2:41 AM, 10th November, 2014

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that my sister-in-law passed away on November 10th.  She died peacefully - I saw her breathe her last breath, open her eyes, and then, just... never take another one, from the same exact chair I am sitting in to write this post, 12 days later.

She fought so diligently and so hard, for so long, even though she really only had a short time. Her cancer proved to be super-aggressive, and ... towards the end, there wasn't much we could do for her but keep her comfortable, and wait.

That last Sunday was horrible, with last rites, and a house full of family - hers and ours, and theirs - and her being unresponsive by dinnertime. 

That morning, early - like 4:30 in the morning, early - I smelled the sharp scent of urine, and had to feel to see if she'd wet the bed (mostly because, at this point, she was sweating through her clothes so much that she was almost always damp). It was her first bout of incontinence, and - although I knew it boded ill, I did not realize how quickly things would go downhill from there.  I had to wake my brother up to help me change the sheets, and then she took her pain meds and went back to sleep.

A few hours later, she'd woken up in extreme pain, couldn't seem to settle at all. Just kept shifting from one end of the bed to the next, every 5 minutes or so.  She took more pain meds, but was just super uncomfortable and couldn't find a spot that worked for her. She told me her pain was 10/10 and she was crying, almost incoherent.

I woke my brother up again - from the couch this time - and he called the hospice nurse. Who came and different meds were administered, and we - the nurse and I resettled her on the couch, to try to help her find a way to sit with less pain while she waited for the meds to kick in.

It was during this transition that she was last semi-lucid, at least in my presence, and as I sat her down on the couch after yet another 'I'm so uncomfortable, I just need to move' attempt on her part (wordless, though - that's just the impression I got), she leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

I don't know if she knew who I was then. I don't know if she meant that for me, and I feel guilty that I was the person who got her last kiss. I haven't told anyone in our family that she did it, I don't think (although ... things were pretty intense there for a while last week, so I may have told one of my sisters without thinking about it), but it felt like a "Thank you" and a blessing and - now, knowing it was her last, and she didn't get to give it to my brother or their kids, or even her sister who showed up moments later? Almost a torment.  I still feel gifted by it, always will, but it hurts my heart so much that she's not here to give out anymore.

Shortly after that, her sister came, a family friend who is an actual nurse and knows what the hell she is doing (as opposed to me, who just spent weeks caring for someone I loved and watching them slip away, AGAIN, but was just doing my best and making it up as I went along, and following directions) also arrived, and I moved into a much more peripheral role.

She continued to get worse and worse, becoming unresponsive to everything besides pain, relatively quickly (within a few hours). I let my brother and her sister, and the nurses, be in charge of what they could be in charge of, and I made sure the kids got fed and my parents & sisters got called, and that her sister knew she needed to call her parents and brothers as well. I learned all about the new, liquid meds from the hospice nurse, and gave doses of morphine and ativan and hyamax as the day wore on.

I called the priest, and the funeral home, and the priest again. (And we all know how much I hate making phone calls). We cried, and waited, and held hands, and helped the kids. Gave them a chance to say goodbye, then let the little one curl up into my lap and sob when she walked away. Watched her big brother comfort my big brother as they both sat in tears by my sister-in-law, SisterNc's side.

Watched as her nieces and nephews filtered in and out. Approved as my sister and her husband ordered a regiment's worth of pizzas and made sure everybody got fed. Comforted and cried, and just sat around rubbing smooth patterns into backs, and backs of hands, and anywhere I could reach, really.

Later, her parents and brothers, and my dad and sisters, all cleared out.  We were down to my mom, her sister, the family friend who is a nurse, my brother and I, and a friend who had known them both since the moment they met, some 16 years ago.  Around midnight, it seemed to get dramatically worse, and the med levels increased and the hospice nurse came out again and told us "a matter of hours."

About 2:30, my brother and her sister both decide to go upstairs to get some rest. The nurse-friend, the work-friend and I are sitting in the living room, my mom has snuck outside to get a cigarette.

A quick text from my brother asking me to bump the heat up because it's freezing upstairs, @ 2:37. As I settle back into my chair, I glance over at Nancy, see her breathing is very strange, but I check the book and it is nowhere near time for more meds. So I sit down, and the work friend says to me that she gets an inspirational text every day on her cell phone and starts to read it to me. It says something about "new pathways and being open to new challenges," And that's when I see SisterNc's eyes open, and I notice that she hasn't taken her next breath.

