Winter Whee!

Holy smokes, Batman! An entire week without posting. Umm yeah, that's not good. At. All. My apologies. I mean, not that there are any die hard readers anyway but nonetheless --

MIL has chosen again to go down the "Piss Us Off Trail." She's good at that. You'll remember that she fell in October and has taken a very long time to heal. But over the last few weeks it's been a mess with her losing keys, medications, address books, etc. My honey fills up her medication box weekly so all she has to do it take out the AM and PM pills at the right time. But in a recent scan of her apartment, there were Vicodin pills laying helter skelter all over the place. There has been a stove burner left on high with nothing on it. She has broken a glass and was unable to get to the floor to clean it up. She can't take out her dog to crap any longer so he goes upwards of 12 hours without going out. It's not pretty. So, another cry for attention because she loves it so well, she calls 9-1-1 in the middle of the night for a trip to the ER. She is there around an hour before she screams that "she's going home and not staying any longer." Huh? Why did you come here in the first place? She treats the nurses and doctors like crap. She tells people off. She is rude and inappropriate. Until someone outside the family comes to visit....then she is all peaches and cream, smiling, happy, talks about her Bible studies and such. We can't figure out if this is Doctor Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. To his giant credit, my lover boy has done his best to be diplomatic and still point out that her behavior cannot continue. Whee! Around we go again! She's supposedly headed home today. To live alone. To not be able to take care of herself. I think I'm going to steal one of those aforementioned Vicodin ASAP. And one of my new favorite cocktails.....crushed ice, Canadian Club, a squeeze of fresh OJ right from the fruit, and Diet Spring/7up. Delicious. It goes well with Vicodin, doesn't it? I have this sinking feeling that my upcoming bachelor weekend is in jeopardy.

January 31 will mark the 10th anniversary since our company's airline disaster off the southern California coast. I remember the day quite well. We knew several folks on board. We had worked that particular aircraft numerous times including only a week or so before it buried its head into the Pacific Ocean. I am thankful for my life today and will do my best to continue to strive for better things in life.

We discovered dried blood inside Mason's left ear. A trip to the vet (because the hospital with MIL wasn't quite enough in one day) confirmed a giant yeast infection in his ear. Cleaned it out and sent us home with antibiotic gel twice a day. He is much better but, for some reason, doesn't like to have clear liquids squirted into his ear. I discovered a few spring bulbs trying to poke their heads out of the ground while I was on a walk with Mason the other day -- a very good sign indeed.

I'm on day two of six in this stretch of flying. Appears to be 10,824 miles this week. It looks like this: PDX-SAN-SJD-SAN-PDX-SAN-PDX-SAN-SJD-SAN-PDX-PHX-PDX.