Did anyone get the license plate number of that truck?

Yeah, that truck that hit me last Friday. Modern medicine and the human body are miraculous, but, this time, it really will take some recovery time. I had a few inches of my colon removed on Friday night. Tuesday afternoon I came home. I have a one-eyed smiley face on my belly now, but all the pertinent parts seem to be functioning. It will just take some time.

Wednesday I spent the day in a friend's recliner, since, to add insult to injury, our air conditioner went out while I was in the hospital.

Yesterday was kinda' fun - did interesting client work that had to be done due to the State of Florida deadlines that are non negotiable. Read a couple of fun books. Went for a short drive.

Paid the price with an uncomfortable night, so here I am, in the recliner, taking life easy a few hours at a time.

I came up with a few numbers to summarize the last week..........

1 - The number of cancerous polyps I had removed by removing that section of my colon. (For some reason, I really, really don't like the work "malignant.")

2 - How many hours I spent in recovery after my three hour surgery. Normally, it only takes about an hour in recovery. However, one of the rules is that you have to be able to talk before leaving the recovery room. During recovery, someone would ask me questions. I would give a thumbs up, or a thumbs down or a shake of the hand, depending on the question, but would not talk. Finally, they sent for Ricky, out in the waiting room, telling him I was fine, but had some "issues" and needed his help. I think finally I said "don't want to talk" and they took me to my room.

3 - The days between my cancer diagnosis and surgery, performed by one of the top rated surgeons in the Dallas area.

15 - The number of family and friends who took over the waiting area during my surgery.

29 - The median number of days between a colon cancer diagnosis and the necessary surgery if you live in Canada.

34 - The number of lymph nodes removed and tested, all of which were negative.

Countless - The friends, family, students, co-workers and friends of friends who have sent prayers, notes, cards, flowers, balloons, food, time, encouragement and support. It has been overwhelming and humbling.

Even without the vacation I was so looking forward to, it's going to be a great summer.

Putting things off

I keep intending to post some things, really. If I have time today, I'll even post some more after this. Yeah, that's what I always say!

But I kinda' took last weekend off, with my parents visiting. Ricky, Wiley and I played golf Sunday afternoon and I did all right - had a lot of fun. A little storm came through and blew most of the people off the course. We played 18 holes in about three and a half hours, with the course virtually to ourselves. Awesome!

Then Monday, with the phones quiet, I finished a particularly tricky tax return.

All good reasons for taking a break from the computer.

Tuesday morning was my follow up visit on the colonoscopy. The short version - I'm having surgery this afternoon and am looking forward to about a five day hospital stay. The GI doctor who did the colonoscopy said I would be in the hospital seven to ten days! What!?! Heart transplants don't take that long! But the surgeon said, if she's able to complete the surgery laparoscopically, it's much shorter.

I don't think the news is too bad. I've been having a lot of medical tests done over the past few months which haven't shown anything alarming. I told the GI doctor I had been putting off getting braces on my teeth, though, until I knew I was going to live long enough to get my money's worth. He said I should go ahead and get the braces.

So here I am, doing laundry, finishing some client stuff, dry and thirsty after no food yesterday and nothing at all today. I had to drink the "koolaid" again last night to clean out the system. Sigh. But it's not that bad.

Come to think about it, I would amend that old expression to say that "nothing in life is certain except death and taxes and laundry." It's an interesting day when you're covering all three.

The bottom line - if you're reading this and you are fifty something like me, go ahead and do all those pesky things the medical folks tell you to do. It makes a difference. If I can do it, so can you.

And for some people, who read this blog, and promise that they are going to call...... You know who you are and you have my number!

How much is that doggie in the window?

Two years ago I generally detested dogs. The best dogs, my friends' dogs that left me alone, were tolerable. The rest - meh.

But something softened my heart over the past few years. Part of it is being so long from having little ones around. Part of it is turning fifty and wondering about some of the things I've not done in my life.

Every one of my best friends has been or is a dog owner. My life long friend Sherri had two dachshunds when we were in high school. My friend Tami had, until old age took her last year, a yellow lab. My friend Sherrie has her family dog who is her husband's hunting buddy. My friend Sally was absolutely nuts over her two cats and dog, spending thousands of dollars and tons of time nursing her dog through old age. He had to be put down shortly after Sally died.

If all these people, who I love and admire, like dogs, then there must be something special about having a dog. Did I want to try it, at least once?

