We had made plans to put our Christmas tree up on Saturday evening. We were going to do our traditional "feast" of boiled, spiced shrimp and cheese fondue. Bob was off this weekend, which is a rare enough occurrence, but especially this time of year. So the plan was that I would go run my errands on Saturday and go to the store, get the stuff we needed, come home and prepare the meal, and we would put up the tree.On Friday my sister called me at work and said that my mom was in the hospital. She was running a fever and they thought she might have pneumonia. It turned out that she didn't have pneumonia, thankfully, but they were keeping her over the weekend, after spending most of the day in the emergency room. I thought about going out to see her on Friday night, but my dad worries when we are out after dark, and I knew Mom would probably be sleeping, so I decided not to go. I'm so thankful that my sister was able to take off work and help them get through all of that.
On Saturday morning I talked to my dad, and he said my brother was going to come over and pick him up and take him to the hospital, so I told him that I would come out in the afternoon. I had an appointment for a manicure at noon, which seems sort of frivolous, but I didn't really want to cancel it. So I did that, grabbed a quick lunch, then headed out to the hospital. When I got there both my mom and dad were asleep -- it had been a really long day for both of them.I guess I was there for a couple of hours, then I took Dad to pick up some prescriptions and some things at the store, then took him home, then went to the store for groceries for us. By the time I got home, it was around 7:00. Bob had put up the tree, and while I was making fondue, he started the shrimp boiling and put the lights on the tree. We had our dinner in the living room, listening to Christmas music on the radio. And then we decided we were too tired to actually decorate the tree, so we went to bed.
On Sunday I went out and ran a couple of errands, then headed out to the hospital and sat with my dad awhile. When my two nieces and my grand-niece got there, I left so there weren't so many people in the room, and did some more errands. It was just kind of a fractured weekend. They said they might release my mom from the hospital today (Monday), but I haven't heard yet. She had her 89th birthday last week, so as Bob says, we're in the bonus rounds.
