Estoy Nueces

I haven't written in days and days. I guess I fell out of computing habits when we had company this week. It was a good visit with the in-laws. They didn't do any of their advising at all, and that is nice, although I kept finding myself steeled in preparation for "guidance." They stayed two nights, which is tolerable. We slept on the air bed, which wasn't as cold as last year in December, and I took Benadryl to knock myself out each night to make it possible to sleep hard. The first night they were here I expected that we would go out to dinner, but then everyone decided staying home would be nicer, so I ran to the new Johnny Carino's and got wonderful takeout. It was superfast and easy and I want to do that for company again! I don't want to lose my reputation as a good cook (what reputation as a good cook?), but it sure made it easy to come home and eat.

On Wednesday they took a trip on that rainy day out to Johnson City and visited a writer friend of my mother-in-law's and mine from our old days of writing in Dallas. She has a coffee shop out there. They had a nice day antique shopping and seeing the Hill Country while Mark and I worked. That night Mark played and they went to see him. I did my thing at the cafe in the rain and enjoyed myself seeing my friends from the Wheel and meeting Ray's son and ex-wife and some other nice folks.

The in-laws left early on Thursday morning and then I had the house back to myself, which is a wonderful feeling.

We did get the date for surgery this week. Daddy will have his jaw removed and cheek removed on Friday, Nov. 3. If you know how to offer up a prayer, I would appreciate you doing that. We are all just dreading this whole process. I emailed the boss that I would be going and he didn't respond. I went ahead and put a "personal action form" in his box but he hasn't seen that yet. I am waiting for him to say "no." He didn't say no in the spring book, but we've had a change of management since then and there just might be a change of philosophy. I don't care. They are going to have to do without me for one day. I know there is anxiety in my head because I keep having these ultimatum arguments with him about this, even when there has been not one word said about it.

I also keep waiting for him to challenge me on it because this is the Friday that I had originally asked off for to go see my nephew march with his band on Senior Night. He said no to that and now I "conveniently" have Dad's surgery that day. It's the truth, but it could look suspicious. And, yes, if my dad is safely in ICU and out of surgery by the time my nephew is marching, I'm going to go see him march!

Speaking of his marching, yesterday he led his band to the top of the area finals and they are on their way to State! I'm so proud of him. He works so hard at this. He just cried and cried when they made the announcement of who made the finals. That will be the Tuesday after Dad's surgery in San Antonio. I don't suppose I'll get to go because it is in the daytime, but if the finals are that night, I will beat it down there and see if I can catch some of it. Mark said he might try to go, which I know would mean a lot to my nephew.

My Dad's surgery has filled me with lots of anxiety and depression. I will wake up thinking "Hey, I was depressed yesterday, I wonder why I felt that way? I feel great this morning!" and then it will hit me what Daddy is facing and I'll get down again. I feel so bad that I am this far away and can't even take them to their appointments or anything. And then I will be there for surgery, something my sister will already be at regardless of what I'm doing so it doesn't save her any effort at all. She and I have both said we will just take this one day at a time and not try to figure out what we'll have to do next.

We also won't worry about Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the days in between until we need to. I would like to start my decorating early this year so that it doesn't get away from me without some feeling of festivity in my home.

I have had to rearrange a lot of things at work for this quick trip. My Friday luncheon was postponed indefinitely. I wish they would have agreed to have done it on Thursday instead, but they wouldn't, so this will be another week without a lunch. We didn't have one scheduled for this past Friday and then I told them to hold off because I was afraid there would be surgery then. There wasn't, and then it was too late to do one. I also will not be able to do the Race for the Cure, but my weatherman said he would be the team leader. I am tring to take care of the little details on that to be ready for it so he will be comfortable doing it.

I have felt down this weekend and need to get outside in the sunshine and let that help my mood. The book festival is going on and I have just felt no real desire to go to it this year. It sort of depresses me to go alone and see so many people there with friends and as couples. Mark doesn't like to go, he has gone with me once, and I don't have any friends that are that into it. Plus, I will admit it, I always hate to have friends along because then I feel like I am on their schedule and agenda. I think my friend Grace went with me one year, or maybe we just met up there and it was weird. Plus, another plus, I hate crowds and get SO claustrophobic in those tents. So I will just take myself to the bookstore this week, maybe, and get something good to read while Dad is in the hospital and enjoy books that way.

I am also debating with myself about whether to commit to writing a Novel in a Month for NaNoWriMo. How silly is that to debate it? I can sign up and if I don't do it, who's going to know? And if I get involved and love it and write 30,000 words or 70,000 words, and enjoy it, good for me! I just need to sign up, but I have a huge fear of failure. I also have a fear of semi-success. Like last year. I wrote the novel, it is good, but I know it isn't the best. I hate not being the best. But I can't bring myself to do what it takes to edit that book and make it better? Why? I think because of those monetary issues I've always fought with. If someone would pay me before I do it, or assure me that it will be worth MONEY when I am done, I would do it, but I was raised that if it isn't valuable monetarily, it is without value. Silly, silly, I know. Maybe I still need more therapy (there is no maybe to it!).

Tonight I am breaking out of my shell and going out with friends I hardly know. One is the Wheel's bass player's wife. I've known them a few years now, but not well at all. She was at the cafe Wednesday with other girlfriends and they invited me to join them for the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Zach tonight. I agreed and now I am going. I hope I can be entertaining and be entertained and have fun with new friends. I can't recall the last time I did something like this at all. I hope I don't have to do the Time Warp (again).

I guess more reasons I've been depressed this week is the number of people quitting the station. The promotions girl is leaving in December and already operating on a low gear. Now my favorite chat buddy each day, the traffic director, is leaving us, too, to go to METV. I will miss her terribly because she usually had gossip because she was good friends with the HR woman and heard more gossip and she also was close by to the boss's office and saw what was going on in there. She is truly the only person in the building (besides my traffic reporter) that I have regular conversations with. I need friends.

Okay, so I am going to commit to NaNoWriMo, although I don't even have a plot in mind and will be out of town for days on end this month. And I am going to go spray the grass in the garden with Roundup (which I bought at Lowe's yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed my trek there) and I'm going to clean the house up a little bit. Then I will go to the play this evening and this will have been a good day.