Viva la Vida

This is a difficult post. Difficult for me, that is, because I've a great many emotions churning and I'm not sure that I can make much sense out of them with words.

but here goes....

Last month, my father suffered a heart attack. It was pretty bad and he ended up getting a triple by-pass. He is still in intensive care but appears to be heading for a good recovery. He was lucky; he received excellent medical care and my father is also pretty tough for a man his age.

Still...wow....seeing him laying in a hospital bed...I believe it was the first time in my life that I've ever seen him vulnerable. He had tubes going into every orifice in his body and they even made a few new ones to accommodate more. Heavily sedated with only brief flashes of confused consciousness mixed with pain. Nothing to do but watch and wait. The thought banging against my rapidly dwindling sense of denial....he could die.

Of course, everybody dies. I know that. It's a given expectation that I would outlive my parents just as I assume that my children will long outlive me. Yet, I didn't expect my father to come so near to death. Not yet. I talked with him just a few days prior. He would always be there. Though he is in his seventies...surely his body would keep on plugging away for many more years.

And that is when I had another thought as I sit here several hundreds of miles away waiting daily for news of any progress.

I am my father's son.

This may be a preview of me if I don't change some aspects of my lifestyle. Certainly my body will age and parts will break down. Eventually there will come a time when nothing more is able to be fixed and I will die. The scary thing to think about is - do I want it to happen in twenty or thirty years, or next year?

I may yet have a choice.

My Dad....he still teaches me stuff.

Life Happens

Okay...I know it's been awhile since I've written, or updated on my weight loss, or even posted a cat photo. Among the usual little daily things that shift one's focus there comes along truly major incidents that quickly become much higher priorities. I'm fine. Somebody very important in my life isn't though, and most of my emotional energy is taken up with thoughts and feelings about him.

I thought of writing about it and I probably will, someday...but not today.

Moving Man

So....I have this friend who gets himself a new refrigerator and he asks me if I might want his old one. It's a bit larger than mine and several years newer so I sez "sure, why not?" My fridge is starting to see it's last days and when it kicks on, sounds like it's about to launch into space or something. The thing actually wakes me up in the middle of the night thinking that somebody is trying to break into my house.

Almost new refrigerator for nothing to replace my clunker? A no-brainer!

So....I went to the local U-haul it yerself place and rented a dolly. Then I went home and unloaded all the food from my fridge and crammed it into every ice chest and lunch cooler I could find. Strapped up the fridge and tried to find a door it would fit though.

Door to the garage...nope. Back door...not a chance. That left me with no choice but to push the thing through my living room and out the front door; after moving the sofa, then the TV, then the chairs, then the sofa again, then the TV, then the shelves of books, and the damn sofa again. I must also mention that when you unplug a fridge, it starts to leak really gross looking water that I managed to spread all over my living room carpet.

But that's okay because I finally have the fridge at the door with the delightful discovery that the frame is about 1/4 inch too small.

"Well shucks", I thought to myself (not really but my mom reads this blog), "it had to come into the house somehow". So I fiddled around and managed to take the door handles off the fridge, push it through the front door, drag it across my lawn, and put it in my garage for the time being. Hopped in my trusty pickup and drove across town to my friend's house, picked up his old fridge, loaded on my pickup, drove back home and wrestled it into my kitchen. My friend helped me with this last part and it was much easier. He also helped me load up my old fridge so that I could drive it over to a local charity to donate for somebody that may get some more use out of it. Driving slow because it was a bit wobbly in the pickup bed and the last thing I wanted to do was lose a Frigidaire on the freeway. Arrived at the charity warehouse and unloaded....five minutes before they were about to close.

This took ALL day. It was also a nice summer day of about 100 degrees with a humidity percentage not much less. The heat index was 107.

I definitely got my exercise in today.

Monday Cat Blogging

Father's Day

"Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name." ~William Wordsworth

One Year Anniversary

I really don't know how I deserve to be so blessed....but I'm grateful nonetheless. I think I fell in love with Vicki the moment I met her. After our first serious date I knew it for sure, and this was the song playing on the radio as I was driving home later that night.

Drive to Work

Monday Cat Blogging