Well, Darling Ones,

It seems I’m going to blog my way through this time as my dad lays dying. I really need to document my existence right now and I do not have the mental or emotional capacity to examine the reasons at the moment.

Jodi Ann Chromey, you might be thinking, why are you not spending every remaining moment you have left with your dad?

I can’t and I won’t, that’s why. Stop being so judgey.

I can’t because my dad is not currently speaking to the remaining members of the Sister Club. He stopped talking to us around Father’s Day because he blames us for Sister #3’s estrangement.

We had a long discussion about it when Sisters #2 & #4 were here in early June. He did not like how that conversation went.

So it goes. I’m okay with that being the last time I saw or spoke to him. He left on good terms, only growing angry a few days later as he processed everything. I can rest easy knowing the last thing I said to him was, “I love you. Have a good night.”

I won’t see him because I do not deal well with witnessing the end of life. It upsets me to the point where I cannot hide how sad and freaked out I am, which makes the other people in the room try to comfort me. It’s a bad situation. They have better things do in that moment than tend to a crybaby. And it’s wasted effort because there is no comfort in those moments.

I know this because I accidentally ended up in the room when my Grammu took her last breath. It sucked. Do not want to do that again.

This is why I have so much time to work, blog, and fixate on the brain weasels.

Brain weasels are whatever stupid, inconsequential thing my brain decides I must do lest I be a complete failure of a human.

Before I get to today’s brain weasels, I need to say a few things about weasels in general.

1. In college we used the term Greasy Weasel to label dudes who were kinda shifty. That guy who mansplained Pearl Jam and their lack of longevity to me in 1994? Greasy Weasel. Kevin, that short cross country dude who went on to become a cop? Total Greasy Weasel.
2. Despite this whenever I hear the term weasel without the greasy adjective I think of Pauly Shore. I spent a lot of the early-90s loving The Weas. So much so I saw “Encino Man” in the theaters.
3. I’ve been singing The Weasel Song from Bob’s Burgers all day.

Anyway, today’s brain weasel is making a bunch of food and freezing it so we don’t starve once my dad dies. The Midwestern Old Lady in me is strong. It’s taking all my self-control not to pop a tater-tot hotdish into the oven. I am going to allow myself to make chicken stock this weekend and probably a Cuban pork roast. I have about seventeen pound of pork shoulder in my freezer right now. I won’t explain why because it’s stupid.

Your not-so-greasy (I showered today) weasel,
Jodi