SUX

Feeling like it's my time to whine, I'll take advantage right now. It's my blog, right?

Four days till Christmas. It'll be a strange one this year with Laura abroad, my Mom in the hospital (she might be out by then, weather permitting), and minimal shopping done as we decided we'd go very light on gifts this year. And then there's the snow, more than I've ever witnessed in Seattle in my 17 years here. Granted we'll have a White Christmas which might be quaint but getting out in this weather is pure treachery. I'm worried about the pipes freezing at my parent's former home and will make my way over there on foot today to check it out.

My daughter leaves on her Christmas tour of Scandinavia and Russia tomorrow, hasn't packed yet and is entrenched in the natural anxieties of being so far from home at a time of year when families are supposed to be together. We "talked" for an hour this morning on Skype instant message. Angst.

My Mom is in the hospital again. Even if she were ready for discharge, there's no way to get her back home owing to the weather conditions. Do you pay an ambulance to take someone home? Who knows? I've never been in this situation before.

I have to work tomorrow but suspect that all the scheduled patients but one will cancel out. So I will make my way in on the bus because I'm supposed to be there. I'm on call on Christmas Day and the day after but by then the weather should be better. Hoping.

I don't feel in any kind of holly jolly Holiday Season mood.

Bookended. That's my favorite word right now. A homesick daughter and a mother who is seeing birds flying in circles out her hospital window. Maybe if I look harder, I'll see them too. I want so much to be free as they are, to fly.

Sux.