Another Week in the Can

Well, it's been more than a week... but it's in the can.

Drip by drip, I've been trying to put the living room in order and wondering why it's turning into such a headache.  I think I have been avoiding simply putting books into the bookshelves because I am not convinced everything is where it's going to be staying.  However, I did put up the curtains -- I skipped shortening them, and instead of using curtain rings I just put the rods through the pocket at the top and lo and behold, they were the correct length!  Now all that remains is to figure out some kind of fastening at the sides to hold them back when we want to open them.  The curtains make the room seem smaller and cozier, and they definitely make the air warmer.  I still may take them down and shorten them, but for now, they'll do.

I was about to make a statement regarding my employment status, but I did not want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing.

Last week I signed us up for BritBox, a streaming channel that features only British television shows.  My attention was drawn to it a few months ago when ads for a miniseries based on the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb showed up in my Facebook feed, but I didn't want to add the expense (all of seven dollars a month).  Then recently, an ad for a detective series dropped into the feed, and I made the leap -- it stars Rowan Atkinson in a serious role.  At the end of the day, if we don't use BritBox, I'll just cancel the subscription.

Yesterday I heard from my not-crazy cousin D -- that her mother is now in a nursing home and is not expected to last very long.  She's refusing to eat or drink, and is in a lot of pain.  We've decided to not tell my dad until we can't avoid doing so, partly because I don't want to upset him, and partly because my cousin doesn't want a ton of people descending on her mom at this point (Dad would tell his brother, and his brother's family would do the descending).  A day or two after Christmas, D -- and I brought her mom to see my dad in the skilled nursing center, and later D -- said to me that she believed that it had probably been the last time Dad and his sister would see each other.

It is incredibly hard to see the bedrock of your life erode because of time.