MISSING THE WEDDING

Eric left for Wichita at 6:40 this morning. He's attending the wedding of the youngest of the "girls" in the family. First, Lori married, then Jen, and now Amanda. We have two boys left to engage in nuptials, but they are still quite young. There's no telling when Jonathan and Daniel will decide to settle down to married life. They've got plenty of time. They're still barely more than teenagers.

I ran about trying to make sure he didn't forget anything. Ruthie has promised to make sure he does not show up at the wedding wearing his shorts and white sneakers with no socks. The gifts were neatly tucked into his new truck before he left and to the best of my knowledge he had everything he was supposed to take. Jen's expecting a little boy in September so there are gifts for the expected newcomer and one really nice gift for the bridal couple.

I'm at home providing dog chemo care. This is the first of the family gatherings I've had to miss since we started living together---nearly ten years ago. I'm saddened that I don't get to go because I always enjoy spending time with his extended family so much.

My extended family consists of my sister, her son, his son, her partner of 30 years (Dana), my former husband, Diane, and Becky (her daughter) by her former husband. And, of course, I have Dean (my son), Cassie and my two grandsons. Family is in short supply on my side of this couple. But, Eric has a multitude of family all over the United States so it is especially wonderful to be accepted and included by them. I didn't choose him because he had a big family, but it sure is nice that he has family and that they have been willing to include me. There are families that exclude one partner's family. Fortunately, Eric's family has chosen to include me. I'm deeply grateful to them for that inclusion.

I am glad he got to attend the wedding. He dearly loves all his siblings and all their children. I hope everybody has a lot of fun, takes lots of pictures and emails me lots of pictures. Ruthie promised she would. I suspect Maggie will also. Ann sent me the sweetest email expressing her understanding of why I need to skip the wedding and provide chemo care.

Meanwhile, I've poured hydrachloric acid over the driveway and scrubbed it in an attempt to remove rust spots. About a year ago, a workman was building us two retaining walls in the back yard and his radiator sort of exploded. Truth is that Eric did not care much about the rust spots, but they were driving our next door neighbor crazy. I got most of the spots off, but it took several hours and lots of scrubbing. I think I'm going to have to go buy another jug of the stuff Eric bought. Eric recognizes that he "should" have cared about the rust spots, but was not all that upset by them. However, those rust spots were making Gerald crazy.

Dakota appears to be doing well this morning for a dog enduring chemo. She's had her fourth chemo session and now drops from weekly sessions to every other week for the next four sessions.

I've also staffed a case with Barry this morning. He had a long, grueling court session yesterday. It was a long drive, then the county only has one judge, another trial was going on and they had to wait several hours for the judge to get some free time. Meanwhile, the inmate got frightened and upset by the long wait--he thought something was wrong.

What usually happens in these cases--when there is another trial going on--is that the judge eventually gives all the participants in the ongoing trial a recess for lunch/bathroom break/dinner or something like that and then the judge hears the probable cause case. I suspect most people don't realize how hard judges work. Basically, everybody else gets lunch/bathroom break/dinner or something and he keeps working. Probable cause hearings normally only take about an hour unless they are ones I'm testifying in. I've had probable cause hearings last 5 hours with me testifying the entire time. Draining! Anyway, Barry's case took so long yesterday that he decided not to attempt to drive back to Chicago last night and was driving this morning.

We staffed one of my cases and decided to refer him. It's a guy who repeatedly has sex with teenage girls, but does not consider himself a child molester. Children (to him) are humans 10 years old and younger. As far as he is concerned 13 and 14 year old girls are fair game. So, I need to get the report written this weekend. That will take 16 hours straight. It's a good thing I didn't go to Wichita.

I also need to make my weekly run to Sam's. Eric told me to pick up two inexpensive items on Thursday. Neither of us wrote it down on Thursday. This morning neither of us could remember what he told me to pick up. Old age is not creeping, it's coming with the speed of a runaway frieght train.

I also need to talk with the neighbor's son (Bob) about an offer he made in terms of the privacy fence. Bob is a very sucessful realtor--REALLY SUCCESSFUL--and he provided the referral for the man who did our porcelain tile floors. He literally knows the best contractors and subcontractors. We already have a good, reasonable bid from a local fencing contractor (whose work I've seen), but we also need some concrete work done to keep the dogs from digging out. They are such diggers. They don't really want to leave, they just like to dig. They dug a hole so big in the middle of the back yard, that poor blind Jake fell in the other day and couldn't get out. I removed Jake from the hole and filled it in. I just repair the holes they dig in the middle of the yard, but I want some concrete around the edge of the yard so they don't accidentally get out. The slope of our land also requires a concrete ramp by one of the gates. It will serve two purposes. it will make it easier to get the garden cart from the back yard to the front when we need to and it will keep the dogs from digging under the gate. They are really determined diggers and Jake is so blind that if he got out, he'd trot right into the street. The other night, I was out cutting down wild honeysuckle and Jake was running about. He trotted right into tree trunks because he basically only sees shadows at this stage of his life. Invariably, he pretends he intended to run into the tree. To him, it's important to pretend he has control even if most of his ability to control events has escaped him.