God, Teppy. Your father, my husband. The day After this last surgery, they told Hubby to get up and move around. An hour later the techs were scrambling all over trying to find him, because he'd wandered off. He eventually strolled back, towing his IV stand. He'd been to visit the babies in the nursery. In another wing. On another floor. Lower back spinal fusion. Standard prognosis is he should be up to walking a block by now, four months later.

Is your father Scandinavian, Teppy? Apparently certain Nordic strains, like Hubby's, are insanely durable and require the repeated application of lead pipes to let them know something's wrong. Now, if I can just hide those damned lead pipes ...

That's beautiful, Teppy, and reminds me a lot of my dad, survivor of a heart attack, colon cancer, and lung cancer, who in the month my parents were here transformed our backyard from a wilderness to a garden.

Damn, Teppy. A lovely, lovely piece.

Monday means New Drabble Challenge!!!

This week's challenge puts you, once again, at the mercy of my brain stem.

Drabble challenge #4 is: Sleep. You know the drill. Anything goes, just try to keep it drabble length.

Go forth and drabble.

Sanctuary

In this place of symbol and silence, he's still alive.

Rain falls, but we stay dry. Nothing can touch us. Clouds move above us, going east to west, and patches of sunlight slide between the edges. The weather can't touch us, and everything's golden and misted and blurred.

In this perfect sanctuary of meaningless reality, he has no scars. His heart beats properly. There is no dust settling on the piano keys. He is still alive, and I've never been more alive.

Sunlight, the real thing, and it's morning.

I turn over, the bedsprings creaking, and fight to stay asleep.

Still mulling sleep.

For writers with kids, the book I have "I'd Rather Be Writing", by Marcia Golub, has a couple of chapters on things to try in order to fit writing around the demands of kids. I'd summarize, but I'm at work and propping the book up next to the computer might attract attention.

Hey, all. "I'm back and I'm a bloody animal!" And on topic, stupid spyware made it so I couldn't write either, all weekend.

Deb, what a beautiful drabble.

Welcome back, Erika!

Thank you...it was quite the torment for me. And not the sexy kind. And Techie Dave is as a god. Even if he thinks I'm cognitively impaired. Guess I've got to finish stuff now. My computer was like a lava lamp all weekend.

internet wife! *There* you are.