It’s been a tough couple of weeks.
After Memorial Day, my wife’s mother went in for surgery, and she’s still in the hospital now, almost three weeks later. We’ve gone from the staff saying we should “prepare ourselves” to everyone being yippy-skippy and talking about “full recovery.” Thankfully, they’ve been in that order, and now things are looking pretty good for the old gal.
For a while, though, our upcoming vacation was anything but a sure thing. We nearly canceled it a couple times, and then we feared we’d need it for other, non-vacation purposes (as with last year’s “holiday vacations,” taken before and after the death of my mother). And, for several days, the idea of taking time off and enjoying ourselves just didn’t seem possible. Or proper.
Well, now that my wife’s mom is stable and on the mend, we’ve decided to go ahead with our scheduled time off. This means, starting tomorrow at around 1PM, I will be “practicing for retirement” for ten whole days.
And there was much rejoicing.
It’s going to be a “stay-cation,” which wasn’t the original plan but is always a good backup plan. We’ll do some of those Seattle History things I’ve been talking about, go to some museums, spend a little money, maybe see a movie. Mostly, we’ll be resting and hopefully not having dreams like the one I had last night.
(Gillian Anderson was a rosebush, who was jealous of Gillian Anderson (the other rosebush) because this Gillian Anderson was at the side of the house and the other Gillian Anderson was at the front of the house and she got all the sun and glory. Oh, and I was in Jerusalem. And I had lost the key to my apartment (Number 10). And I couldn’t remember the word for key…or lost…or the number ten…Yeah, it was one of those nights.)
While I’m “traveling” here at home, though, I thought I’d share a series of posts from the Paris/London trip we took a couple years back. I wasn’t blogging back then, but I sent daily updates to friends and family, then compiled it into a travelogue.
That’ll keep the posts coming here, but make it easier for me to concentrate on not concentrating on anything during our time off.
I had a dream the other night, a good part of which involved Dwight Howard as my college roommate.
Which would have made more sense if Dwight Howard had gone to college. Or if we were anything resembling the same age. Or if I’d want to hang out with Howard for any reason. Stupid inconsistencies!
I realized how silly the whole premise was as soon as I woke up.
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Sometimes the dream is too ridiculous, eh?
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How’s the new book going, Kurt?
I finally read The Shadow of the Wind and it’s crap. How can 938 people be wrong? (Forget I asked.) Back to Cortázar.
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Zafon lost me when the ten-year old said, “All evidence to the contrary.” I haven’t gone back.
The new book? Still in “research mode,” but enjoying the discovery. Picked a working title a few weeks ago (_The Wolf Tree_) and will be taking next week for some field work (Seattle history).
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Old city Jerusalem or West Jerusalem? These are important details!
– Glad to hear about your MiL, though! May you have many more years with her.
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I lived in West Jerusalem, in an apartment block up on Rehov Shmuel HaNavi (East Jerusalem/West Bank), but this was somewhere a little more residential (houses and smaller apartment buildings) so I guess it was farther up the hill or down in the valley. Dreams are notoriously non-specific, that way.
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Oh I know, I was just teasing. 😉
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Oh, I got that. No worries. 😉
Of course, the Gillian-rosebushes were in an old Craftsman-style house, which Jerusalem has never seen, East _or_ West.
Oh, and Tony Bourdain was there too.
Weird night.
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I think the weirdest dream I’ve ever had was I was drinking with two guys from this show I like. Then a third guy showed up, with chickens. I still don’t get the chickens.
I need more dreams that make good stories!
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[snort!] It’s always a riot when the chickens show up.
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