Black Friday

  - certainly is not a fun shopping day for Yours Truly! Despite the fact that it's a beautiful-blue-skies, mild-winter-in-North-Texas kinda day, my mood itself is quite black. Time for "The Rest of the Story":

8 days ago (Thurs 11/21), my mom slipped down to her bathroom floor & couldn't get herself up. The facility has strict guidelines; they will not lift a resident off the floor, they have to get themselves up (I guess I partially understand that from a liability standpoint, but c'mon! Grandma's on the cold hard tile, and all you'll do is bring her a pillow to cushion her head until the paramedics arrive?!?) - so an ambulance was summoned, Mom was taken to the ER, and we spent a tedious afternoon & evening getting radiographs, CT, & bloodwork. Fortunately, nothing was broken, Mom was ultimately diagnosed w/a UTI, given IV antibiotics & a breathing treatment (they kept asking if she was on oxygen which she has not been up until this point)

I spent the next 3 days trying to line up extra care for her (good luck with THAT over a weekend!) and, last but not least, tracking down her prescription which had vanished into the stratosphere! I finally retrieved it from the Walgreen's in South Dallas where it had been inexplicably phoned in for God knows whatever reason? Undoubtedly that caused a setback, but on Saturday Mom was feeling well enough that I got her showered & dressed & took her to my cousin's for our Early Thanksgiving family reunion & feast. I took but a single photo:

Yesterday, for The Day Itself, I prepared more cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, & Z's favorite spicy Chex mix to convene at Victoria's grandmother's for another celebration. Unfortunately, poor Andy remains in skilled nursing/rehab section of the VA; I didn't know if they would try to "spring him" which quite honestly might seem like cruel & unusual punishment?  I keep trying to put myself in Andy's position: would I want to be faced with bounteous plenty with a feeding tube? I know the delay in getting my mom back on her antibiotics caused a setback (only time will tell if this deficit can be overcome?), so I did not even try to get her out yesterday...

I'm going to write a note to Cousin Vanessa since there never seems to be a good time to call. I feel woefully unprepared to offer her much of anything as my own life seems to have spiraled out of control. I'm so far behind I don't even know where to begin? Taxes are always the first logical/inevitable step - I was actually on my way to talk to my CPA Thursday before last when I was interrupted by mom's ER trip. Death & taxes, those two constants! Tina Fea has gone on another hunger strike as well. Little dog, you're breaking my heart in another sort of way.

At least I still seem to have the intellectual capacity to defeat Mijo at chess - but lemme tell ya, it was a long, brutal, messy battle!