My life, for what it's worth, part 2

2017 has really sucked.  First my dad got sick and died.  Then my mom fell.  Joe has had various health issues and has felt bad for much of the year. This week, his cat got into some rice.  I have no idea why Emily had rice in her room, or how the cat got in there, the door is always closed.  But she did, and she did, and she ate a bunch of it.  I came home to piles of barfed up rice all over the house.  I wasn't too concerned, that cat has gotten real aggressive about eating things lately.  She drags kleenex out of the garbage and eats it (and throws it up)  Ugh.  But she seemed kind of droopy.  When Joe got home he was all freaked out about his precious.  He didn't eat dinner and hovered over her all evening.  After I went to bed, he decided to take her to the emergency vet.  They did some xrays and said she had colon cancer.  Emily was there and called her brothers.  They all came over to say goodbye.  I was a bad person and stayed in bed.  I loved the cat, but I had to

I have lived in Seattle off and on for most of my life, and every single November comes as a huge and horrible shock to me.  October is usually fairly sunny, and then it's like someone flipped off a light switch and turned on a cold shower.  It's dark when I wake up and dark when I come home, and today it was blowing so hard the windows in my office were rattling.  And it rained and rained and rained.  Sigh.  August is so beautiful here.  Why can't all the months be like August? We didn't lose power tonight, but my mom did.  In a shining example of why I keep him around, Joe went and picked up some hot soup and took it over to her, then stayed to chat and fix a couple little things.  He hates chatting.  Such a good person.  This is why I don't kill him about dirty socks dropped in the entry every day. I ordered an Echo Dot this week and we are having fun asking it questions.  Tonight Emily asked a question, and it didn't know the answer.  She told it it was

It's hard to believe how much has happened since I wrote that last post.  On September 23, my mom finished her dinner, stood up to put her dishes in the sink and discovered that her foot had fallen asleep when she put weight on it.  She went down hard, whacked the fireplace with her head and broke her hip in four places. I have been on her case since dad got sick to wear one of those necklaces that can summon help.  I think she secretly thought that, even though she knew people who had fallen and couldn't get up, that would never happen to her.  But she says she could not move.  Because her daughter did not listen when she said she didn't need a texting cell phone and got her one anyway, it happened to be right there where she could reach it.  My brother happened to be at a poker tournament 30 seconds away.  She was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital within ten minutes.  Thank goodness for that phone.  It is certain she would have laid there all night, and possi