Eighty-Nine Seconds Later ...

If my dad were alive today he'd be eighty-nine years old.

From there, I could really use his advice sometimes. Don't get me wrong, Martha and her family congregated in this area and my own clan which is scattered through the Midwest and South are great people, but sometimes I feel as though ... there isn't that much of a connection. I still remember the last exchange we had in the double wide trailer in Florida I grew up in, the morning I was ready to leave for North Dakota on a two and a half day drive to be with Martha. Dad was about to break down crying; he said that even though we didn't always see eye to eye, he was so proud of me! What made me break down was that he said it, for my dad ... was not someone who wore his heart on his sleeve. Oh, Dad would say "I love you" easily enough, but you always felt it came with reluctance and would only come out if he was proud. Ok, change of topic, I don't like where this is going ...

This weekend with my own family I'm still endeavoring to get used to a regular (for me, not getting up at four in the morning to deliver newspapers!) sleep cycle. And on the weekend before Sarah and Jeffrey's last full week of school -- after today there's four days, then four days the following week due to Memorial Day, and then three days to THE END -- I got in another day at Marketplace, and then came home to pizza and the movie Paddington with the household! (Or was the pizza Friday after work? I don't remember, but I do know we ate something.) Martha and Sarah had taken part of the day to clean her room which has really needed it since the carpet got ripped out last year; she's even been sleeping halfway in the hallway, but now is completely back in her room, although Jeffrey will still ask me to sleep in the upstairs hallway ...

Saturday was slow after that, but while I was at work Martha, Sarah, and Jeffrey had taken advantage of the past weekend's Citywide Garage Sale -- a good thing on Saturday, because Sunday we had scattered showers to deal with and tried to stop at a few sales after church (where with the last Sunday of Sunday school Sarah and Jeffrey were among the kindergarten through fifth graders who got perfect attendance -- they're with us so it's kinda unavoidable) but with the inclement weather we drove and drove until we hit the eleventh house we'd circled an ad for. And THERE'S where we found just what we (at least I) needed, some dark slacks for work! Six pair at fifty cents each, that's a bargain. We also stopped in Kmart and got Jeffrey a zippered jacket that he needed, especially needed this morning because it snowed two to four inches last night. In the middle of May.

This morning after I dropped Sarah and Jeffrey off at school I headed to my six month neurology checkup. Between this and my six month checkup to manage my type-2 diabetes ... ok, it's not that annoying like it used to be when I was forty pounds heavier, but the cholesterol is not quite where it should be. And five pounds more isn't that hard; I just don't want to get so light that I float away (which the winds here have been pushing toward lately)! No one needs a medical condition to be a death sentence. On the subject of condition: this weekend Sarah bought a pillow pet-type baby bee with legs to complement the larger one she had that's missing its nose. I don't remember what Martha said to prompt this, but I do remember Sarah's response regarding the nose: it's a condition!

I guess we all have those, David