Random Notes from the Sandwich Life on Election Day
1. Can I just say I miss PUNCHING something to vote? Filling in little ovals isn't quite as viscerally satisfying. A pleasure just the same though....
2. My friend Ann and her family always have caramel corn on election night (I'm sure it's homemade knowing Ann)...so she's having her family over for finger food and caramel corn this evening. How cool is that?
3. I missed parent-teacher conferences last week while I was traveling with Judi. I hated to miss them but Ernie was there and there were no problems to discuss----other than to alert the teachers to some of what is going on in our lives. Leo of course is doing great and Owen----well Owen is doing FANTASTIC and his teacher said he is something of a little class leader. What a difference a year AND A TEACHER make.
4. Owen has already started lots of philosophical conversations with Judi about death. Leo, well Leo doesn't say a word but I look at his big brown eyes and know he's hurting. Every so often Owen will say something to me and I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. This morning he was laying on the pile of blankets next to our bed that he decided to sleep on last night and he was musing on the bedroom curtains and the fact that they looked like ghosts. Then he started talking about next Halloween and suddenly paused, and said, "will Aunt Judi be dead by next Halloween?" I just laid there silently before saying, "I don't know honey. I just don't know."
5. There will be hard times for the boys with Judi being ill but there are such wonderful things to balance it out. They already run up and kiss her goodbye before leaving for school and there are more kisses and hugs and chats throughout the day. God knows she's already seen us at our worst.... Sometimes she lays in bed upstairs and just listens to us---yelling down a comment or laughing at appropriate times. We are so lucky to have this time to share.
6. We went and met her new oncologist yesterday. It was a pretty tough day for her. It's awfully hard to change doctors, routines and hospitals at this point. I was pleased that she liked him, as we do, and actually we feel that he will be a good match for her at this point in her journey. I think he will be more aware of quality-of-life issues than her previous oncologist. AND we always chat a bit about music with him which you have to like in an oncologist....
7. This weather is glorious. When I left for South Carolina it felt like fall and we'd had a hard frost but I still had nasturtiums and zinnias blooming..... I came home just a few days later and all of a sudden it is HIGH FALL. The flowers are gone....except for a few nasturtiums nestled into the swiss chard and the trees are glowing. I love the red trees but really it's the golden ones that make me swoon. There's something about that gold that makes my head feel like it is floating and I can't focus my eyes because of the pleasure. A flock of birds flying overhead can give me same physical sensation. Voting and golden leaves.....fall pleasures I guess....