The nurse-friend has noticed too, and is getting up, checking on her, fussing with her. We both know - I can see she knows - that there is no reason to fuss.

It is 2:41 am, on Monday, November the 10th, 2014, and my only sister-in-law, the beloved wife of my brother and mother to two of my favorite people in the entire world, the only sister I ever made instead of came with, has died.

I send my brother a text that reads "you need to come back down, honey", and he must know. He wakes her sister up and doesn't bomb down the stairs. Takes each step, heavily, I can hear it even now. They are both crying as soon as they see us. As soon as they see her.

My mother comes in from the kitchen, seeing us, and begins crying too.

And that was her last day, her last actions, her last minutes, to the best of my recollection. I do not want that kind of thing to be forgotten, even if I am the only one who remembers it.

The past twelve days have been torturous for my brother, and difficult for his children, and so heartbreaking for all of us. I don't know how to help any more than I am, but I fear that it will not be enough.

I am - we all are - doing the best we can.

But it's hard to keep swimming with a broken heart, and hard to hold the pieces together while you wait for even the tiniest bit of it to heal.

"Some heavy ammunition on your side..."

Just before Christmas, when everything was going berserk with Grandmother (again) and me (as usual) and Mom (which was new) and all the usual December craziness (birthdays and shopping and Christmas and doctors, oh my), something happened that hasn't happened to me in a long time, and I've been trying to write about it since, but the words didn't come till now. 

I hope getting it out there will stop making it so important in my mind.  I write about everything here, so (even though it feels raw still) it'll be worth saying it 'out loud', as it were.

 ----
Mom & I were driving out to see Grandmother at the rehab (like we were doing every day at that point), and I'd spent the morning chopping up all the ingredients for beef stew and thrown them in the crock pot and turned it on low before we left. And I'm sitting in the car and mom makes some random comment about leaving things on and fires, and blah blah blah, and instead of just being a piece of our normal everyday conversation, it was like SPARK! and that tiny little off-hand remark managed to ignite an instant fire in my brain. 

Immediately I started to worry about the crock pot, to reanalyze ever step I'd taken in making the stew - had I really turned it on low, or had I set it to high and it would burn the meat so quickly that it would catch fire?  Was it safe to turn it on and leave the house at any setting?  Have we ever done this before, even though I read about it all the time on the internet, that people make crock pot stuff and then go to work with it cooking, have we ever personally tried it before?  Are we too far from the house to go back and turn it off? Just a constant stampede of 'could I be setting the house of fire' thoughts tumbling around in my brain, while I'm attempting to still chat with mom and seem like everything is ok.  

Meanwhile, I know that what I'm worrying about is stupid: We leave all sorts of things - computers, cable boxes, the fridge, the dryer - on at home by themselves all the time.  Nothing has ever happened, nothing is going to happen.  House fires are rare, and I was careful and made sure the crock pot wasn't near anything and was on low, and I know all of this, and yet, I can't stop worrying.  Some fifteen minutes later, it's still in my brain, still rolling around in there, maybe even picking up speed, because it's loud enough now that I've said it out loud, trying to make it seem casual, trying to act like we're still joking.  Ha ha! we laugh, as I say "but that wouldn't really happen, right?" Big laughs all around.


Still, 25 minutes into the ride, and now I've been muttering about it and obsessing about it for our entire ride, and my next deliberately casual "It's not dangerous to have left that cooking, right?" pops out of my mouth and  Mom says sharply "Oh my god: just let it go already!"  Which is the normal response, if a person is just being stupid about something, and it's driving you crazy.  But this wasn't just normal "oh, gee: random thought - let's giggle about this some more!" comment.


Nope, by this point I was full steam ahead into my first real anxiety attack in years.

I've had minor ones here and there - during other people's drunken fights, mostly, when I would swear some sort of PTSD part of my brain kicks in and I have to excuse myself from the tension of the current screaming match to go throw up before I can wade into things (either as peacekeeper or firebrand).  Sometimes just the sound of the cork popping out of the wine bottle in the kitchen is enough to have my shoulders creeping upwards with tension.  But for the most part, I've managed them, and managed to avoid them (which is even better).  I wouldn't even say that anxiety is one of my top 20 CFIDS symptoms, probably because I was never not a slightly apprehensive person: it's just part of my genetic make up, I'm afraid.

