Random

I was remiss in not tracking which siblings of my mother are the evil ones (versus just arrogant or other things). Growing up, the evil ones ran the whole program, so more or less all of them became part of it from supporting it. The sister who came to help her clear up her apartment was the or one of the evil ones, and even with all of the siblings running around, this was not communicated to me. It's frustrating that they're all now clapping themselves on the back for reforming themselves but aren't putting the evil sibling in check. This kinda still amounts to enabling. You can't tell me you're one of the good siblings while you're giving cover to the bad one/ones. From being busy, in part from compressing my schedule to avoid this, I figured things out too late and I'm now kicking myself for not really pulling my mother aside early and really checking in. I figured if this woman was invited in, it must be ok, but I did zero double checking on that. Just one chunk of this is my mother being a bit neuro-atypical is all of the excuse this sibling needs to do absolutely everything she can to try to deny her agency. My mother's advanced level masking came about in a previous case of people taking away her agency. One short week ago I was basically not around humans.

My father has aged a lot and now looks like an old man. He has Nicola Tesla style relationships with animals including now a bird friend. A lot fewer cats. Didn't ask what happened. I think he may not know what happens to animals dropped off at "shelters", which he was talking about doing with some outside cats. I don't know if knowing would crush him and if he has been doing that.

Half brother, his wife, and family was a wonderful visit. Good beer, wine, and board games were had. Got to chat on the drive to visit my father. Iowa drivers have this idea that if they do their maneuvers slowly, they don't need to look, so no less than three times I/we were badly cut off. You just have to slow way down and be ready to yield to any other car you see, even if you're on a highway with a 65mph speed limit and you see a truck approaching from a farm road. Turning your head to look for oncoming traffic is not a thing. I didn't get pulled over for a cooked up traffic violation this time but one Iowa state trooper who had another car with out-of-state plates pulled over got distracted from that and gave me the eagle eye as we drove by at exactly the speed limit. Maybe part of the reason I hate the east so much is having wanted to, then to some degree managing to, escape that kind of Ya'll Aren't From Around Here Are Ya xenophobia (yeah actually I am ya shitbag and unlike you I'm not proud of it because all of the people like you are an embarrassment).

Parts of Iowa are beautiful. We checked out the Lewis and Clark boat, or very likely, one of them. It's outside and needs varnish. It's on a very large, heavy trailer but is still inadequately supported and sagging. You could tow it away if you had a large truck. Other large models are inside. I'm told the Lewis and Clark boat was just moored in the small lake they moved it to, which incidentally was one of the lakes my father took my brother and I to swim in when we were young. The large museum/lodge building was closed unless you got a code from booking somehow. The informational plaques give you Wikipedia style info about Luis and Clark but don't answer any of the questions people looking at this exhibit would naturally have. All of this seems poorly thought out, but that's the pattern for Iowa. And if you go there with out of state plates and they don't already have someone else with out of states plates pulled over, they'll find a reason to pull you over and search your car.

Need to give my father the same treatment my mother is getting, of the Swedish Death Cleaning. He has requested it a few times now.

Edit: Got back in to MN at 1am. LM was wired and we talked until 3:30am. She does this every time, and this is so incredibly my ADHD friend's stichk.