These were the thoughts swirling in my brain, privately, in December, 2008. I tentatively mentioned the idea of getting a dog to my younger son, the only child still living at home. When he was little and wanted a dog, we always told him we would get him a dog when his brother and sisters were gone and he was home alone. So did he want a dog now? I asked him to think about it and, of course, hounded him for an answer.

He didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about the idea. I kept at him, wanting him to make a decision for me. A friend's dog was having puppies around Christmas time and that would give us plenty of time to prepare and educate ourselves for dog ownership in February. I showed him pictures of what the puppy would look like - a cross between a poodle and a cocker spaniel. The bottom line? My son said "meh." He was neutral about getting a dog, particularly a girly "cockapoo." If he was choosing a dog, he preferred a dog that looked like a husky.

But husky type dogs are big and shed a lot. Cockapoos are smaller, don't shed, are friendly, easily trained and good for people with allergies. What else matters?

Finally he said, "Mom, it's okay to get a dog if you want to get a dog. I don't really care." But how could I want a dog? I'd always disliked dogs. Was I crazy to want to get a dog when no one else in the family was that interested? It's not like any of us were just sitting around twiddling our thumbs.

Talking it over with my husband, he said go ahead, don't worry about it. So in a matter of days I went from detesting dogs to determined to own a dog. (I usually don't waste time on decisions.)

On the Friday before Christmas I went to the local pet store. They happened to have an older cockapoo puppy that I could show Wiley in order to get him more interested in the upcoming litter. Then I noticed an unlabeled puppy in the window. It looked just like a husky. I visited with each puppy. They were both unbelievably cute and friendly. The husky type puppy, I learned, was a shiba inu. In all my internet research, I had not run across mention of a shiba inu.

Back at the house I researched. Shiba inus are small, fastidious, cat-like, spirited, loyal to their owners, smart and sassy. That sounded good. They don't drool and don't have an odor. That sounded very good. They shed heavily twice a year. Okay, that's manageable. I conveniently glossed over the reports that shiba inus are not recommended for first time dog owners and shiba puppies are often described as "feisty little furballs from hell."

I emailed shiba inu information to Ricky at school. I picked Wiley up from school, the last day of school before the two week Christmas break, and took him immediately to the pet store. He loved the shiba inu. Ricky came home, exhausted and ready to relax after dealing with hyper teenagers all day. "You have to come to the pet store and see this dog." He rolled his eyes, but he went with me to check it out.

With everything happening for the Christmas holidays, there was no way I could bring home that dog that day. And there was no way I would leave a dog at the pet store that was going to be mine. (That particular puppy did get purchased by a family the next week.)

Back at the internet I found a shiba inu puppy, just sixty miles from my parents' house, that would be ready for us to pick up when we were there the next weekend. By Saturday I had purchased a puppy.

The next Sunday we picked up our new puppy and brought her home. Her first night with us our devil cat Addie hissed at her when she wouldn't shut up and so the puppy went right to sleep in her crate. The second night the puppy cried the entire night, in the crate in our bedroom, like all the books said would be best. By the third night we discovered our puppy did just fine with her crate in the kitchen, under the desk. With kids home from college, there was someone around to soothe her even in the middle of the night, and she quickly settled in.

Not too long after, she got sick. Taking her to the emergency vet on a Sunday night, we found out she had the parvo virus, often deadly for little puppies particularly. The next five days were horrible, with the vet recommending at one point that we let her go. But we did everything money and love and prayers could buy, and brought her home on the sixth day. She still had to go back a couple of times a day the next few days for breathing treatments since she had developed a little pneumonia, but she survived.

Three days after her homecoming I knocked a basket of books off a stool while she was underfoot. A cat would have jumped out of the way. The basket landed on her leg and I heard my first shiba scream. We scrambled to the vet again and came out with pain medicine and a splint on her leg. The x-ray was inconclusive. So that required a trip across town to a dog orthopedic specialist, who determined ultimately that her leg was okay.

I joke now that we have a golden dog.

Since then we've learned a lot about dog food, dog treats, leashes, crates and poop scooping. We've also learned about tail wagging, yodeling, tug of war, head tossing, following commands and cat chasing.

How much is our doggie in the window? Priceless.

For everything else.......

Cost of the dog $XXX

Animal hospital $XXXX

Vet specialist $XXX

Regular vet bill $XXX

Monthly dog stuff $XX

Cost of a playmate $XXX

It's just money.

