Camelot

I'm not sure why I woke up early on Saturday but I did, and was frustratingly unable to fall back asleep. So I got up and fed the rather insistent kittens and popped in Henry & June and curled up in my recliner with my crocheting. About two hours later, I crawled up the stairs and on top of my husband and demanded breakfast, and by the time I got back to my movie and recliner and crocheting, my blood sugar was down to nothing and M was fussing at me for waiting so long to procure myself some sustenance. So altogether, a rather successful morning.

I think it was around 1:00 when we finally headed to mom's. I hadn't been there since I first got sick, which means I haven't visited Granddad in two weeks. [Insert guilt here.] And what a difference those weeks made. Granddad (or, as my cousin "Big Joe" likes to put it: GRAAAAND-DAD! shot off like two separate but equally important proclamations) had become bed-ridden, the recently virile man curled on a bed in his pajamas with a tube in his nose. But still, he looked surprisingly good and was in lovely spirits. He had the good fortune of no longer knowing who the president is, but could tell you with authority when Opening Day is. Thank God he knows the important stuff. I'm not 100% sure he knew who I was right away, but that's not the important stuff. Not now, anyway.

Don't let it be forgot

After our visit (where I helped myself to any treat I could find and went through the mail and refused to open my own drinks, so some things are the same at Grandma's house), we spent the rest of the day at mom's. She's doing better emotionally than I thought she'd be, but worse financially, and I'm reassuring myself that in the end it balances out to not bad overall. My story is the exact opposite but I have a vacation planned, so I'm hoping I'm not bad overall, but am not entirely convinced.

That once there was a spot

Sunday was the yearly women's outing for the ladies on M's side of the family, which means me, M's mother, his aunt, his younger cousin, her mother-in-law, and typically whoever M's other cousin is shagging at the time. But M's cousin is no longer shagging the Christmas Ticket Recipient, so M got to go. Let me tell you, Lou Diamond Phillips is no Broadway caliber singer, and the story was told with no sympathetic characters, so the play was a bit of a disappointment and seeing it then having dinner afterwards took my entire Sunday.

For one brief, shining moment

Nonetheless, the theme of having high ideals that seem to resonate for a moment before being lost wasn't lost on me. It's the story of my life: hoping for the best but always bracing for the worst. It's the story of Granddad's, though he managed to sustain high ideals longer than I ever could, and only loses it with his failing body. And at the same time, it becomes my story again, rising from my own ashes, Lady Lazarus, a phoenix, rising and falling and rising again.

That was known as Camelot.