I need some sleep

Triple-posting today. I have a lot on my mind, and it’s not all connected. So 2 posts, plus pictures later.

I am so tired. My uncle and his wife were in CA (actually ARE in CA until noon today), and I really wanted a chance to see them. They live in Georgia, but both their families are out here. When Aunt K married Uncle M, she told him that the only way she was moving to GA was if they flew out here every year for her birthday because there are multiple late May/early June birthdays in her family, and every year they have a HUGE bash. So that’s what they do. :)

So they flew out for her party on Sunday and then went to my parents’ house Monday. They fly out of LAX today. Originally I wasn’t going to get a chance to see them, but my uncle has cancer and although he still looks good and is functioning, none of the treatments are working. He has a rare type of thyroid cancer for which the prognosis is 5 years at the outside (he’s at 4 ½ now), and the survival rate is zero. Yup, you read it right: zero. No one in the medical literature who has ever had this cancer has beaten it. No one. Ever. Soooooo . . . he’s been doing a lot of alternative stuff (which is a whole ‘nother story), but the bottom line is that he probably won’t make it. (Unless he makes some radical changes that he doesn’t want to make, which is part of the “whole ‘nother” story. I’m a little bitter about that, and trying really hard to remember that it’s his life, and they are his choices. Some days I do better than other days.)

So he and his wife were visiting my parents and I decided yesterday to leave work a little early, drive down for dinner and drive back. (My parents are about an hour and half from where I live.) So I left around 3, got into the area by 4:30 (missed traffic! Woo-hoo!), picked up birthday cards for my aunt & uncle and went home for dinner. I had planned on leaving around 8:00, figuring that would put me home by half-past nine, and I could still get a good night’s sleep. I was finally getting ready to leave at 8:30 when my mom (bless her heart) chirped, “Tell M & K about your commercial class and working!” Honestly, I LOVE my mom and we usually get along really well, but at that moment I could have shot her. I did not want to be driving home at 10:00 and then try and get to work this morning by 7:00. Not. Enough. Sleep. :P But what was I going to do? It seemed rude to say, “Nope! Gotta run!” since M & K are here from GA and oh, I don’t know, HE’S DYING (probably). So I stayed for a while and we all talked, and I left about 9:30. Got home by 11, asleep by 12, up again at 5:30. I’ll be napping today. (I better never have kids; I’d have to kill them just to get some sleep! LOL)