From Surly Thurday to Oy Friday!

I talked to my father this evening - he sounds much more alert and lucid. He had a sodium imbalance and it must be more balanced now, because he sounds much sharper. However - and this was hilarious -they called me from their cell phone, and when my mother handed him the phone I could hardly hear him. He's wired to all sorts of monitors and the only thing I can conclude is that his body must be acting as an antenna. I could hear bits of other voices and crackling sounds, like broken radio transmissions, bleeding through the conversation, and his voice is very weak and hard to hear anyway. I could hear my mother perfectly on the same phone in the same room. It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, and explain my theory to them, and tell them that they have to call me from the land line in the room next time. So my father was amused that he is now an antenna.

The antibiotics are not getting the better of the lung infection. They've brought in an infectious disease guy to work his mojo.

My mother sounds okay - her earlier freak out appears to have passed - there will be others, but we measure our success in inches, not miles.

My house is a wreck and I have things I have to get done here so I am not going to go over this weekend, if he's alert enough to hold a phone conversation and not asking for me I think we're not in any immediate crisis situation, and sitting around the hospital is perhaps the only thing less productive than sitting around their living room. I'm sending Father's Day flowers and I will get the kids to call, as soon as we get a number that doesn't make him sound like he's calling us from Mars.

My employer has been wonderful. Our controller has an elderly father in law and has been going through a similar thing, she's extremely supportive and understanding. We were talking about the geography issue when one of the VPs joined the conversation and asked where they lived. I told her, and she instantly rolled her eyes and said, "Oh God, what a pain in the ass!" Yep, that sums it up! I really like these people. I had been telling the controller about the (heh) "control issues" - they wouldn't move over here, and I couldn't move over there, and she instantly began shaking her head and gasped, "Oh no, YOU CAN'T MOVE! You just CAN'T!" I wasn't planning on moving over there to deal with this (kill me now, please), but I Felt the Love. Offers of cellphone numbers and whatever support can be offered are flying around. I can't complain about the people I work with, though I reserve the right to bitch about the job, I do love the people.

Though Asheville is still definitely calling. Loudly. There has to be a job there. I'll take a pay cut, but it's not like I can go work in a gift shop or something, it has to be a Real Job in My Field. There are many good employers in my field in that area, so it is certainly do-able and my ear is to the ground. But I wouldn't leave my current home unless a real opportunity came along - I just can't. My goal is to retire someday, not drop dead behind a cash register.

I bought linen. I can't take too big a pay cut, I have felt the Lorna's Laces, and I love the linen.