January 5: Home for the Holidays, Christmas Music, "Ives" Dip

I am sitting on my couch.  The furnace is blasting out heat.  It's -9 degrees outside.  With the windchill, that's about -30 degrees.  It's a good day to be on vacation.  Home for the holidays, if you will.  I have nothing to do but listen to Christmas music, type a couple of blog posts, and feed my kids (whose vacations have been extended by at least one day, thanks to the temperatures).  Religion and dance classes have been cancelled for this evening.  It's time to hibernate in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

My wife got called into work this morning.  The phone rang around 7 a.m.  I thought it was my sister calling from the hospital.  It wasn't.  So, on the first day of my vacation, there I was at 7:10 a.m., clearing the bottom of my driveway in 40-below-zero windchills.  I am happy to report that both cars started, all snow has been moved, and my wife got to her place of employment safely.

I truly have no plans today.  I want to read.  I want to rest.  Tomorrow, I will start putting my syllabi together for the coming semester.  Maybe I'll go out to lunch with a friend, depending on whether my kids have school.  I'm not used to this kind of freedom.  Generally, I'm not the play-it-by-ear person.  I like lists and schedules.  Today, however, I'm going to indulge myself.

I just received a phone call about my sister in the hospital.  After three days, she finally has a diagnosis:  sepsis.  I thought her caretakers (and I use that term loosely) had already ruled out that possibility.  Call me silly, but my sister has been battling a chronic infection for almost two months.  Sepsis should have been one of the first things for which she was tested.

Yes, I'm a little upset.  Having worked in the health care industry for going on 17 years, I can't stand incompetence and mismanagement.  I'm trying to avoid a rant here.  I think I'll just ask my question for my first Ives dip of the year:

Is my sister going to be alright?

And the answer from Mr. Ives' Christmas is:

And then Ives blinked and found himself standing on the sidewalk beside his wife, across the street from the Church of the Ascension.  On the pavement, just by his feet, was a large piece of canvas, and under it a body, stretched out.  Then the officer lifted off the canvas and shined a flashlight onto the face to reveal the shocked and bewildered expression of his son.

OK, that is about the last paragraph I wanted my finger to land on this afternoon.  Not very comforting.  Thank goodness, I'm not a superstitious person.  Superstition is for people who have little trust in God.  I trust God.  I may not always like His answers to my prayers, but I trust Him.

I phoned a friend after I got the news about my sister.  After a short conversation, my friend said, "I don't know what to say about all this.  But I do know that we have a good God."

Saint Marty's counting on that.

I choose goodness