A WEEK IN THE LIFE: MONDAY

Yep. Slept in seven whole minutes this morning. Must be my day off.

We were out the door at 9, off to the bank and then to visit my council member down in the hospital. This was my fourth trip in six days. But at least this time I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t driving. We moved at a leisurely pace, stopping for a late breakfast and gasoline.

My council member is doing better, but she’s still under heavy sedation. At least now she can respond to you a little when you talk to her. It’s still going to be a long road back for her, but every day things keep moving in the right direction. Her husband even made it to his bowling night on Saturday.

We had to make a couple other stops in the city while we were there. (For the exactly none of you who live in Milwaukee, we can say it’s 37 miles exactly from the Mobil by I-43 in Cedarburg to the Target in New Berlin, and I’ll bet you never knew it was that far.) This gave us the chance to stop at our favorite Mexican restaurant, and I can now say that the garlic and cilantro levels in my blood have returned to acceptable levels.

We got home precisely at 2, both dog-tired. My wife was done for the day, but I still had the evening to tend to. At 4:30 I met with the church’s insurance agent for a policy review. It’s going up 20% for this term. Oh, goody.

The council president and I had dinner together at Subway in between that meeting and the church council meeting at 6:30. Most of our new council members showed up by 6:05, bright-eyed and raring to go. Tonight’s meeting was pleasant and brisk, but filled with activity. We wrapped up by 8, about 15 minutes later than we usually try to, but we did have a lot to do tonight.

Piece together all the work-related stuff I did today (bearing in mind that I wouldn’t have gone to the city if my council member weren’t hospitalized) and I put in a full eight hours. On my “day off,” no less. It’s enough to make a guy scream, I tell ya.

But then I got home and found out that my grandmother’s in the hospital for the second time in ten days. That sort of puts everything in perspective for a person. Sometimes the stuff that I think is problematic proves to be insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Still, I think I’ll take it easier tomorrow.