Back... Home?

Not sure where home is, exactly. I feel like I have several, some more desirable than others. But I have to admit that there was something comforting about being back in the New England apartment yesterday. I have a routine there, dull though it is.

Back in the Midwest I kept opening the wrong drawers for silverware, kept going into my travel bag for toiletries... home is where, again?

Is it the place that I'm buying new furniture and picking out paint colors for? The place where my life's accumulation of souvenirs and mementos are displayed/stored? The place where my favorite clothes hang in the closet and my prescriptions sit on the counter? The place where I can sit on the couch doing little or nothing and still feel loved and accepted?

I have to go back to a different understanding of what home is. I recall a poster that I had in my room as a high schooler. It was of a scarecrow with a pumpkin head and straw hat dressed in overalls and sitting on the porch of a farmhouse, with the caption "home is not where you live, but where they understand you."

For some reason that always appealed to me, I suppose especially as a teenager when you usually feel misunderstood anyway. Still holds, I guess. Home is where I not only feel accepted and understood, but at ease and relaxed, where trouble melts away. So where's that again? Refresh my memory, please.

Recovery from surgery is progressing, under first my and now her mother's watchful eye. Hopefully next week she has more strength and can manage without someone "on call" 24/7. The meals do keep rolling in. :) More than one person can eat, really. Lawn care and housecleaning are all arranged, too. All that's left to do is get better! But I can't help with that.

Recovery

Whew! She turned a corner yesterday and is on the road to a late Saturday/early Sunday release. Maybe. "We'll see" say the doctors, but a couple of key milestones were passed which allow her to have clear foods now (broths, jellos), stop antibiotics and morphine (wheeee!), and yank out a couple of tubes.

I'll extend a couple of extra days to see her settled and then her Mom will come and stay a few more. From there on, we should be good. Now just have to line up lawn care and housecleaning, and things should be fine.

I'm beginning to relax a little. Still not sleeping well, but that's mostly the dog. He's demented...

Surgery

Complete hysterectomy scheduled for tomorrow morning... the hope is that all they find is an abscess.

Thankfully, her fear has faded since I've come back. Finally I feel like I've been useful. She's calm now and being brave.

I'm neither. I need to sleep.

UPDATE:

Surgery successful (although sleep wasn't.) Nothing untoward, fairly straightforward. Now a loooong recovery, assisted by friends and family in my absence (again.) One of these years I have to stop moving across country...

Bad News Comes In Threes

Updates at bottom
----------------

Old wives' tale. Superstition. We'll see, I guess. If the bad news keeps on coming after this one, maybe there's nothing to it after all. Personally, I'd be glad if the superstition's right, and the bad news stops at only three.

Got a call late this afternoon that Deb is in the emergency room with pain, fever, nausea. They do a cat scan and find... a growth on one ovary - the size of a deck of cards! At this point they don't know what it is - an abcess that burst or a cancerous tumor or anything in between. There's something bad in there because the white blood cell count is way too high. She's on morphine to numb the pain, and tomorrow they operate. No one knows what they'll find. And here I am stuck out East with all flights sold out due to Easter weekend. I won't get back until Sunday afternoon, after it's all over.

Fortunately there are friends around her and working girl J has the weekend off and is driving up from Chicago tonight to stay at home with the crazy dog Inferno. College boy J is on a road trip in Ohio but will come up Sunday, as will the inlaws, and - finally - me.

It's a repeat of 25 years ago when the same thing happened on her other side and family plans took a whole different direction. Scary then and scary now.

And I just feel tired, weak and useless. What I need to be is brave, strong and helpful.



Saturday night update:

Surgery postponed until temperature and white blood cell count under control. Later in the week probably. At least by then I'll be back. Temperature was 104.6 today until they used a cooling blanket to drive it down. She sounded delerious on the phone and very, very frightened. Helpless took on a new meaning for me today.

Happy Passover!

