Back in action.

Before the break, I informed you that I was headed out to attend the funeral of a family friend. His viewing and services were the Tuesday and Wednesday immediately prior to Thanksgiving. When you're talking about the untimely demise of a young and seemingly healthy friend who was like family just days before a very family oriented holiday, and watching him be buried in the plot immediately above the sister you lost just over a year ago, you know it probably isn't going to be one of those holiday events that is memorable for its enjoyment, laughter and togetherness. It's far more likely that this is going down in the books for being memorable for all the wrong reasons...

Well, yeah...

So that is pretty much what we expected going in. And even those expectations were exceeded in all the wrong ways.

You see, after Cole's services, we went out to a family dinner because nobody wanted to be bothered with the effort to cook, and we knew we still had to do all the meal preparation for the traditional Thanksgiving meal that was planned before any of this transpired. We all came home from dinner. We all changed out of out mourning clothes into more comfortable attire so that we could do the meal prep in relative comfort. As we are doing the mixing, chopping, and pre-heating, suddenly the family dog starts making loud strange noises. We all go to see what is going on. The dog proceeds to have a massive hour-long seizure and expires.

Yeah... You read that right, the family dog had a massive seizure and died. Because, really, when it rains, it pours.

(I wish I could make this stuff up.)

And that was how this year, Thanksgiving became known as the "S----- Family Holiday Craptacular!"

I've been catching up on the work I missed when I left town unexpectedly to participate in the Craptacular, and I've been working on the Vegas recap for you. I haven't forgotten.

Keep it breezy.