Skip to main content

The Holidays

 It's  2021, and it's going to be my third no-family holiday. The last one I celebrated was in 2018. Then, I was home for what turned out to be a brief time that I wasn't in rehab for my long battle with an infection in my left leg, which required removing my knee replacement and gallons of intravenous antibiotics.

That year was a landmark year for a lot of reasons. First, Maria and I moved into a home she bought. It was the fourth move in four years. We moved from Milwaukee to Mandeville, Louisiana, back to Fox Crossing, Wisconsin, crosstown to Appleton, and uptown to the house on Mason St.

Cruising into 2019, I found out my first bout of rehab did not produce the results we needed. I would go through another round of antibiotics, a third knee surgery, only discover a torn or severed tendon which required the fourth surgery. When I went home from rehab in April, I was gifted a trip to New Mexico to visit my daughter for my birthday. 

Upon returning from New Mexico, I discovered I had another daughter I didn't know about. Along with this surprise daughter came two new grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. (Soon to become five).

July brought me divorce papers and another move. This time I moved to Milwaukee by myself. 

As those of you who graciously read my weekly blog know, I have prospered in Milwaukee in ways I never could have guessed. 

I'm living with two women, Alexa and Siri. Their refusal to acknowledge one another has now become normal to me. It doesn't make me uncomfortable anymore.

This is a sketch I did recently. It reminds me that I haven't hugged anyone in a long time.

Happy Holidays!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ring The Bell

 It appears there is a tradition in the radiology department at Ascension Hospital that patients, upon completing their course of treatment, ring a bell. ( We know not for whom this bell tolls.) Ring the Bell with My Sweetheart Jeanne. Jeanne drove me to all but two of the appointments. Pam Frautchi took me to the other two. Today, after being zapped thirty-two times, I rang the bell. This begins a roughly one-month recovery period where the effects of the radiation abate and, I'm assured, a return to normalcy occurs. In my case, I anticipate more energy and greater awareness. Books, Books, & More Books I am simultaneously celebrating the end of the third year of volunteering for the All Saints Hunger Book Sale. Next week, we will wrap up the preparation for the sale and open our doors on August 3 for the public. I ran into this humourous but quite accurate cartoon on a T-Shirt that shows most of the volunteer's sentiments at this point. If you think the printed and bound p...
Post a Comment
Read more
One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ.  I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by.   Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's time again.

It started in 2004 when we moved to our condo off Downer in Milwaukee. Then we mover to the Westside of Milwaukee when we rented from Ken Karr, the former landlord, now a current friend on Highland and 29th St. Then we moved to Mandeville Louisiana for a little less than a year. Returning to The Fox River Valley, we rented a home in Fox Crossing, formerly The Town of Menasha. When the tree fell on the roof, and the landlord felt no urgency to fix it, we moved to W. Commercial in Appleton. Here is a shocker. Are you sitting down? We are moving. No, I don't mean off the couch and out to the patio. There are too many damn mosquitoes for that to happen. No, we are packing our stuff, or at least the stuff we unpacked from the last move and moving to a home Maria purchased on Mason and Glendale in Appleton. Let me unpack that last sentence (pun planned for). We are moving at approximately the end of September to a house. The house has been in t...
1 comment
Read more