Three more days 'till the new puppy.

p.s. During the Christmas holidays in 2008 my husband told our new son-in-law......"One of the great things about being married - you can live with someone for thirty years and they can still surprise you. I never thought I would ever hear the words 'I want a dog' from my wife's mouth. An alien has arrived and taken over my wife's body."

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

A normal day

Like a bear coming out of hibernation, I have to adjust to the real world after the end of the spring tax season. I worked 367 hours in March and 223 hours the first half of April. After April 15, it actually takes me a few days to taper off work, catch up on some rest and remember how to take it easy.

This morning I got another tax return out the door, then headed out to pick up my friend and go tour the U.S. Mint, located in Fort Worth, about ten minutes from her house. We got to the mint about 9:30. The parking lot was fairly empty, a couple of moms with their young children were hanging around. There were four armed guards just inside the door of the welcome center. We put our purses in the X-ray machine and, after a body scan, entered the building. My friend took a little longer, having to remove all her jewelry and finally her shoes with the steel plates hidden inside. Once inside, we were escorted to a shuttle bus which took us to the main building.

We were welcomed inside like royalty. I think there were about twenty employees in the lobby, a combination of guards and hostesses. I didn't see any other visitors. We asked the lady who seemed to be in charge when the next tour started. She answered in awed tones that we had picked the perfect day, as they would be unveiling the new $100 bill at 11:00, and they were making that the first tour of the day, and we could be a part of it.

My friend and I looked at each other. We're both busy ladies, with things to do and places to be. Hang around for an extra hour and a half? I don't think so. We were quickly back on the shuttle bus, making our escape. I'll probably read in the paper tomorrow about the fabulous party I missed out on.

Instead, we enjoyed a lovely walk through her neighborhood. The morning was still cool and I particularly appreciated seeing the variety of landscapes, as I'm planning a complete face lift of my house's exterior in the next few weeks.

Next I had a business lunch with someone I've known for twenty-five years, and still occasionally work with. After lunch I had just enough time to bag up clothes for the school district's "clothes closet" before meeting with another friend and finishing the current round of volunteer accounting work I do for our high school band, punctuated as usual by my afternoon delivery of Wiley between schools for his afternoon class.

After school, Ricky cleaned the living room (wow!) and then it was supper time. What to eat?

My main motivation in picking meals these days is accommodating Wiley, who most of his life has been a light eater. A year ago he was five inches shorter than me. Some time in the last few weeks, when I wasn't looking, he passed me in height. It's rather glorious, just as it was six years ago when his brother did the same thing.

Lately, Wiley has been much more interested in food. Sunday he had eight or ten or twelve homemade tacos. We lost count, we just know he ate the rest. Tuesday night was an all you can eat pizza night.

Tonight I had the inspiration to go to the cafeteria. My kids grew up eating regularly in the Luby's Cafeteria just down the road from us. Certain nights of the week were "kids eat free," and when you have four of them, that is a pretty sweet deal. We gradually outgrew the free ride, though, and our family attendance tapered off, finally stopping when the Luby's closed a couple of years ago.

Tonight we headed out to Furr's, a one price all-you-can-eat cafeteria. I got a spinach salad, tilapia, pinto beans, turnip greens (with pepper sauce) and a roll. Ricky got chicken fried steak, gravy, corn, new potatos and some fried shrimp. Wiley got a banana (a banana?), hamburger steak, french fries and a roll. I reminded Wiley that he could get whatever he wanted. But that was indeed what he wanted. We ate our meals. Then Wiley went back and got a fish filet and some mashed potatoes. We finished up. Then Wiley went back and got another hamburger steak. Then he had ice cream. Then, not quite satisfied, he went back and got another banana. (Another banana?)

In our family, eating is now officially a spectator sport. We checked and made sure he didn't need to stop and get a snack on the way home.

Back at the house, I've spent the evening in the recliner, reading on a Harry Potter book, watching basketball, not fretting over any deadlines. Now it's time to hit the hay.

A normal day off kind of day.

Life in a bubble

It's 7:15 on a Sunday morning and I've been at work for almost two hours.

That pretty much sums up my life every March and first half of April. It's the price tag for being my own boss, able to set my own hours, and having an easy schedule at the end of the year during the holidays.

Of course being able to set my own hours is a joke for this six week period. I am a slave to my clients and the arbitrary March and April 15 deadlines for having tax returns filed or extended with the proper payments.

