It's been hard keeping up lately. Colin Jago was complaining about being emotionally and physically exhausted and not having the energy for photography. His wife is going through chemo. While I'm not dealing with a life threating situation, dealing with Gerry's Alzheimer's and helping keep Zoe going as she tries to cope with watching her mother continually deteriorate, can be exhausting. We visited Gerry early in the week. Always a hard day and that doesn't include the over 5 hours of driving round trip. I made some squash souffle (Zoe's family calls it "squish") for Gerry (from her recipe) and we took it down for her. It's been harder on Zoe.

I must admit that the stress hasn't been all negative. It looks like I have three new customers for websites. They just need to write checks and get started. And another customer, with two sites, that finally got it together for me to finish big changes on both of them. This is good.

Another thing not good is that William, my son-in-law, leaves for his second tour in Iraq Sunday. We found out today that he will be in a camp next to Sadr City in Baghdad. It looks like he will be part of this:

Battle for Baghdad ‘a critical point’ in the war
For U.S. military, victory in the capital means victory in the war

The Iraq war could be heading to its decisive moment: a battle for the capital of Baghdad that already has turned dramatically bloodier for American soldiers and carries enormous stakes for the country’s future.

[more]

At least he won't be as exposed as many. He is a sergeant now and will be the driver for his commander which means he won't be driving outside of the camp without a whole lot of other soldiers around them. And I'm sure the commander's vehicle is well armoured. But, however you look at it, it's totally fucked. And Katie, my other daughter, has a best friend with a husband that was supposed to be coming back from his second tour in Iraq but is being kept over. Short posting today. Maybe more this weekend. Maybe not.