alentine's Day came and went with plans abruptly cancelled within 10 minutes of our scheduled reservation at a nearby restaurant. I was left standing in the foyer dressed in his favourite black dress as he dashed out of the door with claims that there was an emergency leak at the building site. I spent the evening curled up in front of the fire with a book. He did call later to apologise and had not forgotten a card, which he gave to me when came home later that night.
The following days he began to discuss plans he had to make some improvements to the house. A new hardwood floor in the dining room, French doors, and a conservatory bump out off the library. He wanted to get started as soon as possible, or rather as soon as his project was drawing to a close in the next town. He'd brought home a number of brochures of vacation places and recommended that prior to beginning we get away for a week or so, and we consulted the calendar to finalise on the first week of April. I would rearrange my schedule at work, and since my annual report was due by the end of the week, he suggested I get cracking on pulling together the accountants reports to file the tax returns for both businesses and our personal return before we left. Among the brochures were a couple of a new vehicle, a Jeep Liberty, DF felt we should buy. His reasoning was that travelling the miles he did in the truck to the next town was expensive, and once the building materials for the renovation were purchased and picked up, it might be more economical to sell the truck and buy something more fuel efficient. I'll admit the truck didn't offer exactly the best mileage.
When I woke the next morning there was a to-do list on the kitchen table indicating that I should transfer money into the joint checking account to cover the building materials and leave enough in there should we sell the truck that weekend and need to buy a new vehicle. This was not the only item on the list of things he thought we should accomplish before June ~ all lined out with project estimated completion dates. I'd imagined his haste was in anticipation of the boys joining us for the summer and wanting to have plenty of free time and things in the best of order, and so, of course, I went along with the plans.
Finalising the annual reports and conducting the shareholder meetings required a few late nights at the office that week, and DF took the opportunity to make headway on his project at the same time. By March 1, I was already well into the task of tax return preparation and looking forward to the getaway vacation later that month. Since his return it had been non-stop, and I'd missed the affections and time we used to spend just curled up with each other, and viewed the trip as an opportunity to get our intimacy back on track without any interruptions or intrusions.
I'd placed an advertisement for the truck in the local newspaper and was fielding calls for that. Each night DF would consult the list to see where we were with projects, hoping to strike one off each day.
There was a quick thaw in the second week of March. During the day much of the snow cover had melted and when I came home that evening and drew my car towards the garage door, I noticed something lying on the paving. I stopped the car and got out to find that it was a cell phone. Rather, I should say, it was the cell phone DF had lost in early February. I picked it up and slipped it into my briefcase. The next morning when I arrived at my office, the phone was completely discharged and so I left it on the conference table in my office, plugged in to recharge.
The next day, once it had charged sufficiently, I noticed the last call made was still showing on the display. Valentine's day and to KMC's home.
Later in March my father's condition worsened and he was scheduled for major spinal chord surgery. Apparently, the neurologist thought that his unsteadiness was due to calcified spurs on the inside of the spinal column that were pressing on the spinal chord. The surgery did have a fairly reasonable success rate, but my father's surgery would require an unorthodox entry to the spinal column. A specialist would come in from another state to perform the procedure. I was naturally quite ill at ease the day he was taken into hospital and very quiet until I'd been able to call the hospital to see how everything went and make sure that nothing went horribly wrong.
DF noticed my somber mood and I didn't have to utter a word before he grimaced and began to query if I'd something on my mind. He didn't like the fact that I had been so quiet that day. I was quiet. There was a rift in my family, and I knew it was nothing I alone could repair, but I worried about my father's health and well-being and that we'd not been on the best of terms, for quite obvious reasons. In addition, there were numerous thoughts racing through my mind, one was that as DF entered the house, clipped to his belt, was a cell phone.
Perhaps it was the concern for my Dad, or just a number of other odd circumstances and issues that had been mounting, but I commented, in fact for the first time since he'd come home in January, I asked a question. "Oh, I see you found your cell phone! Where was it?" I asked. His reply, "Yes, can you believe it. When I was cleaning the truck to show it this weekend, I found it. It had fallen behind the back of the seat".
