Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Another week unblogged, but this time, I'm ripe with excuses. Wanna hear 'em?

We'll start with The Mysterious Illness, a three-day bout of high chills and fever, numbswollen glands in odd and embarassing places, and a fever-induced pelvis pain like you wouldn't believe. Spent much of two days in the hospital under a blanket, freezing to death at room tempurature, in fact. I've given more blood in a week than I've ever given, and I used to pride myself on my donor status.

Lucky my primary care physician finally noticed what turned out to be a fist-sized, entirely septic, horribly vicious spider bite on my calf, or I'd still be being poked in the abdomen even now. In my defense, I would have noticed that myself, had I not been such a total disaster both physically and mentally.

Disappointingly, I have yet to manifest any superhuman powers [insert spiderman picture here]. And I don't look like Tobey Maguire any more than I used to, either. On the bright side, the fever finally came down Friday afternoon, just in time for excuse number two: The Edith Jones Memorial Weekend, up in Rome, NY.

Darcie's Mom grew up in Rome; her father worked there, both at the base and at the press, and between 'em, that pretty much covered the major industries around Rome and it's upstate environs. The family plot is there, too, and we gathered there in the utterly violent cold and rain to sing her favorite hymn, it was nice to think of Edith one last time all together, and see her in each other's faces fondly.

Edith didn't really want a memorial, but I think the weekend functioned as a pretty good send-off, once the memorial itself was over. Those folks with memories revisited them, taking tours in the area, looking for old haunts grown rough with age. We ate at the Savoy, her old favorite restaurant, both Friday night and Saturday; the food was great, the piano player gentle on the keys and stuck in time like the rest of the place, and it was nice to watch old home movies with her bothers and their families there in the function room.

Nice, too, to have some time to hang with Ginny, and the rest of the family we know and love back at the house. Edith would have loved it.

Still, the blogging would have started last night, were it not for End Of Year Grading, our third and final excuse of the evening, and due first thing tomorrow morning. 'nuff said, there. If there is a teacher out there who actually likes the number crunching and score-fiddling that the rest of us find such a year's end buzzkill, I'd be happy to trade papergrading time tit for tat.

My blogger's voice has been lost a bit to the antibiotic-induced delirium, but I relinquished my doctor's note at work this morning, so I guess it's business as usual from here on in -- if by "business as usual" you mean brainfried and ready for summer. One week and counting until the last day of the school year...a week and a day until the bookwriting begins in earnest. Viva la blog!