The Autumn Equinox Is Killing Me

I love fall.  I really do.  But that might just be my mind, because my body is not adapting well, at least I don't think.

I had enough sleep over the weekend, and yet because I only slept about four hours overnight Sunday night, I felt really, really achy at work yesterday/Monday.  Also, not for nothing, my co-worker had a bad, bad case of the sniffles.  She put on a mask, thank Buddha (I have a stash, she asked for one), but it ain't no N95 or KN95, so let's see if I'm sick, too.

I had to go this place I was at Thursday because I have a deal that expires today/Tuesday.  There was a deal that was for one day only on Thursday.  Before these two times, the last time I was at any place at this chain maybe was a decade ago, and that was in the western metro at a place I think has closed down now.  Anyway, I got there and stayed for two hours while watching Monday Night Football.  The deal was a free full order of garlic bread so long as I buy some other food, and stupidly (even though it is good), I went for a personal-sized pizza.  I didn't finish either.  And when I brought it home, I fell back into my doomscrolling stupor, then went to bed just after watching the weather forecast.

I got up for good around 6 (an hour ago as I type this), but I must have been tossing and turning in bed for, oh, an hour before that, so even though I am awake, I think I've been up since 5.  My body feels better.  But last night I did what I've done often in the past month or so.  Sure, going to bed may be healthier for me, but my parents' coming back is looming, and I haven't done a damn thing.  I need to start cleaning up, but I had a chance to do that on Sunday because I stayed in all day, but I chose to do the laundry, start (but not finish) my receipts, eat and watch football.  I will bang my head against a wall the moment my parents tell me they're coming home because I had all this time to put myself in a better position and I haven't done it.  Right now I'm sorting my week as to when I will have time to start doing that, and I still feel the pull of going out and, say, watching a play or a movie.

Maybe the oncoming winter is killing me.  Or maybe it's my bad decisions.  Or maybe it's the specter of my parents coming home, like a bleepin' sword of Damocles.  Or probably, it's all of the above.

No, I Don't Want To Know When

It's been over a week since I spoke to my parents.  And when I say that, I mean literally speak to them.  Since then I have been in contact with them, through text.  I usually do that, and only do that, when there is a letter regarding an issue with one of their properties for which Mother needs some idea of what's going on, and telling her just won't cut it.

But over the past week bills have been sent.  Usually I just get on the phone and tell Mother that, hey, this bill came in and it's for such-and-such an amount.  I also tell her about checks that have come in, but when the latest one came over a week ago ... well, I just texted her that it's here.  And she was fine with it.  Then, a couple bills came and I figured this is something Mother needs to know about, so I texted her to call me, but I didn't hear from her the rest of the evening.  OK, this is unusual.  And I didn't want to wait to call after work the next day, so I texted her the nature and amount of these two bills at work the next day, and she said she would take care of it.  Not going to lie, I am in a texting mood now, so the bills that have come in since I have only told her through text.

Yes, it's easier.  But I have to admit that the real reason I am now texting her is that I don't want to hear her tell me that they're coming home.  They should be coming home by now.  And don't get me wrong.  When I say "should," I don't mean that it's the right thing to do, or it's preferable.  I mean that they've been gone over half a year, and they say they would be coming back, so logic would dictate they would mean what they say and be back.  Now, they usually summer here in Minnesota, and they didn't do that.  Mother later said they'd return in August, and obviously that's not the case.  They have said they want to come back to look at the mail that's accumulated, or to start working on a new roof, or figuring out what to do with the minivan, or to see that the trash is now being picked up.  But they're not here -- at least not yet.

Still, I have had this creeping fear that, as time marches forward, the inevitable end of me having the whole house to myself has to come.  Surely, they would be making a decision now that it's Labor Day ... even though, and I may be pointing this out to myself in order to give myself hope, generally this is the time of the year my parents leave Minnesota.  And hey, maybe they realized they just want to stay out there, and that there is no reason to come back since everything is hunky dory, and it is hunky dory here right now.  But I feel like I'm tied to a conveyor belt with my legs spread open with a laser beam ready to zap my genitals, like that scene in Goldfinger.  If/When they tell me, I have so much shit I need to do -- pack up all my things (and I am visually overwhelmed with all the packing I'll have to do ... my goodness it's a lot), take them to storage, and clean, clean, clean.  I don't have the time to do that, I don't have the energy to do that, and I frankly don't have the will to do that.  So I don't talk to Mother nowadays because being incommunicado with her lets me leave all my stuff out where I want.  And that is a ... don't want to say a fiction, but a situation I've created in order to make me feel good about myself.  As long as she doesn't tell me they're returning, I get to live how I feel.  So I don't talk to her because that way, she can't tell me anything.

