Life has a funny way of sucking the life out of you.

For those who've been following along on the IGs, you might be aware that things have gotten real bummer life-ie in the olde Kinevil family camp as of late. The short version is my elderly parents took a little vacation, as elderly parents are wont to do, and a few days into said vacation, my mom ate shit and broke a bunch of ribs. Now, for a young buck like me, breaking ribs is just an average Tuesday, but when you're an 85 year old lady, that kinda blows mega style. So then, when my mom goes down, my dad just kinda spirals, which means we have one person who's broken physically, and then another whose cognitive function just bottoms out, and then if that wasn't enough, immediately goes into heart failure, with potential cellulitis.

So, the bright side, besides them not being alone in Egypt, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, (all of which they were planning on visiting in February), or *shudder* Texas, (which they were not)  is that my sister was with them, meaning they had an advocate, and got them into a hospital in Hilo, Hi…. But then the B squad (this guy) gets called in, which of course I'm happy to do, but the reality is that if I don't work seven days a week in some capacity, I'm going to end up homeless. This isn't an exaggeration or hyperbole. Dropping the entirety of my savings to fly to Hawaii at a moment's notice and then not work for an entire week is likely going to end real badly for me. 

This is all to say, once again I'm on bended knee asking for folks to buy stickers, or shirts, or skateboard decks, or whatever else I have in the store. 

I mean, I have about 10 grand worth of crap in there. There's gotta be something you can't live without. 

Of course I also realize we're all pretty fucked financially these days, so maybe I should just stop trying to tread water with the masses and go join a garbage eating cult.

So between spending most of my days in the hospital listening to various beeps and boops of all of the machines, (plus the sounds of construction which the hospital is currently under), advocating for my mom, and wishing the earth would just hurry the fuck up and swallow me whole already, I did get into the Pacific a few times, which felt real good to what's left of my soul;

I absolutely ravaged both of my big toes navigating the lava rock shore, but once I was in the water, I was ready to drift away to timeland.

I haven't had a vacation in about eight years, so I guess the hour I spent here is gonna have to count as what I get for a while.

Oh yeah… I also came across this clowder;

So things weren't all bad.

One day after a hospital visit, I took a three hour walk back to my accommodations and took better care of myself than I had until this point;

Oh yeah…. And I also saw a payphone;

Historically, I've not made a habit of being kind to myself in situations when someone else needs the focus of my attention, and the first few days I really put that to the test, but eventually with a helpful reminder for my sister, I leaned into being a bit less vigilant for my folks, and a little nicer to myself. 

Anyway, that's the 1000 yard stare from this perspective. It's been wake up, drink coffee, go to the hospital, wrangle Dad, go to the hotel, do something for myself, wrangle Dad, go back to the hospital, go to the hotel, sleep, wash, rinse, repeat.

I swear last weekend was ten years ago.

So as it stands, I'm still here, and time will tell when we can leave. Considering the fact that in 35 years, I've had four proper vacations (one was with my family in 1993, and it definitely wasn't super relaxing), after all of this fiasco, I'd say I'm fucking due.

And yes, I also recognize that there is a lot to be grateful for. Mom's getting better, this whole thing isn't going to bankrupt them, the people in Hilo couldn't be kinder, and it's a truly beautiful pace to be navigating all of this. We're all exhausted but I do count our blessings. 

Lastly, because I'm more or less stranded for the time being, we don't have the much anticipated 250th episode of Revolting. We tried, but apparently not hard enough, because as we've often concluded, life do sometimes be sucking.