Oh, I miss the Seder, and the table full of people, especially all the little victims, er, I mean eager young children who sit through three hours of lecture, I mean compellingly interesting ceremony that the adults can barely grasp. What fun! :)

Really, though. I miss it. What I miss the most is being the Rabbi. And lately also being the eldest, who answers the 4 questions. Oy Gevalt! Such responsibility I should have at my tender age! The leader and the eldest. Hm. Might as well be the Rabbi, then. If I let my beard grow out, I'd sure look the part. Grizzled old codger - um, excuse me, respected teacher of the people. ;)

I love wearing the tallit, singing the Sh'ma, chanting/reciting the prayers in Hebrew (from memory now after all these years), telling the story of the outgoing from Egypt, explaining all the ritual foods, hiding the afikomen and redeeming it with a Sacagawea dollar (which seriously underwhelms any kid over 8.) And oh! The 4 cups of wine. Very important. 4 cups. Yes indeedy.

So, tonight, I have the matzoh out, some cream cheese handy for the leftovers, a decent Ravenswood Zin (not handmade by the Rabbi so definitely not kosher, but you make do, you know?) Might just get 4 cups out of this bottle if I work at it. A couple of roasted eggs (ok, boiled), some salt, and for greens... well... how about the bell peppers and green chiles in my cheesy enchilada soup? And I think the jalapeno and chipotle peppers in the soup will have to do for the bitter herbs. No horseradish, sorry. But then, I'm not Orthodox, so I should worry?

And as far as being alone on Passover - I wonder if I can sort of do a virtual Seder? Something will work out, I know. :) If God could provide the lamb for Abraham... He can provide for me.

L'Chaim! To Life!

Contractor Day

Got the seller's agent to open up the new house Wednesday to let me bring in contractors (plumbing, electrical, flooring, painting, carpentry) for estimates. I thought I'd have a hard time getting people there, and that I'd be hanging out all day waiting for people to show up. But they're all coming at 9AM! I'll have a stampede on my hands.

"You! Carpenter! Downstairs!"

"Painter! Bedrooms!"

"Electric! Sun room!"

"Plumber! Kitchen!"

"Flooring! Living room!"

"GO!"

And after 15 minutes, I'll yell: "Everybody switch rooms!"

This should be a circus. What a way to spend a vacation day! :)

And just you watch... when I schedule them for the 3rd week of May to actually do the work - nobody will show up. ;)

Dreary...

Where is Spring?

There are signs of it, sure. The forsythias are all golden and the jonquils are standing tall. But it's so cold and rainy here today, and such a boring Saturday. Nothing to do but watch TV, vacuum, watch TV, eat, watch TV, exercise, watch a DVD, dust the sills, eat, write letters, watch TV. Arghhh! I want OUT!

I think it's partly because I'd been cooped up in a meeting room for two solid days trying to stay engaged and alert. Good meetings, useful, informative, but... made me stir crazy. I want to go dancing or something! Or watch baseball. Or get the tennis racket out. Something! Even having someone over for dinner would be nice. But, um... no.

Got this poem in a card today from my daughter, such an encourager, always writing. Even though I write people every Saturday, she's really the only one I get mail from on any kind of regular schedule. When I see friendly handwriting in my mailbox, I don't feel so isolated.

Spring

I said in my heart "I am sick
Of four walls and a ceiling.
I have need of the sky.
I have business with the grass.

I will up and get me away
Where the hawk is wheeling,
Lone and high,
And the slow clouds go by."

-Richard Hovey Dodd

Yeah. Me, too.

Chicago in March!

What a nice time in the 'city with broad shoulders.' Good seminar, good business meetings, good meals out, comfortable beds, a little time for shopping, opportunities to be with favorite people who I never seem to get enough time with... you know who you are! :)

And, 3 weekends in a row at home. Wow. While it's the last time for that, it was sure nice. So, back East again for two weeks of "normal" work, plus the start of lining up contractors to come to the house for estimates on work to do (flooring, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, painting, buried dog fence, etc...) To avoid grief on the sellers, I'd like to get them all there on one day, taking vacation to be there the whole time. Then schedule them all to come the week of 5/15 and work simultaneously, so that when the moving van arrives with the furniture on 5/25, they're all gone.

Hmmm. Wonder if I can still find time to join that company golf league in May...