Skip to main content

Happy Winter Holiday!

Good wishes to all who are reading this for your Winter holiday, whatever it is.

I'm sitting here by my Christmas tree with the presents under it and the stockings up and the cookie and milk that Jet set up on the hearth, out of the way of the actual fireplace so that Santa won't trip over it. It's good to see family traditions being upheld. The several inches of powdery perfect Colorado snow outside doesn't hurt the ambiance either.

I have a mug of hot chocolate and a nearly empty fridge as John and I are prepping for an adventure. We'll be driving a whole van of instruments for the Silver Creek High School Marching Band to Florida for them to use at the Outback Bowl's half time show. Luckily, another set of parents are going to be driving the van back, so we don't have to make the 2000 mile trip twice in a week...

I am grateful.

Jet is now sixteen and will pretty much be taking care of himself until the night before his band heads for the airport. One of his best friends is one of the two drum majors for the marching band and their parents are going to be the ones driving the van back, so Jet's going to stay with them the night before they have to wake up at 3 am to hit the airport. Best to not have a teenager responsible for getting himself out of bed at 3 am... and they'll get him to the high school bus that will get them to the airport on time.

Our church had a super simple Sunday service this morning, and a fancier Christmas Eve one where all three of us were ushers. John wearing his traditional Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and red and green socks; and Jet all in slender, well-pressed black button up shirt and slacks. Very presentable....

And between the services, John buzzed his hair down to his usual Number 2, and he helped me by cutting about 16 inches of hair off. *laughs* We braided it first, and rubber banded it, and it's now sitting in an envelope to be mailed to Locks For Love when we get back. As usual, my neck and head aches from the change in weight... but John evened it all out very nicely, and the natural curl frames my face pretty well. What with going to Florida and having waited nearly two years to donate again, I figured it was time.

I also signed up for a 100 words a day for 100 days with Catie Murphy after the beginning of the year, and figured it would be best used here. There have been a lot of things in my life in the last few years that have been confidential, so it's been harder to lay some things out here in this journal; but there are still things I need to write about, and I haven't done fiction in so long that it felt like it was time again.

We'll see how it turns out, but I'm hopeful again. I've been tending to my tendonitis and overuse problems and they seem to finally be getting better. I'll be bringing my arm weights with me and my exercise equipment, and I won't be bringing a machine capable of gaming. I'll try and see if I can update some of the insanity while I'm on the road.

The funny thing is that, yesterday, I got my badge for Season 23, the season when I was captain of the UGC TF2 team... and all the memories that brought back just made me realize how long it's been since I kept this journal up to date. And I had a friend who was in comp with me come back to play with me for an hour or so last night, he's now out of college and working and doesn't have even the time to play that much with anyone, much less even think of comp; but it was soooo good to just play and laugh and coordinate together again. I miss the old team, which can never come back again as the guys have moved onto jobs, family, a life on the most part or onto other teams. But someone asked me to be on their team, and I wasn't sure what to say, especially since they want it to not be a try-hard team but just a friend-team, so there wouldn't be the time commitment.

Still... don't really think I can go back...

And a whole new year to figure it out.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Everything Is A Lot

My mother took my hand, as we were going to leave tonight, and she very deliberately, gently, and slowly pressed a kiss on the back of my hand. And at the look on her face, I clasped her hand back just as gently, but firmly, and I kissed her on her forehead. She smiled and let me go.  Words are failing her. I find it ironic that the only way that I can process her now word-muddled existence is through my long practice with words.  On November 13th, my sister and father did a video doctor's check with my mother. Their GP was so alarmed at her inability to truly respond to their questions made their primary doctor tell them that they had to go to the ER. That there was something seriously wrong with her and they had to get her looked at as quickly as possible. The three of them spend two horrific days in the over crowded ER at UCSD, in order to get the CAT scans and MRI that showed a very large shadow in her brain.  This was while John and I were in Kauai. We heard the begi...

Hard Things

I'm getting asked a lot these days about how my mother is doing. It's never easy to answer, because she's dying. She's pretty comfortable for all that, all of her needs are being taken care of. She has hospice checking on her every time she needs anything. She's being made as comfortable as possible with modern medicine and care.  Most people end up saying, "That's so hard."  And the only thing I can really do is nod. There's something in my head that always says, "It's not hard the way you think it's hard." It doesn't detract from the fact that everything is pretty difficult right now. I've always hated my emotions. They're always pretty difficult for me to access, except when I have the opportunity to process them with someone else, extroverted emotional expression seems to be one of the few ways I can deal with them. Grief always eats all my energy.  When I first came home from San Diego after the Thanksgiving perio...

Thankful

Tuesday was absolutely insane. We had two appointments for the radiation oncologist and then the lung cancer specialist.  And while we were talking with the lung cancer specialist, he heard that John and I were here from Colorado and were going to fly back, again, for the brain cancer specialist next week. He said, "I think I can find an opening for you with him. Let me go talk to him."  He talked with the brain cancer specialist, and lo and behold, we got the 1pm appointment we couldn't get through the regular channels, and while we decided to have lunch in the cafe in the cancer center, Kathy and John got texts about the new appointment.  This whole trip has been blessed with so many bits of luck. John and I got two of the last four seats on the non-stop that was most convenient for our flight in. This Friday's flight was half the price of all the other flights around this crazy travel holiday. Our room at our hotel was the very last room left at this Homewood Suite...