Tattoos

One of my faithful readers (perhaps the only one remaining) has just e-mailed me for the second time in as many months asking for my blog address, again. She is apparently very embarrassed that she keeps losing it (as well she should be--one would think that someone who earns a living as an IT journalist would know how to bookmark a website!) and promises that she will never lose it again, because she's going to have the address tattooed on her left buttock.

So I thought that if she's willing to submit to bodily mutilation to be able to read my blog again, the least I can do is give her something new to read.

Here's a summary of the past month of my life:

- August 21: furniture and belongings finally delivered from France, after weeks of delays and annoying negotiations with French moving company and U.S. moving agent about whose fault it was that the shipment was stuck in the U.S. customs port for 10 days, incurring $1500 in additional storage costs, and who had to pay aforementioned costs. (Good news: it wasn't me!)

- August 22-25: unpacked bedding, so as to be able to start sleeping in my new apartment in St. Paul; moved most other belongings from temporary apartment in Minneapolis to permanent new place in St. Paul; waited in vain for my passport and West Africa visa to arrive from DC in time for my scheduled August 24 departure for West Africa; had to delay trip 2 days; do not unpack any boxes (except aforementioned bedding).

- August 26-September 6: go to West Africa (see two previous posts); get dysentery.

- September 7-12: return to St. Paul for a business conference; recover from dysentery; prepare for trip to North Africa; do not unpack any boxes.

- September 13: get phone call from mother at 7 a.m. (confusedly try to answer cell phone on nightstand, pulling charger out of plug and flinging cell phone across room before realizing that it's actually the fixed line ringing in the other room) to tell me that my father is hospitalized with acute pancreatitis. Spend day waiting to hear how serious it is, to determine whether I should delay trip to North Africa. Also discover car is leaking oil, so scurry to find trustworthy garage open on Saturday in new hometown and try to decide if should leave car in garage while away or must keep car to rush to Mankato if father is seriously ill. Or maybe shouldn't drive to Mankato in car leaking oil. Or if father not too ill, need car to drive to friends' joint birthday party that night. But really should get car fixed while away. And so on with decision loop until news arrives that father will be okay, just needs gall bladder removed; I should go to North Africa; I find car garage open on Saturday and leave car there and friends drive me to party; do not unpack any boxes.

- September 14-19: go to North Africa; do not get dysentery; call mother on Tuesday, hear that father is doing well, she promises to let me know if any changes; call mother on Thursday, find out father has been in ICU since Tuesday night (she didn't call because she "didn't want to worry" me) due to seizure, chest cavity filled with blood, collapsed lung, other badness; she assures me father will be okay now; get off phone and decide that it's stupid to remain in North Africa on Friday when only have one meeting scheduled, so call travel agent and get departure moved from Saturday the 20th to Friday the 19th; arrive at MSP at 10 p.m. on Friday. (Note to self: for future trips, if have choice, will always choose to have dysentery myself rather than father with blood-filled chest cavity.)

- September 20-21 and beyond: in Mankato, sitting with father and family at hospital. Dad got out of ICU on Friday evening and is gradually getting better. We're still waiting for the inflammation of his pancreas to go down (extra credit to those of you taking Biology this semester: please describe the location and function of the pancreas, or simply donate your own for my father's use), and then they'll remove his gall bladder. Maybe later this week, or maybe he'll come home for a few weeks and then go back in for the surgery.

For the time being, my boxes remained packed and piled in unnavigable and teetering towers in my new apartment. But they'll get unpacked eventually (maybe by Christmas?!). They're not going anywhere, and neither am I. Right now, I'm glad to be living in Minnesota, right where my family needs me to be.

I might even be willing to get that tattooed on my left buttock.