Day Zero, Day Plus One, etc., etc...

It's done. Gerry's at the top of the first hill in his roller coaster and is about to go shooting down into the valley. Right now his blood counts are good and his appetite is good.

And - aside from the overwhelming odor of stale, rotton, vinegary creamed corn emanating from his body due to the preservative used with the stem cells (seriously!) - he's pretty normal.

Actually, I think the transplant made him seem suave-er.

Or is it just that he's trying to convince me that French men have nothing on him?

But we're told that will change in the next few days. By day Plus Five or Plus Six, his counts will be low, and he'll be lower.

It will be rough, so they say, and I won't be there to make him feel better...

And I'll be in France. Feeling like a happy, relaxed piece of merde.

WAGON TRAIN
My sister in law and I drove up to St. Paul today with the kids and dog and cat, and we moved ourselves back into the house.

The kitchen's looking good - another few days and the floor will be entirely down. By the end of the week the cabinets are supposed to be in, then the appliances go in. Yay!

But it means that Gayle and the kids will be without a kitchen, but they will have laundry in the basement and a refrigerator in the garage. And a stove and microwave in the garage. But it's not fun, not at all.

When we arrived we had a HUGE amount of cleaning to do in the basement, sweeping, dusting and mopping. We had to light the pilot light for the water heater - hopefully we'll have hot water now - I really need a shower!

My work still isn't finished, but I pooped out and said we should stop and go to dinner.

Dinner at Dixies, then we shopped at Target to get groceries for the family while I'm gone, and we also picked up extension cords because...

HOT & DARK
No, it's not how I like my men; it's how our house was today!

Whether it's because the electrician has certain wires disconnected because of the city inspection thing, or some other unknown reason, large portions of our home are lacking electricity.

Aesthetically this means a big, heavy duty orange extension cord running up to the second floor with smaller cords running off of it to the bedrooms so we can have 1 light and 1 fan per room.

Physically it meant a lot of running around to find the right kind of extension cord, a lot of pushing furniture in the darkening, hot house and a lot of swearing.

But the upshot is we have a relatively cool and light house. I hate leaving things in this state for my sister in law (who has been an amazing help - such a trouper to get to work like she has - thank you, Gayle!)

Who knew I'd miss the Rochester so soon, huh? Here's an animation of the sun coming up over the Gonda building from the room where they did Gerry's transplant.

When I hugged my mother in law and kissed Gerry goodbye (a true test of love because I'm not fond of creamed corn...) I thought, "Soon I'll be in my OWN bed - yay!"

Little did I think that first I'd have so much work. Why is there always so much work?

PREP
Speaking of work, I need to prepare for my classes by getting my handouts together and packing intelligently tomorrow. I'm totally putting that off to tomorrow - I'm not even THINKING of packing today. I'm going to keep myself down to one large bag, plus my carry on - more than that I really don't need.

I'm not traveling with a butt load of books, and the yarn I'm taking is minimal. As for clothes, I'll be gone for 2 weeks which means I'll have some way to do or get laundry done.

I am getting excited, though. I've held off and haven't talked about it much at all, it just seemed wrong somehow, but now that the flight is tomorrow I'm getting psyched! Not for the 8 hour flight trapped in a coach window seat, but for the knitting time en route, the knitting time a la arrivˇe, and the time for resting.

And I have my handy-dandy wooden dpn's (just like pencils - who could object to them?) with the blood drop antenna toppers I got when I gave blood to brighten up the flight.

Since there are two tours, both following the same itineraries, I can choose to go on the day trips in the afternoon OR stay at the Inn and rest poolside (or just sleep!) and maybe get some knitting done. Since I have a deadline for the day I arrive back, I think that doing some knitting would not be a bad bet!

And now off to bed - at least, as soon as I shower (BOY do I need that!) And I fully intend to sleep in tomorrow as LATE as possible.