Thank you. And to @docosc and @chgoliz also. I had to time out for a couple days.
Things are pretty dire for my dad, all of a sudden, but I talked with my stepmother tonight. Turned us both into watering pots, but it was overall (I hope) good.
For anyone reading this who hasn’t been through it already: it’s painful and brings up a lot of stuff. If you can’t be there, or being there would add stress for the primary caregivers, I think it’s really kind to write a heartfelt letter to the person. When I asked my stepmom if that would be okay, and if she would read it to my dad if he wasn’t well enough to read it himself, she sounded SO relieved that I wouldn’t be showing up and being another thing for her to manage right now. I can only imagine what she’s going through. Hearing about it the way I did added an extra level of shiftiness to an already sad and shitty situation. But I’m glad I heard in time.
Fucking cancer. Fuck cancer.
ETA: Luther, I’m sure you did a lot of people a great service. Good on you. I hope you are healed or healing. That sounds…I can’t even imagine. Take care of yourself. 
Hooliganism, and another superspreader event.
A volunteer stationed outside the ground told The Independent : “There were thousands on the steps near Wembley Way that bomb-rushed the barriers and broke through. It looked so co-ordinated as it happened in one big move as soon as God Save The Queen started.
“There was chaos everywhere. Fences were thrown on the concourse.”
England cricketer Jofra Archer captured the barriers being breached and flung outside the VIP entrance of Club Wembley.
At 9:45pm, the crowd outside was only growing and “getting more aggressive” with their attempts to enter.
Meanwhile, it was also sheer pandemonium inside. One-and-a-half hours before kick off, a Wembley spokesman was insisting “safety measures were quickly activated and there were no security breaches of people without tickets getting inside the stadium.”
This was contrary to visual evidence, as the area behind the goal Italy attacked in the first half was massively overcrowded, while the sections in front of and to the sides of the press box had no place to stand. The aisles were swarming, stairs blocked, the disabled area overtaken and many paying supporters had their seats stolen.
There were several scuffles between those with and without tickets.
It was only just after 8:30pm when a Wembley spokesman conceded there had been a breach, but again contrary to visual evidence, that only a “small group of people got into the stadium.”
I’m seeing people blame football for this, but even if you banned all leisure activities these arseholes would be fighting over what workplace they were employed by. I’m also hearing the usual reports of a spike in domestic violence, but again football is only the excuse for yesterday. Toxic masculinity is the real problem, the same as ever.
Only woman student in a tech class listens to guys around her joking about consent. A**holes.
But women aren’t in tech because women aren’t good at maths and sciences… /s
Assholes. 
Yeah, I saw this because my 13 and 10 year old daughters had it on their TT.
Dafuq?
I can’t even.
Yep. And the thing is, this is reportable. I hope she’s comfortable reporting this to her instructor, who would have to do something about it.
I kind of want this to be a court case where someone tries objecting that she didn’t have their consent to record them, and then faces one of the hardest own goals of all time.
I am only surprised that people are surprised.
It depends on the instructor, doesn’t it?
Same here! I’m glad people are finally noticing and getting angry, but also…
To some degree yes. But there are going to be some people for whom past traumas and life experiences are so raw and strong, it won’t matter who the instructor is, they won’t feel comfortable coming forth.
True enough.
Just a quick mixed bag of fuck today, yesterday, and the night before that combined with great relief that none of my family and friends, and their family, died in the floodings in Germany.
The pics coming in from them, however… Holy shit.
ETA: just seen the pics from Austria. Friend of mine is currently in the area. Usually lives in an area of Germany which just got flooded last week while they were already in Austria.
Well. This ain’t. Over.
I’ve had a whole bunch of things I meant to bitch about here, but… yeah.
We sold the horses. It was gonna happen after Mia died, but when we made that plan we didn’t know it would be triggered quite so soon. The process of finding the right family went much quicker than expected, and they left last Sunday. It’s weird now. I’m taking a break from the barn reset effort, and hearing Zevon doing Heaven’s Door isn’t cheering me up at all, just like it never has even once.
Tuesday morning I picked up a sheet of plywood and received a very very brief, yet rather large and obnoxious splinter that was so brief because it [nearly] tangentially speared me in the soft spot above the thumb without detaching from the wood. I went inside, cleaned it thoroughly, bandaged it, and went back out. An hour later I was back inside because I couldn’t use a tape measure anymore. Just a wee bit of tenderness in the index and middle fingers of my left hand. We did another cleaning and a deep irrigation with peroxide and hoped to avoid medical escalation.
There was no indication of actual infection of any sort, just the same intense localized pain and tightness that set in right after the injury. The pain didn’t subside until Friday, and it was Saturday before I had usable strength in the main part of my dominant hand. It’s still a bit sore, but down below the level of normal arthritis soreness. I was obviously confident about my decision not to escalate (which was revisited a couple times), but damn was shit testing my faith for a while.
James Brown has really improved the color of the air in here. Sugar and spice. Thanks, Pandora.
This week we also decided/accepted, after months of the seller trying to keep one of the four pregnant in time to travel, that the Beatrix 
will stay at their originating farm until October or November, which means that the first baby will be born there instead of here in September as originally planned.
Stay safe. Saw today 200 dead and 1000 missing. Horrible. Good thing climate change is a hoax, eh? (/s)
My less than 5 year old TV decided to die on me and I had to spend the weekend dealing with getting and installing a new one (and e-cycling the old one). Money I definitely did not anticipate spending, and not how I planned to spend my weekend. Trivial first world problems, I know, but it still sucks.
It’s kind of like a cell phone: a huge luxury not that long ago, but now essential.
Especially if your whole family has been stuck at home for the last 18 months.