But these huge panic attacks - of which I've (thankfully) only had about 6  - these huge, really full blown, tornado brain of worry, hold your shit together or you'll lose it monstrosities.   When those mothers come, it's so frightening, because you know you don't have to be worrying about the thing, or that worrying about it won't help the situation at all, but you just can't stop yourself.  Your brain is a runaway worry train, and you're just along for the ride.

So she snaps at me, semi-facetiously, and I burst into tears.  'It doesn't help,' I tell her 'to tell me that the thing I'm worrying about is stupid.  I KNOW IT'S STUPID.  Now I just feel even more anxious because I'm ashamed that I'm freaking out over something so dumb."

But here's the thing that people who don't have anxiety don't get.  To people without panic attacks (those lucky bastards), it's just like regular worry: "Oh I feel like maybe that wasn't the best choice," but it's not a big deal, because Oh well, shrug.  People will worry.  It happens.  I'm a champion worrier, and that's not what a panic attack is - for me at least.  Worry is one thing, panic attack is a whole 'nother level of worry, combined with an astronomical confidence level - confidence in the truth of the fear, that is.

A panic attack is not just dread, but certainty.  It is an absolute conviction of doom.   I may know full well that whatever has set this off is  a ridiculous thing to be worried about, but I am still 1000% sure in my gut that it doesn't matter that the odds are astronomical that something could go wrong: something is telling me that it's not right, so it must be so.  Something is warning me to fix the situation, and I'm not heeding the warning, and that goes against every instinct you have.  In this case, all the signs are all pointing to the idea that the house will have burned down by the time we get home, and I'm supposed to blithely ignore that and continue on with our day as if nothing is wrong?  Impossible: it feels WRONG. 

That's when the logical part of my brain shrinks down to nothing, and instead I remember all those news stories about people who 'listened to their gut' and saved their families.  Or I replay all the times my feeling that something wasn't right was an accurate representation of the situation, and try to convince myself that this time it's ok to ignore all the DANGERDANGERDANGER signals my brain is trying to send me.

I dripped tears for the remainder of our ride, playing the tapes in my head that I know work to calm me: 'This is just a panic attack, it will pass.  This is SO not about the beef stew chica: you're life is feeling more than a little bit out of control right now, don't ya think?  Let's just ride this one out, and things will get better.  You are not psychic, and the house is not burning down while you ignore all the warning signs - this is not a real threat.'  But because it feels like a real threat, it takes me the whole ride to calm down.


I'm not shaking by the time we get to the rehab, but I'm still so ashamed - of the panic attack; of the tears, of not handling things like a grown up and instead breaking down into something useless; of the fact that I've broken a streak of panic! attack! free! years! over something so ridiculous - that we cut short our visit and go home relatively early.  I know that this is mom's way of apologizing for snapping at me (which, was nice but I'm not sure it was necessary), and reassuring me all at once. 


We arrive home to stew - nothing more.  Once I calmed down enough, 99% of me was sure that was all we'd find.  But the whole ride home, there's that one percent, that one embarrassed, fear-soaked percent, that's trying to get me ready to deal with the fact that I've failed to save all of our worldly possessions, just because I didn't trust myself enough to say "let's go home and I'll shut that off, and then we'll go."  And because of that one measly percent, I'm not reassured, because once that panic genie is out of the bottle, I don't know if I'll be able to stopper him up again.
 -----


That's why it took me five months to write this post: because god forbid that I tried to tap back into that feeling enough to write about it, and it exploded all over me again.  I had to be sure enough of where I was, emotionally, to write about that, and even that feels like a weakness to me: to be so scared of remembering how scared I was?  Panic attacks are ridiculous.  

And I was right, about the genie part - I've felt him trying to creep up on me a few times since, but I'm better at recognizing it than I used to be, so I've been cutting them off before the fear can blossom on me (for the most part).  And some pretty stressful shit has gone down since then, so I'm feeling like I've got a handle on managing it right now, which is good.

Because the next time I let something out of a bottle, it better be granting wishes, not paralyzing me with fear.  (Look: wish number one is all ready!)

