I was taking my daughter to get her stitches out and I was going to meet her at her house at 9:30 and pick her up and a while before that she called and said there was no power at the daycare so we had to take her three-year-old with us, so. We took her along and she was really worried about her mom. She goes, “Mommy doesn't feel good, Mommy doesn't feel good." I’m like, “I know, the doctor’s gonna make her better.” So we, it was kind of interesting, just the whole -- she was really kind of interested in meeting my daughter's doctor and just seeing what that was all about. So, it was a really, it was a great experience and I actually was -- it worked out really well. And then because she didn't have daycare, I brought her back to my house and we had a wonderful time. Surprise time! So she -- I had a keyboard out and she played with that for quite a while. And then her favorite things, her favorite thing is the dollhouse that my dad built. And then but he also built a bunch of little high chairs and just doll size, teddy bear size, furniture. So she brought all that out. And then all the bears, the stuffed animals she had brought and then we found a couple other ones and it was -- so she had one squirrel and about five different bears, all in different chairs and different seating things around. And she told me that they were in timeout. So, I'm like, “Well, which one was the naughtiest?” And she said, “It was Squirrel.” And it's funny because they call her -- her mom and dad call her Squirrel. So I think that was, I think that was maybe a little bit of thinking that, you know, she would like to get, do some naughty things sometimes too. So yeah, all the bears were in timeout for quite a while.

It was great to see my mom, it was great to see my brother. And, um, my mom has these idiosyncrasies that I feel like I'm starting -- I think they've always been there, but sometimes I think as -- one of those interesting things to watch is to witness how maybe some of those idiosyncrasies begin increasing in intensity as people get older sometimes. And finding that line between like, "Oh yeah, that's just my mom being weird," and also wondering like, alright but at what point is this too weird? I’ll give you an example. She has a stove that she bought brand-new probably five years ago. She has a dishwasher she bought brand-new 10 years ago. She has a sink that she bought brand-new 15 years ago. And she doesn't let anyone use any of the three, and she doesn't really use them either. And I know you're saying that, "Well, that's obviously not true." But for instance, my brother's wife got my mom a really cute tea kettle within the past couple of years. And while we're there yesterday, she told my brother, she's like, "Let your wife know that I'm using the new tea kettle. Look, here it is. I’m, you know, using it every day!" And you're like, "Oh, see, she's using the stove." No, she's not. She has a separate electric griddle or grill, heating element that she plugs in that she bought somewhere. And she cooks on that so she does not have to use the actual stove. The actual stove is just a monument, not to be used for anything. Or the burners. And anything she needs to actually use a burner for, she has a separate thing that she probably bought at Goodwill that she uses for her cooking. She told me the dishwasher's been used three times, and she's not a great hand washer so like it creates a weird situation when you're eating something there. And then the sink, she would just prefer that we don't use at all. She'll take care of any water or whatever and then she'll immediately wipe it out when done. And you hear that and you have to be like, “Oh okay that's, that's certainly something.” But then you're in a place of like, what do you do to – do you just let bygones be bygones and say alright, my mom's…

I have a soda addiction, a specific brand, that I've drank my whole life. Like, I have to have it in the house. It is very rare that I go a single day without having at least a can. Um, and that's not -- it's usually because I just can't get to the store. It's not 'cause I don't, like -- I put aside money to get it. Um. And so... There's this one day, where I, like... I, I had some at home still, and I was just going to the store to get a few things. But they had a really good sale on it... and it was 12-packs, you get -- had to get three of them. And because I’d only planned on getting a few things, I just had a basket of stuff. And so, I'm like, well, I don't want to go all the way to the front and get a cart just to get these things. I will take three 12-packs and stack them, along with my basket and check out --- and like, the soda section is relatively close to check out, so it was whatever, I was like, “Oh, you know, I'll carry it and check out.” And I did that successfully. And I put the basket back... on my way out the door, and I was like, "I don't... I don't really want to carry this in front of me like a pregnant woman. I think I can, I think I'll just hook one finger into one 12-pack, any the other finger in the other 12-pack on one hand, and then I'll carry my bag and the other 12-pack on the other hand." And, uh, you know, I'm hypermobile, and I'm really not that strong, and I should have known. I should have known. I felt it slipping as I'm heading out the door. And wouldn't you know it, my effort to try to hike my fingers back into the 12-packs ripped both of them. And so I had a bunch of cans of soda, all over the entryway of the store. Thank goodness none of them, like, split open. Like, that would have been just the cherry on top of public humiliation because like it was like a busy summer day. There are people everywhere watching this happen. And I... what I ended up doing is grabbing a small cart…

One of the questions this week asked, as always, if there is a headline that stuck out to us this week. Well, the headline that sticks out to me is one I just saw on WDIV Channel 4 Detroit, which is... there is a little bit of a phenomenon happening where people are sitting in their cars longer and longer and longer, whether it's sitting in front of their house, not going in for sometimes upwards of an hour, or whether it's driving to parking lots, or just pulling over somewhere and sitting there for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. And the reason that headline struck me as so odd... is because my sister -- I had just -- this is funny. I just called my sister and I said, "Hey, what are you doing?" And she said, she said to me, "Hey what are YOU doing?" And I said, I said, "I'm just sitting in the Meijer parking lot. What are you doin'?" And she asked which one, and I told her which one, and she said, "Oh, I'm over at the other one sitting in the parking lot. Just doin' a lot of parking lot sitting today, aren't we?" So, I guess we are. You know, and what the article was saying, is that so many people are going at a hundred all the time. Whether it's physically, mentally, whatever, we're just non-stop in our heads, in our bodies. So, a lot of people, when they get home, before they go into their house, whether they live with people and they need a moment before it's time to face the wife and kids, or whether they live alone and they just need a moment to decompress in that car, before they walk inside and see the dishes that need to be done, and the pile of laundry waiting for them, you know? And the parking lot thing is because so many of us don't feel safe at home. Either you know, we're in shared living situations because income issues are so tight, or people are in unhappy marriages, or people are just mamas running from the kids 'cause they feel like they haven't got to breathe since the kids were born, whatever the case may be, people are pulling over in parking lots and just sitting there checking their emails, scrolling their phones, calling people, talking, you…