happy st. patty's day. in commemoration of this day all of the stoplights (or at least the ones that i've encountered today) are occasionally turning from red to green. i bet you're happy about that.

i hope your st. patty's day was better than mine. i watched my uncle lay fragile in his hospital bed for awhile today, suffering from lung cancer, a fractured hip, and pneumonia. i walked through the hospital in iowa city, and i saw patients curled up in the fetal position in their rooms, or sleeping and breathing shallow, raspy breaths. i'm not used to this. i'm used to being surrounded by young and vibrant people, perhaps with broken hearts but not broken bodies. and it is difficult for me to be truly empathetic. i have never really experienced any serious health problems to speak of. i rarely get sick more than once a year, and it doesn't seem that i have any extreme susceptibility to heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, etc... i mean seriously, if you're looking to repopulate the planet with good genes, i'm your girl. but i was walking the halls today and i realized that it is so easy for me to say that it's going to be okay, you'll live through this, you're going to get better. and sure, i believe that God can do anything and i've seen him heal, but the reality of it is that my tendency to say such things comes out of the fact that whenever i've been sick or injured, i've been okay. i've gotten better. at this point in my life i cannot fathom being permanently debilitated. and so i stood in the hospital for several hours today, trying to let it all soak in, but i don't know that it did. even knowing that it could be the last time i ever see my uncle again, even hearing him pray and cry out to God for strength in the face of this trial; it still doesn't feel real. i guess i don't know what the appropriate response is to this. but i do know that i appreciate the fact that although my family is kind of spread out in their whereabouts, everyone is willing to make the trek when it is needed. days like today make me think hard about those occasional notions to up and permanently relocate to texas. i love my family. a lot.

so i listened to the mr. president's address on the way home tonight. don't ask me to elaborate much on current events; i'm not really in the know, though i did find out that e.d. is back on fox & friends in the morning on the fox news channel and that makes me very happy, so maybe i'll be watching the news more. in any case, however, i stand behind georgie 100% in this war deal. don't you worry, B, i'll take care of the public ceremony burnings of dixie chicks cd's and effigies. long live the freedom fries! thank you, goodnight.