Super Tuesday

Tuesday began with a trip to Ellis Fischel Cancer Center. Mom started her second regimen of chemo treatments after learning that the tumor in her lung is growing again. While she received her infusion we were enlightened by a WWII vet wearing a hat that read, "Once A Marine, Always a Marine." The old warrior had some interesting opinions (as most old folks do if we would ever take the time to hear them.) He said that what we're doing in Iraq is a mistake. "What are our boys dying for over there?" He then said we should have just come in there and "wiped 'em all out and got it over with." I assumed he meant that we should have nuked Iraq. Then he told the nurse "It's all your President's fault." To which the nurse responded, "He's your President, too." He shot back with a "He sure the hell isn't! I didn't vote him." Then he asked, "Who the hell is this Obama guy? Whoever heard of him?" (Of course Obama reached the magic number of delegates last night making him the presumptive Democratic candidate for President.) The old man went on to say, "Hilary will win it. I really think so." Before long his treatment was over and he was on his way. He gave Alex a wink and fired an imaginary pistol in his direction as he left the room. I think Alex really got a kick out of that.

After leaving the hospital, Nonna took Alex to a new park near her home while I mowed her lawn. Then, Alex and I went to the library where he checked out six books. I told him he had to read them all by next Tuesday or else we couldn't go back next week. (He proceeded to read four of them already.) We went home to wait for Mommy to get home and then we went to Columbia where she purchased a nice, used road bike for her triathlons. She was really happy. Then we met Grant and Brenda at The Heidelburg for "buy one-get one" appetizers and happy hour. The Barneses were celebrating because they just closed on selling their home and now they are 100% debt free! In two years they paid off their car loans, student loans, credit cards, and a first and second mortgage. They also managed to fully-fund an emergency fund and have cash left from the sale of their home to use toward buying a house in the KC area where Grant recently took a job with MoDOT. Congrats, guys.

It had already been a full day, but when I got home I had the itch to go fishin' so I bought some worms and threw a couple lines in my neighbor's pond across the road from our house. (He tells me he has a bunch of catfish in there, but they sure weren't interested in those high-dollar night-crawlers I had just bought for them.) But a lightning storm was on the horizon and a cool breeze was blowing in my face and I sat there for a couple hours drinking a brew or two while listening to the chorus of frogs and watching the storm roll in. I couldn't have cared less that the fish weren't biting.

This was a Super Tuesday.