I have had prescient dreams and other such moments in my life. Yesterday was not actually one of those days but I was on edge just about the entire day. Just when I thought we could relax a bit, we got the dreaded call about John.

Yesterday morning was simply non-specific anxiety for no real reason. Because I was procrastinating about doing the laundry maybe? The bright spot in the day was lunch at Captain Joe’s in Whitmore Lake with the EPA retirees. This guy greeted us at the door, the food was fine, our server was extra special, and we sat across from Jim, Ted, and his wife The Beautiful Renee. Not to be confused with our niece The Beautiful Renee although they are equal in beauty.

But all good things come to an end and after a beautiful slow ride on the dirt roads down from Whitmore Lake to The Planet Ann Arbor, the GG started in on… the taxes. The Goddamn Taxes. We’re facing down (again) a situation where we will (probably) be paying more than we want to, which is driving the GG nuts. I won’t go into it. I don’t really understand it but from what I *do* understand, I said something like, “Why can’t we just suck it up?” Like pay it and move on. But no. There followed a loooooong phone conversation between the GG and our finance guy (they are both chatty and there was a lot of pacing on this end). I could only hear half of it but I could suss out that the GG was being talked down off the ledge. When I heard him say (into the phone), “Maybe we should just suck it up,” I JUMPED out of my seat to set the record straight that *I* was the first one to offer that opinion. After about a gazillion sometimes-fraught conversations about the issue and much spreadsheeting, and a mostly sleepless night (the GG).

That’s as far as I’m gonna go with that. The next thing that happened was the phone call from The Lady of Linden (our sister and cFam matriarch) about brother John and then a flurry of calls about that, which pretty much changed the day. Last night wasn’t a sleepless night but it was a restless one (for me).

Today was productive. The GG went up to John’s assisted living apartment to begin clearing out his stuff, then he met with The Lord and Lady of Linden and various professionals to make arrangements. And then they had lunch. I was blissfully space-i-fied (albeit without a vee-hickle, long story). I did all the laundry I’ve been procrastinating about, set up a lamb stew for dinner, filled out most of my absentee ballot, and just breeeeeathed.

Thanks for those who have commented or otherwise reached out about our loss. As an outlaw, I can’t really speak for the cFam but I think people are all right. We knew it was coming. I at least was probably in a bit of denial about how soon this would happen, even though we have visited John many times over the summer.

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