Take Out Boxes

in Giggles on March 19, 2015

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Good morning.  I’m sitting in my sister’s kitchen in San Diego, California, drinking French Press coffee, eating a strawberry muffin that I made yesterday (I will post the recipe when I get them to taste exactly the way I want), looking at a take out box that my mother gave me last night from her own personal stash. 

Why? You might be wondering…

There are several contributing factors.  For starters, I am in San Diego because my dad had emergency surgery on Monday morning.  Apparently, his body no longer felt the need to house his appendix any longer; and it seems that it had felt this way for quite some time.  As this was the third or fourth bout of trouble Daddy has unknowingly had with his appendix–the difference this time–the appendix won the war, and needed to come OUT.  I received word of Daddy’s condition while going about my day from my mother. She assured me this was no big deal, and she would keep me posted.  My mother’s bedside manner is eerily akin to Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (he battles Dracula).  Her tone and demeanor made me almost believe my dad was getting his teeth cleaned, instead of having a surgical procedure.  However, all of that changed as the day wore on, and I received no news.

And then my sisters began chiming in.

“Dallas, you need to get out here.”

“We haven’t heard anything….he’s been in there a REALLY long time….”

“Are you on a flight yet?!”

“He’s been under two and half hours…”

“Even mom is getting worried…”

And that’s when I hit the panic button.

So, with some substantial persuading of the hubster, I caught the late flight out of Houston and headed West.  All three of my sisters, and my “adopted” brother, we call Twin, picked me up at the airport.  Because my dad is retired Navy, his surgery was done at the VA hospital, and due to circumstances I choose not to get into here–he was released around 11:00 that night.

He looked like death on a stick.

The surgery took so much longer, due to massive amounts of scar tissue in his abdomen from another surgery he had almost thirty years earlier.  He was in a terrible car accident that nearly killed him, and has a “zipper” scar that evidently is uglier on the inside than the outside.

So, here I sit.  I’ve played the part of Nurse before, for my father-in-law.  I am better at this role than my mother.  I am somewhere between Florence Nightingale and Nurse Ratchet.  My father is a terrible patient.  He is feeling better, so he will NOT be still.  I cooked dinner last night and made the muffins that I am eating for breakfast.  We had left overs.  My dad is usually the cook.  It was killing him that someone else was in his kitchen.  I honestly think he was surprised the meal was edible.  There are always people at my parents’ house.  There is always food at my parents’ house.  Mass quantities of food…hence the take out boxes.

I’ve been on Spring Break this week.  I brought the work I was going to do at home with me.  I am making about as much progress here, as I would have made at home.  Today is work day for me.  I am going to finish up a couple of things.  I’m completely disappointed in these stupid muffins.  I don’t know why I keep eating them.  Tomorrow I fly home…to a sick kid…a miffed husband…a cranky professor…a dog still in heat…and the final stretch of my college career.  And I’m still tired.

Here’s hoping your take out boxes are filled with yummy goodness!

-Dallas

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