"Stuff Happens"

Another pretty hectic week. After working ten days straight without a full day off, I thought I might get a little rest come Friday night. But..."things happen" and this was just not meant to be.

About 1:45AM I got a call from my 81 year old mother saying that she was in great pain above her hip region. This automatically scared me of course because, you see, my mother has had three operations over the years to replace a socket in that hip. When she was born that socket wasn't fully developed, and very early in her life he had to have an operation for the placement of an artificial one. This has caused her to have to wear a built-up shoe to be able to walk. This has never slowed my mother down, though; in fact, she over-taxes herself all the time.

The last such operation was about three years ago and all has been going well, but a couple weeks ago she tripped over her dog while walking thru a dark room. It didn't seem to hurt her hip, however. So when she called I automatically thought her pain may have been a result of that fall.

So I get down to my folk's house within 10 minutes or so, get her dressed and take her to the ER. They x-rayed her, but found "nothing out of place", and finally the doctor decided it was just arthritis. They gave her a shot for pain and sent her home. I got back home around 5AM, but naturally I was wide-awake by then and never went back to bed until around 8:30 last night.

I went and got her a prescription for the sourness filled yesterday, and spent the better part of the day helping her out. Called her this morning and she's still very sore, so tomorrow I may have to take her to her doctor. Not really sure what he could do about such a thing though, save just prescribe more pain medication.

Otherwise, at work, the Christmas rush is in full swing with everyone trying to get in those last minute presents. I think I've finally got all my shopping done except that I'd like to find my wife one more thing this year. And, at this time of the year, I look forward to my Christmas bonus at work. This is usually pretty good, and part of which I normally use to pay off some bill, but the remainder I try to save back for the Christmas Sales Days they have at the comic shop I occasionally frequent where all store items are marked 25% off. In previous years I've always bought me at least "one good book" to add to my collections, and a couple hundred bags/backing boards trying to catch up on items not in my collections of comics, then a few misc. comics of my Want Lists. Sometimes I even buy me a DVD that was otherwise a bit too expensive to purchase when it came out new.

I did win me two nice silver-age comics recently on eBay auctions: Fantastic Four (V1) #'s 52 & 53. These weren't on any particular "want list", but they're a couple of my favorite FF's from the mid-1960's Lee/Kirby era, with #52 having the first app. of "The Black Panther", and #53 having his first origin story. I always thought BP's original costume with the short cape was pretty neat! I notice in the current series they've reinstated such a costume (as it should be). Something about that short-type capes that add to the design, much like the original cape the Golden-Age Captain Marvel wore that I've always liked.

No huge Christmas plans for me or mine this year. I'll actually have (or, at least I think I will,) both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off this year, but that's only because Christmas comes on Sunday this time and it'll be my weekend not to work anyway (so I probably won't get paid extra holiday pay for it). My wife and I will more than likely eat diner at my folk's and another meal at her dad's (as usual). This is the normal routine for us at this time of the year.