More Ups and Downs

Mark and I watched a great movie Friday evening. ("I Love Huckabees") It was really nice just to be able to hang out with him on the couch and laugh together. But shortly after the movie ended, he had an attack of chest pain that radiated up his neck and down his arm. I had to call an ambulance. But after he was gone, I just COULDN'T go to the ER. I just couldn't. I called the hospital after he arrived to make sure he was okay and to give them Jason's home phone number for transportation home when they were through with him, but I just couldn't STAND the thought of spending another minute in that hospital. Feeling guilty, I went to bed, and woke up at 7 this morning. Mark was still gone. I checked the machine. Had they called and I didn't hear the phone? Nope. No messages. And then Mark called. "You can come get me." Dr. VanEaton had been on last night and they had kept him all night, giving him all the meds he needed to get through this episode. God bless VanEaton's huge heart! It just makes me even MORE mad about the other night. We went through all that crap for nothing!!! What does Dr. J expect to accomplish, with Mark? It's just as absurd, imo, as denying pain killers to a terminal cancer patient. If you're terminal ... you're terminal! Hello!?! Anyway ... deep breath.

Yesterday was much better. Mark still didn't feel well, and he spent nearly the entire day in bed, but at least he was a) comfortable enough to sleep, and b) home! I took the boys to the parade for the Dayton Harvest Festival. Jason had his kids today, too, since Becca was doing a Tupperware booth at the festival all day, so he met us there and we watched the parade together. It was really short, but fun. You know you live in a small town when in the middle of the parade, the firefighter that ran the 911 call last night leans out the window and calls, "How's Mark?" Yep, that's my town for ya.

After that, I went to the library book sale. I got a TON of books (well, maybe ... half a ton). In addition to about seven books for Alex and three for Brendan and two books of poetry written by Mattie J.T. Stepanek, a kid with muscular dystrophy (He's really quite a kid!), I got the following: C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, Roth's The Ghost Writer, McCullough's The Ladies of Missalonghi,E.L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate, Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride and Cat's Eye, Nine Plays by Bernard Shaw, and Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. I was pretty happy, coming out of there! What a way to build a library! Of course, it'll be three more months before I can buy more, but at $3 a bag ...! Wow. You just can't beat that.

After that, I took Kayte and Bren to Burger King. (Alex opted to stay home, and I let him since Mark was there, even though he was sleeping. The thing is ... I told Alex he could have one hour on the computer but didn't specify what he should do after that. When I got home, I asked him what he had done the rest of the time. He said, "Nothing." I said, "Nothing? You did nothing that whole time?" He said, "Yeah. Well, I did read the instruction manual for my game ..." Sigh. I forget that one has to be specific about what he is to do with his time or he will literally sit and do nothing at all. I don't quite get that. You turn Brendan loose and he runs outside, comes back in, slams doors, throws toys around, slides down the banister, runs back outside ... Alex just sits. The contrast is really amazing.) But anyway, back to what I was saying ... we had some lunch and then had to try to find some volleyball shorts for Kayte. I was TIRED and crabby by then and Brendan was driving me nuts and the stores were too crowded and I was TIRED, doggonit! (Did I mention that already?) Well, we finally got home and I let the boys sit in front of the game system (under Kayte's supervision) while I went up to their room--and crashed. I only slept for about an hour, but boy, did it feel good!

We went down to the festival at the park around 6:00, but I spent too much time browsing, getting cotton candy for the boys, chatting with Becca at her booth, etc. When we went to get tickets for the activities, they had stopped selling them. Brendan was NOT happy. He had been waiting all day to play in the bouncy house and go down the 19 foot inflatable slide, and now we couldn't, all because Mom had been TOO SLOW. But I went to the lady taking tickets for the slide and told her how very much he had wanted to play ... and she let him on! She gave him six turns without a single ticket. Then the boys went over and played one sort of carnival game, which they lost, but the lady gave them a token prize anyway. And then we started looking around, but ended up stuck at this one booth called Pino-kee-o's. This woman, named Phyllis, makes all these FABulous wooden toys (and other things, too, like a funky clock made out of a Scrabble board with the words ONE, TWO, THREE, etc. spelled out at the correct places). Alex immediately gravitated to this really complex geometric cube puzzle. He tried and tried and tried. I chatted with the lady (and chatted and chatted). Finally, I said, "I'm going to have to buy that, aren't I? You're never going to be able to walk away from it." Well, as soon as I wrote out my check and handed it over, he solved the puzzle! But he doesn't have the solution memorized, so I'm sure it'll give him lots more fun in the next few days. I got Brendan a Jacob's Ladder toy and took the lady's card. She's going to be at the area's biggest craft fair the weekend after Thanksgiving. I think I'm going to have to go hunt her down for Christmas gifts.

They finally had to start packing up, so we moved on to the free corn-on-the-cob feed. YUM!!! So good. Then home, to bathe the by-now-very-overtired-and-crabby Brendan and to take Kayte to her sleepover at Lindsay's. And then snack and prayers and bed and ... QUIET!!! Yey!