Back Home -- Chaos, Sweet Chaos

But first, the countdown. I've done two Interferon shots -- Number Thirty-two last Saturday; I stalled Friday night and ended up doing it Saturday morning. And I just opened Box Number Nine and took Shot Number Thirty-three. Fifteen to go. Fifteen.

I got an early flight out of Denver last Friday. Well worth the extra $25. The trip to the airport was far easier than Monday's trip away from it.

The weekend was a blur. All three kids went to a church-sponsored lock-in at a place with about everything a kid could want to do -- rock climbing, go-karts, video games, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Yes, nauseum. They had a "teacup" ride to make themselves sick, which several did. Gosh, I was so sorry that I couldn't chaperone, but you see, I'm on this medication....

Spouse and I made good use of the quiet house. But I had to get up early the next day to deliver a rented van to the church. The kids were pretty wiped which was well. We all did some serious napping on Sunday.

This work week has been nuts. It's a combination of being out of pocket for the previous week and the project plan getting dangerously close to reality. Dangerously because, in the words of the great German strategist von Moltke the Elder, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." But in this case, the enemy is baked into the plan. As this plan encounters reality, it starts coming apart at the seams, much as I had predicted when I came to the project. The gap between what we do and what we learned in the class last week.

Despite the gathering air of panic, I bailed out of work early yesterday afternoon to ride with a couple of other dads to the big football game. It's a 3+ hour drive. Our guys won. Son was playing defense as an outside linebacker and picked up a fumble. He tiptoed fifteen yards down the sideline before getting pushed out of bounds (followed by a late hit after the whistle, but that went unnoticed by the officials -- that's football). We finally got home at 1:30 AM. I skipped my usual sleep aid (Elavil, aka amitriptyline) and slept just fine. Up this morning at a little before 7:00 and on wall-to-wall conference calls that actually required participation. Now I'm waiting up for kids. It's 11:20 PM. I think I'll wait up on the couch.

To all who are fighting this and more difficult challenges:

Go for the swine with a blithe heart.
William Churchill