My dad and I went out to play mini golf on Saturday, then he wanted to go to a nearby auto-parts store. As we were pulling up, so were the police. We'd just missed a shoot-out in front of the store.

Yesterday Dad was involved in a three-car wreck when he was t-boned at an intersection, with his truck ending up on its side. He's OK but can't hear out of one ear where the air bag hit him.

Needless to say I've been left feeling little in a bad way: insecure. Everything in the world is just so bad right now - the constant shootings, war, inflation - and it's hard to avoid hearing about it when Dad constantly wants to watch the news. Which is more often than before, because he injured his arm in March, had surgery, and is currently not working. And he's a very hard person to deal with, so you can imagine the last several months haven't been easy on me to begin with.