Today, we’re going up to Knoxville for Dad’s funeral tomorrow. It’s going to be a very long day tomorrow. We have 27 family members driving and flying in from all over the country. It’ll be good to see them. I’m going to speak. I hope I do well. I hope I don’t break down in front of 1,000 people. I really do miss Dad. I just got back from my doctor and he was shocked. He gave me a bear hug, which was nice. He’s an emotional fellow.

However, Tuesday afternoon, I was driving home from Knoxville with Mom when Gretchen called. She asked if I’d left the front door open. Of course I hadn’t. She then discovered it had been demolished, smashed to smithereens by some thieves. She called the police who filed a report, but didn’t even dust for fingerprints. All they took was our 46″ RCA HDTV, a fancy surge protector, and my critically important iMac. It could have been much worse. They left the new PC, as well as Gretchen’s laptop. The cats were somewhat traumatized, especially Toby. He wouldn’t come out of Gretchen’s closet for hours and he was jumpy all night. We were pissed!!! What assholes. And I have my resume on there, my books, my RRR stuff, my work, everything. Software. I hope that when I get a new Mac, my backups will work, or I’m totally screwed. Mom called the insurance company to get the homeowner’s policy working. We should be reimbursed for the TV, the computer, some software (MS Office), and the front door. Meanwhile I had to stay up all night long to guard the house because we couldn’t close the busted door and no asshole would come install a new one! I sat up all night! A friend called me at 4 AM and we talked for an hour and a half, which was nice. Helped keep me awake. I talked with contractors and Home Depot, etc., yesterday morning and most couldn’t get to this EMERGENCY for another day or two, which wasn’t going to work for me, and the others wanted to charge like $800 plus parts. I found a contractor through Home Depot who charged me $350 for parts and labor, which is awesome. He did a good job too. I guess we won’t get a new TV or computer until next week, since we’ll be in Knoxville for Dad’s funeral for three days. Oh well. Guess we’ll read a lot. Still, we feel unsafe here. We feel violated. Gretchen wants a big dog and I want ADT — an alarm service, which statistically cuts down on breakins. We just can’t afford them right now. I may talk to Mom about it and we may get one anyway. It’s that necessary. We live in a fairly decent neighborhood, but there is so much crime here, it’s not funny. And this robbery was in broad daylight! How brazen. You’d think a neighbor would hear our door being kicked down.

So, what’s next? That’s my big question. Things come in threes. We’ve had Dad’s death last week, our house robbed this week. What’s going to happen next week? Gretchen wants to do a house cleansing. I’m not opposed to the idea, although I don’t know how helpful it would be. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers these days. It’s pretty rough.