   

It was strange: There was a perverse comfort in inertia.*

So I'm having a bit of a hard time lately, and I'll tell you, it is not becoming. It's one of those times when there's a lot of stuff just underneath , and you spend a lot of your time (or at least I do), measuring your words and acts carefully, because you're sure that what's underneath could come bursting through at any moment, and that it would not be a good thing if that happened.

Some of the underneath stuff is not my own, just mine to figure out how to navigate - all of that fun (and incredibly high-pressure, fast-paced) stuff related to putting together a wedding with a bride who has a bit of difficulty making choices (and then sticking with them); the trying to incorporate the opinions of everysingleperson ever, apparently; and two sisters with a tentative truce and a still rocky understanding of each other who are trying to collaborate on about 400 different aspects of a wedding in a little over a month. So there's that.

And then there's all my under the surface stuff, like the fact that Soon-to-be Sister-in-law sort of decided that it wasn't worth it to bring the kids up here anymore, only she didn't come right out and say that so I'd get up in the morning expecting them and instead find a text saying no one was coming. Although we've renegotiated for the summer, and she told SisterJ that she did it because she thought bringing them up here was burdening us, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth and the feeling that all the effort and time I spend with the kids (because I want to!) is not really worth all that much to her, while here I thought I was helping to raise them for the past eleven years. I guess I am more hurt by that then I let on, even though I know she didn't mean to hurt my feelings, and that - in general - they both appreciate the time we watch the kids.


And, of course LilGirl will be starting kindergarten in the fall, so that means our twice a week commitment with her will be ending anyways, so I was trying to pack as much fun stuff into the summer as I could, because once school starts, we're all weekend sleepovers, and that's just not as much time. LilGirl is not the only one disappearing come the fall - SisterK will be in Iowa to go to grad school in August (right after the wedding), and has been off gallivanting on trips to England and Vermont since she graduated so that I have barely seen her.

I have an uncle, who I am not very close to but still love, who is suffering from cancer and seems unlikely to make it to through the summer, and it also seems highly unlikely that I will get anybody to go up to where he lives with me, (and once there, I'm pretty sure I can't make it into his antique cabin because of stairs). Hell, I can't even get people to walk next door for me to deliver a pie I spent three hours baking (squeezing lemons is not in my skill set), which is another issue simmering underneath everything else. It also turns out that I am eligible for yet another social service program, which might change both my financial contributions to the house and the responsibilities that my mom would have when it comes to helping me out. Unfortunately, our current working relationship is not working out as it is, mostly because she's not been in the best health either (physically or mentally), and it is making it so that I don't always get the help I need. Having this between us, when we are so close, is hurtful, because I wind up feeling both resentful - not that she's not well enough to do something, but that she insists she is and then it doesn't get done - and trapped - we depend on the money my mom makes as my PCA, so if I try to give some of her hours to someone else who could do some of the less personal, errand running type stuff, then I'm taking away money that our family needs; and I assume that she feels pressured and misunderstood, because I am just not ok with the things that are getting left behind. It's very stressful, as you can imagine.

Along with that are some new health issues - not setbacks, exactly, but issues - that have kind of shocked me, and left me unsure of what to do next. It is likely that my body (jokester that it is) is just playing tricks on me, but either way, it's starting to seriously complicate matters, and that is not appreciated. Not to mention, although I hate hate hate the analogy of the biological clock, that certain ticking numbers, including my age and hormone levels (never mind my single & sick status), are making me wish I'd gotten knocked up at fifteen, before I got sick, so that I wouldn't have to worry about it maybe never happening now. (And even just typing that makes me literally sick to my stomach, which is why I am avoiding thinking about it as much as possible.) And of course, every one I know is pregnant. (Well, two cousins, two friends, a zillion bloggers - it just feels like everybody.)

And, if you've been here any length of time, you know that when I'm avoiding things, I take up residence solely inside my own head. Where I can either choose to zombie out - play a few "click a lot and blow things up" games, reread a series full of happy endings, Facebook stalk - or swim in the muddle and try to salvage some sense. Can you guess which choice I have been making lately? If I told you that the Bridgertons are doing just as well as they were the last time I read their books, and that I have a new high score on Big Money, would that help you out at all?

