Two week blergness

Is this thing still on?

I have been away from the bloggie because I have been away from home for the last couple of weeks doing something super not fun. I don't want to get into the details of not funness but suffice it to say that it involved travel, and a sick loved one, and hospitals, and the whole thing from beginning to end was awful. Sorry to be mysterious, but talking about it will just give me the voms at this point.

Instead, I shall talk around it by giving you some various thoughts I had over the past two weeks, without context. Wheee!

1. I have somehow avoided travel to cold climates in winter for many years now, and had forgotten what zero degrees feels like. MOTHERCRACKER zero degrees is not even RIGHT. It burns your lungs, and makes it feel like you have icicles in your nostrils, and it shrinks up your ballsack even if you do not have a ballsack. I remember that when I first moved to Seattle, I told people it was because I couldn't stand one more winter, and I had forgotten that I was actually telling the truth. Cold. YEE-ICK.

2. I was standing in the ICU while some serious shit was going down and I noticed that the ICU muzak was playing "My Heart Will Go On." Am I wrong or should that song not be played in the ICU, ever? Like, ever, ever? Majorly inappropes, dudes.

3. I didn't have time to read, look at tv, listen to music ("My Heart Will Go On" notwithstanding), or get any news for 10 days. I now feel like I am coming out of a bubble. Olympics what now?

4. Hospitals are food deserts, at least this one was. That cafeteria had all kinds of soda and candy but fruit? Not so much. One day there they actually stocked some yogurt cups and I almost cried.

I have been thinking about help. What do you do when someone you know needs help? Like, not just easy help. The kind of help that is inconvenient, where you may actually have to make some effort, go out of your way, make a sacrifice? Do you hesitate? Do you say "I wish I could do more, but..." I was talking to someone yesterday about how I was surprised at how few of the people around this current situation had made a big effort, and the person said back to me "well, I can understand people not feeling comfortable with that." Not feeling comfortable helping? Not feeling comfortable getting involved? Are we really that way? Afraid to get involved, even with the people we love? This makes me profoundly sad.

Today my loved one was in a compromising situation, and I am already back in Seattle and not there to help. I reached out to my pal Alli, who is a well-known helper in my life, to see if she had any ideas on what to do. She told her mother-in-law about it, and her mother-in-law is now on her way to my loved ones house to help. This woman doesn't even really know me, and has never met my loved one in her life. But she is showing up, inconveniencing herself, getting involved. Don't you just love that woman? Don't you just want to BE that woman? Next time you think you can help someone, think of Alli's mom-in-law and please just do it, even if it's messy, inconvenient, or intimidating. Isn't that the world we want to live in?