The Summer of Everything Wonderful and Terrible

This summer has been unbelievable.

I hear people echoing this around me. It’s not that any one thing happened – it’s that a lot of things happened, and each of them was important. It felt like a heavy summer.

Although this was the Summer of Everything Wonderful and Terrible, almost everything was happening to someone else. I was simply a bystander whose role was to support and love the people around me while they dealt with these incredible, life-changing experiences.

Here’s what happened…

First, Hal had come to live with us in February. In late March, he came down with a terrible fever that accompanied a frightening pain in his hip. A trip to urgent care led to the emergency room and then to a lengthy hospitalization. The hip pain was a red herring for an infection in his heart.

I overheard Bill chatting with someone about Hal’s progress, and he said, “They don’t know what caused it. The CDC has been in to talk to him.”

What???

I stopped my husband in his tracks. You cannot let me overhear in a casual conversation with someone else that the CDC is interviewing my housemate. OMG.

The hospital and the CDC were never able to identify where Hal got his infection from, but they did, apparently, determine that he was not contagious.

They sent him home with a catheter to his aorta and plans to self-administer a serious antibiotic. Before he made it back, the boxes marked “Medical supplies” and steaming with dry-ice poofs along the edges showed up on our doorstep.

We worked out plans for sterile areas, scrubbed the desk in his room, brought out freezer paper for him to lay out before he got to work and so he could scoop it all up and put it in the trash can we set up for this purpose. There were saline syringes, two types of antibiotics in enormous bubbly boluses, and bandages, and alcohol wipes, and drapes. Each bolus was the size of your fist, and he was to administer one in the morning and two at night (two different kinds).

For six weeks.

Here’s the incredible thing. On his second day as a free man he had gone -- at a friend’s advice -- to sign up for an insurance plan specifically designed for people in his position. What would end up being over $15,000 of medication and who-knows-how-much for his two-week hospital stay, was largely covered by his insurance. What an incredible outcome for someone doing the right thing.

While this was going on, I got a text message from the bestie best bestie best. I had passed out hard asleep in the late afternoon and, as is my habit, looked at my phone upon waking. The text said “A new watch!” and was accompanied by a photo. I briefly thought it odd that my bestie best bestie best was buying a new watch in this day and age, and also how odd it was that she had shared a photo—it must be some watch!—before I dropped my head hard back on the pillow. A few minutes later I got up to make my tea.

Once more fully awake and with my glasses on, I re-read her message. Let’s take a look at this watch.

But of course, that’s not what it said at all. It said “A new match!” and was a screengrab of her Ancestry DNA page.

But here’s the kicker.

The new match was her father.

My bestie best bestie best had been  adopted at birth and has been searching for her biological family literally for 32 years. There had been a private investigator (and what we now know was a mistaken identity), and there had been rejections and denials and confusion and doubt and hope and heart-wrenching sadness.
 

And now, six weeks after spitting into a plastic tube, she had a blue silhouette icon and the initials “JC.”

Almost a year ago we had discussed the pros and cons of commercial DNA testing. I told her my story of finding 4th-6th cousins by the hundreds with 23 and Me. I figured she would have a similar experience and could have a sense of herself as part of a biological family. She could talk to some of them and see what some family traits were. We had, of course, thought about the one-in-a-gabilion chance she would find someone closer, but that was a back-burner hope, too fragile and beautiful to pull forward into the light of our conscious thought.

What followed after that incredible text message were several hours on my couch as we took advantage of every medium we had at our fingertips -- I popped open two tablets and searched for all I could. We both logged in to the Ancestry account to see what connections were made. She emailed the owner of JC’s account. We pulled in the otherbestie who had the background search account. We found people with similar names and possible relations (most of them wrong or dead-ends), we found possibles, we searched a bunch of nothing. 

We frantically texted each other screengrabs and possible leads. We FaceTimed here and there. We cried, we took deep breaths, we panicked, we were elated, we were shocked, we were dubious. In the mix of it all, she texted a cousin who had approached her weeks before with a screengrab of the results.

