Estoy Nueces

I am taking a break from picking up the house and sweeping to write a moment. I have lots of THINGS this weekend. I never have commitments and here I am with four. First up is an old friend from high school coming by for lunch. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA, now and is a PhD in literature, I think. Very very smart. She was super smart in high school and very quirky, but fun. I hadn't seen her since high school until about 7 years ago she came through Austin so we ate and ran around for an afternoon. Now she is in Dallas a while so she is coming by to see my house and go to lunch "downtown." (Farmer's Branch's downtown is not even a small town square, it is just barely anything.)

Then tonight, I have dinner. The dinner I was supposed to have last weekend got pushed off. He got sick, had a fever, so we delayed. We'll do it this evening. I really don't need two meals out in restaurants in one day. That's a lot of food. Yes, I will try to eat light, but restaurants just don't let you anymore!

Tomorrow I'm taking my sister and her husband to the airport for them to go to Holland for the week to see family. After I drop them I'm heading to Oklahoma for an hour, maybe, to see my last aunt, Mom's younger sister. She lives in a nursing home there, but is being moved to the Valley to live with her son, my cousin. That is going to be a hard move for her, I'm afraid. A long long drive and then she'll be missing her granddaughter and great-grandson who she has lived with for the last three years. We thought she was dying right after Mom and Aunt Dorothy died, but being moved to the nursing home brought her back to life.

Then I will come home and be done? Not really. Still some work to be done this week, but I am off Thursday and Friday because MORE company (but my very best friend this time) on Wednesday through Friday. That will be easy and no pressure mostly. But, still, I am looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend and hoping no one needs me. Oh, I will be needed, I'll have to pick up the family from the airport.

Non sequitur: The other day I was cleaning out boxes and trying to put packed things from the move, packed things from my grandparents, and packed things from my Mother in their "right" places, if they have one. I pulled out a white handkerchief. Immediately I thought of Daddy and his drawer with handkerchiefs. I ironed many a handkerchief for him as a kid, before we all gave up ironing (What? Everyone didn't give up ironing? I sure did.) When he died, we made sure there was a handkerchief for him in his suit pocket (along with Halls Mentho-Lyptus cough drops, his cure all for everything). I find this handkerchief and I'm having all these sweet Daddy thoughts and I unfolded it. Oooo, in the corner is an embroidered drum and my ex-husband's initials. It was one of HIS handkerchiefs. I dropped it like it was on fire. It wasn't because it was his that I was revolted. It was because it was one of the many many gifts he received from his girlfriend during our last years. It went straight in the trash. I was reminded of this because I just saw a little stack of Daddy's handkerchiefs that came from Mom's last month. She still had most of them.

I have managed not to fuck up my radio show this week. I have gone to great lengths to check each and every step of the way and check and put the time on a paper each day. Adds to the time, but at least I hope it will help me if I get off track.

Bad news this week for my boss. He took the whole week off to have a procedure related to his bladder cancer. He had had surgery a while back and chemo for it. This would be a check to see if it was all working. I heard through a coworker who cannot keep a secret that there was a 5 cm tumor that had grown back that quickly. That is not good. I don't know what other news there is about the prospects, but I hope there are some rays of hope among the bad news.

I got my car washed yesterday. After all my 2000 miles of traveling in April, it has just been in the garage for a month. It was covered in bug splatters. I don't have a regular drive-through car wash here. They just don't seem to be everywhere like they were in Austin. So yesterday I just took it to a big "car spa" down the street and had them REALLY clean it. They cleaned the outside and waxed and cleaned the inside completely and did the Armor-All and stuff. The only thing they didn't clean was the INSIDE of the gas cap door. Why don't they reach in there and wipe it out? It's nasty? I need to do that.

Okay, I can't delay a shower and getting ready anymore. My stomach is growling, but lunch/brunch is still ahead.