I lost a big chunk of yesterday to return a son’s girlfriend to her distant home. I was shorted on sleep for it, and am not certain I fully caught up today. I was also behind on the work, since I spent the bulk of this evening doing the major part of my Tuesday work, the Lutheran forum.

I seem to be losing a couple days a week this way, and my wife wants me to put time into some other projects that need my attention, but I don’t seem to have the time. At the moment, though, I am concerned about next Monday. In fairness, it is the girl’s birthday, and a girlfriend has the right to expect a doting boyfriend to pull out at least some of the stops for her birthday. However, I’m wondering if they expect too much from me. He is hoping that I will drive him up, which I understand; in fact, his notion that I visit my hospitalized father is excellent, and I am already entertaining the notion of killing part of the day chatting with drummer John. However, he wants to be there by ten in the morning–which means I’ll be leaving here pretty shortly after putting the last student on the bus, as it’s two and a half hours if there’s no traffic, and we’ll be hitting the Philadelphia and New York metro morning rushes (an oxymoronic name for the time when no one can get anywhere fast). He then plans to be there until rather late–late enough that I am going to have to drive back the ninety minutes and pay the three or four dollars in tolls to get back to take my mother-in-law shopping, because there is no way that he will be back in time for me to reach her in time to get her to the store if I wait for him. I would then have to drive back to him, another ninety minutes and several dollars in tolls (plus we are needing gas money) so that I can bring him home again.

By the time I would be home, I would have lost the entire day and shorted myself on sleep for it.

I guess I need to find out what he’s going to do to make this possible for me. Somehow, though, I’m not optimistic.

–M. J. Young

I don’t usually recognize these things.

Actually, that’s not true. Usually I notice them, and then forget to mention them when I’m writing the blog, and remember afterward that I was going to say something about it. Dates, events, anniversaries, all of that stuff slips by unmentioned because I don’t keep them in my head long enough to put them on the screen. However, I’ve seen this one coming, and I noticed it as I was getting ready to type, so this time it gets mentioned.

This is the six hundred sixty-sixth Blogless Lepolt post. The first five hundred eleven are now on the archived site, and we have been on this new location since Blogless Lepolt Continues, Entry five hundred twelve, on August nineteenth of last year.

So for those for whom the number six six six has significance, this is that entry. For those for whom it remains just another number, well, it’s interesting nonetheless.

Collision did rehearse last night, sans Baxter. Brittany said she saw him, and he was getting glasses and did not know how long that was going to take. I think there’s something wrong with his cell phone, unless he’s just been too tired to awaken when it rings lately. Anyway, I’m going to try to get hold of him before the next rehearsal, to make sure there’s no other problem. It was an encouraging rehearsal, although we still have a long way to go. My wife heard her son playing bass, and was so impressed she came out and, perhaps, gawked at him for a few minutes. He did very well. We are not quite ready to add the drums, and because of previously mentioned problems with Brittany’s mother are anticipating some setbacks, but hopefully we’ll be good by April.

I’ve been tapped for another pick-up. The girl who returned home on Monday wishes to return here tonight for another weekend visit. Building ties with a future daughter-in-law is important, so I’ll be headed that direction. Her beau now drives, but not so long nor so confidently that he would undertake a journey of this distance alone, so we’ll share the wheel. Also, this week he will wait until I have returned from church, so at least I won’t miss that.

It appears, finally, that I am not, at least yet, sick. My druidic ancestors would of course knock on wood for that, but the table here has been dead and dried long enough that even if there were a tree spirit to appease, it would be a pretty angry spirit. I’m hoping that I’ve managed to miss it this time around. Besides, despite the amount of time the diseased persons spent abed, it did not seem to me that they were getting anything like rest.

–M. J. Young

My thanks to those who have encouraged me to get some rest. I slept reasonably well last night and this morning, and although I am fighting occasional hints of queasiness I am not certain whether it is from the early stages of being sick, or merely from thinking about it.

I am considering cancelling tonight’s Collision rehearsal. I am loathe to do it, as Baxter missed last week, and Brittany’s mother will be going in the hospital mid-month which will put sufficient demands on Brittany that she will probably miss a few, and we are nowhere near as far along as drummer John would wish us to be. I think I will not cancel; but I will have a lot of work because of that. The man who loves to cook is fighting the illness, and last night was losing, so I have already started working on dinner in the expectation that he will not be able to manage it. I’ve already told Adam that I will want to practice with him even if no one else shows, as we are badly behind and he’s missed a few rehearsals himself.

I received an encouraging letter about the forthcoming book, Do You Trust Me? I had sent electronic copies to a few people in ministry I know (I had asked on a private list whether anyone was willing to give it a once-through and let me know if it was sound, and these people wrote to say yes, they would read it). One has responded, praising the work. I guess I should pressure my daughter-in-law to move forward on that cover art.

If I’m to accomplish everything, I must keep moving, so here I go.

–M. J. Young

My wife is sick. I have been fortunate that my immune system usually wins against the diseases she gets from contact related to her medical profession, and so I am not also dreadfully ill. I am, however, dreadfully busy.

I lost yesterday to a long roadtrip, returning a young lady visitor to her home in the northern end of the state. While I was up that way anyway, I met over coffee with an old friend, who will be playing drums with Collision, and delivered to him a copy of that compact disk he has been eager to receive, along with many pages of song sheets and drum parts for his consideration. The time we spent together was both too long and too short–too long in that it was very late by the time I got home, and too short in that there was so much more to say.

Then this afternoon my mother called to let me know that my father was back in the hospital. No one is quite sure what is wrong with him, but they have half a dozen excellent doctors working on it.

Shortly after that I received the news that Ernest Gary Gygax, to whom everyone in the role playing world owes a debt of gratitude for his courage in publishing the original Dungeons & Dragons game and with whom I’ve had enough correspondence to feel that we knew each other, passed away early this morning. On the heels of the death of Larry Norman last week, perhaps the key figure in making Christian Rock acceptable and who impressed me in our one meeting thirty years back with his keen insight and discernment, this comes as something of a blow.

I am too far behind to try to do everything, and must make a trip to return another son to his work address tonight. More and more is being pushed into another day; may there be enough days to bring all up to date before I, too, am too sick to do anything.

–M. J. Young