Tag: Family

Happy Mothers Day

It’s Mother’s Day in the US today. I want to wish a happy day to all the moms out there. Especially to my sister and sister in law and mother in law and friends and cousins and coworkers. All of the people who are important to me.

Extra special wishes go to the two most important moms in my life. First my mother, without whom you wouldn’t be reading this… literally. Happy Mother’s Day, mom.

The other most important mom is, of course, my beloved wife, without whom I would not have had the joys of seeing a brilliant woman give her all for her children from the adult point of view. Happy Mother’s Day, Jen.

Time Has Almost Caught Us

In the immortal words of one of the immortal guys in The Highlander, time has almost caught us, my friend(s).

12 hours from now I’ll be in the hospital trying to bottle up my freak out feelings like a good Irish-American stereotype. The 10:00 check in is a little later than I was expecting so I was able to punt a couple of little things from my to do list until the morning.

I did the most important things though. I reached out to, or was contacted by, all of the people I wanted to talk to today. Both kids called me. We had good video calls with both of them. I was very happy to hear from them.

Now I’m sitting up in bed. I was worried I’d be too nervous to sleep, but now that I’m here I’m pretty beat. I’ll sleep okay. I might get some Marvel movie time in first though. I’m still on Eternals.

I go under the knife at noon tomorrow. I’ll probably post 20 times before then, and I’ll definitely watch the MoonKnight season (series?) finale too.

Liquid Lunch

It’s almost 2:00pm and I am just getting to lunch now. When I say lunch, of course, I mean liquid lunch. I just had me a protein shake. Yummy. Will it still be yummy after tomorrow? Who the hell knows!

3.5 hours left in my work day and then I go on leave for a month. I am having a tough time wrapping my brain around that. A whole month away from work is just… weird.

It’s really loud in my yard right now. There’s a huge ass riding lawn mower tearing around like a madman. I forgot we booked a lawn service this year. It’s a good thing because we kinda don’t have a lawn mower of our own at the moment, and for the next month or so I am going to be no good to anyone.

The Bruins lost game one last night. Game two is tomorrow. I am guessing I won’t be terribly interested in watching. You know, other stuff going on.

Still no phone call telling me when to show up tomorrow. They said to expect the call between 3:00 and 8:00pm, so I am not worried… yet.

When am I going to be able to watch MoonKnight tomorrow? Do you think Disney+ will let me see it today? No? Even if I ask Mickey Mouse directly? No? Aww.

Musiciansfriend is going to deliver a new delay pedal tomorrow. I don’t expect to be able to play through it right away. You know how it is, right?

My wife Jennifer is my rock. I just wanted to share that. I couldn’t do any of this without her. She’s amazing and I am so in love with her.

What else… I don’t know. I am sure I had a reason to start typing this and I am equally sure that nothing I’ve written here has anything to do with whatever that reason was. I know that, even though I really don’t know what the reason I started this actually is. My 51st birthday is this weekend. I’d tell you all not to get old, but the alternative is really a lot worse so I won’t.

To do list for tonight:

  • Put gas in the car.
  • Clear a path in the cellar storage to the furnace. It’s getting a check up or something next week and I won’t be able to lift half of the stuff that’s in the way post-surgery.
  • Change the litter box.
  • Tell Jennifer how much I love her.
  • Text the kids and tell them how much I love them.
  • Call my parents.
  • Text my brother and sister.
  • Drink a protein shake for dinner.
  • Put away the laundry that I washed and dried yesterday.
  • Pack a bag.

My friends Larry and Mike have already gotten in touch. I got a text from Larry this morning wishing me luck. Last night I got a call from Mike. He’s been through this already and he gave me some advice for the recovery.

They told me not to wear any jewelry tomorrow. That means no wedding ring and no watch. I’m not sure what to do with my glasses. Maybe I’ll bring the case and ask Jen to hold on to them for me.

I’m not freaking out. Not really. I think I just want it to be over with so I can move on to the next stage. As scary as all of this is, it’s a good thing and I will have no regrets.

