ER trip when my oxygen tested low. Fortunately a breathing treatment and the Paxlovid did their job. I was fatigued and easily winded for a long time afterwards, but I did recover completely.

In November my father died 10 days before his 74th birthday. He’d been ill since September - in the hospital dealing with a series of infections. It has been horrible.

Christmas with my extended family was in person for the first time in three years and though my father’s absence was felt bitterly, it was blissful having so many of us together again.

Here’s to a good 2023 for everyone. You are all in my thoughts.

Trudy Booth, wow, that was quite a remarkable year. I'm glad you had some ups to go with the downs.

dcp, I’m glad to see that you’re winning the fight and sorry to see that it remains so brutal. Here’s to some ease and simplicity in 2023!

I loved your quotes dcp. That was a nice little bonus.

This was the last month of my year. (Sorry for some repeat-o)

Mom fell COMING TO MY HOUSE FOR THANKSGIVING (Thursday, November 24, 2022), EVEN THOUGH ONE OF MY KIDS PICKED HER UP. Mom stayed for dinner. DH and I went over at night. She went to bed. We thought it would just be a wrenched muscle.

Friday, November 25, 2022 (J's 24th birthday): Took mom to urgent care. Waited the 2 hours they said it would take, upon which they said it would take 2 more. Took mom to local hospital ER, where they gave her Xrays, and a CAT Scan, and spotted a broken L4 vertebra (compression fracture). They sent her home on Tylenol, ibuprofen, and muscle relaxers (which, yo, don't exactly treat bone breaks).

Monday, November 28, 2022: Mom talked cousins into giving her an ENEMA (she hadn't pooped for a day and a half and I think I'm still more angry at the cousins than I am at mom, who hadn't eaten more than 300 calories a day since her fall, so no wonder she didn't poop, but she has a little fixation, and this is too much). Anyhow, it was a bad scene. It was also unnecessary. Her memory had taken a fucking holiday, but her bowels were decent, until this. After this, she was either constipated or had diarrhea for a month. No breaks.

Tuesday, November 29, 2022: SHIT STORM, plus PCP doc visit, at which he basically said Ativan is the DEVIL (LIES!) and that she could be on morphine, then prescribed her 2 Vicodin a day.

By the weekend, we got her oxycodone. It helped with the pain. It did not help with mom. I have not gotten this much emotional abuse since I was in my mid-teens. Did you know that I, who have been by her side since the injury, am USELESS? (That was the least bad thing she said to me. My cousin, who is mom's favorite, and vice versa, finally said to me, "Cindy, I didn't know you went through this." Yeah. Well. I did.)

Anyhoodle. I'm cutting a lot of shit out here.

December 12, 2022, mom got her kyphoplasty procedure. Her heart rate dropped during it, so they gave her something to raise it, then refused to give her IV pain meds after. She woke up and kept ripping off her johnny. She was stark naked and horrible to the recovery nurse, until she told him, "Fuck you," and I had to tell her, "You are being abusive. You need to stop."

And I already feel like the worst daughter in the world relaying all this, when it is only half. She has been awful to me. And I mostly feel like I shouldn't let it out here, but I need to let it out, so I can let it go and forgive.

December 13, 2022. Mom is discharged. She is supposed to have an MRI before discharge, because (and I think I left this out, but she was admitted after an ER visit on 12/8) for what amounted to constipation (but even that's why she insisted on going, she wouldn't tell them that's why she was there, unless/until you asked questions with the right words in the right order) but they saw inflammation in her bile duct, which could be nothing or could be horrible.

I have been with mom every day since her fall. I have had several sequential overnights with her (in which she didn't sleep, and fought me about meds, until I had to hide them on shelves she couldn't reach because she gave me the old, "I'm an adult!" --which fuck you. I already had teenagers.)

Usually, if I was with mom in the day, my cousin Cathy was with her at night. We had a nice little system worked out. But, when Cathy had to go home for several days, several times, I was with mom 24/7 for days at a time. It was exhausting. She didn't sleep. She wouldn't give up certain meds. It was a fucking nightmare. Then she'd cry and tell me how much she loves me. I get it. I do. I have been a fallible parent, but at some point, just no.

Finally, on 12/16, after spending all but one night of Christmas week, sleeping over, then providing all daytime care, I went home. 12/26 is mom's birthday. It was also my liberation day. [link]

I decided to take off a handful of days. On 12/29, DH started feeling COVID positive. On 1/2, he finally tested thus. C and I isolated from him. We didn't catch it, but I couldn't go to mom's. I felt both guilty about that, and grateful for that.

Then, on 1/7/2023, newly married son got locked out of his apartment. Long story short, but his wife did not lock him out on purpose, but she's a PICU nurse and shuts off her phone. He came here, despite worrying that he could catch COVID. He couldn't catch COVID here, only since he ended up with COVID the next day, which meant he had been previously COVID positive, which reset the clock for C and me.

I will see my mother for the next time on Sunday, 1.22.2023. And I'm mostly good with this. Despite all my venting, she loves me, and I love her. I just... she was awful and it wounded me.

So anyhow, that's where we were, until last weekend, when my dog developed Vestibular Disease, and we honestly thought she was dying. (She isn't.)

But anyhow, this all sucked, and if I ran over God's dog, I would like to apologize in a meaningful way.

(I thought that would take two posts. I'm kind of amazed it didn't.)

Plei, I hope you and yours are okay. I miss you.

(I need a little fluffing, Buffistas.)

Topic!Cindy, that was rough, is rough, and will probably continue to be rough for a while yet. Vent as and when you need to. Do what you can, when you can, where you can. Don't neglect or regret self-care.

Thank you, dcp. ♥