Last Weekend....(cont'd from "A Change of Plan" Blog re: my Dad)...

Last weekend was a whirlwind....of epic proportions....a debacle, to say the least.

Friday afternoon: I dropped Joe and Kathryn at a play date for dinner. On the way, my truck blew a brake line, while driving. I limped home, without any further damage...just an "Aw Crap". Upon return, I got a call saying Joe had fallen and cut up his knee, but was OK. He wanted to stay, and Kathryn would patch him up. You know when kids really WANT to believe in something, so they take any explanation for the "impossible" and accept it? I guess that's what I was doing....

Friday eve: I picked up Joe (Kath stayed for a sleepover), and his knee was worse than I originally assumed, and it was evident that stitches were in order. We spent the evening with my friend (and chaperon) Kat in the ER getting stitches, but it was under 2 hrs start to finish, so I considered it a success. The Doc shortened Joe's "no-contact-sports" time to 12 days from 14 so that he could make it to baseball's 1st practice. Score! Joe was enormously brave and toughed it out, only quivering briefly when they injected the Novocaine. Come to think of it, maybe it was I who quivered....for all my tough-guy talk, I can *take* it much better than I can watch my kids have to take it. But we don't waiver...we just whimper and do it.

Saturday: I took the truck to my Dearest mechanic (John), and he put the truck on the lift and determined I was NOT allowed to leave with it...that I would drive it anyway (can you imagine ME doing that? OK....so he's right....) and the brake line damage was "substantial". (Ouch, that stings a little...but I trust nobody more than John, so I guess it is what it is)

Still Saturday - Moments later: Mom calls and I am still sulking pitifully in the mechanic's bay, quietly stroking my tired old truck just as I had tried to comfort Joe the night before. She's been good to me. As I answer the call, it is immediately clear that she's in panic mode...Dad has fallen, and the ambulance has already been called. In an effort to shorten this too-long-blog, you can read that story here.

STILL Saturday: Kathryn calls as I leave the hospital and she is in tears, and I'm catching about every 4th word. Sniff, sob, whimper, hamster.....sniff, cage, whimper, sob, sniff, dead....Damn.

Late Saturday: Chris' grandfather passed away. He had fallen ill with a norwalk virus / flu, and been hospitalized a week or so earlier. He had deteriorated and while we knew it was coming, it was still a chapter closing...for Chris and his family as well as for our children. It was the last of their surviving great-grandparents! When Maddie was born, she had half of them still alive to greet her. May we all live as long as Bumpa did, and do the things he enjoyed right up until that week.

Sunday morning: Chris' Mom called her aunt Terry to inform her of Bumpa's passing the night before. It turns out her daughter, Barbara (Cathy's cousin), had developed some sort of internal bleeding and a recovery was deemed to be nearly impossible. She continues to cling to life, against the odds, and is making strides toward a recovery. Our prayers remain with her.

The rest of Sunday: Mom and I spent it getting a catering job ready (having lost Saturday in the hospital) for an early Monday catering job in Winchester...one of Mom's best friend's mom.

Sunday night: Mom checks the mail at her house as I'm wrapping up to take Maddie home to crash, and in the mail from Saturday is an envelope from Saturday...she has copied every bit of (extensive) research that she's done for her son (a Jr in HS) and mailed it off to us after offering to do so at Cathy's on St Patty's Day. That's such a great summary of who she IS, to the core. Prompt, thoughtful, considerate and kind...she mailed it to several cousins who are about the same age.

Monday: Catering job, uneventful and lovely. Something should be!!

Still Monday: We got word that Drew's grandfather on his Dad's side had passed away on Sunday.

Tuesday: Wake for Bumpa. Smooth and "as planned". Wow! Something went off without a hitch!

Wednesday: Funeral. Mom called beforehand to say that Dad is in tremendous pain, deteriorating a bit and is headed into Boston to be admitted. I pick up Drew and take him to the funeral home and church. During the mass Drew is wonderful and snuggly, so long as I scratched his back, a tactic against which he has no defense...he practically snores even while awake. It's comical. During the Offering, Joe manages to inhale the host - the Body of Christ - directly into his windpipe. Uh, that can't be good...and after a quick one-handed Heimlich-like wrench to his little body we had silently resolved the crisis.... Now, how abnormal is that? OK, substantially.

Thursday: The Rodeo I'm driving (Mom's car, since Dad can't drive anymore) won't start on the way to get Kathryn and Joe to school. At this point I'm so under-the-bus that tears well, even though I really have NOTHING to cry about, and rarely get to that point. A little later, I get a call saying my truck is done! Yippee!!! But, wait....they never called to say HOW much it was going to cost....total damage? $406.27. On the up-side, Dad got sprung from the hospital tonight....more on that here.

So here I sit, one week - almost to the minute - after leaving the hospital with Joe and thinking it would just be a normal week. I guess I don't remember what "normal" is...but I'm pretty sure this'aint'it......Kathryn just called....she fell at her friends house and cut up her hands. I'm sure it's nothing.....nothing abnormal.

Here's to the weekend.....Catering job, funeral, for 200 tomorrow. And Chris leaves Sunday early afternoon to return to traveling again. Well, HEY! At least it's spring. We have stitches to take out before baseball next weekend!