Glad Tidings

“It feels so good feeling good again!” - Robert Earl Keen

It’s been a banner week so far. Renee returned to the eye doctor on Monday and her inflammation is almost completely cleared up. She’s got to be weaned off of the steroids drops. Don’t ask me why, it’s just one of those things the doctor ordered. I don’t see how all the ball players just quit cold turkey after their “cousins” injected them with steroids for years. Maybe it affects your memory if you stop them abruptly and that’s why none of them can remember that they were juiced up for all that time. Yo, Alex, Roger, Barry, I’m available for consult if you need me.

So you say, Renee’s eyes are getting better? Well, that’s no cause for celebration. Well, maybe not on its own, but there is more. This family has joined the Wii Generation.

On Valentine’s Day, Renee and I attended a Wii Swapping Party and had a blast. I got to take out my high school sports frustrations on a neighbor who is also a local football coach. He is twice my size, so I knocked him out twice on the boxing program. (Hey Greg, it wasn’t you I was slugging but that lunatic coach from high school who wore shorts and a t-shirt to the sub-zero Thanksgiving Day games and tortured the non-jocks during gym class.) Renee had the highest single jump score on the ski jump and I had the best aggregate. We were hooked.

Sunday we pooled our holiday gift funds from generous relatives and bought a console. Already Cassidy has shaved 30 years off of her fitness age. Renee unfortunately is at a Wii fitness age that the actuaries would have a problem approving insurance for. This is all on the basic set up. We’re hoping to soon add a Wii Fit board to the mix to expand our workouts.

Do they make a Wii Fit for dogs? I think we need to get Polly involved. There should be a dog bone controller and a collar adapter. There could be a whole series of Air Bud games. For advanced pups there could be a tree stump controller with a treat dispenser on the top – point deductions for peeing on the controller. And maybe a dog fight game so Polly can learn how to defend herself better from lightning attacks by passive/aggressive sharp toothed canines.

So you say, Renee’s eyes are improving and now we’re into family Wii workouts, could there be more? Yes, grasshopper! It is only part-time for now but Renee has resumed her duties at the pre-school. She’s back to work!

It’s been three months from the day of Renee’s surgery. She’s been through “normal” post-op recovery, narcoleptic bowels, hiccups and thorazine, home care, bag training and eruptions, infection, re-hospitalization, nuclear intrusion, re-recovery, allergic reaction, eye explosions and Wii whoopings. What the heck took her so long to get back to work? Slacker!

The kids were excited and there were home-made signs and special welcome back cookies. (FOOD POLICE NOTICE - Hey ladies, Renee’s on a strict diet. Stop tempting her with sweets.) By tomorrow, the whole school will have forgotten that Renee was out. But today we celebrate!

Let’s have a toast to a return to normalcy, or, at least to the state of affairs enjoyed previous to Renee’s bout with that ugly parasite UC. Only a short three months until the next operation so try to sober up by then.