Overload

What a few days I’ve had – oy!

I arrived in VA on Thurs evening – it took longer than I’d expected as I got lost – and hit the ground running on Fri teaching a class (it was going to be two, but one was cancelled)

Sat & Sun were both triple class days – but great days!

On Friday I got the most amazingly strong feeling that I HAD to be in WV after I was finished in VA, so I asked Gerry if he’d bring the kids down for a few days together in VA, then I’d go on to WV with them while he returned to NJ to work (what a menschilich SAINT that man is!)

About an hour after I left the yarn shop in Virginia I got a call from my cousin in WV telling me that she’s been diagnosed with level 2 breast cancer. We both agreed it was an amazing ‘coincidence’ that I decided to visit right now. Honestly, it was the equivalent of a psychic dope slap from mom (or whoever…) that I get my butt to WV – I’m glad I listened!

I’m going with her to the oncologist tomorrow morning for a preliminary visit before her chemo begins. She’s pretty much all I have left in the way of family-who-grew-up-with-me – she’s beside herself. It sucks all around.

Once again I’m at the library in Parkersburg, where everybody knows my name, only this time I have two redheads in tow who are on the computers in the kiddie room playing elmo games and surfing the kids internet. Life is grand! Tomorrow they’ll stay with cousin (aka, ‘call me grandma’) Patsy while I go off with Jan.

When I called Gerry last night to tell him, he told me that Atticus had run away about an hour before he returned home. Our friends were feeding him (yes, we promised NEVER to leave him home along again, but it was just going to be for ONE day!) and he bolted. I fretted all night – thinking, “How on EARTH can I lose one loved cousin, a brother, a mother, another loved cousin and a DOG – it seems very irresponsible on some level…”

Atticus returned today – hallelujah!