from Wikipedia:
"The phrase perfect storm refers to the simultaneous occurrence of events which, taken individually, would be far less powerful than the result of their chance combination. Such occurrences are rare by their very nature, so that even a slight change in any one event contributing to the perfect storm would lessen its overall impact."
Today I feel as though my own personal perfect storm is brewing. Three separate and independent stressors all converging on me at once......I'm trying not to get too invested in any of them or at least not to let myself go nuts, although I easily could surrender to the madness.
First, Mom called me at 3:30 AM confused and not feeling well but not sick enough to warrant getting out of bed to assess her or take her to the hospital. Dad, while trying to get up to help her at 6:30 AM apparently fell at the end of his bed. I'm told he didn't hurt himself but all of this will be checked out later; I'm on my way over to Merrill Gardens after work today.
Secondly, I am the only physician in clinic today and have the entire sub specialty hospital service as well. This has gone better than I had thought but today is the start of my weekend "on call duties" as well. Medicine never (ever) sleeps and things are brewing.
And finally, my dearest daughter decides that a road trip with a girlfriend from Spokane to Bellingham is in order despite my protests (and whines). I've been told in no uncertain terms that I simply must "get over" my anxieties and give her freedom and space to live her life. Ahhhh, I give her so many long, long leashes and this one little issue of mine (road trips, car trips, freeway driving, night driving and the like) has become her number one desire of late. So, I have relented reluctantly and she is now underway, in her friend's large (and hopefully sturdy) Mercury Mountaineer SUV. She calls me 10 minutes underway and says, "Mom, how do we get to the freeway?" Groan. And then, the absolute icing on the cake of insanity...."Oh, now I see the sign for I-90, Mom but....which way do we go, East or West?"
Am I making my perfect storm story clear enough?
God bless me.
Ah - road trips. I have taken so many! Once I drove all night from Tucson, AZ to Telluride, CO with my roommate and some guy we met in a record store the day before to go to a 3 day music festival. How could we NOT go? There were 5 bands a day (the headliners were: Jackson Browne, Joe Cocker and the Allman Brothers.... even Blues Traveler was playing!). We drove through the night, because I got off work at 11pm - got there at 6am in the morning. During the weekend we slept in sleeping bags on the side of the road. Does this make you feel better about Laura's trip? =)
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