Life: it goes on, and we live it.

I got up in time to make my "first appointment of the day" at the dentist on Tuesday.  I eagerly asked about her experience at the Boston marathon.  My dentist's husband is a runner.  He not only successfully completed the Boston marathon, but he ran Chicago, too, she tells me.  And at the Chicago marathon, he re-qualified for Boston.  He's raising money for charity in the hopes of running New York, too.  Shades of my brother.  Once they run Boston, the bug is there!

Sense of humor photo:  he got into the spirit of holiday races that had trophies made from toys.  And yes, he would wear the antlers.

Talking about races of course stirred up memories of Kevin, but December in general stirs them up.  Old Christmas movies bring them up.  Other people talking of their loved ones who have passed brings them up.  And even a date can bring them up.  Today, Tuesday the 12th of December, was another of the family birthdays.  In this case, my husband's sister Carol.  She's been gone nearly a dozen years now, but when you start remembering folks who have gone on before... you bask in the memories for a while.

After I got home, I got a text message from my older sister.  She'd heard from her surgeon about the timing of her cataract surgery... she has to be there to check in earlier than originally told.  No problem.  Pre-sunrise taxi, at your service, Sis!

We move on to Wednesday.  I woke at 3 a.m.  Gave up before 4 and got myself up.  I had my only trainer workout of the weed due to the shifted appointments.  

No Wednesday sister walk because of brother in law landing back in the hospital by way of the ER on Tuesday evening.  Sis was kind of busy, but she did stop by after picking Benji up from the doggie day care place, so I was able to give her a hug and hand her a package for her holiday.  I still should wrap and ship the one for our North Dakota sister.

Thursday morning I was up similarly early.  I was observant on the drive, pre-dawn, of how much better my night driving vision is.  It's easy to take it for granted, but since I was taking her for cataract surgery, the mind cast back to what the vision was like before last August.

After Sis checked in, I headed over to the other tower to visit BIL, who was doing what most hospital patients do: fighting off boredom and the various monitors that beep at irritating intervals.  It was a light-hearted and amusing visit.  At one point he said he might just lean back and close his eyes, saying he was a "bad host".  "Not your job to entertain me," sez I, "It's your job to get well."  "Working on it," sez he.

To me, BIL seemed pretty much his normal self.  They are working on figuring out just what's up and fixing it.  The body is a complex system of chemical signals... let's get 'em saying the right things to each other!  Mostly we talked about movies, actors, and stuff like that, as we have some shared interests in that area.  Old TV shows flickered on the ever-present screen.  

After about an hour and a half, my phone rang in my pocket.  Elder sis was ready to be taken home, so I took my leave of BIL, retrieved Dexter from the hospital garage, paused at the entrance to get her on board, and drove to her house.  While there I gave her a package for her holiday that matches the one I'd given Alicia the day before.  She had something to eat and we shared tea and conversation.

At noon-thirty, her friend Jerry brought in Arby's sandwiches, and we handed over "watcher" duties to him.  I came home and nodded off in front of the TV for a while, and am due to head back for the overnight shift.   

So, yeah, that's my week so far. 

Life is good!  Spark on.