The cousin saw that match and texted back, “Oh yeah, that’s Uncle Carl.”

So casual. So easy. Cousin George had known Uncle Carl his whole life. Uncle Carl was his mother’s brother, one of a huge passel of siblings. On mention of this “JC,” Cousin George had immediately been able to pull up a name, along with a mental picture of JC, had a flood of stories rush forth into his foreground; he had thoughts and feelings and knowledge of JC.

“Oh yeah, that’s Uncle Carl.”

This phrase, more than any other, would represent for me the wild train ride that is closed adoptions from that era and the consequent searching and ultimate discovery. For someone, these strangers you’ve ached for your whole life are simply, “Oh yeah, that’s Uncle Carl.”

The next several days passed in a haze. This was not my journey, but I had been present for it, and witness to it, for 32 years. Like many others, when I first heard of my BBBB’s story at the stupid age of 18, I could only barely understand the complex feelings wrapped up in the tangle of adopted and biological families. But for all the intervening time, I have been keenly aware of the sensations that come with being a member of my biological family. I once looked at a picture of my mom taken when she was about 14 years old -- I can see how she looks like the woman she would become but also like me and also like my niece --  and in those moments, because of my BBBB, I knew the privilege of that realization and the depth of what it means to see a family nose, or recognize the expression in the eyes. Something we mostly take for granted, over the intervening years took on a mystical quality as I realized not everyone has this simple, easy experience.

More recently, my mom posted a picture of her mother as an infant in the lap of my great-grandmother. Had my niece dressed up in period clothing for one of those fair photo booths, she could not have possibly looked more like the woman in that photo. Five generations later, and the two women were virtually identical. Every time I see pictures like that, I become keenly aware of those feelings and their absence for my BBBB.

And now, over several spring evenings with me in North Carolina and the bestie best bestie best in her Virginia home, we Facebook stalked an entire family. In photo after photo, my BBBB stared back at me--the down turn on the outer edges of her deep brown eyes, the enviable cheekbones, and the same gorgeous smile. My BBBB had found her people.

Once she had settled into the idea that she now had family, the BBBB set to the task of opening a line of communication. With a history of rejection and painful dead ends, she was understandably hesitant. Her initial emails to the owner of the Ancestry account had been answered, but now that writer was silent.

Ultimately she sent a letter to JC (no response) and then to her siblings.

She called me and tearfully read the response from her half-sister. The details are best left private, but she was welcoming and joyous. She immediately, and without visible hesitation, invited the BBBB to their family reunion in June. What a fascinating turn in this incredible journey.

I also had goodbad news brewing at work – my workbestie, who had taught me so much and kept me sane and grounded in our crazy work environment – had finally gotten the position she wanted outside the department. She wouldn’t be going far, but she would no longer be here for me to lean on, get minute-by-minute advice from, or to just laugh with throughout the day.

She would be gone the first week of June, and everything about my job would change. I inherited all her tasks, which were significant, and even though she and I text every day and can see each other whenever, she isn’t doing the same work as I am, and it’s just not the same.

Meanwhile, another friend had a completely different situation. A good friend of hers was a combat veteran with serious PTSD and was battling cancer. She (the friend) was on a bus from Texas to my friend in Massachusetts. She was tired, hungry, and anxious. The bus would be stopping in Durham -- was there any way I could meet her, give her a cheerful hug, and maybe some healthy food?

This is actually harder than you’d think. The bus would only stop in Durham for minutes as the passengers disembarked and new passengers came on. For security reasons, the bus driver would not tell anyone where they were stopping for their 20-minute dinner break. But I was determined. So I quickly arranged a care package in a thermal container, grabbed a friend-with-a-sense-of-adventure and her most amazing puppy, and we drove crazily westward on our insane mission.

We did catch up with the bus, and we found the passenger in question, and we shared the care package, and she got puppydawg kisses, and she ran with wild abandon as the puppy ran next to her, and for a few minutes, her difficult journey was made easier.

