Freakin' A.

I've tried to write this three times and Blogger's eaten it each time.

So here's the short but unpoetical version:

I'm back.

Trip was uneventful but break was not.

Good friend lost her husband to a heart attack. We found out what caused my dad's wonky blood result; he's begun treatment but a cure isn't 100% guaranteed (for that matter, its not being fatal isn't 100% guaranteed). Cousin chose to take his life a couple weeks before Christmas and I'm still angry at him for rejecting the love of his family and the fact that he HAD a healthy body. My mom and I called his mom (who is in her late 80s and nearly blind) every other day during the Christmas holidays to try to keep her spirits up and to check on how she was doing.

Good stuff did happen, most of it related to being with people who grok who I am on a very basic and fundamental level. Being with people who understand what foo lights and fuji bombs (both family in-jokes) are, and also after learning a piece of trivia that Merriwether Lewis got shot in the fundament by one of the exploring party, walking around and saying "In the butt-ocks, sir" and laughing about it. (I have a weird family but they're good weird). Ate out a lot. Got a lot of books for Christmas. Got some knitting done and also some sewing done, more about that later.

It's a relief to be home, in a way, and it will be a relief to deal with things I have CONTROL over (like my teaching and entering data and weighing dry plant biomass) for a change instead of worrying over family.