This time of year is when I most feel like I'm still in college, although college finals didn't extend for six weeks at a time. It's a challenge each year, knowing that it will all get done, but never sure of the path.

Each year has its own priorities. One year it was a new baby sleeping in my lap as I worked. Another year was full of wedding planning that could not be deferred. A few years ago I took my daughter and her friends to San Antonio the weekend before April 15 to watch the women's NCAA Final Four basketball games. Sometimes it's client issues that make a tax season challenging. A couple of years, including this year, IRS audits of my corporate clients have demanded hours I have to pull out of a hat.

The most stressful tax season I had was the first one after my CPA friend died. I added several of her clients into my mix and there was a steep learning curve. Sally had a twenty year history with these new friends of mine and I had to catch up. And every file was full of her notes in her handwriting, a daily reminder of my loss. That was the year I started work at 4:00 am every day. There were days I wasn't sure I would make it.

But I did, as I always do, with family support and the faith that it is not the end of the world if I screw up. I do my best, it will either be enough or it won't.

In many ways, life is simpler during tax season. I get up, work for a while, get dressed, work for a long time, take Wiley from one school to another in mid-afternoon, work for a while, eat supper, then work for a long time. There comes a time in the evening, sometime between 10:30 and 1:30 that my eyes glaze over, and then I'm done for the day. If it's late, and my clothes are comfy, I don't even change before getting into bed. (Pretty romantic, huh?)

Some days I get dressed up for a project I work on at a client's office each year. Every now and then a client stops by. That can be kind of dicey, though, since it usually looks like a paper bomb has gone off around here and I have to allow time to straighten up. Weekends are a little easier, since the phone doesn't ring.

My friends play along with my schedule, for which I'm grateful. They aren't offended if I can't meet for lunch or have a long phone call. My book club is on hold. Church attendance is spotty. I ration out my participation in family activities. Wiley has a soccer tournament next weekend. My goal is to make one of the three games. My daughter is hosting Easter lunch. Last year the boys went, but I worked instead. This year I hope to be there. The family events have the highest priority, even over sleep, but I still can't make them all.

And now I know I can't, physically or mentally, keep up any kind of regular posting on my blog during this time of year. So I'll continue with brief comments and pictures and flits of fancy. I've had several things come up I would write about in a normal month, basketball and politics and aging and teenagers and dogs........but they can wait. They have to wait. I've started several posts when the muse called, but then I laugh at myself. I am so tired I can't finish a sentence, much less a coherent paragraph. If I stop moving to take time to think, my thoughts quickly turn from words on a page to dreams. I even fell asleep in my car waiting five minutes to pick up Wiley one afternoon.

But today, I'm optimistic. I got up early and got stuff done. I have allowed myself the luxury of thirty minutes of posting. Now a quick shower, another hour of work, then off to church. Then back at work for the rest of the day.

It will all get done.

Boys will be boys

We returned late yesterday from a fun filled weekend in Houston, Texas at our thirty year college reunion. Lots of friends showed up, so that made it especially memorable. Our football team won its first game of the year, so even better.

But the most fun I had was Sunday morning, watching Ricky play three games of volleyball as part of a men's volleyball team alumni get-together.

Earlier in the month he was reluctant to attend the reunion, and even more reluctant to attempt volleyball. But wifely pressure prevailed, and we went.

We did manage to arrive in town too late to play sand lot volleyball on Friday. Only a few played the sand game, figuring the legs would only be there once, and Sunday would be better.

It was amusing to watch them warm up Sunday morning, hitting balls against the walls, practicing serves, setting each other for hits, peeking sideways to see how the other guys were doing. Showing up were nine men who played competitively for Rice in the late seventies and early eighties, their coach and a couple of club players from the current team. So they were able to play six on six - three games to twenty five.

Ricky didn't warm up much. He joked that he only had five jumps left and didn't want to waste them. No one expected to do great - there was just the fear of being awful in front of the people you used to be great with.

But the game began, and they quickly settled in. Old rotations and plays showed up as if used yesterday. The taunting, the laughing, the language - all the same. And they always knew what the score was.

Everyone had at least a couple of good hits and saves and there were many long rallies. Ricky did well as long as he didn't have to hit twice in a row! He even managed to do his famous backwards roll at the end of a dig. So maybe a few more balls hit the floor or the net than in yesteryear, but not much else differed.

