"That's life...that's what people say..."

Well...this was the year that was...we sold our little oasis in Los Angeles and headed for the big pines of the Northwest...we found another, different oasis...one with 50 foot pine trees in the backyard...with tadpoles in the pond...with fuscia and perrywinkles and clematis abounding...we went from dead broke to flush to dead broke again...we, along with our intrepid steed--the redoubtable, massive black Expedition nicknames "T.T." in homage to Tina Turner, another big, black and ballsy broad--traversed 1200 miles of geography and light years of anxiety...we had landed, safe, on our home base...

Then Lisa died.

The horrific irony of that is something I will spend a long time trying to "get around"...

We had finally found our home.  It was owned free and clear, purchased with cash.  Lisa was about to reap the fruit of her horrible labor--her 50-year "galley slave" existence as lackey to her adoptive mother, fraught with physical and emotional abuse--...it was over.  The Wicked Witch--morphed at life's end into some Norman Rockwell sweet biddy--was dead.  All the legal maneuverings to keep white-trailer-trash "relatives" from raping the Witch's assets...all the expensive lawsuits...all the court appearances...all the confrontations culminating in a remarkable conservatorship which preserved not only money and property but also the Witch's personal dignity....all were going to finally reap reward. Lisa and the Witch's grandchildren were going to share in a substantial estate.

The first payment arrived in January...now 6 months ago...We giddily deposited money in separate accounts under Lisa's name....we bought her clothing and shoes, things she had done without for too long...we put up a fence around our new oasis...we sent her on her first vacation in 11 years, somewhere it wasn't raining....somewhere sunny and warm and lined with ocean...we sent her to Kauai...

She died there, in her sleep, on February 29, 2016.

And so I sit here, 4 months after my personal apocalypse, trying to make sense of the first sentence--"that's life"--

All I keep saying is..."What the fuck???"