Beating the Devil

It's rare that the weather matches my mood this well, but it's rare that both the weather and my mood are this mixed up. Today I saw sunsnowshowers like I never have before. One minute, it would be cold but sunny, the next visibility would be shot to hell by swirling snow and the wind would be biting. And the snow itself varied from big flakes to graupel to nearly rain. It was like nothing I've ever seen.

Jack up the temperature at least 6 Celsius degrees and you have Friday, which was a similar patchwork of showers, sunshowers, and sun. Killing time in the waiting room with a trio of associates, I even got a glimpse of a rainbow. They left shortly afterward and it was just me for three long hours until the surgeon came out to speak to me.

This time last night, I was almost in a panic. We had hoped for a simple procedure; we got one as complicated and painstaking as last February. I was fretting about another long and difficult recovery ahead of us. But seeing the Old Man today gave me real hope. By the end of the day, he was able to chat with a visitor (Fig, who spirited me away for dinner at Pearl's) and play with his phone like it was all no big. With any luck, he's got only one more night in the ICU before they return him to the 8th floor.

Of course there'll be more twists and turns before this is all over, but I'm feeling much more confident of my ability to manage them.