It would be interesting to see what might happen if homeless people were considered a protected class in the US.

By whatever mechanism. It's a thought exercise; just go with it.

I'm heading over there tomorrow with some photos & my SO & maybe a wreath to hang on her door.

& she's not moving out, even if she wants to. She can't be by herself, dad can't take care of her, & he has POA. So it's a done deal.

Good news is the dogs can visit her. The facility has a policy that you can bring pets for a visit, so long as you provide the front office with a vaccination record. So mom can't sleep with the dogs, but will get to see them sometimes.

Sibling & niblings visited her yesterday, & apparently it went well. She's feeling better, bit by bit. & she'll probably relapse, have times when she's fine & times when she's miserable, as she adjusts. & maybe she'll never adjust 100%, but as long as she's safe & mostly content, that's all we can ask for.

But I'm pretty sure she does or will miss dad too, because he's been her main security & rock for certainly the last few years, not to mention much of their lives together. Of COURSE she's going to break down.

Totally makes sense tho'. She's moving into a new place, & moves suck ass already anyway, & now she can't sleep in the same bed as dad & their dogs anymore.

She especially misses the dogs. Which I think is kind of funny, since she didn't mention missing *dad*...

Mom spent her first night in memory care a couple of nights ago. It didn't go well. She panicked when it was time for dad to leave, & broke down completely.

Apparently this is normal, & it was a detail we (the family) didn't really grasp until it happened.

I tellya, r/weeviltime is giving me life right now.

@KazzyH That's so awful. I hope you're better, I hope that boy got the care he needed, & holy smeg do we seriously need some solid accessible mental health care in this feckin' country, I tellya...

Sometimes something big happens, & your world is never the same again. Not just your world, but the *entire* world. Like the Titanic sinking, which led to massive overhauls of shipping safety regulations, many in place to this day. Or the shuttle Challenger disaster, which traumatized a generation of schoolchildren. Or 9/11, which... Jeezus, where to start?

We finished up, somber. At the beginning they gave us tickets with names on them, who we were supposed to "be" during the visit. We looked at the wall of passengers & crew at the end & I think we both got lucky & "survived".

Four days later, two airliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers in New York, & the world was never the same again.

Another: listening to the soundtrack they provided to attendees as we passed through the section of the exhibit that was about the engineering section, and hearing the sound of a massive rush of water - just what the men in the boiler rooms would've heard at the time. That hit us both.

Another: encountering The Big Piece & seeing a fraction of just how massive the ship was. https://www.titanicconnections.com/the-big-piece/

I remember a couple of moments distinctly: rounding a corner to a display case with a clarinet in it, fully assembled. I played clarinet in my youth, & to be confronted with the instrument recovered from the wreck made my stomach fall: who was the player? Did they make it? Were they one of the band members, maybe? Were they playing the instrument as the ship sank?

Many years ago, the Titanic exhibit came to my hometown, & because we're both into creepy shit, my mom & I went to see it. I had mixed feelings about it at the time - the ship is a grave; would it be respectful? Turns out it was actually pretty awesome: very well put together, told the story of both ship & people, & was highly immersive at some points.

I have a thing for shipwrecks. Dunno what it is. I love ghosts, cemeteries, shipwrecks, & mysteries of all kinds. I'm not into cryptids & I don't believe in the supernatural for a cold minute, & I seriously love me a good story of a shipwreck discovery & the creepy-ass footage collected from side-scan sonar & underwater photography.

The psych units in the local hospitals were overflowing with patients, many of them children, during the pandemic. People who were already strained to breaking point & psychologically vulnerable, well - they broke. They couldn't fucking deal with the insanity of how the pandemic *wasn't* handled, & didn't have resources to help them.

The US doesn't really have good psych resources across the board anyway.

The youngest nibling dealt with a kid flipping out in class this past Friday, throwing a desk & clocking another kid.

Among other things we've spent the past 3 years completely failing children & families.

It's the first week of school & already my older niblings' high school has been locked down twice because someone brought a firearm on campus.

This is education in America now.

@FireMonkey Yeah the whole bed will need it, at least initially. Next year will be first planting year so will be very thirsty.