Okay, back to work for the home stretch.

Ring

At my pre-surgery class today they told us not to wear any jewelry to the hospital. That means I can’t wear my wedding ring.

I asked Jen if she can bring it to me once I’m in my post-op room. I said I don’t want any of those hospital staff folks getting the idea that I’m single and ready to mingle my way out of my anesthesia fog.

Goodness no!

Five days to go.

Duplex

Have I mentioned that 14 years ago today Jennifer and I officially moved in together?

We moved into one side of a duplex, making today our duplexiversary.

At the time it was the best move I’d ever made. I topped it a month later when I proposed, and again a year after that when we got married.

14 years ago it was a good day and we are still going strong.

Woops

I got up early this morning to put the trash out on the street. When I came back inside Jen reminded me that yesterday was a state holiday, Patriots Day, and trash pick up will be tomorrow.

Sonofa…

Did you see those pictures of the cellar floor last night? We’re coming to the end, aren’t we. A few more days to finish the floor and all the baseboards and finishing touches. We have a couple of pieces of furniture coming this weekend. Soon enough we’re going to have us a nice little living room down there.

What else is going on? I have another doctors appointment tomorrow. A pre-screening at the hospital. I don’t know what that means, but it has something to do with anesthesia. Prep work.

Two weeks and one day until surgery. Two weeks after that Harry comes home for the summer. The month of May is going to be a busy one, right?

Two Sunday Evening Thoughts

Two unrelated thoughts to share on this Sunday evening.

First, DJ Roomba will roll tonight. It’s been a bit of a prick the last week. It starts, it runs for a few minutes, it goes home with some whiney bitchy complaint like its dirt collector sensor is dirty or some horse shit. I think it’s just lazy and doesn’t want to work. So much for the robot uprising, right? I just cleaned the shit out of it, figuratively and literally, I guess. I think it’s clean enough to eat off of now. I don’t want to hear any complaints tonight. Just vacuum up the whole house and earn your friggin’ keep, robot.

The second Sunday evening thought is a television thought. Tonight, in about 17 minutes, the mid-season premier of Fear the Walking Dead will air. Now given that I am a compulsive television series completist, I will watch tonight’s episode. I will not, however, watch it tonight. The first half of this season was vomit inducingly bad. It’s the worst television I have ever made myself watch. I wish I could allow myself to never watch another episode of that god awful piece of shit, but this is me we’re talking about. I’ll watch it via the AMC website. Probably sometime tomorrow. I should pirate it though. I should watch it in a way that will not contribute to the ratings in any way in the hopes that AMC just puts a bullet in the show’s zombified head. Bang, done. All of the fantastic actors can go get work on shows that aren’t written by second graders with alarmingly low IQs. That’d be nice, right?

Oh! I forgot that I had a third thought for Sunday evening. Happy Easter, where applicable. It isn’t really applicable to me in any meaningful way apart from wishing people a happy Easter, and having a nice Easter dinner with the love of my life. She cooked a ham in the crock pot and she air fried some veggies and it was all delicious. Thank you, sweetie!

Okay. I will now finish my exercise for the day (13 minutes still to go) and watch me some Captain America: Civil War. Suck it, Fear the Walking Dead.

I’ve Put it Off for Seven Months

I have something to do that I’ve been putting off for about seven months now. Also, given that I am at home typing this right now I suppose I am still putting it off even for a few more mintues.

My parents house needs to be cleaned out. Every few weeks since September I’ve been telling myself to go over there and at least do something. Every few weeks I ignore myself. That ends today. I want to start on the second floor. I want to sort all of the shit up there into three piles. Keep, donate somewhere, and trash. The trash pile is going to contain almost everything. I’ve got my eyes on one bedroom closet today. That’s going to be a tough spot as it’s full to bursting with random crap. The other big deal up there is the eaves, but we’ll need someone much smaller than I to handle that. There’s stuff in there dating back to my parents wedding. Who knows what secrets will be uncovered.

Okay, breakfast and morning vitamins are done, the post is written… I guess I have to go over there now.

