We Gather Together...

This year I am thankful. I am thankful that my father is recovering from the Series of Unfortunate Events that took place this past month. I am thankful that (oxygen and all), he is going home tomorrow we think/hope/pray. I am thankful that tomorrow I will be going to visit him and my mom, and perhaps eating a turkey sandwich.

I am thankful for other stuff too--new apartment, better job, love of a good man, great friends...but right now, that's sort of blending into the background.

On the Balabusta front--vay's mir. There's an old Allison Bechtel cartoon (she writes Dykes to Watch Out For) where a therapist demonstrates various ways to break up with a ball of Silly Putty and asks "Have you been breaking up with your girlfriend for so long that you're starting to feel thin and sticky?" I have officially been moving for so long that I feel thin and sticky. The fella's van is broken, so we have been relying on the kindness of one particular friend who owns a truck. This friend is also a large man who believes in helping one's friends, and he is capable of lifting a La-Z-Boy onto his head and walking up a flight of stairs with it, which the Balabusta sure as hell cannot do. So that has been fabulous. The problem is that we can ONLY move when he is available, and he has school, and a home life, and all of that good stuff...plus, the beholden-ness level is getting uncomfortably high. We hope to fix the van on Friday, but still...

We still need to clear out the garage, and clean the old place, and time is running out, since I am NOT gonna pay more rent for the old place. No way, no how. Also, the realtor who rented it to us the last time keeps calling to check on how we're doing. Praying for deposit return...

Anyway. It's Thanksgiving, and I am thankful. Hodu l'adonai ki tov. (You can take that in both the serious and the silly sense.) I'm off to peel some parboiled yams.

Basically Still Here

My father is out of the ICU, and doing better. Thank you to everyone praying and thinking and etc. for him.

We've moved, sort of. Still need to get a whole lot of stuff out of the old place. And clean it. Attempting to cook with very weird assortment of kitchen utensils. Attempting to dress with very weird assortment of clothes.

Two days, and then we're off for Thanksgiving. Five days off = very good thing.

More info to follow.

I Hate Fresno (It's Hereditary)

Mr. Bluejeans Sr. is now in a different room at the hospital, one of the ones where they put you in a little isolation area with a room between you and the hall, and no one is allowed in without wearing a little surgical mask.

They don't know what is wrong with him, but the pneumonia's not clearing up.

The nurse who showed me in told me it might be TB, but they're doing cultures and checking.

My dad, when I got in to see him, told me they'd suggested valley fever to him.

Mr. Bluejeans Sr. was a child in rural Fresno. And he's been back from time to time since. So valley fever would not be out of the question. It would, however, make me very angry. My dad doesn't care for Fresno very much. If it made him sick, we're all going to be...irritated.

Have been reading up on valley fever. Making self nervous.

Mother still coughing a lot.

Mr. Bluejeans Sr. is not well

Actually, Mr. Bluejeans Sr. is in the hospital with pneumonia.

"How old is your father?" people keep asking me when I tell them this. "Fifty-nine," I tell them, and they look confused, having envisioned a frail old man. This is similar, I suppose, to my reaction to hearing that the bishop of Oakland had fallen down a flight of stairs in his home and broken both arms.

I assumed he was a frail old bishop, but actually he's also in his fifties, and is now recovering--with some help from my students, who wrote get-well cards, and are now praying for his recovery at school prayer every morning. They also pray for Ms. Balabusta's father.

Anyway, this is scary and alarming--it started with a chest cold, and then the diabetes acted up, and apparently three or four pneumonias took root, and now Mr. Bluejeans Sr. has been in the hospital for six days, and is being treated with weapons-grade antibiotics.

My mother also has the cold, and since she has asthma, she's being very slow to recover, and is stuck at home, since they didn't hospitalize her.

And two people I know well lost beloved cats in the last two weeks.

Altogether, this is not good. Not good at all.