Oh man jobob ... now I feel extra whiny. Although the family situation and personalities sound *awfully* familiar. Glad things are somewhat better for you and your family.

Anyway, thanks, all. Hard to tell yet what the situation is or how it will develop. It turns out FIL has pretty bad hospital-induced delirium right now, and let's just say the level of functioning in the family is NOT conducive to helping him get grounded... I don't understand DRGs these days, but apparently he's technically already been discharged from the hospital, but they're holding him as a 24-hour-a-day "outpatient" until he can get a bed in a SNF. Either that or figure out whether there's an available level of round-the-clock care that would let him go home. MIL really can't drive very far.

So everything's up in the air for now. As far as going to the festival with a friend ... I hate to even say it, but I don't have a single friend locally who's into the festival scene. It's always just been me and DH who go. All my friends around here kind of scoff when I talk about music festivals. Probably because the ones at the closest venue have an extra stony reputation - all the papers ever report on is the drug busts (mostly minor stuff, but the state patrol likes to make their presence known) and they hardly ever review the actual music, even the well-known acts. This particular festival is maybe a little more broad-based, but it's farther away, too, one we haven't been to before. I *am* trying to decide how I would feel about going by myself if things work out that way. But it's really too early to know if either DH will be home *or* if I will need to go out there.