personal

It wasn’t too hard to find happy thoughts today, what with the gorgeous weather and my decision earlier in the week to take off from work. My mother came home from the hospital yesterday, and while she’s still fairly achy, tired, and on a low-fat diet, she’s doing well. Thanks again to everyone for the kind words and thoughts, especially earlier in the week before her surgery.

I spent most of today prepping copies of Kaleidotrope, which — god willing and the creek don’t rise — will get mailed out tomorrow morning. That and just enjoying the start of my three-day weekend.

So I may not have picked the very best week for this happiness meme. If you follow me on Twitter (or Facebook, where my Twitter feed, um, feeds), you know that my mother is in the hospital right now, having been admitted finally late last night for gallstones. She’s scheduled for surgery sometime this afternoon, to have her gallbladder removed. It’s a pretty routine procedure, especially if they can operate laparoscopically, but I’m nonetheless worried for her. I spent most of yesterday out of the loop, my father calling from the hospital with updates when he could, after work just hanging out until he got home a little before midnight. I’m at work now, but I’m keeping in touch. Hopefully, they’ll be able to perform the surgery without complication and release her this evening or tomorrow morning.

So, things that made me happy yesterday… It was a long and stressful day — work, my mother, crazy young woman on the train home, sort of electrocuting myself a little when I unplugged my laptop last night — but I don’t know that I’d call it a bad day, or a day without happy moments. I was comforted by the kind words from friends via Twitter and e-mail. I watched — quite unexpectedly; it came on HBO just as I was sitting down by myself to dinner — In Bruges, and quite liked it. (Tasha Robinson says of the movie: “If Guy Ritchie sat down, took a couple of deep, cleansing breaths, and put as much thought as energy and style into his films, they’d look almost exactly like this.”) And I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother. (“We are the Knights Who Say…You’re fired!”)

So, maybe not a great day — but then, I’m not the one who spent all of it at the hospital, or who needs surgery. I’m hoping today will be better for all of us.

So I stumbled upon this meme a few days ago that I kind of liked:

Post about something that made you happy today, even if it’s just a small thing.

I’m dropping the “tag eight of your friends” business, although obviously you can post this to your blog or respond with happy thoughts of your own in the comments. Here’s a couple of things that made me happy today:

• A chapter that I’ve been waiting for, for more than half a year now, finally coming in
• Listening to Robert Krulwich talk about biblical stories (and their terrible silence) on Radio Lab
• Listening to the DVD commentary on Rachel Getting Married

Supposedly, I’m to do this for eight days. We’ll see. I may do more, I may do less, depending on how the week goes.