Last night was – oddly – totally normal. It’s bizarre to me how there are some people that you can go more than a decade without seeing or speaking to, and then when you do, it’s just totally natural. You just pick up where you left off and it’s all smooth and easy.

One of the girls who was supposed to meet up with us, Allison, was a good friend of mine and a close neighbor when I was growing up. Sadly, she couldn’t come because her baby came down with a fever, so she stayed home to take care of her. It was a bummer, but hopefully I’ll see her next time.

The other two girls, Melanie and Michele, have obviously stayed close friends over the years, so it was a little weird at first that they have this entire rapport with each other, and I didn’t really fit into the equation. But then after a few minutes it was totally relaxed and fun and nice. I even got an apology from one of them about an incident in high school, which I never really thought was her fault to begin with, but it was nice to know that she thought of how the whole thing must have affected my feelings.

It was also funny that Melanie married a guy who we went to high school with – even though they didn’t date in high school and weren’t even really friends at the time, if I recall correctly. Apparently they started dating a few years after they finished college, and now they’re married and have an adorable baby girl. Weird, but very cool.

So yeah, it was good. Great, even. We’re going to try to get together one more time before I leave town – and hopefully Allison’s baby will be better by then so she can join us. Maybe I’ll even remember to take my damn camera out of my purse next time, since that was one thing that I intended to do and totally forgot. Oops.

Oh well, my mom did get this one of me and Catie:

It cracks me up because Catie was saying “CHEESE!” when my mom took the picture. I have no idea how she learned that, because we sure didn’t teach her to do that. But I think it’s a contender to be the next picture on the sidebar thingy over there on the right.

My mom’s surgery was… bad. I mean, it went as well as they were expecting. Her skin was too tight from the double mastectomy to do the implants, so they put in what they call “tissue expanders,” which from my understanding are basically deflated implants that will be filled up later, after her skin stretches a bit to accomodate them. I’m sure plastic surgery experts out there are rolling their eyes at my misunderstanding of what exactly happened, but that’s more or less the idea.

Anyway, that part was all fine and good. What sucked is that the anaesthesia made her really, really sick. And then they gave her demerol for pain, which made her even more nauseated. So yesterday and last night were pretty rough. She couldn’t eat or drink anything, she kept dry heaving. It was bad.

Also, with the amount of pain she was in, she couldn’t get herself out of bed. She slept in a guest room so she wouldn’t wake up my dad, and we gave her a cowbell (swear to God, a literal cowbell; my parents are big Mississippi State fans, so they have a couple of them in the house), and she rang it when she needed help with something so I could run from the room where Catie and I were sleeping to go help her. Miraculously, the cowbell didn’t wake up either my dad or Catie, just me. She only needed me twice in the middle of the night to help her up so she could take a pain pill or go to the bathroom. It was really no big deal when you compare it to the amount that a new baby wakes you up.

She’s a lot better today. The anaesthesia takes about 24 hours to get out of your system, so the nausea started to pass this afternoon and she’s been able to eat a little bit here and there. So that’s good.

Unrelated: last night, Catie talked to Dave on the phone and actually seemed to understand that it was her Daddy’s voice that she was hearing and talking to. It was pretty cool, she was so happy to talk to him that she wouldn’t give the phone back to me. Later, when I had to call my dad’s cousin to tell her how the surgery had gone (my dad had me call her, since talking about the surgery entailed “female stuff,” i.e. boobs), Catie thought that it was still Dave on the phone and she had a huge meltdown when I wouldn’t hand the phone over to her to talk. Poor baby. She’s having a great time here, but she is going to be SO happy to see her Daddy when we get home.

Oh, and per Dave’s request:

Pics from the trip so far are here.

What with all of the election excitement, I forgot to mention that the reason why I might not be able to do NaBloPoMo this year is because Cate and I are flying to Mississippi for the second half of the month. My mom is having her breast reconstruction surgery, which, on the scale of all that she’s endured so far for her cancer, is pretty minor. It’s outpatient surgery, she’ll be home the same day, but I imagine she’ll feel as flattened as a fly on a windshield.

So, since my mom will undoubtedly be feeling bad, I’ll be there to help out with meals, running errands, and whatever else she needs. And Cate will be there because grandbabies have scientifically-proven healing powers. Watch her try to stay in bed when Cate runs in to greet her in the morning with an ear-splitting, “HI, MIMI!!!” Ha! It can’t be done. She’ll have to get up and about immediately.

I think I’ve already emailed most of the people I know in Jackson to try to make plans to see each other, but we’ll be there from November 18th through the 29th, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. (My mom intentionally planned her surgery right before a major holiday so that air fares would be at their most expensive. Kidding! She did it so my brother and sister can take time off to come to visit their baby niece while we’re in town.) Anyway, if you want to meet up, drop me an email and let me know.

So, that’s why I have a very half-assed commitment to NaBloPoMo this year. I’ll be keeping up with it until we leave for Mississippi, but beyond that, I think all bets are off. We’ll see. I’ll try. But no promises.