12:12 – The taxes are complete and in the mail, so I don’t have to bother about them for another year. Well, except for the big estimated tax checks I have to write every quarter. Everything would be so much better if government at all levels operated like a charity, and had to depend on purely voluntary contributions. And those contributions should be earmarkable, so that I could, for example, allocate X percent of my check to the fire department, Y amount to garbage collection, Z amount to the libraries, and so on. Of course, I could instead decide to support free-market alternatives to any or all of those, as could anyone else.
Barbara and Frances took their mom to a doctor appointment this morning. The doctor specifically asked that both of them be present. As expected, the news isn’t good. They did a DNR for Sankie. Barbara and Frances intend to keep Sankie at the Creekside independent-living facility as long as possible, paying for a caregiver to be present around the clock. The doctor is contacting Hospice to arrange for their palliative care folks to visit Sankie at home to keep her comfortable. At this point, there’s nothing anyone can do to fix Sankie’s problems. Barbara and Frances will move Sankie to Hospice when the time comes. As Barbara said, that could be 6 months, 6 weeks, 6 days, or 6 hours. No one knows, although I’d be very surprised if it’s as long as six months.