I'm sorry to whine as I did in the last entry, though I thank all of you for your kind and understanding remarks.  It's foolish to waste my time kvetching about something so petty as a Weekend Assignment in these journals - there are so many real things that can be wrong.  We learned last week that one of our daughters-in-law has breast cancer - we're waiting to hear the surgery and treatment plan now.  It should all be planned out this week.  She's young and strong and brave, has a good and hopeful attitude towards this, but it's a shitty goddamn thing and I want to rail against the fates.  Useless and silly, the fates don't give a rat's ass if I rail or not.  It's hard to be so far away from the kids at a time like this, it's always hard but it's worse when we know we could be of use (babysitting, driving, running errands, etc) if we were close by. 

And at the same time G's sister's husband is dying of cancer in a hospital near Chicago.  They went out there from Massachusetts as a last-ditch effort in this battle - it's a hospital with cutting-edge technology and treatment evidently.  However, things are not looking good at all for him.  They have both been so valiant and amazing through the past couple of years with this, a coupled devotion that I have seldom seen.  Again, I want to rail, howl and curse and shake my fists, do a wild King Lear against the demons of cancer.  Why can medical technology and science not find a way to end this scourge? I actually believe there is a political answer to that question, but it's nothing I care to grapple with at the moment.

Hold each other tight tonight, tell someone you love that you love him/her/them.  Don't waste time with the small stuff, the big stuff is always waiting around the corner.