We did our annual family camp trip last week (3 nights). It was DIVINE.

Since then... Ugh!

These are the words I wrote a couple of posts ago:
I feel like NOTHING is going to be easy about this year. *sigh*

Was emotionally exhausted between work mess/health issues/kid's mental health, etc.

That said, I guess stuff on the work front had leveled out a bit. & in particular the, "everyone is dying/seriously ill" stuff. We maybe had a quiet month.

Anyway, I came home to learn:

--My mom had fallen and had to call 9-1-1.

My dad is leaving all the month of July. Which is common (for him to be constantly traveling) but I feel odds are higher that I may have a freakout this time and may drive 100 miles at some point to make sure my mom is okay.

--My sister's health issues seem to be catching up to her.

--Long-term neighbor's 50yo daughter has terminal cancer and just a few months to live. Her 80-something parents are taking care of her in the meantime. Seemed very backwards. (Parents' neighbors ~ she was my babysitter).

--Family friend (who is a total mess) was rushed to the ER in an ambulance, due to chest pains. (He's been a complete mess, regardless. Is dying of cancer. Just more crap for him to deal with).

Oh, and it never really occurred to me anything worse could happen at work, but it did... *sigh* Returned to horrible news. Have to be cryptic for now, but trust me, was horrible. (Is more medical/black cloud stuff, though is of course affecting work situation).

I actually started to type up this post with that info. Little did I know how much worse it could get...

Since then:

MH went to LA over the weekend (which was the silver lining in all this. He has a lot of interest in his script and submitted to one movie studio. You can't submit without a referral, so will consider this a win).

We need some GOOD news!

Supposedly many others were interested and he may get other referrals in the future.

Anyway, DL has been so moody that I just decided to take him out of town this past weekend to distract him. (His mental health bottomed out with MM gone a few weeks ago, and he gets the same way when MH is gone). In the end, the weather was horribly hot and I felt my parents needed me (and their city is much cooler, weather-wise), so the reasons seem to compound. We did have a nice weekend.

--While at my parents' house, their neighbor with cancer passed suddenly.

--Monday night my mom called me to say family friend (the one rushed to the hospital last week) had fallen and no one had found him for FOUR days. HORRIBLE. He is okay, and doing well as can be considering.

--Tuesday night I Was driving home from work and someone slammed into me on the freeway. ??? I didn't see them until about a couple of seconds before they hit me. Logically, they were just hitting cars for kicks. I don't know. Or they were just driving crazy recklessly.

{I was driving full speed on the freeway and absolutely no one was in front of me. Like 5 lanes, so plenty of room to go around. They hit me so squarely it seems to be no accident}.

I didn't really have time to process, but they took off, which is probably for the best. (I can't say I would have pulled over to exchange info in that situation. I probably should have been scared out of my mind, but I didn't have time to be scared before they took off).

The whole thing was traumatic and horrible, but given the week we have had, I can keep it in perspective. If that's my "once every couple of decades" car accident, then I got off lucky.

I edited this down because of the situation. But the short version is that the other vehicle left a perfectly clear license plate imprint on my bumper, so the CHP took a report and documented the evidence. (I thought being in a big city and having no details or witnesses, that I'd probably have to filed an online report. But given the "hit and run" aspect, I called the police first, and by then had figured out I had a license plate imprint).

My first car was rear ended many many times, in my teens/20s, usually when I was not in the car. So it's a similar situation. I don't have full insurance because the vehicle is pretty old and worthless (Same as my car back then). But the damage is probably just cosmetic. Even if I can track down insurance information for the offender, I have to take care of it myself (most likely). Which has never been any big deal the many times I did this with cooperative parties. But in this case, not really sure what I am getting into and how it works. I will get the police report (will take some weeks) and check with my insurance company, etc. But I am guessing I have to take care of filing a claim with the other insurance, if they even have insurance. I am guessing we won't fix the bumper. But our mechanic also does body work and we will make sure it's safe and just cosmetic damage.

So that was my week post vacation... *sigh*