Well, maybe the sore shoulders and knees and ankles for the next few days is a little different than thirty years ago. With a legal drinking age of eighteen, college guys never stayed sore after beating themselves up on the court.

Thirty years ago they would drive all night, play match after match and then drive back to school, crammed five or six into compact cars. Even now they can recite specific plays and tournaments and outcomes and team pranks.

Even now they are boys who can play and have a good time.

Sometimes the Good Die Young

Two years ago I spent the last weekend of July with my friend Sally in her Houston home. We had a great visit. I am thankful that I chose to go see her that time. Her home has been a retreat for me where we would relax together once or twice a year. We would gossip about our kids and our clients and even have fun discussing work related problems. (I know, I'm a nerd.)

Sally and I met while working together at that big accounting firm that can no longer be named. Both our husbands were attorneys. We were pregnant at the same time and shared the same obstetrician. My second child and her first child were born a few weeks apart. Our families vacationed together when our children were little. Sally and I left that accounting firm and started our businesses about the same time and continued to stay good friends for twenty years, even though I had moved north.

A week after Sally and I visited, she died while participating in an open water swim event. Sally's local swim club had traveled with spouses to have a fun-filled weekend, culminating with the swim club members racing from Alcatraz Island to the shore of San Francisco. Near the end of the race Sally quit swimming, about a hundred yards from the finish, and could not be revived. When her husband called me that Sunday afternoon and told me the news, I thought a boulder had landed on my chest. It was as devastating as when the doctor told me my daughter had a very serious and rare form of cancer that needed immediate treatment. When told about my daughter's condition, the bottom fell out of my life, but was soon restored with hope and activity. There were things I could do to help and save my daughter. But Sally, she was gone.

After hanging up the phone, I packed a bag and drove the 275 miles to Houston, still in shock. My daughter was living with Sally and her husband during a summer internship. We had to get her packed up and moved out of the way so that Sally's children could come home and have their space and privacy. It was an awful week of disbelief as I called Sally's clients and helped any way possible. Unexpected death is jagged and raw. It stays immediate and aches for a long time.

I will never know exactly how or why Sally died that day. I like to think that her death, by changing the end of summer travel plans of her college age children, kept one or both of them from a disastrous course. Sally would have traded her life for the life of her children in a heartbeat, and perhaps she did.

I do know that Sally was prepared. She had done her best to coordinate the assisted living care of her parents and was pushing her siblings to be more involved going forward. She enjoyed her children and they were thriving. A few years previously she threw a grand to-do in celebration of her 25th wedding anniversary. She had confided to me that she didn't want to wait for her 50th, since her husband's family's longevity record was not the greatest. She wanted to make sure she had the chance to celebrate her marriage and her family.

Sally and I often disagreed on politics and religion. I am a compassionate conservative. She was a compassionate liberal. I think she questioned the value of organized Christianity and the interest God had in her individual life, while I see God's hand everywhere. To me, it was no accident that her life was in such order. She had everything caught up so she could spend several weeks touring the Middle East with her daughter, a trip scheduled to start shortly after the San Francisco trip. It was no accident that I had visited her the week before and, in an unusual course of conversation, she showed me exactly how her work was organized and what was finished and what was left to be done. It was no accident that her husband was surrounded by close friends throughout his terrible ordeal. It was no accident that she had secure relationships with her children.

I miss Sally and always will. I miss having her on speed dial to share jokes or laments. I miss her sentimental attachment to pets. I miss her exasperating tendency to obsess over small details. I miss our shared future of grandchildren and retirement adventures. I'm still mad at her for choosing this particular adventure two years ago. I wish she had changed her mind at the last minute and just enjoyed the festive weekend without unnecessary risk. But it was not in her nature to back away from a challenge she had committed to.

The wise teacher Dumbledore said that the dead we loved never truly leave us. Because of who Sally was and how she lived her life, I now try to leave fewer things undone. Remembering the joy she had with her pets, even in the midst of their infirmities, helped me decide it was worth the trouble to have a dog. I have more friends and cherish them more, knowing how valuable real friendship is and how hard it is to let it go. And, to the relief of my husband, I have taken hang gliding off my list of things to do, at least until I'm eighty.

It is a trite expression to say you should live each day as your last. Instead, I encourage you to live each day more completely. Live without regret for what was or might have been. And when you have the opportunity for true friendship, hold on to it as tightly as you can.