You know, this is something I would talk to my psychiatrist about.  God, I could use someone to talk to about my anxiety right now.

Got a call a few hours ago that my psychotherapist, whom I had seen for upwards of a decade, is in hospice.  The Parkinson's finally got to him, goddammit.  His secretary called me; she said his wife told her he has a few days at most, and he will not be taking visitors.  But she will do her best to call me again when, well, it happens.  I hope I will be able to go to his memorial service.

I feel bad I have been going on with my life and temporarily forgetting what is happening to him in the hours since I heard the news.  Life -- it never ends well.

Kinda Fucked Up Now

I woke up after I threw up a little in my mouth.  Ever have that happen to you?  Not fun.

That happened around 5:11.  And that happened after I woke up around 4:30, which happened after I shut off the lights to see if I would fall asleep around 12:30.  And I did that even though I juiced half a lime (25 mL -- yeah, waiting for the lime to warm up to room temperature seems to help a lot!) at 8 p.m.  That means I had till about 6 a.m. to use it all before it went bad.  I failed to do so; I am drinking a Suffering Bastard right now, which I made around 5:30, but I have 10 mL I still have to use.  And even though it's "spoiled," I will still use it, right after I finish my first cocktail at around 6:30.  Can't waste bad lime juice.

And yes, I am day drinking.  Well, looks like dawn drinking.  I admit that this is kind of fucked up -- drinking in the morning, sleeping at odd hours, waking up after intermittent sleep and, of course, throwing up in my mouth.  At least I'm not working or anything, right?

I should do something productive, like clean up or something, now.

Is Mother Dying? Is She Lying About It?

The damndest thing, I got two voicemails yesterday/Monday that were left for Mother.  It's from the same phone number -- a cancer center, where they were talking about schedule surgery.  Surgery??  Cancer?!?!

OK, I try to avoid talking to Mother as often as I can; hell, there's an insurance bill that came yesterday/Monday that I haven't told her about yet.  I am keeping that a secret because I was hoping that me just texting her that I received these two VMs would be enough for her to take it from there.  But no, she calls me.  She asks me to text her the voicemails, which I had no idea you could do, but I did.  She said she would listen to the VMs and then get back to me.

And she did get call me back ... and supposedly after listening to the voicemails, Mother said not to worry about it, they dialed the wrong phone number.  On the one hand, phew!  On the other hand, I call shenanigans.  How much time do you need to determine a VM -- left for me, by the way, and not her -- that is scheduling surgery is BS?  Wouldn't having surgery be something foremost in your head, so that if you get information that the place you're having said surgery is looking for you, you would immediately go, "Oh!  What's their number??  I need to get in touch with them ... and oh, by the way, I have cancer!"

Well, Mother didn't do that.  So ... is she lying?  Does she really have ... cancer?

The Taste Of Throw-Up In Your Mouth, Mmmmm!

And that's what woke me up.  Again I stayed out to watch soccer and so I plopped into bed as soon as I got home.  (Didn't help that the start of England-Mexico was delayed an hour due to storms, but maybe it wouldn't've made a difference.)  And I think I would've gotten a full night's sleep if, about 3 1/2 hours into my rest, I threw up in my mouth.  I've had an acid reflux attack like that before, but this tasted different.  Maybe it was the fact it woke me up, but the bile in this one was ugh.  And because I woke up, I haven't been able to go back to sleep since.

Going backwards, yesterday/Sunday I had water, chips and salsa, a couple beers, a personal-sized pizza, a mole stout, and three tacos.  They say you shouldn't immediately lie down after you eat and drink.  I want to say it was an hour from my last sip (which was the water) to conking off, but maybe that wasn't enough.  Or, by the pizza taste in the bile, maybe it was the fact that I ate too much, again.

I was going to blog post about how I'm getting fucked by my health insurance card, but my mind is so tired right now that I don't have the mental capabilities of going through my thoughts.  What I really, really want to do right now is sleep ... which isn't something I'm getting right now because my evenings in which I would use to catch up on rest I am instead watching the World Cup.  Oh God ... the headache I'm feeling right now is a sign I need to go to sleep.  So that's what I'm going to do now, and my well thought-out blog posts I'll blog post another day.

