We discovered that we may very well be parents of a second child in the next 8 months or so. If I sound a little unsure, it’s only because it is VERY early in the game. We only just found out and Cheryl has not even had her first visit to her OBGYN. The odds are good, but we’ve got a long way to go. Beth remains uncommitted to a position on the issue. So far, the comments from Beth involve statements of fact rather than opinion. “Miss Cindy (her preschool teacher), my mommy has a baby in her belly!” Not wanting to push my luck, I haven’t pushed her for an opinion yet. I’m cautiously excited. Not just at the prospect of having another child, but also because we’ll be having a same age cousin (my sister is due later this year). Stay tuned…

We concluded last week with a stop at a furniture store, to browse through all of the furniture we couldn’t afford. We began this week with a furniture purchase. This week’s aguish is brought to you by Barewood Outlet. Why pay less for a finished bookshelf when you could pay more for the hassle of finishing the bookshelf yourself? This was the question we asked ourselves this week, and we failed the test. To be fair on ourselves, the bookshelf we bought at Barewood was bigger than the one we saw for less at Haverty’s, so we weren’t comparing oranges and oranges. What we got was another kind of citrus – think tart. Throw in a case of Polyurethane fume overdose, a family room that still smells four days later, and a clothes dryer that now converts clean smelling, damp clothes into burnt polyurethane finish smelling dry clothes and you’ve got yourself one hell of a weekend. Hell Cheryl, for an encore let’s go set fire to the kitchen table! No, the real encore will be the do-it-yourself Pergo installation next weekend. Look ma, I’m holding my breath.

There’s not much to say about this last week, but I’ll try…

Dad got out of the hospital on Friday.
There was nothing wrong with that.
We had a long weekend, by virtue of the holiday on Monday.
There was nothing wrong with that.
I got to sit in bed until 11a.m., on a day when I would normally be at work.
There was certainly nothing wrong with that.
I was in bed with the lingering effects of a pesky cold.
There might have been something wrong with that.

Dad did in deed get sprung from Moffit on Friday. Mom and I followed our normal hospital routine, and got there around 1 p.m. Dad already had the remainder of this tubing removed, and was pronounced ready to leave. Of course, in hospital speak, this means you are free to go when the paperwork gets done – sometime in the next two hours. Those two hours were like the last two hours at work before a week long vacation. I was once again less than my perky self (yes, you are allowed to laugh) due to a healthy dose of cold medication, which didn’t help. As nice as Moffit was, compared to my other hospital encounters, it was nice to leave. Listen to me, I wasn’t even staying there!

Our weekend was more pleasant than most. We spent most of our time visiting with friends and family. We went to see one of Cheryl’s coworkers down the road on Saturday. Beth had a good time playing with their little boy, who is about one year Beth’s junior. The evening was spent over at my parent’s house. Dinner was served ala Quizno’s, the entertainment ala New Jersey’s colossal choke. YES!!! Sunday morning we were surprised by a musical sermon in church. Once a year or so, one of the couples from our church performs a series of musical pieces, which takes the place of a sermon. The wife plays the piano/organ and the husband plays a violin-like instrument. They played what amounted to a 30 minute concert, and I really enjoyed it. I’m not sure I can say the same for Beth. Sunday afternoon we saw some other friends for lunch, and had them over to our place afterwards for a Beth – Madelynn play session. As usual, Beth had a wonderful time leading Madelynn around the house like a four year old mommy.

Memorial Day, a state holiday…a day that we all got to stay home and relax. Only we didn’t stay home and relax. After the aforementioned extended stay in bed, the pressure to “do something” built to a climax and we went out in search of “something to do.” It wasn’t so bad though. Beth got to play at the indoor romper room at the International Plaza, and Cheryl got a darn good cup of joe at the Nordstrom’s Espresso Bar. On a whim, we stopped in on a few furniture stores and plotted the destruction of our meager savings. Prudence won the day and we left the furniture store with the same amount of cash savings that we entered with.

Beth was a little challenging this week. Late last week Beth earned the death penalty of Kauffman household punishment, an early bed time with no opportunity to play after school. Fortunately, things were much better afterwards. She even earned a trip to the bear store to cash in her poopy sheet. (For those of you out there not reading this who don’t know what the poopy sheet is – you’ll just have to go on guessing.) My favorite Beth image for the week present itself on Friday evening. Beth was gorging herself on drinkable yogurt. After a couple of bottles we advised Beth that she would not be allowed to have any more. Since she could not have any more, she was determined to get every last drop out of the ones that she had. She spent the better part of half an hour walking around the house, looking at the ceiling, with an inverted drinkable yogurt bottle between her teeth.

What will I have to say this week?
There was another week at the office. There was a weekend to follow. There was another trip to the hospital. There was the onset of a cold. Oh, and there was a graduation.

What can I say about work? While I enjoy my job, I still have those times where I’d rather be just about anywhere else. Last week was like that. You go to work, but you’re there in a literal sense only. Your mind wanders at every oportunity and the time seemingly stands still. I obviously survived, but it wasn’t easy.

