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jenn schiffer's live laugh blog

weekly retro #32: hospitals, trucks, and a little coke

i've been in a perpetual state of being 48 hours behind the rest of the world, and so is nearly the case with this retro. my week started out with me being really stressed about how i was going to do a good job at the 5 events i was responsible for being some sort of host at. but then that all kind of went out the window when my brother called to tell me our dad had a heart attack.

photo of a very hard to see through njtransit bus window

those who know me know me understand that my family situation is very complicated and why it had been over a decade since i'd taken the fairly short, cloudy-windowed train down to where they are. to be honest, i figured our dad would be fine - he pretended to have a second heart attack when he saw i had tattoos - but i wanted to make sure my brother who saved his life wasn't going through all of this alone.

photo of a bush (plantnet says it's blue falst indigo) of green leaves covered in small drops of water from the misty rain that day

even though i spent a lot of my life in that part of new jersey, it still felt like mars. breakfast was good and cheap, there were hardly any sidewalks and the cars were unnecessarily large. i find it to be kind of scary, to be honest!

photo of bluish purple sage (according to plantnet) in my park

coming home after spending a few hours trying to neutralize the collective family anxiety by telling stories that didn't give away too much about what they've missed in my life, trying to get my dad's phone fixed - a journey i'm still on - and choosing to spare myself of getting caught up on the news... i felt like a bucket of ice water was dumped on my head, a reminder that your body can just stop working at any moment for really any reason.

photo of two printer pages on the bathroom wall. one says "Kindly Discard Paper towels In The Trash Can : )" and the other says "Please flush The Toilet After Each Use : )"

i saw my endocrinologist the other day, i forgot to tell her about my dad. whenever i get asked about my family medical history, i always just say "i don't know". now i have some information, i guess?

photo of a sticker inside the uhaul truck that says "caution. 300 lbs. maximum load in "mom's attic"

through this chaos, i had to let go of some of those hosting duties, save for one very unique robot karaoke installation we did out of a uhaul truck. it was a nice break from reality, being a facilitator of an evening of magic and art for a magical artsy community.

photo of a little baggie with a tiny coke bottle inside that i'm holding in front of a robot karaoke poster

by the way, if you were the guy who gave me "a little coke", i do apologize for angrily tossing it back at you, thinking it was cocaine. my dad told me at a young age about len bias to, effectively, scare me out of ever trying the stuff. anyway if we ever do this again, i need to a hang a "prank-free zone" poster up.

photo of me, jamie and yufeng holding water jugs sitting on the edge of the bed of our empty uhaul truck at 1am

here's jamie, yufeng and i after unpacking the show, holding a lot of water instead of drinking it, dazed from a long night of doing something really hard! i wanted to sleep for 24 hours.

photo of a packed yankee stadium during a banana ball game and the savannah bananas mascot, split, is sitting alone on the green

but sunday it was time for me to have some fun that i wasn't responsible for creating for others for once. i filled out a lottery form for banana ball last november and not only did i win, our seats were perfect. it was my first time at yankee stadium, and i discovered that hell is actually the 4 train downtown after an 80 degree outdoor game running on 3 hours of sleep. heaven was sleeping in until noon today.

things i enjoyed this week

i'm already up way too late writing this thing as i'm headed back to visit my dad and brother again tomorrow. i hope i get one of the trains where they allege to have replaced the windows.

xoxo jenn

this was published September 15, 2025 under living working health weekly-retro family flowers robot-karaoke sports

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weekly retro #30: live laugh cup

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weekly retro #24: fake teeth, real busy

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