Uncle dying. →[More:]You may remember when he visited us in Wisconsin and combined dementia with drunkenness and disorderly conduct.

He's been mentally better since we sent him down to his daughter in Georgia, and he even met a girlfriend in his assisted-living facility (he's 75, but a dog). No alcohol made a big difference in his overall lucidity.

I was going to post today about how my dad, his brother, had been following the same pattern of self-medication/denial through alcohol, drinking half a gallon of wine a day, and we just got him to agree to quit that for February. Even so he had a stupid thing with the programmable thermostat and almost called the furnace company at 4 a.m. today. Just as I sat down at the computer, my cousin called.

He has sepsis and is lapsing in and out of consciousness. The girlfriend is there but of questionable help. My cousin is single and her siblings are two states away (and she's had a difficult relationship with him all her life due to the divorce).

He was a good guy, helped me out when I lived in New York and he and second wife were in Jersey. In some ways, after that, I got along better with him than with my dad.

My dad and I may be flying to Georgia, anyway.

There's never a good time for something like this.