They Call This Vacation?

Some days start out with a billing of "I shouldn't be that busy" but wind up just the opposite.

This morning I went downtown to see my parents. Having been on vacation these past 2 weeks, my schedule has been a bit off, and I moved my usual Monday morning breakfast with my dad to Friday.

When I got to my parent's house about 9am, I found my dad sitting in his easy chair, looking a little tired, and my mom sitting in the chair next to his taking his blood pressure. Now, this is not all that uncommon (he is 80 years old, and has had a heart by-pass, after all), and he'd spent the last three days doing mentoring duty with the local blind society.

But, upon talking to my mom, I come to find out mom called 911 last night and had an ambulance take my dad to the hospital because his blood pressure last night had become perilously low. They were at the hospital for about 3 hours, after which my dad's BP stabilized, and they came home.

Did my mom call anyone? Any of my brothers or sisters in town?

No. She didn't seem to think it was all that important. Sometimes she astounds me.

Anyway, neither of them were worried about it, so I didn't want to add my worries to theirs. Dad was tired, but still up for the task of drinking coffee and eating breakfast, so off the Denny's we went.

Ya, Denny's. I dunno about your neck of the woods, but Denny's around here as improved their game immensely! The Denny's restaurants around Sacramento are pretty darn good restaurants, and I have yet to be disappointed by a breakfast meal there.

So, we ate and drank and talked, then went over to Radio Shack where dad picked up a digital-recorder (so he can leave himself voice notes - can't read the notebook anymore, ya know), and the hardware store for a light-socket switch. I got him home about 11:30am, after which I needed to sit down at my mom's computer and figure out why her Outlook Express suddenly stopped sending e-mail through her sbcglobal.net account.

It took me a few hours, but I found a forum online that gave me an alternate "outgoing port" (instead of 25, I used 537, and it worked just fine - for those of you that don't do techno, just know I was very happy!). I let out a whoop of joy when I sent an e-mail and told mom is was fixed.

After that, I went and picked up my daughter Lindsey and took her to the DMV for a 2:30pm appointment to get her California ID card, and her learner's permit. I also had to pay the registration on my car (which was, of course, late and I had a few parking tickets) to the tune of a whopping $454. After choking out the check for that, Lindsey sweated through her learner's permit test, missed 7 of the allowed 8, and passed on the first try! She was so happy.

Flush with newfound permission (the way she put it was, "I now have the permission of a faceless and souless bureaucracy to drive legally on the streets with an adult hovering next to the wheel"), we went to the back parkinglot of the high school where she proceeded to drive my car around in circles for about 15 minutes, getting the feel of the ol' girl. Then I told Lindsey to take her out on the street.

Yeah, the public street. Lindsey looked at me, swallowed, sat up a little straighter, and off we went.

Never passing the 25mph barrier, Lindsey tooled us through the neighborhood with ease, stopping at all the appropriate stop signs, and turning at all the required turns. After about 40 minutes we went back to the high school where she, with much bolstered confidence, told me this driving thing is kinda fun.

I dropped Lindsey back off at her mom's about 5pm, got home at 5:30, where I picked up Cameron (who'd been home at my apartment alone all day and was BORED to tears), and took her out for a quick bite of dinner before heading over to church for worship team rehearsal, which ran until a little past 9pm.

Whew.

So, home now, and having watched my required Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, I find myself taking a moment to recount my day to you, the intrepid reader. I think this is the longest I've sat in one place all day.

Well, aside from meals.
And the seat of my car.
And the Stargate fest.

Wonder what I'd be doing if I wasn't on VACATION!