A Very Wordy Wednesday

THIS is how we all look today at the House of Badness:

(This photo of the princess was taken at 20 months old, when we got home at dawn after a night in the emergency room where she was hooked up to an IV for severe dehydration during the ugliest bout of stomach flu I have ever had to witness. I shake all over whenever I see it.)

My dad, aka Grampa Pampa, is having surgery for Stage III colon cancer today. He had 5 weeks of radiation and chemotherapy this summer, and they've been waiting for the burns to heal before removing the tumour. The man is a trooper, and we haven't heard a word of complaint. All this torture is saving his life, but it will also change it irrevocably. I am scared. He must be terrified.

My earliest memory is of my dad. I was about three. He had taken me with him in the truck to pick up a bull from a neighbour. (I grew up on a small hobby farm - my dad is an engineer and he worked 4 days a week in the city, and ran the farm for a tax break.) Anyway, we drove into the pasture, and the bull broke down the high plywood sides Dad had put up in the truck bed and jumped out. Dad stopped the truck, and went off to chase the bull - forbidding me to open a window or door or to get out of the truck for ANY reason.

(A quick farm lesson for anyone who has only bought beef at the supermarket - most male calves are castrated while still young. Then they are called steers. They are then fattened up for you to eat. The odd outstanding (and lucky!) specimen is kept intact and put out to stud. Dad had to go after the bull, if anyone had come across it unexpectedly, it would have been extremely dangerous. Bulls are big. Bulls are mean.) This bull was black with a ring in his nose. His name was Satan.

I wasn't about to cross my dad. When my mom came to get me I flat out refused to get out of the truck. I remember clinging to the seats as my mom dragged me out and carried me back to the house.

Actually, I have a number of memories involving my dad and bulls. One bull, my mom's favourite, was named Atlas, and used to kick Dad whenever he went to feed him. One morning my dad decided to kick the bull first, and their feet collided. It broke Dad's big toe. He came hopping into the kitchen holding the ax, demanding that my mom chop his toe off for him. Without missing a beat she looked up at him and said "Just wait until tomorrow hon, I'll do it then if you still want."

This post is getting away from me....I just want to say that my dad is amazing. He's smarter, and knows more things about more subjects than anyone I've ever known. He is kind. He is funny. He loves his children and his grandchildren. He is strong and stubborn and quite often a giant pain in the butt. (You knew I had to have got it from somewhere!)

I'm going to Peterborough to sit with my mom through the surgery. Even though she told me and my sister, in all sincerity, that she didn't want to inconvenience us and she'd be fine sitting alone for 4 hours. Sigh. My parents should have been pioneers.


I know that you'll all miss me and my witty, insightful commentary on your blogs today - I'll miss you too! I mean it. What with Hubs answering the comment "I'm scared about Dad's surgery tomorrow...." with a surprised look and a "Really? Why?" (an offhand, I'm married to a pathetic, emotional, crazy-person why - not a concerned, come sit on my knee and tell me about it why) it's been lovely to escape to all of your lives this week.

Later.