The Ugly Need Not Apply

Let's play a little game of "Good News-Bad News."

The good news is I've found someone who will pill, feed and play with Buddy and Georgie while I'm up in Montreal for four days next week.

The bad news is, I was woken up at 6 this morning by the sound I'd almost stopped listening for. Stumbled out to the kitchen to find my little Buddy in the throes of a grand mal seizure. Next Tuesday would have been four months free! On the one hand, it's bound to happen sometimes ("normal" to have break-through seizures), and if that's all it is I'd rather it happen while I was still here than a week from now when he'd be alone in the house and might do himself horrible damage if there are no caring hands to slip between his violently shaking head and body and the sharp edges of the cabinet or furniture. On the other hand, it is in my (fallen) nature to worry more now than I already was about leaving him in the hands of my neighbor girl. What if it's not a one-time break-through? What if the nightmare of weekly seizures returns?

The good news is, after months of back and forth with my graduate advisor (who's moved permanently to France, making it a little harder to meet than when she lived in Connecticut), I finally have my last language translation exam scheduled! I'd been shooting for August. Dec. 3 it will be. If I pass this, it will bring the greatest sense of relief and progress to what has been a painfully stalled-out doctoral degree process for the past year and a half.

The bad news is, I haven't been keeping up with studying for it, and probably never was ready in the first place. The exam is being prepared and graded by a former classmate of mine, native Persian speaker, and I'm scared she'll take it more seriously than the jaded Spanish instructor who gave (and passed) my last one did. So, in the midst of catching up on grading, attending meetings, and going to give a paper in Montreal, I need to become reading-fluent in Persian in the next couple of weeks.

The good news is the arm where I got a tetanus and whooping cough booster shot last Monday which was sore and weak all week is now 90 percent back to normal (and the other 10 percent is all in my head). The bad news is, while I was protecting Buddy during his seizure this morning, he got a claw in me, sunk deep in my right hand and it's a bit puffy now.

The good news is the situation in my life which has been the greatest source of stress this semester but which I cannot blog about is being addressed in a way that feels supportive to me. The bad news is, however it's dealt with will probably get a lot uglier before (if ever) it gets resolved.

There's more, oh! there's more. But, as you can see, we're all stocked up with good-news-bad-news here right now, and in the end the ugly crept in after all.

The good news is, it's a bright sunny day!