Elise did not make it to tomorrow.
She passed away despite the life support system at around 5:30pm.

I took mom, middle nephew, and his girlfriend to Lightscape at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens Friday night despite the 20-something temps. Mom and I were bundled like snow creatures, nephew tried to brave the cold without additional bundling and was then complaining, and girlfriend being from Nebraska felt right at home. We had pasta and butter cake at Zoli's and did a quick Trader Joe's run afterwards. It was fun and freezing.

Unfortunately, we got bad news that my sister's best friend and our adopted family member is in ICU. She has had multiple seizures that we're not sure what from and is now in an induced coma. This woman spent more time in hospitals when she was in grade school and into her 20s than not, and I can only hope that she will pull through this just as she has so many other issues that she has faced down. She is a beautiful woman, a doting mother, and lightens up any room she walks into. She knows the value of life and I know she will keep fighting for it.

You know it's bad when the call is coming at 3am.

My schizophrenic uncle died last night.

He's the same one that I posted about, what ... a year ago maybe ... as being on his death bed.

Mom wants me to go with her to finalize the arrangements that luckily my grandmother set up for him before she passed away. They have a double plot where one casket is buried deeper and a second casket buried on top. My grandfather and another uncle are buried the same way in a nearby plot. She's trying to see if her brother (yes, in case you're keeping count, poor woman grew up with 3 brothers, 2 of which are now dead) wants to go with her instead, although I'll probably suggest I go. I just stopped by their place yesterday to pick up some mail and have already had within-3ft contact with my parents recently, rather than having my mom and uncle also within range of each other. I know how the six degrees of separation works, which is the entire point of the social distancing.

I hope this is the only death I have to face until at least the fall.

EDIT: I went back and looked, and it's been two years. He had been in and out of the hospital with various forms of pneumonia and levels of this side of death for just over two years. They will not be doing an autopsy due to all of his previous complications and him not having any symptoms of anything (still talking and watching TV, no complaints, etc.). Without any symptoms of COVID-19, they are not even testing for that. For all we know, it was a heart attack or brain aneurysm and had nothing to do with his previous issues. We've been on and off pins and needles for two years, and as a family we're not that morbidly curious. (Okay, yeah, pun was totally necessary that time.)

Also, my cousin is actually friends with the funeral director, so she's already talking with them by phone for the arrangements.

We had to euthanize one of my family's cats today. Cow-Cow was 15 years old and used to be absolutely obese, hence her name. She was my sister's cat, and when circumstances came that she needed to find a new home, she was adopted into my parents' household about a year or so ago. She was a beautiful tortiseshell calico, who had grown so thin that I was always worried I would break a bone while petting her.

Eldest nephew acted nonchalant about us taking her to the emergency clinic; this is his way of dealing with death, as I had learned when my grandmother died a few years ago. Little Bit was sad and at first wanted to go with us, but then decided to stay behind. Dad started crying while holding Cow-Cow as mom and I got our things together. Mom and I took her in, and she was evaluated. She was 15, "legally" blind and walking until she would almost bump her head into objects (feeling them with her whiskers and eye lashes before her actual forehead in most cases, but still causing a jump-back reaction), and had arthritis that prevented her from jumping any longer, and only barely allowed her to make it up the one step into the kitchen and back down into the living room.

Saturday morning dad found her walking in circles, and more or less no longer responding to us calling her, which would previously get her attention and orient her in the right direction to us. She showed no signs of the typical head tilt found in ear infections and vestibular disease. I'm not sure why they didn't take her in to the vet yesterday, but when it comes to things like these dad leaves it to mom and mom leaves it to me. I felt a bit like she was waiting for me to be the deciding factor and to help discuss it with the boys. My sister saw Cow-Cow last weekend, and knew that it was getting close to time, so she had made sure to spend a few extra minutes giving her love even then. The vet confirmed our suspicions that she most likely had a stroke or some other brain issue, and that she was unlikely to get much better.

As per our family's usual wishes, Cow-Cow will be cremated and her remains will be brought home and placed with our previous pets.

The last time I saw Dan was back in the spring. I was his ride to Mila's and her mom's birthday shindig. During the trip, he was talking about how he wished people would leave him alone about wanting to be a hermit. He said he was content to spend time with himself.

A couple years ago I threw a Raising The Bar party. I had finally finished the bar that I had spent two years off and on working on, and I wanted to celebrate the addition to our kitchen (and have a couple guys shove that thing into place). It was also my birthday. Although I didn't announce it as a birthday party, enough friends were still aware and brought me some gifts. I enjoyed them all, but the one I treasured the most was the hand-drawn birthday card Dan made for me. He even put it into a pretty frame. Maybe someone else might see something like a hand-drawn birthday card as cheap or cheesy. I saw it as very thoughtful.



Tomorrow I will be joining the crew of folks that are spending time packing up the life that was Dan's, and there's a lot of that life to be packed up. I'll also be bringing boxes and tape, because despite everyone bringing some here and there, I think we'll still need more.

I better remember to bring a box of Kleenex. And maybe some toilet paper.

I'm feeling lost.

And ridiculously exhausted all the time.

I can't think right now.

I'm still randomly crying from the reminder of loss I had recently. Seriously tired of that, but I know my mind and body are going to do what they want to do, so I'm just going to live through it again until it finally passes.

Work has officially sucked the soul out of me.

My body aches from class yesterday - in which I almost passed out from too much exertion. I had to sit for about 15min after the second class started to get my head to stop spinning and to not feel like I was going to throw up.

Hopefully today will be a good day at work, and somehow I'll start to feel human again.

I need to force myself to work out on the elliptical tonight, even if it's only for 15min. That's better than nothing.

"When a person or situation isn’t what you thought it was going to be, and you can’t figure out whether this is your fault for projecting unfounded qualities onto the person or someone else’s fault for actually misleading you, mistreating you or letting you down, drink."

(Date night apparently didn't go as well as I was led to believe. I don't think we'll be seeing each other anymore.)

I'm back to being curled up in a ball of tears while trying to go to sleep during random bouts of mourning. This time is different, though, because they're intermingled with moments of sheer frustration and anger. Go away, already.

The house hunting stress isn't helping. This evening's showings made my decision harder, not easier, and now I can't sleep. I found one house that is ridiculously cheap, but not only is it in Haltom City, it backs up to one of the heavily used train tracks. While I like the sound of trains passing, I don't like the sounds of their horns, and I know there's plenty of street crossings near that spot, and the horns would be going off quite often. I'm worried that getting that house would equate to many wakeful nights due to the trains. I'd have to put money into it to get it fixed up, but so far it's all cosmetic oldness that needs to turn into happy newness, and I can take my time with that. At the price this house is going for, and if there's no structural issues (we couldn't see any signs of any), I'd be a fool not to snag it up.

I'd still prefer the house with the foundation issues which is $20k more and across the street from a junior high. I'd rather suffer the children and school bells than suffer the track noises and train horn. I picture The Blue Brothers when I imagine a train going by. All it would need is Carrie Fisher wielding a rocket launcher to solve the problem. Foundation problems, though. I have no guarantees that they will be fixed for good or that there won't be complications from having the foundation adjusted, like pipes busting or more cracks appearing.

My stomach is in knots. I know I need to make a different decision than what I would prefer, but it's eating me up inside.

There's other things on my mind as well. Brain won't shut up. I should have taken a shot of something to help me sleep.

Happy aside: This is what takes place in my brain 24/7. I think too much? HAH! If you only knew. I meant it when I told the guy back in my early 20s that I drank to get my brain to shut the fuck up.

I'm tired of crying myself to sleep.