New Year...

New Year, new day to sleep in. Hurray. It was nice spending the holidays at home, as so often, a "day off" means waking up early and travelling for hours. Perhaps around 1, we went to my sister's house, and watched the recorded Rose Bowl on TV, which was nice, with all their fancy flower floats. My mom helped my sister put together her drying rack, in the meantime. They then tried planning some early potential vacation ideas for next year. They might want to try to do the Balloon Festival again (they keep failing), which as usual, won't be a vacation I can go on, but that's fine. I like staying home alone. They might do some smaller trip with my middle sister in May, which I can join. Nothing was set in stone: just some pre-planning.

We stayed there much later than I thought, given we weren't eating dinner there, not leaving until after 6, and deciding to go to Burger King, since it was so late to make dinner. I don't remember what we did afterwards, but I probably watched more of The Sropranos with my dad. We need to finish it before the Olympics in early February, which should be easily doable.

Farm Show!

Farm Show day, hurray! We left around 9:30, and traffic was regrettably very bad. We ended up taking a risk and turning right, up to some other parking lot, after waiting for a while in our normal lane, but it might've ended up taking even more time. Probably. There was still a ton more traffic for that parking lot. It took about an hour, when the actual drive is maybe 20-25 minutes without traffic. It wasn't particularly cold today, so nobody took their coats in, though I did bring along my scarf, intentionally, and I'm glad I did, since I later used it as a makeshift mask when in large crowds (and it also kept me warmer when we watited in the VERY WINDY VERY LONG bus line to get back to the parking lot at the end.

We got to ride in a charter bus, which was new, reminding me of the marching band days, and due to the different parking lot we were in, we actually were dropped off at the front exit, instead of the side we always entered before. We walked into the main lobby, then went up the stairs to the left. I don't remember the exact order of things, but we slowly headed to the crafts/shops section, in hopes we could be around for the free angel food cake that we stumbled upon by accident last year, around 12 pm. I'm glad I sent Dicosrd messages about the cake, so I could remember the time.

I always enjoy seeing the various crafts and food, so that was nice, and then like last year, right after noon, the angel food cake winners were announced. First and third place wasn't even around to recieve their fancy 250 ribbon. Then, it was cake time. We still weren't the best at knowing where to go. My dad and sister entered a crowd of people, while my mom and I went further up to a table that seemed to be placing them down. There were a few basic ones just sitting there, but I wanted a fruit one, like my dad got last year (he says it was the best angel food cake he ever had). Thankfully, they were soon handing out some blueberry one, but a few other people were in front of me, but I got the LAST slice, thank goodness. It wasn't anything compared to the one my dad got last year, and the icing was bleh (as usual), but I did like the filling, and it had little bits (not super able to be taste, but maybe a hint of it) of blueberry within the cake too. It was probably an above average cake, but the icing brought it down—for me, since I'm simply not a fan of icing. I was planning on eating most of the icing (and did indeed start some of it, so I'd be left with the best part), but thankfully, my dad was talking about icing and how mine looked better than his, so he ate the rest. Good.

Sadly, as is the case probably 3/4 or more of the years, the fluffy chickens (and most birds) were not at the show, and this time, I didn't even see photos of the winners. Very sad. There were turkeys, but that was it.

They also had a bunch of American 250 displays throughout, and while I'm not proud of America at all right now, I still liked taking photos of a lot of these things, simply to look back on later. I like special anniversaries and dates.

The plan was to get milkshakes, as usual, but the line was super long and almost impossible to find the end of (a normal occurence, but it was even worse this year), so instead, mom and I just waited in a much smaller potato donut line (our other tradition). All things considered, I like the potato donuts more than the milkshakes anyway. Dad and my sister, in the meantime, went to the bus line and started waiting. At first, I thought that was risky and they might end up leaving without us, but no, the line was crazily long. We probably waited 10-15 minutes, and went through 10 busses before getting to us (but it was hard to tell, given we couldn't even see where the busses being filled were first). As stated above, while it was fine at first, it became SUPER windy at some point, to the point one had to turn around to be able to breathe, and it really pulling at one's clothes. I was happy to be the one carrying the warm potato donuts, which helped warm my abdomen.

