I’m Baaaaaack!

Seriously. Managed what is usually a six hour drive on the way up into the mountains in five hours and the drive back down from the mountains in four hours and forty minutes. No cops. Lucky, I guess.

It’s just that I needed to get up there and man, did I need to get home. I am beat. My parents… Fortunately neither has ever had either surgery or any serious illness so as you might imagine a knee replacement is a brand new experience.

“Why does this hurt so much?”

“Do you think I have a blood clot?”

“Why is my leg so swollen?”

“Why can’t I walk without this walker?”

“Why can’t I bend my knee?”

“I can’t remember where I put my pain medication.”

“Do you think I’ll get addicted?”

“The sheet hurts my big toe.”

“Man, it smarts to get in and out of the car.”

My dad is old school. Smiles through the pain. He’s both cute and so incredibly difficult to take care of. Won’t hold still for a minute. He’s what I want to be when I grow up. In damn good shape and stubborn as a mule.

The physical therapist instructed me to massage my father’s leg all the way from his ankle to his groin, to relieve the swelling in his leg. Yeah, right. My dad and I rolled our eyes in unison. As if… There’s a line fathers and daughters just do not cross, even if the daughter is a nurse.

“Not gonna happen,” I said. ”His foot will have to stay swollen.”

When we lived back in Iowa and took a family trip, I’d spend my time counting horses. Every farm had at least a couple horses. Here in California, as I drive I count raptors. It’s one of the things I appreciate the most about California, raptors. It was very windy on the way up and I counted only twenty hawks, but the way home, the weather was perfect. I counted fifty hawks and two, count ‘em, two bald eagles so close to the road I could see individual feathers. Cool!

Okay, thanks for your good wishes. Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight. May your Hanukkah be full of oil!