Shacknews LoL

Walking my 6yr old to school this morning:

"Daddy 2 more days until school is over! Are you excited to not have anymore work?"

RIP Al Jaffee, MAD magazine cartoonist who invested the fold-in pages. Was 102(!)

https://deadline.com/2023/04/al-jaffee-dead-mad-magazine-cartoonist-fold-in-feature-was-102-1235321455/

Todays the 14th anniversary of my moms death by suicide!

And it would be her 65th birthday.

Yep. Isn’t that such a fun thing to carry around with oneself? Mom. Suicide. Birthday. I guess it’s a nice tidy package of grief just one day a year instead of two (birthday and then death day later).

These days the grief feels like what I imagine it’s like to have a metal implant or funky healed broken bone that aches when the seasons change or a storms a comin. Except it’s my heart and my psyche and it’s about 2 weeks of being in a funk leading up to the date and about 2 weeks after coming back up into the light.

This year I channeled the grief into a half-marathon race yesterday out in Yakima, WA, at the Yakima River Canyon Half-Marathon (and Full Marathon but fuck running 26 miles in a row). The cops close the road so we get the whole pavement to ourselves. It’s hard not to feel awe while traveling this canyon by foot. Like a pilgrimage, or a bunch of tribal members making their way towards battle.

I got 3rd place for my age group! It was gorgeous and sunny and I was on form. Everyone complained after about the hills and wind but none of that bugged me. I loved it, just kept chugging (hehe). My training is paying off.

And I wish I could have called my mom. I texted my dad, he just did the Heart and Thumbs-up double tap reply. So that’s cool.

https://i.imgur.com/qaVzYjd.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Z81MamG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iQyvLUf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/q778AFE.jpg

It's been a rough couple months.

Grandma passed on 12/20.

Other grandma is getting moved to a different care level because dementia is getting worse.

Father-in-law with serious heart trouble, got an aortic stent, pacemaker, and defibrillator implanted. Things bad enough they are talking palliative care instead of fixing stuff.

Sister-in-law went into hospital a couple days ago. Found all sorts of problems. Passed away this afternoon.

Wife and mother-in-law have to travel up to canada for the next few days to deal with that, I'll be at home taking care of the the 4 y/o, 14 y/o, and the father-in-law because he's too sick to travel.

gonna suuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkk.

Monday was a terrible day.

Found out my nephew, born Monday, has more issues than previously thought, chance of survival is now low enough that the doctors won't even give percentages. Mother-in-law is dying as well, and my wife had no idea things were so bad because her aunt, who is taking care of MIL, is in severe denial about the state of things. On top of that, found out our best friends are getting divorced, and it's going to be messy. Also, my wife's work is giving her shit about FMLA so she can spend time with her mom. And our kid is sick. And more and more people keep leaving work so I am stuck with like 2.5 jobs worth of work to do right now.

At least I have scheduled PTO next week, here is hoping I make it through Thanksgiving without first attending a funeral.

Met a girl at the Youth Orchestra I played in. She was a new flute and introduced herself to the orchestra.
She stood there in a red sweater and it was like somebody turned down the volume of the world around me. I fell in love immediately. But we didn't date because I was too shy.
We went on the bus to and from the orchestra rehearsals. We laughed and I sung songs for her.

Then in the autumn of the breakdown of the GDR we went to Berlin for a Orchestra performance in front of leaders of the Eastern Block (Honecker, Gorbatschow, even Arafat,...).
I gathered all my courage and asked her if we could sit next to each other in the bus. She said yes.
It was October 6th 1989. She was 13 and I was 14 years old.

We now have 2 kids, ups and downs in a good marriage and I think I love her even more now than 33 years ago.

I'm not waiting until Friday to post this GIF because it's so damn cute

https://imgur.com/gallery/9nfVyM4

guy finds a kitten, then gets barraged by his or her litter mates

Ya boi jcutner got married y’all

https://i.imgur.com/d6pltFc.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/B8NDKjG.jpg

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!!!

Just got bad news from the vet and he’s recommending it’s time to put down my cat Caboose. He’s 18 and I’ve had him since he was a kitten and he’s been the best cat I’ve ever had and likely ever will have. I know it’s cliche to say but he’s been my best friend for the last 18 years.

I had to put his brother down 6 years ago and it absolutely devastated me, and although it sounds unfair to say I’ve always had a 100x closer connection to this cat and I think this might break me. I’ve had him almost half my life. This is fucking killing me right now.

I don’t think I can do this.

We had to have one of our two cats euthanized today. He presented with kidney failure and a UTI about 3 weeks ago (he'd also had a PU surgery about 1.5 years ago). We had him at the vet for 5 days for IV fluids, meds, etc. and had been giving him subcutaneous fluids and antibiotics at home for a few weeks and had his levels rechecked today and all his numbers were worse. He would barely eat anything, was mostly withdrawn, and seemed to be in pain. He was an amazing cat and my faithful companion across grad school, four moves (two cross country), marriage, our first child, and tons of other life events. I'm going to miss him, but I didn't want to keep him around for him just to be in pain and to waste away, he'd lost another 25% of his body weight in the last three weeks after already dropping to 9lbs when we initially took him in. Hug your animals everyone, you never know when they won't be there anymore.