My Life Used To Be Less Interesting...

Didn't it??

Yesterday, around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I received a call at work from my dad. He said that he was at the doctor's office, and the doctor wants him to go to the emergency room but doesn't want my dad to drive. Could I possibly come get him? Evidently the shortness of breath that has been plaguing my dad this week was such that the doctor "couldn't rule out a heart attack".

I drove him there, of course, and all the way I was trying to get some information out of him: he is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to these sort of things. He once told us that he was going in fr a routine physical, and then was admitted to the hospital for chest pains for three days. Of course they never figured out what was wrong. The only reason I knew about the shortness of breath and the doctor's appointment yesterday is because my mother whispered it to me the night before, as if somehow we were keeping a secret from dad. I asked him why that was, and why both my parents felt the need to pretend like this is shit that either doesn't matter to me, or that I don't need to know. Everytime one of them has any health problems, I'm the person who is directly impacted, and yet they are far more willing to tell my brother. The one who's working as a shepherd in Nantucket. It just doesn't seem right, and as gently as I could (which still wasn't very), I told him that. He said, "I know, I know," but in such a way as to suggest that nothing is going to be any different in the near future.

I had no idea how long they would keep him, and I had brought a book, so I hung around in the ER. They did an EKG, and they took some x-rays of his lungs. My mother called around 6, asking what was going on. I explained it to her. She decided to come out to the hospital, because I had left the dog at work (the house is being painted beige, for easier selling, and I didn't want Zoe rubbing her fur into wet paint), and I needed to get her home. So I left the hospital around 7 (having finished Karen Joy Fowler's fabulous The Jane Austen Book Club; highly recommended for those who haven't yet read it), got the dog, took her home, fed her. I was supposed to see Julie and the kids last night, since the kids're leaving Friday morning, so after some debate, I headed over there around 8 PM. They had bee waiting for me, but I got extra points for the reason for my delay. We ended up watching Ocean's 11 (the remake), and then playing Scattergories until I left. The boys seemed almost sincere in their insistence that they will miss me; Courtney made no effort to even look like she cared. Which is at it should be.

When I got home, my mother was in bed, but she yelled downstairs to let me know that they kept my dad overnight, and that they still had no idea what the problem was, although a heart attack seemed increasingly unlikely. I will have to pick him up if he is discharged today.

My car is still in the parking lot of the doctor's office. I'm driving my dad's car.

Then, of course, this morning's terrorist backwash in London. Which, of course, has nothing directly to do with my life, but seems to suggest to me that all of us are living through pretty interesting times.

Which I suspect everyone already knows.

Song: The Smiths, "Panic"