Right around that time -- maybe even the same week -- Bill and I were discussing the possibility of picking up a used leather couch from the neighbor across the street when Bill’s phone rang. He learned that his very good friend -- the neighbor behind our house -- was unresponsive, and the family had called the ambulance. This friend had struggled with very serious health issues for quite a while, and we had known things could take a very bad turn. Bill ran off to assist, the ambulance came, and a few days later, Bill’s friend passed away.

On the day of the friend’s funeral, the BBBB was in Richmond, meeting her oldest sibling for the first time ever. I was still wearing my black funeral ensemble when I watched the video of their meeting from my porch.

The birth of a royal baby across the pond was a nice distraction. But the next day, I was at work when I learned my friend’s baby had been hospitalized for failure to thrive; we would find out later it was the result of a rare and serious food allergy that prevents absorption of needed nutrients and calories. While we were working out the scheduling issues inherent in a lengthy sick-leave stint, another staff person received word her husband had been in a terrible car accident.

As I write this, all are fully recovered, but on that day, we literally didn’t know what might happen to either one.

The last weekend in April brought an experience that would change the whole rest of the summer and potentially many years to come. I had signed up to participate in the paranormal investigation of a public and haunted clinic, and I had waited for months.

My friends and I went out early, got hotel rooms, prepared ourselves mentally. We joined the Association of Paranormal Study at the Trivette Clinic late in the evening, and we settled in. Everything about that experience is in my “Now you know who to call” blog entry. But seriously, I caught the ghost-hunting bug, and now I have the fever.

May brought about a slight rest. I built the computer desk I needed -- I had been crammed in a small corner and the computer almost inaccessible. It meant every computer-related task was a nightmare. And I have a lot of computer-related tasks. So the new desk, which I built myself (with help), was a huge victory.

North Carolina had the hottest May on record, with temps routinely rising well into the 90s. So of course, this is the summer my air conditioner would give out suddenly and irreparably. Three hot, sweaty, cranky weeks and $10,000 later, we had a new unit, new duct work, and the coldest home in Durham.

During those three weeks, the country suffered two major school shootings (along with our daily mass shootings that are now too commonplace to make the news), and I watched with disgust as my social media feeds filled with vitriol among people who should definitely know better. But we also had the Royal wedding to remind me that not all the world is as fucked up as we are right now. We will get through this.

I also was cruising through FB when a video of Madonna -- my favorite!! -- caught my eye. I realized with horror that it was an ad for AARP, and suddenly, my 50th birthday, which looms just a few months away, seemed like a daunting and terrifying thing.

I was also engaged for several evenings in a rapid-fire texting conversation with the lead ghost-hunter as she was researching the details of the clinic we had investigated. She had started a lengthy conversation with the property-owners and was gathering as much information as possible about the location. She and her team went back and conducted a serious investigation (as opposed to the lighter-weight public one I had attended) and made contact with several entities, which they live streamed for maximum envy potential. At that moment, I knew I wanted in on the team.

Are you all still with me? We’ve made it to June, and June is where it starts to get nuts.

June started with the BBBB’s family reunion, right here in North Carolina. I didn’t take no for an answer and scored an invite. If all went well, I would be witness to her most beautiful experience. If it didn’t, though -- if there was drama or rejection or tears or hurt feelings or bullshit -- I was going to be there for her. She has been there for absolutely every major experience I’ve had -- I wasn’t missing this one of hers.

The fact that I was also going to spend some serious hours with the BBBB’s mostamazingandgorgeousdaughter was just cake.

The good news is that everyone in her “new” family was delightful--kind, welcoming, open, and positive. My presence was absolutely not needed. But when her father showed up unannounced (to us), I was so glad I had come. The bestie best bestie best met her dad.

What an incredible thing to witness.

At home, though, things were a little harder. My mom kept saying she didn’t feel right. Her legs were heavy. She was tired by mid-day. She felt fluish. Things just weren’t right.

Finally, when her doctor’s appointment couldn’t be scheduled any sooner, she decided to go to urgent care and was ultimately diagnosed with a-fib, a chronic heart condition that is managed with medication but potentially fatal without proper attention. The doctor gave her a prescription and did not admit her to the hospital because the cardiologist promised to see her the next day. He did not, and it would be almost two weeks before she was seen. Her doctor, meanwhile, wouldn’t see her for over two months. But she took the medication she was given and soldiered on.

