A weekend in two parts:
1. On Friday night, as I began to settle into a typical weekend kickoff at Castle TwoBusy - e.g. drunken orgies, weasel fights, formal attire and, or course, boatloads of child-on-child violence - I found myself with a brief moment of freedom. As is generally the case, I used it to check my e-mail. And what did I find, but a brief missive from an actual, live, blogging-type individual -- and, what' s more, an actual, live, blogging-type individual who was in the area and wondered if I might be able to tear myself free of my normal state duties in order to partake of a beverage or two.
Now, as you might have guessed by my gentle nature and gratuitous (if creative) usage of the word "fuck," I am very much a shy and retiring type -- a meek and sheltered woodland creature, generally not given to venturing out into the cruel and terrifying darkness (the wooded roadways of suburban Boston are rife with nocturnal predators, like coyotes, cougars and... uh... cougars) after a hard week of holding my breath and not getting fired.
But. An invitation? To go out? On a Friday night, like real people do? And from an actual, live, blogging-type individual, thereby providing me with my long-awaited opportunity to prove (to myself, if no one else) that all four of you out there reading this are something more than products of my fevered (read: psychotic, delusional) imagination? Count me in!
And so, with the full blessing and buy-off of the Castle TwoBusy Executive Team, I shuffled off this mortal coil out of my humble home for a long-awaited beer with the man, the myth, the legend... Mr. Big Dubya.
What can I tell you? It was everything I dreamed it would be and more -- he looked resplendent and dazzling in his orange polo shirt, I looked moonstruck and starry-eyed in my pink chiffon and lace, and together we tripped the light fantastic until the first rays of dawn took us by surprise and we parted, saddened by the parting but changed forevermore by the experience...
By which I mean to say: we shot the breeze over a Dogfish Head or three (on tap!) for several hours, and it was cool. We talked kids, we talked work, we talked Celtics, we badmouthed all of you (well, actually that was just him... I tried vigorously to defend you, but ultimately he beat me into submission), and then we called it a night and promised to find some way to do it again when the opportunity presents itself.
Score one for the web as legit social networking tool.
2. On Sunday morning (which would be this morning, in fact) TheWife took off bright and early for the wilds of New Hampshire - where she planned to spend the day with her former college roommate (who hates me... no, wait: who fucking hates me -- yes, that's more accurate) who'd come east from CA to visit family - leaving me to die to take care of our three wonderful children. She'd only been gone for about 15 minutes (and I'd only started contemplating how I'd keep my homegrown Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse entertained for the next 8-10 hours) when our phone rang.
I picked it up, fully expecting to hear TheWife's dulcet tones -- perhaps reminding me about some task I needed to attend to above/beyond keeping our children successfully alive for the remainder of the day. But instead I was greeted by the ragged voice of our friend ElF. She wasn't feeling good, she said. She needed help.
I should clarify here: ElF is a) a friend of ours; b) the mother to one of TheHurricane's friends; c) a terrifyingly brilliant physician; and d) someone who's had some ongoing health issues, and who last Thursday night called us borderline-frantic because she'd been feeling awful, had gone to get checked on at one of Boston's world-class hospitals, had heard a litany of possibly awful things going on with her, and then - against her physicians' advice - had left the hospital to go home and take care of her son... only, a few hours later, to find herself once again short of breath, feeling awful, and unable to figure out what to do with herself.
Ever hear the adage that doctors make the worst patients? Having known a few physicians in my life, I can say for a fact that it's entirely true -- and in ElF's case, she was too blinded by a racing pulse/intellect/whatever to recognize that, per common sense, where she really belonged was the hospital. Nevertheless, over the course of a couple of phone calls - wherein we offered to do anything and everything we could to help, up to and including coming over to watch her son or picking her up and driving her to the hospital - she and her husband JiF decided to wait it out overnight and go get checked out again the next day. So... TheWife and I were left completely flustered, but (of course) we respected their wishes and presumed we'd hear back from them at some point with an update.
Then the phone rang this morning. And ElF was having the same kinds of symptoms and scariness she'd been experiencing last week. And her husband JiF was actually down on the Cape running. And she was once again confused and overwhelmed and unable to catch her breath but still unable/unwilling to step back and see that, hey: maybe this would be a good time to head back to the hospital.
I basically offered to throw my kids in my truck and head over there immediately, but she put me off. "I need to think about this," she said. "I need to think about my breathing some more." Fine -- call me back. I quickly showered and threw clothes on my kids: we were ready to rock. I have a 7-passenger vehicle... I could grab her AND her son, and drive us all into the city. Fuck it: I was ready for anything. I waited. I waited. Finally, I tracked down her unlisted number (yeah, that was helpful... and yes, TheWife was not overjoyed when I called her to tell her what was going on (and get the number)) and called her. She answered: still short of breath, still confused, still not able to make a decision.
I decided it wasn't time to beat around the bush and give her more room to outthink the issue. "Let me ask you a question," I said. "If I called you up, and asked you - as a doctor - what your opinion was if TheWife had all of your symptoms and was now feeling awful again, unable to draw a full breath... the whole 9 yards: what would you advise?"
"I'd tell her to go to the ER," she said.
"Bingo. I'll be there in 10 minutes."
It didn't end up being that simple - we played another round or two of phone tag - but ultimately I ended up coming over to their house (with my brood in tow) to watch her son while one of her neighbors drove her in to another of Boston's fine hospitals for... well, for whatever they needed to do.
And that's how, at about 9:00 this morning, I found myself alone with not three... but four small children, and without a clue as to how to entertain them, or how long it would be until help arrived.
So. We wrestled. We played with trucks. They threw basketballs at my head. They rode up and down and around the driveway on their little bikes. They put together train sets. They demanded snacks. They demanded juice. (I emptied every frickin' drop of juice in their house, btw. Because that's just the way we roll.) I stole a moment away to hop on their son's little computer (squatting down to sit on his little chair in front of his little desk) to make a fantasy baseball trade (Reyes/J. Encarnacion for Prince Fielder/R. Weeks... I feel pretty good about it). I ducked, parried, bounced, sang and played, all in a not-at-all-desperate attempt to keep my mind off of the reason I was there in the first place -- and, more importantly, to keep their son's mind off why his mother (who he knows is sick) was suddenly gone.
And then, three and a half hours later, the phone rang. It was ElF. "They took 17 blood samples," she said. "I think I'm empty." But her breathing was back to normal, and she was feeling better. And while they still weren't sure what was going on - there was some mention of tiny little pulmonary embolisms and some kind of complications involving pre-existing cardio issues - nobody seemed to think she was going to drop dead on the spot. So she and her neighbor were heading back home.
And she walked in,and gave her son a huge hug, and then gave me one to match. "I don't need your hugs," I said manfully. "We took our payment in juice." And then we fed all the kids lunch. And then JiF came back from his run on the Cape, and shrugged off the whole thing. And then Butterfly covered herself and her shirt in liquid yogurt... and Rabbit had an accident running to the potty... and TheHurricane stripped off his shirt so he could match Butterfly... and, finally, ElF's son said, "I'd like you to go now."
So I loaded my shirtless/pantless children back into my truck - to be honest, at this point I felt like we were Steinbeckian Okies, and if I'd pulled out a chaw of tobacco and stuck it into my cheek it would have only served to complete the picture - and left ElF and family behind with my best wishes, my promises to be available again 24/7 at the drop of a hat, a house in shambles, and - of course - no juice.
And how was your weekend?
