Wait...it's still 2024?
It’s been a helluva year people.
I wanted to send out an update to my subscribers as I really do appreciate you all! I’ve taken a step back this last month to reconoider and tend to loads of family business.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been up:
My mother in law is in hospice care and my husband has taken a FML for this month to help bring her home - as is her wish. For anyone who has gone through this process you know how difficult it is. Not only the anticipatory grief and sadness - but the other side of things. By way of example, I spent a day researching funeral homes, cremation costs, etc., in the town where they live.1
Before everything started going south with my mother in law, I made the decision to go back to get my degree - an LL.M in international public law. I’d been researching EU based universities for some time now. As a dual citizen I’m able to access exceptional programs for free (in Czechia college is free if you take programs taught in čeština, for example). However my čeština is B level (low B level) at best - on a really good day - so I’ve sourced an english LL.M at UCLouvain (Belgium) as they have a distance program (followed by a thesis “defense” in person).
Have I lost my mind? Perhaps.
But, I have been lucky in life. I’ve got no real death bed regrets. But, I knew if I didn’t go for it with this degree - I would regret it.
At the time I made the decision to apply and go through the rather taxing process for admission it was affordable for us, now my husband is on FML - death doesn’t care about our plans.
Why international law? Because the US needs to start honoring our treaties and committments. Much like the 2nd amendment - treaties as supreme law of the land - is actually in our constitution. So, why don’t we act like it?
See what I mean, Skyler Wheeler? (if you would like more information on this and all the other anti-gay, anti-woman bullshit Reynolds & crew are getting up to let me know).
The jurisprudence on this is practically non-existant. See Medellín v. Texas. This will probably end up being my research thesis as it was wrongly decided in the Supreme Court of the US and and subsequently wrongly applied by the supreme court of Arkansas.
I’m not on the Twitter anymore: my sanity demands it2.
My daughter has made a very difficult move - but wonderful move - in her life. Helping her, listening and advising, laying awake at night with my cat as my husband sits with his dying mother and I worry about my daughter….
Then there is the MS - it’s been a rough month - because of course when shit hits the fan and I need to at least Strive Toward Mediocrity™️ in my life
I’ve been applying for reporting grants like crazy (though honestly my heart is only half into it - the process of applying for a grant that I might get is like writing an investigative feature unto itself.
Meanwhile - mezitím - I see my home further destroyed. Iowa. You break my heart over and over and over and over again.
In good/great news my Aunt Barb (my dad’s sister - the Last of the Great Karl Kopsa OGs) and two of her daughters (my fab cousins) are going to the homeland. After years of prodding, Auntie Barb is finally going “home” to Grandpa’s house in Rokytnice - so far East Czechia it’s almost Poland - and to the village where my Grandma’s people are from. Why is this great news? Because it will be the time of her life. I was so lucky to take my dad back to the old country years back. I’ve never seen him happier.
My daughter and I were in Prague in October (it was her first time). If you have never been, you really should. Being there and feeling safe, at home among my fellow Grumpy Czechs, in a city that only existed in the terrifying fairy tales of my childhood, lends credence to the theory of inhereited experience.
It’s in the bones. It’s undeniable.
I will try to get back to posting here. It’s been hard to do any meaningful deep dives into the Iowa situation.
Mezitím? Tak, nevim. Ale, to je fajn.
Until next time, consider subscribing. God knows what the hell I will write next. And, if you would like to give me a one time tip for my work thus far you can do that here or here.
And
See: Jessica Mitford’s muck-raking classic The American Way of Death: “When The American Way of Death was published in 1963, a typical funeral in the United States involved thorough embalming, a spackling of cosmetics, and hundreds of dollars of flowers heaped upon an open casket. The whole affair was likely to cost over a thousand dollars, at a time when the median annual income in the country was just $5,600.”
I will check in once and a while - for some reason my DM’s aren’t coming through to my email as they used to. I’m sure Elon is somehow involved in this vast right-wing conspiracy (must be old to understand this reference). And will share posts through Substack to twitter platform for all those who partake.