Wish me luck.

I’m hoping I might find the t-shirt I bought at my first Rush concert in 1987. Maybe I’ll frame it and hang it in my new office down cellar. Maybe I’ll have some success with the weight loss surgery and it will actually fit again. That would be funny and virtually impossible. We’ll see.

April’s #WordPrompt

WordPress.com’s WordPrompt for April is:

Green.

How about some green in the woods behind our back yard.

Also, how about a green monster.

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Speaking of the Green Monster, yesterday was the Red Sox home opener. It was also my father’s 80th birthday. Happy birthday, dad!

When I called him to wish him a happy birthday I was hoping the Sox would have had a comfortable lead over the Minnesota Twinkies. Instead, the Twinkies were kicking their ass. I complained to him that the team was letting him down on his day. He said he figured they were just shooting for a dramatic comeback, but they were overdoing it a little.

After we hung up and I went back to work the Red Sox did indeed mount a bit of a comeback. They scored a few runs in the 8th inning to at least make it a game… then the bullpen gave those runs back in the top of the 9th.

Stupid Red Sox.

Anyway. #WordPrompt

I’m Still Alive, Mostly

Wow. Yesterday sucked. I’m not going to recap any of the details pertaining to my mother’s day in the hospital, but I will give a quick recap of my own day.

My SleepWatch app tells me that I woke up at 5:55am on Tuesday morning. Pretty normal. I did a full day’s work, I had dinner with the love of my life, we made some good progress in our How I Met Your Mother binge-fest, we turned in for the night but I didn’t go to sleep. Instead I watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 as part of my fun, very time consuming marvel rewatch. The movie finished a little before midnight, which was dumb. I should have gone to sleep earlier and finished the movie the next day. I didn’t though.

I sat up in bed for a little while longer and I think I may have nodded off a little around 12:30. I woke up quick though because my phone rang. My sister let me know that my mother was going to the ER and she asked if I could meet her there. I got dressed, filled up my water bottle, grabbed a charger and some ear buds and off I went.

20 minutes later I was in my mother’s room in the ER, and there I stayed. She slept through the night but I stayed up because I didn’t want her to wake up alone. I watched episode two of MoonKnight on my phone and started watching Avengers Age of Ultron, but my brain was getting fuzzy at that point and I stopped. I acknowledge the clock passing 5:55am, meaning I had been awake for 24 hours (minus the maybe two minutes before the phone rang) and then I leaned my head against the wall and tried to doze. I think I was successful, but only for a few minutes. 10 minutes tops.

My mother woke up around 9:00am and I was very busy for a few hours. Very busy. She fell asleep again by noon and I had a couple of hours to rest. I tried to nap again but if I was able to fall asleep it was only for a few minutes. When my mother woke up I was once again very busy for a few hours. They discharged her at around 4:30pm. I was very worried that I would have to drive her home without having slept for over 32 hours. Fortunately the hospital offered us a wheelchair van to take her home. I was very happy to accept. I didn’t mind driving myself, but I was really nervous about driving her.

I went to my parents’ building to help get the wheelchair downstairs to their room. I then filled everyone in on what my brain was still able to process and then I went home. I walked in the door just before 6:00pm. Jen and I had dinner together and went down cellar to check out the new paint job. We went to bed a little after 8:00pm. I don’t think Jen was ready for bed at all, but she was nice enough to sit up with me. She’s amazing, you know. I tried to watch episode three of MoonKnight but I only got a few minutes into it before I gave up and went to sleep. SleepWatch tells me I was asleep at 8:25pm. The sleep-free streak was 38.5 hours, minus the few minutes I grabbed here and there. My watch didn’t register any of the time I thought I might have been asleep, so maybe I dozed and maybe I didn’t. I tried, but maybe I was just sitting there with my eyes closed for longer than I realized. Who knows.

38.5 hours without sleep. Yeah… that was rough, but I made it through and lived to tell the tale via a blog post that will live forever in the wilds of the internet. Or something like that.