Weird one. Stepdad is doing fairly well for someone who had a mild heart attack last year, still keeping up with his cardio exercise and breathing better on his new medications.

But this is the first one of This Holiday since we lost my stepbrother to a brutally aggressive lung/brain cancer, and you could tell he was putting on a bit of a good face. Mom told me in confidence that he REALLY did not want a big celebration even if that were possible.

So yeah.

The good news is they did get to visit my stepsister and help her and the kids move, and my niece and her INCREDIBLY SWEET GOURMET CHEF(!!) boyfriend brought their cats up. I'll see if I can find the pics: the daddy of the family is a 19 lb. Maine Coon who probably eats cars for breakfast and evidently doesn't like ANYONE but my niece... but instantly sought to flop in my mom's lap and snooze.

And our kitties are fine, saw all three of them holding court on the front porch when we left for cafe, so in the absence of any other terrible news, life is pretty good..

Anyhow, note that I did kinda hold back on being too explicit about why today is a holiday and... I do that out of sympathy for people who didn't have it so easy. I hope y'all got through today okay. *hug*