My Mom Is Home!

She was released from the hospital and on her way home, she picked up many bottles of prescription meds. Now seated comfortably on her sofa, she's surrounded by her cats, Lucy and Ethel, and is going through her 19 phone messages. She is very happy, and so am I.

Her WBC is not as low as her physicians would like, but it is lower. The smart money is on some low-grade yet tenacious bronchial infection, but no one is ready to commit 100% to that diagnosis. After running 3 days of tests, her team of doctors (infectious diseases, gastro intestinal, pulmonary and internal medicine) agree that this is a mystery that may never be solved definitively, and she just has to take better care of herself from here on.

She promises she will. I'm holding her to that.

Well, this was a first.

Yesterday I stood at the head of a conference room table and presented creative concepts I'd really never seen before.

I took Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off to be with my mom. When I left the office Tuesday night, MY creative concepts were written, but my manuscripts hadn't been turned into beautiful, full-color layouts by an art director yet. Plus there were 3 more concepts to be written by our other writer.

My boss really, really wanted me to present on Monday. Our client likes me, and I think fast on my feet. I said I'd be willing to do it, but I was nervous about reviewing the work. I offered to stop by the empty office Friday evening, but he told me it was OK, he would Fed Ex it to my mom's house in plenty of time for me to review it before I had to present Monday morning.

Someone made an error filling out the Fed Ex form, and instead of scheduling a Saturday AM delivery, they marked Monday 5/12, afternoon.

The presentation was Monday, 5/12, at 10:00!

So I reviewed it all in the car on the way to the client's business offices! A full 3/5ths of it was completely new to me. At the risk of sounding immodest, I'm amazed by how well I did. Especially when you consider the situation with my mom, which still weighs on me.

This is what I learned: if I have too much time to rehearse, I whip myself up, make myself nervous. While in the future I'd prefer to see the work before I head off to the client, this actually might have been better for me personally than if I'd had the whole weekend to prepare.

And I saw it all from the 8th row!

Big Z, Soriano lead way as Cubs roll to 15-6 at home

So how come they can't do this anywhere but cold, damp Wrigley Field? Fresh off sweeping the big, bad Arizona Diamondbacks over the weekend, the Cubs bullied the anemic San Diego Padres 12-3 on Monday night, proving once again that they can take the whup-up out of the can, even if they can't take the can on the road.

It was indeed cold and damp last night. But that's OK. I was wearing my official MLB Cubs long-sleeve t-shirt, my official Cubs #31 Maddux jersey, my Cubs windbreaker and (purchased at the park!) my new Cubs fleece sweatshirt! Yes, I looked like Ralphie's kid brother in A Christmas Story, the one who couldn't move his arms, but I was officially a fan.