playing catch-up pt.1
2004-06-14, 6:21 a.m.

Well, here I am, back after a short break. I tried a couple of times to enter updates this weekend, but Diaryland is acting up lately, and I had no luck. I'm on vacation this week, and intend to enjoy it--I got up quite early this morning to see Spouse off to work and ended up taking a walk with the Raji girl. Ms. Bonehead will no longer give it up for me or Spouse unless we take her "walkies"...I guess the back yard no longer holds any mystery for her. I was going to wash sheets and hang them out today, but the weather says otherwise. Storms by late morning, probably, and so I'll have to concentrate on organizing myself and maybe getting some housework done. I also need to get my jam stuff sorted out and organized, go to the store for supplies, etc.

Well, when I last wrote, T was sick and W was freaking out. Here is the story on that. I spoke to W on the phone on Thursday night and she told me that T was in the hospital with pneumonia, so the two of us went out for a visit with her. T was in isolation, which meant a private room, and since she was in the "Hotel Aurora", it was a pretty nice room. In fact, I think it was the same one Papa had when he was there. She was on oxygen and getting breathing treatments every three hours, and they had pumped her full of IV antibiotics, so she was on the road to recovery. We stayed for a couple of hours, talking and watching the last two hours of "5 Days to Midnight". Great miniseries by the way, I really enjoyed it Timothy Hutton was very good, Randy Quaid was his usual brilliant self, Angus MacFadyen played the type of sleazy character he seems born to play, and the little girl, Gage Golightly, was just amazing. A very talented young actress, in a great part. Her character is intelligent, clever, tenacious, cool-headed, and determined. I found her totally believable because she just reminded me so much of our niece A. Whoever wrote that part has a sound knowledge of girls that age (11 or so).

But I digress. Anyway, I put together a little impromptu care package before I went to visit T in hosp of Friday after work; a small stuffed frog, my Eyore Pez dispenser and a Pez supply, and a crossword book and card. I was broke, so she was only getting stuff I had on hand. But by the time I got there, she was out! I took the opportunity to go to the bank, and then stopped and got her some flowers--3 magenta carnations arranged in a bud vase with baby's breath and ribbon. ($10 at SuperValu, not bad at all.) But then, I couldn't find her! She wasn't at home. I thought she must have gone to work, and sure enough, there was her car in the lot at the store. I went in and saw W immediately, but she had no idea T was even out! I was starting to get worried, as was W, but the W said that she bet T was over in Pharmacy getting meds. I checked and so she was. After T got done, W. was just punching out for the day, and we all went over to their place and visited for a while, and I gave T her gifties to cheer her up. I kept the puzzles, though, as she was out of Hospital I figured she wouldn't need them. She liked the frog and the flowers, but she adored the Pez dispenser. She loves Eyore too, so that was easy to figure. W is so fucked up about hospitals, T had checked herself out a day early just to ease W's tension. I haven't seen them since Friday, so I'll call over some time today and check on her.

W is just in knots over worrying about bills and and T possibly getting fired or maybe getting to the point where she can't work; and I honestly don't know how to ease her fears. They are entirely realistic. And scary.

Not so realistic are her fears that everyone she loves is in danger of dying, and that if people go to the hospital, they don't come out alive. She calls hospitals "The Death House". I tease her to try and make her see the absurdity of this, but she has a deep distrust of medicine in general, and hospitals in particular, after losing her parents by inches as she did.

This entry is long enough, and I will continue later with part two of my weekend "adventures".