The following days he began to discuss plans he had to make some improvements to the house. A new hardwood floor in the dining room, French doors, and a conservatory bump out off the library. He wanted to get started as soon as possible, or rather as soon as his project was drawing to a close in the next town. He'd brought home a number of brochures of vacation places and recommended that prior to beginning we get away for a week or so, and we consulted the calendar to finalise on the first week of April. I would rearrange my schedule at work, and since my annual report was due by the end of the week, he suggested I get cracking on pulling together the accountants reports to file the tax returns for both businesses and our personal return before we left. Among the brochures were a couple of a new vehicle, a Jeep Liberty, DF felt we should buy. His reasoning was that travelling the miles he did in the truck to the next town was expensive, and once the building materials for the renovation were purchased and picked up, it might be more economical to sell the truck and buy something more fuel efficient. I'll admit the truck didn't offer exactly the best mileage.
When I woke the next morning there was a to-do list on the kitchen table indicating that I should transfer money into the joint checking account to cover the building materials and leave enough in there should we sell the truck that weekend and need to buy a new vehicle. This was not the only item on the list of things he thought we should accomplish before June ~ all lined out with project estimated completion dates. I'd imagined his haste was in anticipation of the boys joining us for the summer and wanting to have plenty of free time and things in the best of order, and so, of course, I went along with the plans.
Finalising the annual reports and conducting the shareholder meetings required a few late nights at the office that week, and DF took the opportunity to make headway on his project at the same time. By March 1, I was already well into the task of tax return preparation and looking forward to the getaway vacation later that month. Since his return it had been non-stop, and I'd missed the affections and time we used to spend just curled up with each other, and viewed the trip as an opportunity to get our intimacy back on track without any interruptions or intrusions.
I'd placed an advertisement for the truck in the local newspaper and was fielding calls for that. Each night DF would consult the list to see where we were with projects, hoping to strike one off each day.
There was a quick thaw in the second week of March. During the day much of the snow cover had melted and when I came home that evening and drew my car towards the garage door, I noticed something lying on the paving. I stopped the car and got out to find that it was a cell phone. Rather, I should say, it was the cell phone DF had lost in early February. I picked it up and slipped it into my briefcase. The next morning when I arrived at my office, the phone was completely discharged and so I left it on the conference table in my office, plugged in to recharge.
The next day, once it had charged sufficiently, I noticed the last call made was still showing on the display. Valentine's day and to KMC's home.
Later in March my father's condition worsened and he was scheduled for major spinal chord surgery. Apparently, the neurologist thought that his unsteadiness was due to calcified spurs on the inside of the spinal column that were pressing on the spinal chord. The surgery did have a fairly reasonable success rate, but my father's surgery would require an unorthodox entry to the spinal column. A specialist would come in from another state to perform the procedure. I was naturally quite ill at ease the day he was taken into hospital and very quiet until I'd been able to call the hospital to see how everything went and make sure that nothing went horribly wrong.
DF noticed my somber mood and I didn't have to utter a word before he grimaced and began to query if I'd something on my mind. He didn't like the fact that I had been so quiet that day. I was quiet. There was a rift in my family, and I knew it was nothing I alone could repair, but I worried about my father's health and well-being and that we'd not been on the best of terms, for quite obvious reasons. In addition, there were numerous thoughts racing through my mind, one was that as DF entered the house, clipped to his belt, was a cell phone.
Perhaps it was the concern for my Dad, or just a number of other odd circumstances and issues that had been mounting, but I commented, in fact for the first time since he'd come home in January, I asked a question. "Oh, I see you found your cell phone! Where was it?" I asked. His reply, "Yes, can you believe it. When I was cleaning the truck to show it this weekend, I found it. It had fallen behind the back of the seat".
Inter caesa et porrecta - There's many a slip twixt cup and lip
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