This post could go south so easily.  I'm in a mood, a funk; I've got the blahs and I'm blue; it's like someone has stepped on my rose-colored glasses.  So let's just turn around and go north, shall we?

My brother, Michael, lives north and I talked to him last night!  I wanted to know how his first weekend at home went; I hoped that he was entertained by visitors, but not overwhelmed by them.  Sounds like it went pretty well and they're getting used to things, figuring out ways for him to be more comfortable, working on remembering and thinking, learning more about what happened to him, playing with the dog.  He gets so emotional sometimes -- and I do, too; we all do!  It's amazing, after all these weeks, how the gravity of it all can sometimes still sneak up and bowl you right over; and maybe even more surprising is that you'd think, being bowled over a few times already, that it wouldn't seem so grave or amazing or surprising anymore -- after all, he is recovering so very well!  Well, it is grave and amazing and surprising... it's also humbling and scary and heart-wrenching and joyful... still.  I find I'm given reason to think of his ordeal nearly every single day on my way to work, when I am unwilling witness to bone-headed motor vehicle moves.  Why, yes, there was a particularly frightful one this morning.  Makes me want to put a sign on my car: "Pay attention, people.  Be aware!  And don't drive stupid around me!"

Anyway, physically, Michael can stand being upright -- sitting, walking, standing -- in the brace for about two hours, max, then he's just got to get it off; he's feeling the pain of broken ribs and shoulder blade more acutely and the brace adds to the discomfort.  Fingers and toes are crossed for the next 30 days, when he'll have his next appointment with the neurosurgeon, that the fractured vertebra have all been knitting together nicely on their own all these weeks and that he'll be able to start losing the brace a little each day.

Lifted from Nathania, a meme.  Do a Wikipedia search of your birthdate, minus the year; list three interesting events, three people who were born, and three people who died on that day.  Here's mine:

EVENTS:

1. 1860 - U.S. presidential election, 1860:  Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.
2. 1939 - The Hedda Hopper Show debuts with Hollywood gossip Hedda Hopper as host. The show would run until 1951, making Hopper a powerful figure in the Hollywood elite.
3. 1975 - The Sex Pistols play their first concert at St. Martin's School of Art in London.

BORN:

1. 1946 - Sally Field, American actress
2. 1948 - Glenn Frey, American singer (Eagles)
3. 1949 - Brad Davis, American actor (d. 1991)
4. 1949 - Arturo Sandoval, Cuban-born trumpeter

This is just the '40s!  Also born on this day:  Charles Dow (of the Dow Jones), John Philip Sousa, Ray Coniff, Mike Nichols, Maria Shriver, Ethan Hawke...

DIED:

1. 1406 - Pope Innocent VII
2. 1796 - Catherine II of Russia (b. 1729)
3. 1991 - Gene Tierney, American actress (b. 1920)

Tomorrow:  A very good chance for a completed Fibonacci back and the start of the fronts!

Also:  Please notice the new ClustrMap on the sidebar.  It's pretty cool!  Found at VeryOtterly and thought I'd give it a whirl.

And:  Check it out: 91 knitters in the pink.  How utterly cool is that?