Random Bits

Christmas came and went - a very low-key Christmas, which is all to the good.  Dad was released from the hospital directly home.  There was talk of him going to rehab, but decided home nurse visits would be what he needed rather than in unit somewhere dreadful.  So he came home on December 16th.  He's been getting stronger ever since, and late last week his cardiologist gave him back his car keys - which means he is driving himself to the mall to do his walking therapy (too cold and too much snow/ice to walk around the outdoor track, and he needs it to be a level surface - so the mall it is!).

Today he even showed up at the gallery with the dog.  He really shouldn't have had the dog with him (muscular 70 pound Lab) because he shouldn't be pulled - but I guess it all went okay.  Interesting things I did not know about cardiac surgery.... when they do the "long cut" (from just under the throat notch to around the diaphragm area) there is less pain, and easier recovery than if they do the "short cut."  Longer scar, but easier path back to health.  Dad had the "long cut."  He was only on heavy duty pain killers while he was in the cardiac ICU unit, and off them completely pretty much before he left that unit to go to the step-down unit.  And he's only had to take the prescribed pain meds once since he got home (first full day home, he had trouble readjusting to a non-adjusting bed - completely normal).  He is healing well.

I spent a lot of time at the gallery today, because not only did we redo both windows (wtf? both?) we also took down the Christmas ornaments and cards and things, which necessitated the reorganization of the whole front of the shop - and then the cleanup of all the holes left in displays around the shop.  In between customers, of course.

My "big gift" this Christmas from my parents was exactly what I asked for.  I got an airbrush - which I spent a lot of Saturday playing with.  So damned cool, I can't even.  It has much much MUCH better control than I realized, and learning the ins and outs is going to a hell of a lot of fun.  I am using it with ink at the moment.  I have some fluid medium that I can mix with regular acrylic, but I am not really ready for that yet - the ink will let me learn with fairly easy cleanup.   It is pretty and shiny and I will be hauling the whole rig over to my folks in a couple of weeks to show my mother how it works.

Went to NYC for New Years (no, not Times Square - but we did see the fireworks in Central Park).  It was awesome, and exactly what I needed - a few days away.  I spent more money than I should have, but less than I expected to all told.  I used the cash "holiday gift" that work gave out at the holiday party - pretty much exclusively all weekend.

Second year in a row Bergdorf Goodman blew us away with their holiday windows.  They were spectacular.  Even the one or two we were less fond of were amazingly well thought out and executed.

While I was gone we got TEN inches of snow... which had compressed itself down to about four inches by the time I returned.  I had no idea it was ten inches until my mom told me today.  Oddly enough, someone plowed my drive while I was gone, because it was very clear it had been plowed.  The walkways hadn't been touched, but the driveway was mostly clear.  Weird.  No idea which neighbor gave me the New Year's gift of a plowed drive... But I won't turn it down (since I was a couple hundred miles away when it happened...)!

G turned ELEVEN last week.  ELEVEN!  Soon, she'll be taller than me...

For those who don't know, I live on a quiet suburban street (usually very quiet). My house is situated at the T-part of a T intersection. My street goes left to right, and another street ends head on with my yard. I've got kids living nearby, and so the school buses have a complicated dance for all the area schools. Because my town has some odd way of breaking the kids up, so just because you live next door to someone the same age, doesn't necessarily mean you are in the same school (until High School - there is only one of those). Since working from home, I've become accustomed to buses at all times of the day as the school days are staggered to make busing easier (not all elementary schools start or end their days at the same time).

The little girl who lives next door (on the left) has been being bused to school (pre and kindegarten) for a couple of years. This year she is in first grade, and the bus comes to drop her home about 3:30 every day. It is a five-eight minute process, because she is in a wheelchair, and the driver has to get out to open the back side door and prep the lift, and get back on to secure her in the lift, and get back off to actually lower her to the ground. And her parents are there to meet her, usually with one or both of her younger, twin sisters toddling around. Chaos!

Today, her bus arrived early by about ten minutes, and it stopped, honked, and the driver exited the bus as usual. A second school bus came down the street in the opposite direction, and stopped. And then one came from right in front and stopped, as you must do when a school bus is stopped with it's stop sign out. They sat blocking every possible road for the six minutes or so it took to get my neighbor kid off the bus, the lift back up, and the door closed securely. Funny as hell. It kind of looked like they were staring each other down. Even funnier, because the buses were not the same size - the wheelchair accessible one was longer than the other two.

After the buses cleared out (one turning right, one turning left, and one going straight) the cars that had stacked up behind them tried to get themselves sorted as well.

Timing, as they say, is everything.