Staying alive

The lovely thing about working at an academic institution is that some breaks are assumed. Mostly for the students. But at my school the entire campus shuts down between Christmas and New Year's. It's a nice perk that not all schools practice.

So today was the first day back after a nice break. I was at the parents' new place. They replaced the mattress for their guest bed. The previous mattress paired with the way the bed was constructed made me feel like I was going to be beheaded in the middle of the night because I had slipped down between the mattress and the headboard. Also, it was way too soft and I always had problems sleeping there.

It was just me and the parents and so I got an earful from each of them about the other. I did take over the night driving because I thought it best seeing as how I didn't really have a death wish. Night vision is not so good with the father and the mother seemed a bit nervous about all the traffic. If Chicago we call it an open road.

The truth is that the parents are getting older. I just need to figure out how serious the tattling is. Alzheimer's is a very real threat from both sides and is probably what they fear the most. So of course they wont talk to their doctors about it. I'm just not ready to move to a god-forsaken town in Texas to take care of them quite yet.

But other than that it was fine. The SIL ended up in the emergency room Christmas Eve or the day before because of kidney stones so it probably was for the best that they weren't doing a lot of traveling. It has passed and she's OK now.

Now back to work. Orientations and registrations and new students and a revised course to deal with. I enjoy most of that so it's not a bad life.