If I'm not in bed by 7:30, no TV for a week

When I was a kid, I though this was what God looked like...addicted since the womb. (How wonderfully 70's is this picture? This exact jar sits on my desk at home.)

It's 7 o'clock now and I find myself thinking, "Man, it's getting late..."

I expect to be in bed shortly with a cup of tea and my book. I promised myself this tonight and I don't want to bail on me again.

I have the evening off as my dad is on night-duty at the hospital with my mom. I was beat and apparently visibly so because my mom told me I should head out at about 5pm.

Last night I stayed at the hospital until 11:30, GiG and I watching Sally Field's Oscar-winning performance in "Places In The Heart" through Netflix on my laptop. Kim, the evening nurse came in and offered us dessert for our slumber party, later delivering a Hoodsie-type cup of vanilla ice cream and another of orange sherbet. (Really, no second "R" there?) We scooped half out of each and mixed 'em up for the orange Creamsicle effect, a favorite taste of my mom's. It was nice watching movies together and it made me laugh when she had me call her upon leaving the hospital both when I got into my car in the parking lot ("after you lock the doors") and again when I was inside my parents' house. I've walked through many dark parking lots without her knowledge in my day I almost argued, but just went with it instead. I'm glad to have her here to worry. I'm glad to let her be my mom.

Every spring I walk the little river that runs through my town in New Hampshire and watch as the little families of ducklings start to appear trailing behind their mom on the river's edge. I see throughout the season as they turn from little yellow fluffballs, to an adolescent-looking version, and onward. Lately when I've seen them, still traveling in their bunch as they do---for they are still quite young---, I find myself struggling to discern which one the mother is as they've all gotten so big. For a while I could just tell, her brood being slightly smaller than she, but now I can't at all. Sometimes I think I can just by observing a certain stillness in one versus the others, but I'm never completely sure. No, there's not much visible difference there and I can't help but note it. She's not even leading anymore it seems, though who knows what subtle, undetectable direction she is still providing.

We're hoping my mom will be out of the hospital tomorrow. We expected her to come home today but there are still some x-rays that need doing and so on. Now that she has her appetite, and more important her taste buds, back she is looking forward to having a cup of coffee on her back deck like it's a trip to Italy. My God, if ever I needed a reminder of the smallest of life's joys... Talk about taking things for granted. I have cursed my appetite too many times to count, but never have I felt gratitude for my taste buds.

So I'll pay special attention tonight to my little cup of tea.

In fact, off I go. Can't keep my 7:30 appointment waiting...