There's a Conspiracy Afoot

Some days are just great. I had one yesterday. Nothing particularly splendid happened. I had a good day at the store--it's our slow time, but I had a few great customers come in. I don't get as many "virgins" anymore, but I had two yesterday--people who are so very excited to have found us and sense that we could be positively life altering. Then I went to Girl Talk's Night Out. All my Columbia women friends need to check out gotogirltalk.com and come to the next event, but I might not be there--it's at Starbucks and I avoid coffee. Last night it was at Boone Tavern, downtown, and as I was driving past the police station, the horn in my car started going off while a nice police man was crossing the street. I can't make it stop, something about the wiring being off--I drive a 1993 Saturn that I adore, but the key is stuck in the ignition, the engine AND brake light are on, and now sometimes the horn just goes off inexplicably.

But it made me laugh, and to be honest, I haven't really laughed in a while. The last time I really laughed was when Bo was waiting to go into surgery and he was just on a tear. I wish everyone could know how funny he is--sometimes it scares me that his two best career options at this point seem to be baseball and comedy. Besides his ability to "strike a pose" or dance at the oddest times, he can quote inappropriate movies like the guy he is. So as we wait for an hour and a half in pre-op--a medical lesson learned, the earliest surgeries are scheduled at 7:00 at our hospital and they tell ALL the 7:00 patients to arrive at 5:30, but they can't actually check everyone in at the same time, so it's best to arrive a little late-- since we were the first ones checked in that day, Bo asks "so when they take out the tumor, are they going to cut me open, take it out, then sew me back up?" And then before I even get a chance to process, he starts laughing and says "well of course they have to sew me back up, or it will be like the knight on Monty Python and I'll be spurting blood and saying get back here you sissy..." What could I do but laugh, and as I bent my head to laugh, Bo says "Mom, you have white hair, you need to get your hair colored, no one is going to believe you're 31 if you have white hair..." Thanks Bo, I think to myself, but I am still laughing about the bloody knight that I don't know what to think, but he doesn't stop. He looks up on the wall and sees an ad for the satisfaction survey and asks "hey, did we get a survey, because you didn't give me a survey, and I could tell them stuff to improve things around here, because last time it took them 45 minutes to bring me my mac'n'cheese and it was cold Easy Mac!" Now I am afraid the doctors are going to think I have gotten a hold of some nitrous, and I might wet my pants, but he doesn't stop. Our surgeon comes in and I had told Bo that he was in my store during one of our Village Festivals the weekend before, so Bo says "hey, you were in my Mom's store over the weekend, have you been to my Mom's store, because you should..." The poor guy didn't know what to say, but he's a nice man so he just smiled and got onto his business.

But, I also laughed to myself while I was at Boone Tavern because I ran into Bo's first crush! Rachel is legend in our house because she used to work at Target AND Schnuck's, our grocery store. When the boys were little odds were that on any given day, I would have to go one or the other, sometimes both and sometimes more than once, so Rachel was like family. This would be eight years ago when she was a college student, but then she was gone for a while and now she is back, a counselor at Bo's high school! But, when he was a baby, he always just lit up when he saw her, and one day we were checking out at Target and while I was unloading the cart, harried and in a bad mood, I heard him cough, and thought, "gosh, please don't tell me he is getting sick," and keep unloading, but I hear another cough. The third time I looked up and I realized that every time he coughed, she would smile at him and he would giggle. He was FLIRTING at the tender age of ONE! She is a beauty, so I can't blame him, but I told her the story at Boone Tavern and she said I made her day.

I also finished a great book. I haven't read any escapist fiction in over a month either. Final Theory by Mark Alpert is great, part of it takes place at Carnegie Mellon, a fictionalized version, all the building names are wrong, but still fun, and a perfect combination of nerdy science and intrigue. But, it made me have weird dreams, and it's raining AGAIN, and Pierce has a toothbrush that won't turn off, so it kept waking me up, and that is why I am blogging about nothing at 3:00am. The universe is conspiring to keep me awake, why I wonder?

I also talked about Bo and our situation at Girl Talk last night, something I really also haven't done yet. I talked to Kathy who knows the story, and has been immensely helpful and always knows just what I need to talk about to feel better. Yesterday she shared that someone close to her has also just been diagnosed with cancer and it was good to feel for someone else and be in a position to offer help, and not be on the receiving end! I a talked to Sharon whose husband is one of my landlords, but I am not really sure how their business arrangement works, I just know that when the weird alarm goes off and Roy is out of town, I call Don and say "If you don't make it stop, I might have to jump off your building!" Sharon has ever so graciously given me space NOT to talk about it, but I always knew she would listen if I ever needed it, and then I unloaded on some poor woman who used to be a social worker at Missouri Cancer Associates, a private treatment group in town (but they only treat adults). Our social worker at the hospital came by on the day we received Bo's PPB diagnosis, told us she was there to help and said "here's your application for the Make a Wish Foundation." Seriously, normal healthy people think that Make A Wish is where terminal kids go to get their last wish, as far as I was concerned we were not given a terminal diagnosis, but that was the night I started the blog, I wasn't sure about anything anymore. Poor Bo cried when she left and asked Jay and I separately if he was going to die and if his condition was life threatening. So much for the help! I had to get on the internet to find out that you don't actually have to be terminal to have a wish granted, but really should I have had to do that? And don't even get me started about the Child Life Specialists who are young enough to be my kids, even at 31, who are also there to help... I wanted to scream "where is the freaking handbook?" Don't you get an "owner's guide" or an insruction manual when you get a cancer diagnosis? And then I thought, maybe that is why I will start a blog, and I will collect all those little things and put them in a booklet that can be given free to anyone who gets a terrible medical diagnosis. It will be filled with all kinds of tips, resources, and even things to make them laugh, because laughter IS the best medicine.

And so I have rambled on about nothing for quite long enough, I think, my dogs are getting on my nerves--I am not going to throw balls at 4:00am, but before I go, if you have not yet seen The Last Lecture, you should, you can still find it on YouTube, I think, but when you put life and everything in perspective, it all becomes more enjoyable and more precious. Maybe the conspiracy was really trying to get me to clean my house, but I dodged that bullet pretty well! Have a good day, Lisa