I'm home with a cough and sniffle on a grey, windy-wet day. Clutching tea. Thinking about making the first of a thousand paper cranes with origami papers from a supermarket magazine. Reading A Streetcar Named Desire out loud despite the sore throat.
And I just had a twinge that this makes my Mom happy.
Could be just a too-precious wish on a self-indulgent day, but when it doubt, choose the happiest answer.
Now to catch Unknown Reader up on the scrapbook-worthy events of the past seven months:
- We finally indulged in a visit to Rottnest Island. We snorkeled. We were loved by quokkas. It was all as the memes promised.
- Our board game collection is now nearly 200 games if you count pre-orders. More importantly, we've been much better about actually making time to play with the pretty, pretty cardboard.
- My father's breathing troubles escalated, and he was told to get stents ASAP.
- When the docs put him under, they realized he had too much blockage for stents. As in, nearly total blockage.
- Dad had a triple bypass.
- It went well!
- Until it didn't.
- I hopped on a plane. By "hopped", I mean I made daily lesson plans for the next six weeks, sorted out leave without pay, found seats on flights that would let me lie flat for my spine (reclining is the devil), and three days later left Mike at the airport.
- I arrived in Texas a couple of days after that - two weeks after Dad's bypass - to good news on his recovery from a second procedure.
- I also arrived to the news that raccoons had taken over Dad's house in his absence.
- The coon story ended up being partially true. To be fair, the possums also helped.
- I cleaned. A lot.
- I Dealt With People. Like, people who would collect my grandmother's old (but not old in a nice way) furniture and find it a good home.
- Dad came home, much better.
- Until 48 hours later when he was back in the emergency room because the rehab center forgot to prescribe an essential medication. Knowing that if I hadn't been there.... one hates to sound dramatic, but it was all pretty effing dramatic.
- After another four days in the hospital, Dad was home, now with all of the meds the rehab center forgot or denied him, but almost completely set back to when he first went into rehab.
- Meanwhile, I got into some fleas while cleaning. Many, many fleas. Let's just say that I stopped counting at 600 bites. After a week or two of using most of my brain to Not Scratch while trying every alleged cure known to the Internet and the pharmacy, I sought out a doctor for shots - twice - and abused a lot of cortisone cream. I improved.
- Dad improved. I left.
- Work is challenging. Not Vegas-challenging in a hopeless, spiraling way, but all of my classes this year are intense in terms of both preparation and personalities. One is very rewarding. One is very rewarding but very frustrating. One is very frustrating but very sad. One is very sad but very sweet.
- I drink more now. So does Mike. I rarely drank for years, and Mike hated alcohol, so we're lushes by comparison these days. A few margaritas a week makes the world go around (or at least less pear shaped).
- My sister-in-law had a baby. She was my one hope for being an aunt, and at nearly 40 she finally came through. I'm an aunt! I look forward to the arms-length spoiling and indoctrinating.
- In related news, I now collect beautiful picture books. And thoughtful picture books. Where has Ian Falconer's Olivia been all of my life?
- Oh, and we're building a house.
- Seriously, we've done all kinds of grown-up stuff like Getting a Settlement Agent, Acquiring Quotes for Solar Panels, Putting a Deposit on Land, and Redrafting Half of a Builder's Floor Plan Which Is Crazy Because I'm Not an Architect and Now They're Going to Build It WTH That Can't Be Right I Can Barely House My Sims.
- And then there's Pokémon Go and getting a hotel room not once, not twice, but three times in Perth this past month because we were up too late there catching them all.
Loss. Quokkas. Dice. Screeching Stops. Worries. Bleach. Memories. Chances. Itching. Itching. Itching. Farewells. Extremes. Booze. Baby. Books. Hope. Pikachu.
2016 is going to be, wait for it...