One of my close girlfriends had lost her mom as a young child and was raised by her grandmother. Over the last few years, Grandma’s demeanor had changed, and she often forgot who key players in her life were. My friend had to navigate these sad moments, and eventually Grandma was moved to hospice. These days, Grandma was struggling a lot, and my friend, who shared the experience with me, was coming to the realization that she was dying.

Meanwhile, another girlfriend in that same circle of friends had battled thyroid cancer a few years ago. We had all met for dinner one night, and she let us know her diagnosis and the treatment plan. I knew she would need love and support to get through it. Unfortunately, Bill had a stroke shortly after that dinner. My good friend had later shared how difficult those months were. The literal isolation during the radiation treatment and the social isolation of facing your darkest times essentially alone with your wife, as she was the only person who really saw and understood. The dietary restrictions are horrible, the medication is devastating, and the fear is constant.

Now, in June of 2018, her test results came back with bad news -- it appeared the cancer had returned. This is, apparently, quite common for this type of cancer. I’ve learned that many people -- including my friend’s previous doctor -- don’t take this type of cancer seriously, presumably because of the high survivability rate. But it is essentially a life sentence of waiting for the next round of bad news, crippling treatments, and dismissiveness from medical teams. She was gearing up for more surgery, terrible diets, radiation treatments, and adjustments to the medication she would be taking forever.

This time, though, I would do everything I could to ensure she and her wife weren’t alone in their experience.

For me, this series of news -- my mother’s A-fib, the Grandma’s approaching end of life, and my friend’s cancer -- all came to light on the same day. This day, June 11th, was the beginning of the Summer of Everything.

The next day, my friend's Grandma died, and shortly after, I started seeing concerning changes in my mom. She was no longer her energetic fireball self. I would see her each morning, and she would describe how the previous day she had gone to bed shortly after I left. Now, she gets up at 4 am because of my brother's schedule, but still. Her productive hours had shrunk to only about five a day. This just isn't my mom.

I was also concerned that she never seemed to be able to get on to see her doctor. She did eventually see the cardiologist who would confirm the diagnosis and start yet another medication. He had not appeared moved by her low energy level. She started saying, “they turned me into a little old lady overnight.” She would wake up feeling happy and energetic but within minutes of taking her medicine, she would feel tired and miserable. It was awful to watch.

June brought a fun distraction in the form of our neighborhood Summerfest. All I ever wanted to do those days was rest but I instead signed up for a shift on the dunk tank. Yep. That was me. Perched on a precarious plastic seat while neighbors threw baseballs at a target until I splashed, screaming, into a giant tub.

In late June the story broke about families being separated any the border and I admit I initially dismissed it as fake news. It couldn't possibly be true, right?

So it was in this fog of denial one Friday morning when I called my cats in for breakfast. As is their habit, they came running from all corners. But Spork!, my tiny orange buddy, did not. He was stooped in the driveway, conspicuously hunched over and with his back to me. When I called out, he looked over his shoulder at me with a mix of suspicion and disgust. I realized he was eating an animal he had caught, and (I assume) was afraid I would stop him. I was grossed out enough that I just let him be, closing the front door and setting to the task of feeding the others the perfectly civilized cans of ground up animal meat mush.

I didn't realize then that I would not see him again. But he disappeared after that meal, and a week later we had to accept that he had been killed.

It was hard for me to post to the Clowder page on Facebook after that. We were down to four cats. The brains of our operation was gone.

I did post, a week after that fleshy breakfast scenario, that he had gone and that he had most likely been killed by the wild dogs recently seen terrorizing the neighborhood. I had been planning a public meeting to discuss our efforts to contain these dogs, and now I could join those who claimed the dogs were killing neighborhood cats. And if it hadn’t been the stray dogs, then surely it was coyotes.