Yes, I've been zombie-ing out, which includes, of course, letting the blog fall semi-silent because "what the hell am I going to say that makes any sense to anybody?" But, as is often the case, it just took me a while to get things into place, just enough, that I could write about them some. So here's some of the stuff that's floating around underneath for me, thanks for letting me vent a bit.

I promise tomorrow's post will be full of ... something else. Hopefully a good something else. :) Have a great weekend you guys.

*Jeremy Groopman, The Anatomy of Hope

I can't get anything done today

although... that's not actually true. I have done some things, just not the things I should've done. This is not exactly a surprise, as generally what I plan to do on any given day doesn't really wind up being what I do on those particular days. Usually through no fault of my own.

Today was supposed to be a Lil Girl day, but Lil Girl's mother called this morning and said she wasn't coming. She's fine; STB-Sister-in-law just would like to change our days of the week.

Umm... what?

It's not so much that we can't change our days, it's how about asking? How about having a conversation about it? Since, you know, it's something that we're doing that's helpful to you (and extremely joyful and great for us, but still demanding), how about having the courtesy of letting us know before a half an hour before you're supposed to show up? And... just, I don't know: I may just be making more of it than is necessary, but it really feels pretty shitty to be taken for granted.

So, right now, I'm supposed to be writing an e-mail to STB-Sister-in-law, to have our discussion about the changes: the why, the details, the how it can't start tomorrow because I've got an appointment with Zach, etc., and instead I'm ranting a little bit here, because I'm afraid if I write the e-mail right now it'll say something like "I've been doing my very best to help you raise your kids for the past 8 years, and it's brought me more joy than I've ever known. It's also been extremely difficult at times - especially health wise - and, on a lot of occasions, I've done more than I should have, more than was smart, or healthy, for me, and I've done it (sometimes even against doctors' advice) because I love and care about them, and you, and my brother and because it's important to me to be the best aunt possible. I'm not looking for special thanks, or big cheers; but I don't really think it's out of line to expect just the tiniest bit of consideration in return."

Which I don't really want to say, because it sounds horrible. And it says more than it should (I don't really care if the doctors tell me I should do less: it's not as if I'm going to listen to them anyways... they don't know anything), and it feels more mean spirited just reading it back to myself than it did just writing it. So, yes, it blows the whole thing out of proportion, and yes, I'm glad I could rant a little here, so I didn't just blurt it out to her.

But seriously, people? Just because I want to help doesn't mean you can walk all over me. Assuming I'll just fall in line isn't really fair to me (or Mum, whose POV I totally didn't even write about here, but also just pisses me off even more so now I'll have to calm down again), and it would be nice if I didn't have to point that out to you.

End Rant.

Deep Breath.

Grr.

Never let it be said that I don't keep my promises...

when I can.

So, here's some of the Getting Ready batch:

(I wish I had the professional pix, but I still don't... SisterJ is being flimsy with the sharing here, cuz she wants to make sure people see them with her first.)

So: Here's SisterJ at midnight, first picture on her actual wedding day.


And then SisterCh, protecting her hair (did you know "Up-dos stick better to dirty hair?" It's just one of the interesting things I've learned from this wedding), as she finally gets into the shower.


SisterK's hair looked like those ribbon candies, after it was all curled. I was jealous.




And petrified that I'd have to go with like a ponytail, because with an hour left to the wedding, Naomi, the woman who came to do our hair, still had 3 people left, including me. I kept trying to do the "As long as the bride looks good it'll be fine" mantra, but I was freaking out a little inside. Luckily, she zipped right through us final three. :sigh:

Here's 3/5 sisters getting what they could of their make-up on:



SisterJ is the one who knows how to do make-up and stuff. Which kinda sucked for her, as the bride spend some of her day putting on other people's make-up, but she seemed ok with it, since we all came out fancy-dancy.




Which isn't to say that she didn't get pampered a bit too:




Here she is hugging the Best Man, Kev's cousin, who dropped off a little note and present from the groom:


Which were some dazzling diamond & pearl earrings...



and you'll see just how gorgeous they look on, in the next little piece of this.

Hello My Lovelies!

Laptop is still being uncooperative, but I managed to get back here again, so I thought I'd check in.

I wanted to tell you how the shower went last Saturday, in case you were waiting with baited breath.

Honestly? It went rather well... my co-hostesses were a bit lax in the whole "you have to introduce yourself to people" arena, but other than that, and a mini-post crash, I think things went awesome.