I was going to blog post about me deciding to attend the Women's PGA Championship at Hazeltine (tl;dr in case I don't ever get back around to talking about it: I'm glad I went) or the time Friday I went downtown just to watch the World Cup and a growing party just fucking got in my way.  But before I left for Hazeltine yesterday/Sunday I juice half a lemon and got 35 mL out of it.  That meant I had to drink two cocktails, and since I got back so late I had only till 9:30 p.m. (I juiced them around 11:30 a.m. and I think you have up to ten hours before the juice starts to taste bleh) to use them, and I realized while watching Red Sox-Yankees on NBC that it was past 9, so I made and downed a lemon drop martini and then quickly followed that up with a between the sheets, and not only do I have a pounding headache, I think I may have poisoned myself.

So, to summarize, that is what I'm blog posting about ... while also providing a possible cause of death in case I don't wake up in the morning.

Left Pinky Toe Twitch

So for the past, oh, week or so I have noticed that my left pinky toe, and maybe my left ring toe, has been twitching.  I notice this when I'm at home.  Wonder if all my sitting down at work has anything to do with it.

I also wonder if it's Parkinson's.  If I recall correctly, Michael J. Fox noticed an uncontrollable twitch in one of his fingers while he and his wife were being driven by limo to some awards ceremony.  The finger was shaking so violently, and Fox was so spooked, that they had the limo driver drive around the block in the hopes that it would stop twitching.  Don't know if it did, but I think it was the first time Fox felt something was very, very wrong.  He got the diagnosis some time after.

Yeah, let's hope it's not Parkinson's.

I Think It's Finally Time To Brush My Teeth Again

When I got one cavity filled in and one cavity redone back on Wednesday, I was told to not fuck with them -- and both sites were on the left side of my mouth -- for at least a couple hours and preferably for 24 hours.  Well, I had to eat a pork chop that evening or else it would go bad, and so then I made sure I chewed using only the right side of my mouth.  Other than that, I had been careful to not eat any crunchy or sticky foods until lunchtime on Thursday.

But I did that care plan one step better, or "better."  I took it that any agitation on either the new or the improved cavity site would imperil the fillings, and I categorized brushing my teeth as agitation.  So yeah, I've chewed food and drank hot liquids since Thursday afternoon, but I have held off on brushing my teeth.  Yes, that's lame and is more of an excuse for me not to go through the hassle of brushing my teeth.  But that was my mindset for not brushing my teeth since last Tuesday.

However, this is getting ridiculous even for me.  So I am going to go brush my teeth now.

So I went to the dentist yesterday/Tuesday.  And goddammit, I have another cavity for which I need to go in again.  Well, it looks like all those days I was frozen in terror when this corrupt and installed Republican government took over our city, and all those times I got home from work so tired, caused me to not feel like brushing my teeth ... nah, who am I kidding, I just didn't floss and brush my teeth as often as I should have.  I definitely will get back into the habit ... nah, who am I kidding, I'll be as half-ass about it as I've always been.  I know I should do it daily (actually they recommend twice daily), but teeth brushing has never been something I do as a routine.  As with other matters of hygiene, for that matter.

Tingling/Numbness Now Scaring Me

Just want to put down for the record that there has been tingling and numbness I've been feeling -- mostly in my right hand and wrist and forearm, but really everywhere, for the past ... oh, seven days or so.  It's carpal tunnel, even though I feel a lot of pain on the corner of my wrist just below the pinky, if you're asking me to pinpoint one thing.

I think this is a combination of factors coming home to roost -- having my work mouse too far from my reach, all those times I've had to grip an exacto knife to cut open packages at work, my nasty habit of holding up my cellphone with one of my chargers attached to it, and lying down while looking up at my laptop, which I too hold with my hands and thus with my forearms holding it up.

Keep doing exercises all week, but it's not working out.  I still feel this general numbness that sticks around at times, and in certain gripping positions I feel a sharp pain at the corner of my wrist.  I sleep with a brace on now, and it sometimes works.  I've begun to take pills, too, but I don't know if that will work.

Honestly, as far-fetched as this sounds, I'm just hoping that it's some virus, or some blip that my body is going to take care of, and this will all be gone in a week.  But I've had this pain, although in a slightly less acute and frequent form, for months now.  This might get worse, I'm afraid.

