And the Results Are…
(insert drumroll here)… I have 2 bulging discs in my lower spine (between L3-4 and L4-5, for those who want to be technical) and I have bone spurring all over my lower spine. Whut whoo! I am not crazy! I am going up to the Cottonwood Spine Center for Pain Management – I guess surgery is not an option, which I am happy for, actually. The last thing I wanted was back surgery. I am praying they send me to physical therapy – maybe I can get these back muscles straightened out. I had to call my Chiro and tell him I was discontinuing treatment with him... I’ll bet he feels like an ass he didn’t x-ray my lower back before he
started cracking...

This weekend was rather charming. Friday night was spent baking 4 different kinds of cookies for a party on Saturday night with Lindi’s Mom and “the Girls” who get together once a month. This year, the Christmas party was at Jean’s house, so Lindi and I helped set up and clean up for 13 people. It was a very nice party, people lingered after the potato bar and ice cream sundaes and talked and chatted until 9. By that time, I was in desperate need of pain medication and BED! The upside? I definitely have the “Worst Present” for the After-Christmas Party!

Sunday morning, Lindi and I slept in, then went downstairs for football and breakfast (homemade hashbrowns with onions, garlic and 3 kinds of cheese, bacon and homemade scones with butter and honey – yeah, I cooked…). It was quite the surprise to turn on the TV to see our soldiers had captured Saddam Hussein. Immediately, I hugged Lindi and we both cheered, as a flood of emotion overtook me. It was strange, almost like I’d been fighting an internal war since the Persian Gulf and to finally have him in custody after all these years was a victory for all my friends who went off to war to fight him. I immediately thought of Marc and Michael… Beautiful Marc, coming home from war, playing acoustic guitar in my kitchen (shirtless – my dad LOVED that) and giving me his dog tags, still with Saudi sand inside the protective cover… and Michael, dear sweet Michael, going to war then onto Germany, never knowing how one simple choice of joining the military would forever change his destiny. I felt as if it was a victory for them, and all our soldiers, who fought in both wars. My step was a little lighter that day as we ate breakfast in our jammies, watched football, spent time together, then headed to her mother’s house for Sunday dinner made by her brother and watched The Two Towers. Her brother made stuffed chicken breast and twice baked potatoes… and all was well in the world.

I felt so unbelievably grateful for our freedom and our safety in this country. I know I bitch about equality and all that rot when it comes to Gays and Lesbians, but I wouldn’t choose another country on this planet to live, or to raise a family. Whatever the trials, I am still free to love Lindi and live with her for my lifetime.

This morning, as I was looking through the obituaries for a couple of co-workers family members, I ran across an obituary for Dan Lao, a High School friend, who passed away last week of complications of Diabetes. I was immediately saddened, as Dan was one of those people you never forget. We met in High School debate, and became fast friends. I never saw Dan in a bad mood or depressed. Not once. Luckily for me, we caught up with each other a couple of years ago when he emailed me out of the blue and we met for lunch, chatted online, and he even attended my 29th birthday (the one where Michelle was drunk and danced on a table, singing Britney Spears… and there were naked people in the hot tub at 3am…). His obituary was beautiful, perfect for him, talking of his love of music and movies, his wife and his two daughters. He is one person who made the world better just by his being in it. His passing is a loss for us who knew him, but it is definitely something to celebrate, as I know he is on to bigger things… he’ll be watching out for us all… his work on earth was done, and I am blessed to have known him. May His Memory Be Eternal.