I'm so very easily amused...

And gods know I need a laugh! The Muppets doing 'The Stars and Stripes Forever." Enjoy!

How I wish I had good news

But I've got nothing like that. Dad passed at 1:40PM yesterday. It was, according to Mom and Sis, peaceful and painless. I was in the drive through at McDonalds, waiting for my burgers so I could be late for my counseling appointment. At Hospice. O, the irony.

Memorial will be on Monday. No suits, no ties, Aloha shirts encouraged. I'll give directions for anyone interested over private email. No flowers, please, but we're accepting donations for the family.

End Game

Over the last week, Dad's been getting worse. He started slipping on Father's Day, when he asked me why I was coming over so early - at 5PM. It progressed through non sequitors - telling Mom that the stereo remote also controls the pump to empty the washbasin - on to conviction that he had to go somewhere to claiming that he had to go home (he WOULD NOT believe us when we told him he was home) to not recognizing us to where he is today: in a coma.

This is, I'm told, typical of this kind of situation - going on a trip is how some people frame their coming death, and the coma is, frankly, a blessing for him and for us.

But he's still dying by inches, and there's nothing I can do.

Life Sucks

It really, really does. Mom's about to lose it, i'm getting ready to join her, and Dad is convinced that the remote for the stereo also controls the pump for the washbasin (?!).

I need a rewind button

Just had a horrible conversation with mom - Hubby thinks that we're spending too many nights over there, and now mom thinks she's imposing on us and that we don't really want to help... It's not that we don't want to help, it's that we want to see the inside of our apartment once in awhile! Ugh.

Health Care

I'm lucky. Even though I'm uninsured, I managed to get into a sliding fee program at a local clinic - and the clinic has an amazing discount pharmacy. Admittedly, I see an LPN more than I see a doctor, but my particular LPN/doc combo rock like crazy and I love them. They've both been extremely supportive and caring in a difficult time.

The thing is, not everyone is so lucky. There are millions, if not hundreds of millions, of people in this country who go without even basic care because it's TOO fracking EXPENSIVE! How, exactly, can we claim the US is an enlightened country when people die every day because they can't afford their medication or their insurance company denied a necessary procedure? The system is broken.

Figuring out how to fix it is a little bit above my pay grade, but I've been hearing good things about the program in Massachusetts, where everyone is required to carry health insurance, either through work or through the state, with heavy subsidies for the poor. We have to at least try to get this fixed. If nothing else, so we can look at our collective reflection in the mirror every morning.

Further Observations

• I'm pretty sure I have an ear infection. Yech.
• People are assholes. See the jackass who killed Doctor Tiller, and that nutbar who opened fire at the Holocaust museum. Seriously, misanthropy is working for me right now.