Please Fuck Me For My Sweetness

So I was invited to a stripper party that was going on yesterday/Saturday.  I would go for only one reason: ****e, with whom I had a couple of wild times in the privacy of a room.  I asked about a month ago if she would be there; if she were, then I would, too.  But she has been ailing -- something with her hand last month, then, when I texted her again yesterday/Saturday morning, something about her hip.  She wasn't going, so I pivoted to doing some Record Store Day stuff instead.

I ask her if she needs anything.  It's not like we're close or anything, but, frankly, she's sucked my dick, so I want to help her if she's in need.  She said she didn't, but she said, "Aw, you're such a sweet guy!"  And I want to be sweet.  And I genuinely want to know if I can help her.  But, and I just noticed this myself, a couple times in the past after a stripper girlfriend has told me I'm sweet for offering to do something, I've gotten some action.  So, um, yes, I am kind of hoping that when ****e, or any stripper, says that, I'm getting sumpin'-sumpin' the next time we meet.  I hope that's an indication that if you're nice to a woman, that woman is willing to do nice, or naughty, things to you.

Where My Scatterbrained Stupid Self Pretty Much Fucked Everything Up

I want to think things went downhill as soon as Florida got upset by Iowa last/Sunday night in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  I had them losing in the title Game.  With that pick gone to seed, I think my chances of winning either of my bracket pools has also gone to seed.

I got the notification from The Athletic while I was about to go into Target.  I had that 5% birthday discount I wanted to use, but I had been thinking all day on how to and even if I should use it.  I knew I wanted to buy baking soda and a new silicone scrubber to replace my dirty loofah (I should blog post about that loofah later).  But what else?  I need to maximize my discount by buying things I need to get, but I kept going back and forth about whether there are items I only wanted to get.  A circle lock, for when I rent out a second storage unit so I can finally really get down to organizing my stuff?  Well, they didn't have one.  Motor oil?  Nah -- I checked prices on my phone while I was in there; it's cheaper in a few other stores.  Should I get a lime?  I think I'll be out and about again next weekend, so it wouldn't make sense.  I swear there was something else I thought I needed to get, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember.  But I did remember the baking soda and scrubber, so that's what I got, and I was able to strike a whopping 60 cents off my total.  Happy Birthday to me!

And then I come home and, once I went into my bathroom, I realized there was something else I really wanted to get: Tea tree oil to put on the back of my head to get rid of the acne back there.  And I knew I was going to forget something when I went to Target.  I thought about writing a grocery list, but I didn't want to write it down, and I didn't want to bring a piece of paper with me.  Still, I knew there would be a good chance I would forget something, and still I didn't want to write anything down.  And so the tea tree oil I really want to buy I will have to buy without that 5% birthday discount.  I'm so ashamed I think I'll have to buy it at Wal-Mart, where I think it's probably a bit more expensive than if I bought it at Target, even without the 5%.  Can't walk back in to Target without hanging my head in shame.

---

I just ate a Krispy Kreme donut with milk.  The Krispy Kremes were free through its application because it was my birthday.  But I didn't want to eat them all at once.  In fact, my OCD compels me to eat them only every other day.  And it turns out I skipped a day.  Hopefully the last one lasts till Tuesday.

Doughnuts, of course, go with milk.  And this quart of milk I had bought, hmmm, some time ago.  I thought it was still good because the use by date stamped on top of the bottlecap reads today/Monday.  So, just like I have done, I poured some milk into a bowl into which I dunk the doughnut.  Once I finish with the doughnut, I slurp up the rest.  But this time, motherfucker, it tasted funny.  And then I smelled it.  Honestly, it smelled kind of funky for, like, a week before today, but it smelled even worse now.  Goddammit, I think I just drank spoiled milk.  I dumped the rest out of the bowl, then dumped the rest out of the bottle.  I thought it would still be good!  But come to think of it, when I opened it for the very first time (I don't remember how long ago), I saw that part of the cap was already pulled away from its rim.  And maybe I'm being a hypochondriac, but I am feeling really dizzy right now.  A little dissociative, too, like I'm not a part of this body that is typing this right now.

But the thing that kills me (literally?) more than wasting milk is the fact that I had, oh, three weeks to finish off a quart of 2% milk and I couldn't fucking do it.  It was just a quart!  Maybe my lactose intolerance gave me second thoughts.  But I had plans on using a lot of it in a smoothie I was going to make.  I have the fruit in the freezer.  But I was going to make it only after I work out, and I've been too damn busy to work out, so I haven't made the smoothie, so I haven't used the milk that way.  Reminds me that I also have greek yogurt inside my refrigerator.  It has a stamped sell-by date of April 16, but that fuckin' stamp did me no favors with the milk, so for all I know, the yogurt's already bad, too.  Might need to bring it with me to work this week.

