When I woke up this morning I went into the kitchen and then remembered that I had no french press to make coffee. That's Defcon-1 at my house. I ended up pouring the coffee and boiling water into a thermos, and then straining the resulting brew back out. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It wasn't bad. There were a lot of grounds in the bottom, which I should have been expecting; but they rinsed out of my mouth. Eventually.
I got through the day at work. It's hard when you feel bad, but after chemo I've gotten used to it. The bad part was that we are still under audit, so I had to answer a series of emails that a 'slow' 5-year-old would have been able to sort out on their own in a few minutes. I'm all for hiring the functionally retarded, truly, but do they ALL have to work in our audit team? Sheesh.
By the end of the day I just wanted to get out of there and go home to bed, but Tuesday night is dinner out with Dad and Eve, and I wanted to get that in. I didn't figured I would feel any better tomorrow. Of course, first I had to get through the insane amount of traffic. After sitting for a half hour, I was almost at the trouble intersection. The problem is that there are 57.5 red lights in about a half mile stretch of Pelham Road, and there are 6.5Million people trying to make it through that shit. It didn't help that there was a backup on the freeway today, and people were trying to get off of there to go through town. After 45 minutes I managed to navigate the 10 miles to my parents' house.
We were going to Portofino's, which I love, and which is blessedly close to the house. Surprisingly, they were on a wait tonight (on a Tuesday? really?). It was worse because after my postage-stamp lunch I was ravenous, but we got in without too much trouble, and our service was surprisingly fast. I had the mushroom cannelloni tonight, and it was delectable - the best meal I have ever eaten at Portofino's, and I've been eating there for years.
Unfortunately, it's close to Brenden's birthday, and always an emotional time for Eve. She wants to see him so badly, and went down to take his present to him last year; but after she left Brenden reportedly (via Paul) became very upset, cried, etc. Paul called and raised hell, threatening to have her arrested if she showed up down there again. She has been determined to go down there, and damn the consequences, but Dad has been trying to talk her out of it. This is very familiar ground. They go over and over and over it. Nothing is resolved. There is nothing to be gained from the repeated rosary of Brenden but misery. She can't help it. He's her grandson. I can't advise her, because there is no answer. She can't abandon her grandson, but Cindy and Paul won't let her see him. So there is nothing to do but be miserable, cry, and fret. It's been five years of walking on knives now. She was close to tears most of the evening, which makes for a less than congenial meal.
By the time dinner was over, my whole body was just hurting. It's kind of like flu pain, only worse. We went back to the house, and I talked to them for a bit about my stone-hearted sympathy gap when it comes to cancer patients. This has been weighing on me. They were as supportive as they could manage on something that basically is an internal issue.
I thought I had at least changed the subject, but of course the minute we were done with that, it was right back to Brenden, Brenden, Brenden. Oy. There was no way I could get her calmed down. There was nothing I could do to make her feel any better. And I was exhausted and hurting. Eventually I just had to hug her and go. I felt completely useless, but I have no cure or help for this endless rosary of pain and lamentation over Brenden.
On the way home, I did remember to stop by Starbucks and pick up another french press. Twenty freakin dollars for what is basically a pitcher. At least the counter-lady was nice. I paid it and went home to wash it in preparation for the morning.
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