Awkward Elbow Tree

I saw this tree today at Lady Bird Lake ~ which is really part of the Colorado River but is called a lake, and it reminded me of a pool party I went to last summer at Lisa's aunts house. That's where I learned the term "awkward elbow," from my old CHC friends/employees/students.

It meant so much to me that they continued to ask me to be part of their get togethers, even so many years after I left CHC. This is the first year I won't be there. I'm not even sure if they will be having any get togethers this summer because they are all spread out. Lisa is in Nashville hanging out with Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, Caeli is freaking MARRIED (how the heck did that happen???), Rachel I believe is staying in Charleston, Nanc is moving to PA with Mike, Laura stayed at Virginia Tech for her internship, I am still in Austin and the rest are scattered as well. As far as I know only Ashley stayed put.

So that was a long explanation as to why that tree got named Awkward Elbow Tree.

I had a bit of an emotional crunch today. Just one of those days. But I made it worse by trying to read part of the blog from those dark and desperate days, trying to put some thought into moving past it. But it was the wrong day to try and do it. I know I need to, I am stuck and can't move forward until I have examined it and processed it and put it to rest. But today was not the day for that.

Instead I left for a few hours this afternoon. First, I got lost in downtown Austin looking for a gas station. I was exceptionally surprised how clean it is for a city. Really lovely. For a city. Then I took advantage of the time and drove down to Lady Bird Lake (aka: the part of the Colorado River that runs along the southern edge of downtown Austin). As pretty as it was, with walking paths, footbridges, willow trees, and lovely water, it was pretty empty. I only ran across a few people during the time I was there.

When I got back in the car, I saw it was 101 degrees. No wonder no one was there. :-/

After the "lake," I drove out to Buda. It's sort of disappointing to see how it has grown, so different from the tiny town of 367 people from when John and I lived there. I had a nice surprise, though, when I drove out to the Satterwhite's property and found lisianthus growing wild in the very fields where I used to ride Lori Lye!

Parker had to have the NG tube hooked back up to the suction thing. He threw up twice today, total of a liter. So even if the ileus is resolving, there is still something else causing him to throw up. And this, mind you, is still without his being allowed to eat, and he had very little water all day today and yesterday. Don't know what's up, but we need to resolve this pretty soon.

Tomorrow we have a pain management specialist coming to evaluate Parker and see what we can do to get him off the narcotics and still manage his pain. Will know more tomorrow. He walked around the room today with Lindsey without the walker!

Lots of progress, just need to get that stupid ileus thing resolved. Pronto, please.