---

You know what?  I thought I had a third thing I needed to blog post about illustrating how my dumb ass was fucking myself in another, but I forgot.  Oh, my self-destruction is so meta!

Putting Two And Two Together

My hand is hurting again -- right hand, at the base, right on the thumb side.  I was wondering why I've been getting shooting pain there all night, and then I realized that I used a knife to eat an andouille sausage tonight/Sunday night.  I have the same damn pain after I cut open packages of piss at work.  So the muscles I use when I use a knife hurt whether I'm cutting open packages or cutting through a sausage.

Which means ... well, I shouldn't use a knife anymore.  Man, it hurts!

Where The Hell Did Our Tree Go?

I came home, Kentucky Fried Chicken in hand, on Tuesday to see something missing in our front yard.  We had two trees, and the one closer to the street is gone, with only its scarred stump and shards of wood shavings left in its place.  I asked my folks, who presumably were at home all day and thus noticed this chopping down of our tree, about it.  They didn't call for it to be removed, nor did they stop it, and they didn't even open the front door to ask what was going on.  They just observed this tree, which has been there my whole life, being cut down and hauled away.

No idea they were doing this.  Now, I have read the city newsletter, published four times a year, where some trees in town had to be either treated for, um, whatever disease is going through the neighborhood or, failing that, chopped down.  When I was mowing the lawn this year, I noticed a small medallion hanging from a nail nailed into the bark of this tree with some numbers on it.  I thought that meant that this tree had been treated.  Maybe that meant that the tree was slated for removal, even though I wonder, if that is what that is, why it took till Christmastime to do take the tree away.

Just in case, I should call the city to make sure they're the ones who did it.  Then again, my folks weren't told they had to pay for the tree, so it's probably legit, though strange in how the city went about doing it.

OK, So We Have A Date My Parents Will Finally Leave ...

... and it's about a month from now.  Oh, well. ...

Thing is, they wanted to leave next week.  I would've loved it.  It just so happens, however, that was the same day of the memorial service for the family friend who died a week ago.  I asked my boss before I left work yesterday/Friday if I could take that afternoon off; even though it was short notice, he said yes.  And so I assumed that my folks would want to pay their respects, too.  Besides, it was going to be short -- an hour to mill around and say hi, and then an hour for the service, and I guess there will be stuff to eat afterward, but that's when we could just go home.  But Mother was looking for flights on that day because they were going to be as cheap as they would be before prices went up for the holidays.

Honestly, this was a dick move by them -- and not surprising.  They don't want to be here, especially in the cold.  And when Mother got the all-clear from the physician who performed knee surgery on her, I knew it was going to be a matter of time before they were going to skedaddle.  And still I thought they were going to listen to the angels of their better nature and go to the service.

Was I going to push this?  No.  Technically, the flight Mother was looking at was going to fly out around noon.  I could take them in the morning, come back, get dressed and go to the service by myself.  That would have been fine.  I think that if my boss let me go for the afternoon, he'd let me go for the whole day.  Also, I think it's important that someone from the family go to the funeral.  Ideally it should be all of us, but if my parents' friendship with her was fake, whatever.  What mattered to me was that I go to the service to pay my respects to the lady who lived just a couple houses down from us and who was always nice to us.

Now, I guess I could have headed this conflict off if I knew before yesterday/Friday that next week was the service, but I kept forgetting to check the date.  Also, it is a bitter irony that the day they were going to leave just so happened to be the same fuckin' date of the service.  If the service were the day before, it would've been perfect.  Alas, I am trying not to be angry.  This is about saying goodbye, after all, and this neighbor's death has me thinking about how my parents are still around, though not forever.

So, my ever-parsimonious Mother decided she would look for the next date with tickets as cheap as the one next week.  And that date is ... the first week in January!  Because of the funeral service, my parents will be here for another 3 1/2 weeks!  Like I said, I'm trying not to hate God for this.  There are some plusses to them staying.  For example, even though Mother has been cleared to get on a plane, her doctor advised her to continue walking because the threat of blood clots is still there.  However, the doc also said that risk decreases over time, so I want to think that the chances of her getting a blood clot will be notably less in January than next week.  Also ... well, I guess it's alright that I can be with my folks for the holidays, even though that wasn't their initial plan.  (When Mother bought the tickets, she said Father wanted to spend the holidays with me.  That's ... well, bullshit.)

