Yesterday was Ani’s high school graduation, and it was difficult for me in several ways.

One was that it was literally 100 degrees and it took place outside. Your Daily Lex Yeah, so the local high school district does all of the graduations on the same day, and they space them out a little bit so that Board of Ed people or whatever can attend all of them, even though nobody cares if they’re there.

And in fact, most of them suck.

So yeah, all day.

We had the latest one in the day, which in some ways helped because it could have been slightly cooler than it was at the worst times, but it was still insanely hot.

Like literally 100 degrees.

They had not just EMTs on site, but an EMT bus.

The stretcher was used at least twice that I saw.

And there were people really struggling in the stands.

And they also told the kids, like, feel free to unzip your gowns because we don’t want you to pass out.

None of the kids did, as far as I could tell.

But brutally hot.

But that was one challenge.

The other one, of course, was just the surreality and emotion of it all.

I was emotional for sure.

And it’s hard.

Like part of it is, you know, did we do a good job?

Did I do a good job by Ani?

Were we good parents?

And I think yes.

I think we were absolutely good parents.

But it’s also hard.

Ani’s going to face challenges of their own and go to college.

And you have to do a lot of growing up at college.

You have to do a lot of growing up as you enter adult life.

And did I equip Ani well for those things?

In some ways I think yes.

In some ways I don’t know.

And we all have to screw up, and I’m sure we’re going to have some screw-ups of their own.

I can’t take the fall for all of them, but I can also feel guilt for some.

I was talking to my brothers-in-law about this earlier today, and I was like, no, I’m just going to take credit for all of Ani’s successes and blame Ani for all of Ani’s missteps.

It was a joke.

I promise.

But yeah, emotional day and insanely hot.

I can’t overstate how hot it was.

Just sitting there in the sun, in the blazing sun, on the bleachers for so long.

Now, we did get there early because Sierra was singing at graduation.

Sierra also got stung by a bee there.

But we’re sitting, we’re there very early because Sierra had to get there early, but it didn’t make sense to go home and come back again.

We’re sitting in the car, and eventually I’m like, I see people parking and walking.

I’m going to go walk over to get seats because you couldn’t see the football field from the parking lot.

And we had parked at the exit of the parking lot, so like the furthest away spot.

And I’m like, if anybody is finding shady seats like under the scoreboard or something, I’m going to be mad if we were here this early and didn’t get them.

So I go, and I see that there are some seats by the scoreboard.

Most of them are taken, but I could find some spots in the shadow of the scoreboard.

And I texted Laura, and I’m like, hey, it’s super hot.

I can’t even see my phone screen, but I have a spot in the shade, so come soon so that I don’t have to tell everybody the seats taken.

And to her credit, Lauren did exactly that.

I had to turn my phone off.

It was just overheating in the hot, hot sun.

And so we were in shade for most of it, but it was still, did I mention this?

Insanely hot.

So that was emotional.

Anyway, today I saw the pain management doctor who in theory is going to give me an injection in my spine to help me with my arm problem.

An injection in my neck, I should say.

And he agreed that that’s what he should do, because previously it was the orthopedist saying that that’s what he was going to say he wanted to do.

And I’m like, listen, all I ask is can I please do this before July 8th?

I’m in a lot of pain.

It gets worse when I walk.

I’m doing a lot of walking.

When I go to Europe, I go to Europe on July 8th.

And he said, the first I can do this is July 9th.

And he saw my devastation.

So he is prescribing me with some medication that as soon as I finish this podcast episode, I’m going to go pick up and try.

And I have also begged his office to please find a way to get me in sooner.

They said the whole thing takes 10 minutes.

I’m like, let’s just do this, bro.

And you can’t just schedule the appointment.

You have to wait for his assistant to call you to schedule the appointment.

That hasn’t happened since my 8 o’clock appointment this morning.

I have now emailed and left a voicemail with said assistant because I figured after six hours I was allowed to try something.

Anyway, my arm has only gotten worse.

And then like when I see this doctor, when I saw the orthopedist, they’re like, do this and this and this.

Let’s see if we can make it worse.

I’m like, all those things make it worse.

And so it’s been a terrible arm day for me because the doc this morning made me do all the things that make it hurt more.

I’m not that grumpy.

Tonight there’s a celebratory dinner that we’re having to celebrate Ani.

We did an earlier celebratory dinner earlier this week to celebrate Liam and his eighth grade graduation.

He wanted to go to the kosher steakhouse.

And boy, is that place delicious and absurdly expensive.

$400 plus for the five of us to eat.

Crazy, just crazy.

Liam got this pastrami appetizer.

They called it pastrami short rib.

It was very thick cut pastrami.

It was delicious.

But it looked like it was about three bites worth of pastrami.

It was $50.

And I find that offensive.

I will never let anybody I know order that dish ever again.

Insanely expensive.

Anyway, that’s all I got.

I’m going to go to CVS and pick up my drugs and maybe take them.

Assuming Lauren is willing to drive to tonight’s celebratory dinner.

And then we’re all done with celebratory dinners.

So hooray for that.

Happy Thursday.

Lex.