8 June 2004

What a bad year for hockey. You know, when I saw that the puck had crossed the line in Game 6 and not gotten called, I thought, "They're going to take the Stanley Cup away from them. They've won it, and they're not going to have it." Big, deep sighs.

We had another change of plans yesterday: some of my family's oldest friends have an illness, and Mom needed to come up to see the sick person, Carl, while she still can, and maybe provide some support to Joy and John and the rest of the family. This is at the point where the family made the decision to honor the living will and not put Carl on life support machines. It's hard for them and hard for Mom. Anyway, so Mom crashed here last night, a few hours of talk before bed and a bit more over breakfast and now she's back out and on the road up to the hospital and/or nursing care facility, depending on whether they've moved him already. We may get to have her for dinner tonight, maybe not, depending on how things are going and what time she needs to get on the road. I'm going to make a hotdish or a big pot of soup, something that can be eaten in leftover form or shared at the time.

So I moved some of my errands to yesterday afternoon and shopped for Dad's birthday present and his and Grandpa's Father's Day presents so that I could send them along with Mom instead of shipping them a little later in the week. It was something I intended to do anyway this week, not a new task because Mom was coming -- and in fact, it removed a task, "Post Office," from my list -- but it was not occurring on the scheduled day. So the week's plans and lists need kind of a revamp. I'm not sure which end is up at this point, or what needs doing next.

The dishwasher has been definitively fixed. While I intend to buy plastic plates/cups/etc. for the party, this is a Good Thing.

I decided yesterday that I am not going to finish Sarah Ash's Lord of Snow and Shadows, despite the snow in the title. She did one too many things that grated on me. I may come back to it later if I have a good reason to do so. Or not. I'm not even starting the Richard Powers book I had from the local library -- I'm returning it unread, because I cannot see being in a Richard Powers mood in the near future. It'll stay on the list until I get around to it. Instead of those, I picked up Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary's Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril. People talked about what Fred Pohl omitted from his autobiography, but now reading this volume makes some of the holes...embarrassing, I would say. There's a difference between airing all of one's dirty laundry and sticking one's fingers in one's ears and singing la-la-la.

This was the right book for me to read right now. This is my People magazine. But more than that -- and I don't know whether these words are Emily's or Judith's -- the prelude says, "Grief is not knowing where to give the love that does not stop."

I think I needed that.

I made cocoa molasses cookies last night, and I think I needed that, too. They're in the freezer staying fresh for Saturday. It was something solid to do, something I could poke when I was done and say, "Yep, done with that." They are mostly moose of various sizes, rocket ships, and shooting stars. They are lovely, and my hair will smell like molasses until I get in the shower in a minute or two.

Today will feature more working and more waiting for news, from more than one front. No surprises there, I guess.

Onwards.