OK, I can't think of too many upsides to them being here for the holidays.  I would like to them to be gone.  With my parents out of the state, I could go out to this bar on Christmas Eve, but that would be too weird now.  And I guess there are 3 1/2 more weeks of us starting a fight over something or other.  Whatevs.  They've been here since April, I think, so what's another month at this point?  Besides, and I hate to say it, I'm scared that another member of my family is going to fall ill this month.  If that's the case, and if they're off wintering, they'll just have to fly back home.  They might as well be here and save themselves the trip.

Oh, by the way, it looks as though Father will accompany me to the service but Mother won't.  That ain't her bag or some shit.

When You See Your Mother Scared For Her Life, It Changes You

So the weekend after Mother got her knee replaced, I was woken up by Father knocking on the door.  My sister, who was still home at the time, told him to wake me up.

When I got myself together and went to the dining room, I saw Mother sitting straight up but with her eyes closed.  My sister asked me to hold her because, according to my sis, she was feeling really dizzy, and she wasn't responding.  While my sister called the clinic at which she got her surgery, I started to hold her in case she fell over.  Mother continued to close her eyes, but all she could do was mumble.

Father thought she was just tired and needed to go back to sleep.  But after getting only the clinic's voicemail, my sister decided to call 911.  That's when, I think, Mother's mumbling started to get worrisome, like she was trying to tell us she was scared, but couldn't say the words.  Suffice it to say, I have never seen her like this before in my life.

The paramedics came.  They saw that her blood pressure was very low, caused by a combination of dehydration, constipation, and the pills she was taking.  But this wasn't a case where they give her some medicine and she'd be OK; they decided they had to take her to the ER.

Then, I saw something I'd really never seen before ... and something from Mother I had never seen before.  The paramedics needed her to get on this hammock they laid on the floor; from there, they would carry her into the ambulance parked outside.  We reminded them that she had just gotten her knee fixed; they knew, but this had to be done.

So, like ripping off a bandage, the only way to get her to lie on this hammock was to do it right in one straight shot, even though it would hurt like hell for Mother.  And it did.  Finally, Mother was able to speak, and loudly; in Chinese, she screamed, "Ow!  It hurts!"  (All this time she didn't speak English.  She must have been in some pain so deep that it made her revert to the long-term memory spots in her brain where she only knew Chinese.)  And she was really, really screaming, as if she was a little girl, howling for her suffering to stop.  I have known My Mother all her life as a domineering and even mean woman, oftentimes indifferent to other people's feelings.  But her she was, begging, even pleading for help, almost to the point of tears.  I've never seen her sound so ... well, helpless before.

---

We met Mother at the ER about an hour later.  Her eyes were open, she seemed awake and lucid, and she could even speak English again.  She was released several hours later with advice that she should drink water and electrolytes a lot more.

Mother hasn't been in that dire straits since, thank Buddha.  But the memories of that day are flooding back now that our family friend passed away unexpectedly.  While I was seeing her act like a little girl, I was thinking, "No, this can't be serious.  She can't be in real danger, can she?"  And while I don't know all the details about our family friend's death, I wonder if her relatives thought the same thing.  Maybe I haven't appreciated how close Mother was to the end.  But maybe her cries for help are something I have to heed if ... no, when the time really comes.  And that scares the hell out of me.  Because I am not ready for that, at all, and I don't think I ever will be.

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel?

So last week Mother was told by her physical therapist (she was taken by my brother) that she was progressing so well that she doesn't have to do any PT sessions anymore.  That's odd.  That is five total sessions cancelled because she was doing so well.

Therefore, what we were hoping for may still be true: Once the doctor looks at Mother's knee, if she gives her the OK, she is, for all intents and purposes, fully healed.  And, presumably, she is good enough to fly to somewhere warmer for the winter.

If so ... honestly, I have mixed feelings right now, but eventually, it'll be thank God.

I want to go to a speakeasy this evening, but this damn cold and my running nose is still bothering the hell out of me, and I doubt it'll get any better as I go shopping and walking out in the cold today.  Maybe I should just punt on that, especially since I work tomorrow/Saturday.  But it's been a couple months since I've gone back there, and I want to remain somewhat familiar over there.  Plus, I don't know any other good time to go before the year is out.

I'll go out.  Maybe.