We never found a tiny orange body or any evidence of what happened. Bill hunted high and low for ten days – calling to him, checking trees, checking crawlspaces of nearby houses, and walking and driving for blocks around, calling out to him. We knew from experience that cats can get trapped in weird places, and that they don’t always respond to unfamiliar voices. We also knew Spork! monitored a large territory, and Bill covered all of it, traipsing through the woods in the back, hiking around our enormous block, calling into the network of gutters our feline friends like to use for their subway system.

Bill believed a nice family had taken him in, but I knew that couldn’t be true—Spork! would never allow it. Most of our cats are quite wild, but Spork! is the wildest. He would never allow himself to be trapped in someone else’s home.

On Facebook people reassured me he would come home. But we had genuinely looked everywhere. And between the stray dogs and the coyotes, I had to acknowledge he was gone. This was the first time I lost a cat like this, and I felt awful.

Eventually I got used to referring to us as a four-cat household, and slowly started posting a few pictures here and there to their Facebook page.

June 30^th brought the Rally for Family Reunification as I had realized in the intervening days that the news of our family separation policy was indeed true, and now even that was possible. What. The. Everloving HELL?

Because my workbestie was no longer in our department, I was tasked with working 12 hours on July 4^th, which I did. No celebrations for me. And then on the 6^th, I sat in the Duke surgery suite as my friend had her cancerous lymph nodes removed.

That weekend brought a wondrous event in the unexpected beauty of the world’s most gorgeous day. We had driven out to a small town about an hour east of here and joined our friends for a 4^th-of-July picnic. The setting was incredible – one of those days that is just life affirming. The sunlight was just so, the temperature was perfect, and the people were kind, welcoming, and joyful. It was an incredible and much-needed day.

Shortly after that, we attended the funeral for my friend’s Grandma, which was particularly beautiful.

And then, at the end of July, something miraculous happened.

I had Friday off after a week on call, and I was at my mom’s house sewing a bag for my Tarot cards. I set my phone down next to me, and as I sewed, I noticed that it was lighting up repeatedly. Ping ping ping. I finally leaned over and looked.

A friend had texted (across every possible media which is why my phone lit up), “Could this be Spork?” and I saw the NextDoor post:

Skin and bones light orange cat -- Neighbors released a cat from under their house, they need advice. Anyone missing this cat? It was probably under that house for a month!!! Looks pretty good considering.

What followed was a frantic few minutes as I tried to determine the specifics. It was too much to hope, and I was shaking so hard, I couldn’t ask the questions or look up the information. I ended up hugging my mom a quick good-bye and tearing home.

It was indeed Spork!, now just a few pounds, with his hip bones sticking out past his sunken waist and his eyes glazed. We had our baby boy back.

The next two weeks were absorbed in getting my cat back to life from his second near-death experience. We were up with him all night, feeding him watered down wet food every few minutes. He was mildly delirious but also quite spunky and still strong enough to jump up on the bed, the counter, the dresser. I posted a long message about how exhausting it is to have a teeny tiny life in your hands, and how careful we had to be, keeping him in the house and demanding he follow new “rules.” I don’t know if you know this, but cats don’t really love rules.

Throughout the spring and summer, I had been attending the public events hosted by the Association of Paranormal Study, and my desire to become a full-fledged ghost hunter was high. The team founder and I had exchanged conversations on a number of topics, and I thought we would get along well. Once I found myself locked in my bedroom providing this life-affirming support for my little orange wonder, I went ahead and submitted an application to the CORE investigative team of the ghost hunters.

Emotional things settled in August, but the busy-ness ramped up a lot. I had a huge editing project come my way – weeks late and with a tight deadline. I had many things come to a head at the HOA – a key player moved away, leaving many tasks to be taken up; the annual meeting -- complete with elections -- was looming, and we would be then transitioning to a new Board. The everyday events of the Board were continuing as well -- we published a monthly newsletter, advertised events on social media, planned events, discussed significant remodeling of a playground, had community work days, board brunches and beer with the board, discussed insurance and flooding and illegal dumping and strategic plans.

