First Qtr 08, Report

Report from the first quarter of 2008

Lots of stuff going on. Can't pretend it's all good, but, it is what it is.

My office moved down the street in Leesburg, from the 3rd floor of rented space to the 4th floor in the building with most of the rest of the company. I no longer have a private office, but I do have an actual window with a view (see the steeple of the courthouse, behind the tree?). And, the window even opens!

Abby is my foster dog. She stayed with me for a couple of months while her family tried to sell their house without her around to bark, shed, and stick her nose in the crotch of prospective buyers. They gave up and happily took her home in mid-March, but I miss her terribly. Though, I don't miss all the white hair on my dark-colored work clothes.

In February, I went to a Caribbean themed dinner party. We took turns wearing the dreadlocks.














On Feb. 23, I was spending a long weekend in Murray with my guy. It was a lazy, quiet Saturday afternoon in his cozy cabin, 18 miles south of town in the woods by the lake -- Bill was grading blue books while I caught up on my email.
He came upstairs to the loft where I was on the computer, and was unable to speak. I thought, "stroke" -- which turns out to have been correct. After I got him in the car and started driving towards the emergency room in town, he had a seizure (the first of three -- not that uncommon with ischemic strokes). This was on the remote road from the lake, no cars, no houses, no shoulder to pull off on... and, no cell-phone 911 coverage... well, that was my worst moment. But, he made it to the ER, and it turns out to have been a mild stroke, possibly mitigated by the fact that the Calm Peggy was able to get him to the hospital quickly. (Anxious Peggy didn't reappear for 24 hours or so.)
If I had not been there, he would've been alone. It might've been bad, very bad. I do believe I was meant to be there.

His classes are being covered by his colleagues at the University, and he's living in town with his family so that he can get around without driving (in Kentucky, you can't drive for 3 months after a stroke). He is at risk for another stroke, but he is doing really well at cleaning up his act, drinking neither alcohol nor coffee, eating right and exercising. I think/pray he'll be okay.

I went back to Murray for a week in mid-March, to reassure myself that he would be okay, and to do my share of shuttling him around and otherwise taking care of him. Here are some photos of us and the cabin out by the lake. His cabin is a couple of blocks from the lake, so the ones with the lake in them were taken while we were out walking.