Beth “graduated” from pre-k on Saturday. I thought the idea of graduating from pre-k was kind of silly, if not a little cute. Beth and her classmates got to dress up in full graduation garb and walk down the isle with pomp and circumstance. Beth had a grin on her face most of the time so I think she enjoyed it. Lisa and I were tickled to discover that a new family tradition would live to see another day. At the end of the ceremony the class walked in procession to the front of the stage where stairs awaited them. The stairs disappeared behind a wall which the kids emerged from at the bottom. Beth was following right along and began to slowly disappear behind the wall. She got about half way down when she disappeared suddenly, appearing in the middle of a sudden flury of action where the floor met the stairs. Ah well, Beth is in good company – you know who you are.

The rest of the weekend was a blur of fatigue and illness, the kind that leaves you lost in that zone between consciousness and sleep. I can’t blame it all on the cold. To avoid further discomfort, I switched antihistamines, going for my tried and true cold formula: Actifed and Motrin. My runny nose and congestion were quickly put behind me, but the side effects are always a killer. Fortunately, I was awake long enough to see my Celtics take a beating at the hands of the Nets. Thank goodness for that.

This leaves me at the hospital, waiting for Dad to come out of surgery and typing this week’s entry. I’m here with mom. If you know either one of us you probably know how much conversation is going on. That’s o.k., we’ve got plenty to do. I’ve made two trips to the hospital cafeteria, giving me more confirmation for my theory: hospital cafeterias have something against heat. This holds true for humans and food alike. The dining room, aka the refrigerator, is cold enough to chill and preserve last night’s leftovers, which brings me to the food. I was there for lunch just as they were setting it out. You would think that this would be your best shot at getting fresh, hot food. Well, I’m glad I’m here to set you straight. I can’t speak with certainty about the freshness (although I could guess), but I can say that the food was anything but warm, with the lone exception being my Sprite. I could have put a couple of my brocolli spears in my Sprite to cool it off. It was a shame that the food was so bad because it was not a good reflection of the rest of the hospital.

Now for the highlight of last week, celebrating the eighth anniversary of my marriage with Cheryl. Cheryl’s parents graciously agreed to look after Beth while we went out for a long overdue date. We had a lovely, if not pedestrian dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, followed by a trip to the movies. We saw what I consider one of this summer’s must see movies: Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones. Unlike the previous movie in the series, this one lived up to my high expectations. It did everything I wanted it to do. In short, it filled in the gaps and introduced some of the history that is behind the original trilogy. The end left me somewhat satisfied but craving for more. It is sure to be a long three years until the release of episode III.

It is dark. There is something not quite right with the world. You are not quite sure what it is, but you know it is out there. A respite! Is it gone?

No.

It has come again. Suddenly you know what it is. The phone is ringing. It was ringing a moment ago and now it’s back. You look at the clock and notice the time: midnight. You get up and answer, because you know if someone is calling now it must be important.

“Hello?”

“John?, it’s your mother. Dad’s at the hospital.”

You’re fully awake now. You immediately think of a similar call six months ago when your father was in the hospital with a heart attack.

“He was having chest pains this evening and he decided to call 911. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital. Can you come and get me and take me there?”

This was how it started. Fortunately, that’s how it ended. We got to the hospital and it appeared that everything was O.K., a false alarm.

After you’ve stayed up all night and you want to get a little sleep, can you picture yourself with a hammer, a box of nails, and thick, black blankets to hang over the windows? After last night, I don’t have to use my imagination anymore.

After catching a couple of hours of shuteye, mom and I made our way back to the hospital, where Dad had been admitted for observation. We met Lisa and Eric there, and spent the afternoon chatting away in dad’s room. After Lisa and Eric left, and dad’s dinner was served, I suggested to mom that we get something to eat ourselves. This meant a trip to the hospital cafeteria. The hospital is designed to heal people. The hospital cafeteria is seemingly designed to create new customers. Mom and I warily looked over the selections tastefully displayed under heating lamps, all of which looked as if they were left over from lunch – yesterday. I selected an entree with an ironic name: chicken tenders. We ate in silence. The combined effects of little sleep, bad food, and sitting still all day in small hospital room started taking it’s toll, and we bid our farewell for the evening. On the encouraging side, dad seemed to be doing quite well. All of the tests were coming back negative and the doctor seemed confident that he would be going home the next day. This made it easier to leave, knowing that dad was doing well, so we did.

Compared to a trip to the hospital, everything else tends to fade into the background, so I don’t have much to say about anything else this week.

Well, on second thought, I haven’t been at a loss for words all week, so why should I stop now?

This week introduced me to hiring. I’ve plenty of experience being the interviewee, but this week I got to sit on the other side of the table. It was kind of fun. I know, interviewing for the first time is probably fun like mowing the lawn the first time is fun. It’s fun exactly once. The hardest part was not speaking about the experience with my office mates. I was almost desperate to share with others, but alas, I had to muzzle myself. It was like hearing some big news, and not being able to tell anyone else about it. Oh, the humanity!

I finish this entry sitting outside Beth’s ballet class, by myself for the first time this week. What a group we are, the parents of 6:30 ballet. We’re an even mix of loners and groupies. Not many of my friends would be surprised to see that I’m the only one typing away on a computer. There are plenty of books and newspapers to be had, but only one laptop PC. I’m sitting on a wobbly bench, the kind of surface with exactly three legs of equal length. At one end is a mother trying to read a good book (I’m assuming it’s a good book, I haven’t asked). Meanwhile, I’m hammering away at my keyboard, putting no small amount of follow through in my strokes. You can understand the mother picking another spot, can’t you?

Here endeth the writing week.