The Day After

I woke up this morning about 4 AM sweating. Not a good sign. Sleep was evasive after that. Too many worries running around the old noggin. This morning's sweat could be an aberration, but more likely, it is another sign that my cancer is active again. Not a surprise to me. I am expecting bad news when I see my oncologist this Thursday.

That was only one of the bogeys that danced through my head as I lay in the dark, tossing and turning. I kept replaying the previous day's group encounter when my feuding sister's-in-law who came over to participate in the first crack at cleaning out our closet of C's clothes. It went OK, I guess. I was very nervous about the whole thing for numerous reasons. This was the first time I had seen either them since the "meeting from hell" last October (masochists can find the details over on the Love Letters blog).

Considering our last meeting, this one was all sweetness and light. No one started screaming. No one started crying. We were very careful to stay on the path and not stray into the woods where the wild things were waiting. My other SIL drove down from Duluth and added a degree of stability and support that I dearly needed. It also helped that my two children both decided to stay home and participate in the project. I was very happy that they did so. Not only did they provide a moderating influence, they also found things that they wanted to keep and use for themselves as the "aunts" sorted through the compendious supply of clothing that my dear wife collected over a lifetime.

I busied myself in other ways. I decided the day before to make a large batch of chicken stock from scratch, timed to provide the maximum olfactory input as C's sisters arrived. I figured that I needed to do everything I could to influence them in a positive way and the smell of homemade chicken soup would be just the thing. So, while they picked over the detritus of my wife's wardrobe, I processed the chicken that had sacrificed itself for the sake of peace. Now, as I write this, the stock is reheating with fresh vegetables and the chicken added back in. It makes for a nice addition on this cloudy winter's day.

My son managed to lobotomize his PC yesterday as well. He had purchased two gigs of new RAM recently and installed it on Friday. The PC booted up and seemed to run fine. When he tried to turn it on yesterday morning however, he got the dreaded BSOD whenever the boot routine got to the Windoze login screen. Swapping the old memory back into the system did not change the situation. I am trying to get him to do as much with this as possible, but I suspect that I will have to get more involved - if only to keep him from stealing my new laptop whenever he gets a computer jones.

I don't know if it is the chicken soup or the anti-depressants that I started taking two weeks ago, but there have been some really nice moments in my life lately that help to offset the worries.

Last night, my daughter came into my bedroom in her new pajamas (salvaged from her mother's closet earlier that day), hopped up on my bed where I lay reading, and proceeded to stay for an hour just talking. You could have knocked me over with a feather. This the soon to be seventeen year old who usually would rather have a digit cut off with a rusty razor than spend more than a minute in the presence of her parent. It was so sweet. Maybe she was sick.

Now it is Sunday night. The soup and grilled cheese sandwiches have been eaten. My kids are off to a movie with the fourteen year (male) old bringing a "friend" (girl). He begged me to let his sister drive rather than me. "Too complicated" he said when queried. "Hmmmm," I said.

So, I get some quiet time tonight. Me and Dawg. Ta.

P.