Monday, Monday

Oh.  Yeah.  There’s a blog here, isn’t there?   I almost forgot.  
I’m coming back to a Monday workday after a long weekend that featured DL Xmas festivities, housekeeping,  two shopping forays (ugh),  baking,  my annual physical & checkup, an hour or two or five watching movies on TV (The Mortal Storm, Dinner At Eight, Strictly Ballroom,  and parts of teh LOTR marathon on TNT)  and a couple informal seances to get in touch with what’s going on in my children’s heads.   In other words:  an action-packed weekend chez Tild.

Plus I fell behind in my online reading — but with me that’s pretty much the usual state of affairs; I don’t know why I even mention it.    Several of the blogs I managed to read were posting about family matters, which  isn’ t blogging as usual for any of them, and so reveals from a different perspective the courage and maturity they all possess in spades.  You think that self-disclosure and a willingness to share the often-messy  emotional dynamics of one’s family is easy? or fun?  Think again, my dears.  Sometimes it’s just necessary. 

Evil Bobby, our favorite Minnesota blogger in Istanbul, learned that his father is very seriously ill, and so EB and Missus EB have returned to the States to be with family for the difficult days and weeks ahead. Hugs and thoughts and prayers to you all. 

Flash of Centrisity is rejoicing that his Marine is home.  In this case ‘home’ means still being hundreds of miles from Minnesota, but at least back in the US for a while; a respite before the next deployment.
Flash, as a fellow parent I don’t know how you do it:  find the strength and the calm to be able to balance the joy about the present and apprehension about the future.  Hugs and thoughts and prayers to all. 

The Wege went home for a family anniversary celebration and lived to tell the tale.  The surprise encounter with a kamikaze bambi daddy and accompanying herd on the road back to MN wasn’t even the most harrowing part of the journey. Holiday gatherings with family members steeped in the Fox/Rethuglican/Neocon/Bushco koolaid to varying degrees are brutal experiences I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies, much less my dearest friends.  Hugs and thoughts and prayers to both Wege and the (bloody but unbowed) Wegemobile.