just the facts ma'am

in lieu of the fantastic fireworks inside my head, i share with you the following factoids:

• my parents are still here. please try to contain your surprise. everyone in the household is fighting off a new throat bug that my mom seems to have somehow brought into the house. which is amazing considering she hardly goes anywhere besides her bed or a living room chair. nevertheless, she got sick first, and we are insisting on making this a family experience. the family that horks together stays together!
  
  thus, i have no idea when they are really planning to leave now. presuming my parents feel better in a few days, maybe by this weekend, assuming the weather holds. apparently i-5 has been shut down periodically (north of redding) because of snow and ice, even to vehicles with chains. not that my parents have those, of course! silly.
  
• min had an extremely bad attack (pain/cramping/nausea) around 2am last night. we nearly went to the hospital several times, but i kept plying her with different medicines and after a few hours things calmed down, and we both got back to sleep. things have been more rough the last few weeks, so not sure if we're gearing up for something worse or what. at any rate, appreciate you all keeping her health in your thoughts.
  
  and in case you wondered and i hadn't mentioned it before, there is no miracle cure for min. all that can be done is to manage, and try to keep things livable. hopefully someday, workable (that she can go back to working) but the jury's still out on that one.
  
• ok that's the news that's fit to print. hasta la de da!