I got a tentative acceptance to the CORE team, pending approval by other team members as they each met me in coming months. This meant a sudden onslaught of tasks and communications. I had been pretty much tied to my phone before, but now it was all-encompassing.

I rose every morning at 6 and turned on my PC. I worked steadily until it was time to leave a couple hours later. I went to mom’s, went to work, came home, and stood in front of my computer until midnight or 2 a.m. The editing project, the annual meeting, the elections, the ghost hunters, the coven, the friends, the connections. I had no time to do dishes or sweep the floor; things piled up in the living room, the sheets grew dusty, the laundry basket piled high. I didn’t even have time to ask Bill to deal with any of it. He, on the other hand, was creating his perfect mancave.

Random things happened in here as well. Tired as I was, a friend invited me to a late-night screening of the drum corps finals at a local movie theater – I had been wanting to catch this for ages, so I took him up on it. Hello 1 a.m. at a theater! The newsletter at the HOA was behind the deadline, and I had to get it printed – hello 1 a.m. at the HOA office! A friend had badly injured her knee, and needed an adult to wait in the surgery suite, so for a second time this summer, I worked on my little tablet at the Duke outpatient surgery center. We went to see Cirque du Soleil; and the news came down of 8 convictions and 8 plea deals in one day; the friend who had moved was also getting rid of a green velvet couch, and the only time we could get it was like 10 pm with Hal’s pick-up truck. (Howdy, neighbors, no need to call the police! We are just taking the green velvet couch out of the empty house in the middle of the night in the dark. No worries!)

On a Wednesday in late August, I got a phone call at work. Bill on the other end of the line, said, “Jenny! I can’t find Saulé!” And I remembered that I had also not been able to see him in this glass-box enclosure that morning. Bill had fed him the night before, which means the box cover had been open. But he had no recollection of Saulé climbing out. Today, everything was secure.

As he spoke to me, my stomach tightened. We’d almost lost our cat. Now the snake was missing. We were not good pet owners at all. All the things I hate about other people and their animal incompetence waved over me. I had to seriously consider the appropriateness of keeping animals. Saulé in particular was a wild animal, and against my own judgment, I had purchased him simply because I wanted him. And if I couldn’t give him the most excellent snake life possible, it had all been for naught. And now he had escaped. I tried hard to squash down the thoughts of my naïve snake, who had eaten only hand-delivered, previously frozen mice, making it on his own in the cold Durham winter sure to come.

I got home that evening and searched everywhere. Bill had limited his search to the floor, pulling our incredible mess piles away from walls and corners one by one. I, though, knew he could easily climb, so I searched our curtains, checked over doors, reached to the backs of shelves… Bill pointed out he could be under the refrigerator or behind the washer or in a basket of clothes or smushed along the baseboard somewhere. We debated how to attract him to a given place, and a friend recommended a heating pad. I imagined him slithering over us in our sleep.

This happened to be the same night I had to go to the HOA office to print the newsletters, and Bill joined me for a while. He looked deeply saddened at one point when he looked at me and said, “I have to realize -- I’m the one who let him out.”

I reassured him that it wasn’t his fault -- we had tried to cage a wild animal. This is the nature of that.

So imagine our joint surprise a few hours later when we entered the house to discover Saulé stretched out on his favorite rock INSIDE his glass box.

Bill ran over, shouting. “You don’t understand. I took every single thing out of here. I checked EVERYWHERE.”

I was just relieved he had locked it all back up. Wherever Saulé had been hiding, he was out now. We hadn’t lost our snake. We weren’t horrible pet parents. (Stay with me here …) It was all ok again.

Until two days later when my mom almost died.

In retrospect the situation has been brewing for weeks. Her stomach had been bothering her; she had felt week and was easily fatigued. She was waiting for that doc appointment that had been scheduled so far out in order to discuss what she was experiencing with the medicine. She hoped he would change it or reduce it.

But on the Friday morning before Labor Day, she asked me to come walk the dog and told me she wouldn't be able to fix my lunch. I checked on her and she was very tired but ok. Her color was good and her cognition seemed ok. She was just really tired and weak. She felt best lying down.

