• The first showing?

    I elected to stay home from work today, but I find myself around the corner at a coffee shop. It’s nine-thirty a.m., do you know where you realtor is? Actually, mine’s off the hook this morning – someone else was supposed to be showing the house.

    But I’m sitting here, monitoring my email, waiting for that message that’s supposed to come when someone has activated the lock box at the house. I’m freakishly tired. By that I mean Jesus, the holy roller himself, could sit down beside me and ask (rhetorically) how church has been, and I’m not sure I’d be capable of a surprised or emotional response.

    “Well, do you mind if I call you JC? To be honest it hasn’t been doing much for me lately. What about you? How are doing? Did you catch any Rays games this year? What does JC do when he wants to let his hair down, so to speak?”

    I’m not keen on the idea of being in the house when it’s being shown, but I’m not going to sit in a coffee shop all day either, even if there’s a high likelihood someone showing the house later would come across the sleeping owner, dead to the world. I’m only sitting up now because I’m being propped up by a proper cup of coffee – in all its caffeinated glory. (Amen!)

    Please don’t tell my doctor.

    My patience is drawing thin. My head longs for its pillow. My sinuses plead for medication.

    To hell with it. I’m going home.

  • ‘Twas the night before today

    The house is getting its first showing this morning, and I feel like a thirty-nine year old man going out on his first date.

    We got an email from our realtor yesterday evening saying he’d received a query from another realtor, asking to show the house this morning at 9 a.m.

    No problem, right? A nibble from someone this soon, in this market, is something.

    Oh, did I mention it’s the middle of the night? Did I mention I’ve had a sinus headache for the better part of the last twenty-four hours? Did I mention Beth just got sick… all over her bed, the floor between her room and the bathroom….

    I’m the third load into the all night laundrypallooza, and somehow I’m at peace. It might be the fatigue talking. I might not have any energy left to be anything but at peace.

    I’m also a little proud of myself. I figured I was already a lost cause today, so I handled this one solo. The wife stayed in bed, asleep I hope. Three cheers for citizen John, hero of the household!

    Hip-hip… oh forget it.

    There’s an instinctual calm that comes over me when I’m faced with a sick child in the middle of the night. I don’t know why. Take the same circumstances, but with the Sun somewhere above, and any range of emotions is possible. But there’s something about the night that’s soothing, even when I know I’ll pay dearly later. It seems to have the opposite effect on the kids… and maybe that’s why I’m calmer… something in the DNA – an adaptive trait that made our branch of the evolutionary tree blossom. Calm. It’s what brings the kids down from the edge. Here’s another adaptive trait for the disciples of Darwin out there keeping score: the ability to breathe through your mouth, or more specifically: NOT breathing through your nose.

    That may be the most important evolutionary hurdle of all for the strange creature known as: the new parent.

    Well it’s late. I hope you won’t hold it against me if I skip the proof reading – or if this is unreadable.

  • A sighting of the silver lining

    Last week I did a light workout. I’m not a newcomer when it comes to working out, so I’m pretty in tune with my body’s limits. When I’m starting up after a long period of sloth, I take those already low limits and move the decimal point over one place to the left.

    At this point we’re basically talking five pound hand weights or the bar.

    Did I mention I start out really slow?

    Last Tuesday I did one of my beginner workouts and felt fine. I never push it. I start out with a set number of reps in mind so I don’t push it. My goal is to get my muscles used to working again without putting on a lot of strain.

    This usually works great. When I slowly reintroduced my body to exercise three years ago after chemotherapy, I felt good.

    Last week I felt really good too – until I woke up the next morning. I couldn’t move. Not to walk. Not to stand up. Not to sit up. Every muscle group felt like it took a few laps through a newspaper press. It’s nearly a week later and my body still isn’t right.

    Five pound biceps curls. Five pound triceps extensions. Ten pushups. Five pound bent rows (bracing myself on the bench to keep the weight off my back). A five minute, light jog.

    Now I’m going on one week of pain (caveat: I am a wimp). I’ve been eating NSAIDS like M&Ms. I’ve quietly wondered if it has anything to do with the leukemia. Cheryl’s wondering too, just not quietly.

    Cheryl’s less quiet in general. I’m not sure I’ve told you this before. Maybe you’ve gathered as much already. Maybe I’ll get to my point sometime.

    Wait for it…
    This was a great weekend. It was dry and cool in the mornings and evenings. I got use out of the front porch for the first time since April. I got in some quality down time for the first time in… well… a few weeks (since we got back from vacation).

    Put it like that and it doesn’t sound deserved. I haven’t worked hard enough for another few days off.

    I’ll grant you I haven’t quite earned it at work, but I’ve been worked over by life the last few weeks. So it was nice to have another quiet weekend, even if I couldn’t get up… without a few minutes head start.