smacky and bucky

This guy is AWESOME. Yeah, I totally teared up at this one:

The little boy cried.

“I want to go help him fight the bad guys,” he said.

His mom said, “You need to go help your sister fight cancer.”

Man, I just teared up again.

NOTE: Thanks to Kate for mentioning blog numbers in a recent post. I checked and found out that THIS post is number 1,330! I'm averaging 190 posts a year since I started in October 2004.

Yesterday was a play group play date at the playground (So many "plays," so much playing!). Numerous rounds on the swings, a healthy does of running around, and a long stretch of digging sand and filling a plastic bucket. Play group rocks! And makes him fall asleep at a reasonable hour! Yay!

Last night at 6 p.m. the boy was sitting down to dinner when I received a text: "We have 2 extra tix for tonight's Caps game. Wanna go?" Laura and I debated it for a few minutes and she's the one who ultimately said, "Let's do it!"

By 6:30 we were in front of the Verizon Center meeting our friends with the tickets.

He had a great time! So much visual stimulation. He flirted with lots of women, who all swooned. He danced to the music (including Ozzy screaming "Make Some Noise") and waved to every usher we passed. He ate popcorn and peanuts and drank a big cup of milk.

We left at at the end of the second period, after running into some other friends and catching up. We beat all the traffic out and got home in time... to see the Caps lose in overtime. Oh well. That part didn't matter!

As Henry's surgery day approaches, we're trying to fill his days with things he'll be temporarily sidelined from doing, like long trips to the playground for 20 minutes of pushing on the swings followed by a pass around the giant sand pit and dancing together to music. (Yesterday H and I were both wearing khaki shorts and red sneakers and we danced to the Yo Gabba Gabba soundtrack.)

It seems so far away, and there are long stretches where we don't think about it. 24 days to go.

Our house has too much stuff in it. Fact. So I decided I will get rid of one item a day for the next year. It could be as small as a single book or as large as a sofa! I started a new blog to document this: http://365purge.blogspot.com. I don't promise it will be interesting, so don't get too excited about checking it. It's mostly to keep me honest and on track with it. Should be interesting at the end too.

You know those "Social Readers" that--if you allow them--will post what you read online on Facebook? I see things some of you read sometimes, whether you know it or not, but that's a different story. This story is about our daytime sitter. She is Mormon, so of course most of the posts that pop up say "So and so read 'Romney and his Mormon secret' on Washington Post Social Reader" and that's fine. But this morning she must have seen a headline and clicked on it out of curiosity, because it was definitely not like the others!

She read "4 Things You Do That Kill Her Sex Drive: [Men's Health] There’s a reason why you and your wife of 20 years don’t ravage each other anymore, and it isn’t for your lack of trying."

Wow.

(1) It's an article for men, but a woman reading it isn't so odd. If flipped through Cosmo now and again in the past to get a glimpse of the female mind.

(2) She's 16 weeks pregnant and has the pregnant belly to show for it, which adds a layer to her reading choice that you probably weren't expecting!

(3) All of her Mormon family and friends saw this announcement as well, I can only assume, so who knows what they're thinking?


Please, if you click a link to a story on Facebook and it wants you to allow them to have access to your info and to post on your activities, just click "cancel." It still takes you to the story, minus the embarrassing side effects.

Lessee... Friday, watched the Caps lose to Winnipeg.

Saturday we went to visit Laura's father and stepmother at her stepmother's mother's house in the country (about an hour away). We stopped at Wegmans on the way, which is a super grocery store on steroids. Since it happened to be St. Patrick's Day, we picked up a selection of Irish beers along with the lunch we were bringing. As I said a few sentences ago, this woman's house is in the country. It borders a cow pasture. Since Henry had such a blast meeting goats in Pennsylvania, I figured cows would be pretty awesome too. The cows were sitting under trees, chilling in the shade in a corner of the field. Henry and I walked down the fenced perimeter. When we got as close as we could, I pointed out the cows. He looked through the fence slats at where I was pointing. I pulled a handful of grass and waved it at the cows, whistling. Amazingly, a large black cow started ambling over. She stopped a couple of feet away while Henry stared at it, wide-eyed. As I held the grass out, the cow sniffed it once, then her freaky long gray tongue popped out and she grabbed it and started chewing. Henry started picking individual blades of grass and tossing them in her direction, saying "moooooooo..."

We went back inside for lunch and the step-grandmother said she had a plastic tub of toys H. could play with. It was a GIGANTIC bin of McDonald toys. Henry amused himself for the rest of the visit digging in the bin and pulling out obscure Disney characters I couldn't name, rubber dinosaurs, and little cars. He spent almost the entire time chewing on the the head of the movie version of Wilma Flintstone. (I just looked it up. He was chewing on a figure who was supposed to be Wilma Flintstone as played by Elizabeth Perkins!)

Saturday night we had a credit for a free pay-per-view movie. We scrolled through the available titles and finally chose The Big Year:



Now, the trailer kind of tells the whole movie, so if you want to see it unspoiled, don't watch it. Then again, it's a comedy about bird watching, not the freaking Da Vinci Code, so who cares?

Sunday Henry and I ran some errands after lunch then we took a long walk around the neighborhood since winter apparently gave up completely and it continues to be in the 70s every day this month (March!?!). Laura made French onion soup for dinner, then I watched the Caps losing against the Blackhawks (you sensing a pattern here? This season has not been the best for the Caps, sigh) until I turned it over to see the finale of The Walking Dead. Huge zombie attack! FINALLY! This is where the show creators spent the season's money. After episode after episode of one or two zombies this season, we get hundreds descending on the small group of survivors. And the ending had two parts that came directly from the comics and give a big clue where they're heading next season. Yay!!!!

All in all, a good weekend. Any weekend where you can balance family visits with hockey and zombies is one I'll take!

Finally.

Listening to some Joe Strummer this morning at my desk.

You know how sometimes when a family member gets cancer, other family members shave their heads in support? Well, we wanted to do something like that for Henry. I was actually toying with the idea of a tattoo (Don't be shocked. In typical English major fashion, I would have gotten a lowercase "h" in an old typewriter font) but I need to donate blood in case he needs a transfusion during or after the surgery, and that means tattoos are a no-no. So I browsed ebay for a while and finally decided on this:

The auction listing described it as "Tibet style brown leather pendant bracelet /heart pendant." It came from Shanghai, China and I paid $2.98 for it (with free shipping). So if you see me and wonder why I'm accessorizing like a 13-year-old girl, that's why!

April 16. Henry is having open heart surgery on April 16. Henry will be on bypass for one hour of the three-hour operation on April 16. They will stop his heart.

Still, both doctor teams we met with said "If you have to have a heart ailment, this is the one to have." That's comforting.

Listening to the secular music of Reverend Al Green this morning. Needed to hear some. Smile.

I just feel... lost.


(Sorry for the vague posting. Everyone is fine. Henry is fine. It's just me.)

We met the first team of potential heart surgeons on Thursday. We were impressed. Guys know their stuff, and the surgical team would be there every step of the way. We're meeting the second team from a different hospital on the 13th.