Thurs, Nov.4, 2004
12:34 p.m.

Spent yesterday with Mom while Dad took advantage of my presence to go golfing with a friend. The family photo above, which hangs upon the wall outside Mom's bedroom, was taken 15 years ago at Grandma and Grandpa's 50th (or something like that) wedding anniversary.

That little jigger standing on his mother's lap is Emil.

Mom is still nauseated quite a bit and having considerable discomfort in the abdominal area, so I worked her hands and feet again and did what little I could do to help. I put some food into her hands at lunchtime, folded her clean laundry and put it away, warmed up some lemon juice and water for her to drink. She laid on her new twin bed and I laid on Dad’s and we watched Judge Judy and Coronation Street together. We chatted, but often she wanted to try to sleep or was attempting unsuccessfully to handle the pain. I felt pretty helpless.

“I thought you were going to be a big baby -- remember when you told me that? -- when you weren’t feeling well. But you aren’t, at all.”

“Oh yes I am,” she said. “I hate myself.”

“You are not,” I insisted. “Obviously you haven’t looked after a sick man -- then you’d hear whining. You’re handling yourself like a queen, considering what you’re dealing with here. Now I would be a whiny baby, if it was me.”

***

10:35 p.m.

The posting of my dream the other night prompted some welcome analysis from my friend Diana.

"Your baby/uncle dream is a 'state-of-the-union' address of sorts. You are nurturing someone near to the next life and you're doing it far from home. The baby represents your current care-taking relationship with your mom, the uncle the next life, and being on a highway is away from home. You're caught up in the day-to-day details of that nurturing (the diaper) and your much-loved uncle is standing by, waiting."

Okay Diana, howzabout this one? Last night I dreamed that Scott was Jim Carrey, that I would probably have to attend some Hollywood award functions with him and didn't have any fancy gowns, and that I was living with a multi-millionaire so money need not be a worry.

Scott is, by the way, busy packing up his truck so he can hit the highway early tomorrow morning. If all goes well, he should arrive here some time next week.

"With my luck," I said to him on the phone last night, "as soon as you arrive, that's when I will finally relax and release my pent-up tension in half-a-dozen cold sores."

"Oh joy," sighed the poor man. "Something to look forward to."

***

Tomorrow is Everett's 12th birthday. I am letting him take the day off from school, and Karen is delivering an aquarium full of fish for him, but wants it to be a surprise, so I have to get him out of here in the morning.