you can tell I don’t want to deal with tomorrow

…and the subsequent next day and day after that, because I’m sitting here on the computer at 11:15, just now starting the entry I intended to start several hours ago. If I wasn’t dreading tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, I’d be heading on to bed about now, so I can get up bright and early and head down to Asheville and relieve my niece. Who will be sitting with my mother till I get there. My goth-chick, pink-haired, tattooed, lip-pierced niece who is Best.Kid.EVER. She’s been staying with my mother nearly every day while her parents work, and she’s working herself tonight till midnight (cooking in a biker bar- or what at least sure LOOKED like a biker bar when Kim and Baker B and I dropped by for a beer at Thanksgiving because this place where she works has been around since I was in college and we used to hang out there and it used to be fun and not scary and not like a biker bar at ALL – but now it is considerably biker-barish and we ended up scurrying away like the elderly scaredy-cats we are since she wasn’t working that night anyhow). So I do want to get down there as early as I can. Even as I want to delay it as much as possible.

Daddy probably won’t be home, at least not for a few more days. He’s got an infection around the stitches, which is apparently pretty common but he can’t come home till that’s cleared up. He’s eating solid food and walking around the halls and feeling better, at least. He did manage to scare me pretty much into an early grave tonight, though, by suggesting that I drop by the hospital in the morning before going to their house. After I’d said I’d bring Mama by when I got there. I have to drive right by the hospital to get to their house – their house is half a mile on up the road, very conveniently – so it wasn’t that odd. Until I started thinking about it later. And thinking, WHY does he want me to come by alone? Without Mama? Is there something he needs to TELL me???!!??? So of course then I think, HE GOT THE RESULTS FROM THE PATHOLOGY REPORT AND IT’S BAD NEWS!!!! Rational Me said, "No, he’d have told J and B and one of THEM would have called me -" while Irrational Me freaked all out and ended up calling my brother and shrieking asking calmly "Did Daddy say anything to you about the pathology report?????" And no he did not say a thing, nor did he ask J to come back down by himself later. So then it occurred to me that he did not sound at all distraught and what he actually said was  to come by there first if I had time and if I could find a parking place without too much trouble. Which doesn’t sound too dire. So I think he wants to talk to me about Mama and what in the world we will do about her. And that does need to be talked about. J and B are running out of Mama-sitters and I can’t go down there for two or three nights every week. I really can’t take any more days off  next week because we’re getting very busy at work with the graduating seniors and classes starting up again and the screwed up computer system that seems to be slapping any old random GPA on people’s records without much regard for reality, so we’ve got to figure out what exactly is going on with THAT so we don’t end up graduating people who don’t have a 2.0 GPA. So we’ve got to come up with a plan. Like it or not.

So. I’m off-line again, off to Repeato-World. Mama left me three messages on my answering machine yesterday and two the day before to tell me that Daddy is in the hospital. Today she didn’t leave any, so I guess that’s a good thing. Maybe I can come up with some distrations.

Oh, one good distraction for me is that I ordered a new laptop today! I’ve had mine for four years and it’s getting very slow and the memory is all used up thanks to my ten zillion photos – even though I put them on CDs and delete them off the hard drive periodically – and it takes months to boot up. And it’s just old and doddery, sad as that is – I really like it. But Baker B kept telling me I need a new one. I suspect an ulterior motive on Baker B’s part – he’s become addicted to Second Life and oddly our desktop doesn’t do that well with it. It’s kind of slow and laggy even with a thumbdrive memory booster. But the laptop will have lots more memory – 4GBs and 350 (I think) GBs- I don’t understand how the whole memory thing works, but I boosted it all I could so I’d have plenty for photos and stuff. So it will have more than the desktop does. BUT my point is that I suspect Baker B will be commandeering the new laptop for Second Life. Although he doesn’t like laptops. If it runs Second Life better, he’ll probably get over his laptop dislike fast.

But anyway, I ended up – after DAYS of debating over what to get – ordering this one:

 Naturally the color is what’s most important to ME, so this picture just illustrates that… it’s purple!!!! It’s a Studio 15, and I was agonizing over whether to get that or the Inspiron 1525, because they were ending up around the same price after the discount we get as State Employees and the sale prices Dell was offering online. But not on sale it’s quite a bit more expensive than the Inspiron, and after actually chatting with a Dell salesperson I found that it’s better for photos due to the video card. Or something. I was leaning towards it anyhow so that sealed the deal. Now it will take about twenty years to arrive since I just had to have purple. And some other choice I made also delayed the shipping. But whatever- I’m not in a big hurry. Other than the "I decided to get it so I want it NOW" hurry, of course.

And now I have GOT TO GO TO BED. Send me good luck for surviving the weekend.