Knives Out and The Sopranos

Finally, we got on another charter bus, and the drive home was thankfully basically traffic-less. I had one of my potato donuts right away, and it was delicious as usual. I wish they weren't a once-per-year treat, but I suppose their scarcity does make it all the more special. We watched the new Knives Out afterwards, then my sister went home, and my dad and I watched another two episodes of The Sopranos. 12 episodes to go. I've been overall pretty unimpressed with this supposed "masterpiece," but Season 5 and 6 have gotten me more invested, though still not particularly with the plot, and more just because Tony Soprano is a really well-made character. James Gandolfini is a fantastic actor, and holds most of the praise for that. I don't think even the writing is particularly great, but Gandolfini makes him feel really real, and a mix of a whole bunch of things I like: dopey, intimidating, and funny. Very good. Paulie has been growing on me too, though I'm not a big fan of Christopher anymore, and haven't, since he was a druggie in Season 3 (or was it 4?). It's a good show, and I appreciate seeing all the fans quote various lines in comment sections, but I wouldn't call it amazing.

I suppose it was a good place to stop (not that it really felt like a mid-season conclusion), because my dad has to go out to Pittsburgh once again, due to his mom not doing well. I hope he's not too stressed out. These are very sad times, and I do worry this might be the beginning of the end. She's been in the hospital since before New Years, having trouble breathing on her own.

Sad

I try to keep the saddest parts of my life out of this, but since it's a big deal that I don't want to forget the details of, I'll mention my grandma's health (on my dad's side). Since before New Year's Eve, she's been in the hospital due to not being able to breathe well on her own, and she has yet to go home since then. She's "stepped down" into lesser care, then "stepped up" back into needing a ventilator/not being able to eat, then went to rehab, which was where she was until a few days ago. My dad keeps going out to Pittsburgh every Sunday or so (for multiple days) for three weeks now, and my aunt from Arizona has been there since New Year's Eve or so. One bright side to this: She was out of vacation days thus should've went home, but her boss said she had a week of vacation left—aka, they were giving her an extra week; that's very kind, since I'd have felt so bad for my aunt, who is very emotional, to have to go home while her mom might be dealing with the worst part of this.

But why am I saying the worst part is now, when she was in rehab a few days ago? Because rehab messed up really really badly—Medical Malpractice badly.

Since half a week or more ago, my dad told us through text that my grandma's lower abdomen was distended, and also that she hasn't been urinating. The rehab people said it was because she was dehydrated, and she was on an IV to give her water, since she's too weak to eat/drink still, I guess. I forget the exact date, but maybe Tuesday or something, rehab finally sent her back to the hospital. Why was her stomach distended, and why hadn't she been urinating? Because her catheter wasn't put in right, so she literally could not pee. The distended abdomen was buildup of that. The doctors said she's lucky to be alive, because her bladder could've popped, and it would've if she hadd stayed there much longer. Due to this, she got a UTI, and went into sepsis on early Thursday morning. She needed a blood transfusion. All because the rehab place failed to check her catheter, and decided she wasn't peeing because she was dehydrated. I guess they didn't care about the bloated abdomen?

My dad came home Thursday evening (yesterday), and he told me all this stuff and more. There are more negative sad things, but for the sake of not oversharing too much, I won't mention them, but it makes me feel so bad for my grandma's suffering. He got a text from his aunt about the doctor asking her for her phone number so he could inform the State about this rehab place's malpractice, so that's relieving. It'd be much better for an authority figure to get the law involved than us.

But due to this, I've been pretty depressed for weeks (after already being numb and unmotivated for a quarter of a year). This is surely a big reason why death and degeneration has been on my mind these past few months, though I have a feeling it won't go away for a while, if ever. Living is scary, because of how close death is at every turn.

Not Sad

My dad's been gone since Monday, but now that he's home, we resumed watching The Sopranos. We finished the 12th episode of Season 5, which means we just have the second half left, 9 episodes. Oh boy. We also watched the first episode of Season 4 of The Traitors, my mom joining us for this one (at least the beginning), because Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski are on it. They regrettably didn't get much screentime yet (especially Tara). This season, there's a "secret" Traitor who decides the "short list" for the others, and neither know each other. It's a unique twist, if nothing else. It just started airing two weeks ago, with three episodes dropping on the 8th and two on the 15th. This is the first time we've watched semi-live (the other seasons where already finished ages ago when we watched them).

Later

Hi.