I went to work and called her often. She said she was ok as long as she was resting. But late that night, she couldn't stand; her blood pressure dropped to dead, and she started the GI symptoms that are all too familiar to me when my BP bottoms out. We took her to the ER, where they determined she was having a bad reaction to her medicine and also an ulcer. She was admitted and stayed over the holiday weekend. They gave her fluids and blood, they monitored her heart telemetry, and ultimately scoped her tummy. During the course of her stay, we got her medical care away from the “sky blue” medical system that had failed her so badly and moved her over to the”dark blue” system that had served me and Bill so well over the years.

For several days and now weeks after that hospital stay, mom's life has been a series of doc appointments and medicine changes. She needs an antibiotic for her tummy, and the new cardiologist has her on meds that work much better for her. I've got my mom back, almost completely, and for that I am immensely grateful.

In the middle of all this, I was also on call when my phone died its final death, and $1000 later I had a new phone. I was happy to change away from the iPhone, but now I didn't know how anything worked. And because it was a sudden and unexpected move, I hadn't backed up my contacts or done any of the things. With tensions running high for my mom and with being on call, I also had to learn a whole new system of communicating. Remember when I said I was totally chained to my phone? This was a remarkably stressful adjustment in an already difficult week in the middle of this crazy summer.

During that same week we got word that we had a residential case for the ghost hunters. I joined the case manager on our initial interview call as part of my training on the team. Things were getting real!!

The second week of September was the annual meeting for the HOA that we had been working so hard on, along with a series of appointments for my mom. But we woke up Monday morning to news that a category four hurricane was going to tear through North Carolina on the same path as Fran and head straight for us. I had just moved to NC when Fran came through and I felt the PTSD-inspired panic rise up. I had to squash it though because a lot of people, animals, and property depend on me.

We spent all day Monday planning for multiple contingencies and worst-case scenarios. I gathered and disbursed information, created document sites outside our firewall, and we prepared for the worst. At home we secured our incredibly messy yard, bought water and non-perishable food supplies and Bill very capably led the charge, getting literally everything done while I focused on mom. We made a plan to keep the cats all in for the duration of the storm, which meant more open rooms, more litter boxes, and lots of cat food.

The HOA meeting happened successfully, and I finished up the editing project well ahead of deadline, knowing we might be out of power for weeks.

We were spared the worst-case scenarios and watched in horror as our neighboring communities were devastated. One of the BBBB's uncles, whom I had met briefly at the reunion, lost his life in the storm. At work we took calls from people in shelters and we continue to arrange services for people displaced by the storm.

The storm hit on the weekend of my niece's wedding, and we were all saddened by its reality when she had to postpone. In a few years it won't matter--she will be happily married with her memories of a beautiful wedding and her family all around. But in these intervening months, she won't be married, and she won't have a heart filled with the happy memories of walking down the aisle. I felt for her.

The residential ghost hunters’ case scheduled that same day (that I would have had to miss) got rescheduled for the following weekend, and I can now say I have been on a residential case. I am fairly sure I will be a good fit for this team, but if in the end it doesn't work out, this summer of everything will at least be “that summer I was a ghost Hunter,” or, even more aptly, “that summer I got to sit at the cool kids’ table.”

As I write this, life is returning to normal. My mom is starting to feel much better. We are back to walking the dog together in the morning. She is almost done with the antibiotics. She will be ok.

My friend with the cancer battle has been mostly victorious and it's looking like she won't need ongoing treatments this round.

Spork! weighed in at an incredible ten pounds this morning--way more than he weighed before he went missing.

Saulé loves his glass box, which we have tricked out with climbing spaces and perching spaces and a small bog.

I'm going on another big ghost hunt this weekend, and we have another residential case in the hopper.

That editing job? I have plans to meet with a friend after the holidays to seriously discuss writing and marketing some of our family education materials.

And you may not be surprised to learn, I am sleeping many hours each night. I even nap during the day.

It has definitely been the summer of everything. Everything wonderful. And everything terrible.