SisterJ and her fiance seemed a little bit surprised (although I'm not entirely sure they were), and most importantly, everybody had fun. So that's good.

How about some photographic proof of said fun? I thought you might like that...

Here we are in the car... I'm taking pictures because we're running late. AGAIN. And I'm trying not to go crazy. (I am an early bird, in a family of never-on-time-s.) That's Sister Y, Oldest Nephew, & Sister Ch...



Lil Girl, hiding for the chance to say 'surprise;'

Here are the soon to be Mr. & Mrs. playing a who knows who best game:

Can you guess who's winning?




Then there were some presents:





We did cake smooshing, because Sister J is VERY MUCH OPPOSED to doing it at the wedding...




Which turns out to be a good thing.


There's a few more still to come, but overall, I thought it went really well! (Note to self, however: if you're planning on playing games, bring pencils. Don't leave them on your desk.)

(You can click on over to my Flickr Stream to see more: if we're not friends, let's be!)

I'm definitely not GIDDY,

but today's Thursday Theme is. So I searched through some of my photo archives, and came up with some pictures of giddiness. Here's the one that made me smile the most.

It's Youngest Nephew, his mum (Soon-to-be SIL), SisterCh & our Mum, New Years 2005...



They've just finished a puzzle. Seriously, who can get that excited about a puzzle? I do not like puzzles. At all... it's a huuuge waste of time to me. To each his own, I guess.. and seeing as how it was Mum's birthday - and puzzles are in her list of favorite things to do, it was nice that she found some people to play with her.

After some ridiculous testing on Thursday and Friday, some ridiculous feeling sorry for myself & some very kind, thoughtful, surprising and not ridiculous packages that showed up at my door, I managed to keep a promise to Youngest Nephew Friday night, and we had ourselves a sleepover before school starts up again.

And I realized that the craziness of the hours we've watched them this summer (long, strenuous and exhausting for me) have been worth it. Because he's still my special boy, and when he's not here I miss him so much it hurts to breathe sometimes.

I also realize that admitting it 'out loud' makes me uncomfortable, because I feel the need to explain that while I understand that his parents had the right to move 45 minutes away (instead of 3 minutes away), I'm still hurt by it. I still feel wounded by the fact that we can't see him everyday, and sometimes, during the school year last year, it was almost a month between in person visits. And yes, I know that sounds reasonable to other people: it even sounds reasonable to me, but it doesn't feel reasonable. At all.

This is a boy who, like his sister now, Mum and I watched almost everyday when he was an infant. Even when I was living at college, I saw him at least 2 times a week. I helped potty train him, I'm the one who taught him how to make the pillow/blanket forts he loves so much; I could list all the little things that make up our connection, but they still wouldn't describe it.

They wouldn't describe how hard it was, at times when Big/Only Brother's hideously ugly temper was roaring or Soon-to-be Sister-in-law's inconsistency was showing its face in dangerous ways, to let him go home with them: His parents! Another admission that makes me feel exposed: I know I'm his Auntie, I know that they're good parents who love their kids immensely and do their best. And I know it sounds hideous, written down like that, as if I wanted to replace them... which wasn't it at all. I just wanted them - still want them - to see how special this boy is. To see his generous heart and be careful of harming it. To recognize his brilliant mind, and be sure to not let him use it to manipulate them into stuff that's not good for him. To acknowledge that he feels hurt or scared or lonely underneath his anger or whining or pouting. Which isn't to say that they don't see all that - it's just there's been times when they haven't.



So, yeah, anywyas....

This sleepover was like medicine for me - even though I feel like crap physically, even though it was horrible timing and I probably should've rescheduled - having the one on one time with him, getting to see him laugh at the books I chose for us to read together or watching him giggle at the Dinosaurs while Junior hits his Daddy on the head with a big "Not the Mama!" was definitely worth today's pain.

Even if I'm also "Not the Mama," being this kid's aunt is a balm on my heart.

I hope to have some pictures up either today or tomorrow, so you can see our adventure - We went out for Ice Cream! We stayed up till 10! We ate breakfast at (groan) 6! Some of us have enough energy to power the Eastern Seaboard! And some of us were so exhausted that they sent the energized one to Costco with his Grammy!

Hope you're all enjoying your (Labor Day in the US) weekend!