It was a dark and stormy night

Literary license, that: it is not quite dark just yet. But it’s getting there, and it is stormy, and writers tell half-truths anyway, so it’s as accurate as anything else that springs from a fevered imagination.

I’m sitting here having the first (small) bowl of ice cream I’ve had in a couple of months. It tastes like…well, nothing much at all. At a minimum, I suppose I should be thankful that it doesn’t taste truly awful, as other things do since the gallbladder surgery. A friend of the family, who happens to be a nurse, says that’s likely the result of the anesthesia, and should pass at some point. The story of my life: this will pass. That will pass. With time, it will get better. I must admit, I’m getting pretty sick of hearing that refrain over and over, especially since progress, such as it is, is so minute that it can barely be measured.

But I will finish the ice cream. Calories have to come from somewhere, and at least this has the semblance of normalcy, unlike the routine of pouring a cup of formula down the tube, followed by a cup or so of water. There is reason behind this, too: today’s weigh-in at the doctor’s office was 104 pounds. I’m surprised that I only lost two pounds while stuck in the hospital, but still, that weight is – as my family constantly reminds me – not enough. Sometimes I wonder just what target weight they have in mind for me.

I’m continuing to heal form the gallbladder surgery. Coughing still hurts, and if I move too quickly on my right side – if, for instance, I pump my fist after a particular good play by the Jaguars defense at a Monday night football game against the Steelers – it can be rather painful. As everyone tells me, though, this will pass and I’ll be as good as new. Or as good as new is when your body has been wracked by rounds of fighting cancer.

And I must admit to feeling quite uninspired about things of late. No doubt all the crap that’s been happening in the past year and a half is starting to catch up here. But I thought today that perhaps it’s time to rattle some of those pots and pans again, at least, and get some people fed. Sunday, the Jaguars are away at Indianapolis, and a smoking session – of the meat variety – may be just the ticket. Food, friends, family, football: even if it doesn’t break me out of the funk, it will at least be a diversion. Now just to figure out what to feed the vegetarians amongst us, who have some unfathomable idea that a big ol’ slab of ribs isn’t something suitable for eating…