Thank God It's Friday!

But not Joe Friday!

Guess you need to be a Boomer or older GenX to get that joke.

Anyway...

It's been a bit of a crazy week. Taxes were completed, filed, and...

Can you believe DH and I already got our refund back? It shocked the crap out of both of us. It means the IRS is rubberstamping returns, and I really, REALLY hope that doesn't  come back to bite us in the butt once the current fascist regime is, um, gone. (I was about to say "overthrown", but I know some asshat or Google itself will report me as unpatriotic.)

Tuesday I jumped back into A Barrel of Vintner, only to realize I'd dropped two subplots that need to be woven in since they relate to the last two novels. Once I finished cursing myself, I started cycling back through to add the text needed and straighten out some issues with this story's timeline. So, if you check the word count on the reader blog, it will be lower than usual because I was doing a lot of editing as I went through the chapters. Which is fine because it means less work when I do the actual copyedits.

Then I went out to dinner with DH and some of his old friends. They get together once a month at my favorite restaurant in town. Usually it's an enjoyable hour or two. This time however, I discovered just how bigoted they are. One person was complaining about one of their children cutting off contact with her. The truth is that the child (who is in their 30's) in question is non-binary and the person cannot accept the child as they are. While everyone else was cooing about how the child will come around, I nearly bit through my tongue to keep from telling the person how hurtful they were being to their child. Luckily, I kept it to one margarita, or else I probably would have unloaded on the person.

On the way home, I told DH I probably wouldn't go with him to another one of these dinners. There's a couple of his friends I really like, but it's not worth hearing someone who sounds just like my own mother getting all self-righteous. There's not enough tequila in the world to trade for my peace and sanity. *sigh*

I've managed to attend yoga class three days this week. My body isn't sure whether to thank me or curse me. Why? Because every time we have a weather front come through, my knees complain. Rather loudly, too.

On the other hand, Ohio's February fake spring arrived, and it has melted a good chunk of the 13+ inches of snow on the ground. Hopefully, the weather stays sunny and nice over the weekend so the pups can get some outdoor exercise. We haven't been able to take walks or play for fear of frostbite because it's been that effing cold for the last four weeks.

Today, I need to pay bills and make out a grocery list since it's the middle of the month. Tonight is an early Valentine's celebration and catsitting. The rest of the weekend will be cleaning the house interspersed with watching the Winter Olympics.

And I need to finish cycling through the last ten chapters I wrote. 

So what about you guys? Any big plans for the weekend, or are you just relaxing?

Inhumane Treatment

Can you imagine NOT being with a loved one as he/she lies in a hospital dying?

When I read what happened to Lisa Pond and her family, fury doesn't begin to describe my feelings. Lisa and her partner, Janice Langbehn, followed all possible legal steps to execute their Living Wills and Advanced Directives. Then tragedy struck as the family was out of town on vacation. Yet, both the hospital that treated Lisa for a brain aneurysm and the judge that heard the case brought by Janice and their children ignored the VALID LEGAL DOCUMENTS in favor or their own perverse biogtry!

I can't even begin to verbalize to anguish I feel for for Janice and the children--to be denied access to their wife and mother as she lay dying alone in a strange hospital in a strange city--because this could have easily been me fifteen years ago.

My husband and I were living together at the time, not yet married when he fell ill over the weekend. What started as an assumed stomach bug turned out to be cancer. Stage 3 cancer.

At the time, I had no legal right to make decisions for DH, much less be with him, but his surgeon had this thing called compassion. I was allowed back in the emergency room after I drove DH to the hospital. For all intents and purposes, Dr. Polder and the staff at Blanchard Valley Hospital in Findlay, Ohio, treated me as DH's wife. I was kept abreast of all tests, diagnosis and developments.

I could have easily been left in the waiting room like Janice and the children.

When we start denying one person's rights, where does it stop? Do the people that espouse this type of hatred really think that they're safe from their own deity's judgment?

As for social worker Garnet Frederick and doctors Alois Zauner and Carlos Alberto Cruz at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, and U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan, I have one thing to say:

Whether it's called the Golden Rule, the Three-Fold Law, or Karma, you'll receive the justice you deserve in the end.