Rhythms

             So, we have managed to survive the great ebola/rabies/bubonic plague outbreak of 2014.  No one had to be hospitalized.  The couch survived. We've even managed to almost put the house back into what we claim passes for order around this zoo.  We have had to do a gazillion loads of laundry but that's only because no one would agree to my proposal of piling anything smelly in the backyard and lighting it on fire.

            Ahhh, well, time to get back into the swing of things.  Stuff yourself like a turkey day is next (wait, no...) THIS week. The pies will not bake themselves.  Nor will the Christmas presents we are making make themselves. (Trust me, I keep trying, Scanners style, but so far, no dice. Sometimes the universe just won't cooperate.) 

            Well, nothing for it but to roll up our sleeves, dig in, and get done what we have to.  There's an odd rhythm to being the parent of a disabled kid.  At least one like mine.  When you have these sudden health crises that seem to drop out of the blue and take over your life for a while, life takes on  a weird, not quite syncopated tempo.  We have spent  weeks and months in the hospital, where life is odd and the outside world seems to be on hold.  I wonder if it's what life feels like to an astronaut in space or a soldier in war.  You have your own day to day rhythms but they are different from any other part of your life.  When you get back home it feels different.  You feel out of sync for a little while.  If it's been a long stay for us, we have to almost learn a new routine.  Like a kid going back to school after the summer.   And the same brain drain seems to apply.  Don't ask me to remember little things from before Feisty Pants' last illness.  Especially if we have just returned from an in-patient stay.  I may start to remember eventually, but right now I am trying to remember the names of those pesky other people I live with.  And where I keep my clean socks.  And, especially, I am trying to solve the mystery of why I don't have any clean socks.  Exactly who is wearing them when I am not here- the dog???  And even though, we did not have to take FP to the hospital this time, we were all sick for about a week all told.  The same weird brain drain seems to have hit us this time too.
            So, let's make a deal world.  I'll remember to make all the pies and try to not bitch too loudly about cooking Thanksgiving dinner if you all ignore the fact that I probably will have no socks under my boots and my shirt's likely to be inside out.   Otherwise, I am exactly the type of meanie to throw a pie or two.