:-) "Hi!!! How are you?!!? :-)

Two phone calls today! Two phone calls today started pretty much like the above. The people on the end were falsely cheerful which of course in my pessimistic mind means trouble. Of course I am right... there is trouble.

First my sister calls and tells me that everthing is alright with mom but... Sister Sister then goes on to tell me she had just spent the morning with mom in the emergency room. Mom's okay except that she's doped up on morphine to kill the stomache pains caused by the bad gall bladder. Mom's gall bladder apparently contains more stones than a rock garden. So Mom has to call on Monday to arrange for a surgery.

So here is another thing that keeps slapping us in the face to remind us that our mother is at the end of her life. I'm not really upset about my mom. In the two years since my father's passing mom has had a stroke, colon cancer, dehydration from the chemo and now the gall bladder. I just don't like the thought of her leaving so soon after my dad. I really like my mom. We differ on things but overall she's my buddy and I love her. I would be lonely with out her around. A woman needs her mom. I've even toyed with the idea of getting pregnant to entice her to live longer but then I come to my senses. This is thought I'm having as I walk through Foley's looking for new dishes. They were having a great sale on dishes! Miss Independence had broken a dish recently. It was one of Passionfruit's dishes from before we were married, yeah!

Now I'm standing in front of the cashier waiting to get checked out and the phone rang a second time. Passionfruit says, "I don't know how to say this so I'll just come out and say it." Now I didn't really think that this phone call was going to be quite so emotionally shocking as the other so I was totally unprepared for, "Honey, I destroyed the Volvo but I'm okay and so is Miss Independence."

Suddenly I find myself crying and shaking. I just couldn't believe my careful, safe spouse had an accident that would be so violent as to total a car, a Volvo at that! I mean Volvo cars (the older models) are tanks! I told him I would be there as fast as I could since I was at a metro shopping mall about 25 miles away.

When I finally get to Passionfruit I'm grateful to see him standing and watching the police officers cleaning up the road. Apparently the Volvo lost all of it's vital fluids on the road! How to describe the Volvo? Hmmm... Well let's just say that the hood of the car was bent in half and hanging open. The engine area was squashed into an area half the space that is normal for the car.

Is it any wonder then that I feel like I've been dragged through hell and back? I'm feeling totally guilty because Passionfruit is bruised and burned from the airbag. Yet he seems to be okay other than thinking himself an ass. He totally thinks he's messed up things for us. I don't care about things. Things are replacable. Maybe we can't replace things immediately so what? Passionfruit is alive. MI is alive. Neither is injured seriously. Which is amazing considering the force at work on the Volvo.

We have a family party to go tonight. I told Passionfruit that I totally understood if he didn't want to go. He said, "I eat with my left hand." His right hand has a sprained thumb. Go figure. Passionfruit gets his energy from people not himself.